Welcome all to my story of dissidents and informants, artists and policemen, of the people hidden behind the Wall. A few historical notes before we get started. This story takes place in the waning days of the GDR (German Democratic Republic), better known as East Germany. The East German secret police, the MfS or Stasi, had infiltrated into East German society so completely that roughly 1 in 50 of the 17 million GDR residents had informed or had previously informed on someone they knew. It was a terrifying time.
There will be some German words in here, though mostly place names and proper names that didn't need translating. I'll put a translation at the bottom of each chapter if there's any new words. Feel free to ask if you have any questions about this fascinating time in history! I am by no means an expert, but I have a fairly good grasp of what went on.
Also, I have tried to "Teuton-ify" the characters' names as best as possible. I think most are pretty self-explanatory.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of Stephenie Meyer's characters. Some details and situations have been inspired by von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others, a fantastic film if you haven't seen it. The title was taken from a line in the former East German national anthem.
I don't speak German. I took some in school, but I can't speak it, only able to understand familiar words if I come across them. That's why this story is in English! Also, I have never been to Germany (unless you count being on a bus from Prague to London in the middle of the night zooming along the autobahn), although I have traveled pretty extensively in a few other post-communist countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, former Yugoslavia and Romania) and have been doing my own research about Berlin, like checking to make sure my characters use correct S-Bahn stops, and what the architecture in different neighborhoods look like. I want to be as historically accurate as I can be, but there's some facts I just can't find and have to make up on my own.
Please enjoy!
Prologue
3 January, 1991
Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany
Bella Schwan rose early on the 3rd, wanting the entire day to carry out her plans. For the second time in her life, and only the first by her own volition, she traveled to the old Stasi headquarters in Hohenschönhausen from the flat she shared with her husband, Eduard, in Prenzlauer Berg.
As she emerged from the S-Bahn station on Frankfurter Allee, blinking in the bright direct sunlight, she wound her way to Ruchestrasse, to the Stasi Museum. The giant concrete building loomed over her, looking a bit incongruous with the bright sunshine of the day. The last time she'd been here it had been in the snow, in late winter of 1987.
The inside was stark and colorless, and even though the Stasi had cleared out nearly a year before, the ghosts of the old regime hung heavily. A pretty young woman with a thick Saxon accent greeted her, and Bella admitted the real reason why she had come: she had come to read her file.
As the woman led Bella along a long corridor, she introduced herself as Frau Lehmann, and directed Bella through a set of heavy doors into a room lined with desks where a few people already looking through their files sat solemnly.
Bella sat and waited, forcing herself to be patient and calm. The others sitting in the room had grim faces as they flipped through page after page of small typewritten text. All looked careworn except for a well-dressed woman who looked vaguely familiar to Bella. It took a few minutes to come to her before she realized it was Angela Weber, a well-known actress from the West. Most of her films had been censored in the GDR, so Bella wasn't very familiar with her work, but she recognized her from the billboards that had sprung up just before and since reunification.
The doors slammed open and Bella jumped, looking up to see Frau Lehmann pushing a cart overflowing with binders and file folders. Her eyes widened as she took in just how much of her own life had been recorded by strangers, strangers who had only hoped to find enough information to arrest her.
Frau Lehmann wheeled the cart next to Bella's table and flashed her a wry grin. "Nearly 1 meter thick!" She proclaimed. Bella couldn't even stutter a response. Frau Lehmann winked and excused herself, leaving Bella in a nervous silence. The others in the room nodded approvingly at the mountain of files in front of her, but paid her little heed as their own minds were wrapped up in the files containing their own names.
Bella tentatively picked up the top binder, by far the oldest, and flipped it open to the first page. There was her name: Isabella Maria Schwan; her date of birth: 13 September, 1956; and the day the file began: 26 July, 1970, the day after her mother, Renee Schwan, had escaped to the west with her lover, Philip Dweier. Bella had been 13, still a Young Pioneer, and her mother's defection had devastated her. The first files said little about Bella herself, and more about her ties to her mother. It was marked that every few months, Bella was engaging in "conspiratorial post" and it took a few minutes of examining each note before she realized that the notes corresponded with her receiving letters from her mother in the West. There were even copies of the letters, including a few that Bella didn't recognize, ones that had been confiscated before she'd even had a chance to read them.
