Jasper Murray was fired in the fall of 1988.
He was not surprised. The atmosphere in Washington was different. President Reagan remained popular, despite having committed crimes far worse than those that had brought Nixon down: financing terrorism in Nicaragua, trading weapons for hostages with Iran, and turning women and girls into mangled corpses on the streets of Beirut. Reagan’s collaborator Vice President George H. W. Bush looked likely to become the next president. Somehow—and Jasper could not figure out how this trick had been worked—people who challenged the president and caught him out cheating and lying were no longer heroes, as they had been in the seventies, but instead were considered disloyal and even anti-American.
So Jasper was not shocked, but he was deeply hurt. He had joined This Day twenty years ago, and he had helped make it a hugely respected news show. To be fired seemed like a negation of his life’s work. His generous severance package did nothing to soothe the pain.
He probably should not have made a crack about Reagan at the end of his last broadcast. After telling the audience he was leaving, he had said: “And remember: if the president tells you it’s raining, and he seems really, really sincere—take a look out of the window anyway . . . just to make sure.” Frank Lindeman had been livid.
Jasper’s colleagues threw a farewell party in the Old Ebbitt Grill that was attended by most of Washington’s movers and shakers. Leaning against the bar, late in the evening, Jasper made a speech. Wounded, sad, and defiant, he said: “I love this country. I loved it the first time I came here, back in 1963. I love it because it’s free. My mother escaped from Nazi Germany; the rest of her family never made it. The first thing Hitler did was take over the press and make it subservient to the government. Lenin did the same.” Jasper had drunk a few glasses of wine, and as a result he was a shade more candid. “America is free because it has disrespectful newspapers and television shows to expose and shame presidents who fuck the Constitution up the ass.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to the free press. Here’s to disrespect. And God bless America.”
Next day Suzy Cannon, always eager to kick a man when he was down, published a long, vitriolic profile of Jasper. She managed to suggest that both his service in Vietnam and his naturalization as an American citizen were desperate attempts to conceal a virulent hatred of the United States. She also portrayed him as a ruthless sexual predator who had taken Verena away from George Jakes just as he had stolen Evie Williams from Cam Dewar back in the sixties.
The result was that he found it difficult to get another job. After several weeks of trying, at last another network offered him a position as European correspondent—based in Bonn.
“Surely you can do better than that,” Verena said. She had no time for losers.
“No network will hire me as an anchor.”
They were in the living room late in the evening, having just watched the news and about to get ready for bed.
“But Germany?” Verena said. “Isn’t that a post for a kid on his way up the ladder?”
“Not necessarily. Eastern Europe is in turmoil. There could be some interesting stories coming out of that part of the world in the next year or two.”
She was not going to let him make the best of it. “There are better jobs,” she said. “Didn’t The Washington Post offer you your own comment column?”
“I’ve worked in television all my life.”
“You haven’t applied to local TV,” she said. “You could be a big fish in a small pond.”
“No, I couldn’t. I’d be a has-been on his way down.” The prospect made Jasper shudder with humiliation. “I’m not going to do that.”
Her face took on a defiant look. “Well, don’t ask me to go to Germany with you.”
He had been anticipating this, but he was taken aback by her blunt determination. “Why not?”
“You speak German, I don’t.”
Jasper did not speak very good German, but that was not his best argument. “It would be an adventure,” he said.
“Get real,” Verena said harshly. “I have a son.”
“It would be an adventure for Jack, too. He’d grow up bilingual.”
“George would go to court to stop me from taking Jack out of the country. We have joint custody. And I wouldn’t do it anyway. Jack needs his father and his grandmother. And what about my work? I’m a big success, Jasper—I have twelve people working for me, all lobbying the government for liberal causes. You can’t seriously ask me to give that up.”
“Well, I guess I’ll come home for the holidays.”
“Are you serious? What kind of a relationship would we have? How long will it be before you’re bouncing on a bed with a plump Rhinemaiden in blond plaits?”
