On the other side of the blue border. Dorit Linke on the other side of the blue border Linke on the other side of the blue border

Dorit Linke

On the other side of the blue border

To my brother Bert

JENSEITS DER BLAUEN GRENZE

Any use of text and illustrations is permitted only with the consent of the publisher.

On the other side of the blue border

We will meet Saxi at Kurfürsten Damm. And he will still have the same hairstyle with long bangs. And his BMW will be old and dented. But this will not bother Saxi at all. Yes, us too. We will be very glad to see you. And we will be terribly proud of each other.

Our bags are hidden under a rosehip bush. If anyone discovers them, it’s a disaster. The flask is secured to my belt with my mother’s strap with a gold buckle. She won't miss him, he's old and scary.

Now you have to wait for the right moment and take off running, then fall and crawl - just like once in the pioneer military sports game.

All around is border territory. Behind is a warning sign: “Forbidden zone! Entry and entry is strictly prohibited."

The location chosen was good, away from the patrol tower. Grandfather said that the main thing is not to get noticed by the patrols that will be walking along the shore. There will also be cars driving around with spotlights, they will illuminate the coast for kilometers. But after an hour of operation they are turned off - for cooling, as my grandfather explained. During this time you need to run to the water.

More precisely, to a huge stone near the water, you can hide behind it. It’s not far from it, the strip of sand here is not as wide as in Warnemünde. Well, in the water it’s not difficult to hide from the spotlights - you just need to dive.

I left a note for mom and put it under the blanket. I don't want her to worry. But, of course, she won’t be able to help but worry. He will be waiting by the pool, not suspecting that I am in a completely different place. Yesterday I almost gave myself away: I stopped the conversation when they started showing the weather forecast. Usually I don't care about him.

The island of Fehmarn is fifty kilometers away, a very long distance. But if the current helps, we will swim there in twenty-five hours. Now the wind is blowing from the coast. If only it could continue like this! We start when it gets dark, and at dawn, when the boats move in search of the fugitives, we will already be quite far away.

If a patrol approaches, we’ll just dive deeper and breathe through the tubes; yesterday I extended them with pieces of a garden hose. While I was fiddling with them in the basement, Frau Lewandowski's neighbor came and asked why it was. I told her something about the carp in our lake - they say, I want to observe them in their natural environment.

The water temperature is nineteen degrees. This is good. When we sail away from the coast, it will become colder, and no matter how much you train, it will still be very difficult. But we can handle it. We can do this. Finally, we'll be sailing soon! I am excited and at the same time calm, focused on what is ahead.

Andreas is pale. It's so good that he's here! I couldn't have done it without him. He smiles at me, but I feel: he is scared. Me too. You just can’t think about it.

Andreas holds the Black Felucca in his hand. This is for our Saxy-Yancy. The only issue of Mosaic comics missing from his collection. It came out in November '82. You won't find anything like this in the West, and we just have to bring it to Saxi. We promised.

On the cover there are pirates, fishing boats, high waves, lighthouse and people in turbans. Andreas looks at her, the picture turning blue in the deepening twilight. Surely he wants to open and leaf through the comic, but this is impossible - it is sealed in a plastic bag.

I put a note in the book with my parents' phone number. If something happens to us and someone finds the comic, they'll know who to call.

What would Saxi say if he saw us now hiding in the dunes, peering out to sea? I feel like I’m burning with excitement. It's a pleasant feeling.

I'm happy: we're about to start! After long months of preparation, for the first time I feel at ease, almost carefree. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. It smells like salt water and algae... I open my eyes again. Between me and the mirror-smooth surface of the sea, rosehips sway, and a little further away - sedges and reeds.

Saxi-Yancy would have stopped us - he's such a coward! Suddenly I remember - I involuntarily smile - how during a math lesson I poured rosehip seeds down his collar. Well, he was itching, he was jumping up and down! The teacher kicked him out of class.

Andreas unzips his wetsuit and hides the comic inside, among his documents: passport, birth certificate, tenth grade report card. My documents are also between the wetsuit and swimsuit. In the West, we will certainly need to somehow verify our identities.

Andreas seemed to notice my glance. He unzips it again, takes out a Felucca and hands it to me.

“Take it,” he says quietly. - You swim better.

This is true. Fear seizes me again. I can't bring myself to reach out.

“Well, take it,” he insists.

Our fingers touch, the comic passes from hand to hand.

