Adam and Evelyn (8 page)

“They won’t.” Like Adam, Katja had now propped herself up on one elbow.

“The Hungarians are no problem, they just wave you through. And
the Czechoslovaks only look at your papers. They’re not ransacking cars anymore.”

“How do you know that?”

“Everybody here will tell you that. If there’s one thing they know here, it’s that.”

Adam got up and opened the door. The sky was clouded over. He could hear kids’ voices coming from a tent. A man in rubber boots was carrying a full jerrican of water back to his trailer.

“Am I the first person you’ve asked?”

“Yes.”

Adam went to the washroom. On the way back he bought two bottles of milk, six
hörnchen
, and a jar of strawberry jam. Katja took the jar from him. The turtle lumbered through the sparse grass.

“Go get washed up, I’ll take care of the rest.”

“There’s no rush. This early is not a good idea.”

“I thought they only check your papers?”

“By ten o’clock there’s usually a line, they aren’t paying that much attention. People have been watching from this side, through binoculars.” Adam sat down beside her on the wooden bench at the front of the cabin.

“Cheers,” he said. They toasted with milk bottles.

“I want to thank you.”

“Let’s not talk about it. Best thing’d be just to forget it.”

“Forget it?” Katja stared at him.

“Keep your voice down,” Adam hissed. “That’s not what I meant. I’ve already stopped thinking about it. That’s the best way. They can tell if you’re thinking about anything like that.”

“We can wait till tomorrow.”

“For your laundry? It’s almost dry.”

“To prepare ourselves.”

“But not here, not with this bunch of jackasses. That’s even riskier.”

“There are idiots everywhere.”

Adam dipped his
hörnchen
in the jar. The jam fell off the tip. He gave it a second try, hunching over to take a quick bite.

Katja opened the big blade of a Swiss Army knife and took the
hörnchen
away from him.

“Oh, so the lady’s got her contacts in the West?”

“A friend.”

“Swiss?”

“No, Japanese.”

“Japanese? Aren’t those guys a little small for you?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s got to be something of a fit. And when you’re a head taller, for most men that’s always—”

“Baloney. My friend is about your size, a little taller in fact.”

Katja had slit the doughy roll open, spread it with jam, and handed him half.

“Do you want to go to Japan?”

“Have to wait and see.”

“Can’t he just marry you? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“He’s already married.”

“Well, congratulations. And it’s because of him you want to leave?”

“You don’t?”

“Not me. I’m on vacation.”

Katja laughed. “An A-plus in conspiracy.” She stretched out one leg, the tips of her toes looming up right in front of the turtle. “Don’t run away,” Katja said.

“I don’t want to cut and run,” Adam said. “Wouldn’t work anyway. Do you think the Hungarians are going to open their border?”

“They already have, they all ran right across.”

“Who ran across?”

“Our guys. Don’t you know about that? They opened the border, and a couple hundred people ran and ran and they were gone.”

“When’s this supposed to have happened?”

“Saturday, three days ago.”

“The border isn’t open!”

“At any rate it
was
open. What’s wrong? Does that upset you? The ones in the embassy, they’ve all left now too.”

Adam shook his head and drank his bottle of milk down to the last swallow or two.

“Why the West—or Japan?”

“What sort of question is that! A better life. To be able to live, period.”

“So you haven’t lived till now?”

“I’ve had it, had it with being nailed inside a coffin until retirement. Nothing—you can’t do one damn thing.”

“Is that how you see it?”

Katja stared at the ground. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

“That’s always a great starter.”

“I was alone in the Danube.”

“You mean, the other two—nobody disappeared, is that it?”

Katja nodded. “I just thought …”

“What?”

“I wasn’t even thinking—I don’t know myself why I said that.”

“Have you got anybody over there who can help you out?”

“All our relatives are over there. I want to study. And I’ll find some kind of job while I do.… What’s so funny?”

“Well, see, when you invite somebody to climb into your trunk—it’s good to know if it’s just a spur-of-the-moment, crackpot idea.”

“And you, have you got somewhere to stay in Hungary?”

