Dave Williams was looking forward to meeting his notorious grandfather, Lev Peshkov.
Plum Nellie were on the road in the States in the autumn of 1965. The All-Star Touring Beat Revue gave performers a hotel room every second night. Alternate nights were spent on the bus.
They would do a show, get on the bus at midnight, and drive to the next city. Dave never slept properly on the bus. The seats were uncomfortable and there was a smelly toilet at the back. The only refreshment was a cooler full of sugary soda pop supplied free by Dr Pepper, the sponsor of the tour. A soul group from Philadelphia called the Topspins ran a poker game on the bus: Dave lost ten dollars one night and never played again.
In the morning they would arrive at a hotel. If they were lucky, they could check in right away. If not, they had to hang around the lobby, bad-tempered and unwashed, waiting for last night’s guests to vacate their rooms. They would do the next evening’s show, spend the night at the hotel, and get back on the bus in the morning.
Plum Nellie loved it.
The money was not much, but they were touring America: they would have done it for nothing.
And there were the girls.
Buzz, the bass player, often had several fans in his hotel bedroom during the course of a single day and night. Lew was enthusiastically exploring the queer scene—though Americans preferred the word gay to queer. Walli remained faithful to Karolin, but even he was happy, living his dream of being a pop star.
Dave did not much like sex with groupies, but there were several terrific girls on the tour. He made a play for blond Joleen Johnson from the Tamettes, who turned him down, explaining that she had been happily married since she was thirteen. Then he tried Little Lulu Small, who was flirty but would not go to his room. Finally one evening he got talking to Mandy Love from the Love Factory, a black girl group from Chicago. She had big brown eyes and a wide mouth and smooth midbrown skin that felt like silk under Dave’s fingertips. She introduced him to marijuana, which he liked better than beer. They spent every hotel night together after Indianapolis, though they had to be discreet: interracial sex was a crime in some states.
The bus rolled into Washington, DC, on a Wednesday morning. Dave had an appointment for lunch with Grandfather Peshkov. This had been arranged by his mother, Daisy.
He dressed for the engagement like the pop star he was: a red shirt, blue hipster trousers, a gray tweed jacket with a red overcheck, and narrow-toed boots with a Cuban heel. He got a cab from the cheap hotel where the groups were staying to the swankier place where his grandfather had a suite.
Dave was intrigued. He had heard so many bad things about this old man. If the family legends were true, Lev had killed a policeman in St. Petersburg, then fled Russia leaving a pregnant girlfriend behind. In Buffalo he made his boss’s daughter pregnant, married her, and inherited a fortune. He had been suspected of murdering his father-in-law, but never charged. During Prohibition he had been a bootlegger. While married to Daisy’s mother he had had numerous mistresses, including the movie star Gladys Angelus. It went on and on.
Waiting in the hotel lobby, Dave wondered what Lev looked like. They had never met. Apparently Lev had visited London once, for Daisy’s wedding to her first husband, Boy Fitzherbert; but he had never returned.
Daisy and Lloyd came to the USA about every five years, mainly to see her mother, Olga, now in a retirement home in Buffalo. Dave knew that Daisy did not have much love for her father. Lev had been absent most of Daisy’s childhood. He had had a second family in the same city—a mistress, Marga, and an illegitimate son, Greg—and apparently he had always preferred them to Daisy and her mother.
Across the lobby Dave saw a man in his early seventies dressed in a silver-gray suit with a red-and-white striped tie. He recalled his mother saying that her father had always been a dandy. Dave smiled and said: “Are you Grandfather Peshkov?”
They shook hands, and Lev said: “Don’t you have a tie?”
Dave got this sort of thing all the time. For some reason the older generation felt they had the right to be rude about young people’s clothes. Dave had a number of stock replies, ranging from charming to hostile. Now he said: “When you were a teenager in St. Petersburg, Grandfather, what did cool kids like you wear?”
Lev’s stern expression broke into a grin. “I had a jacket with mother-of-pearl buttons, a waistcoat and a brass watch chain, and a velvet cap. And my hair was long and parted in the middle, just like yours.”
“So we’re alike,” Dave said. “Except that I’ve never killed anyone.”
Lev was startled for a moment, then he laughed. “You’re a smart kid,” he said. “You’ve inherited my brains.”
A woman in a chic blue coat and hat came to Lev’s side, walking like a fashion model although she had to be near Lev’s age. Lev said: “This is Marga. She ain’t your grandma.”
The mistress, Dave thought. “You’re obviously too young to be anyone’s grandmother,” he said with a smile. “What should I call you?”
“You are a charmer!” she replied. “You can call me Marga. I used to be a singer, too, you know, though I never had your kind of success.” She looked nostalgic. “In those days I ate handsome boys like you for breakfast.”
Girl singers haven’t changed, Dave thought, remembering Mickie McFee.
They went into the restaurant. Marga asked a lot of questions about Daisy, Lloyd, and Evie. They were excited to hear about Evie’s acting career, especially as Lev owned a Hollywood studio. But Lev was most interested in Dave and his business. “They say you’re a millionaire, Dave,” he said.
“They lie,” said Dave. “We’re selling a lot of records, but there’s not as much money in it as people imagine. We get about a penny a record. So if we sell a million copies, we earn enough maybe for each of us to buy a small car.”
“Someone’s robbing you,” said Lev.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Dave said. “But I don’t know what to do about it. I fired our first manager, and this one is much better, but I still can’t afford to buy a house.”
“I’m in the movie business, and sometimes we sell records of our soundtrack music, so I’ve seen how music people work. You want some advice?”
“Yes, please.”
“Set up your own record company.”
Dave was intrigued. He had been thinking along the same lines, but it seemed like a fantasy. “Do you think that’s possible?”
“You can rent a recording studio, I guess, for a day or two, or however long it takes.”
“We can record the music, and I suppose we can get a factory to make the discs, but I’m not so sure about selling them. I wouldn’t want to spend time managing a team of sales representatives, even if I knew how.”
“You don’t need to do that. Get the big record company to do sales and distribution for you on a percentage basis. They’ll get the peanuts and you’ll get the profits.”
“I wonder if they would agree to that.”
“They won’t like it, but they’ll do it, because they can’t afford to lose you.”
