Building a Nest

Klaus and Erike over forty and married, the father and mother of a teenage daughter. They were professors at the University of Leipzig in East Germany during the 1970s and 1980s, both of them dedicated Communists. It was a good life. They had a good marriage, it seemed.

A colleague, Roland, befriends Klaus. After classes, Klaus and Roland like to go out to the bars from time to time. One evening, they go out for a night on the town. Klaus really gets drunk. He has sex with a woman of the night without remembering anything the next morning.

While Klaus still has a hangover, Roland approaches him in his office and says, "I am a Stasi agent. So this is the deal: you spy on behalf of the state, and I don't show these pictures to your wife."

Then Roland shows Klaus the damning pictures. Klaus can't believe it! Roland shrugs his shoulders and suggests to Klaus that he spy on his wife.

"Everybody does it," says Roland. "It's no big deal. Nearly everyone is a spy in the Democratic Republic of Germany. Of course, it's for the love of our country, right?"

Then Roland asks Klaus for a drink. Klaus gives him one from a bottle of schnapps from West Germany that he bought on the black market.

That night, however, while making love with his wife, Klaus confesses that he is now in the employ of the Stasi. Erike kisses him hard on the mouth and replies, "Me too, my dear. I have been spying on you for a long time..."

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany no longer exists, swallowed by West Germany like a fly by a frog. Then the Stasi files are opened to the public. Nearly ten per cent of the people of East Germany were in the employ of the Stasi at one time, including Klaus, Erike and Roland.

Then Klaus understands the truth: his wife, Erike, was sleeping with his friend, Roland.

It's there in the file.