Jonathan de Shalit - Traitor

Some two months later, in early October 1987, Marlene heard that Gunther had been hit by a truck and killed on the highway north of Berlin. One of the bureau clerks whispered, at lunch, that Gunther was out walking—yes, walking—by the side of the dark road. There was no way the poor truck driver could have seen him. The driver was in custody, but he was still in shock and wasn’t able to offer any information about the incident. The Human Resources Department issued an announcement about Gunther’s death, noting his senior rank and providing details of the funeral, which was to be held four days from then. The funeral took place on a gloomy and rainy Monday at the military cemetery in East Berlin. Marlene took a day’s leave and went alone, her eyes overflowing with tears, on the train from Dresden to Berlin, and stood at the edge of the small group of people who had come to bid farewell to Gunther for the last time. There were no eulogies, and no prayers were said. From afar, and through her tears, Marlene caught sight of Markus’s face—she hadn’t seen him for two years, and he appeared cold and angry. A dry whimper grazed her throat, a knife dragged across her heart, and her hands reached up to firmly tighten the scarf around her neck.

DRESDEN, OCTOBER 2012

Marlene didn’t think she’d have the strength to open the church door. A feeble autumn sun painted the narrow street in a yellowish light and long shadows. Reddish-brown leaves were piled up on the edges of the sidewalk. Winter would soon be upon them, without warning; the temperatures would plummet and the trees would stand bare, their branches black and their appearance two-dimensional against the backdrop of an opaque sky. Inside the houses, despite the terrible cold outside, people would get on with their lives, enjoying the warmth of their heating systems, the taste of sweet wine, being close to one another. Christmas by then wouldn’t be long in coming, relatives would gather from afar, small families would get together, a glowing aura of light around their heads, bent forward close together in humility and love. She, Marlene, wasn’t going to be around any longer to enjoy it all. Her days were over. She could feel it in her aching bones, in the ever-increasing withering of her soul. Her physician, Dr. Baumberger, had looked at her during her last visit to the clinic with sad brown eyes and said, “Marlene, there’s nothing more we can do other than alleviate your pain. If there’s anything you need from me…” he trailed off, not completing his sentence. “Is there a family member you’d like to notify, perhaps?” he asked, and she quietly responded, “No, no,” and could think only of one person she’d like to have with her, by her side, in the same room, having a drink, sitting there quietly or telling her his stories, a young smile that belied the age on his face; after all, he, too, would be old by now, if only he were still alive. But he was dead, had been murdered, to be exact. A large truck had run him down on a rainy night, her Gunther, her Werner, she allowed herself to whisper silently, aware of the fact that her weakness and solitude made it possible for her to say those words without anyone hearing.

Weak and fragile, like wood filed down thin, that’s how she felt as she stood in front of the church’s large wooden door, pulling it toward her, opening a gap just wide enough for her to press through, wrapped in her heavy coat. The church was empty. It looked larger from the inside than it did from the street. Patches of color cast by the stained-glass windows dotted the floor. A strong smell of wax filled the air, and she, whose sense of smell had sharpened the more her illness ate away at her, could also detect the fragrance of incense, which had survived somehow in the dim expanse since Sunday. Marlene made her way forward slowly, dragging her feet. Nearing the altar, she felt drained of strength. She sat down on the wooden pew closest to her and leaned back, feeling small and shriveled in her large coat. She rested her hands, in their woolen gloves, in her lap. The dull glow of copper implements flickered at the edge of her field of vision, and her head fell forward and rested on her chest.

She didn’t know how long she had dozed for when she shook herself out of her reverie and lifted her head. The patches of light on the floor were gone and Marlene saw the priest’s face close to hers, his hand resting on her shoulder. “Marlene,” he said to her softly, “Marlene. Are you okay? I haven’t seen you in quite a while.” She looked into the priest’s wrinkled eyes, felt his hand weighing heavily on her, and said, “I’m very ill, I couldn’t come. But I’ve come today, I have something to tell you.” The priest looked at her, his eyes reflecting sorrow and warmth, and asked her: “Would you like to talk, or perhaps make Confession? Both God and I will listen in any event. Whatever you like.” He smiled, a soft expression on his face. He sat beside her on the bench and took her hand. “No, there’s no need for Confession,” she said. “Like this is good.” She released her hand from the priest’s grip, removed the glove, and then took hold of his hand again, a large and warm hand. The priest could feel the brittleness of her bones, their fragility, and he knew she was right, that not only was she very ill, but she would be dead soon, in just a few days perhaps, certainly before Christmas Mass.

“You don’t really know me, Father Jacobs,” she said. “You only know that I’m an old and lonely woman who’s been coming to your church for the past few years, always alone, always alone. You know nothing about my past, about the things I did before everything changed…”

“Those were different times,” the priest said. “We’ve all been there, we all have a past. No one is judging us, neither you nor me. How can…”

“I want you to listen,” she said softly. “I want to tell you about a sin of mine, the sin of cowardice. About someone to whom I wasn’t able to say even a single personal word, a single word of intimacy, someone who I wasn’t able to show, or even hint of the fact, that my dry heart loved him.” She paused for a long silence. “I had a lot of boys,” she whispered, pulling herself together for a moment. “They were all my boys. But he, his name was Gunther, and Werner sometimes, too, he…”

And then she told him. Told him about the period of the war, and about the Red Army soldiers who had savagely raped her. But so many women were raped back then, so who was going to grieve about it? Who had the time? You survived, and that was the main thing. So many died. There wasn’t a single home that hadn’t lost someone. And of her recruitment into the Stasi she told him with unconcealed pride, certainly unapologetically, and although he didn’t say a word, Marlene adamantly said, “What’s there to be sorry for? After all, we built this country on the ruins of terrible destruction. We had to do so resolutely, without balking, without going astray. Everyone had to do his bit. I wish I had been able to give more.” And she told him about her boys, about their quests in faraway places, about the dangers and horrors they confronted. And about the general, Markus Hertz, who instructed her personally to set up the Special Ops Archives in Dresden, so that the cache of the big secrets wouldn’t be accessible to each and every political commissioner who happened to pass through headquarters in Berlin. Markus, Markus. She saw him so infrequently during her years at the Archives, but when he did come there, he always devoted some time to her, made a point of sitting down with her, drinking tea with her, and winking at her as he added a kick to both their cups of tea with a shot of alcohol, why not, couldn’t the two of them enjoy themselves a little? He then had her transferred to his bureau, and later came the big fall…