I swallow hard and look out to sea. I don’t have the strength to look at Andreas.

“We will succeed,” I say.

We repeat these words to each other all the time. It is important. It will be difficult, very difficult. But we must believe that everything will end well, otherwise we will not survive.

We set out at twenty-one o'clock, as soon as the moon sets. It is barely visible between the trees - a thin sickle of a newborn month. There is practically no light from it, but still, it is better to wait for complete darkness. That's what my grandfather said.

A light wind blows from the southeast. Just what you need.

It was a nice day, muggy and hot. We arrived early. It was not worth appearing at dusk - unnecessary suspicions might arise.

First we swam, then we ate ice cream on the boardwalk, among the crowd of vacationers. I felt like a liar. For everyone it was an ordinary summer day on the Baltic Sea - but not for us. We looked at the blue water and knew that O will happen this night.

At some point I got distracted. Forgetting about everything, I licked the ice cream, looked at the little boy playing ball, felt the warmth of the sun, inhaled the smells of summer - and at those moments I was happy... And then suddenly I remembered everything again, and something sank in my stomach, like when you spin on a carousels.

Before lunch we tried to sleep a little on the beach among the dunes, since we wouldn’t have to sleep at night. But nothing worked out - we were too worried. I only managed to doze off briefly. Andreas tossed and turned for a long time, but could not relax.

Then we went to the dining room and ate pasta with tomato sauce. Athletes always eat pasta, it gives them energy. And we drank a lot of water, because we can only take a little bit of it with us.

Andreas touches my hand.

Below, on the beach, there are two spots of light. They're coming!

Andreas and I retreat even deeper into the bushes. He held his breath, I, too, completely turned to stone, pulled my head in, not daring to even glance in the direction from which the male voices were coming. This is the border patrol - they regularly patrol the beach looking for anything suspicious. If they have a dog with them, they will find us and it will all be over before it even begins.

The border guards speak quietly, the words cannot be heard. Shaking rays flashlights They carefully search the beach, creeping ever closer. Andreas presses against me. The light slides through our bushes, almost touching us.

And suddenly it goes out. The men stop. There is no dog with them - lucky!

One of them clears his throat. Why don't they move on? My heart is pounding so much that I’m scared: what if they hear him? Like in a story by Edgar Allan Poe.

A light flashes, this time very weak, its light falls on the face of one of the border guards. There is a slight smell of cigarette smoke. Both patrolmen slowly walk further along the sand.

“Damn...” Andreas takes a breath. - It passed...

The wind is cool and I'm starting to freeze. What will it be like in the water? We've already rubbed ourselves with Vaseline - we've used up more than ten tubes. It was Ulrich who advised him not to feel sorry for him. In water the body cools four times faster than in air. To avoid muscle cramps, you need to swim quickly. Our physics teacher Herr Kowalski would say: it is necessary to maintain a balance between heat production and heat loss. Vaseline will help reduce these losses.

I bought tubes at the pharmacy, two each time, so as not to be conspicuous. But the last time the saleswoman looked at me so strangely that I was scared. And I didn’t go there again.

You can't wear much under a wetsuit, it's too narrow. Underneath mine is a swimsuit, T-shirt and tights. They're already full of holes, so Mom won't be mad that I took them from her closet.

What would Ulrich say if he saw us now? I hope he didn't give us away.

Empty Vaseline tubes, along with our belongings and bags, are hidden in the bushes. After some time they will be found and the alarm will be raised, but it will not be today.

On the other side of the blue border

So, the book "Beyond the Blue Border" tells the story of two teenagers , Hannah and Andreas, who decided to escape from the harsh socialist GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany across the Baltic Sea. Yes, yes, you heard right - swim for dozens of hours through the cold layers of salt water to the illusory hope of leaving the gray hopeless reality.

To be honest, unlike many other teen books, the characters in this one have motivation. It's sad that writers often don't bother to mention the characters' reasons for doing something risky. It seems to adults that teenagers are like that, don’t give them bread, just let them do something deadly or illegal. But this, of course, is nonsense. But Dorit Linke's heroes have their reasons. And that’s why Hannah and Andreas are close to me in spirit, and I like to imagine them - tall and slender, Hannah with short straight shoulder-length hair and an oversized jacket, Andreas with thick golden hair and shadows under his eyes. During my time with these guys, I became so close that I can’t even call them characters. The characters are like cardboard dolls, obeying the hand of the puppeteer-author. But Hannah and Andreas are alive.

