Friday Fiction: The Fat Suit

The following is a draft excerpt from my novel, Gyeosunim. If you haven't read my previous novel, Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary, be warned that while there are no spoilers, you may be missing some context.

“Bollocks,” said Charles, as we walked along Kurfürstendamm, past the Europa-Centre and the remains of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, the ruined spire of a once-massive cathedral and all that remained after the bombing and attacks at the end of the Second World War. At mid-afternoon, the sun shone along the shopping centres and expensive shops, while well-dressed citizens went about their business along the wide sidewalks. “Bollocks,” he said again, as though I hadn’t heard him the first time.

“What can we do?” I said, immediately regretting my words. Charles wanted to do something and didn’t need my comments.

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” he said, “we’re going to be there at Alexanderplatz.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said. “They want you on the western side of the tunnel to meet with Gunther. It was quite clear that I was forbidden from crossing over to the east.”

“You aren’t an employee of the FIO, you don’t take orders from them. You take orders from me. There’s nothing to prevent you from crossing through Checkpoint Charlie as a tourist, roaming Unter den Linden, and snapping photographs of that blasted radio tower. You brought your camera?”

“As instructed.”

“Good. In three days, I want you to play the tourist. Walk through the allied crossing. Make your way to the rendezvous point. Take lots of photographs. Have lunch and then return the way you came. I doubt that Moore has even thought to put a man on you.” Charles snorted as though remembering an old joke. He stared at me while we walked and I stopped, forcing him to pull up.

“What is it, sir?”

“I want you to wear a disguise.”

“A disguise?”

“Damn it, Axam, pay attention. You’re not my echo.” He started walking again and we crossed the massive, double-boulevards of the Ku’damm and Joachimsthaler Strasse. The crowds on the pedestrian crosswalks made it feel that I was in New York City, minus the highrise buildings. It was a cosmopolitan neighbourhood but still screamed that it was European. Charles remained silent as we crossed the intersection. When we were across the street, he reached into his pocket and produced a UK passport, which he placed in my hands. “Can you make yourself look like this?”

I opened the passport and turned to the page with a photograph. It was me, but doctored. The photograph showed my face but it had a thin beard and moustache covering it. My hair was longer and was a shaggy mess. A pair of glasses sat in front of my eyes, though my vision was perfect. “How did you… ”

“We have people who can do this, Axam. I had this made up as soon as Sir Harold summoned me here. Right away I wanted you to come with me, but as a precaution, in case you and I crossed into East Berlin, I wanted your true identity kept a secret.” He held out his hand and I passed the passport back to him. “There’s more to the disguise than glasses and facial hair.”

“I can’t grow a beard in three days.”

“You’ve already begun to grow it,” he said. “Let’s see how you do with four-days growth, shall we?”

“And what was that about there being more to the disguise?”

“Ah! I’ve had a package delivered to your hotel. Keep it safe.”

We stopped in front of a hotel, and Charles stepped toward the curb, where a black limousine was waiting for him. The driver, leaning against the rear of the car, nodded to Charles and then moved around to the driver’s door and got behind the wheel. I looked at the name of the hotel across from us: Hotel California. “You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave?”

“Right,” said Charles, getting the reference but failing to respond to my joke. “I’ll leave you here, Roland.” He leaned into me and with a much lower voice said, “Remember, no shaving. I want you looking as close to your passport photo as possible.”

“Alexander James Carson,” I said, quoting the name on the false passport.

“I look forward to meeting him,” said Charles, opening the rear door to the idling Mercedes and getting in, without so much as a look back. The car pulled out onto the Ku’damm and headed west. The street to my own hotel was only a few more blocks further down.

“Thanks for the lift,” I said to myself. I started walking toward my hotel, leaving the Hotel California behind, thinking about my venture into East Berlin, under disguise. Would I be able to cross over, and once in the east, would I ever be able to leave?

***

The package was behind the front desk. It was a large box of about the same size and dimensions of two cases of wine, stacked upon one another. I carried it up to my room but didn’t open it right away. Charles’ instructions to me were to keep it safe, but there were few places that I could stash such a large box.

