The Day and The Night

   “No,” answered Marina, looking the interrogator in the eye. 

  “I did not know.” 

  “You didn’t notice anything strange in the days before your daughter disappeared? She didn’t say anything unusual? You didn’t notice anything different? They often say a mother’s intuition - “ 

  “No,” she repeated, this time with more conviction. 

  “No. There was nothing.” 

  “But you had drifted, you and your daughter. No longer close, or so we’ve heard.”

  “What sixteen-year-old doesn’t drift from her mother? Do you have children? If you did you would know.” Now he was the silent one. Marina smiled softly to herself. 

  “And your sister. In the West. What can you tell me about her?” 

  Marina frowned. 

  “She works for you.” 

  “And what is the nature of her work?” 

  “She is a cultural attaché.” 

  “Officially.” 

  “Officially.” Marina hesitated for a moment and then lowered her voice. 

  “She is safe, yes?” 

  “Yes,” he said, with a hint of annoyance. 

  “She does it all very smoothly. But she has been said to be...drifting. From the correct ideals.” 

  “The West are becoming more and more paranoid. My sister is a professional. She knows how to play a part and she understands the necessity of being seen to conform.” 

  She was about to go on, but he held up a hand, and she remembered suddenly that they were in an interrogation room and not gathered round the fireplace at her apartment. 

  “My sister is a true believer, Comrade Rudach. You know that.” 

  “Yes,” he agreed, “but would she value blood over iron?” 

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” 

  He leant forward on the desk. 

  “Your daughter was photographed outside her house. They were embracing. Your sister appeared to have been expecting her.” For a moment there was only silence. 

  “It can’t be true. They haven’t been in contact for years. My daughter would never - “

  “Here.” He pushed a photograph towards her. It was black and white, it’s edged neatly trimmed, and it was the first she had seen of her sister in years. 

  She gazed down at it. It was true. There was her sister, Anna, with a caring hand draped across her daughter’s back. And Rosa was welcoming her affection. Marina felt her stomach turn to ice. 

  Later that evening, she stumbled into her apartment, let her bags slip to the floor and leant against the wall. A stray tear landed on the tip of her lip. She licked it away. It tasted like salt. Glancing at the clock, she saw that Max would be out for another two hours. Marina couldn’t bring herself to take care of the bag just now. Instead, she wrapped her coat even more tightly around her - it was November, and freezing - and collapsed onto the sofa.  

  The photograph was still in her mind. If all the people, of all the places, Rosa had gone to her aunt. 

  They said betrayal hurts most when it comes from family. But Marina was not so sure about this. Not where Anna was concerned, at least. For betrayal to occur, there must be trust. Marina had never trusted her sister. Perhaps it was her fanaticism, her cunning, her ability to slip out of trouble with what could only be described as artistry. 

  Their parents had always favoured her, Marina understood that. Anna had often made them uneasy. It was her charming smile combined with her blank stare. Her sister did not understand the concept of morality, not at all. Marina remembered playing with her as a child. Anna had never teased her or been deliberately cruel, but they had never really talked either. It was their aunt, Frieda, who said they were like the day and the night. 

  The day and the night... yes. She supposed it was true, she mused, threading the blanket through her fingers as she thought. 

  Marina had been a happy child, if a little shy, and she had offered smiles to neighbours the way an apple tree offers fruit to the street. In a compound where everything seemed grey, her hair had been a source of pride. Everyone admired it. She brushed it carefully every day and as a result it was soft and long. Vanity was frowned upon, naturally, but even her father had liked her hair, and he rarely seemed to like anything else about either of his daughters. 

  At the birthday party of a classmate, the girls had gathered in the bedroom and admired some little paper slips. They were princesses, the girl explained, from America. The classmate’s father held a prestigious job in the government, so it made sense she had obtained these. She had several, each in a glittering dress and with very beautiful hair. 

  Her other friend Lottie had nudged Marina, pointing to a princess in a pink dress, with a gold crown and long blonde curls. 

  “She looks like you,” Lottie whispered. Marina beamed. 

  Later that day, under the pretext of needing to use the bathroom, she had snuck back into the classmate’s room, prized open the lid of the enamelled box in which the little slips were kept, and stolen the princess in pink. She knew that stealing was wrong, and when she went to thank the girl’s family for the party, she had felt almost sick. But she had changed classes that autumn, so she didn’t see the girl again, and gradually her guilt subsided. Besides, it was the only beautiful thing she owned. 

