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Heinrich had never believed the stories promoted by the Soviet government and their East German underlings. Those in the West were demons. Those in the West were corrupt and horrible. How could he believe this? His grandmother told stories of pre-war Berlin and the huge family she'd had. Cousins everywhere, happy days. Most of the cousins who had survived had been able to make it to the West or at least the right areas of Berlin. His grandmother had been in Dresden and had never thought she wouldn't be able to make it back to her family.
So, no. His grandmother was the kindest person he had ever known. Even his parents told tales of the freer times before '61 when they'd had many friends in West Berlin.
Heinrich could not believe people could be all of that different just because of a fence.
Today, he would be able to find out in person.
He left his stark flat in the hulking concrete building he had lived in most of his life and walked out to the street wearing his long woolen coat.
It was overwhelming.
There were no cars driving. The streets were too full of people. All of them were walking toward the wall where the gates had been opened.
The atmosphere was silently jubilant, if there could be such a mood. It seemed nobody could speak because they were having trouble believing it.
Was this all a joke? Was the government just doing this to let them get to the gates and then slam them shut? Like an April Fools prank?
Was it a test? Would they pass through the gates only to be herded into trucks and shipped off to Siberia for proving themselves unloyal to the state?
But as they approached the turn in the road that led to the nearest checkpoint, the noise indicated anything but danger.
They could hear the distant sounds of cheers reverberating through between buildings. Beyond that, they heard laughter, and singing, and music.
Rounding the corner of a huge old office building, still pockmarked with bullet chips from World War II, the sound turned into a roar.
He caught eyes with a man beside him. In their gaze, they exchanged feelings of bewilderment, disbelief, and joy.
Then he was there. Two youths walked past him holding a section of chain link fence. A man carried the white and red bar that had once stopped cars while East German soldiers checked people's papers. It was under his arm, and he was taking it home much like a carpenter might carry a plank from the lumber store.
Before he even realized it, Heinrich was standing in the West. He was standing in West Berlin. There had been no guards with machine guns. He hadn't needed to dig a tunnel or hide in a hidden compartment beneath a truck. He was just there.
He did not know how long he stood there, just staring out at the scene. People were climbing sections of fence and looking over. Others were taking sledgehammers to the wall.
Now and again he would turn part of a circle, looking out into West Berlin, or back to East Berlin which was still stark but no longer looked so much like a prison.
Then, he saw her. She had brown hair and piercing blue eyes. He would never be able to explain why she alone stood out in the crowd. Nor could she tell anyone why his face called to her among the thousands there.
It was as though all grew silent around them as they walked toward each other. When they finally were standing in front of one another, huge tears poured down her lovely cheeks. He held out his hands to her and she rushed into him, crushing herself against him, hugging his neck, and sobbing into his chest.
He also felt tears rolling down his face and dropping into her hair.
At last, she pulled back and rubbed the tears from her face in embarrassment.
"Ost?" she asked him. A simple question; was he from the East.
"Ja," he nodded, laughing from the overwhelming emotions. "Westen?"
She nodded, too.
Time stood still again as he reached out to cup her cheek, then pull her close, then lowered his head to kiss her.
How long they kissed, he would never know. He would not have been surprised if he'd looked up after their lips parted and the streets were empty.
Instead, the streets were still teeming with people. She reached up and took his hand. They walked through the crowds, smiling and laughing and nodding to others as they passed.
Eventually, they find their way down a quieter street, but this one ended against the wall. Nobody was here yet. Perhaps the crowd had yet to work their way to this thick section with their sledgehammers.
The girl led him to the wall and put her back against it, beckoning to him with her finger.
"Wait," he said, fighting every instinct to attack her then and there. "We don't know each other's names."
"I will call you Ost," she said, biting her lower lip. "And you will call me Westen. Do we need more than that?"
"I fear I might, but I can live with that for now."
He took her hands in his and lifted them above her head, pinning her to the wall as they kissed and began grinding together. He could tell she loved the restraint but also struggled against it as he kissed her neck, her hands struggled against his as he nuzzled her, and her breath grew deeper and more ragged. Sensing her need, he finally released her hands. She moaned into his mouth when she could finally run her hands over his back, her nails scratching lightly as she caressed him.
Soon her hands drifted lower and released his pants. She then reached below her dress and pushed her panties down.
It was typical weather for that time of year, the temperature was only 11 or 12 degrees Celsius (lower fifties Fahrenheit), but the chill in the air didn't seem to bother them. They were creating their own heat.
He soon lifted her up, her legs around his waist, the strength of the wall lending him help in keeping her up. Her hand desperately sought between his legs and guided his manhood into her.
They looked into each other's eyes as he pushed in, and she gasped at the sensation.
"There it is," she moaned. "Yes, there it is, there it is."
