The Contract

Better to fail, Johnny, better to fail and to know yourself Only a stick thrown against the Hinterland fence, and the guards and the jeeps and their guns would be alerted. No witnesses to the treachery.

And he'd live with it every waking hour of his life, every sleeping minute. It could be justified, too, just a silly girl who wanted a shopping spree in Hamburg, not rated high on the pecking order beside Otto Guttmann from Padolsk.

You don't have the stomach for it, Johnny.

The padding of their feet on the path drew him forward. What would they have said, the Guttmanns? The Doctor and Erica who he had brought to the border. Would they say the kids should go to the Hinterland? And not there to be asked, were they? Only Johnny to decide.

They had come to the woodman's hut.

The fence was clear in front of them, flickers of light at the diamond mesh of the lower wire, and above that the strands that were electrified.

The first barrier. An eerie, desperate quiet in the woods behind them and beyond. For a full minute they stood and listened to the deep silence that rocked back at them from the tree walls. They were remote from each other, straining their senses, frightened and coiled.

'You are ready?'

Ulf felt against him the nodded agreement, the constant shiver.

'You remember everything that I said?'

'Yes,' she said, her mind empty.

'Never look back…'

' I love you, Ulf.'

Only the love of the girl would have taken him forward. For nothing less than the dream and the promise would he make the step towards the wire.

He squeezed her hand and broke away and went to the back of the woodman's hut where were stored the logs and branches for kindling fires. He had seen the wood piles as he had patrolled, and they were where he expected to find them. In the darkness his hands ran over the lengths of wood until he had found three branches, all that he needed for his purpose.

'Close to the border is the vehicle ditch, we lie there, protected, while I explode the guns.'

'Yes.'

Still she does not understand, after all that he had said. Lucky Jutte.

Then he had taken her hand, and with a quick, sharp stride he tugged her towards the fence.

The Hinterland fence rose above the level of her eyes. The trees beyond were very close, and opposite her a path opened into the woods. Ulf tossed the branches high over the top wires. Jutte bent down with her fingers locked together and felt Ulfs boot scrape into the palms, his hand on her head steadying himself. She braced her muscles, gathered strength for the impetus of the push that she would give, waited for his command.

A moment of standing time.

'Now…' The hoarse whisper from Ulf.

She heaved her hands upwards, felt his body thrust past her into the air and knew that her strength had failed her, that his leap was false. She stood, petrified, as the wires sung with his impact. A shadow in front of her face, wriggling for support. In the same instant the siren avalanched into her mind, and Ulf s flailing boot smashed against her face.

A hundred metres from them, as if in unison with the alarm, the twin red and green lights flashed out the position of the disturbance.

'Help me… help me.' Ulf screamed, suspended and frantic.

'What do I do…?'

The noise swelled, rose from a growl to a crescendo.

'Push me…'

She saw the threshing arms grasp at a cement post. She reached to her full height and thrust at his body with her fists, pushing him away into the blackness, over the fence.

Even as he fell Ulf could picture the scene at the command bunker. As he dropped and the grass rushed to take him he could see the small white bulb winking on the console. The bursting activity that the light would merit. The charge of the duty personnel towards the microphone that linked the bunker with the radio receivers of the foot patrols, and the watchtowers, and the earth bunkers.

He landed hard, awkwardly, and the pain was immediate, coursing through his ankle. They would be running for the jeeps.

'Give me your hand

Jutte's cry was far from him, detached and unreal. He was so tired, so weak, he wanted only to rest on the cool grass beside the fence, he wanted only to lie and sleep there. In shock, in exhaustion, in agony.

But the siren in the air would not let him sleep, the siren and the pain in his leg, the pain and the cry from Jutte.

'Help me. Stop fucking snivelling, help me…'

'Go back…' screamed Ulf.

'We can't…'

'We have to.'

'Help me.' She spat the words at him through the close mesh.

She leaped at the wire. The fence rocked, sagged under her weight.

She climbed, lost her footing, fell back, climbed again. There was a new sound to compete with the siren, a new intruder. Jutte was not aware of it, knew nothing but the effort of heaving herself astride the top of the wire. Ulf heard it, heard and recognised the running roar of the jeep. He staggered to his feet, lurched as the river of pain burst in his shin and thigh, retrieved himself, stood uncertainly and waited to break her fall.