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Authors: Douglas Kennedy
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outside. He said the coast was clear. He threw the ladder outside and told me that I had to go down it now.
“I was terrified. I hate heights—and we were three floors up. The ladder was so feeble, so dangerous, that as soon as I put my weight on it I knew it wouldn’t hold me . . . and I only weighed fifty kilos at the time. I told Florian that I couldn’t do it . . . that I was just too scared. He literally grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and forced me out the window.
“The descent only took perhaps thirty seconds—because once I had grabbed hold of the ladder it was clear that I only had a few moments before the rope gave away. When I was about ten meters above the ground, the whole thing collapsed. I was suddenly falling—and, believe me, a ten-meter fall is a long one. I landed on my left foot and completely broke my ankle. The pain was indescribable. From up above, Florian began to hiss:
“‘Run. Run now!’
“‘You have to come with me,’ I hissed back.
“‘I need to find another rope. You cross now—I’ll meet you in a few hours at the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtnis-Kirche on the Ku’damm.’
“‘I can’t move,’ I yelled back. ‘My ankle.’
“‘You have no choice. You go now. ’
“‘Florian . . . jump!’
“‘Now. Now.’
“And he disappeared. My ankle was killing me. I could put no weight on it. But somehow I managed to drag myself the thirty meters across the barren area that was no-man’s-land and into the West. As there was still no Wall—still no trip wires or armed guards that would shoot to kill—there were also no Western soldiers awaiting me as I staggered into Kreuzberg. Just a Turkish man who was walking home and found me collapsed on the street, sobbing in pain. He crouched down beside me and handed me a cigarette. Then he told me that he would be back as soon as possible with help. It must have been a good hour before I heard the roar of an ambulance, by which time I was drifting in and out of consciousness. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in some hospital ward. There was a doctor there, telling me I hadn’t just broken my ankle, but also tore my Achilles’ tendon, and I had been knocked out with anesthetics for over eight hours. Beside him was a policeman who welcomed me to the Bundesrepublik. He also told me that I was a most lucky young lady, as the GDR had sealed the borders just after midnight.
“‘Did a man named Florian Fallada make it over?’ I asked the policeman. He just shrugged and said: “‘I don’t have any knowledge of who crossed over last night. What I do know is that it is absolutely impossible to leave the GDR now. It has become a hermetically sealed state.’”
Our plane banked suddenly, its nose headed toward the ground. Then, suddenly, the cloud cover lifted and I could see that we were moments from touching down . . . the last ten minutes of this flight blurred from my memory by the narrative force of this woman’s story.
“So what happened next?” I asked as the plane’s engines entered reverse thrust mode and our forward progress began to slow.
“What happened? I was in hospital for a week. During that time several Bundesrepublik functionaries visited me and, with great ease, facilitated my passage into their country. I asked several of them if they had any news of Florian Fallada. One of them actually wrote his name down and promised me that when she returned to see me again in several days’ time she would have some news for me.
“When she did come back, she had with her my Bundesrepublik identity card and the following information: no one by the name of Florian Fallada was registered as having crossed the frontier before it was sealed on thirteen August 1961.”
“And do you know what happened to Florian?” I asked, sounding a little too eager, like a reader who—having been plunged deep into a story—wanted to skip a hundred or so pages to find out what happened next.
“I had no word of him for over ten years,”
“I was terrified. I hate heights—and we were three floors up. The ladder was so feeble, so dangerous, that as soon as I put my weight on it I knew it wouldn’t hold me . . . and I only weighed fifty kilos at the time. I told Florian that I couldn’t do it . . . that I was just too scared. He literally grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and forced me out the window.
“The descent only took perhaps thirty seconds—because once I had grabbed hold of the ladder it was clear that I only had a few moments before the rope gave away. When I was about ten meters above the ground, the whole thing collapsed. I was suddenly falling—and, believe me, a ten-meter fall is a long one. I landed on my left foot and completely broke my ankle. The pain was indescribable. From up above, Florian began to hiss:
“‘Run. Run now!’
“‘You have to come with me,’ I hissed back.
“‘I need to find another rope. You cross now—I’ll meet you in a few hours at the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtnis-Kirche on the Ku’damm.’
“‘I can’t move,’ I yelled back. ‘My ankle.’
“‘You have no choice. You go now. ’
“‘Florian . . . jump!’
“‘Now. Now.’
“And he disappeared. My ankle was killing me. I could put no weight on it. But somehow I managed to drag myself the thirty meters across the barren area that was no-man’s-land and into the West. As there was still no Wall—still no trip wires or armed guards that would shoot to kill—there were also no Western soldiers awaiting me as I staggered into Kreuzberg. Just a Turkish man who was walking home and found me collapsed on the street, sobbing in pain. He crouched down beside me and handed me a cigarette. Then he told me that he would be back as soon as possible with help. It must have been a good hour before I heard the roar of an ambulance, by which time I was drifting in and out of consciousness. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in some hospital ward. There was a doctor there, telling me I hadn’t just broken my ankle, but also tore my Achilles’ tendon, and I had been knocked out with anesthetics for over eight hours. Beside him was a policeman who welcomed me to the Bundesrepublik. He also told me that I was a most lucky young lady, as the GDR had sealed the borders just after midnight.
“‘Did a man named Florian Fallada make it over?’ I asked the policeman. He just shrugged and said: “‘I don’t have any knowledge of who crossed over last night. What I do know is that it is absolutely impossible to leave the GDR now. It has become a hermetically sealed state.’”
Our plane banked suddenly, its nose headed toward the ground. Then, suddenly, the cloud cover lifted and I could see that we were moments from touching down . . . the last ten minutes of this flight blurred from my memory by the narrative force of this woman’s story.
“So what happened next?” I asked as the plane’s engines entered reverse thrust mode and our forward progress began to slow.
“What happened? I was in hospital for a week. During that time several Bundesrepublik functionaries visited me and, with great ease, facilitated my passage into their country. I asked several of them if they had any news of Florian Fallada. One of them actually wrote his name down and promised me that when she returned to see me again in several days’ time she would have some news for me.
“When she did come back, she had with her my Bundesrepublik identity card and the following information: no one by the name of Florian Fallada was registered as having crossed the frontier before it was sealed on thirteen August 1961.”
“And do you know what happened to Florian?” I asked, sounding a little too eager, like a reader who—having been plunged deep into a story—wanted to skip a hundred or so pages to find out what happened next.
“I had no word of him for over ten years,”
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