I placed a call to a secure CSIS operator, who patched me through to Kristen, who worked in the office of the Privy Council of Canada. Though it was only mid-morning in Ottawa, I took the chance that she would be at her desk, and I was in luck. She knew that I worked for CSIS but didn’t know exactly what I did within the organization. But she knew that my job periodically involved travel, which meant that I could go several days without speaking to her. I wanted to hear her voice and let her know that I was safe. She knew that I was in Germany but not much else. Hearing her voice, I was beginning to wish that Charles hadn’t ordered me to join him on this excursion. His constant arguing with Nigel Moore, his hissy fits whenever Moore and Sir Harold Kent declined to provide him certain bits of information, citing need-to-know privileges. In particular, Charles was perturbed that the precise location of the tunnel between East Berlin and West Berlin was being withheld. “How am I kept in the dark if I am to be there when Gunther comes through?” he shouted in frustration.

“You’ll know the whereabouts when we take you,” Sir Harold had said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“I miss you, Roland,” Kristen said over the phone. “I keep thinking about our last night together.”

“That was wonderful,” I said. On these secured lines, I never knew if someone was monitoring the call or not, but I didn’t care. “I can’t wait until I get back. I want you, naked, in bed, when I come through the door.”

“Only if you’re stripped down and naked by the time you reach the bedroom door. When will you be back?”

“I should expect no more than a week.”

“You’ve already been gone a week. And that seemed like an eternity.” Though I had travelled outside Ottawa a couple of times, on business, I had usually gone no further than Montreal or Toronto. On those trips, I had been away for no more than a week. This was the first time that I had travelled overseas without her, and that had been when we took a trip to Scotland, when Siobhan and Kristen had met for the first time.

We chatted for about twenty minutes before she told me that she had to get back to work. “I love you, Roland.”

“I love you too, Kristen. I’ll be home soon.” Home. Though we had only been together for just under a year, we had already moved into a small apartment near Hog’s Back, the waterfalls along a fault line on the Rideau River, just upstream from Carleton University. At Hog’s Back, the Rideau Canal split from the river and led to the heart of the capital. Our balcony on the twenty-second floor looked south, down to the start of the canal and to the falls. We had moved into the apartment, together, last September, just before the autumn leaves turned colours. Even though we had only been dating for six months before we decided to live together, we had already realized that we were meant for one another. I couldn’t wait for this mission to be over so that I could be back in Kristen’s arms.

I rang off and decided to open Charles’ package. What I found took me completely by surprise. Inside, I found a pair of circular glasses that matched those from the doctored photograph. There was also a latex abdomen built into a tank top and buttocks built into a pair of underwear. I held it up against me and saw that, when worn, it would produce the effect of a beer belly, giving me a paunch for the very first time in my life. A pair of white running shoes had a sole that would add about two inches to my height. A wig gave my hair more body and length up top, and I found a small container of hair gel. Finally, there were faded black jeans and a grey hoodie, large-sized, to accommodate for the added fat that the body suit would provide.

I tried on the fat packs, which, when worn together, easily added about twenty pounds to my appearance. I pulled on the jeans and hoodie, and used the provided clips to attach the wig to the top of my existing hair. It matched the sides and back of my natural colour perfectly, and was made to be an extension to my own hair. I didn’t use the hair gel but knew that when I was ready to, it would make the wig look even more real.

I placed the glasses on my face and looked in the mirror. The pieces of glass were plain and were the riskiest part of my disguise. Anyone who looked at them closely enough would know that there was no magnification to the lenses, in which case I would not have been allowed to wear them as an accessory for a passport photo. Anyone scrutinizing over my paperwork would raise a red flag. It was a risk, apparently, that Charles was willing to take. But I saw myself and remembered the passport photo. With four days of facial growth, I just might make myself look like an Alexander James Carson.

I removed all of the disguise and placed it in my backpack, which I had finally unpacked earlier this morning. I paid special care with the glasses and wig, putting them safely in their own compartments. I moved the platform running shoes to the closet, with my suit, and added the hair gel to my toiletries in the bathroom. I then broke down the box and placed it beside the wastepaper basket, noticing that the pizza box from last night had been removed. I changed into my own jeans and t-shirt, and headed out into the city streets. Tonight, I was going to try to find a bar with good German food and beer, and, with any luck, local, live music.

Tonight, I didn’t want to be Alexander James Carson or even field agent Roland Axam. Tonight, I just wanted to be me, the man that Kristen Caan had fallen in love with.