“I guess.”
Dave found himself drawn to this shrewd old man, despite his criminal reputation.
Lev had not finished. “What about publishing? You write the songs, don’t you?”
“Walli and I do it together, usually.” Walli was the one who actually put the songs down on paper, for Dave’s handwriting and spelling were so bad that no one could ever read what he wrote; but the creative act was a collaboration. “We make a little extra from songwriting royalties.”
“A little? You should make a lot. I bet your publisher employs a foreign agent who takes a cut.”
“True.”
“If you look into it, you’ll find the foreign agent also employs a subagent who takes another cut, and so on. And all the people taking cuts are part of the same corporation. By the time they’ve taken twenty-five percent three or four times you got zip.” Lev shook his head in disgust. “Set up your own publishing company. You’ll never make money until you’re in control.”
Marga said: “How old are you, Dave?”
“Seventeen.”
“So young. But at least you’re smart enough to pay attention to business.”
“I wish I was smarter.”
After lunch they went into the lounge. “Your uncle Greg is going to join us for coffee,” Lev said. “He’s your mother’s half brother.”
Dave recalled that Daisy spoke fondly of Greg. He had done some foolish things in his youth, she said, but so had she. Greg was a Republican senator, but she even forgave him that.
Marga said: “My son, Greg, never married, but he has a son of his own, called George.”
Lev said: “It’s kind of an open secret. Nobody mentions it, but everyone in Washington knows. Greg ain’t the only congressman with a bastard kid.”
Dave knew about George. His mother had told him, and Jasper Murray had actually met George. Dave felt it was cool to have a colored cousin.
Dave said: “So George and I are your two grandsons.”
“Yeah.”
Marga said: “Here come Greg and George now.”
Dave looked up. Walking across the lounge was a middle-aged man wearing a stylish gray flannel suit that needed a good brush and press. Beside him was a handsome Negro of about thirty, immaculately dressed in a dark-gray mohair suit and a narrow tie.
They came up to the table. Both men kissed Marga. Lev said: “Greg, this is your nephew, Dave Williams. George, meet your English cousin.”
They sat down. Dave noticed that George was poised and confident, despite being the only dark-skinned person in the room. Negro pop stars were growing their hair longer, like everyone else in show business, but George still had a short crop, probably because he was in politics.
Greg said: “Well, Daddy, did you ever imagine a family like this?”
Lev said: “Listen to me, I’ll tell you something. If you could go back in time, to when I was the age Dave is now, and you could meet the young Lev Peshkov, and tell him how his life was going to turn out, do you know what he’d do? He’d say you were out of your goddamn mind.”
• • •
That evening George took Maria Summers out to dinner for her twenty-ninth birthday.
He was worried about her. Maria had changed her job and moved to a different apartment, but she did not yet have a boyfriend. She socialized with girls from the State Department about once a week, and she went out with George now and again, but she had no romantic life. George feared she was still mourning. The assassination was almost two years ago, but a person could easily take longer than that to recover from the murder of her lover.
His affection for Maria was definitely not that of a brother. He found her sexy and alluring, and had ever since that bus ride to Alabama. He felt about her the way he felt about Skip Dickerson’s wife, who was gorgeous and charming. Like his best friend’s wife, Maria was simply not available. If life had turned out differently, he felt sure he might be happily married to her. But he had Verena; and Maria wanted no one.
They went to the Jockey Club. Maria wore a gray wool dress, smart but plain. She had no jewelry on, and wore her glasses all the time. Her hairpiece was a little old-fashioned. She had a pretty face and a sexy mouth, and—more importantly—she had a warm heart: she could have found a man easily, if only she had tried. However, people were beginning to say that she was a career girl, a woman whose job was the most important thing in her life. George did not really think that could make her happy, and he fretted about her.
“I just got a promotion,” she said as they sat down at the restaurant table.
“Congratulations!” said George. “Let’s have champagne.”
“Oh, no, thank you, I have to work tomorrow.”
“It’s your birthday!”
“All the same, I won’t. I might have a small brandy later, to help me sleep.”
George shrugged. “Well, I guess your seriousness explains your promotion. I know you’re intelligent, capable, and extremely well educated, but none of that counts, normally, if your skin is dark.”
“Absolutely. It’s always been next to impossible for people of color to get high posts in government.”
“Well done for overcoming that prejudice. It’s quite an achievement.”
“Things have changed since you left the Justice Department—and you know why? The government is trying to persuade Southern police forces to hire Negroes, but the Southerners say: ‘Look at your own staff—they’re all white!’ So senior officials are under pressure. To prove they’re not prejudiced, they need to promote people of color.”
“They probably think one example is enough.”
Maria laughed. “Plenty.”
They ordered. George reflected that both he and Maria had succeeded in breaking the color bar, but that did not show that it was not there. On the contrary, they were the exceptions that proved the rule.
Maria was thinking along the same lines. “Bobby Kennedy seems all right,” she said.
“When I first met him he regarded civil rights as a distraction from more important issues. But the great thing about Bobby is that he’ll see reason, and change his mind if necessary.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Early days yet,” George said evasively. Bobby had been elected as the senator from New York, and George was one of his close aides. George felt that Bobby was not adjusting well to his new role. He had been through so many changes—leading adviser to his brother the president, then sidelined by President Johnson, and now a junior senator—that he was in danger of losing track of who he was.
“He ought to speak out against the Vietnam War!” Maria clearly felt passionately about this, and George sensed that she had been planning to lobby him. “President Kennedy was reducing our effort in Vietnam, and he refused again and again to send ground combat troops,” she said. “But as soon as Johnson was elected he sent thirty-five hundred marines, and the Pentagon immediately asked for more. In June, they demanded another one hundred seventy-five thousand troops—and General Westmoreland said it probably wouldn’t be enough! But Johnson just lies about it all the time.”
“I know. And the bombing of the north was supposed to bring Ho Chi Minh to the negotiating table, but it just seems to have made the Communists more resolute.”
“Which is exactly what was predicted when the Pentagon war-gamed it.”
“Did they? I don’t think Bobby knows that.” George would tell him tomorrow.
“It’s not generally known, but they ran two war games on the effect of bombing North Vietnam. Both showed the same result: an increase in Vietcong attacks in the south.”