“Yes, in Badacsony, on Lake Balaton, friends of Evi’s.”

“Your wife?”

“One way to put it.”

“And where is she?” Katja held out the other half of the
hörnchen
to him.

“She’s waiting for me there.”

“So you actually are on vacation?”

“Yeah, sure. Evi has to go back to work in September. And I still had lots to take care of. So she and a girlfriend took off.”

“Got it.”

After they’d been eating in silence for a while, Adam asked, “What makes you trust me?”

“I didn’t give it much thought. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Sure you did.”

“I spotted you. Everybody was looking outside, at your Wartburg. Spies never drive up in an old heap like that.”

“Just the opposite. Never heard of camouflage, of mimicry?”

“Oh, please, I’m not quite that stupid. And then there’s Elfi—that’s pretty wacky, you must admit.”

“Just like I said, mimicry.”

“And why do you believe me? Maybe I’m the spy. Young woman latches on to man traveling alone and pushes him straight into the knife as a trafficker. You see? That caught your attention.”

“What a load of crap.”

“Why? Who spoke to who first?”

“You mean the old maiden-in-distress trick—”

Katja shrugged. “Why not?”

Adam screwed the lid back on the jar, drank the last of his milk, wiped his mouth, and looked at Katja.

“I know what’s really going on here. We’re both from the Stasi and are checking up on the trustworthiness of a coworker.”

“That doesn’t change a thing.”

“Does it ever. Nothing can happen to us either way. I take you across because I want to find out how it develops from there, who your contacts are once you’re over the border, while you—”

“Oh, stop it. Right now.” Katja ran after the turtle and put it back in its box.

“Well then, just think about Lake Balaton or Kilimanjaro.”

“Kilimanjaro?”

“What’s the name of that mountain, the one with the snow on top?”

“You mean Fuji?”

“Yeah, think of Fuji.”

“Are you going to take care of the tent? I’ll go fetch my laundry. They need to refund your money, half of it at least.”

“I’ll give them the message,” Adam said and watched her go, watched her walk off in his sweater and pants and her hiking boots.

After a few kilometers, right after the village of Nová Stráž, they stopped beside a country road lined with high grass and bushes. Adam drove in reverse as far as a slight curve. Then he opened the trunk, took out the two jerricans, and stored them up against the backseat, laying them lengthwise and draping them with air mattresses, sleeping bags, the suitcase, and some sacks, so that they were no longer recognizable as jerricans.

Katja folded the blanket in half and spread it between the semicircles of the two wheel housings. She made herself a pillow out of the two plastic bags with her laundry in them, but stuffed some of it along the sides as if caulking the trunk.

“So, think of Fuji.” He held out a hand to help her climb in.

“I need to go first,” she said and walked up the road a little farther. “You have to turn around.”

Adam walked into the high grass and took a pee himself as he watched what few cars were passing by.

When he came back Katja was already lying in the trunk with her knees pulled up. She first rolled on her back and then on her other side. “Roomier than I thought,” she said.

“It’ll get smaller,” he said, and handed her the blue backpack in its frame.

Katja banged her chin as she tried to press the backpack tighter to her.

“That’s not going to work,” he said.

Adam set the backpack down beside the car, covered Katja with underwear from one of the bags, and as a finishing touch laid a raincoat over her shoes. “Nobody’ll find you here,” he said.

“Adam, I’ll say it now, ahead of time. Thank you!”

“No singing, no yowling, no rocking the boat. Okay? And no fear—it’s gonna get dark now.” He closed the trunk. The car was tilted down over the rear axle. “You’ve got to slide farther forward,” he said when he opened the trunk. “As far as you can, up in here.”

“Like this?” Katja asked, pressing her back and shoulders farther into the trunk.

“Can I give you Elfi for company?”

Katja pulled the T-shirt away from her face and nodded. “Give her to me, that’s a great idea.”

Adam added the open box with the turtle. Katja pressed it to herself.

“Adam?” She blinked a little. “If something goes wrong, tell the truth. Truth is always the best.”

“The truth and nothing but the truth.”

“You got it.”

