Rift Zone Page 2

  “Sorry, but I’m already schlepping around too much today.” She patted her packages as she eyed the exit.

  “If it’s not fixed soon, our visa backlog will continue to grow.”

  “I understand. Sometimes it can take Ozark U. forever to process paperwork for foreign exchange scholars.”

  “We can arrange for someone to help you carry it and your packages to the checkpoint. You could take a taxi once you’re over there. We have West marks to reimburse you.”

  Red flag.

  “I’m afraid I’d have problems on the border.” Like being arrested and coerced into spying. She stood, debating with herself whether to abort or play things out as far as she dared. “I didn’t declare a computer on my way in.”

  “I’ll write a letter with an explanation of everything.”

  She stepped away, but her investment in the project stopped her and she paused. “I know a few things about computers. Let me have a look inside.”

  Neumann whisked Faith past his secretary. His private office was a memorial to all things Soviet. Framed posters exalted the Soviet chemical industry. On his desk was a stack of recent issues of Izvestia, Pravda and other Soviet newspapers she didn’t recognize. Neumann hurried to plug in a model Sputnik rocket with blinking lights trailing behind it.

  “Frau Muster mixes herself into everything. She doesn’t approve of women, let alone foreign ones, in my office,” Neumann said in a low voice. “She’s an old-timer. When I tell her about some of the things that come out about Stalin, she warns me to burn the Russian papers before it’s too late.”

  “Maybe she knows something you don’t.”

  “She’s seen a lot. Her husband was a prisoner of war who never came home from the SU. Her kids weren’t allowed into the university. But she’s right that Gorbachev threatens a lot of powerful people.”

  “Let me have a look at the computer.” Faith knelt in front of the metal case and flipped it on its side. “You have a screwdriver?”

  “I don’t. You might as well go ahead and take it as is.” He moved closer to her while she fished a Polish Army knife from her purse. “I love women with wide cheekbones. You look so Slavic.” He brushed the back of his hand against her face.

  She slid away from the touch. He acted as if nothing had happened and left the room. She sighed as she wondered if anything was worth putting up with such awkward passes. She popped open the antique computer and stared inside.

  No dust.

  She wiggled the cables to test if they were seated on the motherboard. They weren’t. The floppy drive wasn’t even connected to the power supply. It wasn’t a computer, but a jumble of broken parts. Faith fumed at the insult of such an amateurish setup, but she wasn’t sure whether to direct her anger toward Neumann or the Stasi. He deserved it, but her gut nagged her. The Association’s fingerprints were all over the machine.

  Neumann returned, carrying a letter. “What are you doing?”

  “This appears to be your problem.” Faith picked a card at random and pivoted it until it released from its slot.

  “Put it back and take the whole machine.”

  “The info I need is right here.” She scrawled down numbers onto the back of a used U-Bahn ticket.

  “Take it. I’ll personally see your visa receives top priority.”

  “You have to work with me. I take the card or nothing. Your choice.” She reached toward the desk to set down the part.

  He grabbed her wrist. “The card. But the visa might be delayed.”

  Outside the air was stained from soft brown coal and it filtered all warmth from the sun’s rays. A few blocks from the ministry, Faith boarded a streetcar. The filthy orange tram jerked into motion and her parcels slid a few inches, but she steadied them against her leg. She looked around for a place to sit. A mesh bag with shriveled carrots poking through it occupied the only empty seat. Its owner faced the window, but something about her seemed familiar.

  The hair. The chemical-blue hair.

  Faith tore off a ticket and stuck it in the machine and slammed the button with her fist. The teeth of the primitive contraption pressed holes into the ticket like a medieval torture instrument shoving spears into a heretic. The streetcar lurched forward. She grabbed a pole to steady herself. Her sweaty palm smeared the grime. Maybe she was being paranoid thinking the card was a setup for the Stasi to nail her on the border. Neumann could’ve insisted upon it only to save face after the failed pass. After all, the man was desperate.

