A Hole in the Wall

A young girl living in a city divided by a giant wall goes to a secret place every day. She looks through a hole in the wall, wondering whats on the other side, and wishing to be free.

Many years before I was born the National Army built a twenty-foot high wall that divided Libren into two halves to keep the warring factions apart. They built the wall quickly and it took an odd route across the city so at some places it came right next to apartment buildings or shopping malls. In was in one such place that I found the hole in the wall. I used to go there after school to peer through it while sitting on a stack of crates behind a butcher’s shop. Few people ever came there, and this hole was carved through the stone as though someone chipped through it with a hammer and chisel.

 I remember going there on a cold October day after school when I was 16 years old. I wore a yellow scarf. The wind rushed through my long hair and the air smelt musty and dry. After the teachers let us out of school, most people went to play arcade games in the plazas or soccer in the dried out pitch behind the school. But instead I went to the wall and looked through the hole, sat on the crates and let my mind wander in that quiet corner of the city. I peered through the hole and day dreamed, wishing there was someone out there.

On that one cold October day a tremendous feeling of emptiness came up in me when I was looking through the hole. It seemed as though everything that ever meant anything to me was just a shadow, and there was no way anything could ever be spared from certain decay and ruin. I slouched over and exhaled, feeling like a vacuum sucked everything out of me. I had been going there for weeks to be alone and never did anyone appear to ask me what I was doing. It seemed that nothing I ever did would ever be noticed by anyone and I would be forever doomed to a life of hopeless desperation.

Then I noticed there was something stuffed inside the hole a couple feet down. I could see the round outline of a tube buried within. So I reached inside and stretched with all my might. My long skinny arms reached in through the rocks and jagged concrete corners. I grabbed the roll of paper with the tips of my fingers and pulled it out and the stone dust rubbed off on me smelling dry and earthy.  

It was rolled up tight and wrapped with a red thread of silk. I slipped it off, unraveled the message, and this is what it said�"

 

“Dear Stranger,

Loneliness fills my heart. Is there a way we can be together?

-Leopold.”

 

Leopold. The name rang within me. Leopold. Who was this strange man who left this note in the hole? I didn’t know any Leopold. It sounded like a strange name to me. I sat there a long time looking at the note in my hands studying the lettering and reading it over and over again. I had to know who this person was. So I got a paper and pencil from my school bag and scribbled a note.

 

“Dear Leopold,

With this wall between us it seems impossible. Someday it might come down, but until then I can listen. Will you tell me what’s wrong?

-Ana.”

 

I finished writing and stared at my penmanship. Then rolled it up, wrapped it with the thread and stuffed it back in the hole. I pushed it down as far as I could, but it didn’t get close enough to the other side. I looked down the jagged opening at my note. It had to go further or he would never get it.

I jumped down from the crates and looked for a stick. In the streets of Libren there weren’t many parks and I had to run a long time to find a place with a small bunch of trees. There, under some elms, I found a branch and started to run back. The people in the park gave confused looks as I ran through the field with the stick and one of them called out my name. I didn’t want to see him. It was Mikel from school. I ran by with my stick and stopped for a second at his call, and he had this look of curiosity and fascination. He called my name again and I kept walking. I didn’t want to talk. His friends leered over his shoulder like a pack of jackals. I hugged the stick to my chest and broke into a run, back to the hole so I could send in the note.

Once I got back there I poked the stick in and pushed the note through further. It was within inches of the other side now. Leopold could reach in and grab it. I sat there for what felt like about three hours thinking about Leopold and the note he sent me and the note I left for him. Then I went home to where my parents fought again, and I went to sleep on the narrow, hard mattress in the crowded room I shared with my two brothers.

*

The next day at school Mikel talked to me again. I sat in the lunchroom alone, quietly eating where groups of teenage kids sat on either side of me talking in their little groups. There was an empty seat next to me and without noticing his approach, Mikel came along quiet as a leaf and sat down.

“I saw you in the park yesterday. Why didn’t you stop and hang out?”

“It was nothing,” I tried to block him from getting to close to me. “I was just in a hurry. Had some errands to do for my mom. You know how it is.”

“Sure. Well, hey,” he said, “We’re going to the arcades after school. Come with us.” He meant him and a bunch of other people I didn’t know.

“Maybe.” I said to him.

He got up with a nod. The din of the lunchroom was all around us drowning out my thoughts. When he spoke to me it sounded as though he was at the end of a long tunnel. “It’ll be fun,” he smiled.

I frowned as he walked away and finished my lunch in silence. After school I didn’t go to the arcade. I went to the hole in the wall hoping for a new note.