“See you soon,” Adam said. He slipped behind the wheel and started the engine. “Can you hear me?”

“What?”

“Can you understand me?”

“Let’s get a move on!” Katja shouted. Adam nodded and drove off.

BOTH LANES
for the border control at Komárno were about the same length. At the last moment Adam changed to the one on the right when he spotted two travel trailers up ahead. His watch had stopped. He rolled down the window and asked the time from the woman in the passenger seat in the neighboring car. The man at the wheel raised his left arm, the woman grabbed it, turned it a bit, and called out: “Eight after ten! Closer to nine.”

Adam thanked her, set his watch for ten after ten, and wound it. Most of the cars had GDR plates.

In front of him were two elderly people in a Trabant from Hungary, who sat there stiff as dummies, on the left a squarish skull with protruding ears, the woman with a headscarf. The couple seemed to him the embodiment of rectitude and harmlessness. Maybe something of that impression would flow back his way, or would the total disparity be his undoing? The family in the Škoda behind him was likewise inert, staring straight ahead. He probably didn’t look all that much different himself.

If he could have had just one wish: The car right behind him would have been the red Passat, with Evelyn as an eyewitness. When they ordered him to open the trunk, he wouldn’t bat an eye. Even as they led him and Katja away, his gaze would be stubbornly fixed on the ground.

It comforted him that the Trabant in front of him was also hanging low on its rear axle.

The right lane did in fact start edging forward a little faster, so that Adam now found himself waiting next to a Dutch VW bus, just as the Hungarians in front of him handed over their papers. They appeared to be paying no attention at all to the border guard. They didn’t even turn their engine off, were asked no questions, and put-putted on their way.

The border guard waved for Adam to hurry it up. Bending his knees slightly, he pointed his thumb up with a “Jeden?” Adam nodded and handed him his papers. And before he could even stop smiling, he watched as the wide metal stamp was placed above a back page in his papers and came down with a clatter.

“Dovidenia,” the border guard said.

“Dovidenia,” Adam replied, started his engine, and drove ahead slowly, just in case a customs agent should pop up.

Before him stretched the bridge; he drove over the Danube. He would have loved to let out a roar of some sort.

“What year is the manufacture of your Wartburg?” the shorter, and older, of the two Hungarian border guards asked.

“Nineteen sixty-one.”

“They have become seldom. No one drives this today anymore, am I not correct?” the other one said as he stamped his papers.

“Yes, you are,” Adam said, “but it drives well, still the first motor, everything original.”

Both men looked into the car. They were especially intrigued by the steering wheel, whose lower half was smaller in diameter than the upper, and by the small gearshift beside it.

“Will you open the hood, please?”

“Yes,” Adam said. But when he started to get out, the border guard waved him back.

“Just open,” he said. “Start engine.” The two vanished behind the
hood. Adam gave it gas a few times, so they could hear how the motor sounded. Three cars were already lining up behind him. When the two closed the hood again, the VW bus was trundling up. Adam signaled the guards that they needed to close the hood tighter, but the short one just called out, “Viszontlátásra.”

Adam put the car in gear and drove slowly out of the border station and onto the road. He rolled up the window. After a couple hundred yards he shouted: “Made it! Made it!”

It wasn’t long before Adam pulled over to the shoulder. He opened the trunk. Katja pushed the T-shirt away and looked up at him, blinking. She was lying in the same position as before. “Come on, quick, no one needs to see this.” He lifted out the box with the turtle. Katja, however, moved as if in slow motion.

“My arm’s fallen asleep,” she said softly and tried to sit up. As if she had suddenly lost all her strength, she toppled against Adam, who, when he heard a car coming, simply lifted her out and held her tight. “Congratulations!” He gave her cheek a peck.

Katja said nothing. She walked ahead stiff-legged and sat down in the passenger seat. He set the box on the backseat and pushed the hood down securely.

“A hearty welcome to the People’s Republic of Hungary. Did you hear any of that? They were interested in the motor, a pair of real cutups.”

Adam honked the horn, Katja winced. He drove off. When he checked the rearview mirror he recognized the VW bus and lifted his foot from the accelerator.