We played under smoggy skies. Soot dusted everything—the cement-slab yard, Manfred’s white Trabant. I remember East Germany in drab grey tones: the fortified border, watchtowers with searchlights, concrete walls, barbed wire. Khakied Grenztruppen with machine guns at the checkpoint—haggling over documents, rifling through possessions, scouring for western contraband. Fear seized my ten-year-old self as they ripped apart our rental Ford, rough hands assessing my Malibu Barbie, my brother’s glossy NHL paperback. Dad not quite my age when he’d escaped. How could I ever be half as brave?

July 1979. Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” topped the dance charts, Martina Navratilova defeated Chris Evert at Wimbledon. But my anxious brain fixated on Skylab, the American space station fallen from orbit and hurtling toward Earth. Nine storeys tall, weighing 77.5 tons, its fiery impact was anticipated smash-bang in the middle of our trip. No one knew exactly when or where the decaying space station would crash, not even NASA, who’d determined risk of human injury from falling debris was one in 152. Skylab’s final orbit was projected over parts of central and eastern Canada, where we lived. What if it destroyed our house while we were away?

Entire East German villages were disappearing, razed for crappy brown coal. Houses on quaint cobblestone streets, centuries-old, bulldozed by the communist government. Whole communities shoehorned into brutalist plattenbauen, concrete tower blocks overlooking desolate open-pit coal mines. Roitzsch, Dad’s childhood home, was next. Word reached us through the family grapevine. If he wanted to see his village again, place flowers on his grandparents’ grave, it was now or never.

East Germany had its own distinct stench: oily Trabi fumes, burnt brown coal, chemicals belched from Bitterfeld factories. In the dismal bathroom at the border, wafts of industrial-grade Wofasept assaulted my nostrils, Lysol gone wrong. I’d needed to pee, clenched my legs as the Ford idled in the snake of cars down the autobahn, inching toward the crossing. “You’ve got to hold it,” Dad warned. Checkpoint Grenztruppen were Stasi, secret police, drunk on power. Dad flagged one, explained my predicament. Through the windshield, we spied him pointing at us, exchanging terse words with comrades. “Uh oh,” said Dad. “Are we in trouble?” But no, they just grudgingly hurried their checks of cars ahead. Air charged as Mom and I walked the gauntlet to the ladies’ room—stupid Canadians who’d violated protocol. Dad and his sister had slipped out on the interzonal train, without proper papers, hiding when the Soviet guards had passed through. I couldn’t even hold my own pee.

So many rules: Obtain entry permit. Register with police within twenty-four hours. Stay at authorized hotels or with family, provide names and details of each East German citizen in the household. Remain within your designated zone; special permission required for travel elsewhere. Exchange copious amounts of western currency daily. Report back to police for permit to leave.

Americans held Skylab watch parties; guests brought binoculars, telescopes, crash helmets. Jokesters donned Chicken Little outfits, T-shirts with bull’s eyes. Other nations were on high alert: Canada reeling from the flaming crash of a Soviet satellite up north the previous year; Belgium poised to sound over a thousand air-raid sirens. No Skylab buzz in East Germany, though. Stasi controlled all media; western newspapers and broadcasts were verboten. Radio silence fuelled my anxiety.

We stayed with Dad’s cousins, Isolde and Manfred, while my parents registered with police. Ran our cheery blue Smurfs over dark furniture, whispered secret passwords through the wooden gate. Gaped in wonder when Isolde offered us a banana in English; we’d had no idea she could speak anything but German. Oblivious, too, to demeaning communist officials, the harassment my parents faced at the police station.

In every photo, my brother struck a rigid military pose, channelling the Grenztruppen, the tension that hung over everything. I lay awake at night on the sagging mattress, bracing myself for Skylab’s impact.

We visited relatives I’d never met. They pinched our cheeks, showered us with treats. Chocolate that tasted like chalk; communist Club Cola, flat and medicinal to our western palates. We’d never eaten so much pork schnitzel, spicy sausage that made us gag. We missed Coke and Maple Leaf hot dogs, but knew better than to complain.

Dad stayed up late with Manfred, drinking grainy beer. German chatter down the hall as I tossed under sheets, the faint murmur of TV voices. Most East Germans watched West German news in secret, but nobody dared admit it. Over breakfast, Dad shared an update: Skylab had dropped to about 120 miles above earth; NASA was declaring July 11 as the re-entry date, around 3:30 p.m. European time. Just over forty-eight hours away.

We drove to Roitzsch, plattenbauen jutting into the sky like giant gravestones, grim reminders of the village’s future. Walked the cobbled streets of Dad’s childhood. Langestraße now Leninstraße, but everything else much as it was. His grandfather’s red-bricked general store, threshold sagging from decades of foot traffic; lace curtains fluttering in windows upstairs where Dad had lived. The stone church with its squat tower housing bells that had once been condemned to the foundry, precious metal to support Hitler’s war effort. They’d been removed for melting down when Germany surrendered. The air clearer in the churchyard; poppies and geraniums blooming on the family plot, bursts of red offsetting the solemn black headstone. We pulled errant weeds, Dad clicked photos, and we all just stood for a moment. A silent goodbye.

At Schloss Mosigkau we played tourist, weaving through grand halls with rococo flourishes. Amazed this castle had been but a summer residence for local royalty, and survived both world wars and communism. We slid over marble in oversized, plushy shoe covers, Dad cracking a joke about visitors polishing the floors. So different than busy West German tourist spots, with oppressive crowds and multilingual tours. Just us and an earnest East German scholar, skimming along after the greying tour guide. I pretended I was Janet Morrissey, Canadian figure skating champion. So caught up in gliding through the glorious surroundings, I almost forgot the date and time. Checked my watch in a panic, nearly smacking myself in the face: 3:35. Five minutes too late! Disaster images flooded my mind: a bird’s-eye view of Skylab plunging into our ’60s suburban split-level, the house exploding upon impact, debris flying everywhere.

I must have gasped aloud. The group paused, all eyes on me. “Skylab,” I said. Dad laughed, murmured an explanation in German; the adults chuckled. I don’t know what embarrassed me more: my crushing anxiety exposed, or that I must have looked like some bored, western brat, feigning I had somewhere better to be.

Back in West Germany, we learned Skylab had indeed crashed on July 11, plunging into the Indian Ocean. Parts of it showering down over populated areas of Western Australia, but no injuries. Why wasn’t I more relieved?

East Germany haunts me. A dull, heavy ache I carried through my teens, marching against nukes as the Cold War escalated, listening to “Heroes” on repeat. Bowie’s brooding vocals conjuring the Berlin Wall, defiant lovers kissing under a gun turret. I didn’t yet know reunification would save Dad’s village, that in ten years the Berlin Wall would fall. Only decades later do I understand my angst wasn’t really about Skylab, but all of it.

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Image: Sean William Randall, 2, 5, 7, 2012. Acrylic on canvas, 36in x 36in.

www.seanwilliamrandall.com