“This is exactly the spiral of failure and escalation that Jack Kennedy feared.”
“And my brother’s eldest boy is coming up to draft age.” Maria’s face showed her fear for her nephew. “I don’t want Stevie to be killed! Why doesn’t Senator Kennedy speak out?”
“He knows it will make him unpopular.”
Maria was not willing to accept that. “Will it? People don’t like this war.”
“People don’t like politicians who undermine our troops by criticizing the war.”
“He can’t let public opinion dictate to him.”
“Men who ignore public opinion don’t remain in politics long, not in a democracy.”
Maria raised her voice in frustration. “So no one can ever oppose a war?”
“Maybe that’s why we have so many of them.”
Their food came, and Maria changed the subject. “How is Verena?”
George felt he knew Maria well enough to be frank. “I adore her,” he said. “She stays at my apartment every time she comes to town, which is about once a month. But she doesn’t seem to want to settle down.”
“If she settled down with you, she’d have to live in Washington.”
“Is that so bad?”
“Her job is in Atlanta.”
George did not see the problem. “Most women live where their husband’s job is.”
“Things are changing. If Negroes can be equal, why not women?”
“Oh, come on!” George said indignantly. “It’s not the same.”
“It certainly is not. Sexism is worse. Half the human race are enslaved.”
“Enslaved?”
“Think how many housewives work hard all day for no pay! And in most parts of the world, a woman who leaves her husband is liable to be arrested and brought home by the police. Someone who works for nothing and can’t leave the job is called a slave, George.”
George was annoyed by this argument, the more so as Maria seemed to be winning it. But he saw an opportunity to bring up the subject that was really worrying him. He said: “Is this why you’re single?”
Maria looked uncomfortable. “Partly,” she said, not meeting his eye.
“When do you think you might start dating again?”
“Soon, I guess.”
“Don’t you want to?”
“Yes, but I work hard, and don’t have much spare time.”
George did not buy this. “You think no one can ever live up to the man you lost.”
She did not deny it. “Am I wrong?” she said.
“I believe you could find someone who would be kinder to you than he was. Someone smart and sexy and also faithful.”
“Maybe.”
“Would you go out on a blind date?”
“I might.”
“Do you care if he’s black or white?”
“Black. It’s too much trouble, dating white guys.”
“Okay.” George was thinking of Leopold Montgomery, the reporter. But he did not say so yet. “How was your steak?”
“It melted in the mouth. Thank you for bringing me here. And for remembering my birthday.”
They ate dessert, then had brandy with coffee. “I have a white cousin,” said George. “How about that? Dave Williams. I met him today.”
“How come you haven’t seen him before?”
“He’s a British pop singer, here on tour with his group, Plum Nellie.”
Maria had never heard of them. “Ten years ago I knew every act in the hit parade. Am I growing old?”
George smiled. “You’re twenty-nine today.”
“Only a year off thirty! Where did the time go?”
“Their big hit was called ‘I Miss Ya, Alicia.’”
“Oh, sure, I’ve heard that song on the radio. So your cousin is in that group?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you like him?”
“I do. He’s young, not yet eighteen, but he’s mature, and he charmed our cantankerous Russian grandfather.”
“Have you seen him perform?”
“No. He offered me a free ticket, but they’re in town tonight only, and I already had a date.”
“Oh, George, you could have canceled me.”
“On your birthday? Heck, no.” He called for the check.
He drove her home in his old-fashioned Mercedes. She had moved to a larger apartment in the same neighborhood, Georgetown.
They were surprised to see a police car outside the building with its lights flashing.
George walked Maria to the door. A white cop was standing outside. George said: “Is there something wrong, officer?”
“Three apartments in this building were burglarized this evening,” the cop said. “Do you live here?”
“I do!” said Maria. “Was number four robbed?”
“Let’s go look.”
They entered the building. Maria’s door had been forced open. Her face looked bloodless as she walked into the apartment. George and the cop followed.
Maria looked around, bewildered. “It looks the way I left it.” After a second she added: “Except that all the drawers are open.”
“You need to check what’s missing.”
“I don’t own anything worth stealing.”
“They generally take money, jewelry, liquor, and firearms.”
“I’m wearing my watch and ring, I don’t drink, and I sure don’t own a gun.” She went into the kitchen, and George watched through the open door. She opened a coffee tin. “I had eighty dollars in here,” she told the cop. “It’s gone.”
He wrote in his notebook. “Exactly eighty?”
“Three twenties and two tens.”
There was one more room. George crossed the living room and opened the door to the bedroom.
Maria cried: “George! Don’t go in there!”
She was too late.
George stood in the doorway, looking around the bedroom in amazement. “Oh, my God,” he said. Now he saw why she was not dating.
Maria turned away, mortified with embarrassment.
The cop went past George into the bedroom. “Wow,” he said. “You must have a hundred pictures of President Kennedy in here! I guess you were a fan of his, right?”
Maria struggled to speak. “Yes,” she said, sounding choked up. “A fan.”
“I mean, with the candles, and flowers, and like that, it’s amazing.”
George turned away from the sight. “Maria, I’m sorry I looked,” he said quietly.
She shook her head, meaning he had no need to apologize: it had been an accident. But George knew he had violated a secret, sacred place. He wanted to kick himself.
The cop was still talking. “It’s almost like a, what do you call it, in a Catholic church? A shrine, is the word.”
“That’s right,” said Maria. “It’s a shrine.”
• • •
The program This Day was part of a network of television and radio stations and studios, some of which were housed in a downtown skyscraper. In the personnel department was an attractive middle-aged woman called Mrs. Salzman who fell victim to Jasper Murray’s charm. She crossed her shapely legs and looked at him archly over the top of her blue-framed spectacles and called him Mr. Murray. He lit her cigarettes and called her Blue Eyes.
She felt sorry for him. He had come all the way from Britain in the hope of being interviewed for a job that did not exist. This Day never hired beginners: all its staff were experienced television reporters, producers, cameramen, and researchers. Several of them were distinguished in their profession. Even the secretaries were news veterans. In vain Jasper protested that he was not a beginner: he had been editor of his own paper. The student press did not count, Mrs. Salzman told him, oozing compassion.
