Walled Off

By Gene Barton

Walled Off is a work of historical fiction about the Berlin Wall. It is the story of two young East Berliners desperately in love who are separated when a barbed-wire fence was driven into the streets and soul of Berlin, cleaving it in two for nearly thirty years. Sylvia Lenz dramatically escapes to the West on the night the Wall came down, leaving her beloved Tomas behind. He is shipped to a brutal Siberian gulag where the only thing keeping him sane is his love for Sylvia. He spends his days in isolation, writing in his mind the book that will someday set him free.

Walled Off is a story of love and loss. It portrays the horrors of life in Stasiland and of incarceration in the gulags. Days stretch into months and then years. Sylvia moves on with her life in West Berlin but never stops looking over her shoulder for Tomas. Tomas becomes a world-famous author but is still trapped behind the Iron Curtain. Yet just as the Wall appears impenetrable, cracks begin to appear and David Bowie famously turns and sings his song "Heroes," and the Wall comes crumbling down.

Sylvia and Tomas meet and attempt to rekindle the incredible love of their youth, but the tyranny and terror of the Berlin Wall has fundamentally changed both of them, particularly Tomas. Their love is severely tested during this dramatic historic era.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649526878

Book preview

I

SYLVIA AND TOMAS

1

A Dark Berlin Night

Sylvia awoke suddenly next to her mother, fearful she had overslept. It was time to go.

Mom, she said softly and, then remembering the urgency, shook her.

What, what? her mother groaned. Her eyes opened, but she didn’t move.

Wake up. It’s time.

Sylvia, leave me. I’m not going, she said, rolling away from her.

No, Mom. We’re leaving East Berlin. Tonight. Come on, get up.

She pulled her mother up and handed her the black shift and tattered sweater that she had laid out at the foot of the bed earlier in the night.

Get dressed. We don’t have much time.

Sylvia walked out into the small foyer of their apartment to get Tomas, but he wasn’t there. She went into Hans’s bedroom.

Hans, where’s Tomas?

I don’t know, he responded from underneath the blanket.

Damn it, she said under her breath.

Sylvia began to panic. Where was he? Tomas knew the frailty of their plans and how much everything depended on timing. How could he have left her at such a time? She raced about the apartment, trying to figure things out. Then the doubts started to rise. Tomas had deserted them. He was scared and unable to face the risks of escaping East Berlin. Had their relationship not meant as much to him as it did to her? Did he really not love her? It wasn’t possible after all that they had shared. Yet he had left. She struggled to understand. She started to cry but got hold of herself.

Hans, it’s time for us to leave.

Is Tomas coming?

He’ll meet us in West Berlin, she lied, hoping it might come true.

Why isn’t he here? He told me that he was coming with us.

Something must have come up. We’ll see him soon.

The lie emptied her soul. Tomas had abandoned her. She wondered whether she should carry on with their plans. It wasn’t clear to her that a life in West Berlin without Tomas was worth living. Would a life anywhere? She clung to the hope that he would surface soon, that he had not left them in fear. She needed to focus on the present. She heard loud noises outside their apartment and went to the window and looked out. East Berlin was normally eerily quiet at night, but not now. Clearly something was going on. The streets were on fire with activity. She was a man down without Tomas. Did she really think she could pull it off by herself? One step at a time. She needed to get her mother and Hans outside and into the truck. Now she would be the driver. She went to her brother, who was trembling.

Hans, I need you to take Mom down the stairs and meet me when I pull the truck around.

Sylvia, I’m scared, he said meekly.

I am too, she said, taking his hands. Trust me, Hans. I know it’s hard, but if you can do what I ask in the next few minutes, we will be okay. Do you understand?

Sylvia, are you sure that Tomas will come?

Positive, she replied, praying for the first time in a long time to a God she didn’t believe in. She pressed her hands together so that Hans wouldn’t see that they were shaking.

Hans just shrugged.

Take Mom and walk her down the stairs. Go slow. She’s weak, and stairs are hard for her. Stay in the front stairwell. Don’t come outside until you see the truck. Hans, we don’t have much time, so when I open the door, come quickly.

Hans began to cry, and Sylvia knelt down and pulled his face close. It killed her to see such a small child in so much pain and confusion.

Sylvia went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. She would attract attention as a woman being out at night and had less than five minutes to transform herself into a man. She took a pair of scissors and clipped off the majority of her long black hair and tucked what was left under one of Tomas’s caps. She then took a small amount of coal dust from the hearth and sprinkled it on her face to make a fake five o’clock shadow. She pulled on a set of Tomas’s baggy clothes and looked in the mirror. She wouldn’t fool anyone who looked too closely, but it was the best she could do, and it was dark outside.