  And then there was Anna. Aunt Frieda had been correct when she had compared her to the night. At first glance, there was nothing strange about her. She was a good pupil who believed in the communist message, but she had always been difficult to predict. When she was angry, she was silent. She had what her mother called “black moods”, and anyone in proximity could only make themselves as inoffensive as possible. Still, she had not been a bad sister, not by any means. 

  As an adult, she began working for the government. Her title was cultural attaché. She returned to the East from time to time, and her lips were sealed but her gifts were generous. 

  “It’s for you, darling,” she would often say. “But don’t ask me questions.” 

  Over the years, Marina had received silk stockings from Paris, perfume and books from West Berlin, and her cupboards always contained proper, western coffee. 

  Marina liked to think Anna really had loved her. But from time to time she wondered if the gifts were simply a way of demonstrating that she was now superior, that whilst Marina was a mere teacher spouting communist rhetoric and biting her tongue in front of unpredictable children, her sister was living with freedom and luxury in the West. Her father, who had been a professor before his sight had failed him, had said when Marina could hear him: “Anna, my girl, you are the most worthy communist. Your sister - she has the heart, but she lacks your brains.” 

  If Anna had been a strange girl, she was the perfect woman: beautiful, intelligent, chic, capable of being very charming. A rose without a thorn, so to speak. But there was no boyfriend. That was the only thing. 

  That was why when, at a family gathering where Anna appeared unexpectedly, Marina couldn’t help but take Henrik’s hand and push forward together. 

  “Hello,” she said, and she could see - just for an instant - a flicker of deep emotion pass across her sister’s face. 

  “You have done everything correctly, haven’t you?” Anna remarked later. 

  “We’re getting married.” 

  “You are a fool, darling. He is a rogue. Didn’t you see his watch? It’s a western brand. He’s as much a communist as President Truman.” 

  “You wear western jewellery without a problem,” Marina snapped in retaliation. 

  “You douse yourself in their perfume. I sometimes think you enjoy the means too much, and you don’t really care about the ends.” Anna’s eyes flashed. 

  “I, my dear sister, am one of them. I can enjoy these things. It is my job. But that man.” She wound a hand into her hair so tightly it must have hurt her. 

  “Never forget, Marina, that the pawns are the easiest to sweep off the board.” 

  “What does that mean?” She snapped. 

  “They’re getting more and more paranoid.” Anna sighed and walked away. 

  “Just tell him to be careful at the borders,” she remarked over her shoulders. 

  On that account, Anna had been the both right and wrong. Henrik Möller worked as a transporter, cycling each day to gather bread for the inner circle wives with a fondness for a bakery just beyond the border. It did not say great things about the merits of communism, Henrik privately mused, that the communist elite chose to import something as basic as their bread. It was true that he enjoyed the perks of the job - a stroll through through the supermarkets with their shelves bulging with variety, as well as cheap goods if he could manage to obtain them and they were small enough to be hidden in his shoes. 

  The border guards were vultures, it was true. He liked to have fun with them. He would balance the bread in peculiar shapes in the sacks, and when they pulled him over he would smile to himself and watch as they checked his bag carefully, their eager eyes scanning for any evidence of illegal smuggling, any goods in the bad he intended to keep for himself. 

  In the four years he had been doing this job, no one had noticed that he had been smuggling bicycles. 

  Marina admired his nerve. Anyone would have. And after a while, she stopped worrying about him so much. He used the surplus to help bribe their way into securing an apartment - the waiting lists were unforgiving, and corruption was by far the most efficient currency. 

  And then there had been a knock on the door. There were officers outside, and they were not happy. They dragged them both across the street - loudly, so that all the neighbours could hear - and they sat down in different interrogation rooms. Marina answered questions after question, saying as little as possible, and when they told her she was “free to go”, she waited for three days for news of Henrik, before his hat was delivered to her door. 

  Shortly afterwards, she learned from her mother that Anna had been promoted to the most senior rank there was.

  “But I wonder why she did not go to visit you, my dearest,” her mother mused. Marina knew very well. 

  Three weeks later, she discovered she was pregnant with Henrik’s child. 

  She lost it. 

  But she still had Rosa, a curly-haired six-year-old who wanted to know “where is papa,” who would learn the full story in all its details when she was twelve, who would all the same flee the East at sixteen and willingly enter the treacherous clutches of her ruthless aunt.