Edge of Eternity (83 page)

She waited for him in the bar. The hotel was not bad. All visitors to Siberia were VIPs – no one came here for a holiday – so the place had the level of luxury expected by the Communist elite.

Vasili came in looking a bit better than he had earlier. He had combed his hair and put on a clean shirt. He still looked like a man recovering from an illness, but the light of intelligence shone in his eyes.

He took both her hands in his. ‘Thank you for coming here,’ he said, his voice trembling with emotion. ‘I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me. You’re a friend, a solid gold friend.’

She kissed his cheek.

They ordered beer. Vasili ate the free peanuts like a starving man.

‘Your story is wonderful,’ Tania said. ‘Not just good, but extraordinary.’

He smiled. ‘Thank you. Perhaps something worthwhile can come out of this terrible place.’

‘I’m not the only person who admires it. The editors of
New World
accepted it for publication.’ He lit up with gladness, and she had to bring him down again. ‘But they changed their minds when Khrushchev was deposed.’

Vasili looked crestfallen, then he took another handful of nuts. ‘I’m not surprised,’ he said, recovering his equanimity. ‘At least they liked it – that’s the important thing. It was worth writing.’

‘I’ve made a few copies and mailed them – anonymously, of course –to some of the people who used to receive
Dissidence
,’ she added. She hesitated. What she planned to say next was bold. Once said, it could not be retracted. She took the plunge. ‘The only other thing I could do is try to get a copy out to the West.’

She saw the light of optimism in his eyes, but he pretended to be dubious. ‘That would be dangerous for you.’

‘And for you.’

Vasili shrugged. ‘What are they going to do to me – send me to Siberia? But you could lose everything.’

‘Could you write some more stories?’

From underneath his jacket he took a large used envelope. ‘I have already,’ he said, and he gave the envelope to her. He drank some beer, emptying his glass.

She glanced into the envelope. The pages were covered with Vasili’s small, neat handwriting. ‘Why,’ she said with elation, ‘it’s enough for a book!’ Then she realized that if she were caught with this material she, too, could end up stuck in Siberia. She slipped the envelope into her shoulder bag quickly.

‘What will you do with them?’ he asked.

Tania had given this some thought. ‘There’s an annual book fair in Leipzig, in East Germany. I could arrange to cover it for
TASS
– I speak German, after a fashion. Western publishers attend the fair – editors from Paris and London and New York. I might be able to get your work published in translation.’

His face lit up. ‘Do you think so?’

‘I believe
Frostbite
is good enough.’

‘That would be so wonderful. But you would be taking a terrible risk.’

She nodded. ‘So would you. If somehow the Soviet authorities found out who the author was, you’d be in trouble.’

He laughed. ‘Look at me – starving, dressed in rags, living alone in a hostel for men that is always cold – I’m not worried.’

It had not occurred to her that he might not be getting enough to eat. ‘There’s a restaurant here,’ she said. ‘Shall we have dinner?’

‘Yes, please.’

Vasili ordered beef stroganoff with boiled potatoes. The waitress put a small bowl of bread rolls on the table, as was done at banquets. Vasili ate all the rolls. After the stroganoff he ordered pirozhki, a fried bun filled with stewed plums. He also ate everything Tania left on her plate.

She said: ‘I thought skilled people were highly paid here.’

‘Volunteers are, yes. Not ex-prisoners. The authorities submit to the price mechanism only when forced.’

‘Can I send you food?’

He shook his head. ‘Everything is stolen by the KGB. Parcels arrive ripped open, marked “Suspicious package, officially inspected”, and everything decent is gone. The guy in the room next to mine received six jars of jam, all empty.’

Tania signed the bill for dinner.

Vasili said: ‘Does your hotel room have its own bathroom?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does it have hot water?’

‘Of course.’

‘Can I take a shower? At the hostel we get hot water only once a week, and then we have to rush before it runs out.’

They went upstairs.

Vasili was a long time in the bathroom. Tania sat on the bed looking out at the grimy snow. She felt stunned. She knew, in a vague way, what labour camps were like, but seeing Vasili had brought it home to her in a devastatingly vivid way. Her imagination had not previously stretched to the extent of the prisoners’ suffering. And yet, despite everything, Vasili had not succumbed to despair. In fact, he had summoned, from somewhere, the strength and courage to write about his experiences with passion and humour. She admired him more than ever.