The city was alarmingly alive. Maintenance men milled about the streets. Large trucks with workers hanging off them swept by at regular intervals. Police cars and military personnel were everywhere, their sirens and lights creating a carousel in the night. Whatever was going on, it was clearly well orchestrated. Ulbricht had finally done it.

Sylvia knew that the odds were against her and again considered abandoning her plan. Her mind was racing. Had Tomas really left her, or had he somehow gotten caught up in the nightmare that was developing in the streets? How could he have been so stupid not to listen to her? She put it out of her mind. They needed to get out of there.

Sylvia raced down the stairs and opened the rickety metal door at the rear of her apartment. Willy had parked his truck a half block down the street and promised to leave the keys on the tire in the front left wheel well. She ran up the alley toward the truck but stopped suddenly as a city garbage truck with a half dozen men hanging off it came down the alley. She ducked against a dumpster as the truck passed. They didn’t stop for the trash.

The thought that the keys might not be there sent a shock wave through her. Sylvia reached on top of the tire and felt around. Nothing. Panicking, she knelt down and looked around in the darkness. Now what? She groped her hands wildly on the ground around the truck’s front tire and felt something cold, the keys. She unlocked the door and climbed up into the cab. The truck was much bigger than she had imagined, and she froze in fear. She had to keep going. Sylvia turned the key in the ignition, and the engine sputtered.

Come on, she said, holding her breath.

She turned the key again and again, but the truck engine refused to catch. Sylvia slammed her hand on the steering wheel, and the sting brought her back. She realized that she would need all of her faculties to have any chance of getting through the night. She couldn’t give way to her emotions, not even for an instant. Finally, the truck came to life.

Sylvia had never driven a truck before, so it took some time to get her bearings. The large stick in the middle of the floor with the bulb handle was clearly the gear shaft, but how to get it in reverse? She could only get her left foot to the clutch by standing up. She sat back down. There was no way she could drive through the city like this. She reached to the left of the seat and found the meatal bar that controlled the seat’s position. She tried to press it forward but with no luck. It was rusted shut.

Shit, she said.

She stood back up and reached for the clutch with her foot. It engaged, and she pulled the gear shaft back, hoping that this would be reverse. Instead, the truck lurched forward a few feet, stalling just before it hit the front wall. Sylvia sighed deeply and closed her eyes. If reverse wasn’t in the back of the gearbox, where was it? She visualized the gearbox in her head. First would be up and to the left. She had probably already found second gear directly behind. Third and fourth were likely to be to the right. Reverse had to be all the way over to the right and either up or down. She reengaged the clutch and then, with both hands, pulled the shaft as far to the right as it would go and then forward. She held her breath desperately. She only had one shot. If she was wrong, the truck would slam into the wall, and their chances of escape would be gone. She eased her foot off the clutch and felt the gear engage. The truck began to ease backward.

Sylvia looked in the mirror behind her. Willy had pulled the truck tightly against the wall in the small alleyway behind her building to keep it out of sight. It had been easier to park it there than it would be to get it out. She needed to turn the truck ninety degrees to the left in the space of a few yards. She slowly eased her left foot off the clutch, gently applied the gas, and turned the massive steering wheel to the right with all her might.

Sylvia’s heart was racing, and she felt panic rising in her chest, but she beat it down. She needed to get this right the first time. There were no second chances. The truck slowly lurched to the left, and finally she was able to get it parallel to her building inches from the sidewall. She righted the wheel and continued to ease the truck backward lightly, adjusting the steering wheel to keep the truck from scraping against the wall. Her arms screamed in pain from wrestling with the huge truck.

The street was busy with workers, soldiers, and police passing by on foot and in a caravan. Only the sound of their muffled voices and an occasional siren broke the silence of the night. Sylvia reengaged the clutch and forced the truck into first gear. She drove forward and steered the truck around the corner, pulling it up to the curb next to her apartment building. She thought for a moment about turning the truck off but couldn’t chance it. She searched for an emergency brake, but there wasn’t one. She put the truck in neutral and prayed it was too heavy to roll forward.

Sylvia looked anxiously around. For the moment, the street was clear, so she climbed down from the cab and quickly crossed the sidewalk. She unlocked the door and walked inside where Hans and her mother were huddled together. She nearly burst into tears when she saw her little brother with his arm around his frail mother, holding her up. He had grown up in the space of a half hour. Like her, his childhood had ended before it even got started. Such was life in East Berlin.

Sylvia looked up and down the street and waited until no one was around. She took her mother’s other arm, and they led her quickly to the back of the truck. No one spoke. Sylvia dropped the truck’s tailgate, quickly realizing that it was nearly three feet off the ground. She needed to lift her mother what now seemed like an insurmountable distance to get her into the truck’s bed. As she bent down to get a better grip on her mother, Hans stepped forward.

Here, let me help.

