A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism by Slavenka Drakulic

Author:Slavenka Drakulic
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-12-31T05:00:00+00:00

V

THE LEGEND OF THE BERLIN WALL—AS PRESENTED BY A MOLE

Dear Members of the Learned Society, Distinguished Guests,

Many, many generations of Moles ago, near the place where we are right now, there stood a massive concrete structure called the Berlin Wall. The well-known Mole Legend tells us that it was erected at several periods during ancient times, starting in anno domini 1961. When it was finished in anno domini 1975, it was 3.6 meters high and 140 kilometers long. As a collector of old Legends, and being interested in archaeology, I was curious to find out how much truth (if any) this Legend contained. For example, I find it particularly interesting that Men used to dig tunnels under this very Wall, as if they were Moles themselves. Was this only an invention of our ancestors? Apparently one such tunnel is said to have been 145 meters long—an admirable achievement and length, even by our standards. A Mole like me would need some seven to ten days to dig it, but then it would not be 70 centimeters high, as this one supposedly was. We Moles don’t need such high passages, as we would call them, because, quite obviously, we are much smaller than Men. Also, it was not the habit of us Moles to “escape” from one side of the then existing Wall to the other, which, according to the Legend, was evidently what triggered the digging of the tunnel in the first place. Living in the Underland, even then we Moles used to move everywhere, politely greeting our neighbors from what Men from the Overland used to call the “Other Side.” Of course, we never cared much about their different sides, but while investigating this part of the Legend about the tunnel, I slowly came to realize why they did. Men did not descend into our world without a reason.

Why did this long tunnel fascinate us Moles? I guess that we Underland creatures felt some kind of solidarity, even pity, because to dig with clumsily built bodies and without proper tools to make up for such a shortcoming must have been an exhausting job. Moles are by nature equipped for such work; we have paws adapted for digging. But poor Men must rely upon various kinds of substitute paws, like shovels and a variety of frightening, noisy machines that—for the very specific reason of secrecy—were not available to those who dug the legendary tunnel under the Wall. It had to be dug by hand, and therefore our forefathers must have felt sorry and tried to help Men by digging in front of them, making the soil more porous—or so the Legend goes.

Allegedly, Men started to dig this tunnel in anno domini 1964, soon after the Berlin Wall was erected. Except that it was not a concrete Wall right away, but a wall made out of barbed wire. As you know, normally, when we hear people digging, we run away. They produce vibrations that are very disturbing to us. Since we don’t see very well, we are very oversensitive to sounds.

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