He could not go back to London: it would be too humiliating. He would do anything to stay in the USA. His job on the Western Mail would have been filled by someone else by now.
He begged Mrs. Salzman to find him a job, any job, no matter how menial, somewhere in the network of which This Day was a part. He showed her his green card, obtained from the American embassy in London, which meant he had permission to seek employment in the States. She told him to come back in a week.
He was staying at an international student hostel on the Lower East Side, paying a dollar a night. He spent a week exploring New York, walking everywhere to save cash. Then he went back to see Mrs. Salzman, taking with him a single rose. And she gave him a job.
It was very menial. He was a clerk-typist on a local radio station, his task to listen to the radio all day and log everything that happened: which advertisements were aired, which records were played, who was interviewed, the length of the news bulletins and the weather forecasts and the traffic reports. Jasper did not care. He had got a foot in the door. He was working in America.
The personnel office, the radio station, and the This Day studio were all in the same skyscraper, and Jasper hoped he might get to know the people on This Day socially, but it never happened. They were an elite group who kept themselves separate.
One morning Jasper found himself in the elevator with Herb Gould, editor of This Day, a man of about forty with the permanent shadow of a blue-black beard. Jasper introduced himself and said: “I’m a great admirer of your show.”
“Thank you,” Gould said politely.
“It’s my ambition to work for you,” Jasper went on.
“We don’t need anyone right now,” Gould said.
“One day if you have time I’d like to show you my articles for British national newspapers.” The elevator came to a halt. Desperately, Jasper kept going. “I’ve written—”
Gould held up a hand to silence him and stepped out of the lift. “Thanks all the same,” he said, and he walked away.
A few days later, Jasper was at his typewriter with his headphones on and heard the mellifluous voice of Chris Gardner, the host of the midmorning show, say: “The British group Plum Nellie are in the city today for a show tonight with the All-Star Touring Beat Revue.” Jasper pricked up his ears. “We were hoping to bring you an interview with these guys, who are being called the new Beatles, but the promoter said they wouldn’t have time. Here instead is their latest hit, written by Dave and Walli: ‘Good-bye London Town.’”
As the record began, Jasper tore off his headphones, jumped up from his desk—in a little booth in the corridor—and went into the studio. “I can get an interview with Plum Nellie,” he said.
On air, Gardner sounded like the kind of movie star who always played the romantic lead, but in fact he was a homely-looking man with dandruff on the shoulders of his cardigan. “How would you manage that, Jasper?” he said with mild skepticism.
“I know the group. I grew up with Dave Williams. My mother and his are best friends.”
“Can you get the group to come into the studio?”
Jasper probably could, but that was not what he wanted. “No,” he said. “But if you give me a microphone and a tape recorder I’ll guarantee to interview them in their dressing room.”
There was a certain amount of bureaucratic fuss—the station manager was reluctant to let an expensive tape recorder leave the building—but at six that evening Jasper was backstage at the theater with the group.
Chris Gardner wanted no more than a few minutes of bland remarks from the group: how they liked the United States, what they thought about girls screaming at their concerts, whether they felt homesick. But Jasper hoped to give the radio station more than that. He intended this interview to be his passport to a real job in television. It had to be a sensation that rocked America.
First he interviewed them all together, doing the vanilla questions, talking about the early days back in London, getting them relaxed. He told them the station wanted to show them as fully rounded human beings: this was journalists’ code for intrusive personal questions, but they were too young and inexperienced to know that. They were open with him, except for Dave, who was guarded, perhaps remembering the fuss caused by Jasper’s article about Evie and Hank Remington. The others trusted him. Something else they had yet to learn was that no journalist could be trusted.
Then he asked them for individual interviews. He did Dave first, knowing that he was the leader. He gave Dave an easy ride, avoiding probing questions, not challenging any of the answers. Dave returned to the dressing room looking tranquil, and that gave the others confidence.
Jasper interviewed Walli last.
Walli was the one with a real story to tell. But would he open up? All Jasper’s preparations were aimed at that result.
Jasper placed their chairs close together, and spoke to Walli in a low voice, to create the illusion of privacy, even though their words would be heard by millions. He put an ashtray next to Walli’s chair to encourage him to smoke, guessing that a cigarette would make him feel more at ease. Walli lit up.
“What kind of child were you?” Jasper said, smiling as if this was just a lighthearted conversation. “Well-behaved, or naughty?”
Walli grinned. “Naughty,” he said, and laughed.
They were off to a good start.
Walli talked about his childhood in Berlin after the war and his early interest in music, then about going to the Minnesänger club, where he came second in the contest. This brought Karolin into the conversation in a natural way, as she and Walli had paired up that night. Walli became passionate as he spoke about the two of them as a musical duo, their choice of material and the way they performed together, and it was clear how much he loved her, even though he did not say it.
This was great stuff, a lot better than the average pop star interview, but still not enough for Jasper.
“You were enjoying yourselves, you were making good music, and you were pleasing audiences,” Jasper said. “What went wrong?”
“We sang ‘If I Had a Hammer.’”
“Explain to me why that was a mistake.”
“The police didn’t like it. Karolin’s father was afraid he would lose his job because of us, so he made her quit.”
“So, in the end, the only place you could play your music was the West.”
“Yes,” Walli said briefly.
Jasper sensed that Walli was trying to dam the flow of passion.
Sure enough, after a moment’s hesitation Walli added: “I don’t want to say too much about Karolin—it could get her into trouble.”
“I don’t think the East German secret police listen to our radio station,” Jasper said with a smile.
“No, but still . . .”
“I won’t broadcast anything risky, I guarantee.”
It was a worthless promise, but Walli accepted it. “Thanks,” he said.
Jasper moved on quickly. “I believe the only thing you took with you, when you left, was your guitar.”
“That’s right. It was a sudden decision.”
“You stole a vehicle.”
“I was roadying for the bandleader. I used his van.”
Jasper knew that this story, although big in the German press, had not been widely reported in the United States. “You drove to the checkpoint . . .”
“And smashed through the wooden barrier.”
“And the guards shot at you.”
Walli just nodded.
Jasper lowered his voice. “And the van hit a guard.”
