Falling Walls (III)

Chapter 30

I knew that Aunt Dorothe was from the GDR, but no one had ever told me how she and mum's brother had met. To be honest, I had never asked about it. It hadn't even crossed my mind that they might have encountered difficulties when they first met. Why my mum chose this moment to tell me, I didn't understand though. But listening to her story would be better than crying my eyes out. Maybe there would be a moral to her story.

"Before you were born," mum began to tell, "when Uncle Jorg was still studying journalism, he had a casual job with a newspaper and sometimes he was sent over into the GDR. He usually didn't tell us. It worried your grandma too much. Anyway, during one of his visits he met Aunt Dorothe. He went back to visit her quite frequently and one day he brought Dorothe back. With the help of some friends they had managed to smuggle her across the border. After that, he became involved in human smuggling."

"He what?" My Uncle Jorg. I couldn't believe it. He was such a factual and serious person. Never would it have crossed my mind that he would have done something illegal, even if it was ethical.

"Hard to believe," my mum chuckled with a fake undertone. "You know, he wasn't always as serious. Jorg spent over a year in prison when they caught him."

"He what?" I couldn't believe I didn't know any of this.

"They caught him when he tried to cross the border with a mother and child. His friend, Fred, made it across with the little boy, but Jorg was caught. The West German government managed to buy him free after over a year. He wasn't the same when he returned."

"Mum, what..."

"Lisa, please listen." My mum's voice was breaking, her eyes seemingly in a place far away. A place buried a long time ago. "Fred asked Dorothe and me for help with the little boy. You were just a baby then and we had everything set up at home for a child, so they all stayed over at ours for the night. I still remember the deep blue of the little boys eyes. He must have been around three or four at the time. He didn't say a single word to us, he didn't cry, just followed every instruction. The only sound I heard from him was when you cried in the cot. He went into your room, sat down beside you and sang "Do you know how many little stars there are?"

"Mum, what are you trying to say?" I cried out. I felt confused, unable to comprehend what she was saying. Nothing soaking past the heavy blockage in my brain.

"The next morning Fred decided that we needed to take the boy to Social Services. He didn't know his name, had no idea if he had any family over here in the West or if his parents would or could come for him."

"Mum," I sobbed, hardly getting the word past the lump in my throat. "Why are you telling me this, why?" I now screamed, tears and snot running down my face, "Why, mum, why?" Of course I knew why she was telling me. "It makes no sense. It makes no sense at all. Tom has a name. He had a name when he was found."

My mum didn't try to soothe me. With the same empty glance she'd held throughout her story, she looked straight through me. "I gave it to him. He wouldn't talk to anyone. I thought that we should be able to identify that little boy if someone came for him. So before Fred left with him I went to the jewelers and bought a name bracelet. I never knew what happened to the boy I named Thomas after they left. I never asked. I didn't think I could cope with it. But I did follow the news and never once came across a case where someone was looking for a boy who disappeared under these circumstances, until the name I got engraved so many years ago popped up all over the tabloids. Please sweetheart. You need to understand that I did it in his best interest."

I didn't know what to think. I was sure that she did what she had out of good will. But why stay quiet for so long.

"I just don't get it mum. If this is really what happened, why didn't you say anything? I just don't get it."

"Lisa, I tried. You have to believe me." My mum was now begging me, both her hands holding on to my arms. "I mean, I hadn't thought through what exactly to say, but I have written to him and tried to call. I never got through to him. See, I hadn't heard about him during his sports career. Your father actually came across his name first in one of his financial magazines. Most of my attempts to contact him remained unanswered. But his secretary told me a few times that he had no interest in talking to me. I had written him everything several times.  When you're being told often enough that you're unwelcome you stay away, no matter how important the news are or how guilty you feel. I gave up. Not a single day past though that I didn't think about the little boy, the successful men and the truth that I knew. And then I'm reading that you are dating him. Lisa, my first thought was that he was playing you for the part I played in all this. You must believe me that everything I did was in the best interest of Tom when he was little and of you."

It took me a long time to comprehend what my mum had told me and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't find anything wrong in what she had done. She had tried to help and then protect. But what I really didn't understand was why Tom had turned down both Eva and my mum when they contacted him, and why and where he'd left. He didn't play me, did he?  I suddenly felt very sick.