Radeberger

A bird’s chirp cuts through the residential complex buildings in Fennpfuhl. The yards have plenty of small trees with no leaves. The sky is still dark with a touch of deep blue in the east.

Ingrid turns on a small light in the kitchen. While she puts a pot of water on the stove, she goes to the wall to check the calendar. She points her finger to the square that says December 5th, 1988. She opens the cupboard and searches through a few bags of flour. She shuts the door and sees a man standing next to her.
“Oh! God. You scared me, Karl.”
“We don’t call him anymore.” Brandt says.
“Of course not,” Ingrid replies. “Did I wake you up?”
“No, it’s time.” Brandt says. Ingrid turns to the clock on the wall that says 5:47.
“You’re right,” she says. “It’s Jens’ birthday. I’ll make a cake. You’ll come home for it.” She orders.
“Of course I will.”

The water starts to boil. Ingrid goes to the stove to make coffee. Brandt changes his clothes and puts on his boots already. He sits at the small dining table in the kitchen while Ingrid serves him coffee.
“Go wake him up before you start your coffee.” She commands.
Brandt gets up and walks to the hallway. He knocks on the door next to the kitchen. There is no response, so he knocks again, harder.
“OK.” A voice of a young man is heard.
Brandt frowns. Then he returns to the dining table for his coffee.
Something falls on the ground and a few guitar strings make sounds in the room. “Shit,” murmurs Jens before he opens the door. He walks out with clumsy steps.
“Morgen,” Jens says.
“Morgen,” Brandt replies without looking at him.
“What’s that smell? Did you smoke?” Ingrid interrogates.
“No, I didn’t. Tobias and his girlfriend did.”
“Girlfriend,” Ingrid disapproves. ”Go get a shower.”
Jens follows the order. Brandt’s eyes stay on the coffee.

The family finishes the breakfast together. Brandt goes to the hook at the door, on which his dark brown coat hangs. He puts it on and notices the stains on the cuff. He looks at them for a few seconds before he opens the door.
“All well,” Ingrid says to him.

Brandt appears at the Transformerwerk. The stains on the cuff are visible but dark. He hangs his coat at the entrance and hides the sleeves behind. The shift bell rings. Workers move to the center of the room, where Schmidt stands. He shouts everyone’s name casually and they respond briefly with “da.” At last, he calls:
“Siebert,” and there is no response. “Siebert!”
“Did anyone see Siebert?” Schmidt shouts louder.
Brandt stays unaffected by his repetitive calling.

In a small kneipe sits a middle-aged man drinking Radeberger. The shift bell of the factory is heard inside.
“It’s already dark out there,” he says to the old woman working behind the bar.
“Yes, winter is settling in deep now.” She rubs her hands softly behind the bar. “Guests come late in winter. The sky looks the same at 17 or 19.”
“Not us,” the man says. Meanwhile, Brandt walks in.
“See?” The man laughs. He gives Brandt a quick hug. The woman watches them.
“How are you, Werner?” Brandt asks.
“Cannot complain.” Werner replies with a generous smile.
“One Radeberger, Susi,” Brandt orders.
“Make it two, honey,” Werner adds.

The beers come to the table. Susi needs to leave the two men alone, but there are no other guests to attend to, so she goes to the kitchen.

They take a sip of the cold pils and fall into silence. It’s just their rhythm. Brandt waits for Werner to start the conversation.
“Do you remember the guy living in Block 47, whom I’ve been watching since last month? The one at instrument calibration unit? He didn’t do anything suspicious for the past two weeks, but I knew something was wrong with this guy, so I followed him yesterday. The second Advent. You know I don’t like those things, so I told myself not to waste another day. I watched his apartment and caught him going out. I followed him. Guess where he went? The calibration unit! On Sunday! What business does anyone have in a weapons unit on a Sunday?”
Werner gives a cocky smile before he continues:
“I watched him through the window so I knew he went into the report archive. I waited until he left. I went in there to see what he had done. Guess what? He changed some numbers of produce. They are short, meaning some shortfalls in production from last month, on the paper.”
“So that he can steal some products while the numbers still match?” Brandt asks.
“That was my first thought, but the shortfalls are big. It’d be a grave smuggling if that was true. As suspicious as he is, I didn’t think he was planning something that big. So I looked through more documents and found that he is not responsible for any of the affected production.”
“Meaning?” Brandt asks.
“Do you remember three guys were punished and removed from that unit in September? All of them were reported to fail the production targets for months in a row. Maybe they failed only on paper.”
“You mean they were framed? The guy you are watching changed the reports to frame his colleagues.”
“Exactly.” Werner strikes the table with his fist. The sound startles Susi, so she pokes half her head out. Quickly she pulls it back.