Walli nodded again. Jasper wanted to yell at him: This is radio—stop nodding! Instead he said: “And . . .”
“I killed him,” Walli said at last. “I killed the guy.”
“But he was trying to kill you.”
Walli shook his head, as if Jasper were missing the point. “He was my age,” Walli said. “I read about him in the newspapers later. He had a girlfriend.”
“And that’s important to you . . .”
Walli nodded again.
Jasper said: “What does that signify?”
“He was similar to me,” Walli said. “Except that I liked guitars and he liked guns.”
“But he was working for the regime that imprisoned you in East Germany.”
“We were just two boys. I escaped because I had to. He shot me because he had to. It’s the Wall that is evil.”
That was such a great quote that Jasper had to suppress his elation. In his head he was already writing the article he would offer to the tabloid New York Post. He could see the headline:
Secret Anguish of Pop Star Walli
But he wanted yet more. “Karolin didn’t leave with you.”
“She didn’t show up. I had no idea why. I was so disappointed, and I couldn’t understand it. So I escaped anyway.” In the pain of remembering, Walli had lost sight of the need to be cautious.
Jasper prompted him again. “But you went back for her.”
“I met some people who were digging a tunnel for escapers. I had to know why she had not shown up. So I went through the tunnel the wrong way, into the East.”
“That was dangerous.”
“If I had been caught, yes.”
“And you met up with Karolin, then . . .”
“She told me she was pregnant.”
“And she didn’t want to escape with you.”
“She was afraid for the baby.”
“Alicia.”
“Her name is Alice. I changed it in the song. For the rhyme, you know?”
“I understand. And what is your situation now, Walli?”
Walli choked up. “Karolin can’t get permission to leave East Germany, not even for a short visit; and I can’t go back.”
“So you are a family split in two by the Berlin Wall.”
“Yes.” Walli let out a sob. “I may never see Alice.”
Jasper thought: Gotcha.
• • •
Dave Williams had not seen Beep Dewar since her visit to London four years ago. He was eager to meet her again.
The last date of the Beat Revue tour was in San Francisco, where Beep lived. Dave had got the Dewars’ address from his mother, and had sent them four tickets and a note inviting them to come backstage afterward. They had not been able to reply, for he was in a different city every day, so he did not know whether they were going to turn up.
He was no longer sleeping with Mandy Love—much to his regret. She had taught him a lot, including oral sex. But she had never really felt comfortable walking around with a white British boyfriend, and she had now gone back to her long-term lover, a piano player. They would probably get married when the tour was over, Dave thought.
Since then Dave had had no one.
By now Dave knew what kinds of sex he did and did not like. In bed girls could be intense, or slutty, or soulful, or sweetly submissive, or briskly practical. Dave was happiest when they were playful.
He had a feeling Beep would be playful.
He wondered what would happen if Beep showed up tonight.
He recalled her at thirteen, smoking Chesterfield cigarettes in the garden in Great Peter Street. She had been pretty and petite, and sexier than anyone had a right to be at that age. To Dave at thirteen, hypersensitized by adolescent hormones, she had been impossibly alluring. He had been flat crazy for her. However, although they had got on well, she had not been interested in him romantically. To his immense frustration, she had preferred the older Jasper Murray.
His thoughts drifted to Jasper. Walli had been upset when the interview was broadcast on the radio. Even worse had been the story in the New York Post, headlined:
“I May Never See My Kid”—Pop Star Dad
by Jasper Murray
Walli was afraid the publicity might cause trouble for Karolin in East Germany. Dave recalled Jasper’s interview with Evie, and made a mental note never to trust a word Jasper said.
He wondered how much Beep might have changed in four years. She might be taller, or she might have grown fat. Would he still find her overwhelmingly desirable? Would she be more interested in him now that he was older?
She might have a boyfriend, of course. She might go out with that guy tonight instead of coming to the gig.
Before the show, Plum Nellie had a couple of hours to look around. They quickly realized that San Francisco was the coolest city of them all. It was full of young people in radically stylish clothes. Miniskirts were out. The girls wore dresses that trailed the floor, flowers in their hair, and tiny bells that tinkled as they moved. The men’s hair was longer here than anywhere else, even London. Some of the young black men and women had grown it into a huge fuzzy cloud that looked amazing.
Walli in particular loved the town. He said he felt as if he could do anything here. It was at the opposite end of the universe from East Berlin.
There were twelve acts in the Beat Revue. Most of them played two or three songs, then went off. The top-of-the-bill act had twenty minutes at the end. Plum Nellie were big enough stars to close the first half with fifteen minutes, during which they played five short songs. No amplifiers were carried on tour: they played through whatever was available at the venue, often primitive speakers designed for sports announcements. The audience, almost all teenage girls, screamed loudly all the way through, so that the group could not hear themselves. It hardly mattered: no one was listening.
The thrill of working in the USA was wearing off. The group were getting bored, and looking forward to going back to London, where they were due to record a new album.
After the performance they returned backstage. The venue was a theater, so their dressing room was large enough, and the toilet was clean—quite different from the beat clubs in London and Hamburg. The only refreshment available was the free Dr Pepper from the sponsor, but the doorman was usually willing to send out for beer.
Dave told the group that friends of his parents might come backstage, so they had to behave. They all groaned: that meant no drugs and no fumbling with groupies until the old people had gone.
During the second half, Dave saw the doorman at the artists’ entrance and made sure he had the names of the guests: Mr. Woody Dewar, Mrs. Bella Dewar, Mr. Cameron Dewar, and Miss Ursula “Beep” Dewar.
Fifteen minutes after the end of the show, they appeared in the doorway of his dressing room.
Beep had hardly changed at all, Dave saw with delight. She was still petite, no taller than she had been at thirteen, although she was curvier. Her jeans were tight around her hips but flared below the knee, the latest fashion, and she wore a closely fitting sweater with broad blue and white stripes.
Had she dressed up for Dave? Not necessarily. What teenage girl would not dress up to go backstage at a pop concert?
He shook hands with all four visitors and introduced them to the rest of the group. He was afraid the other guys might disgrace him, but in fact they were on their best behavior. They all invited family guests occasionally, and each appreciated the others being restrained in the presence of older relatives and friends of their parents.
