The Threshold Between Tall Tale and Truth

          My father was six years old when he first told a lie. It was a lie that altered the future of our family forever. As a young child, I would hear whispers about the lie, but its truth remained concealed behind a kind of mystical veil. I knew it was wrong to lie, and I often wondered if my father would one day reveal his sin to me, but I dared not ask. 

          I was happy with the stories he did tell me, for to this day my father is the best storyteller I have ever known. My favorite stories were the true accounts of his life as a bachelor at sea when he sailed the world’s oceans as a ship’s cook: stories of mysterious stowaways, of violent storms, and of exotic faraway places. 

          I was nine years old when I realized that my father had actually never been the cook on a ship. I felt betrayed then, kicked out of the paradise of childhood imagination, and I begged him to tell me “eine wahre Geschichte, Papa”---a true story. He paused for a long time, gazing out of our little red kitchen window. Then, first slowly and soon with more confidence, he told me the true story of the lie. As I have grown older, others have shared their version of events, and this is the truth as I understand it now. 

          The younger of two boys, my father was born in Greifswald, a small town on the Baltic Sea in what was then the German Democratic Republic. He grew into a bubbly and curious boy whose antics brought my grandmother much joy—most of the time. 

          Like the majority of East Germans in the 1950s, my grandparents were economically deprived by a regime that subjected them to constant surveillance and robbed them of basic freedoms. However, they felt a deep sense of belonging with each other and did the best they could to live in truth.

          My grandfather trained car mechanics for a living. He had already attracted the ire of the regime by marching in the Uprising of 1953. Now, some of his apprentices were taking the benefit of their education and bolting for the West. It was suspected that my grandfather knew of their intentions to flee but was not reporting them to the Stasi as a “dutiful” citizen would. This was true. He had thus been labeled a dissident—a title he carried with much pride until the day he died. Things were getting dicey for him, and my grandparents feared that his arrest was imminent. They had to act.

          One night, whispering in a pitch-dark kitchen because it was considered suspicious to have lights on after 9 p.m., my grandparents hatched a plan: My grandfather would travel to East Berlin by bus and from there board a train to West Berlin. He would travel without any possessions. My grandmother and the children would follow three days later with minimal luggage. If pressed for their destination, they would claim that they were making a brief visit to a relative in the West. They would not share these plans with anyone, not even with my grandfather’s mother or the children, but especially not with their spirited youngest son. 

          And so it was that a week later my grandmother found herself standing on a busy platform at Berlin's Ostbahnhof with her boys by her side, her trembling hands clutching the same small brown leather suitcase that had held all her belongings when she fled her beloved Silesia a decade before. Her hair coiffured into perfect large curls and fastened with bobby pins, she stood stoic in nervous anticipation of boarding a train for West Berlin. She knew that if she and the boys aroused any suspicion, they would be detained, and she would never see her husband again. 

          Noticing her absent-mindedness, my father tugged at her plaid wool skirt. My grandmother gazed down at him. 

          "So, where are we going anyways?" he inquired. 

          "Oh, just visiting Aunt Gertrude in West Berlin," replied my grandmother, unfortunately sounding not at all convincing. 

          "Aunt Gertrude? Who is that?" wondered my father too loudly. He paused and then exuberantly proceeded to answer his own question. 

          "Stimmts? Papa ist in den Westen geflohen.”---Dad fled to the West, didn't he? He grinned and then confidently continued: “And, we are going to join him, right?"

          My grandmother was horrified. How did he know? But precisely then, the train pulled into the station, they boarded, and found their seats. 

          At once, the train conductor flung open the door. "Tickets, please," he shouted as his shoes clip-clopped down the aisle. My grandmother held out the tickets. 

          "Where to today, lads?" the conductor inquired, staring intently at my father and his brother. 

          My grandmother looked hopefully at her older boy, but before he found the words, my father chirped, "Oh, we’re just visiting my Aunt Gertrude.” 

          The train conductor peered at my father who sensed the conductor’s doubt. 

          Hesitating briefly, my father added, “It’s her birthday. And, she bakes the best chocolate cake." He grinned.

          The train conductor’s skepticism dissipated into a smile. 

          "Enjoy that cake lad," he said as he punched the tickets and handed them back to my grandmother. 

          "I will," my father beamed. 

          As the conductor stepped away, my grandmother closed her eyes and exhaled. The train started to move. Three miles to freedom. My father gazed out of the silver-lined railcar window but does not recall the weather. It appears to have been “meist bewölkt, böig auffrischender Wind”---mostly cloudy with gusty, invigorating winds.

          My father had lied, but he had done the right thing. How could both of those truths exist at the same time?