The same cannot be said about Saxi. I can’t miss this book sin, no matter how much you ask. Saxie is a whiner, a coward and a mean soul indeed. Apparently, the author tried to give the character (a character is a character) the image of a kind of little brother for Hannah and Andreas, the one who always blurts out all sorts of stupid things and gets into trouble. In theory, such a character should evoke tenderness. But no. The image of Saxie is so unpleasant that it feels like they are trying to feed me a piece of log under the guise of candy. Well, no, I won’t swallow that.

But besides Saxie there is Hannah and Adreas. And the gray reality of West Germany, excellently described by the author [author’s typo]. Seriously, I felt it with my whole soul, with my whole body - this oppressive weight on my shoulders, the weight of the lack of choice and a monotonous monotonous future. It’s clear how the guys decided to take such a desperate step.

The journey through the Baltic Sea itself is described dynamically and is easy and quick to read. You may catch yourself several times biting your nails to the ground, tearing out all the hair on your chest, or biting your lips until they bled (depending on the nervous habits of the reader). At first I thought that swimming for 20-30 hours was nonsense, and for trained swimmers, especially in wetsuits, with food, water and pills, it’s really a piece of cake! And now you understand that I only know about swimming in the sea, and let’s be honest, about swimming in principle only from the cartoon “Nemo” and two physical education lessons in the pool. Who would have thought how difficult it is! How extremely exhausting it is when the breathing tube rubs your gums until they bleed, when your muscles turn to stone, when your stomach contracts, pushing out salt water... How deadly it is, finally.

My expectations were not met at all. I expected that when they finally felt the bottom under their feet, they would both burst into tears. That when they get to the shore, they will lean back and lie for a long time, letting the waves roll over their feet, and look at the sky. That when they recover, they will definitely hug, and Andreas will squeeze Hannah in his arms until his ribs hurt. But how painfully the book hit my expectations!

What is the blue border anyway? Is it the Baltic Sea that separates dull reality from fairy tales? Or is this the line between the world of the living and those who perished forever in pursuit of a dream? And if in the first case we are trying with all our might to break through the blue border, then we will never want to cross the second.

To my brother Bert

JENSEITS DER BLAUEN GRENZE

Any use of text and illustrations is permitted only with the consent of the publisher.

© Magellan GmbH & Co. KG, Bamberg, Germany

© Komarova V.V., translation into Russian, 2017

© Ermoltsev D., afterword, 2017

© Edition in Russian, design. Samokat Publishing House LLC, 2017

On the other side of the blue border

We will meet Saxi at Kurfürsten Damm 1
Kurfürsten Damm - boulevard in Berlin; during the years of division of the city - shopping mall West Berlin. ( Note here and below. trans.)

And he will still have the same hairstyle with long bangs. And his BMW will be old and dented. But this will not bother Saxi at all. Yes, us too. We will be very glad to see you. And we will be terribly proud of each other.

Now you have to wait for the right moment and take off running, then fall and crawl - just like once in the pioneer military sports game.

All around is border territory. Behind is a warning sign: “Forbidden zone! Entry and entry is strictly prohibited."

To the island of Fehmarn 2
Fehmarn is an island in the Baltic Sea, territory of Germany.

– fifty kilometers, the distance is quite considerable.

But if the current helps, we will swim there in twenty-five hours. Now the wind is blowing from the coast. If only it could continue like this! We start when it gets dark, and at dawn, when the boats move in search of the fugitives, we will already be quite far away.

Andreas is pale. It's so good that he's here! I couldn't have done it without him. He smiles at me, but I feel: he is scared. Me too. You just can’t think about it.

Andreas holds the Black Felucca in his hand. This is for our Saxy-Yancy. The only issue of Mosaic comics 3
"Mosaic" ( Mosaik) is a popular comic book series. It began to appear in the GDR in 1955 and continues to this day in a united Germany.

Which is missing from his collection. It came out in November '82. You won't find anything like this in the West, and we just have to bring it to Saxi. We promised.

The cover features pirates, fishing boats, high waves, a lighthouse and people in turbans. Andreas looks at her, the picture turning blue in the deepening twilight. Surely he wants to open and leaf through the comic, but this is impossible - it is sealed in a plastic bag.

I put a note in the book with my parents' phone number. If something happens to us and someone finds the comic, they'll know who to call.

What would Saxi say if he saw us now hiding in the dunes, peering out to sea? I feel like I’m burning with excitement. It's a pleasant feeling.

