Helga Schütz Grenze zum gestrigen Tag (Doorway to the Past) Aufbau-Verlag, 2000. 303 pp. ISBN 3-351-02384-7 Welcome to a book that is almost lyrical in its evocation of a way of life that is now part of history. The setting is an isolated cottage beside a lake that at one time formed part of the frontier between East and West Germany. The family who live there are four in number: Hugo, a musician; his wife, the narrator, from whose perspective the story is told; their small son Niklas and baby daughter Betty with her rosebud mouth. Betty does not develop as she should. She is found to be suffering from a mysterious ailment and is never able to walk. The family's life is constructed around her as her parents struggle to stimulate her development, relying on pills smuggled in by brave visitors from the West. Anecdotes about life by the GDR frontier abound. One concerns a dog that gets trapped in the barbed wire. The family, together with a helpful neighbour, try to rescue it at the risk of being shot. They are discovered by a young border guard who, instead of arresting them, helps them in their task. When the barbed wire is replaced by a concrete wall which obscures their view of the lake, the family defiantly build a small pond in their garden. Hugo is eventually allowed to travel to Locarno with a music delegation. While he is away Betty dies. The narrator is last seen working in the churchyard, for she has never been in paid employment - a crime in the GDR. Her story, bitter and tender by turns, and with warmth and humour in its descriptions of human behaviour, is punctuated by flashbacks to her peaceful village childhood, to the bombing of Dresden, to her first boyfriend and to her uncle Gerd, killed near Smolensk. Helga Schütz was twelve when the GDR was founded and has spent all her life in the East. This deceptively understated tale, assembled with an experienced film-maker's eye, contrasts strikingly with the novels from swinging modern Berlin.