  The streetcar carried her past blackened façades cratered with bullet holes from the Second World War. Almost forty-five years later, the East Germans still couldn’t afford to repair their capital. Aesthetics were not a communist priority. She looked away from the window and decided it was time to lure the Stasi out into the open. She aligned the wheels of her cart with the exit. At the next tram stop a man hobbled down the steep steps. Seconds before the automatic doors slammed shut, she bounded from the car.

  The blue-haired woman forced the doors open and jumped to the street.

  Faith walked down the avenue and the woman paced her along the other side. Faith stopped at a kiosk to buy a newspaper. The woman paused to look into a toystore window. Faith shoved the thin Junge Welt under her arm and continued down the sidewalk. The woman followed her. Faith had found a single tick crawling up her leg; now every little itch felt like the Stasi.

  Abort.

  Fifteen minutes later, Faith crossed under the railway trestle at Friedrichstrasse. Leaded exhaust fumes clouded the entrance. Each breath scorched her lungs and she tasted metal. She slipped the computer card and Neumann’s letter into the newspaper and dropped it into the rubbish. In front of a bookstore a wizened man was hunched over a dented pail of mums. She dug into her pocket for the last remaining East German coins and selected a prop. Flowers add innocence.

  The first wave of Western day tourists was pouring into the customs hall, returning from their own stale taste of the communist world. With each tourist, the odds tipped a little more in her favor. Faith adored Checkpoint Charlie’s Cold War glamour, but no real professional would choose it over the crowds of the Friedrichstrasse. She plunged herself into the comforting masses. Her muscles struggled to compact her body into invisibility. She concentrated upon her breath and almost convinced herself her body was under her control. But she knew better.

  “Good evening, Frau Whitney,” the guard at the checkpoint entrance said before she could show him her passport. Protruding ears prevented his flat green hat from swallowing his head. He nodded for her to enter the restricted zone and then spoke her name into a microphone.

  They were waiting.

  She pressed her fingernails through the soggy newspaper and into the flower stems. It was too late to turn back, so she trudged ahead. Body odors wafted from the overheated crowd as she was herded down the steps past a monstrous X-ray machine with a small metal plaque, MADE IN BULGARIA. She could feel her cells mutate.

  She flashed her American passport’s blue cover to the customs inspector and turned it to the open page with her photo.

  “Place the bag on the counter, please.” The young man pointed to the stainless-steel table as he took her documents. He glanced into a security camera and nodded.

  She set her purse on the counter. When she placed her hand back on the cart, a rush of terror coursed through her, a narcotic flooding her veins. Her body relaxed for a moment until she sensed someone approaching her from behind. She froze. The weight of the communist state closed in upon her.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  We say the name of God,

  but that is only habit.

  —KHRUSHCHEV

  NAGORNO-KARABAKH AUTONOMOUS OBLAST, AZERBAIJANI SSR

  Children raced across the dirt yard of the orphanage to the dilapidated flatbed truck, frightening the herd of longhaired goats. That the Lend-Lease–era Studebaker had survived four days bouncing its way across high mountain passes from her Moscow orphanage was it
self divine proof that Margaret Whitney was in God’s will. The driver honked the horn and inched ahead, but the children encircled the vehicle, forcing it to a halt. Their plump expectant faces made Margaret forget her body’s complaints. She was tickled with herself that she had once again hoodwinked the communists and she was about to deliver the contraband.

  The orphanage director greeted her with a kiss on the cheek and walked with her arm-in-arm to an arbor of grapevines. A childcare worker in a clinical white uniform set dishes of roasted seeds and dried apricots onto linoleum nailed to a tabletop. A boy dressed in rags ran to bring bottles of carbonated water to the guest.

  Margaret downed an entire glass of water and let out a long sigh. “We almost didn’t make it this time,” she said in English, then turned her head away, using her hand to shield a belch. “I can handle inspections from the Soviet militia, but I wasn’t ready for the Azerbaijani checkpoints. It took a whole pallet to convince them to let us pass into the enclave. They nearly tore the entire shipment to pieces looking for something.”