Andreas seemed to notice my glance. He unzips it again, takes out a Felucca and hands it to me.

“Take it,” he says quietly. - You swim better.

This is true. Fear seizes me again. I can't bring myself to reach out.

“Well, take it,” he insists.

Our fingers touch, the comic passes from hand to hand.

I swallow hard and look out to sea. I don’t have the strength to look at Andreas.

“We will succeed,” I say.

We repeat these words to each other all the time. It is important. It will be difficult, very difficult. But we must believe that everything will end well, otherwise we will not survive.

A light wind blows from the southeast. Just what you need.

It was a nice day, muggy and hot. We arrived early. It was not worth appearing at dusk - unnecessary suspicions might arise.

Then we went to the dining room and ate pasta with tomato sauce. Athletes always eat pasta, it gives them energy. And we drank a lot of water, because we can only take a little bit of it with us.

Andreas touches my hand.

Below, on the beach, there are two spots of light. They're coming!

The border guards speak quietly, the words cannot be heard. The flickering rays of flashlights carefully search the beach, creeping ever closer. Andreas presses against me. The light slides through our bushes, almost touching us.

And suddenly it goes out. The men stop. There is no dog with them - lucky!

One of them clears his throat. Why don't they move on? My heart is pounding so much that I’m scared: what if they hear him? Like in a story by Edgar Allan Poe.

A light flashes, this time very weak, its light falls on the face of one of the border guards. There is a slight smell of cigarette smoke. Both patrolmen slowly walk further along the sand.

“Damn...” Andreas takes a breath. - It passed...

I bought tubes at the pharmacy, two each time, so as not to be conspicuous. But the last time the saleswoman looked at me so strangely that I was scared. And I didn’t go there again.

You can't wear much under a wetsuit, it's too narrow. Underneath mine is a swimsuit, T-shirt and tights. They're already full of holes, so Mom won't be mad that I took them from her closet.

What would Ulrich say if he saw us now? I hope he didn't give us away.

Empty Vaseline tubes, along with our belongings and bags, are hidden in the bushes. After some time they will be found and the alarm will be raised, but it will not be today.

And tomorrow at this time we will probably already be on Fehmarn.

Every now and then the search lights turn on, flooding the sand and our bushes with bright light. Then darkness again. The month is no longer visible.

Andreas rustles something. Well, clearly, he’s checking for the last time that everything is well packed. He has a bag attached to his belt containing four bars of dark chocolate—Saxy would be jealous! But a plastic tube with painkillers would not have caused any envy, nor would a roll of waterproof adhesive tape... And he would never have guessed why we needed a roll of nylon cord.

“Wrap the bag tightly around the chocolate and tape,” I whisper. - So that water does not leak.

“Yes, I see,” Andreas mutters in response and pulls the hood of his wetsuit over his head, under which his blond curls disappear. Puts on a lead belt. There are swimming goggles on his neck, a snorkel and fins in his hand. Just James Bond, dark and determined.

I’m probably not much different from him, only my wetsuit doesn’t have a hood. Instead, I put on a dark blue rubber cap. It reduces water resistance and protects against cold. I borrowed the wetsuit from Frank. He also gave me a compass - here it is, on my left wrist.

– Check that your ears are well closed? – I ask quietly.

Andreas knows all this very well, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat it. Water in the ears can cause big problems.

“And cover your forehead right up to your glasses, it’s very sensitive to cold.”

I pull black gloves on my hands. When you swim, your hands should be inconspicuous, dark, so that they are not visible. I take the snorkel and fins. We will put them on in the water, on our socks. Ulrich said this will help prevent chafing.

The blinding light of the spotlights creeps across the sand. We are waiting for them to finally be turned off.

“If only your grandfather wasn’t mistaken,” Andreas whispers. Because of the rubber cap, I can barely hear what he says.

Grandfather helped me choose right place to start. He didn’t suspect anything, even when I asked: if he decided to run across the sea, where would he start from?

He was happy about this question - discussing such topics is completely normal for him. And he told me about one sand beach, neither narrow nor wide, with large boulders near the water and overgrown dunes. We took a bus from Rostock to Kühlungsborn and came to this beach. Grandfather walked among the sunbathers, waved his stick and exclaimed: “Yes, yes, right here! And in no case further to the west, there is a border guard on the border there on the cape!”

What would he say if he were here now? Would you support me? Would you give any more advice?

