(For Part One, see 25 May 2015)
The narrow street was crowded with tourists ambling
slowly in the sun, licking ice creams, chatting and gazing in shop windows.
Harz found it difficult to keep track of the white-haired man. At one point he
lost him and realised he must have turned off somewhere. He backtracked, broke
into a run, dodged around slow-moving pedestrians and caught sight of his man
disappearing up a narrow alleyway. The cobbles were uneven and Harz had to take
care with his footing. He slowed and tried to steady his breathing.
He wondered why he was chasing this man. He had no idea
what he would do if he finally managed to confront him. The alley twisted and
turned, the surface changing from cobbles to concrete and even to carpet for
one section outside a wine shop.
The sun was dazzling when he emerged from the shade of
the alley onto the main street, just in time to see the man jumping onto a
tram. Harz followed, the doors slamming behind him. He slotted a euro into the
ticket machine and slid into a vacant seat. The old woman next to him started
talking immediately, rambling on about her husband’s illness, his recent operation,
how she couldn’t leave him on his own, how things had been so much better in
the old days. Her shopping bags fell over onto Harz’s knee, but she didn’t seem
to notice. They travelled south out of the city, along a street
where the pavements and half the road were dug up, pipes and spoil heaps
everywhere. Every second building on the street seemed to be a bar or a club
and Harz wondered how there could be enough customers in the city to support
them all.
The tram turned left onto a suburban street, with new
housing developments on either side. A road-side florist provided a brief
splash of colour. When the old man started to move, Harz glanced out of the
window. He recognised one of the few remaining older buildings. It was close to
where his father had worked.
As the tram swept away from them, the man walked
surprisingly briskly along a small tree-lined lane, past allotments and a small
playground. The trees hid the gasworks until the last moment. Harz was taken
aback by the sudden appearance of the circular brick structure and was once
again that small boy, holding his mother’s hand, waiting outside for his father
to finish work. But the building looked different. There were signs and
banners and a new entrance. It was no longer a gas holder but an exhibition
centre. Harz followed the man into the building. He found it hard
to take in how it had been transformed. He managed to work out what was
missing. It was the smell that used to
catch the back of his throat as a boy.
“Hey! Freidrich!”
Harz didn’t know how he’d suddenly been able to recall the name. The man hesitated, turned and looked towards Harz. After
staring at him for a short while, he walked off towards the café. Harz followed, took a seat at one of the tables and
waited. To his surprise, Freidrich brought his tray across to the table, sat in
the adjacent seat and spoke to him.
“It’s Harz
isn’t it?” Harz was taken aback. He’d planned an interrogation in
his head and now he was the one being asked a question. He nodded. “You were arrested
by the Stasi weren’t you?” Freidrich spoke confidently.
“And you were
the one who told them all about me!” Harz’s voice was faltering. He was going
on his gut feeling. Freidrich had lived a few doors away and rumour had it that
he was one of the unpaid informants. Harz was sweating and he held his hands together to stop
them from shaking. What was he hoping to achieve after all these years? He wasn’t
after some clichéd idea of ‘closure’. It came as a shock when he realised he almost
felt sorry for the man, the kind of man who could turn in his neighbour.
“I was the one
who got you out,” Freidrich said quietly. “I told them about your father, a
good man, not a troublemaker. I told them how you’d been misled, how you’d
fallen in with the wrong crowd. They listened to me. They knew they could rely
on my information.”
Harz had no idea whether the man was telling the truth. Maybe
he’d dreamed up the story or maybe it had really happened like that. Freidrich held up his hand and walked away from the
table, his coffee untouched. Harz watched him leave the building, the glass doors closing
silently behind him.
Harz heard his father’s voice telling him to go home.
No comments:
Post a Comment