Carmen Paul - Horse´s Hoof and Heaven

“Oh Lord Jesus”, I uttered under my breath, “Please don’t make him open the drawer at the bottom”. No luck, he did so just at that point, and what should behold him but a radio manufactured outside the DDR, specifically designed to receive radio channels broadcast from West Germany, albeit this one being able to receive just Radio Luxembourg and its lilting pop music. Now I knew I was really for it as he really started ranting and raving at me. I was shaking like a leaf by now. For weeks, maybe even months afterwards I was unable to talk about this incident, I had become so afraid of this official by now.

Sometime later I felt able to speak with my pastor about this incident, asking him if it was natural to have been so jittery during this ordeal. “You should have told me about this straight away” he said, having had regular visits from “these brothers of mine”, and he proceeded to issue me a with a list of “do’s and don’ts” as far as one’s whole approach to life behind the Iron Curtain was concerned, most of all when and where one could discuss politics without fear of reprisals, and where it was totally ill-advised (i.e. in one’s own private dwellings, they could well be bugged).

I don’t know even to this day who passed on the offending article to the Stasi. Later on, once the wall came down, I had access to my Stasi files, and in it I discovered that I had told my neighbour that I’d wished that this criminal would “wake up as a cripple”; it was a lot longer before I was able to put this behind me.

I would have dearly loved to have encountered this Stasi officer, who had gone through my cupboards, after the wall came down. I don’t know what I would have done or said though, but in my dreams my foot landed square between his legs from behind!

This whole experience had affected me much more than I had first anticipated. My fear of being marched away by the Stasi and locked up without anyone knowing where I had ended up was such that I needed counselling in order to come to terms with this ordeal. It took a long time for me to be able to answer the door in a confident and friendly manner, without my heart beating wildly. Moreover, almost everyone I encountered in those months following this incident became prime suspects in betraying me.

In our first flat as a young couple we had the privilege of having a telephone. Having a telephone wasn’t something which one could take for granted by any stretch of the imagination. However it wasn’t all sweet and light with this flat; on its roof was the village siren, which went off once a week at the very least, giving off a deafening wail, at which one would just have to block one’s ears. It was commonly understood that the week would be divided in two – before the siren went off, and after it had gone off, Wednesday at 1pm being the pivotal time. I was never sure when the telephone rang, whether it was a friend, or whether the siren should be set off(either due to a blaze in the vicinity, some other emergency, or God forbid, the Western allies had decided to attack us). The telephone was one of these old-fashioned ones, with a dial and the receiver hung on two hooks, with a connecting lead from one telephone to the other. However it was common knowledge that the Stasi were avid eavesdroppersthere being just the right number of connected telephones at the exchange where the Stasi operated, so they could actually pick up every telephone conversation; hence one was very fortunate to have a telephone in one’s own flat, there being so few telephones manufactured in the DDR in all.

Those days when I was on the telephone it did not bother me in the slightest who was listening in. One day I was on the telephone to my uncle in the West Germany, and our conversation drifted on to the fact that we had “an audience interested in what we were discussing”. I was in top form expressing my opinion of the DDR, all of them being “utter cripples” as I’d wished on the person who betrayed me. That would be the final telephone call I would make! – the next day several Stasi officials arrived promptly at my front door, ripped the telephone apparatus from the wall, and confiscated it for good.

Looking back on this entire time I realise now just how much Jesus had protected me from the worst of the ire of the Stasi officials. I can appreciate that much more now over the years.

I met Klaus for the first time in spring 1983. At first I wanted nothing to do with him because he wore such ugly chequered trousers in synthetic fibre. However, he turned out to be rather persistent and less traditional than his trousers suggested. In fact, he was a very intelligent person. Intelligence is a quality that I always had high regard for.

Klaus swiftly changed his tastes to simple jeans, and in doing so he looked completely different. That autumn we travelled to the Baltic coast on holiday. I became pregnant during this time, and it became clear to me that we were destined for each other.

Having a Family

Marriage was never on the cards for me at that stage. Working during those pregnant months wasn’t easy either due to my extreme intestinal problems, and at that time there wasn’t much that one could do about it. So, I determined to lie still for most of the day; at all costs I wanted to give birth to a child without health issues. It was great once the winter was over, I really enjoyed the spring season in 1984.

Nicole was born early one morning at half past six; she had conspicuously large dark blue eyes. Of course, the doctor and the midwife insisted that she was unable to see out of them at that stage, but that did not interest me one bit. I am convinced to this day that Nicole was able to ‘recognise’ me right from the word go, she was looking at me so intensely.

My husband didn’t want to be by my side as I gave birth. On the one hand that was fine with me, since I knew he couldn’t stand the sight of blood; otherwise the midwife would have had to attend to him more than me in the delivery room ! On the other hand, he would have very much liked to have done it for my sake alone. I do envy those wives giving birth whose husbands are there at the time of birth. Hence a new era began for us in our lives, us now being a threesome.

The Weekly Consultancy for young Mothers

I was still living in Herwigsdorf during the months after Nicole’s birth, in my hard won flat(there was an overall lack of accommodation in the former East Germany due to the chronic lack of building material available). Klaus visited me daily since his workplace wasn’t far away in the next village. However, I became increasingly exasperated at Klaus travelling back to his parent’s house at night, where he still lived. It was only during the course of the following years I realised what was really going on between him and his parents, with him being well and truly under their control. However, life had to go on and I was too busy dealing with Nicole to be that bothered by this.

The worst day of the week was the mother-child consultancy day which took place at my doctor’s surgery. The doctor there was very straight about the fact that my daughter would end up tyrannising me after several years – “I would end up regretting that I wasn’t listening to this doctor and heeding her advice”. What was I doing wrong? Simply picking Nicole up with my arms and cuddling her whenever she cried! I was also supposedly committing the cardinal sin of taking her to bed with me at night, having her on my stomach and stroking her back at the same time. This was deemed to make me an incompetent mother!

My only regret was telling the doctor about this ‘bad habit’ of mine in the first place. Nicole hasn’t remotely turned out how the doctor warned me with dark forebodings; on the contrary Nicole has done exactly the same with her two children, displaying even more patience than I did with her – I’m proud of her for taking after me in this respect.