I keep my eyes on the moving spotlight, and it seems to me that I see my grandfather on the beach, waving a stick. This was just about a month and a half ago!

Suddenly black night reigns. The spotlight disappeared. So it's time. Here it is, our chance!

“Grandfather was right,” I whisper.

Andreas clears his throat.

- How did he know?

From comrade Jonson, border guard officer. Once a month, his grandfather goes to the bowling alley with him, pumps him full of cognac and asks him about everything that is happening at the border. So we have, one might say, first-hand information. Unless grandpa did something wrong. But this cannot be ruled out: unfortunately, he often carries who knows what.

Andreas touches my hand and lets me know: it’s time!

Without getting up, I get all ready, ready to start. Andreas is next to me.

“Don’t forget that we are not swimming crawl,” I remind. – With your legs – like freestyle, and with your hands – like breaststroke.

Under no circumstances should we be noticed. This means that while we are in border waters, we need to make as little noise as possible.

If only Andreas could cope with the b O greater buoyant force of water. After all, this will be his first time swimming in a wetsuit. The wetsuit and weight belt were smuggled to him by relatives from Germany, and the package arrived only two weeks ago.

Ulrich gave me such a belt.

Somewhere in the branches of a tree above us a starling is singing. A sonorous song flies into the darkness, intertwines with the rustling of leaves, chokes for a second and appears again, now louder, now quieter. The starling will sing here tomorrow...

I look at the water, into the velvety blackness of the waves rushing onto the shore, and hear their quiet noise.

- Let's! – Andreas whispers.

I start running in my socks across the sand. It’s deep in the dunes, my legs get stuck up to my ankles, I almost fall. Andreas follows on my heels, also trips and lands on his hands. I run further, sand flying into my eyes.

Finally we are behind the stone!.. We freeze, listen to the night, breathe heavily. I smell algae, and on my knee I smell the sharp edge of some kind of shell. Here, near the water, the wind blows more noticeably and the sound of the sea is stronger - the splash of waves can be heard from everywhere, although the waves themselves are almost invisible. I can still hear the starling's song... Or is it just me?

My heart is beating like crazy, even though we haven’t swum even a meter.

We can still return - right now, before anyone notices us.

We enter the water. It is warmer than the air, which quickly cools after sunset. We walk slightly bent over. I giggle nervously, although there’s no time for laughter now: if they turn on the spotlight, they’ll definitely see us, whether we duck down or not. But, fortunately, everything remains in the dark.

When the water reaches my thighs, I stop. Andreas too. I take off my gloves and, holding them in my teeth, pull on the fins. It’s difficult, they don’t want to get on their heels. It would probably be better to do this on the shore, but then it would be inconvenient to walk through shallow water. To make it easier to pull, I sit on the bottom.

The unpleasantly cold water immediately penetrates the wetsuit, seeping between the clothing and the rubber skin. But soon it will become body temperature and begin to act as an insulator.

Finally! Fins are on. I get back on my feet. Because of the current, the bottom looks like a washboard, you can feel it even through your fins.

I put on my glasses and slide the tube through the strap loop to secure it.

Andreas takes a nylon cord from his bag and hands it to me. I tie the cord around his left wrist, pulling the knot tight. The second end of the cord is on your right wrist. Now we won’t get lost and will be able to give each other signals.

I still have my gloves in my teeth. The fur pricks my lips. I pull on my gloves, my hands shaking with excitement. Now everything will begin...

I take the mouthpiece of the pipe into my mouth. It puts pressure on the gums, but this is normal and will go away after some time. At least that's how it was during training. But I've never snorkeled for more than eight hours.

“I’m ready,” Andreas whispers.

I adjust the flask more comfortably on my stomach. Mom's strap holds her tightly. As long as it doesn't interfere with my movements. I couldn’t train with her – neither in the pool nor in the sea. If anyone had noticed that I was swimming with a flask, they would have been arrested immediately.

I turn around and look at the shore.

This is the last time I have a solid bottom under my feet. When will we feel it again?

I push off with my feet and swim. After a few meters, cold water seeps under the glasses. salty water. I curse quietly. You never get them on right the first time! I need to get up and adjust my glasses. I'm looking for the bottom with my feet. I can only feel it with the tips of my flippers, but I can handle it anyway.

“My bag is hanging loose,” Andreas whispers. He also has to stop and correct her.