She drank in the familiar view of her mother's handwriting, the mother who was never quite familiar to her, no matter how often Bella visited her in Renee's flat in Kreuzberg. She read through the letters that had never reached her, Renee telling her of seeing an American film in a cinema, and of traveling all the way to Egypt to see the pyramids. She extolled the virtues of a West that Bella never knew, even now, just over a year after the borders had crumbled.
There were little notes in the letters telling her to be good for her father, as they had both known that to disobey him of all people was tantamount to suicide. In her letters, Renee referred to him still as Karlchen, the boy she remembered growing up with. This a habit she had only broken herself of recently, once the wall was down, and his crimes as Captain Schwan of the MfS, the Stasi, were exposed.
Until 1986, the only files on Bella were about her mother, but after she had joined the FDJ, the Free German Youth, the GDR's socialist organization for young people, her file ceased. Around that time, Bella remembered throwing herself into her studies and work, wanting to become a model socialist, someone her father could be proud of. Bella felt a pang in her chest as she thought of her Vater, Karl Schwan, known as Captain Schwan to most. He had loved her, she knew that implicitly, but it was hard to prove. He was a hard man, disappointed and angry at her mother's defection, as he had been demoted soon after she'd left. Though he lost some of the prestige that he'd enjoyed during his younger days, his colleagues still respected his thoroughness and his dedication to rooting out the dissidents in his society.
Bella had strived to make him proud of her. She had behaved as a model socialist, a model East German. She sang the praises of the Party, was active in the FDJ during secondary school and university and had even joined the Party upon graduation when she was 22. Her file was silent on everything that the state had deemed acceptable. Not even Karl's death in 1981 had been noted.
Her heart skipped as she turned to the next page. There, her first encounter with Eduard had been noted, handwritten in plain German across the slightly yellowed paper.
18 February, 1986
23.30 Uhr: Schwan encountered E. Kullen following premiere of play. Probable sexual intercourse. Would be wise to monitor.
Bella smiled despite herself, despite the gross invasion of privacy, despite all that that tiny fragment of her file meant. That was the beginning of her life with Eduard. That was the beginning of her true life, a life spent making her own decisions and doing what she felt was right. After the moment she had first laid eyes on him, Bella's illusion of her own righteous socialism and loyalty were shattered. She'd never be the same again, nor would she ever wish she could be. She took in a deep breath and turned to the next page.
Notes:
Stasi - Abbreviation of Staatssicherheit, literally State Security. The East German secret police. Officially known as the MfS, Ministry for State Security.
Hohenshönhausen - a former borough of East Berlin. Since 2001, part of the borough of Lichtenberg. Where the Stasi HQ and the former prison are located.
Prenzlauer Berg - a former borough of East Berlin, characterized by its pre-war architecture, and the high numbers of students, artists and intellectuals who lived there.
S-Bahn - Berlin's above ground city rail system (the underground train is the U-Bahn)
Allee - Avenue (Frankfurter Allee = Frankfurt Avenue or Boulevard)
Strasse - Street (also spelled Straße)
Saxony - a state formerly part of East Germany. The accent was associated with East German politicians and is also widely the butt of impossibly untranslatable jokes.
Frau - woman or Mrs. (nowadays used to refer to an adult woman, married or not, in place of fräulein which is considered old fashioned and dated)
Kreuzberg - a former borough of West Berlin, now combined with the former East Berlin borough of Friedrichshain to form the new borough of Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain. Historically a poor area that in recent decades became famous for cheap rents, artists and alternative music scenes.
Karlchen - "chen" is a German diminutive. Karlchen = Little Karl, or "Karlie". The closest thing to 'Charlie' I could find, as the German form of Charles is Karl ;)
Young Pioneers - Also Thälmann Pioneers. The East German youth scouting organization. Although not mandatory, in practice almost every child joined. It fed directly into the:
Free German Youth - Shortened to FDJ (Freie Deutches Jungen) The communist youth organization. Again, joining was not mandatory although quality and ease of life was usually positively impacted by membership.
Vater - father
the Party - the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) The governing (and only) political party in East Germany from 1949 until 1990. The German Communist Party.
23.30 - In the 12 hour clock, this is 11:30 PM!
Uhr - hour/o'clock
I'd love to hear from everyone if you liked this or not! This is only the prologue, which is why it's on the shorter side but upcoming chapters will be longer. Thank you if you've read this far ;)