Second Fiddle (24 page)

We headed for the elevator, laughing. Vivi made jokes about my becoming the girl version of James Bond, and Giselle started singing the movie theme song.

If I’d known then how hard it would be to get into music school and learn how to compose and become a working musician, I’d have left my dream right there on the top of the Eiffel Tower, where I could admire it from a comfortable distance. But I had no idea. I only knew that I was in love with music, and there were two best friends and one singing soldier in the whole world who thought I had talent, and that was all I needed.

One of the joys of writing fiction is revisiting favorite places. Germany is one such place for me. I lived there from 1990 to 1992 in that fascinating era just after the Berlin Wall came down. My husband, a lieutenant in the army, was stationed in Aschaffenburg in northern Bavaria, but we lived in a tiny town where I had the chance to develop friendships with my neighbors, attend community events, and practice my German. It was from my friends and neighbors and from local newspapers and radio that I learned about the impact of the fall of the Berlin Wall on German families.

After losing the Second World War in 1945, Germany was a country in ruins. Nearly every city had been bombed. More than half the population was homeless. Most German industries were completely destroyed and had to be rebuilt from the ground up. Without help, the country was in danger of falling into chaos. The allies—France, England, the Soviet Union, and the United States—worked together to rebuild Germany. They divided it into four zones, and each
country helped the Germans in its zone construct homes and roads, resettle millions of refugees, and hold elections for new political leaders. Berlin had been the center of the German army command and had sustained the heaviest bombing. As the capital and as Germany’s largest city, it needed the most help to recover. The allies divided Berlin into four sections, with each ally taking responsibility for one area even though the city fell well within the borders of the Soviet zone.

Division of Germany, 1945

Britain, France, and the United States handed the responsibility for Germany back to the Germans as soon as they could function on their own. The Soviets were not eager to leave the northeast section of Germany, which they occupied. Their losses in the war were greater by far than those of the other allies, and they wanted to keep the Eastern part of Germany as a Communist country. France, Britain, and the United States refused to abandon their sectors of Berlin to the Communists, and many Germans who did not want to live under Communist rule fled to the Western sectors of Berlin. The situation became very tense, and many feared that war would break out in Germany again between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Instead of fighting, the Communists built a wall around the French, British, and American sectors of Berlin. They also built a barrier along the Soviet zone of Germany and made their occupation zone into East Germany, a Communist country that was controlled by the much more powerful
Soviet Union. They posted guards along the Wall with orders to shoot and kill any person trying to cross to the Western side. Over the twenty-eight years that the Wall stood, nearly two hundred people died trying to cross. Many were shot. Some drowned trying to swim across the border, and others suffocated in collapsed tunnels. It was possible for West Germans to travel to the East, but they had to have special paperwork and pass through a checkpoint, where their cars were searched to prevent people from escaping. One such border crossing was called Checkpoint Charlie.

After more than forty years of suffering under Communist domination, the East Germans began to protest their government in an organized and peaceful way. In the past, protesters had been arrested. But now the protests grew so large that there was not a prison in the entire country that could hold the marchers. Other Communist countries in Eastern Europe were also organizing and electing new leadership. When Hungary and Czechoslovakia opened their borders, thousands of East Germans flooded through them and into West Germany, abandoning everything they owned for a chance to move to the West. Soon there were not enough workers to run factories. Teachers abandoned their classrooms. Doctors left their hospitals. The whole world watched as thousands of East Germans took to the streets, marching and singing, using many of the tactics Americans had used in the civil rights movement. In the end,
the East German government reluctantly agreed to hold elections and open the borders.

The result was an outpouring of joy. Thousands of Germans rushed to the Wall, East Germans to escape and West Germans to welcome their long-lost countrymen with open arms. People sang and danced in the streets; they shared gifts of candy and champagne. Hundreds of elated Berliners helped bring the Wall down with their own hammers and chisels.