When at last he emerged from the bathroom, they said goodbye. In the old days he would have made a pass at her, but today the thought did not seem to cross his mind.

She gave him all the money in her purse, a bar of chocolate, and two pairs of long underwear that would be too short but otherwise would fit him. ‘They might be better than what you’ve got,’ she said.

‘They certainly are,’ he said. ‘I don’t have any underwear.’

After he left, she cried.

36

Every time they played ‘Love Is It’ on Radio Luxembourg, Karolin cried.

Lili, now sixteen, thought she knew how Karolin felt. It was like having Walli back home, singing and playing in the next room, except that they could not walk in and see him and tell him how good it sounded.

If Alice was awake they would sit her close to the radio and say: ‘That’s your daddy!’ She did not understand, but she knew it was something exciting. Sometimes Karolin sang the song to her, and Lili accompanied her on the guitar and sang the harmony.

Lili’s mission in life was to help Karolin and Alice emigrate to the West and be reunited with Walli.

Karolin was living at the Franck family house in Berlin-Mitte. Her parents would have nothing to do with her. They said she had disgraced them by giving birth to an illegitimate child. But the truth was that the Stasi had told her father he would lose his job as a bus station supervisor because of Karolin’s involvement with Walli. So they had thrown her out, and she had moved in with Walli’s family.

Lili was glad to have her there. Karolin was like an older sister to replace Rebecca. And Lili adored the baby. Every day when she came home from school she watched Alice for a couple of hours, to give Karolin a break.

Today was Alice’s first birthday, and Lili made a cake. Alice sat in her high chair and happily banged a bowl with a wooden spoon while Lili mixed a light sponge cake that the baby could eat.

Karolin was upstairs in her room, listening to Radio Luxembourg.

Alice’s birthday was also the anniversary of the assassination. West German radio and television had programmes about President Kennedy and the impact of his death. East German stations were playing it down.

Lyndon Johnson had been President by default for almost a year, but three weeks ago he had won an election by a landslide, defeating the Republican ultra-conservative Goldwater. Lili was glad. Although Hitler had died before she was born, she knew her country’s history, and she was frightened by politicians who made excuses for racial hatred.

Johnson was not as inspiring as Kennedy, but he seemed equally determined to defend West Berlin, which was what mattered most to Germans on both sides of the Wall.

As Lili was taking the cake out of the oven, her mother arrived home from work. Carla had managed to keep her job as nursing manager in a large hospital, even though she was known to have been a Social Democrat. One time, when a rumour had gone around that she was to be fired, the nurses had threatened to go on strike, and the hospital director had been obliged to avert trouble by reassuring them that Carla would continue to be their boss.

Lili’s father had been forced to take a job, even though he was still trying to run his business in West Berlin by remote control. He had to work as an engineer in a state-owned factory in East Berlin, making televisions that were far inferior to the West German sets. At the outset he had made some suggestions for improving the product, but this was seen as a way of criticizing his superiors, so he stopped. This evening, as soon as he arrived home from work, he came into the kitchen and they all sang ‘
Hoch soll sie leben
’, the traditional German birthday song meaning: ‘Long may she live’.

Then they sat around the kitchen table and talked about whether Alice would ever see her father.

Karolin had applied to emigrate. Escape was becoming more difficult every year: Karolin might have tried to cross, all the same, had she been alone; but she was not willing to risk Alice’s life. Every year a few people were allowed out legally. No one could find out the grounds on which applications were judged, but it seemed that most of those allowed to leave were unproductive dependants, children and old people.

Karolin and Alice were unproductive dependants, but their application had been refused.

As always, no reason was given.

Naturally, the government would not say whether any appeal was possible. Once again, rumour filled the information gap. People said you could petition the country’s leader, Walter Ulbricht.

