THE
BERLIN APARTMENT: A NOVEL
Author:
Bryn Turnbull
Publication
Date: August 27, 2024
Publisher:
MIRA
$18.99
USD | $23.99 CAD
“Wholly immersive and
impeccably researched, Bryn Turnbull’s tale brings the time vividly to life.”
—Toronto Star on The Paris Deception
For fans of Kate Quinn and
Kristin Hannah, this sweeping love story follows a young couple whose lives are
irrevocably changed when they’re separated overnight by the construction of the
Berlin Wall.
Berlin 1961: When Uli
Neumann proposes to Lise Bauer, she has every reason to accept. He offers her
love, respect, and a life beyond the strict bounds of the East German society
in which she was raised — which she longs to leave more than anything. But only
two short days after their engagement, Lise and Uli are torn violently apart
when barbed wire is rolled across Berlin, splitting the city into two hostile
halves: capitalist West Berlin, an island of western influence isolated far
beyond the iron curtain; and the socialist East, a country determined to
control its citizens by any means necessary.
Soon, Uli and his friends
in West Berlin hatch a plan to get Lise and her unborn child out of East
Germany, but as distance and suspicion bleed into their lives and as weeks turn
to months, how long can true love survive in the divided city?
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Excerpt
from The Berlin Apartment by Bryn Turnbull. Copyright ©
2024 by Bryn Turnbull. Published by
MIRA.
4
13
AUGUST, 1961
Uli stared out his
apartment window, his pulse beating wildly in his ears. Seven stories below, a
tangle of concertina wire ran the length of Bernauer Strasse, bisecting East
Berlin from West: onlookers on both sides of the wire watched, muttering, as green-uniformed
Grenztruppen, separated from the East German citizenry by a line of
Volkspolizei, jackhammered the cobbles to fix stakes into the ground and carted
in more spools of barbed wire, rolling it out with gloved hands.
Was it war? He
studied the faces of the border guards, searching for an indication of panic,
of fear, but they looked measured and resolute. Was it a planned operation,
then? A provocation?
He needed to find
Lise. He pulled on a shirt and trousers and descended into the fray.
Outside, the sound of
jackhammers was a relentless snarl that drowned out the fury of Berliners on
both sides of the wire, shouting their ire. In the East, a mishmash of
soldiers—police officers and border guards and members of the People’s National
Army—stood with their backs to the west, shoulder to shoulder, as guards
hammered stakes in place.
“Uli!”
He wrenched his
attention away from the barbed wire to see Jurgen’s stocky, sandy-haired
figure. “Have you spoken to Lise?”
Uli shook his head:
across the street, a scrum of people had formed around a nearby telephone box.
“I only just came outside. I’m still trying to piece together… What’s going
on?”
“Ulbricht’s sealed
the border.”
“Sealed it?”
“Yeah.” Jurgen bit
his lip, and Uli knew that he was thinking of his family, his brother and
sister-in-law and niece, living in Bernau. “People kept saying he was going to
do something, but I never thought…” He trailed off. “You’ve not seen Lise?”
“Not since Friday.”
Uli searched for a higher vantage point— a bench, the bonnet of a car—and
gestured for Jurgen to follow him toward a rusting Mercedes, parked on the
opposite side of the road. “Have you spoken to your brother?”
“I tried telephoning
Karl, but they’ve cut the wires. I heard they’ve sealed off the U-Bahn and
S-Bahn as well… I don’t think anyone can make contact.”
Uli jumped onto the
bonnet of the Mercedes. What purpose did it serve to cut the telephone lines?
He gave Jurgen his hand and tugged him up on top of the car: from here, they
could see past the guards and jackhammers to the bewildered East Berliners beyond.
“Lise was out of
town, wasn’t she?” Jurgen muttered. In the empty streets beyond Bernauer
Strasse, Soviet tanks rolled in and out of view in the direction of Brandenburg
Gate: Where was the answering military presence from the West? He turned,
hoping to see British or American troops: on a far-off corner, a pair of French
soldiers watched the growing crowd but made no attempt to move closer. Surely,
they had to intervene?
Uli turned back to
the barbed wire and his heart lurched: there, coming down Brunnenstrasse, was
Lise. He shouted her name and waved to catch her attention: she turned and
lifted her arm in response.
Uli leaped down from
the car and made his way toward the wire. He muscled past men and women with
Jurgen in his wake, rising onto his toes to keep Lise in his sights.
A shout rang up
behind him—“Fascists!”—and the crowd surged forward. He stumbled, and a West
Berlin police officer caught him before he hit the ground.
“Watch yourself.”
Uli straightened. “My
fiancée. She’s in the East,” he began, hearing in his voice the panic he was
trying, and falling, to quell. On the opposite side of the wire, Lise was
pushing forward too, her pale head visible as she tried to reason with a
Grenztruppe. “I need to speak with her, if you could just let me through, she’s
right there—”
The officer’s
expression was pitying and fearful in equal measure. “I have my orders. No one
is to approach the barrier,” he said. Across the wire, a second Grenztruppe
turned his head, listening to their conversation over his shoulder. “They’re
operating within East Berlin, we have no jurisdiction to intervene—”
“They’re tearing the
city apart!” Uli shouted, his rational mind reeling against the sheer absurdity
of what was in front of him. He took another step, searching for a break in the
wire. “If I could just talk to her—”
The officer’s grip on
Uli’s arms was mercilessly hard. “If you want to start the next world war, keep
going,” he hissed, before shoving Uli back. “There’s nothing I can do, mate.
Take it up with Walter Ulbricht.”
He stumbled into
Jurgen, trembling with a rage he’d never felt: an impotence, a helplessness
that he’d not experienced since he was a boy.
“Easy…this might only
be temporary,” Jurgen said, his hand steady on Uli’s shoulder. “We ought to go
to Brandenburg Gate. We might learn more about what this is—there will be
reporters, politicians—”
On the other side of
the wire, he watched as Lise’s own attempts to reason with a border guard
failed: she stepped back, looking distraught. “If Ulbricht really is sealing
the border, we need to act now. We need to find a way to get to Lise—bring her
across—”
“I know.”
Uli broke off
midsentence, wrenching his eyes away from Lise. Jurgen stared at him, resolute,
and his steadiness gave ground to Uli’s panic, helped him think beyond his own
fear, his own anger.
“We need to act now,
but whatever we do, it can’t be here,” Jurgen continued. He was right: they
couldn’t push through, not here, where there were so many people, so many sets
of eyes. “We find a break in the wire—a gap…” “They can’t be everywhere all at
once,” Uli said. “Further along,” Jurgen whispered back, and Uli’s heart
quickened. Across the wire, Lise stared at him, and he jerked his head, knowing
that Lise would understand—she nodded, and melted back into the crowd.
“C’mon,” he muttered,
and he and Jurgen took off down the street.
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