CONFESSION WITH BLUE HORSES by Sophie Hardach

So hard to believe that it is 30 years ago since the breaking down of the wall that divided the city of Berlin - east vs west, communism vs democracy, freedom vs oppression. It took a while but it is really only in recent years that the stories are beginning to come out. Terrible stories of betrayal, torture, imprisonment, people disappearing, families destroyed, life lived in fear, any individual thought or action subject to intense scrutiny.

It is the 80s, and the Valentin family, living in a small flat on the east side of the wall, are quite fortunate compared to many others.  Parents Regine and Jochen have good jobs as writers, and with their three children Ella, Tobi and baby Heiko live in the shadow of the wall. The time comes though when Regine and Jochen have to leave, plans are made, but in the process of escape things go terribly wrong. Regine is imprisoned, the two older children remain in the care of their grandmother, and no one knows what has happened to Heiko or Jochen. Twenty years later, Ella and Tobi are living in London, now grown up and getting on with life. Ella has never really adjusted to life following the escape attempt and its consequences - too many unanswered questions, including who betrayed them. One day she receives a packet in the mail from the new owner of the flat she and Tobi lived in when they first arrived in London. It contains notebooks from the time their mother was in prison, and it sets Ella on the trail of trying to solve the mysteries of their childhood. And at the centre of it all is a painting of three blue horses.

Her search takes her to a Stasi archive in Berlin, where she meets a young American intern Aaron whose job it is to painstakingly put together all the files that the Stasi shredded, for whatever reason, keeping the shreddings. Together they embark on what would seem to be the impossible and hopeless task of locating the Valentin family files.

Ella is the main narrator of the story - a naive, silly and funny child of ten. As an adult in her early thirties she is alone, tired, lacking in direction or ambition. Too much in her past to resolve for her to be able to focus on a future. Aaron is also a narrator, carefully and diligently trying to put together the appalling life stories he is uncovering, the pointlessness of it when no one is around to read them. Until Ella turns up, giving him that motivation he needs.

This is such a well told story, so sad, heart breaking really. Yet out of all that pain, good things happen. Ella finds out what happened to her family, putting a number of ghosts to rest, in the process finding some peace and giving her the drive to go and make something of her life.