  “Weapons. They don’t want us to defend ourselves,” Yeva said, her English more fluent with each visit.

  “I’ve ministered to this country nigh onto forty years, but I’ve never known locals to get away with setting up their own blockades. The communists don’t usually play well with others.”

  “I always thought I’d be happy when the day came that Moscow lost its hold on us.” Yeva shook her head and offered pumpkin and squash seeds to Margaret.

  Margaret took a handful even though she believed they should’ve been planted in the ground where they belonged.

  Oblivious to their patron, the children played, chasing goats. They laughed when the kids sprang straight up into the air. But one boy stood alone under a fig tree, his hands stuck in the pockets of his oversized breeches. He stared at the ground.

  “That boy tugs at my heart.” Yeva turned toward him, patted the bench beside her and shouted something in Armenian. He didn’t move. Yeva walked over to him and put her arm around his slumped shoulders. She led him to the bench beside her. “They say he was like every other seven-year-old until the Azerbaijani tied up his family and slit their throats. His parents, grandmother, seven brothers and sisters—all dead. He was in the foothills with their herd at the time. He found them when he came back two days later.” Yeva stroked his back. “Every day I pray for a miracle.”

  “I’ll add mine.” Margaret widened her eyes, raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips into a goofy face. The boy didn’t respond.

  “Three days ago in Askeran they massacred another family. They’re now demanding all Armenians leave the territory. They’re Turks—no one would put another genocide past them.”

  “I brought you Bibles and Sunday-school books in Armenian. You’ll find them tucked between diapers.”

  “Maggie, your generosity’s transformed this place, but we don’t need any more Bibles. We need guns.”

  “Sister, trust in the Lord and He’ll protect you.” Margaret chomped on an apricot to get the seed taste out of her mouth.

  “The Lord helps those who help themselves. And maybe that’s why He sent you to us. You know how to move things like no one else can.”

  “Child, I’m a missionary, not an arms dealer.”

  “Look around and see the changes for yourself. We have no problem buying Bibles, Christian books—anything. Since Gorbachev, no one cares. Do not misunderstand. I admire your ministry and without you we’d never be able to take in so many, but the world doesn’t need Bible smugglers anymore—neither does God.”

  “You’re starting to sound just like my daughter.” Margaret put her hands on her hips.

  “We’re not persecuted because we’re Christians, but because we’re Armenian Christians.”

  “My girl Faith turned her back on God. Don’t you go and make the same mistake. God gave you both special gifts to use for His Glory, so don’t you blaspheme Him by abusing your gifts to serve man. Jesus said, ’Blessed be the peacemakers for—’ “

  A military truck barreled down the drive of the orphanage like a tempest across the plains. Yeva sprang to her feet and shouted in Armenian, then Azeri. The children scrambled into the building as if it were a storm cellar. The truck screeched to a halt and six hooded men in Army fatigues jumped out and rushed toward them. The devil was in their eyes.

  They waved old shotguns and shouted in heavily accented Russian, “Hands up. No moves.”

  Yeva wagged a defiant finger. “There are children here. Put those away.”

  “Bring me the Armenian bastards,” the headman said, pointing his weapon at Yeva.

  “Leave!” she said with the fervor of the pharaoh expelling the Israelites.

  The man shrugged his shoulders and then strutted around the two women toward the children. Yeva sprinted past him and planted herself on the orphanage stoop.

  “You will not take my children.”

  The man laughed as he knocked her aside. The others swarmed into the building and turned over tables. Dishes and bottles crashed to the floor. The children cried as they huddled together. The boy stood in the middle of the room, lost in the chaos. The leader fired his gun at a statue of Christ on the cross that hung on the wall. Fragments of Jesus pelted the hysterical children.

  The man shouted, “You should’ve left Azerbaijan when you had the chance. Line them up against the wall.”

  “I take in all God’s children—Azerbaijani and Armenian. You’ll be killing your own babies,” Yeva said.

