Going Over (24 page)

He keeps talking. You half hear him. You know this part of the story. It's what you've thought through, drawn up, imagined, tested over and over, every day, while you weren't making your promise to Ada. It's the arrow, shot straight, that will take the fishing line across the gap above the wall, over the watchtower, the dogs, the rabbits, the sharp grass, the blaring lights, the hedgehogs, the guard with his radio on, the death trap. It's Lukas's brother—maybe—who will anchor the line to
the fender of his car, and when the tug comes, when the first line is secure, when you get the sign, you'll knot a thicker line to the fishing line so that it too might be pulled across the gap. Now there's only the cable to send on in just the same way—its one end tied to the heavier line and pulled across the gap. It's the cable, one half centimeter thick and steel, that will carry you across the sky. The cable that will run like a rail from the house in the East to the house in the West, at a momentum-gaining angle. You'll belt in, unhook your lathed wheels, take a strong grip of your handles, and take your freedom ride. Ten seconds, no more, no less. You know this. You've dreamed it. You let Lukas talk. You have to.

“What are you talking about?” you ask, when he finishes his story.

“You know exactly what I'm talking about,” he says.

“Why do you think . . . ?”

“Are you serious, Stefan? You've been leaving the East since I met you.”

You study him hard. He studies you harder. He shows you with his hands, again, how it will all go down, how it can happen. He announces the risks and he wipes them away. “Worst thing of all,” he says, “would be not to try.” The spider on his knuckle walks as he talks. His hair falls into his eyes. Out in the street the traffic is starting. There's a group of kids on the park's other side, singing the Pioneers' song.

“Since you met me?” you finally ask.

“Since the very first day.”

“Why didn't you say anything?”

“Because I didn't have to, man.”

“You didn't have to?”

“It's all over your face.” You bring your fist to your cheek, like you could rub the look away. You bring your eyes to his, and they are clear, black, honest.

“When?” you ask.

“Two days,” he says. “May 22. Meet me there. Bring what you have. I'll bring the rest. You'll need socks for the outsides of your shoes—silence, right? You'll need sandwiches, pop, because you'll be hungry. You're a repairman, remember. Dress like one. And tell no one, right? Not a word.”

“There's somebody on that side who needs to know,” you say.

“Write me a note. I'll get it to her.”

You don't ask how he knows it's a she. Your face isn't built for the Stasi.

I see her coming from a long way off, her bike streaming, her hair wild, her belly cradled by the handlebars. She's wobbly, out of balance, in the channel between two walls. She sees me up on the observation tower. Lifts her hand. Calls, “Hey!”

“Hey.” I stand up. My butt's cold. I watch her wiggle down the path, then stop. She wears a Columbia University T-shirt and a pair of boy's shorts. Her legs are dark in her tan, high-heeled boots.

“You should be careful,” I say.

“Yeah? And you shouldn't be so hard to find.”

“Isn't it Tuesday?”

She nods.

“Shouldn't you be at the Köpi?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then what are you out here for?”

She looks up, scans the clouds—the pink and blue fat candy clouds that came in last week and have stayed. She
touches the sapphire ring she wears on a chain at her neck. “From Peter,” she said, when I asked her. She pinky fingers the tattoo by her eye.

“Special delivery,” she finally says.

“Excuse me?”

She walks the bike to the wall and leaves it there. Climbs the stairs to the deck, where I'm still sitting. Heaves herself up, one railing clench at a time, because that baby is that big. She hands me an envelope—all taped shut, not postmarked. She waits for me to open it. I don't know the handwriting.

“Can't be for me,” I say.

“Why not?”

“Don't know that writing.”

“It says your name. See? Right there. Open it, Ada.”

I turn the thing over. It's torn up and beat. It has my first name, no last name, no stamps.

“Who's Lukas?” Arabelle asks.

“I don't know any Lukas.”

“Hmmm. That's funny.”

“What's funny?”

“Because this Lukas guy went to a lot of trouble to get this to you. Five different messengers, from what I heard, until it landed with Felice, at the Köpi, and it's a good thing that I was there. He had directions:
Deliver to Ada
. I'm following my orders, thank you.”

“You've lost me.”

“For Chrissake, Ada. Will you open the thing?”