It was true that Jasper had been promiscuous most of his life, but he had never cheated on Verena. The prospect of losing her suddenly seemed insupportable. “I can be faithful,” he said desperately.
Verena saw his distress, and her tone softened. “Jasper, that’s touching. I think you even mean it. But I know what you’re like, and you know what I’m like. Neither of us can remain celibate for long.”
“Listen,” he pleaded. “Everyone in American television knows I’m looking for a job, and this is the only one I’ve been offered. Don’t you understand? My back is up against the goddamn wall. I don’t have an alternative!”
“I do understand, and I’m sorry. But we have to be realistic.”
Jasper found her sympathy worse than her scorn. “Anyway, it won’t be forever,” he said defiantly.
“Won’t it?”
“Oh, no. I’m going to make a comeback.”
“In Bonn?”
“There will be more European stories leading the American television news than ever before. You just fucking watch me.”
Verena’s face turned sad. “Shit, you’re really going, aren’t you.”
“Well,” she said regretfully, “don’t expect me to be here when you come back.”
• • •
Jasper had never been to Budapest. As a young man he had always looked west, toward America. Besides, all his life Hungary had been overcast by the gray clouds of Communism. But in November 1988, with the economy in ruins, something astonishing happened. A small group of young reform-minded Communists took control of the government and one of them, Miklós Németh, became prime minister. Among other changes, he opened a stock market.
Jasper thought this was astounding.
Only six months earlier Karoly Grosz, the thuggish chief of the Hungarian Communist Party, had told Newsweek magazine that multiparty democracy was “an historic impossibility” in Hungary. But Németh had enacted a new law allowing independent political “clubs.”
This was a big story. But were the changes permanent? Or would Moscow soon clamp down?
Jasper flew into Budapest in a January blizzard. Beside the Danube, snow lay thick on the neo-Gothic turrets of the vast parliament building. It was in that building that Jasper met Miklós Németh.
Jasper had got the interview with the help of Rebecca Held. Although he had not previously met her, he knew about her from Dave Williams and Walli Franck. As soon as he got to Bonn he had looked her up: she was the nearest thing he had to a German contact. She was now an important figure in the German Foreign Office. Even better, she was a friend—perhaps a lover, Jasper guessed—of Frederik Bíró, aide to Miklós Németh. Bíró had fixed up the interview.
It was Bíró who now met Jasper in the lobby and escorted him through a maze of corridors and passageways to the office of the prime minister.
Németh was just forty-one. He was a short man with thick brown hair that fell over his forehead in a kiss curl. His face showed intelligence and determination, but also anxiety. For the interview he sat behind an oak table and nervously surrounded himself with aides. No doubt he was vividly aware that he was speaking not just to Jasper, but to the United States government—and that Moscow would be watching, too.
Like any prime minister, he talked mostly in predictable clichés. There would be hard times ahead, but the country would emerge stronger in the long run. And yadda yadda yadda, thought Jasper. He needed something better than this.
He asked whether the new political “clubs” could ever become free political parties.
Németh gave Jasper a hard, direct look, and said in a firm, clear voice: “That is one of our greatest ambitions.”
Jasper concealed his astonishment. No Iron Curtain country had ever had independent political parties. Did Németh really mean it?
Jasper asked whether the Communist Party would ever give up its “leading role” in Hungarian society.
Németh gave him that look again. “In two years I could imagine that the head of government might not be a Politburo member,” he said.
Jasper had to stop himself saying Jesus Christ!
He was on a roll, and it was time for the big one. “Might the Soviets intervene to stop these changes, as they did in 1956?”
Németh gave him the look for the third time. “Gorbachev has taken the lid off a boiling pot,” he said, slowly and distinctly. Then he added: “The steam may be painful, but change is irreversible.”
And Jasper knew he had his first great story from Europe.
• • •
A few days later he watched a videotape of his report as it had appeared on American television. Rebecca sat beside him, a poised, confident woman in her fifties, friendly but with an air of authority. “Yes, I think Németh means every word,” she said in answer to Jasper’s question.