“But why?” Brandt asks.
“That’s still for me to find out,” Werner says and takes another sip. “And you, Karl? Anything fresh at work?”
“Not much, oh,” Brandt says with a pause. “The new fellow didn’t show up at work.”
“We just can’t trust the young fellows anymore. I heard they drink and make music on Sunday. He might be one of those rats and have skipped the shift.”
They fall in silence. Brandt finishes the pils and bids farewell to Werner.
“This early?” Werner asks.
“It’s my boy’s birthday.”
“Good father, our role model! Send my greetings to him, and to Ingrid.”
“I’ll do.”
Brandt opens the door and leaves.

Brandt gets off a tram in the district of Prenzlauer Berg. Compared to the building complex he lives in, the buildings here are taller and more dated. Their facades have been ripped off by weather, keeping various faded hues. Brandt walks into a street, where he is stopped by two men from Volkpolizei.

“Ausweis, bitte,” one of them says.
Brandt reaches into both of his pockets for his identity card, and he takes it out from the left pocket. The policeman checks it.
“You live in Fennpfuhl, Genosse Brandt. What are you doing here?” The man asks.
“My grandmother lives here. I came to check on her. She is ill.”
“Well enough. I wish her well.” The man smiles.
“Did something happen here?” Brandt asks.
“Someone got killed on the street Saturday night. A young fellow.”
“Ssssip!” The other man hints him to shut up.

The man stops talking, so Brandt moves forward. He walks over a few familiar corners until he reaches his grandparents’ building. All the windows are dark. He stares at a window on the second floor. After a few seconds, a candle is lit. A smile appears on Brandt’s face.

He opens the front door of the building with a key, and walks into the dark courtyard. At the far end, where the cellar hatch meets the rear wall, he crouches and opens a gap behind the drainpipe with one hand. He takes out an identity card from his right pocket. The name on it says Siebert R. He inserts the card into the hole, on top of dozens of cards.

After he walks out the building, he turns his head and looks at the window on the second floor again. He nods and walks away. The light from the candle flickers twice and disappears.

At the apartment in Fennpfuhl, Brandt opens the door and enters.
“Finally here, Karl. What took you so long?” Ingrid says in the kitchen while cleaning the oven.
“I ran into Volkpolizei,” Brandt says while he hangs his coat, moving the cuff to the back.
“Oh.” Ingrid turns to Brandt. “Anything happened?”
“No, it’s fine. Just some questions as usual.”
Brandt sits down at the dining table. “Where is Jens?”
“Jens, your father is here,” Ingrid shouts.
Jens opens the door and walks out.
“Come sit,” Ingrid commands.
Jens shuffles to the seat with a silly smile.

“I just heard on the radio that Gorbachev...”
“No.” Brandt interrupts Jens.
Jens puts away his smile by a swallow. He tries again:
“But it’s important, the whole...”
“Stop,” Brandt says.

Silence, until Ingrid moves the Rote Grütze from the fridge to the table. The cake is covered with red berries, with which the sponge cake sandwiches a thin layer of cream.
Ingrid cuts a big slice and puts it on a plate.

“I’m not hungry,” Jens says and looks down.
Brandt hands him a fork.
“Eat,” Brandt commands.
Jens gives the fork a long look before he bursts out:
“It’s my birthday and my decision to eat or not.”
“If you don’t eat—”
Before Brandt finishes the sentence, Jens grabs the cake and shoves it into his mouth, stuffing it without a swallow. The red topping spreads across his mouth, chin, and his fingers. He stares into the eyes of his father, whose hand is still holding a fork in the air. Ingrid freezes, looking down, not out of fear but out of instinct.

The vision of that night crosses Brandt’s mind. He took the blood from Siebert’s neck. The dead’s face whitened. The limbs contracted. The stream over the body stopped.

Brandt puts the fork down and looks away. A few drops of smashed red berries fall from Jens’ chin to the floor.