He bent down, and with all their might, they lifted the trembling woman into the truck. She was mumbling about Nazi Germany and her dead husband but then grew silent. Hans climbed up and lay down next to her. Sylvia gently put her hand to her brother’s head and pulled the blankets over them. As she was about to get back in the truck, a man dressed in a black uniform stepped out of a squad car and approached her.

What are you doing out at such a late hour? Let me see your papers, the young guard snarled.

I’m working directly for Herr Honecker, she said, trying to keep her voice as deep as possible.

Your papers, he insisted.

I need to deliver some important materials to the Invalidenstrasse crossing point, she said, trembling.

If you are, as you say, part of the mission, surely you won’t mind showing me your papers? the guard said as he closed in on her.

Sylvia could feel the man’s breath and realized that despite his intimidating demeanor he was a mere boy.

Perhaps I should look in the back of the truck for your…materials.

That won’t be necessary. Herr Honecker will not be pleased that I am delayed. You will be held accountable if you interfere, she bluffed, her voice nearly cracking.

What, he replied incredulously, reaching for the door handle.

Snell, she snapped. I must be on my way.

Get out of the truck immediately.

Sylvia looked away and stood up, put the truck in gear, and released the clutch.

Stop, the guard screamed as his hand pulled away from the door handle. He stumbled to the ground but immediately recovered and ran furiously after the truck.

Sylvia knew that they would soon be after her, but there was no way back. The night would be a series of small steps that would lead to either freedom or a gulag.

2

The R

Tomas had always wanted to be a writer. Ever since he read Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, he had dreamed of creating another, better world. His parents, of course, had other ideas. His father had worked at the IG Farben Factory ever since the end of the war. He thought he was being helpful by getting Tomas a job as a shipping clerk there. The truth is that he couldn’t stand the day after day monotony of piling up cardboard boxes. He escaped every chance he had and hid behind the large piles of scrap. He wrote on the shipping labels the novel he hoped would someday set him free. This was in the days before it all happened. Tomas would later famously say that the key to being a writer is having a story to tell.

At the end of his shifts, Tomas always went to the Rainer Café, the nondescript coffee shop located just off the Alexander Platz, where his friends gathered to discuss their future and his lover, Sylvia, worked as a waitress. In the dark years following the war, the rising tide of Soviet repression in Eastern Europe was a serious challenge to those in East Berlin who were intent on speaking up. The constant demands of the Soviets’ five-year plans took their toll with an increasing number of workers fleeing for the West. Those that remained struggled to survive and did their best to let their voices be heard in the repressive environment. Rainer Café, or the R, as the locals called it, had become an important gathering point for dissatisfied youth. It was one of the few places left where they could share their dreams.

Tomas loved Sylvia Lenz from the moment he laid eyes on her. She always wore her shoulder-length black hair pulled back tightly. Her dark-brown eyes were clear and bright, though she rarely smiled or made eye contact. She had a softness to her that was quite beautiful, but life had not been easy. She worked hard to put food on the table for her mother and younger brother, Hans, but the situation was bleak. At least Sylvia and Tomas had each other. They totally fell in love the previous summer, and suddenly life seemed worth living.

Talk at the R was increasingly strident. Tomas’s friends were all committed communists but believed fervently in the reunification of Germany. They spoke with the recklessness of youth. Lately, an air of uncertainty had enveloped East Berlin as the government cracked down.

Jurgen Meltzer was a menacing figure as he stooped to lower his six-foot, five-inch frame to get through the narrow front door of the R. Jurgen was the leader of the Free Brigade, a loosely organized group of idealists committed to a united Germany. Sylvia glanced up at him and nodded. Jurgen was easily the most outspoken of the café regulars. He talked openly and publicly against the Soviets. Everyone assumed that he would eventually be imprisoned for one of his outbursts. In retrospect, however, they never really saw the dark night of August 12 coming. Tomas, in particular, was still in his romantic period when he believed all things possible.

I’ll have the usual, Jurgen said to Sylvia as he threw himself into the booth at the rear of the dark café.

Sylvia wondered why he even bothered to order. He always had the same thing—a three-shot espresso macchiato. In the course of an evening, he would down ten of them in rapid succession, an amazing thirty shots of caffeine all told. The other regulars drifted over to the booth, and the conversation grew animated.

What have you heard? Jurgen asked Willy Kerber, who sat next to him.

Ulbricht continues to pressure the Kremlin. He says that East Berlin is like a sieve. He’s planning to erect a barrier to keep the East Germans here. Willy had been mates with Jurgen since their days together at university, but lately their friendship had frayed.

Ulbricht is now publicly saying that Berlin is the last hole in the Iron Curtain, Katerina Clemm added.

They will never be able to separate Berlin, Jurgen replied excitedly. The logistics are too great, and the people won’t stand for it. Besides, the Allies would never permit it.

Never say never, Sylvia said as she brought Jurgen his coffee.