There was one, and this is what it said�"

 

“Dear Ana,

Things get worse every day on the west side. Riots, fires, and shootings happen daily because people are so desperate for the war to end.  After I turned 18 in July, I was drafted into the service. Now I have to patrol the wall every day and fight this meaningless war. Being a company man here means people treat you like a pariah. I don’t know who dug this hole, but when I found it I decided to send a note through and check it every day on my rounds. I had almost given up when you wrote back. I must be very secretive about my messages to you or I could be held on suspicion of espionage. Write back soon.

-Leopold”

 

That was all he could fit on the scrap of paper. A great sadness came over me again as I looked over the note a second time. His desperation reached into me, twisted me around and I felt a deep connection to this boy on the other side. I wanted to know more about him. Why would he take such great risks to communicate with a stranger on the other side? I was curious and wondered what he might look like. Was he handsome? Was he tall? I imagined meeting him and throwing myself into his arms. I would rush though a cloud of brown and grey dust into West Libren shouting his name and we’d find a way to leave the city forever.

I folded the note and stored it in the pocket of my book bag with his first missive. Then with a paper and pencil I wrote my reply.

 

“Dear Leopold,

You have to endure so much. It must be very difficult to look strong through it all. Things for me aren’t much better. My father is a drunk who spends all his waking hours at the bar or fighting with my mother, often spending the money we need for food on beer. Last month we went three weeks without electricity and sometimes the water in our taps comes out cloudy and brown. Many people are sick, or look tired and dispirited everywhere I go. I tried to leave the city once, but the Conservative patrols found me after dark and took me back home in an armoured personnel carrier. No one under 18 is allowed out that late. This entire city is a compound and we are all the prisoners. Someday the wall has to come down, doesn’t it?

-Ana”

 

I rolled it up, wound it with the thread of silk, and shoved it back into the hole with the stick. I sat there for a while looking into the hole, then gazing up and off into the distance wondering about Leopold. After some time sitting on the crates the butcher’s son came out in a bloodied apron with a bag of garbage. He noticed me when he came out and asked what I was doing sitting there. I told him “Nothing,” and left in a hurry feeling vulnerable. But even walking away I looked back and hoped he wouldn’t notice the hole in the wall and what I was doing there.

For a long time I walked the streets not wanting to go home. I passed by the arcades and restaurants filled with the people eating and drinking and the smells of coal and burnt wood hung in the air. The sky became deeper blue as the moon carved out a white thumbnail and the stars poked out through the heavens. I watched people walk past me as I sat on a bench in the plaza. I recognized kids from school in the parking lot kicking around an empty can and surveyed the turmoil of the city. Everything seemed vacant and void.

But always my thoughts went back to Leopold and what his next note might be. No matter how bleak everything seemed I could always think of him and the image created warm, wistful sensations that I could not place. It was silly, and bizarre. What if I went back tomorrow and there was no note? What if he never responded to me? But no. I couldn’t think that way. Leopold, for some reason, cared about me and could relate to me. Of all the impossible things that could happen in this world, it was happening to me.

*

The next day I went straight to the hole in the wall after school. Mikel tried to get me to join him at the arcades again but as usual I told him I was busy. When the final bell rang I was already out the door. I raced across the street, down the avenue, through the square, around the corner, and into the alley where people were hanging rugs in the afternoon sun to dry. I ducked underneath one of them as I came behind the row of stores which ended with the butchers shop.

With such intense focus I scrambled up onto the crates and reached inside the hole. My heart was pulsing in my ears and my face was hot and flushed. Looking inside an enormous wave of relief came over me. Leopold’s note was there.

I held it in my hands and smiled. A heavy exhale came out of me as I slunk back onto one of the boxes to gather myself. His note was in my hands, bound with the same thread tight and firm. I could feel something rigid inside it, something square that wasn’t paper but I couldn’t be sure of what it was. I gripped the thread and started to roll it off and the silk tugged at the flesh on my finger. Then I heard�"

“Ana!” from down the alley. “Ana!” It was Mikel.

A million volts jumped through me at the sound of my name and the rolled up note tumbled from my fingers. It bounced, spun, and teetered on the edge of my grip and fell in slow motion between two of the crates. I shrieked.

“Whoa, what’s going on? What’s all this business about?” he asked me.

“I just dropped something because of you, idiot!” Distraught, I started casting about trying to figure out where it landed.

Mikel was confused. He said, “What are you doing back here behind these dirty shops?  This is a bad end of town. It’s not safe out here.” 

“I can take care of myself,” I said without looking up at him, but I knew he was staring at me intently. “Everything would be fine if you would just please leave.”