***

Even in the cool, Berlin spring air, the fat suit under the hoodie and jeans felt hot. I hoped that I wouldn’t sweat too much or worse, that I would chafe in sensitive areas. I had started my morning at Hotel Kurfürst’s dining room, where I had a continental breakfast with lots of coffee. I was dressed in my own jeans and t-shirt, not wanting to draw the attention and curiosity of the hotel morning staff, who had become accustomed to seeing my normal self.

After breakfast, I returned to my room, where I picked up the backpack, filled with all of the disguise items and the Minolta camera that I had brought to Berlin with me, and headed out, down Bleibtreustrasse to the Kurfürstendamm, and east, to the Bahnhof Zoo Station. Yesterday, Charles had had me visit the station and find the men’s restrooms so that I could go, this morning, without delay.

The main area of the train station was spacious, with no benches to sit upon, no trash bins in which to throw waste. It also meant that I could see Charles, watching the large schedule board that announced coming and going trains, and their destinations. He was in a light blue windbreaker and casual black trousers, with a driving cap upon his head. A few Berlin police officers patrolled the vast space, keeping vagrants from sitting on the polished-marble floor. I cut across Charles’ path without a word and neither of us looked at one another. I entered the washroom and headed straight into a vacant toilet cubicle. Other travellers were in the washroom, shaving at one of the sinks or pissing against a concrete wall, where urine collected in a trough on the floor, below, and ran down a drain.

As quickly as I could, without falling into the toilet, I changed out of my own clothes and into the disguise. I had practiced putting on the wig without a mirror several times over the past couple of days and had mastered it. Emerging from the stall, all I had to do was apply the gel to the false hair, making it fashionably messy. While I busied myself at one of the rows of sinks, my peripheral vision detected Charles approach the sink to my right, where he began washing his hands. The backpack was between us and after I had returned the jar of hair gel to the pack, I washed my own hands and examined my work. I nearly convinced myself that I was Alexander James Carson.

When it looked like no one was paying any attention to us, I turned to the hand dryers, leaving my backpack next to Charles. When my hands were dried, I found Charles behind me, awaiting his turn. The backpack was over his shoulder, making him look like a fellow traveller, ready to find his train. We bumped into one another as I passed, and it was at this moment that Charles expertly placed the fake passport into the large pocket on the front of my hoodie. I left the station without looking back.

I headed east, along Budapesterstrasse, until I came to the Landwehr Canal, not far from the British Foreign Intelligence Office safe house, where Charles and I had been all week for the mission briefing. Not wanting to push my luck, I crossed to the opposite side of the canal and continued until I reached Potsdamer Platz and the infamous, graffiti-covered Berlin Wall. From this point, the wall ran straight eastward, and I followed along its length. Within a few vacant blocks, the wall came close to the Martin-Gropius-Bau building, a nineteenth-century museum of cultural arts that had been heavily damaged at the end of World War II. Boards covered the windows and graffiti covered the walls and what was left of sculptures that flanked the main entrance, which now faced a few feet from the foreboding wall. There was less than ten feet between this derelict building and the Berlin Wall, and bushes coming out from the broken sidewalk made the corridor even tighter. No sooner had I entered this passageway when three young men, only a couple of years younger than me, came from the opposite end of the building, moving toward me. With the Minolta around my neck, I immediately worried that I might be mugged in this secluded spot. I couldn’t afford to get involved in a skirmish, as they would soon discover that I was in a disguise. I contemplated turning around but such action would appear obvious that I was looking to flee, and that might make matters worse.

I kept my pace and maintained eye contact, switching my gaze to each person. When we were close, I said, “Guten morgen.”

“Tag,” said two of the youths, in unison, greeting me in kind. We passed one another without incident and my ears became sensitive as I listened for their footfalls, moving further from me.

Past the former art museum, I spied a wooden structure against the wall. A set of stairs led to a platform near the top of the wall. Knowing that I might not get an opportunity again, I climbed the structure and gazed over. I could see a vast, empty space that must have been the length of a football field. Spaced every few hundred feet and in the centre of this expanse were tall street lamps, meant to light up this no-man’s land at night. No doubt, I told myself, this chasm was set with landmines and trip wires that would trigger automatic machine guns. Directly across from where I stood, a sentry tower looked out to West Berlin. I could see men inside the hut at the top of their tower, so I used the zoom lens on my camera to gain a better look. I was met with a soldier, looking straight back at me through a pair of binoculars. With my free, left hand, I waved to this East German guard. Or was he Russian? He didn’t wave back; instead, he continued to watch me through his binoculars, so I snapped a photo of him before descending from my lookout platform.