“I'm getting to it,” I say. But I'm trembling. I search for the click-light in Arabelle's eyes, draw in my breath, and hold it.

You stand beside her on the balcony looking out on Berlin. The parts that belong to you, the parts that belonged to her, once.

“What will you do?” she asks, “when you get there?”

“Love Ada,” you say. “Apply to university. Become a Professor of Stars.” You don't know if that's enough. It's all you have for now.
Tell no one
, Lukas had said, but he doesn't know Grossmutter. He doesn't know about all the people in her life who have left. About how cruel you feel, leaving her. Choices. Consequences.

She smiles. A tooth just past her incisor is missing, something you hardly see, but now you do, now you try to freeze everything about her, remember it just so, frame the picture. Ada was wrong. Grossmutter loves you. She loves you enough to let you go, to let you think that you can teach her to see, to let you believe that she'll stand on the balcony scoping, that she will actually find you. That you aren't being
cruel, but self-preserving. That you are being not just a boyfriend, but a man. She understands. At last and finally you know this.

“The world is here,” you tell her, showing her the knobs and things on your grandfather's old scope, the way the focus can be changed, the light. You show her the star maps, and how to read them. You show her the dome of St. Thomas and the birds you can just make out, roosting up there in their nests.

“Look for your mother,” she says, listening but not bothering to try it out. Looking at you, not through the scope. “When you get there. She'll want to see you.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I'm a mother, Stefan, and I was one before I was your grandmother.” She has tears in her eyes, but they aren't angry tears. You try to see all her past faces, her future ones. If you want to see something at night, look past it, you told Ada. You look past your grandmother. You look toward her. You wonder when you'll see her again.

“I found something,” you tell her. “In Grandfather's trunk.” She steps away from the scope, leans back against the railing, as if it can brace her for whatever is coming. You swallow past the lump in your throat, dig deep into your pocket. You feel around with your hand, present her his gift in the night.

“I think he'd want you to have these,” you say. Tears in your eyes now, the whole night and your Grossmutter blurring.

“Oh,” she says, laying her hand on her heart. “Oh. His cufflinks.” You have had them made into earrings. You screw one onto each ear. She shines like two stars, like love is.

“Someday,” she says, “the wall will come down.”

And you hug her so hard you feel your own bones pop.

There's nothing easy about it.

“Stop crying, Ada, and tell me.” Arabelle is insisting, but I can't. We sit on the tower steps, side by side, my face in my knees, the note in my hands, Stefan's handwriting. Arabelle smooths my peroxide hair with her fingers, tries to lift my chin, but all I can say is the one word,
Yes
, until finally I give her the note to read, because there's no way that I could read it out loud myself.

No. 68-A Bouchestrasse
May 22. Midnight More or Less.
Yes
.

“What the hell?” she asks, whispering.

“Tomorrow,” I say.

“But,” she says.

I shake my head—up, down, sideways. “Somehow,” I say. “Somehow.”

“Could it mean anything else? Are you certain?”

I pull the paper from her hand, run my splattered nail across the words, look up at the light in her eyes. “
Yes
,” it says. “See,
Yes
, Arabelle. Stefan is finally coming.”

She stares at me for the longest time. She doesn't ask me questions. Then, with her arms and her baby and her love, she stands. With all of that and more, she lifts me. We are two best friends, on the observation platform, dancing, creaking the wood beneath our weight, creaking the nails inside their joints. We turn at last and face the East, and both of us start waving.

“He's coming,” she says.

“He is,” I say.

“I'll finally get to meet him.”

“Oh, God,” I say, “is it actually happening?” and she says, “I guess it is,” and all of a sudden, just like that, I feel a wave of big sickness overtake me. I crumple to the step, start crying.

“What?” Arabelle asks, stooping down beside me, holding her belly out of the way. “What's wrong now? What's happened?” She looks all around, east to west, sky to earth, looking for the source of the trouble.

“But what if he doesn't make it?” I say. “What if—?”

“No, no, no,” she says. “Not at all. You can't be afraid, Ada. Not now.”

“I know,” I say. “But—”

“No buts now, Ada.”

But all of a sudden there are so many buts. Stefan failing. Stefan being found out. Stefan losing. Me losing Stefan.

“It will be all my fault,” I say, a whisper.

“Listen to me, Ada. You listen. What fault is freedom? What fault is love?”