This was after the Belize airstrip incident, and was brokered by the same guy. He was signing up for these sorts of gig because he was trying to save money to start his own comic book shop. I don’t know if he got a bonus for signing up other people, or if he was just trying to be helpful to the adventurous and unemployed, or if he just wanted someone else to be able to talk to about this stuff. Certainly, few people actually believe these stories, which is why we’re careful in the telling. It’s never a matter of the “wrong people” finding out where you were and what you were doing. This stuff is business as usual to them, of little or no consequence. It’s always about your friends and family thinking you’re crazy.
Officially, I was a student taking a year abroad, visiting Europe and seeing sights. Technically, that was correct, because I wasn’t officially employed by anyone. What I actually was doing was courier work, mostly around northern Italy, occasionally to France, hand-delivering envelopes, small packages, sometimes even luggage. What was in it? No idea, and wasn’t going to ask. Who did I work for? Guess. Someone would contact me, ask me to come pick something up, and they’d give me expense money and a destination. At the other end, I’d hand over whatever it was and get paid. In cash. In a nice amount of cash.
I was in some tiny town in Piedmont, where I’d been paid to run something to what looked like a medical clinic from Turin, when I got handed a prescription medication bottle and was told I needed to take it to Berlin. Which was cool. I’d never been to West Berlin. No, I was told. Not West Berlin. East Berlin.
Okay, I’d seen enough spy movies and read enough Len Deighton to freak out a little. What? Are you’re freakin’ serious. Yup. The bottle was allergy medication, I was told, and the label was made out to me. Go in as a tourist in the morning, “lose” my meds in a specific location, back on the American side by dinner. No big.
Right.
Actually, right.
Going through the fabled Checkpoint Charlie was easier than crossing into Mexico. Once across, it was like walking into the business district of a large city (which is exactly what it was), not so fascinating a tourist destination. What freaked me out was that I wasn’t being followed. I think I’d have felt better if I was. I’d have been less paranoid that they were watching me, but I just couldn’t see them. Logically, rationally, there was no reason to follow me. I was nobody. 23 years old, going on 24 in a couple of weeks.
I puttered around, bored off my ass, looking for something interesting to do. When I’m bored, I eat. It’s been a problem of mine since I was a kid. If you look at me, you can tell I’ve been bored a lot in my life. This is a large problem is foreign countries with strange food. With nothing else to do until the drop, I’d go into some cafe or mom-and-pop looking restaurant, eat, read, then walk around for a while until I decided to try another place to eat, read, and hang out. I was paranoid about staying in one place for too long, too, which made me nervous. And when I’m nervous… I eat.
At some point, I started throwing up. A lot. Which made me scared that I was drawing attention to myself, which caused me to throw up more. The first thing I was told was, if anything goes wrong head straight back to West Berlin. The second thing I was told was, if you can’t make it back go to this address. Which I had to memorize. Which was a hugely bad idea, because I had no idea where I wasn’t and really didn’t think it was a good idea to ask directions. And I hadn’t brought a map.
After a very long and uncomfortable time walking around, I found an apartment block, and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. This was an early post-war building, probably built in the late 40s, so it didn’t have the ugly concrete slab look that a lot of the later apartment blocks had. There was a key stashed where I was told it would be, and I staggered into an empty apartment.
If you’re not creeped out enough by the fact that you’re puking your guts out on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall, then being in an empty apartment in a strange place where you don’t speak the language ought to do it. As an added bonus, it was getting dark and I really wasn’t supposed to be there after dark.
I laid on the floor there for three days, freezing my ass off more from the shakes brought on by the presumed stomach flu than the cold. It was cold, but there was enough residual heat from the other apartments that it wasn’t too bad. There was no furniture. There might have been electricity, but I was afraid to turn it on. On the third day, I knew I was better because I was hungry, but the only thing I found was a jar of peanut butter in the back of a cabinet. I opened it up and threw up again. It had dried out into an oily ball of dark brown slime. It smelled disgusting. I was off peanut butter for years after that.
While I’d been puking in the toilet, I hadn’t flushed. I didn’t know if there was water, and I was afraid the sound of the flush would bring someone. All that kept going through my head was how much trouble I would be in, because I wasn’t supposed to be there. I had no desire to get thrown in a Soviet jail. But on the third day I was so out of it, I forgot myself, and I flushed. Within minutes, I heard footsteps in the hall. I heard someone at the door. Someone was coming into the apartment. I had the shakes. I felt like hell. At that point, I was sweating and dehydrated and pretty much worthless if I had to defend myself, or run.
The guy that came in was probably in his early 40s, wearing a grey cardigan sweater that looked homemade. Which it probably was. He was balding, and had a mustache. Why I remember those details, I don’t know. He started yelling at me, in German, until he realized I had no clue what he was saying and started yelling in English. I should have asked for help, he was telling me. That’s what he was there for. No one told me. He heard someone was in the apartment, he knew someone needed help. He helped me up, and took me downstairs to his place. He gave me some kind of medicine, and food, and let me sleep it off for another day.
Then he kicked me out. Scared to death, I walked back to Checkpoint Charlie. Four days overdue. I looked like hell. It was obviously sick. I was afraid They would think I was drunk, or stoned. I didn’t see the Soviets or the East Germans as being particularly tolerant of Americans under the influence.
Nothing happened. I went across with a group of tourists without a hitch. I stumbled back to my hotel room, and slept for a week.
Never went back to Berlin, East, West, or United, again in my life.
I did go to Moscow a month later, but that’s another story.
This post is a supplement to the autobiographical roleplaying game being berin kinsman, available via Lulu. As with the material in the game, everything above is 97% true*, although I’ll leave it to you to sort fact from fiction.
*Disclaimer: the 97% truth statistic may in fact be part of the 3% that’s fabrication.
Berin Kinsman
viricordova