Jasper had ended the report speaking to camera in front of the parliament building, with snowflakes landing in his hair. “The ground is frozen hard here in this Eastern European country,” he said on the screen. “But, as always, the seeds of spring are stirring underground. Clearly the Hungarian people want change. But will their Moscow overlords permit it? Miklós Németh believes there is a new mood of tolerance in the Kremlin. Only time will tell whether he is right.”
That had been Jasper’s sign-off, but now to his surprise he saw that another clip had been added to his piece. A spokesman for James Baker, secretary of state to newly inaugurated President George H. W. Bush, spoke to an invisible interviewer. “Signs of softening in Communist attitudes are not to be trusted,” the spokesman said. “The Soviets are attempting to lull the United States into a false sense of security. There is no reason to doubt the Kremlin’s willingness to intervene in Eastern Europe the minute they feel threatened. The urgent necessity now is to underscore the credibility of NATO’s nuclear deterrent.”
“Good God,” said Rebecca. “What planet are they on?”
• • •
Tanya Dvorkin returned to Warsaw in February 1989.
She was sorry to leave Vasili on his own in Moscow, mainly because she would miss him, but also because she still nursed a faint anxiety that he would fill the apartment with nubile teenagers. She did not really believe it would happen. Those days were over. All the same the worry nagged at her a little.
However, Warsaw was a great assignment. Poland was in a ferment. Solidarity had somehow risen from its grave. Amazingly, General Jaruzelski—the dictator who had cracked down on freedom only seven years previously, breaking every promise and stamping on the independent trade union—had in desperation agreed to round-table talks with opposition groups.
In Tanya’s opinion, Jaruzelski had not changed—the Kremlin had. Jaruzelski was the same old tyrant, but he was no longer confident of Soviet support. According to Dimka, Jaruzelski had been told that Poland must solve its own problems, without help from Moscow. When Mikhail Gorbachev first said this, Jaruzelski had not believed it. None of the East European leaders had. But that had been three years ago, and at last the message was beginning to sink in.
Tanya did not know what would happen. No one did. Never in her life had she heard so much talk of change, liberalization, and freedom. But the Communists were still in control in the Soviet bloc. Was the day coming nearer when she and Vasili could reveal their secret, and tell the world the true identity of the author Ivan Kuznetsov? In the past such hopes had always ended up crushed beneath the caterpillar tracks of Soviet tanks.
As soon as Tanya arrived in Warsaw, she was invited to dinner at the apartment of Danuta Gorski.
Standing at the door, ringing the bell, she remembered the last time she had seen Danuta, being dragged out of this very apartment by the brutish ZOMO security police in their camouflage uniforms, on the night seven years ago when Jaruzelski had declared martial law.
Now Danuta opened the door, grinning broadly, all teeth and hair. She hugged Tanya, then led her into the dining room of the small apartment. Her husband, Marek, was opening a bottle of Hungarian Riesling, and there was a plate of snack-size sausages on the table with a small dish of mustard.
“I was in jail for eighteen days,” Danuta said. “I think they let me out because I was radicalizing the other inmates.” She laughed, throwing back her head.
Tanya admired her guts. If I were a lesbian I could fall for Danuta, she thought. All the men Tanya had loved had been courageous.
“Now I’m part of this Round Table,” Danuta went on. “Every day, all day.”
“It is really a round table?”
“Yes, a huge one. The theory is that no one is in charge. But, in practise, Lech Wałesa chairs the meetings.”
Tanya marveled. An uneducated electrician was dominating the debate on the future of Poland. This kind of thing had been the dream of her grandfather the Bolshevik factory worker Grigori Peshkov. Yet Wałesa was the anti-Communist. In a way she was glad Grandfather Grigori had not lived to see this irony. It might have broken his heart.
“Will anything come of the Round Table?” Tanya asked.
Before Danuta could answer, Marek said: “It’s a trick. Jaruzelski wants to cripple the opposition by co-opting its leaders, making them part of the Communist government without changing the system. It’s his strategy for staying in power.”