He said, “Ana... do you always come here? Is this what you’ve always been doing after school?” Concern stained his voice.

I didn’t answer him. I was trying to figure out what boxes to shift out of the way. I could see the note down there. Clumsily I dug in and pushed one sideways, scrambling and pushing the crates aside. I could see the rolled up note on the ground hidden under the shadows.

“What the hell are you doing? Can you hear me?”

It sounded like he was a million miles away and the scraping and banging of the containers drowned him out. I had them all spread out to either side so I could finally reach it and with a wash of relief I picked up Leopold’s note.

“What’s that?”

“It’s nothing. Just mind your own business, Mikel!”

“You are one strange girl,” he said. “You know what�"forget it. I don’t know what your problem is but clearly it’s something way too big for anyone to deal with. Running away after school to some alleyway by the wall, looking through a hole. What the hell are you looking at anyway? And what’s with that note?”

But his remarks only irritated me even more and I scowled, “I told you it’s none of your business!”

Then he approached me and reached out for the note. I turned away, giving him my shoulder, but he pressed on and tried to wrestle it away from me. Mikel was taller and he reached around as I hunched over trying to push him away. He grabbed the note and tried to tear it from me. I shouted, “No!” and turning to face him I struck out with a swift slap across his face. It sobered him and he withdrew in shock, his cheek fiery red.

“Ana, d****t!” He said as he rubbed his face. ‘What’s with you?”

I retreated from him and escaped down the alleyway out of his sight. With one final glace I saw him watch me flee, his face drawn with disgust. I held Leopold’s note in my hand and when I was in another secluded spot underneath a fire escape ladder, I unrolled the note and a picture fell out and landed on the dirty pavement. With a start, I picked it up.

He was beautiful. Only a couple years older than me, with dark hair and a wide jaw with a shy look in his eye. I sat there under the fire escape looking into the photograph observing the angles of his cheeks and chin, the arch of his eyebrows, dark and strong. He wore a dark jacket in the picture and seemed to be in a country setting. He smiled in that picture, a roguish grin as if to say “I’ve got a secret to tell you.” He was clean shaven too and his skin looked rugged, yet smooth. I wanted so badly to see this boy, to throw myself into his embrace and feel his firm hold. I wanted to be with him in that country field so he could tell me the secret he wanted to tell me, and I hoped that the wall would be torn down soon so I could finally meet him.

I hadn’t even read his note yet, so I put his picture in my jacket and read it. It said�"

 

“Dear Ana,

I hope you like this picture, it was taken at my Uncle’s farmhouse. I used to go there in the summertime to spend weeks and he would make me plow the fields and tend the livestock. Back then I hated every minute of it, but now I appreciate the time I spent there. That was the last time I was able to go there, sadly. If I could, I’d go back in a second but Counterintelligence Police arrested him for harbouring fugitives in his hayloft. The house belongs to the State now and they have migrant workers doing everything there. I hope you can send me a picture of yourself. I bet you’re the most beautiful girl in East Libren!

-Leopold”

 

No one in my entire life had ever called me beautiful before. Not even my own parents said it. When I looked in the mirror I seldom saw it. My blue eyes would stare back at me and seem as empty as two small fishbowls. My blonde hair hung about me in shaggy locks and I nearly always kept it tied back in a ragged ponytail. This only drew out my round flattish face even more. My cheeks were too wide, my eyes too big, my lips too thin, and my breasts too small. I didn’t think anyone would ever think I was beautiful.

Even still, I went to a photobooth and took some pictures of myself for $1 since there were no recent ones at home. The strip of pictures came out of the dispensing slot and there I was in all five frames looking bored and depressed. In one of them I had something resembling a smile, a little more so than the others at least, so I cut it from the strip to include with my message.

The sky was dark and the only people out on the streets were the Neighbourhood Patrols by the time I made it back to the hole. I wrote�"

   

“Dear Leopold,

It took all day but I finally got some pictures taken. I chose one of them but I still think it looks terrible. Maybe you’ll like it. As I write this it is very late and I have to head home, but just know that you’re always in my thoughts. I wish I could sprout wings and fly over the wall, past all the guard towers and barbed wire to where you are. They say the wall has to come down someday. Let’s hope it does soon.

-Ana”

 

And I rolled up the note with my photobooth picture, wrapped it with the silk thread, and shoved it deep down in the hole with the stick. By the time I got home, everyone in the house was asleep.