I lift my glasses and water pours out of them. I press on the cups of the glasses to squeeze out the air and create a reduced pressure. It’s a little unpleasant for the eyes, but the water won’t flow anymore. And this is the most important thing.

I move my legs slowly, feeling my fins parting the water. I increase the range of movements - not much, so that the fins remain under the surface. The flask on my stomach is in the way, but tolerable.

The light sound of the waves is drowned out by my breathing. There is a tube in the mouth, which makes it audible especially clearly.

I make breaststroke movements with my hands - it’s not easy if my legs move like crawl, but I’m gradually getting used to it. Hands feel the resistance of the water. It is larger than in the pool - this is because the water is salty.

I go under the water, exhale, relax. The water brings me to the surface again.

Andreas's flippers flop nearby. He notices this and dives deeper. You can't make any loud noises now.

I breathe through a tube - this way I save on turning my head to inhale. Every movement is a waste of energy.

After a few meters I notice what I already know: swimming in the sea is not at all the same as swimming in a pool. And Ulrich is not around, no one gives instructions or advice. We can only rely on our own strength.

I hear the splash of waves hitting my body. Air bubbles rise from the dark depths.

We are slowly sailing out into the open sea, to the north...

* * *

– What records do you actually want to break?

Ulrich, in an orange tracksuit and red flip-flops, winked at me from the side of the pool.

I pulled my glasses off my head:

- Enough for today.

- Well, come on, you’ve already been swimming for three hours. Did you count the tracks?

- One hundred and seventy nine.

Ulrich narrowed his eyes.

– One hundred seventy-nine times fifty meters is eight thousand nine hundred and fifty meters. Wow! Get out and go to the shower!

I got out. The back of the head and right shoulder they ached from the cold water, and when they moved they crackled strangely.

“Frank and I are going to the diner around the corner now to play rummy.” Do you want to join us?

I nodded, took a towel and headed to the shower. The corridor, as always, was drafty. After standing for a few minutes under the hot water, she hastily dried herself off, got dressed and went outside.

Familiar swimmers stood in front of the pool and talked.

“Bye,” I said to them and turned the corner to the cafe.

Ulrich and Frank were already sitting at the table, with a deck of cards in front of them.

Ulrich turned to the bar.

“Coke for the kids, beer for the coach,” he told the bartender. Then he immediately dealt out the cards - I didn’t even have time to sit down.

It was very smoky inside. In the corner, three men were playing skat, and a woman was sipping beer from a large mug at the bar. About my mother's age, heavily made up, combed hair. She stared at Ulrich, but he didn’t notice anything. The music played softly - " The Power of Love» Jennifer Rush.

“You didn’t dry your hair,” Ulrich said reproachfully.

- Yes, it’s warm here.

“Oh, you’ll catch a cold with me,” he shook his head. – Frank, it concerns you too!

Frank also sat with wet hair. He immediately pulled his head in and hid behind the cards.

I got a good hand: cross king, jack, ten.

– Why do you even need to train so much? – Frank asked, peeking out from behind the cards. He looked past me - because of his squint.

- Just.

– Isn’t it boring to just float back and forth, without any purpose?

The queen of spades was missing for a good combination. I folded seven of hearts.

– I swim and think about something interesting.

The bartender in a sports jacket brought us drinks and silently handed them out.

Ulrich glanced at me quickly over the cards.

- About what?

- About books. Or I remember some poem,” I answered absentmindedly.

Frank scratched the back of his head thoughtfully. Ash hair stood up straight.

“Anything is better than thinking about the bottle openers you’re churning out at the factory,” Ulrich said, sorting through his cards.

Frank lowered his eyes in embarrassment. Unlike me, he was not suspended from his matriculation exams, and he got it. Leaning back in my chair, I solemnly, like an announcer at a May Day demonstration, announced:

– Every day I exceed the norm. If this continues, I can go to industrial design school. Maybe in two years.

Frank turned over his cards. We stared at them.

Frank finished his cola in one gulp and headed to the toilet.

-You cheated! – Ulrich shouted after him. The bartender poured the lady more beer. Foam poured over the edge.

Ulrich shuffled the deck without looking at me.

– If you don’t slow down the pace of your training, Hanna, soon you will really be able to swim to Geser 4
Geser is the closest Danish port to the GDR.

He began to deal out cards, I took them one by one.

- We can try.

Ulrich took a sip from his glass. One of his eyes twitched funny.

“There will only be one attempt,” he said quietly.

Frank returned and sat down in his chair.