An outside observer would not have understood her meaning, but in their tender union, what she said made absolute sense.
They were joined, just as their fragmented country was suddenly joined again.
He began moving slowly, and neither of them could tell where one of them ended and the other began.
Even her back became nebulous. It was as though she was merging with the wall somehow, and as he began moving faster and deeper, a dizzy sensation surrounded them.
Like a shared dream, to both of them it felt as though he was fucking her into the wall. It was like she was being absorbed by the decades-old bricks but also pushing a new opening into them.
Harder and faster they went. Her cries echoed in the deserted dead-end street, mixing with the sounds of celebration from the streets beyond.
It did not last long, but it was also an eternity. Their sexual union was one of those timeless encounters that transcend space and time. The wall, the bricks, his cock… her pussy hungry for him. He came first, but upon feeling his heat filling her, she followed soon after and their mingled cries - well, it was surprising that the sounds of their passion didn't split the wall entirely at that crumbling border between two ideologies.
They fell down upon the weed-strewn ground at the base of the wall and kissed in blissful silence. She began shivering, and he took his long woolen coat to cover them.
In the hours to follow, many people passed them, but they gave the young lovers wide berth and respected their intimate uniion. Heinrich and the girl made love several times, taking their time and getting lost entirely in each other.
In the waning hours of the night, Heinrich awoke to the sounds of rock chipping away.
He looked up to see the girl using an old piece of wrought-iron fence that had been lying nearby and chipping at the mortar of the wall. He sat with his elbow on the ground, his head resting in his hands, watching her with amusement.
At last, she got a brick free from the wall that had divided them for all of their lives.
She held it up to him to see, and with a wicked smile, she slammed it down on the ground. She leaned over and held up two broken halves with a satisfied grin.
"What is your name?" he chuckled.
"I told you," she replied coquettishly. "It is Westen?"
"You are not the West," he said. "You are someone with a name that I must know."
She gave a rueful grimace and handed him one half of the brick.
"We are caught in the moment," she said, pushing his hair back from his brow. "We must not let it overpower us. If we do, it will deceive us and tell us we are in love. We will get married and have children, and in five years we will wake up and realize we let romance carry us away and we never should have been together."
She tapped the half of the brick in his hands with her fingernail.
"But, if you find me in a month, or a year, or a decade, and we can fit these two halves together again? Then we will know the gods have truly smiled on us and we were meant to me."
"But…"
"Shh, no talking, Ost," she cautioned. "If we find each other, we find each other. If not, we will always have this night when East met West and magic happened."
She held up a warning palm and backed away from him. In the first rays of dawn, she disappeared around the corner of a building and left Heinrich wondering if it had all been a dream.
***
Thirteen months later, Heinrich boarded the U-Bahn at the Stadtmitte station. Life was good. He had a new job in tool and die at an excellent company, and he was climbing the ranks quickly. He had a new flat with lots of room. He had many friends and a very good life. He had dated precisely three girls since the wall had fallen. All of them had been quite taken by him. With all of them, it had ended in tears when he explained that there was a girl he was waiting for.
He reached his station and was about to leave the train when he saw her sitting in the next car on the train.
He calmly crossed between the cars and didn't say anything, simply sitting across from her and staring at her.
After perhaps a minute, she looked up and noticed his gaze. Her expression was curious at first, wondering why a man would stare at her so pointedly. Then recognition jolted across her countenance, and her hand went to her mouth in shock.
She reached down into her handbag and pulled out her half of the brick.
He opened his rucksack and pulled out his own half. She walked the few steps across the car and took his half, pressing it against hers. Every crack and crevice matched and it was whole again.
She put the pieces down next to his seat and he stood up. With one hand on the hanging strap to brace them, his other went around her waist to pull her close. She looked up with bright, happy tears in her eyes.
"It was stupid not to give you my name and address that night," she said, both devastated and overjoyed.
"Yes, it was," he agreed.
"I have been empty since last I saw you," she sobbed.
"So have I," he said as she lifted her hand to wipe tears from his eyes.
"Now, tell me your name," he said, kissing her forehead.
"It's Gretchen," she said.
"Last name?" he asked.
"It doesn't matter," she giggled, kissing his neck and chin, then lips.
"But it does," he countered.
"No, it doesn't," she said. "Call me old-fashioned, but I'll be taking yours."
They reached her stop and left the train hand-in-hand. That night they stayed in her tiny flat and somehow found a way to fit into her little twin-sized cot.
At week's end, with a few friends and family, and even Heinrich's grandmother, they gathered on the street where they had spent that magical night. The wall was no longer there, but construction crews had not yet had time to rejoin the street the wall had once divided.
