Edge of Eternity (115 page)

Alice said: “We've applied for permission to go to West Germany.” She was all youthful eagerness.

“We?” Lili asked.

“Helmut and I.”

Helmut Kappel was her boyfriend. He was a year older, twenty-two, and studying at university.

“Any special reason?”

“I've said we want to visit my father in Hamburg. Helmut's grandparents are in Frankfurt. But Plum Nellie are doing a world tour, and we really want to see my father onstage. Maybe we can time our visit to coincide with his German gig, if he does one.”

“I'm sure he will.”

“Do you think they'll let us go?”

“You may be lucky.” Lili did not want to discourage youthful optimism, but she was doubtful. She herself had always been refused permission. Very few people were allowed to go. The authorities would suspect that people as young as Alice and Helmut did not intend to come back.

Lili suspected it herself. Alice had often talked wistfully of living in West Germany. Like most young people, she wanted to read uncensored books and newspapers, see new films and plays, and listen to music regardless of whether it was approved by the seventy-two-year-old Erich Honecker. If she managed to get out of East Germany, why would she come back?

Alice said: “You know, most of the things that got this family into bad odor with the authorities actually happened before I was born. They shouldn't be punishing me.”

But her mother, Karolin, was still singing those songs, Lili thought.

The doorbell sounded, and a minute later they heard agitated voices in the hall. They went downstairs to investigate, and found Karolin standing there in a wet raincoat. Inexplicably, she was carrying a suitcase. She had been let in by Carla, who stood beside her in the hall, wearing an apron over her formal work clothes.

Karolin's face was red and puffy with crying.

Alice said: “Mother . . . ?”

Lili said: “Has something happened?”

Karolin said: “Alice, your stepfather has left me.”

Lili was flabbergasted. Odo Vossler? It was surprising to her that mild Odo had the guts to leave his wife.

Alice put her arms around her mother, saying nothing.

Carla said: “When did this happen?”

Karolin wiped her nose with a handkerchief. “He told me three hours ago. He wants a divorce.”

Lili thought: Poor Alice, left by two fathers.

Carla said indignantly: “But pastors are not supposed to get divorced.”

“He's leaving the clergy, too.”

“Good grief.”

Lili realized that an earthquake had struck the family.

Carla became practical. “You'd better sit down. We'll go in the kitchen. Alice, take your mother's coat and hang it up to dry. Lili, make coffee.”

Lili put water on to boil and took a cake out of the cupboard. Carla said: “Karolin, whatever has come over Odo?”

She looked down. “He is . . .” She obviously found this difficult to say. Averting her eyes, she said quietly: “Odo tells me he has realized that he is homosexual.”

Alice gave a little scream.

Carla said: “What a terrible shock!”

Lili had a sudden flash of memory. Five years ago, when they had all met up in Hungary, and Walli had met Odo for the first time, she had seen a startled reaction pass over Walli's face, brief but vivid. Had Walli intuited the truth about Odo in that moment?

Lili herself had always suspected that Odo's love for Karolin was not a grand passion but more of a Christian mission. If a man should ever propose to Lili, she did not want him to do it out of the kindness of his heart. He should desire her so much he could hardly keep his hands off her: that was a good reason for a proposal of marriage.

Karolin looked up. Now that the awful truth was out, she was able to meet Carla's eye. “It's not a shock, really,” she said quietly. “I sort of knew.”

“How?”

“When we were first married, there was a young man called Paul,
very good-looking. He was invited for supper a couple of times a week, and Bible study in the vestry, and on Saturday afternoons they would go for long invigorating walks in Treptower Park. Perhaps they never did anything—Odo is not a deceiving man. But, when he made love to me, somehow I felt sure he was thinking about Paul.”

“What happened? How did it end?”

Lili cut the cake into slices while she listened. She put the slices on a plate. No one ate any.

Karolin said: “I never knew the full story. Paul stopped coming to the house and to church. Odo never explained why. Perhaps they both pulled back from physical love.”

Carla said: “Being a pastor, Odo must have suffered a terrible conflict.”