Dave had to force himself to stop staring at Beep. She still had that look in her eye. Mandy Love had it, too. People called it sex appeal or je ne sais quoi or just “It.” Beep had an impish grin, a sway in her walk, and an air of lively curiosity. Dave was as consumed with desperate desire as he had been when he was a thirteen-year-old virgin.
He tried to talk to Cameron, who was two years older than Beep and already studying at the University of California at Berkeley, just outside San Francisco. But Cam was difficult. He was in favor of the Vietnam War, he thought civil rights should progress more gradually, and he felt it was right that homosexual acts should be crimes. He also preferred jazz.
Dave gave the Dewars fifteen minutes, then said: “This is the last night of our tour. There’s a farewell get-together at the hotel starting in a few minutes. Beep and Cam, would you like to come?”
“Not me,” said Cameron immediately. “Thanks all the same.”
“Shame,” said Dave with polite insincerity. “What about you, Beep?”
“I’d love to come,” said Beep, and looked at her mother.
“In by midnight,” said Bella.
Woody said: “Use our taxi service to get home, please.”
“I’ll make sure of it,” Dave reassured them.
The parents and Cameron left, and the musicians got on the bus with their guests for the short ride to the hotel.
The party was in the hotel bar, but in the lobby Dave murmured in Beep’s ear: “Have you ever tried smoking marijuana?”
“You mean pot?” she said. “You bet!”
“Not so loud—it’s against the law!”
“Have you got some?”
“Yes. We should probably smoke it in my room. Then we can join the party.”
“Okay.”
They went to his room. Dave rolled a joint while Beep found a rock station on the radio. They sat on the bed, passing the roach back and forth. Mellowing out, Dave smiled and said: “When you came to London . . .”
“What?”
“You weren’t interested in me.”
“I liked you, but you were too young.”
“You were too young, for the things I wanted to do to you.”
She grinned mischievously. “What did you want to do to me?”
“There was a long list.”
“What came first?”
“First?” Dave was not going to tell her. Then he thought: Why not? So he said: “I wanted to see your tits.”
She handed him the joint, then pulled the striped sweater over her head with a swift movement. She had nothing on underneath it.
Dave was astounded and overjoyed. He got a hard-on just looking. “They’re so beautiful,” he said.
“Yes, they are,” she said dreamily. “So pretty I sometimes have to touch them myself.”
“Oh, my God,” Dave groaned.
“On your list,” Beep said, “what was second?”
• • •
Dave changed his flight to a week later and stayed on at the hotel. He saw Beep after school every weekday and all day Saturday and Sunday. They went to movies, they shopped for cool clothes, and they walked around the zoo. They made love two or three times a day, always using condoms.
One evening while he was undressing she said: “Take off your jeans.”
He looked at her, lying on the hotel bed wearing just her panties and a denim cap. “What are you talking about?”
“Tonight you’re my slave. Do as you’re told. Take off your jeans.”
He was already taking them off, and he was about to say so when he realized that this was a fantasy. The thought amused him, and he decided to play along. He pretended to be reluctant, and said: “Aw, do I have to?”
“You have to do everything I say, because you belong to me,” she said. “Take off your goddamn jeans.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dave said.
She sat upright, watching him. He saw the mischievous lust in her faint smile. “Very good,” she said.
Dave said: “What should I do next?”
Dave knew why he had fallen so hard for Beep, both when he was thirteen and again a few days ago. She was full of fun, ready to try anything, hungry for new experiences. With some girls, Dave had been bored after two fucks. He felt he could never get bored with Beep.
They made love, Dave pretending reluctance while Beep ordered him to do things he was already longing for. It was weirdly exciting.
Afterward he said idly: “Where did you get your nickname, anyway?”
“Have I never told you?”
“No. There’s so much I don’t know about you. Yet I feel as if we’ve been close for years.”
“When I was little I had a toy car, the kind you sit in and pedal. I don’t even remember it, but apparently I loved it. I spent hours driving it, and I used to say: ‘Beep! Beep!’”
They got dressed and went for hamburgers. Dave saw her bite into hers, watched the juice run down her chin, and realized that he was in love.
“I don’t want to go back to London,” he said.
She swallowed and said: “Then stay.”
“I can’t. Plum Nellie has to make a new album. Then we go on tour in Australia and New Zealand.”
“I adore you,” she said. “When you go, I’ll cry. But I’m not going to spoil today by being miserable about tomorrow. Eat your hamburger. You need the protein.”
“I feel we’re soul mates. I know I’m young, but I’ve had a lot of different girls.”
“No need to brag. I’ve done pretty well, too.”
“I didn’t mean to brag. I’m not even proud of it—it’s too easy when you’re a pop singer. I’m trying to explain, to myself as well as to you, why I feel so sure.”
She dipped a French fry into ketchup. “Sure of what?”
“That I want this to be permanent.”
She froze with the French fry halfway to her mouth, then put it back on the plate. “What do you mean?”
“I want us to be together always. I want us to live together.”
“Live together . . . how?”
“Beep,” he said.
“Still here.”
He reached across the table and took her hand. “Would you think about maybe getting married?”
“Oh, my God,” she said.
“I know it’s crazy, I know.”
“It’s not crazy,” she said. “But it’s sudden.”
“Does that mean you want to? Get married?”
“You’re right. We’re soul mates. I’ve never had half this much fun with a boyfriend.”
She was still not answering the question. He said slowly and distinctly: “I love you. Will you marry me?”
She hesitated for a long moment, then she said: “Hell, yes.”
• • •
“Don’t even ask me,” said Woody Dewar angrily. “You two are not getting married.”
He was a tall man, dressed in a tweed jacket with a button-down shirt and a tie. Dave had to work hard not to be intimidated.
Beep said: “How did you know?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“My creep of a brother told you,” Beep said. “What a dick I was to confide in him.”
“There’s no need for bad language.”
They were in the drawing room of the Dewars’ Victorian mansion on Gough Street in the Nob Hill district. The handsome old furniture and expensive but faded curtains reminded Dave of the house in Great Peter Street. Dave and Beep sat together on the red velvet couch, Bella was in an antique leather chair, and Woody stood in front of the carved stone fireplace.