“That's what I thought, Hannah,” he announced. – What if you want to train in Varno? 5
Varno is a river in Rostock.

Instead of a swimming pool? I can give you my wetsuit.

Ulrich froze with the cards in his hands and looked at me.

“Yes,” I nodded to both of them. - Want. I will swim up and down the river.

“Up and downstream...” Ulrich echoed.

“Then I’ll bring the suit on Friday,” Frank concluded and took his cards.

He won this round too. I didn't want to play anymore, so we left.

It was pouring like buckets outside. A bus pulled out from around the corner, and Frank rushed to the stop. I was about to run too, but Ulrich stopped me.

- Wait, I'll give you a ride.

- No need, it's such a hook!

But he, without listening, dragged me to his old, dying Skoda. Getting into the car, I hit my head on the counter - I was so tired from training that even my coordination of movements was impaired.

Jun 12, 2017

On the other side of the blue border Dorit Linke

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Title: Beyond the Blue Border

About the book “Beyond the Blue Line” by Dorit Linke

Dorrit Linke is a professional German writer who was present at the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was this historical event that formed the basis of her debut novel entitled “Beyond the Blue Border.” Many years have passed since this event, but new facts continue to emerge today, making it impossible to leave the past where it belongs. Many have heard about those who tried to escape from Germany at that time, be it an eastern or western republic. And many people know how many people died trying to save their lives. Linke's book tells only a small part of what happened at that terrible time.

The events in the novel take place in 1989. The main characters are inseparable friends Hannah and Andreas - just ordinary guys who have their own experiences, dreams, hopes. There are only a few months left before the fall of the Berlin Wall, but they don’t know it. They make a difficult but very important decision - to flee. After all, where the authorities have a tight grip on the throat, there is simply no life. Just as there is no future that the guys dream about so much. Hanna is expelled from school, and Andreas is sent to prison for his inability to control his feelings. They simply have nothing to lose, and it seems there is simply no other way out. Many difficulties await them on the path to salvation, but do they have the strength to cope with them?

In addition to the flight itself, Dorrit Linke also describes what life was like for two young guys in the GDR. Although it’s actually difficult to call it life, it’s more like survival in a world ruled by a totalitarian regime. And normal life is so close, over there, behind the wall, just stretch out your hand. There they do not prohibit having their own opinion and do not take away the right to express it; there are no rigid frameworks that limit a person’s existence to the minimum, to cattle who simply have to plow and receive a whip for it. They live there happy people. So close and so far at the same time. Reading about all these events is painful, scary, but certainly necessary.

The book “On the Other Side of the Blue Border” tells a heartbreaking story when you follow all the twists and turns of the main characters with bated breath, because you worry about them as for yourself. And you wonder who ever decided that they have the right to take away someone else’s freedom. After all, we are all human, and everyone has an irresistible craving for life. It is wrong and inhumane to take away a person’s right to decide exactly how to manage their life.

Dorrit Linke's book touches on an issue that is relevant at all times. It is worth looking at the mistakes of the past and preventing them in the future. It seems to be a simple truth, but there are those to whom it is alien. Thanks to the thoughts that the author shares with the world, as well as much more, the novel is definitely worth reading.

On our website about books you can download the site for free without registration or read online book“Beyond the Blue Border” by Dorit Linke in epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf formats for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and real pleasure from reading. You can buy the full version from our partner. Also, here you will find the latest news from the literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For beginning writers there is a separate section with useful tips and recommendations, interesting articles, thanks to which you yourself can try your hand at literary crafts.

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To be in the subject of this book, the reader, and especially the teenager, must have the following in their background. In 1945, Soviet troops took Berlin in difficult battles. The city was divided. The part that we controlled went to the German Democratic Republic. And in the one that is allied, West Berlin arose - an enclave living according to the laws Federal Republic Germany. In 1961, the GDR authorities built a wall separating West Berlin from the rest of the city and stopped the free movement of Germans from socialism to capitalism. The Berlin Wall became a symbol of the Cold War between the USSR and the Western powers and was called the “death strip”. According to various sources, from 125 to one and a half thousand East Germans died trying to overcome the Berlin Wall and find themselves in the “free West”. Including children, the youngest of whom were 10 and 13 years old. The border guards shot to kill...