Berlin was a city in transition for all of 1990. The Berlin Wall first opened on November 9, 1989, but the Wall was massive. It ran for twenty-eight miles through the city and in places was thick enough for a half dozen people to stand shoulder to shoulder on top. It was made of concrete, steel, and barbed wire, so it took many months of work with heavy machinery to dismantle. In writing my story, I chose not to chase down the exact dates when sections of the Wall were torn down. I attempted to convey a city and a culture in transition, both proud of the defeat of Communism and apprehensive about the daunting restoration ahead.

The plight of Soviet soldiers in this era was particularly striking. After their war in Afghanistan, which was as difficult and divisive for them as Vietnam was for the United States, Soviet soldiers suffered from a failing Soviet economy. They were often not paid and were always undersupplied. Corruption was rampant, and the hazing of enlisted men
was distressingly common. Although Arvo is my own invention, his difficulties were shared by thousands of non-Russian soldiers who served in the Soviet army.

The commitment of citizens in Estonia, and its neighbors Latvia and Lithuania, to peaceful separation from the Soviet Union was impressive. Once the Communists let go of their strict control of newspapers and television, Estonians and citizens of the other Baltic states were able to learn the truth about their oppression and organize large-scale protests. Vocal music is a cornerstone of Estonian culture. The people gather every summer for song festivals with choirs that number in the thousands. There are more folk songs written in Estonian than in any other language in the world. In 1988 at their song festival grounds, more than three hundred thousand Estonians, about a third of the entire population, decided to risk imprisonment, or worse, to sing a song—their national anthem. To everyone’s amazement, three hundred thousand people singing was intimidating to the Soviets in a way that armed resistance was not. Physical force is easily met with greater physical force. The solidarity the Estonians expressed by singing together proved very difficult for the Soviets to fight. Decades earlier, Martin Luther King Jr. had called this tactic “meeting physical force with soul force.”

Estonia and its neighbors Lithuania and Latvia gained their independence in August 1991, just a year after my story takes place.

*  *  *

The one character in this story who is not my invention is George Whitman, the owner of the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. He ran the shop for decades as a combination store, literary salon, and refuge for down-and-out writers. At the time of this writing, Mr. Whitman is in his nineties and still living above the shop, while the day-to-day operations of the bookstore are run by his daughter, Sylvia. I had the pleasure of visiting Shakespeare and Company in the fall of 1991 and found it a book lover’s paradise. The other sights the girls visited in Paris are all still there, and you can trace their path on any map of the city.

You will find no trace of the shabbiness the girls found on Unter den Linden in Berlin today. With a typical mixture of hard work, sacrifice, and more than a little angst, a united Germany has completely renovated the border area around the Brandenburg Gate. The former site of the Berlin Wall is now home to new streets, museums, fine dining and shopping, and a memorial to victims of the Holocaust. The places the girls visited in Berlin are reasonably historically accurate given the pace of change in 1990, but I took some liberties in my story with the location of the railroad bridge and the character of the landscape along the Spree River.

Although I have not been to Europe in many years, I treasured the opportunity to live there and hope to return someday. I also hope that you will learn foreign languages and travel abroad, just as Jody and her friends did. Please do tell your parents before you go!

Thank you to my own trio for making music with me. Your patience and persistence have reawakened a joy I’d long forgotten—a joy without which this story would never have taken shape.

Rosanne Parry moved to Germany in the spring of 1990, just as the Berlin Wall was coming down. She ran away to Paris for one glorious weekend with her soldier husband, firstborn baby, and an enormous purple stroller. The three of them are best friends to this day. Rosanne is the author of
Heart of a Shepherd
, which has been honored as a
Washington Post
Best Kids’ Book of the Year, a
Kirkus Reviews
Best Children’s Book of the Year, and a
Horn Book
Fanfare Best Book of the Year. She also plays the violin, for which she has never been honored with a prize of any kind. She now lives with her husband in an old farmhouse in Portland, Oregon, where they raise four children, three chickens, five kinds of fruit, and their voices in the occasional song. Visit Rosanne at
rosanneparry.com
.