When the pastor affirmed their vows, they did not exchange rings, but instead pressed their brick halves together once more. Heinrich's crew at work had fashioned a steel band that fit perfectly around the joined whole. The bride and groom pushed the band around the joined halves, twisted a tiny latch, and held it up for those gathered to see.
In the years to follow, the brick found a place of honor in every home where they lived.
So, no. His grandmother was the kindest person he had ever known. Even his parents told tales of the freer times before '61 when they'd had many friends in West Berlin.
Heinrich could not believe people could be all of that different just because of a fence.
Today, he would be able to find out in person.
He left his stark flat in the hulking concrete building he had lived in most of his life and walked out to the street wearing his long woolen coat.
It was overwhelming.
There were no cars driving. The streets were too full of people. All of them were walking toward the wall where the gates had been opened.
The atmosphere was silently jubilant, if there could be such a mood. It seemed nobody could speak because they were having trouble believing it.
Was this all a joke? Was the government just doing this to let them get to the gates and then slam them shut? Like an April Fools prank?
Was it a test? Would they pass through the gates only to be herded into trucks and shipped off to Siberia for proving themselves unloyal to the state?
But as they approached the turn in the road that led to the nearest checkpoint, the noise indicated anything but danger.
They could hear the distant sounds of cheers reverberating through between buildings. Beyond that, they heard laughter, and singing, and music.
Rounding the corner of a huge old office building, still pockmarked with bullet chips from World War II, the sound turned into a roar.
He caught eyes with a man beside him. In their gaze, they exchanged feelings of bewilderment, disbelief, and joy.
Then he was there. Two youths walked past him holding a section of chain link fence. A man carried the white and red bar that had once stopped cars while East German soldiers checked people's papers. It was under his arm, and he was taking it home much like a carpenter might carry a plank from the lumber store.
Before he even realized it, Heinrich was standing in the West. He was standing in West Berlin. There had been no guards with machine guns. He hadn't needed to dig a tunnel or hide in a hidden compartment beneath a truck. He was just there.
He did not know how long he stood there, just staring out at the scene. People were climbing sections of fence and looking over. Others were taking sledgehammers to the wall.
Now and again he would turn part of a circle, looking out into West Berlin, or back to East Berlin which was still stark but no longer looked so much like a prison.
Then, he saw her. She had brown hair and piercing blue eyes. He would never be able to explain why she alone stood out in the crowd. Nor could she tell anyone why his face called to her among the thousands there.
It was as though all grew silent around them as they walked toward each other. When they finally were standing in front of one another, huge tears poured down her lovely cheeks. He held out his hands to her and she rushed into him, crushing herself against him, hugging his neck, and sobbing into his chest.
He also felt tears rolling down his face and dropping into her hair.
At last, she pulled back and rubbed the tears from her face in embarrassment.
"Ost?" she asked him. A simple question; was he from the East.
"Ja," he nodded, laughing from the overwhelming emotions. "Westen?"
She nodded, too.
Time stood still again as he reached out to cup her cheek, then pull her close, then lowered his head to kiss her.
How long they kissed, he would never know. He would not have been surprised if he'd looked up after their lips parted and the streets were empty.
Instead, the streets were still teeming with people. She reached up and took his hand. They walked through the crowds, smiling and laughing and nodding to others as they passed.
Eventually, they find their way down a quieter street, but this one ended against the wall. Nobody was here yet. Perhaps the crowd had yet to work their way to this thick section with their sledgehammers.
The girl led him to the wall and put her back against it, beckoning to him with her finger.
"Wait," he said, fighting every instinct to attack her then and there. "We don't know each other's names."
"I will call you Ost," she said, biting her lower lip. "And you will call me Westen. Do we need more than that?"
"I fear I might, but I can live with that for now."
He took her hands in his and lifted them above her head, pinning her to the wall as they kissed and began grinding together. He could tell she loved the restraint but also struggled against it as he kissed her neck, her hands struggled against his as he nuzzled her, and her breath grew deeper and more ragged. Sensing her need, he finally released her hands. She moaned into his mouth when she could finally run her hands over his back, her nails scratching lightly as she caressed him.
Soon her hands drifted lower and released his pants. She then reached below her dress and pushed her panties down.
It was typical weather for that time of year, the temperature was only 11 or 12 degrees Celsius (lower fifties Fahrenheit), but the chill in the air didn't seem to bother them. They were creating their own heat.
He soon lifted her up, her legs around his waist, the strength of the wall lending him help in keeping her up. Her hand desperately sought between his legs and guided his manhood into her.
They looked into each other's eyes as he pushed in, and she gasped at the sensation.
"There it is," she moaned. "Yes, there it is, there it is."
An outside observer would not have understood her meaning, but in their tender union, what she said made absolute sense.
They were joined, just as their fragmented country was suddenly joined again.
He began moving slowly, and neither of them could tell where one of them ended and the other began.