He seemed an unlikely saviour, a short man with a beard that imitated Lenin’s, slavishly orthodox in everything. He was rumoured to be happy about the coup in Moscow because he had thought Khrushchev insufficiently doctrinaire. All the same, Karolin had written him a personal letter, explaining that she needed to emigrate in order to marry the father of her child.

‘They say he’s a believer in old-fashioned family morality,’ Karolin said. ‘If that’s true, he ought to help a woman who only wants her child to have a father.’

People in East Germany spent half their lives trying to guess what the government planned or wanted or thought. The regime was unpredictable. They would allow a few rock-and-roll records to be played in youth clubs, then suddenly ban them altogether. For a while they would be tolerant about clothing, then they would start arresting boys in blue jeans. The country’s constitution guaranteed the right to travel, but very few people got permission to visit their relatives in West Germany.

Grandmother Maud joined in the conversation. ‘You can’t tell what a tyrant is going to do,’ she said. ‘Uncertainty is one of their weapons. I’ve lived under the Nazis as well as the Communists. They’re depressingly similar.’

There was a knock at the front door. Lili opened it and was horrified to see, standing on the doorstep, her former brother-in-law, Hans Hoffmann.

Lili held the door a few inches ajar and said: ‘What do you want, Hans?’

He was a big man, and could easily have shoved her out of the way, but he did not. ‘Open up, Lili,’ he said in a voice of weary impatience. ‘I’m with the police, you can’t keep me out.’

Lili’s heart was pounding, but she stayed where she was and shouted over her shoulder: ‘Mother! Hans Hoffmann is at the door!’

Carla came running. ‘Did you say Hans?’

‘Yes.’

Carla took Lili’s place at the door. ‘You’re not welcome here, Hans,’ she said. She spoke with calm defiance, but Lili could hear her breathing, fast and anxious.

‘Is that so?’ Hans said coolly. ‘All the same, I need to speak to Karolin Koontz.’

Lili gave a small cry of fear. Why Karolin?

Carla asked the question. ‘Why?’

‘She has written a letter to the Comrade General Secretary, Walter Ulbricht.’

‘Is that a crime?’

‘On the contrary. He is the leader of the people. Anyone may write to him. He is glad to hear from them.’

‘So why have you come here to bully and frighten Karolin?’

‘I’ll explain my purpose to Fräulein Koontz. Don’t you think you’d better ask me in?’

Carla murmured to Lili: ‘He might have something to tell us about her application to emigrate. We’d better find out.’ She opened the door wide.

Hans stepped into the hall. He was in his late thirties, a big man who stooped slightly. He wore a heavy double-breasted dark-blue coat of a quality not generally available in East German shops. It made him look larger and more menacing. Lili instinctively moved away from him.

He knew the house, and now he acted as if he still lived here. He took off his coat and hung it on a hook in the hall, then, without invitation, he walked into the kitchen.

Lili and Carla followed him.

Werner was standing up. Lili wondered fearfully if he had taken his pistol from its hiding place behind the saucepan drawer. Perhaps Carla had been arguing on the doorstep in order to give him time to do just that. Lili tried to stop her hands shaking.

Werner did not hide his hostility. ‘I’m surprised to see you in this house,’ he said to Hans. ‘After what you did, you should be ashamed to show your face.’

Karolin was looking puzzled and anxious, and Lili realized she did not know who Hans was. In an aside, Lili explained: ‘He’s with the Stasi. He married my sister and lived here for a year, spying on us.’

Karolin’s hand went to her mouth and she gasped. ‘That’s him?’ she whispered. ‘Walli told me. How could he do such a thing?’

Hans heard them whispering. ‘You must be Karolin,’ he said. ‘You wrote to the Comrade General Secretary.’

Karolin looked scared but defiant. ‘I want to marry the father of my child. Are you going to let me?’

Hans looked at Alice in her high chair. ‘Such a lovely baby,’ he said. ‘Boy or girl?’

It made Lili shake with fear just that Hans was looking at Alice.

Reluctantly, Karolin said: ‘Girl.’

‘And what’s her name?’

‘Alice.’

‘Alice. Yes, I think you said that in your letter.’

Somehow this pretence of being nice about the baby was even more frightening than a threat.

Hans pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table. ‘So, Karolin, you seem to want to leave your country.’