The Patschkes squinted at each other while Faith rummaged through her oversized purse. She removed a camera and stole a glance at her watch.
Frau Patschke raised an eyebrow. “Is that one of those American models that make the instant photos?” Herr Patschke slipped his arm around his wife’s sizeable waist, pressed his cheek against hers and grinned.
“A real Polaroid.” Faith snapped the picture and the camera spit out the photo.
The Patschkes huddled together spellbound as the image materialized. He pointed to the snapshot. “Look, Hilda! Amazing. Simply amazing. Do you realize the private photos we could make with this?”
“Fritz!”
“If you include this camera-” Herr Patschke began.
“And plenty of film,” Frau Patschke said.
“Ja, ja. Both for one thousand, five hundred West,” Herr Patschke said.
Faith pursed her lips. “One thousand, three hundred.”
“Wonderful.” Herr Patschke shook her hand and snatched the Polaroid. “Smile, Liebchen.”
“I’d like you to use some special packing materials. Plus I need this to fit into three separate packages so it seems like I’ve got books. Bubble wrap, cardboard, then standard pink paper on the outside would be best.” Faith placed a roll of imported bubble wrap onto the table.
Frau Patschke divided the Stalin service into two parcels while Herr Patschke measured a length of the coarse pink paper used in East German bookstores, but it ran out before he could finish the Nazi crystal. Frau Patschke handed him some newsprint with line drawings of vacuum tubes and slogans praising East German scientific advancements.
“Don’t you have any more of the pink? I was counting on it.” Faith fidgeted in her seat.
“I’m sorry. We are short right now.”
Herr Patschke bound the two pink-wrapped boxes together and loaded all three onto a suitcase trolley Faith had brought with her. Like a child playing with a retractable tape measure, Herr Patschke stretched the bungee strap as far as he could, let go of it and then snickered as it snapped back.
He insisted on helping Faith with the packages. He pulled the cart through the labyrinth of their storerooms and removed the CLOSED sign from the front window. He paused with his hand on the doorknob and glanced back over his shoulder. “She didn’t want me to say anything, but I believe you should know. Two men stopped by last week and inquired after you. They had no interest in what you buy-only in how you move things. Naturally, we told them nothing. Be cautious, Frau Doktor.”
Privately run shops with brightly painted façades dotted the streets of the old Jewish quarter. A hunched woman with church-lady blue hair examined books in a display window of a Christian bookstore, one of the handful tolerated by the state. Her head moved as she watched Faith’s reflection in the plate-glass window. Faith hurried away, invigorated by the sense of threat that permeated East Berlin like a foggy mist. Her blouse was damp from sweat and nerves.
She waited alongside two East German punks staring at the red pedestrian light and ignoring the empty street. Their purple hair stood straight up from their heads as though the hair itself were trying to escape their gaunt bodies. When she stepped from the sidewalk before the light turned green, they scowled at her. Not wanting to call attention to herself, she stepped back up and reassured herself she had three minutes before the window closed.
She dragged the heavy cart along the irregular cobblestones. The packages shifted off-center as it bounced along, making it difficult to maneuver, but she had no time to stop. She rushed past a long line of parked cars where a dirty Mercedes with red diplomatic plates stuck out among the tiny fiber-glass Trabants.
One minute. Faith was watching the broken sidewalk ahead when she noticed a pair of legs. On cue, she stumbled. An African man tried to catch her, but she fell, raking her hand across the rough stones. She intentionally tipped the cart until the packages tumbled to the ground.
The man reached under her arm to steady her. The diamonds in his gold rings glistened. “So sorry, sister,” he said in African-accented English. “You all right?”
“No major damage. Bruises add character.”
“Let me have a look.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She pulled her hand back. It burned so badly she hoped the muscle wasn’t exposed, but only three scrapes crossed her palm.
In the commotion, another black man had climbed from the backseat of the Mercedes and stacked three pink packages back onto her cart.
“Hey, careful with those. They’re extremely fragile.”
“No worry. I do the job right.” He winked at her.
Faith rolled her eyes.
Faith dashed into the Ministry of Education, worried her tardiness had blown her lunch engagement. She almost had the Assistant Minister of Education sold on sponsoring her as a visiting professor at Berlin’s Humboldt University. The professorship came with a coveted multiple-entry visa that would allow her free passage between Berlins and throughout the GDR. Free of the restrictions of one-day visas that confined her within city limits, the entire country would be hers to plunder at will. She had worked on a scheme for months, creating a fictitious Ozark University and even getting it listed in a college guide. The time had now come to close the deal before Neumann upped his price or talked too much.
The porter called Neumann on the house phone and within a few minutes he arrived to escort her inside. The last time she saw him, Neumann had been balding. Now he sported a mane of jet-black hair that looked as if a mangy animal were humping his head. The way it was sewn gave it an almost avian quality she couldn’t quite pin down. She couldn’t keep her eyes off it as she tried to figure out the species.
Their footsteps echoed in the corridor as they passed red bulletin boards filled with the latest Party directives. Faith expected an elaborate dining hall for the government elite, but the canteen was humid and cramped. Neumann handed her a metal tray dripping with water and they waited in line. Steam gusted from the kitchen, depositing a sheen of grease on Faith’s favorite silk blazer. Definitely a schnitzel day.
He led her to a corner table away from the other patrons where an orange salt and pepper set complemented the brown synthetic tablecloth. She cringed at the sight of reusable plastic toothpicks.
Neumann straightened the aluminum fork. “I’m impressed that you speak Russian, Frau Professor. Seldom for an American.”
“How do you know I speak Russian?” Faith sought eye contact, but he looked away.
“Cabbage is tasty today,” he said, his mouth full of red kraut.
“That’s nice, but how do you know about my Russian?”
“I assumed. You’re a professor and…”
“And I looked the type.”
“Yes, yes. You do look brilliant. You’re probably interested in Gorbachev’s reforms and why our government has been so resistant to them. Wait until the old man Honecker’s gone and you’ll see change. I can introduce you to some others who feel this way, Party members who talk about social-” He interrupted himself and shielded his lips with his hand and whispered, “democracy.”
She glanced at the oval Party pin on his lapel. That particular model dated his membership to the Stalinist period. Faith didn’t believe in born-again anything, particularly communists and Nazis. “Herr Neumann, your dissidents don’t interest me any more than your Party does. It’s your household arts that intrigue me, which brings me to the topic of the professorship.” She rustled through her purse without looking down and handed him a small paper bag under the table. Neumann peeped inside and then shoved it into his vinyl briefcase.
“Sponsor me for the visa and I’ll be able to bring over fruit like that. It’s almost kiwi season and I bet you’d love them. They taste a lot like strawberries, only better.”