Danuta said: “Marek is probably right. But the trick is not going to work. We’re demanding independent trade unions, a free press, and real elections.”
Tanya was shocked. “Jaruzelski is actually discussing free elections?” Poland already had phony elections, in which only Communist parties and their allies were allowed to field candidates.
“The talks keep breaking down. But he needs to stop the strikes, so he reconvenes the Round Table, and we demand elections again.”
“What’s behind the strikes?” Tanya said. “I mean, fundamentally?”
Marek interrupted again. “You know what people are saying? ‘Forty-five years of Communism, and still there’s no toilet paper.’ We’re poor! Communism doesn’t work.”
“Marek is right,” said Danuta again. “A few weeks ago a store here in Warsaw announced that it would be accepting down payments for television sets on the following Monday. It didn’t have any TVs, mind you, it was just hoping to get some. People started queuing on the Friday beforehand. By Monday morning there were fifteen thousand people in line—just to put their names on a list!”
Danuta stepped into the kitchen and returned with a fragrant bowl of zupa ogórkowa, the sour cucumber soup that Tanya loved. “So what will happen?” Tanya asked as she tucked in. “Will there be real elections?”
“No,” said Marek.
“Maybe,” said Danuta. “The latest proposal is that two-thirds of the seats in parliament should be reserved for the Communist Party, and there should be free elections for the remainder.”
Marek said: “So we would still have phony elections!”
Danuta said: “But this would be better than what we have now! Don’t you agree, Tanya?”
“I don’t know,” said Tanya.
• • •
The spring thaw had not arrived, and Moscow was still under its duvet of snow, when the new Hungarian prime minister came to see Mikhail Gorbachev.
Yevgeny Filipov knew that Miklós Németh was coming, and he buttonholed Dimka outside the leader’s office a few minutes before the meeting. “This nonsense must be stopped!” he said.
These days, Filipov was looking increasingly frantic, Dimka observed. His gray hair was untidy, and he went everywhere in a rush. He was now in his early sixties, and his face was permanently set in the disapproving frown he had worn for so much of his life. His baggy suits and ultra-short haircut were back in fashion: kids in the West called the look retro.
Filipov hated Gorbachev. The Soviet leader stood for everything Filipov had been fighting against all his life: relaxation of rules instead of strict party discipline; individual initiative as opposed to central planning; friendship with the West rather than war against capitalist imperialism. Dimka could almost sympathize with a man who had wasted his days fighting a losing battle.
At least, Dimka hoped it had been a losing battle. The conflict was not over yet.
“What nonsense in particular are we talking about?” Dimka said wearily.
“Independent political parties!” Filipov said as if he were mentioning an atrocity. “The Hungarians have started a dangerous trend. Jaruzelski is now talking about the same thing in Poland. Jaruzelski!”
Dimka understood Filipov’s incredulity. It was, indeed, astonishing that the Polish tyrant was now talking of making Solidarity a part of the nation’s future, and of allowing political parties to compete in a Western-style election.
And Filipov did not know it all. Dimka’s sister, in Warsaw for TASS, was sending him accurate information. Jaruzelski was up against the wall, and Solidarity was adamant. They were not just talking, they were planning an election.
This was what Filipov and the Kremlin conservatives were fighting to prevent.
“These developments are highly dangerous!” Filipov said. “They open the door to counterrevolutionary and revisionist tendencies. What is the point of that?”
“The point is that we no longer have the money to subsidize our satellites—”
“We have no satellites. We have allies.”
“Whatever they are, they’re not willing to do what we say if we can’t pay for their obedience.”
“We used to have an army to defend Communism—but not anymore.”
There was some truth in that exaggeration. Gorbachev had announced the withdrawal from Eastern Europe of a quarter of a million troops and ten thousand tanks—an essential economy measure, but also a peace gesture. “We can’t afford such an army,” said Dimka.
Filipov was so indignant he looked as if he might burst. “Can’t you see that you’re talking about the end of everything we have worked for since 1917?”