  “Line up the Armenians.”

  “No.”

  “You.” He pointed with the butt of the shotgun to the boy whose parents had been murdered. “You look Armenian. Over there.”

  The child crossed his arms and rocked himself, but didn’t move.

  “Now!”

  The child shuffled toward the wall. Yeva bolted toward him, but one of the gunmen grabbed her and threw her to the floor. She shouted to him in Azeri and Margaret prayed that the little Armenian would understand. The hand of God reached down and touched that boy’s shoulder. He stopped and then turned back.

  “Thank You, Jesus,” Margaret said.

  “Will you be such a hero with your people when they find out you massacred your own because you can’t tell them apart?” Yeva pulled herself to her feet and placed her hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “Don’t move.” The leader exchanged something in Azeri with the others and turned his gun toward Yeva. “We might not be able to pick out the Armenian children, but we know who you are.”

  Just as he pulled the trigger, the boy shouted and jumped in front of Yeva. In an instant, the child’s face exploded into raw flesh and blood. Yeva opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She caught his small body and held him against her chest. Blood soaked her blouse. The leader nodded to a compatriot. He struck her with his elbow, pulled the child away and dropped the body onto the ground.

  “Armenian harlot.” He unzipped his trousers.

  Beside the dying boy the men took turns with Yeva while the leader paced between the windows and the door. Margaret begged with the Lord for mercy, but He had none that day. The leader rushed back from peeking outside and shouted at the one having his way with Yeva. He kicked his hindquarters, but the Sodomite wouldn’t get off her. He then motioned to others. They wrestled him off and then the headman aimed his gun at Yeva.

  He shot her in the chest.

  They ran away, vowing to return.

  Margaret fell to her knees, the odor of sulfur, seed and blood sickening her. She ripped open Yeva’s blouse and pressed against the torn flesh. With each heartbeat, warm blood pooled under her palms. She pushed until she thought her fingertips touched Yeva’s heart. It beat twice and stopped.

  Margaret scooped Yeva into her arms and bawled as if she had again lost her own daughter. Why, Lord, why? When the tears slowed, she beheld a picture of Jesus and ruminated. Then she made a promise to Him—one she knew He wouldn’t like.


  CHAPTER

  THREE

  FRIEDRICHSTRASSE CHECKPOINT, EAST BERLIN

  Faith listened to the crowd wedged into the customs hall and heard staccato whispers, shuffling feet and rapid breathing—the sound of fear. It echoed against the dingy yellow tile walls. The East German authorities carried no weapons. Like prison guards, they didn’t have to. Every soul at the border was under their absolute control. They could confiscate anything, strip-search anyone or make anybody disappear. They allowed most to pass with a friendly smile.

  But not Faith.

  The officer stopped directly behind Faith, violating her zone. His silence crowded against her. She twitched and then tensed the wayward muscle into submission. Western tourists gawked at her as they shuffled by, but the occasional Easterners averted their eyes as if they might be implicated.

  “Frau Whitney, come with me,” the official said.

  “I have nothing private with me. I’ve no problem with you inspecting my bags right here,” Faith said without turning around.

  “But I do. Come.”

  The officer took her passport and guided her into a restricted area. He helped her with her cart and she followed, staring at the three pink boxes loaded onto it. She knew she had left the Patschkes’ with one gray and two pink packages, but it was too late to do anything about it right now. She felt as powerless as she had as a child, squeezing her violated toy with the contraband her mother had stashed inside. They could detain her for hours, even days, but no one would ever know. She longed for someone at home to worry about her, but she had only a roommate who probably wouldn’t think much of her absence until weeks after the rent was due.

  She remembered the subway ticket with the random numbers scrawled on it and feared it could be used to delay her. She slipped her fingers into the side pocket of her purse, her fingers bumping against keys as they searched for the U-Bahn ticket with the part numbers. Grit lodged under a fingernail, but she found the ticket, palmed it, then shoved it into her pocket.