Free Stealing the Future by Max Hertzberg Page A

shining, and it made me wonder why she was so interested in my private life all of a sudden.
    “It’s a woman from Westberlin. She said she was coming over for the demo, so we agreed to meet up there.”
    “You’re taking her to the demo? What kind of date is that?” she teased me. “Well, might see you there then!”
     
    I needed to make a start on the revised report for Frau Demnitz, so I headed over to my office, thinking about Erika. We were very different kinds of people, but out of all my immediate colleagues, I think I liked her the best. Like all of us here at the Republikschutz she was from the ranks of the old opposition, chosen mostly for our scepticism of the security services, and first hand experience of being on the receiving end of the Stasi’s tactics. I hadn’t had much to do with Erika in the old days, being thrown together only in the last year when the Republikschutz was expanded. Before 1989 we’d seen each other at various gatherings, and maybe a couple of times on some of the bigger actions, but she’d been active in one of the women’s groups so we’d never had the chance to work together on anything. That was a shame, because I enjoyed her company now. She was easily flustered, took her time thinking things through, but she was dependable and thorough, both qualities I appreciated.
    Sitting down at my desk I stuffed some paper into a typewriter, winding it through until the top of the page was in the right position, then started typing. I left out Major Tom’s hints and the Saxon police reports, just describing, in laboriously overblown detail, my trip to West Silesia and my impressions and initial conclusions. I typed it up, making the usual two carbon copies for our own records, then took it in to Erika.
    “Here, have a look at this. I’ve kept it basic still, just padded it out with useless detail. What do you think?”
    “Yeah,” said Erika, frowning in concentration as she read through the report for a second time. “Makes sense to me to keep it simple. The Minister knows that you’ve been getting reports directly from the police in Saxony, but probably won’t appreciate hearing that you’ve been drawing conclusions from them. You’ve got to get it to him by the end of Monday? In that case I think we should check in with the others at Monday’s meeting. There’ll still be time to change it if needs be.”
    It seemed a little overcautious to me, but I shrugged agreement and put the report and the carbons in an envelope and left it on my desk for Monday.
     
    Back home I put water on to boil and stepped into the shower. Like most people living in pre-war buildings I didn’t have a bathroom, just a shared toilet on the landing. The only place to have a wash was at the kitchen sink, so I’d rigged up a shower cubicle in the kitchen. It worked well enough, but it did take up a lot of space.
    I was quite excited about meeting Annette and wanted to look my best for her. I couldn’t remember when I’d last had a proper date, but it was certainly years ago. After a quick wash I got out of the shower and poured the boiling water into the sink for a shave. Looking at myself in the mirror, I smiled. No longer a spring chicken, but plenty of life in me yet. It felt good to be going to meet a woman, even if our first date was a demo. Perhaps we’d go for a coffee afterwards… My mind wandered, taking in all the possibilities that this afternoon might bring. What would she look like? She sounded really nice on the phone. Self assured, perhaps a little bossy, taking control of the conversation early on. Typical Wessi. But it felt nice to have someone directing the conversation—a little businesslike perhaps, but if it had been left to me I would have stuttered and stammered and said ridiculous things. Yeah, it felt like it might be a good one.
    13:17
    I got to Alexanderplatz far too early, nervous about being late. We’d agreed to meet at a quarter to two, under the World Clock.