Free Adam and Evelyn by Ingo Schulze

“Roomier than I thought,” she said.
    “It’ll get smaller,” he said, and handed her the blue backpack in its frame.
    Katja banged her chin as she tried to press the backpack tighter to her.
    “That’s not going to work,” he said.
    Adam set the backpack down beside the car, covered Katja with underwear from one of the bags, and as a finishing touch laid a raincoat over her shoes. “Nobody’ll find you here,” he said.
    “Adam, I’ll say it now, ahead of time. Thank you!”
    “No singing, no yowling, no rocking the boat. Okay? And no fear—it’s gonna get dark now.” He closed the trunk. The car was tilted down over the rear axle. “You’ve got to slide farther forward,” he said when he opened the trunk. “As far as you can, up in here.”
    “Like this?” Katja asked, pressing her back and shoulders farther into the trunk.
    “Can I give you Elfi for company?”
    Katja pulled the T-shirt away from her face and nodded. “Give her to me, that’s a great idea.”
    Adam added the open box with the turtle. Katja pressed it to herself.
    “Adam?” She blinked a little. “If something goes wrong, tell the truth. Truth is always the best.”
    “The truth and nothing but the truth.”
    “You got it.”
    “See you soon,” Adam said. He slipped behind the wheel and started the engine. “Can you hear me?”
    “What?”
    “Can you understand me?”
    “Let’s get a move on!” Katja shouted. Adam nodded and drove off.

15

HANDS HALF OPEN
    BOTH LANES for the border control at Komárno were about the same length. At the last moment Adam changed to the one on the right when he spotted two travel trailers up ahead. His watch had stopped. He rolled down the window and asked the time from the woman in the passenger seat in the neighboring car. The man at the wheel raised his left arm, the woman grabbed it, turned it a bit, and called out: “Eight after ten! Closer to nine.”
    Adam thanked her, set his watch for ten after ten, and wound it. Most of the cars had GDR plates.
    In front of him were two elderly people in a Trabant from Hungary, who sat there stiff as dummies, on the left a squarish skull with protruding ears, the woman with a headscarf. The couple seemed to him the embodiment of rectitude and harmlessness. Maybe something of that impression would flow back his way, or would the total disparity be his undoing? The family in the Škoda behind him was likewise inert, staring straight ahead. He probably didn’t look all that much different himself.
    If he could have had just one wish: The car right behind him would have been the red Passat, with Evelyn as an eyewitness. When they ordered him to open the trunk, he wouldn’t bat an eye. Even as they led him and Katja away, his gaze would be stubbornly fixed on the ground.
    It comforted him that the Trabant in front of him was also hanging low on its rear axle.
    The right lane did in fact start edging forward a little faster, so that Adam now found himself waiting next to a Dutch VW bus, just as the Hungarians in front of him handed over their papers. They appeared to be paying no attention at all to the border guard. They didn’t even turn their engine off, were asked no questions, and put-putted on their way.
    The border guard waved for Adam to hurry it up. Bending his knees slightly, he pointed his thumb up with a “Jeden?” Adam nodded and handed him his papers. And before he could even stop smiling, he watched as the wide metal stamp was placed above a back page in his papers and came down with a clatter.
    “Dovidenia,” the border guard said.
    “Dovidenia,” Adam replied, started his engine, and drove ahead slowly, just in case a customs agent should pop up.
    Before him stretched the bridge; he drove over the Danube. He would have loved to let out a roar of some sort.
    “What year is the manufacture of your Wartburg?” the shorter, and older, of the two Hungarian border guards asked.
    “Nineteen sixty-one.”
    “They have become