“Khrushchev said it would take us twenty years to catch up with the Americans in wealth and military strength. It’s now twenty-eight years, and we’re farther behind than we were in 1961 when Khrushchev said it. Yevgeny, what are you fighting to preserve?”
“The Soviet Union! What do you imagine the Americans are thinking, as we run down our army and permit creeping revisionism among our allies? They’re laughing up their sleeves! President Bush is a Cold Warrior, intent on overthrowing us. Don’t fool yourself.”
“I disagree,” said Dimka. “The more we disarm, the less reason the Americans will have for building up their nuclear stockpile.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Filipov. “For all our sakes.” He walked away.
Dimka, too, hoped he was right. Filipov had put his finger on the flaw in Gorbachev’s strategy. It relied upon President Bush being reasonable. If the Americans responded to disarmament with reciprocal measures, Gorbachev would be vindicated, and his Kremlin rivals would look foolish. But if Bush failed to respond—or, even worse, increased military spending—then it would be Gorbachev who looked a fool. He would be undermined, and his opponents might seize the opportunity to overthrow him and return to the good old days of superpower confrontation.
Dimka went to Gorbachev’s suite of rooms. He was looking forward to meeting Németh. What was happening in Hungary was exciting. Dimka was also eager to find out what Gorbachev would say to Németh.
The Soviet leader was not predictable. He was a lifelong Communist who was nevertheless unwilling to impose Communism on other countries. His strategy was clear: glasnost and perestroika, openness and restructuring. His tactics were less obvious, and on any particular issue it was hard to know which way he would jump. He kept Dimka on his toes.
Gorbachev was not warm toward Németh. The Hungarian prime minister had asked for an hour and had been offered twenty minutes. It could be a difficult meeting.
Németh arrived with Frederik Bíró, whom Dimka already knew. Gorbachev’s secretary immediately took the three of them into the grand office. It was a vast high-ceilinged room with paneled walls painted a creamy yellow. Gorbachev was behind a contemporary black-stained wood desk that stood in a corner. There was nothing on the desk but a phone and a lamp. The visitors sat down on stylish black leather chairs. Everything symbolized modernity.
Németh got down to business with few courtesies. He was about to announce free elections, he said. Free meant free: the result could be a non-Communist government. How would Moscow feel about that?
Gorbachev flushed, and the purple birthmark on his bald dome darkened. “The proper path is to return to the roots of Leninism,” he said.
This did not mean much. Everyone who tried to change the Soviet Union claimed to be returning to the roots of Leninism.
Gorbachev went on: “Communism can find its way again, by going back to the time before Stalin.”
“No, it can’t,” said Németh bluntly.
“Only the party can create a just society! This cannot be left to chance.”
“We disagree.” Németh was beginning to look ill. His face was pale and his voice was shaky. He was a cardinal challenging the authority of the Pope. “I must ask you one question very directly,” he said. “If we hold an election and the Communist Party is voted out of power, will the Soviet Union intervene with military force as it did in 1956?”
The room went dead silent. Even Dimka did not know how Gorbachev would respond.
Then Gorbachev said one Russian word: “Nyet.” No.
Németh looked like a man whose death sentence has been repealed.
Gorbachev added: “At least, not as long as I’m sitting in this chair.”
Németh laughed. He did not think Gorbachev was in danger of being deposed.
He was wrong. The Kremlin always presented a united front to the world, but it was never as harmonious as it pretended. People had no idea how shaky was Gorbachev’s grip. Németh was satisfied to know what Gorbachev’s own intentions were, but Dimka knew better.
However, Németh was not finished. He had won from Gorbachev a huge concession—a promise that the USSR would not intervene to prevent the overthrow of Communism in Hungary! Yet now, with surprising audacity, Németh pressed for a further guarantee. “The fence is dilapidated,” he said. “It has to be either renewed or abandoned.”
Dimka knew what Németh was talking about. The border between Communist Hungary and capitalist Austria was secured by a stainless steel electric fence one hundred and fifty miles long. It was naturally very expensive to maintain. To renew the whole thing would cost millions.
Gorbachev said: “If it needs renewing, then renew it.”