Dave said: “I know it’s sudden, but I have obligations: recording in London, a tour of Australia, and more.”
“Sudden?” said Woody. “It’s totally irresponsible! The mere fact that you can make the suggestion at all, after a week of dating, proves that you’re nowhere near mature enough for marriage.”
Dave said: “I hate to boast, but you force me to say that I’ve been living independently from my parents for two years; in that time I’ve built up a multimillion-dollar international business; and although I’m not as rich as people imagine, I am able to keep your daughter in comfort.”
“Beep is seventeen! And so are you. She can’t marry without my permission, and I’m not giving it. And I’m betting Lloyd and Daisy will take the same attitude to you, young Dave.”
Beep said: “In some states you can get married at eighteen.”
“You’re not going anywhere like that.”
“What are you going to do, Daddy, put me in a nunnery?”
“Are you threatening to elope?”
“Just pointing out that, in the end, you don’t really have the power to stop us.”
She was right. Dave had checked, at the San Francisco public library on Larkin Street. The age of majority was twenty-one, but several states allowed women to marry at eighteen without parental consent. And in Scotland the age was sixteen. In practice it was difficult for parents to prevent the marriage of two people who were determined.
But Woody said: “Don’t you bet on that. This is not going to happen.”
Dave said mildly: “We don’t want to quarrel with you about this, but I think Beep’s just saying that yours is not the only opinion that counts here.”
He thought his words were inoffensive, and he had spoken in a courteous tone of voice, but that seemed to infuriate Woody more. “Get out of this house before I throw you out.”
Bella intervened for the first time. “Stay where you are, Dave.”
Dave had not moved. Woody had a bad leg from a war wound: he was not throwing anyone anywhere.
Bella turned to her husband. “Darling, twenty-one years ago you sat in this room and confronted my mother.”
“I wasn’t seventeen, I was twenty-five.”
“Mother accused you of causing the breaking-off of my engagement to Victor Rolandson. She was right: you were the cause of it, though at that point you and I had spent only one evening together. We had met at Dave’s mother’s party, after which you went off to invade Normandy and I didn’t see you for a year.”
Beep said: “One evening? What did you do to him, Mom?”
Bella looked at her daughter, hesitated, then said: “I blew him in a park, honey.”
Dave was astonished. Bella and Woody? It was unimaginable!
Woody protested: “Bella!”
“This is no time to mince words, Woody, dear.”
Beep said: “On the first date? Wow, Mom! Way to go!”
Woody said: “For God’s sake . . .”
Bella said: “My darling, I’m just trying to remind you of what it was like to be young.”
“I didn’t propose marriage right away!”
“That’s true, you were painfully slow.”
Beep giggled and Dave smiled.
Woody said to Bella: “Why are you undermining me?”
“Because you’re being just a little pompous.” She took his hand, smiled, and said: “We were in love. So are they. Lucky us, lucky them.”
Woody became a little less angry. “So we should let them do anything they like?”
“Certainly not. But perhaps we can compromise.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Suppose we tell them to ask us again in a year. In the meantime, Dave will be welcome to come and live here, in our house, whenever he can get a break from working with the group. While he’s here he can share Beep’s bed, if that’s what they want.”
“Certainly not!”
“They’re going to do it, either here or elsewhere. Don’t fight battles you can’t win. And don’t be a hypocrite. You slept with me before we were married, and you slept with Joanne Rouzrokh before you met me.”
Woody got up. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and he walked out of the room.
Bella turned to Dave. “I’m not giving orders, Dave, either to you or to Beep. I’m asking you—begging you—to be patient. You’re a good man from a fine family, and I will be happy when you marry my daughter. But please wait a year.”
Dave looked at Beep. She nodded.
“All right,” said Dave. “A year.”
• • •
On the way out of the hostel in the morning, Jasper checked his pigeonhole. There were two letters. One was a blue airmail envelope addressed in his mother’s graceful handwriting. The other had a typed address. Before he could open them he was called. “Telephone for Jasper Murray!” He stuffed both envelopes into the inside pocket of his jacket.
The caller was Mrs. Salzman. “Good morning, Mr. Murray.”
“Hello, Blue Eyes.”
“Are you wearing a tie, Mr. Murray?” she said.
Ties had become unfashionable, and anyway a clerk-typist was not required to be smart. “No,” he said.
“Put one on. Herb Gould wants to see you at ten.”
“He does? Why?”
“There’s a vacancy for a researcher on This Day. I showed him your clippings.”
“Thank you—you’re an angel!”
“Put on a tie.” Mrs. Salzman hung up.
Jasper returned to his room and put on a clean white shirt and a sober dark tie. Then he put his jacket and topcoat back on and went to work.
At the newsstand in the lobby of the skyscraper, he bought a small box of chocolates for Mrs. Salzman.
He went to the offices of This Day at ten minutes to ten. Fifteen minutes later, a secretary took him to Gould’s office.
“Good to meet you,” Gould said. “Thanks for coming in.”
“I’m glad to be here.” Jasper guessed that Gould had no memory of their conversation in the elevator.
Gould was reading the assassination edition of The Real Thing. “In your résumé it says you started this newspaper.”
“Yes.”
“How did that come about?”
“I was working on the official university student newspaper, St. Julian’s News.” Jasper’s nervousness receded as he began to talk. “I applied for the post of editor, but it went to the sister of the previous editor.”
“So you did it in a fit of pique.”
Jasper grinned. “Partly, yes, though I felt sure I could do a better job than Valerie. So I borrowed twenty-five pounds and started a rival paper.”
“And how did it work out?”
“After three issues we were selling more than St. Julian’s News. And we made a profit, whereas St. Julian’s News was subsidized.” This was only slightly exaggerated. The Real Thing had just about broken even over a year.
“That’s a real achievement.”
“Thank you.”
Gould held up the New York Post clipping of the interview with Walli. “How did you get this story?”
“What had happened to Walli wasn’t a secret. It had already appeared in the German press. But in those days he was not a pop star. If I may say so . . .”
“Go on.”
“I believe the art of journalism is not always finding out facts. Sometimes it’s realizing that certain already-known facts, written up the right way, add up to a big story.”
Gould nodded agreement. “All right. Why do you want to switch from print to television?”