A free and comfortable life was very close. They sought her in the most desperate ways. On the ground, ramming walls and checkpoint barriers with bulldozers and machines. Underground, digging a tunnel. By air, hang glider and hot-air balloon. And - by water, across the Baltic Sea. This is exactly how the heroes of the story, Hannah and Andreas, escape from the port of Rostock. They need to swim to the island of Fehmarn, territory of Germany. Some 50 kilometers - and here it is, the coast of Freedom! But how difficult it is to get to him... What drives young people (they are not yet 18) from hometown? Retrospectively - in Hannah's memories - their life unfolds before the reader. Very similar to the life of their peers in the USSR. “Those over thirty,” of course, everyone remembers this, they saw it with their own eyes. We have the CPSU, they have the SED. They have the SSNM (Union of Free German Youth) - we have the Komsomol (Komsomol). They have a “Bazaar of Solidarity with the Struggling People of Nicaragua,” and we have political information on the same topic. Pioneers, the war game "Zarnitsa", collecting waste paper and NVP (initial military training) - the GDR is a direct mirror of the Soviet Union! Only their ideological machine worked more mercilessly, the “younger brothers” in the socialist camp crunched the bones of dissidents very ferociously. Hannah is not accepted into the sports school with references “unable to represent the socialist Motherland in sports competitions.” The rhetoric of teachers is reminiscent of the times of the cult of personality in our fatherland: "Young citizens of the German Democratic Republic“who stand before us today are happy that they can take an active part in the truly epoch-making construction of a new world, when all peoples, under the leadership of their revolutionary parties, make the transition from capitalism to socialism.” Phrases about the influence of “class enemies” are constantly heard from the lips of mentors. Hannah's father, who worked at the University of Marxism-Leninism, went crazy (Hannah's grandfather venomously remarks that it was from this very Marxism-Leninism). Andreas's misdeeds turn out to be clearly incongruent with the punishment: he is placed in a special boarding school - a real prison. Hannah's entire future life is crossed out, not allowing her to pass her final exam and being sent to a factory. There is an obvious snitch in the class, neighbors openly snitch on each other... Was this really possible in the late 1980s, when Gorbachev’s reforms were already underway in our country?! Yes, says Dorit Linke, maybe. The GDR authorities were frightened by the perestroika that had begun in the USSR and tightened ideological control. It was especially hard, of course, on those who openly stood up for freedom of speech and individual rights. But Dorit herself, in her words, was not at all a “victim of the system.” On the contrary, life in the GDR instilled in her strong concepts of camaraderie, honesty, modesty, and the fact that material wealth is not the most important thing in life. The story told in the book is not autobiographical. The only thing that unites the writer and her characters is age and place of residence – Rostock. But deep sympathy and respect for everyone who found the courage to resist this system, who was ready to risk their lives in order to escape from its clutches, brought this book to life. At first it seems that the guys’ interests are purely mundane and material. They envy tourists from Germany, dream of Snickers, Nutella, Donald Duck, a David Bowie record, a BMW, which is a priori more luxurious than the German Trabant... Growing up, they understand that it’s not just the lack of beautiful clothes and delicious food (although for a Soviet person, the “Texas” jeans despised by East Germans, in which Yoni flaunts, that is, jeans produced in socialist countries, were a pipe dream). " Why do you want to do this?– Hannah asks Andreas, who has decided to flee the country. “Because I will never have the profession that I want to have. Because I will never be able to say what I think. You will always have to lie for the rest of your life. And I will always be separated from the team. And yet, no one here ever explains anything to anyone. Just follow orders and that's it.“ Herr Kuschwitz, do this— this and that— That! And nothing else! Objections will not be accepted!” They don’t want people, they want idiots!”

The guys would have to wait just a little bit: already in the fall of 1989, protest demonstrations began all over the country, a year remained before the fall of the Berlin Wall... But they rush into their desperate swim between life and death. The story is built on antitheses. The limited space of the pool, in which Hannah trains, swimming along a concrete wall, and the free elements of the open sea. Propaganda songs that teachers are forced to sing at school: “Only hatred burns in our hearts,” and Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” based on Schiller’s poems, which the whole class demonstratively sings in defiance of the teachers. And then, in the icy water of the North Sea, tired and lonely, they will be warmed not by political songs, but by ancient folk songs. And good poetry. And the hope of seeing a friend who is already there, on the free shore. Will the fugitives reach it?..

On the other side of the blue border. Dorit Linke on the other side of the blue border Linke on the other side of the blue border

On the other side of the blue border

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About the book “Beyond the Blue Line” by Dorit Linke

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