“No,” said Németh. He might have been nervous, but he was determined. Dimka admired his guts. “I don’t have the money, and I don’t need the fence,” Németh went on. “It’s a Warsaw Pact installation. If you want it, you should renew it.”
“That isn’t going to happen,” said Gorbachev. “The Soviet Union no longer has that kind of money. A decade ago, oil was forty dollars a barrel and we could do anything. Now it’s what, nine dollars? We’re broke.”
“Let me make sure we understand one another,” said Németh. He was perspiring, and he wiped his face with a handkerchief. “If you do not pay, we will not renew the fence, and it will cease to operate as an effective barrier. People will be able to go to Austria, and we will not stop them.”
There was another pregnant silence. Then at last Gorbachev sighed and said: “So be it.”
That was the end of the meeting. The farewell courtesies were perfunctory. The Hungarians could not get away quickly enough. They had got everything they asked for. They shook hands with Gorbachev and left the room at a fast walk. It was as if they wanted to get back on the plane before Gorbachev had time to change his mind.
Dimka returned to his own office in a reflective mood. Gorbachev had surprised him twice: first by being unexpectedly hostile to Németh’s reforms, and second by offering no real resistance to them.
Would the Hungarians abandon the fence? It was an essential part of the Iron Curtain. If suddenly people were allowed to walk over the border and into the West, that could be a change even more momentous than free elections.
But Filipov and the conservatives had not yet surrendered. They were on the alert for the least sign of weakness in Gorbachev. Dimka did not doubt that they had contingency plans for a coup.
He was looking thoughtfully at the large revolutionary picture on his office wall when Natalya called. “You know what a Lance missile is, don’t you?” she said without preamble.
“A short-range surface-to-surface tactical nuclear weapon,” he replied. “The Americans have about seven hundred in Germany. Fortunately their range is only about seventy-five miles.”
“Not any longer,” she said. “President Bush wants to upgrade them. The new ones will fly two hundred eighty miles.”
“Hell.” This was what Dimka feared and Filipov had predicted. “But this is illogical. It’s not that long ago that Reagan and Gorbachev withdrew intermediate-range ballistic missiles.”
“Bush thinks Reagan went too far with disarmament.”
“How definite is this plan?”
“Bush has surrounded himself with Cold War hawks, according to the KGB station in Washington. Defense Secretary Cheney is gung ho. So is Scowcroft.” Brent Scowcroft was the national security adviser. “And there’s a woman called Condoleezza Rice who is just as bad.”
Dimka despaired. “Filipov is going to say: ‘I told you so.’”
“Filipov and others. It’s a dangerous development for Gorbachev.”
“What’s the Americans’ timetable?”
“They’re going to put pressure on the West Europeans at the NATO meeting in May.”
“Shit,” said Dimka. “Now we’re in trouble.”
Rebecca Held was at her apartment in Hamburg, late in the evening, working, with papers spread over the round table in the kitchen. On the counter were a dirty coffee cup and a plate with the crumbs of the ham sandwich she had eaten for supper. She had taken off her smart working clothes, removed her makeup, showered, and put on baggy old underwear and an ancient silk wrap.
She was preparing for her first visit to the United States. She was going with her boss, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who was vice chancellor of Germany, foreign minister, and head of the Free Democratic Party, to which she belonged. Their mission was to explain to the Americans why they did not want any more nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union was becoming less threatening under Gorbachev. Upgraded nukes were not merely unnecessary: they might actually be counterproductive, undermining Gorbachev’s peace moves and strengthening the hand of hawks in Moscow.
She was reading a German intelligence appraisal of the power struggle in the Kremlin when the doorbell rang.
She looked at her watch. It was half past nine. She was not expecting a visitor and she certainly was not dressed to receive one. However, it was probably a neighbor in the same building on some trivial errand, needing to borrow a carton of milk.
She did not merit a full-time bodyguard: she was not important enough to attract terrorists, thank God. All the same her door had a peephole so that she could check before opening up.
She was surprised to see Frederik Bíró outside.
