The woman sat by the windowsill, her hands folded neatly upon her charcoal dress. It was nothing fancy, the dress, a frayed relic from her grandmother, resembling something closer to a work uniform than a real dress. Secretly, she had thought the silk embroidery trimming the sleeves was frivolous for such a dull article.

Of course after the Wall went up, luxury became woven seamlessly with necessity. Perhaps when her husband returned from work, she might steam and iron her dresses again.

In the next room, Martha was pulling Bauernbrot from the oven. The porous bread gave off a characteristic sourdough odor, seeping through the tiny house. The woman wondered vaguely how her sister had gotten ahold of the heavily rationed flour. Of course, the government had announced an overflow of its quota for the month, but its rhetoric and statistics seemed to grow more and more meaningless. They would get along with what they had because that was all there was. Yesterday Martha had fought for hours with Frank over a jar of pork he forgot to brine. “Tick nicht ab! Möchten sie unsere familie zu verhungern? Ist es das, was sie wollen?” The next day, things went back to normal; there simply wouldn’t be any pork next week.

After the Wall went up, the woman sometimes made the trip to the market if Martha was stuck for hours in the Rationen line for butter or meat. However, most days she just stayed by the windowsill.
Waiting for day to slowly give way to night.

Watching the sun sink beneath the Wall just a block away, occasionally setting the rusty barbed wire fence ablaze. Looking out, and seeing only half the world turn on its axis.

After the Wall went up, the city, once so vibrant and bustling with life, became grey. Even the casual observer could see it everywhere. The soldiers, with their dull grey uniforms, rumbled in on monstrous steel-plated tanks. The soil, dusted with thin concrete shavings, yielded nothing to desperate farmers. Other people might have looked upwards, to the stars for some pointless inkling, some misconstrued hint of hope. The people of Berlin just looked straight ahead, knowing that the cause of their sorrow was not a secret locked up in the heavens, but instead trapped in the sight in front of their very eyes.

Outside, a beggar wandered aimlessly in the afternoon rain, his ashen hands clutching a batch of wilted wildflowers.

“Drie Marken eine blume! Three marks a flower!”
His voiced echoed through the narrow street, nearly drowned out by the rain. Men in dark suits rushed past him, umbrellas obscuring their faces.

“Zwei Marken eine blume! Two marks a flower!”
The four o’clock military convoy rumbled down the pockmarked street. It drove straight past the beggar, splattering the front of his ragged coat with mud. Drenching the flowers with dirty water and washing the color from them. The beggar didn’t even seem to notice.

“Eine Marke alle Blumen! One mark all the flowers!”

“Sie bitte eine Marke alle Blumen! Please one mark all the flowers!”

Day after day, people fooled themselves into thinking things would get better, secretly suspecting that they never would. Hope was no more lasting than the wisps of cigarette smoke that drifted off the glowing ends of the soldiers’ Manescos. Curling, twisting, disappearing into nothingness, leaving those who dared harbor it clinging onto their own folly. Even the young ones, who shouldn’t have known so much about loss, did not play in the streets anymore. After the Wall went up, East Berlin had little room for marbles and hopscotch, and even less for childish naivety.

“Come Adalie, time for dinner.”

Reluctantly, the woman turned around to face the dinner table. Martha ushered her husband into the dinner table. Frank took his seat at the head, while Martha came back precariously balancing the Bauernbrot in one hand and a large carving knife in the other. It was getting rather late, the woman thought to herself; Peter should really have been home by now.

“Come now,” Martha cajoled, “Bauernbrot was always Peter’s favorite-”

“Martha,” Frank harshly cut in. “Let’s not bring up such things.”

She glanced apprehensively at the woman. “I’m sorry Adalie...”

The woman turned towards the window as the rest of dinner passed in idle chitchat. Soon, Martha cleared their plates and went up to the bed. Frank settled into the tattered couch he had insisted on keeping against his usual, frugal self, shutting his eyes to the nightly radio broadcast.

“Eight o’clock is the direct time. Broadcasting live from Rundfunk DDR in East Berlin. Tonight, major news about yearly reports and earnings. Employment is rising by 2% under leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, and the annual war quota overfulfilled by a historic 7%. National approval ratings for Gorbachev are also up by 5% as of a recent census...”

The woman returned her attention towards the window. Politics, she mused... At the end of the day, what did they really matter? Words and numbers could not bring down the Wall.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Frank slowly drift off to sleep.

“...and international relations with the United States are stabilizing once more. News from East Berlin police: fourty-two year old Peter Schulz was shot illegally attempting to scale the Wall into East Berlin at 1900 yesterday night. His close family can be identified as Martha Wagner, Frank Wagner, and his wife Adalie Schulz. We would like to remind listeners that any and all attempts to bypass the border without proper authorization or lawful entry through various designated checkpoints is punishable as a capital offense. Trespassers will be unquestionably shot on sight. Friends and relatives are encouraged to report...”

Funny, the woman thought to herself, how familiar the names in the radio sounded. Peter Schulz... Didn’t her husband’s name like that? She brushed it off, trusting that Peter was still at work in West Berlin. He must have a late shift tonight. Then again, Peter had always been a hard worker, he’d left at six this morning. Soon, he would be back and they could catch up.

The woman continued to stare out into the iron curtain of night. Listening to the pitter-pattering of raindrops on the cold-water street. Waiting for Peter to walk down the wet stone path and knock gently on the door. Quietly, she silenced her demons and smoothed out her grey charcoal dress, wondering if sleep might overtake her before he returned.