After another block, I came to a street that was cut off by the wall, and another building that was close to the barrier made me decide to head south and seek the next intersection, where I turned onto Kochstrasse and continued for one more block before I came upon Friedrichstrasse. Looking north, I could see a small hut that read Checkpoint Charlie on a sign above it with large lettering. Beyond it, the DDR checkpoint, which had advanced with the time and looked like a customs stop between Canada and the United States. Checkpoint Charlie, by comparison, looked like it hadn’t changed since the end of the war, after the city was carved up by allies.

This was it.

“Don’t bother interacting with the soldiers at Checkpoint Charlie,” Charles had briefed me the other day, “they’re more for the tourists than anything. They won’t stop you from going over, but if you approach them, they may want to register you on a list, with your passport, and we don’t want that. Head straight to the pedestrian entrance to the East German customs station. Those blighters like to make people sweat and will scrutinize your passport, but don’t worry. Our folks did a marvellous job on your credentials. Just hang tight, and you’ll get through. I expect that they’ll be easier on your return crossing, as long as you don’t buy anything that you bring back. Level head, Axam.”

I didn’t want to have the DDR guards make me sweat: I was already doing a good job of it in the fat suit.

To my surprise, there was a lineup to cross into the east. A couple who were backpacking, carrying all of their possessions over their shoulders; a middle-aged man in a rumbled, brown suit, his round face in need of a shave; two men, about my age, who looked like they were out-of-uniform American soldiers; a slim woman, in her mid-thirties, in a blue blazer and matching skirt, carrying an equally slim, black briefcase. Everyone seemed solemn, not wanting to draw undue attention to themselves. Even the two soldiers in civilian attire and the backpacking couple kept their conversations to low murmurs, refusing to break out into smiles. Everywhere around us, warning signs told us to remain in line, to approach the border guards one at a time and only when summoned. The large border station was between the vast expanse, with fences preventing anyone from straying into the no-man's land. The bleakness, compounded by the warnings, made me feel more anxious than I already felt.

Eventually, I was called forward by a young man who was no older than I was, dressed in a plain green khaki uniform. His short, blonde hair was missing the cap that I had seen other border guards wearing. He was standing behind plexiglass with a small basin, large enough for documents and he spoke through a small microphone that amplified his voice just above a whisper. I passed him my passport and he spoke English.

“What is the purpose of your visit to the Deutschland Democratic Republic?”

“Tourist. Sightseeing.” I held up my camera for emphasis.

“For how long will you be sightseeing?”

“A few hours,” I said, not elaborating.

He stared at my photograph for a long time, making me wonder whether he was trying to determine that the photograph was real or whether I was able to successfully match the image. After what seemed like several minutes, he produced a slip of paper, wrote something on it, and then stamped it. He placed the slip inside my passport. “You will not lose this paper, yes?”

“I’ll keep it in my passport.”

“You must present it when you pass through the border again.” He requested twenty-five deutschmarks, which he exchanged for East German currency--miniature notes on thin paper. Charles had told me that this was a requirement for passing into East Berlin, and had given me the money. The East German border guard handed me the notes, which were of no value outside of the DDR, along with my passport, and directed me out a set of doors that led me out onto Friedrichstrasse.

I followed this narrow street northward, noting the bleak, post-war buildings, whose grey, concrete facades lacked any character. These cold structures were mixed with other buildings that had been bombed during the war, with the open cavities that had been devastated sealed up with bare, concrete walls, like fillings in damaged teeth. I noticed few people walking the street, save for the off-duty American soldiers and the backpacking couple. The soldiers walked in sync, as though they were marching, but at a slow pace. The backpackers were consulting a map, but we all seemed to know that we had to get all the way to Unter den Linden before we could begin to see anything that looked like a tourist attraction. Though I couldn’t see anyone in any of the windows in the buildings that I passed, I couldn’t help but feel that I was being watched.