“I know. I'm so sorry for him, when I'm not feeling angry.”

“Poor Odo.”

“But Paul was only the first of half a dozen boys, all very similar, terribly good-looking and sincere Christians.”

“And now?”

“Now Odo has found real love. He is abjectly apologetic to me, but he has made up his mind to face what he truly is. He's moving in with a man called Eugen Freud.”

“What will he do?”

“He wants to be a teacher in a theological college. He says it's his real vocation.”

Lili poured boiling water on the ground coffee in the jug. Now that Odo and Karolin had split up, she wondered how Walli would feel. Of course he could not be reunited with Karolin and Alice because of the accursed Berlin Wall. But would he want to? He had not settled permanently with another woman. It seemed to Lili that Karolin really was the love of his life.

But all that was academic. The Communists had decreed that they could not be together.

Carla said: “If Odo has resigned as pastor, you'll have to leave your house.”

“Yes. I'm homeless.”

“Don't be silly. You'll always have a home here.”

“I knew you'd say that,” said Karolin, and she burst into tears.

The doorbell rang.

“I'll go,” said Lili.

There were two men on the doorstep. One wore a chauffeur's uniform and held an umbrella over the other man, who was Hans Hoffmann.

“May I come in?” said Hans, but he walked into the hall without waiting for an answer. He was holding a package about a foot square.

His driver returned to the black ZIL limousine parked at the curb.

Lili spoke with distaste. “What do you want?”

“To speak to your niece, Alice.”

“How did you know she was here?”

Hans smiled and did not bother to answer. The Stasi knew everything.

Lili went into the kitchen. “It's Hans Hoffmann. He wants Alice.”

Alice stood up, pale with fear.

Carla said: “Take him upstairs, Lili. Stay with them.”

Karolin half-rose out of her chair. “I should go with her.”

Carla put a restraining hand on Karolin's arm. “You're in no state to deal with the Stasi.”

Karolin accepted that and sat back down again. Lili held the door for Alice, who came out of the kitchen into the hall. The two women went upstairs, followed by Hans.

Lili almost offered Hans a cup of coffee, from automatic politeness, but she stopped herself. He could die of thirst first.

Hans picked up the Sherlock Holmes book Alice had left on the table. “English,” he commented, as if that confirmed a suspicion. He sat down, tugging on the knees of his fine wool trousers to prevent creasing. He put the square packet on the floor beside his chair. He said: “So, young Alice, you wish to travel to West Germany. Why?”

He was a big shot now. Lili did not know what his exact title was, but he was more than just a secret policeman. He made speeches at national meetings and spoke to the press. However, he was not too important to persecute the Franck family.

“My father lives in Hamburg,” Alice said in answer to his question. “So does my aunt Rebecca.”

“Your father is a murderer.”

“It happened before I was born. Are you punishing me for it? That isn't what you mean by Communist justice . . . is it?”

Hans gave that smug I-thought-so nod again. “A smart mouth, just like your grandmother. This family will never learn.”

Lili said angrily: “We have learned that Communism means petty officials can take their revenge, without regard to justice or the law.”

“Do you imagine that such talk is the way to persuade me to grant Alice permission to travel?”

“You've made up your mind already,” Lili said wearily. “You're going to refuse. You wouldn't have come here to say yes to her. You just want to gloat.”

Alice said: “Where in the writings of Karl Marx do we read that in the Communist state workers are not allowed to travel to other countries?”

“Restrictions are made necessary by the conditions prevailing.”

“No, they're not. I want to see my father. You prevent me. Why? Just because you can! That has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with tyranny.”

Hans's mouth twisted. “You bourgeois people,” he said in tones of disgust. “You can't bear it when others have power over you.”

“Bourgeois?” said Lili. “I don't have a uniformed chauffeur to hold an umbrella over me while I walk from the car to the house. Nor does Alice. There's only one bourgeois in this room, Hans.”

He picked up the package and handed it to Alice. “Open it,” he said.

Alice took off the brown paper wrapping. Inside was a copy of Plum Nellie's latest album,
The Interpretation of Dreams.
Her face lit up.

