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The Berlin Wall - An underground operation
柏林墙——地下行动
Tunnel 29. By Helena Merriman.
《隧道29》作者：海伦娜·梅里曼
The plaque at 7 Schonholzer Strasse, in the trendy Prenzlauer Berg district of east Berlin, is easy to miss. Yet it marks one of the most astonishing episodes in the grim history of communist East Germany. For it was from here, in September 1962, that 29 East Berliners escaped to freedom via a narrow, 120-metre tunnel underneath the wall that had cleaved their city in two a year earlier. “Tunnel 29”, by Helena Merriman, a British journalist and broadcaster, began as a popular podcast, aired by the BBC in 2019 to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the wall. Happily, the written account is no less captivating.
这块牌匾位于东柏林新潮的普伦茨劳贝格区舍恩霍尔泽大街7号，很容易被人忽视。然而，它标志着共产主义东德严酷历史中最令人震惊的事件之一。因为正是从这里，1962年9月，29名东柏林人通过一条120米长的狭窄隧道逃往自由之地，一年前隧道之上的围墙将这座城市一分为二。《隧道29》由英国记者兼广播员海伦娜·梅里曼创作，最初是一个热门播客，于2019年由BBC播出，以纪念柏林墙倒塌30周年。令人高兴的是，文字形式的描述同样引人入胜。
The hero of the tale is Joachim Rudolph, whom Ms Merriman interviewed extensively in 2018. A young engineering student with a tragic family history, Mr Rudolph flees East Berlin less than two months after the wall’s construction — before concrete reinforcements, trigger-happy guards and wide strips of no-man’s-land were to render it almost unbreachable (at least 140 people were killed trying to escape from East Berlin before the wall came down in 1989). Safely ensconced at West Berlin’s Technical University, Mr Rudolph joins forces with a network of students and other activists aiming to smuggle out East Berliners. Yet unlike most of them, he is not seeking to bring loved ones over to the West. The motivations for his courage are hard to discern; he is not sure he understands them himself.
故事的主人公是约阿希姆·鲁道夫，梅里曼在2018年对他进行了大量采访。鲁道夫是一名年轻的工科学生，有着悲惨的家族历史，他在柏林墙建成后不到两个月就逃离了东柏林——在那之后加固的混凝土、喜欢开枪的警卫和大片的无人区使防线几乎无法被攻破（1989年柏林墙倒塌之前，至少有140人在试图逃离东柏林的过程中丧生）。鲁道夫安全藏身于西柏林工业大学，他加入了一个由学生和其他活动人士组成的网络，试图帮东柏林人偷渡出来。然而，与他们中的大多数人不同的是，他并不打算把亲人带到西柏林来。很难辨别他这份勇气背后的动机是什么；连他也不确定自己是否明白。
The narrative focuses on the escapades of the gang of young men who sought to burrow into the east from a plastic-straw factory in West Berlin’s Bernauer Strasse, which ran adjacent to the wall. Early enthusiasm soon yields to sagging spirits and abandoned attempts as the group confront a battery of obstacles, from water leakage and equipment shortages to the ever-present threat of Stasi infiltration. Well-justified paranoia drives them to rough up a well-meaning Ossi escapee who offers to help. A secret cash-for-footage deal with NBC, an American television network hungry for verite tales of cold-war Berlin, pays for vehicles and tools, though this later causes ructions within the team.
故事重点讲述了一群年轻人的刺激冒险，他们试图从西柏林伯纳尔大街上的一家塑料吸管工厂内挖地洞潜入东部，该工厂紧邻柏林墙。早期的热情很快就被萎靡不振的精神和放弃的尝试所取代，因为团队面临着一系列的障碍，从漏水、设备短缺到斯塔西渗透的无处不在的威胁。他们有理由恐惧多疑，这使他们粗暴对待一个主动提供帮助的好心奥西逃亡者。美国全国广播公司（NBC）是一家渴望了解冷战时期柏林真实故事的美国电视网络，该公司与这群年轻人达成了一项以现金换镜头的秘密交易，公司为车队支付车辆和工具的费用，不过此举后来在团队内部引发了骚动。
Politics hums in the background. John F. Kennedy, who became obsessed with the divided city, makes an appearance; so do Nikita Khrushchev, who enjoyed squeezing West Berlin, the “testicles” of the West, and Erich Mielke, the sadistic Stasi chief. The East German workers’ uprising of 1953 — the first crack in the German Democratic Republic’s edifice — is also evoked, as is the Soviet-sanctioned construction of the wall itself, characterised by Walter Ulbricht’s communist regime as an “anti-fascist protection barrier”.
政治于幕后嗡嗡作响。对这座分裂的城市着迷的约翰·F·肯尼迪出现了；喜欢捏西方的“睾丸”西柏林的尼基塔·赫鲁晓夫和残酷成性的斯塔西首领埃里希·米尔克也出现了。1953年的东德工人起义——德意志民主共和国大厦的第一道裂缝——也被唤起，还有苏联批准修建的柏林墙本身，沃尔特·乌布利希的共产主义政权将其描述为一道“反法西斯保护屏障”。
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Ms Merriman weaves these strands together skilfully, offering enough context to explain her characters’ actions without distracting from their adventures. Smells, sounds and tastes give texture to the story. The ecstasy that Mr Rudolph, brought up on flavourless eastern swill, finds in the pineapple jam he is served on reaching the West is a particular delight. The dusty claustrophobia of the dig, conducted in night-time shifts over months, is palpable.
梅里曼巧妙地将这些线索编织在一起，提供了足够的背景来解释她笔下人物的行为，并且不会偏离他们的冒险故事主线。气味、声音和味道为故事增添了质感。鲁道夫是吃着无味的东方剩饭菜长大的，他到达西方后，从菠萝酱中发现了令人沉迷的美味，这是一种特别的快乐。在晚上的轮班时间进行几个月的挖掘工作，那种充满尘土的幽闭空间恐惧仿佛真实可感。
The supporting cast is richly drawn, ranging from Siegfried Uhse, a gay, closeted hairdresser in West Berlin blackmailed by the Stasi into collaboration, to Reuven Frank, an NBC executive who threatens to resign when the Kennedy administration blocks the network from airing the film. (The politicians relent, and the documentary, available today on YouTube, is a triumph.) Most of the players find some sort of redemption in the happy denouement; the family reunions described in a late scene are moving. Ms Merriman’s well-crafted book does justice to the extraordinary bravery of her characters.
本书对配角也进行了详尽地描绘，从西柏林未出柜的同性恋理发师西格弗里德·乌斯——他曾被斯塔西勒索进行合作——到NBC高管鲁文·弗兰克，他在肯尼迪政府禁止电视台播放这部电影时威胁要辞职。(政客们让步了，现在能在油管上看到的这部纪录片是一次胜利。)大多数角色都能在快乐的结局中找到某种救赎；最后一幕描述的家庭团聚令人动容。梅里曼女士精心构思的这本书公正地描述了她笔下人物的非凡勇气。
来源：经济学人
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