Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(118)

“Wir müssen uns aufteilen,” Andreas says. We need to split up.

“Was? Nein!” Lena insists, but Andreas quiets her.

“Gehen. Ich werde dich treffen.” Go. I’ll meet you.

Lena nods. She whispers the password to Andreas: “Buchtel.” She presses the scrap of paper with the address of the safe house into his hand. “Wenn sie dich aufhalten, iss das,” she says softly. If they stop you, eat this.

They hug for a long time. Lena does not want to let go. He lifts two fingers in goodbye. Lena’s lips tremble as she watches him go.

“I can’t get all of us through,” Lena says. “Anke, you and Zehra should cross at Friedrichstrasse. It’s the only way.”

“Nein, nein, nein, nein!” Zehra says. Tears spill down her sharp cheekbones. She’s unraveling.

Anke stares at Lena. “And when they stop us?”

“Tell them the truth—that you came for the concert and found out that I was taking my brother across but you don’t know where or how. By the time you tell them the truth, we’ll be gone.”

Anke laughs bitterly. “Unbelievable.”

“I can’t take us all through,” Lena repeats. There is no apology in it.

“Okay. But this is the end of us, Lena. The band is through. And we are no longer friends.” She turns to Jenny. “Be careful, Dallas. Ja?”

Jenny nods.

“Zehra, it will be okay. I’ll tell you a story on the way…” Anke takes Zehra’s hand and they move deeper into the night until it swallows them whole.

It’s gotten dark as Lena and Jenny make their way silently toward the safe house. It’s well after nine o’clock, maybe even nine thirty. They don’t have much time. At every corner, Lena glances over her shoulder to make sure they’re not being followed. The monstrous wall with its Klieg lights and razor wire rises high above their heads. Right at the edge of it, so close you could reach out and touch concrete, is an unassuming apartment building. Number thirty-two. Lena rings the buzzer. There’s no answer. There is the possibility that the safe house has already been compromised. Even now, there could be Stasi agents inside just waiting. Lena buzzes again. Her hands tremble. She hides them under her armpits. Footsteps approach from inside. The door opens two inches. A sleepy-eyed man with a thick mustache glares at them.

“Kann ich Ihnen helfen?” Can I help you?

“Buchtel.”

The man looks hard at Lena and Jenny. He sticks his head out, surveying the street, then pulls them inside. He starts to say something else. Lena interrupts. “In English, please? For my friend.”

“I expected you hours ago,” the man says. He leads them down a long hallway to a set of stairs leading to a basement.

“We had to detour. Stasi.”

The man stops short. “Were you followed?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Were you followed?” he repeats firmly.

“Nein,” Lena says confidently.

The man curses under his breath. “Come on.”

He goes by the code name Hase. It means “hare,” probably for the underground warren of the tunnel, Jenny thinks. The tunnel, called Tunnel 32 for the street number, has only been in operation for forty-eight hours. They have managed to get several families through to the other side, but the East German guards are very thorough. Between the dogs, the daily raking, the informants, the surveillance, and the lights, the tunnel could be discovered at any moment; there’s no time to waste.

They come at last to a basement that smells of dust and kerosene. It looks like any other basement: A worktable littered with tools. A clothesline hung with drying undershirts. There are others waiting there to cross to safety—a mother and her five-year-old daughter, a young couple. They are all silent, their frightened eyes saying everything. Along one wall are two sets of freestanding industrial shelves that hold boxes of wood. Hase shoves away one shelving unit, exposing a narrow door in the wall. He pushes it open. Behind it is a tiny room with a hole cut into the stone wall. The hole is about the size of two manhole covers stacked on top of each other—big enough for a body to crawl through and not much else. A work light dangles above the opening, illuminating the first few feet. Beyond that, there is total darkness.

“Who goes first?” Hase asks.

Lena bites the cuticle at her thumb and looks back toward the door. “Gehen,” she says. Go.

The young couple steps up. The wife kisses her husband and they touch their foreheads together in a parting. Then she crawls inside the ragged, earthen mouth in the wall and inches forward on hands and knees until she is enveloped by darkness.

Lena paces, looking again at the door.

“Lena,” Jenny says.

“I have to wait for Andreas!”

“You can’t wait too long,” Hase says.

The husband dips his head and compacts himself into the tunnel, following the path of his wife. A dog barks somewhere above them on the street.

“Sie haben uns gefunden!” the mother whispers. She crushes her little girl close to her and starts to cry softly.

“Shhhh,” Hase says, tensing, listening, looking up as if he might be able to see through two floors to the street above.

Lena’s huge eyes dart from the basement door to the tunnel, back and forth, like cornered rabbits. “Andreas, please…,” she whispers like a prayer.