Even her back became nebulous. It was as though she was merging with the wall somehow, and as he began moving faster and deeper, a dizzy sensation surrounded them.
Like a shared dream, to both of them it felt as though he was fucking her into the wall. It was like she was being absorbed by the decades-old bricks but also pushing a new opening into them.
Harder and faster they went. Her cries echoed in the deserted dead-end street, mixing with the sounds of celebration from the streets beyond.
It did not last long, but it was also an eternity. Their sexual union was one of those timeless encounters that transcend space and time. The wall, the bricks, his cock… her pussy hungry for him. He came first, but upon feeling his heat filling her, she followed soon after and their mingled cries - well, it was surprising that the sounds of their passion didn't split the wall entirely at that crumbling border between two ideologies.
They fell down upon the weed-strewn ground at the base of the wall and kissed in blissful silence. She began shivering, and he took his long woolen coat to cover them.
In the hours to follow, many people passed them, but they gave the young lovers wide berth and respected their intimate uniion. Heinrich and the girl made love several times, taking their time and getting lost entirely in each other.
In the waning hours of the night, Heinrich awoke to the sounds of rock chipping away.
He looked up to see the girl using an old piece of wrought-iron fence that had been lying nearby and chipping at the mortar of the wall. He sat with his elbow on the ground, his head resting in his hands, watching her with amusement.
At last, she got a brick free from the wall that had divided them for all of their lives.
She held it up to him to see, and with a wicked smile, she slammed it down on the ground. She leaned over and held up two broken halves with a satisfied grin.
"What is your name?" he chuckled.
"I told you," she replied coquettishly. "It is Westen?"
"You are not the West," he said. "You are someone with a name that I must know."
She gave a rueful grimace and handed him one half of the brick.
"We are caught in the moment," she said, pushing his hair back from his brow. "We must not let it overpower us. If we do, it will deceive us and tell us we are in love. We will get married and have children, and in five years we will wake up and realize we let romance carry us away and we never should have been together."
She tapped the half of the brick in his hands with her fingernail.
"But, if you find me in a month, or a year, or a decade, and we can fit these two halves together again? Then we will know the gods have truly smiled on us and we were meant to me."
"But…"
"Shh, no talking, Ost," she cautioned. "If we find each other, we find each other. If not, we will always have this night when East met West and magic happened."
She held up a warning palm and backed away from him. In the first rays of dawn, she disappeared around the corner of a building and left Heinrich wondering if it had all been a dream.
***
Thirteen months later, Heinrich boarded the U-Bahn at the Stadtmitte station. Life was good. He had a new job in tool and die at an excellent company, and he was climbing the ranks quickly. He had a new flat with lots of room. He had many friends and a very good life. He had dated precisely three girls since the wall had fallen. All of them had been quite taken by him. With all of them, it had ended in tears when he explained that there was a girl he was waiting for.
He reached his station and was about to leave the train when he saw her sitting in the next car on the train.
He calmly crossed between the cars and didn't say anything, simply sitting across from her and staring at her.
After perhaps a minute, she looked up and noticed his gaze. Her expression was curious at first, wondering why a man would stare at her so pointedly. Then recognition jolted across her countenance, and her hand went to her mouth in shock.
She reached down into her handbag and pulled out her half of the brick.
He opened his rucksack and pulled out his own half. She walked the few steps across the car and took his half, pressing it against hers. Every crack and crevice matched and it was whole again.
She put the pieces down next to his seat and he stood up. With one hand on the hanging strap to brace them, his other went around her waist to pull her close. She looked up with bright, happy tears in her eyes.
"It was stupid not to give you my name and address that night," she said, both devastated and overjoyed.
"Yes, it was," he agreed.
"I have been empty since last I saw you," she sobbed.
"So have I," he said as she lifted her hand to wipe tears from his eyes.
"Now, tell me your name," he said, kissing her forehead.
"It's Gretchen," she said.
"Last name?" he asked.
"It doesn't matter," she giggled, kissing his neck and chin, then lips.
"But it does," he countered.
"No, it doesn't," she said. "Call me old-fashioned, but I'll be taking yours."
They reached her stop and left the train hand-in-hand. That night they stayed in her tiny flat and somehow found a way to fit into her little twin-sized cot.
At week's end, with a few friends and family, and even Heinrich's grandmother, they gathered on the street where they had spent that magical night. The wall was no longer there, but construction crews had not yet had time to rejoin the street the wall had once divided.
When the pastor affirmed their vows, they did not exchange rings, but instead pressed their brick halves together once more. Heinrich's crew at work had fashioned a steel band that fit perfectly around the joined whole. The bride and groom pushed the band around the joined halves, twisted a tiny latch, and held it up for those gathered to see.
In the years to follow, the brick found a place of honor in every home where they lived.