Sylvia rarely spoke up, but when she did, it was with the quiet assurance of a woman whose beliefs had been tested. She had been one of the fifty thousand East German children who, at the bequest of the East Berlin government, had marched toward West Berlin to occupy a number of buildings in the name of freeing the city from Soviet oppression. The Soviets got wind of the movement and were afraid it could lead to a direct confrontation with American forces, sent troops to interrupt the children. Most were stopped before reaching the border and turned back, but a small number, including Sylvia, made it into West Berlin. There she found a world as far removed from her bleak homeland as one could imagine. Department stores with brilliantly lit windows contained the latest colorful fashions. Beautifully dressed women smelling of the latest perfumes from Paris passed around chocolate and other delicacies. It was in shocking contrast to her neighborhood where people were starving and wondered aloud if they could fall any further. She cried when she returned home, and her mother denounced her fantasies and took the penny candy she had been given, denouncing it as the fruits of the fascists.

Sylvia had seen a glimpse of the West and immediately knew that the East Berlin government and Soviets had spun a great web of lies. Their system of the collective good had led only to shortages and starvation. Their attempts to blame everything on the Western powers was the empty rhetoric of a bankrupt ideology. They needed repression to maintain control. In West Berlin, even as a child, Sylvia saw the future that she wanted. Getting there was another thing, the heavy weight of her family a constant burden.

I think that, for me, it’s time to get out. There’s nothing left for me here, Willy said.

Willy, how can you say that? We must continue to fight for our cause. You can’t simply leave East Berlin. This is our home, Katerina said with more conviction than she felt.

Fight them with what, Katerina? Our hands? Perhaps we should gather rocks from the side of the road. They have tanks, rifles, and grenades. What chance do we have against this? Dieter Grozinger said glumly.

Then must we run like dogs? Now is decision time, Willy. Men are being rounded up for merely speaking their mind. This is not a university class in social justice. If you aren’t with us, you should just get out, Jurgen said excitedly.

Seems like I arrived just in time, Tomas said slowly as he took his coat off and eased into the booth.

Yes, just in time to see East Berlin turned into a prison, Dieter replied cynically.

Tomas, you are here. Would you like a coffee? Sylvia said, her dark-brown eyes brightening for a moment as she leaned forward and kissed him gently.

That would be lovely.

Sylvia, why don’t you and Tomas make a break for the West while you still can? Willy asked.

Oh, if only we could, Willy. It’s not that simple. We both have families here who need us. My mother is incapable of caring for herself. She would literally die if I left, Sylvia responded.

What about you, Tomas. What are your intentions?

I want to stay with Sylvia.

Aren’t we the romantic then, Willy replied sarcastically.

Leave him be, Sylvia said as she brought Tomas his coffee.

The point is that things are about to get really hot around here. The Soviets and their puppet Ulbricht look like fools as thousands are fleeing the East through Berlin. They want blood. It’s going to get ugly. I, for one, don’t intend to stick around.

That was always your way, Willy. Never take a stand.

Jurgen, you’re a fool. I have been with you since the beginning. We built the Brigade together, but you just haven’t admitted that we are up against something more powerful than us. Sometimes you have to cut your losses. Which difference do you think you can actually make? Standing against the Red Army. Good luck.

You’re wrong, Willy. We are not alone. Many share our belief that Germany must one day again be one. You shall see. After all the suffering brought about by the war, it is imperative we remain united. Our future depends on it.

Well, count me out. I have been to enough of your meetings and listened to your idle talk. The tanks are coming, and I don’t want to be here when they arrive.

I must be going, Tomas said, shifting uncomfortably in the booth. The palpable tension between his friends and talk of impending violence unnerved him. He had always hated conflict.

What? You’ve just arrived, Jurgen responded.

I must check in on my parents. My mother has taken ill.

Will I see you later? Sylvia asked as she returned to the booth and began gathering up the used cups.

Yes, of course. I will ring you, he said, rising and nodding to the group. He kissed Sylvia quickly, left the café, and walked down the dimly lit Alexander Platz.

Poor Tomas, Willy said quietly. His soul is too gentle for this world. He really should go West. I’m afraid he couldn’t survive one of the gulags.

Willy, don’t talk nonsense. Tomas isn’t going to prison. He couldn’t hurt a flea, Sylvia spoke with the lover’s assurance that nothing could hurt them.

Ah, but you see, Sylvia, the Soviets don’t discriminate between those who are actually involved in an uprising and those who are around when one happens. You, of all people, should know this. Look what they did to your father.

That was a different time. Now the whole world is watching. Television has changed everything. I don’t believe the Soviets can afford any longer to imprison innocent people, Katerina said.

Believe what you want, Katerina, Jurgen added. One thing you can count on is that a lot of blood will be spilled. The only way the Stasi can stay in control is through fear and violence.