“We know that a good photograph on the front page sells more copies than the best headline. Moving pictures are even better. No doubt there will always be a market for long in-depth newspaper articles, but for the foreseeable future most people are going to get their news from television.”
Gould smiled. “No argument here.”
The speaker on his desk beeped and his secretary said: “Mr. Thomas is calling from the Washington bureau.”
“Thanks, sweetie. Jasper, good talking to you. We’ll be in touch.” He picked up the phone. “Hey, Larry, what’s up?”
Jasper left the office. The interview had gone well, but it had ended with frustrating suddenness. He wished he had had the chance to ask how soon he would hear. But he was a supplicant: no one was worried about how he felt.
He returned to the radio station. While he was at the interview, his job had been done by the secretary who regularly relieved him at lunchtime. Now he thanked her and took over. He took off his jacket, and remembered the mail in his pocket. He put on his headphones and sat at the little desk. On the radio, a sports reporter was previewing a ball game. Jasper took out his letters and opened the one with the typewritten address.
It was from the president of the United States.
It was a form letter, with his name handwritten in a box.
It read:
Greeting:
You are hereby ordered for induction into the Armed Forces of the United States
Jasper said aloud: “What?”
and to report at the address below on January 20, 1966, at 7 A.M. for forwarding to an Armed Forces Induction Station.
Jasper fought down panic. This was obviously a bureaucratic foul-up. He was British: the U.S. Army surely would not conscript foreign citizens.
But he needed to get this sorted out as soon as possible. American bureaucrats were as maddeningly incompetent as any, and equally capable of causing endless unnecessary trouble. You had to pretend to take them seriously, like a red light at a deserted crossroads.
The reporting station was just a few blocks from the radio station. When the secretary came back to relieve him for lunch, he put on his jacket and topcoat and walked out of the building.
He turned up his collar against the cold New York wind and hurried through the streets to the federal building. There he entered an army office on the third floor and found a man in a captain’s uniform sitting at a desk. The short-back-and-sides haircut looked more ridiculous than ever, now that even middle-aged men were growing their hair longer. “Help you?” said the captain.
“I’m pretty sure this letter has been sent to me in error,” Jasper said, and he handed over the envelope.
The captain scanned it. “You know there’s a lottery system?” he said. “The number of men liable for service is greater than the number of soldiers required, so the recruits are selected randomly.” He handed the letter back.
Jasper smiled. “I don’t think I’m eligible for service, do you?”
“And why would that be?”
Perhaps the captain had not noticed his accent. “I’m not an American citizen,” Jasper said. “I’m British.”
“What are you doing in the United States?”
“I’m a journalist. I work for a radio station.”
“And you have a work permit, I presume.”
“Yes.”
“You’re a resident alien.”
“Exactly.”
“Then you are liable to be drafted.”
“But I’m not American!”
“Makes no difference.”
This was becoming exasperating. The army had screwed up, Jasper was almost certain. The captain, like many petty officials, was simply unwilling to admit a mistake. “Are you telling me that the United States army conscripts foreigners?”
The captain was unperturbed. “Conscription is based on residence, not citizenship.”
“That can’t be right.”
The captain began to look irritated. “If you don’t believe me, check it out.”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Jasper left the building and returned to the office. The personnel department would know about this kind of thing. He would go and see Mrs. Salzman.
He gave her the box of chocolates.
“You’re sweet,” she said. “Mr. Gould likes you, too.”
“What did he say?”
“Just thanked me for sending you to him. He hasn’t made up his mind yet. But I don’t know of anyone else under consideration.”
“That’s great news! But I have a little problem you might be able to help me with.” He showed her the letter from the army. “This must be a mistake, surely?”
Mrs. Salzman put her glasses on and read the letter. “Oh, dear,” she said. “How unlucky. And just when you were getting along so well!”
Jasper could hardly believe his ears. “You’re not saying I’m really liable for military service?”
“You are,” she said sadly. “We’ve had this trouble before with foreign employees. The government says that if you want to live and work in the United States, you ought to help defend the country from Communist aggression.”
“Are you telling me I’m going in the army?”
“Not necessarily.”
Jasper’s heart leaped with hope. “What’s the alternative?”
“You can go home. They won’t try to stop you from leaving the country.”
“This is outrageous! Can’t you get me out of it?”
“Do you have a hidden medical condition of any kind? Flat feet, tuberculosis, a hole in the heart?”
“Never been ill.”
She lowered her voice. “And I presume you’re not homosexual.”
“Your family doesn’t belong to a religion that forbids military service?”
“My father’s a colonel in the British army.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Jasper began to believe it. “I’m really leaving. Even if I get the job on This Day, I won’t be able to take it up.” He was struck by a thought. “Don’t they have to give you your job back when you’ve finished your military service?”
“Only if you’ve held the job for a year.”
“So I might not even be able to return to my job as clerk-typist on the radio station!”
“There’s no guarantee.”
“Whereas if I leave the United States now . . .”
“You can just go home. But you’ll never work in the USA again.”
“Jesus.”
“What will you do? Leave, or join the army?”
“I really don’t know,” he said. “Thank you for your help.”
“Thank you for the chocolates, Mr. Murray.”
Jasper left her office in a daze. He could not return to his desk: he had to think. He went outside again. Normally he loved the streets of New York: the high buildings, the mighty Mack trucks, the extravagantly styled cars, the glittering window displays of the fabulous stores. Today it had all turned sour.
He walked toward the East River and sat in a park from which he could see the Brooklyn Bridge. He thought about leaving all this and going home to London with his tail between his legs. He thought about spending two long years working for a provincial British newspaper. He thought about never again being able to work in the USA.
Then he thought about the army: short hair, marching, bullying sergeants, violence. He thought about the hot jungles of Southeast Asia. He might have to shoot small thin peasant men in pajamas. He might be killed, or crippled.
He thought of all the people he knew in London who had envied his going to the States. Anna and Hank had taken him to dinner at the Savoy to celebrate. Daisy had given a farewell party for him at the house in Great Peter Street. His mother had cried.
He would be like a bride who comes home from the honeymoon and announces a divorce. The humiliation seemed worse than the risk of death in Vietnam.
What was he going to do?