Lili wondered what trick Hans was up to now.

“Why don't you play your father's record?” Hans said.

Alice withdrew the inner white envelope from the colored sleeve. Then with finger and thumb she took the black plastic disc from the envelope.

It came out in two pieces.

Hans said: “It seems to be broken. What a shame.”

Alice began to cry.

Hans stood up. “I know the way out,” he said, and he left.

•   •   •

Unter den Linden was the broad boulevard through East Berlin to the Brandenburg Gate. Under another name, the street continued into West Berlin through the park called the Tiergarten. Since 1961, though, Unter den Linden had dead-ended at the Brandenburg Gate, blocked by the Berlin Wall. From the park on the west side, the view of the Brandenburg Gate was disfigured by a high, ugly, gray-green fence covered with graffiti, and a sign in German that said:

WARNING

YOU ARE NOW LEAVING

WEST BERLIN

Beyond the fence was the killing field of the Wall.

Plum Nellie's road crew built a stage right up against the ugly fence and stacked a mighty wall of loudspeakers facing out into the park. On Walli's instructions, equally powerful speakers faced the other way, into East Berlin. He wanted Alice to hear him. A reporter had told him that the East German government objected to the speakers. “Tell them that if they take their wall down, I'll do the same with mine,” Walli had said, and the quote was in all the papers.

Originally they had thought to do the German gig in Hamburg, but then Walli had heard about Hans Hoffmann breaking Alice's disc, and in retaliation he had asked Dave to reschedule in Berlin, so that a million East Germans would be able to hear the songs Hoffmann had attempted to deny to Alice. Dave had loved the idea.

Now they stood together, looking at the stage from the side as thousands of fans gathered in the park. “This is going to be the loudest we've ever been,” said Dave.

“Good,” said Walli. “I want them to hear my guitar all the way to fucking Leipzig.”

“Remember the old days?” Dave said. “Those tinny little speakers they had in baseball stadiums?”

“No one could hear us—we couldn't hear ourselves!”

“Now a hundred thousand people can listen to music that sounds the way we intended.”

“It's kind of a miracle.”

When Walli returned to his dressing room, Rebecca was there. “This is fantastic,” she said. “There must be a hundred thousand people in the park!”

She was with a gray-haired man of about her own age. “This is my friend Fred Bíró,” she said.

Walli shook his hand, and Fred said: “It's an honor to meet you.” He spoke German with a Hungarian accent.

Walli was amused. So his sister was dating at the age of fifty-three! Well, good for her. The guy seemed to be her type, intellectual but not too solemn. And she looked younger, with a Princess Diana hairstyle and a purple dress.

They chatted for a while, then left him to get ready. Walli changed into clean blue jeans and a flame-red shirt. Peering into the mirror, he put on eyeliner so that the crowd could read his expression better. He remembered with disgust the times when he had had to manage his drug intake so carefully: a small amount to keep him level during the performance, and a big hit afterward as his reward. He was not for one second tempted to return to those habits.

He was called to go onstage. He joined up with Dave, Buzz, and Lew. Dave's whole family was there to wish them well: his wife, Beep; their eleven-year-old son, John Lee; Dave's parents, Daisy and Lloyd; and even his sister, Evie; all looking proud of their Dave. Walli was glad to see them all, but their presence reminded him poignantly that he was not able to see his own family: Werner and Carla, Lili, Karolin and Alice.

But with any luck they would be listening on the other side of the Wall.

The band went onstage and the crowd roared their welcome.

•   •   •

Unter den Linden was jammed with thousands of Plum Nellie fans, old and young. Lili and her family, including Karolin, Alice, and Alice's boyfriend, Helmut, had been there since early morning. They had secured a position close to the barrier the police had set up to keep the crowd at a distance from the Wall. As the crowd had grown through the day, the street had developed a festival atmosphere, with people talking
to strangers and sharing their picnics and playing Plum Nellie tapes on portable boom boxes. As darkness fell they opened bottles of beer and wine.