*

Morning sunlight shone through the curtains awakening me with a bright glare and the first thing I thought about was Leopold. I dressed and went downstairs and my whole family was in the kitchen. The radio echoed up through the halls as I entered to see them all huddled around it, captivated by the news broadcast. “What’s going on?” I asked. My father spun his head around at me, “Shhh!” and quickly turned back to the radio.

“They’re tearing down the wall. They’re finally doing it,” my older brother said, barely able to hush his voice. I stood frozen there with them, transfixed by the news. Our world was changing and none of us knew how to handle it. How would the two sides mingle? How many people would cry from being reunited with old friends and lovers from decades ago? What will happen when I finally meet Leopold?

My parents actually embraced each other and my brothers played in the street. These are things I hadn’t seen them do in a long time. Other people were out in the streets, out on the driveways, on the sidewalks, at grocery stores, talking about the wall. It had been around for 35 years and many people couldn’t remember a life without it. It had always stood with such an imposing prescience, like an indomitable bastion of fear and submission over both sides. As long as it stood, there was war. Its collapse meant that peace was at last coming to Libren.

It was a Friday and I skipped school to check for a note from Leopold instead. Surely he knew as well. Surely he’d be waiting for me and have a plan for us to unite. But there was no note when I got to the wall and I slunk down and sulked, wishing I knew where he was. It hadn’t been that long though, I thought, maybe later he’ll have time. I looked down the hole and my note was still there. He hadn’t gotten to it yet.

There was a massive blockade set up with grey tanks, big trucks, heavy equipment, and dozens of armed soldiers setting up the operation to tear down the wall. Heavy cables were being bolted into the top of the wall and they had these gigantic spinning saw discs they were using to slice one big chunk out. Squealing, pounding, drilling machinery like a construction site, and all the blue and red lights of the blockade whirling and flashing, reflecting off things like phantoms. The entire block was filled with people densely packed as if it were a rock concert. People were cheering, chanting, and shouting madly. Some young men were getting riled up and crazy, throwing rocks and bottles against the wall. Some kicked and threw themselves against it. Soldiers held them back from getting too close to the operation, but I didn’t see anyone try to attack the military men. They all just raged against the wall while many others stood back and watched.

The spinning, grinding saws sliced through the wall spewing grey dust and gravel everywhere. The cables were connected to a tank and after the technicians removed the saws it roared and ripped away the slab of wall and it fell flat like a gigantic domino with a terrible thump. I felt the ground shake beneath my feet and a great cloud of dust and wind whooshed out from under it. Everyone cheered in a deafening tumult of joyous cries and they all rushed the wall, surging past the line of troops. I was caught among this torrent and had no choice but to either move or be trampled. We all rushed the hole, pushing through to the other side.

After I was through and separated from the crowd, I looked around. I had never been to West Libren since the wall was built long before I was born. But I was disappointed with the fact that it really did look just the same as the east side where I had always lived. The small glimpse I saw through the hole hadn’t lied to me at all. And where was Leopold?

I began asking about for a man named Leopold. I spoke to everyone I could find. I spoke to bar owners, shop keepers, plumbers, and salesmen. Bankers, accountants, managers, cashiers, lawyers, store clerks. For days I asked people about him. Every day I would go to West Libren and ask everyone if they knew a man named Leopold, and I would spend the whole day asking people until the sky grew dark and my stomach felt empty and started to growl from hunger. Never did I find anyone who knew that man.

Then one day I saw him. There he was in the public square, standing by the war monument. After looking at that picture every day I knew his face so well. It was Leopold! I went up to him and he sensed me approaching. I said, “Leopold, is that you?”

And his smile was so gentle and warm. He said, “Oh my God, you must be Ana! I’ve been looking everywhere. I couldn’t send you that last note, the blockade kept me from it, but I did manage to get it after the wall came down and everything settled.”         

My throat welled up. My voice came out shaking. “It’s all right. You couldn’t do anything about it.”

“Now we can finally get the hell out of here. I’m so sick of Libren.” His eyes glinted and his lips curled playfully. His gaze held me in a smouldering fire, comforting me like a warm hearth after coming in from the cold.

“I am beyond sick of Libren.” I came close to him and reached out to touch his arm. I felt his warm flesh, the firm muscular forearm and soft, dark hairs. “Let’s run away Leopold. Even though the wall is down, nothing’s changed. It’s still the same world.”

His dark hair flowed on a breeze and he gave me a coy grin, like he had a million plans and I was the missing piece needed to complete them. “Come on,” he motioned for me to follow.

“Who is that girl talking too?” a woman said to her friend as they walked past us. I twisted around to look at her and caught her blue eyed glance for a moment. When I turned back to face Leopold, he was gone.

I never saw him again.

THE END