She had mixed feelings. A surprise visit from her lover was a delight—but she looked a perfect fright. At the age of fifty-seven any woman wanted time to prepare before she showed herself to her man.
But she could hardly ask him to wait in the hall while she made up her face and changed her underwear.
She opened the door.
“My darling,” he said, and kissed her.
“I’m pleased to see you, but you’ve caught me unawares,” she said. “I’m a mess.”
He stepped inside and she closed the door. He held her at arm’s length and studied her. “Tousled hair, glasses, dressing gown, bare feet,” he said. “You look adorable.”
She laughed and led him into the kitchen. “Have you had dinner?” she said. “Shall I make you an omelette?”
“Just some coffee, please. I ate on the plane.”
“What are you doing in Hamburg?”
“My boss sent me.” Fred sat at the table. “Prime Minister Németh is coming to Germany next week to see Chancellor Kohl. He’s going to ask Kohl a question. Like all politicians, he wants to know the answer before he asks it.”
“What question?”
“I need to explain.”
She put a cup of coffee in front of Fred. “Go ahead, I’ve got all night.”
“I’m hoping it won’t take that long.” He ran a hand up her leg inside her robe. “I have other plans.” He reached her underwear. “Oh!” he said. “Roomy panties.”
She blushed. “I wasn’t expecting you!”
He grinned. “I could get both hands inside there—both arms, maybe.”
She pushed his hands away and moved to the other side of the table. “Tomorrow I’m going to throw out all my old underwear.” She sat opposite him. “Stop embarrassing me and tell me why you’re here.”
“Hungary is going to open its border with Austria.”
Rebecca did not think she had heard him right. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re going to open our border. Let the fence fall into disrepair. Free our people to go where they want.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“It’s an economic decision as much as a political one. The fence is collapsing and we can’t afford to rebuild it.”
Rebecca was beginning to understand. “But if the Hungarians can get out, so can everyone else. How will you stop Czechs, Yugoslavs, Poles . . .”
“We won’t.”
“. . . and East Germans. Oh, my goodness, my family will be able to leave!”
“It can’t happen. The Soviets won’t allow it.”
“Németh went to Moscow and told Gorbachev.”
“What did Gorbi say?”
“Nothing. He’s not happy, but he won’t intervene. He can’t afford to renew the fence either.”
“But . . .”
“I was there, at the meeting in the Kremlin. Németh asked him straight out, would the Soviets invade as they did in 1956? His answer was nyet.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Yes.”
This was world-changing news. Rebecca had been working for this all her political life, but she could not believe it was really going to happen: her family, able to travel from East to West Germany! Freedom!
Then Fred said: “There is one possible snag.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Gorbachev promised no military intervention, but he did not rule out economic sanctions.”
Rebecca thought that was the least of their problems. “Hungary’s economy will become west-facing, and it will grow.”
“That’s what we want. But it will take time. People may face hardship. The Kremlin may hope to push us into an economic collapse before the economy has time to adjust. Then there could be a counterrevolution.”
He was right, Rebecca saw. This was a serious danger. “I knew it was too good to be true,” she said despondently.
“Don’t despair. We have a solution. That’s why I’m here.”
“What’s your plan?”
“We need support from the richest country in Europe. If we can have a big line of credit from German banks, we can resist Soviet pressure. Next week, Németh will ask Kohl for a loan. I know you can’t authorize such a thing on your own, but I was hoping you could give me a steer. What will Kohl say?”
“I can’t imagine he’ll say no, if the reward is open borders. Apart from the political gain, think what this could mean to the German economy.”
“How much?”
“Possibly a billion deutschmarks.”
“Don’t worry,” Rebecca said. “You’ve got it.”
• • •
The Soviet economy was getting worse and worse, according to the CIA report in front of Congressman George Jakes. Gorbachev’s reforms—decentralization, more consumer goods, fewer weapons—were not enough.
There was pressure on the East European satellites to follow the USSR by liberalizing their own economies, but any changes would be minor and gradual, the Agency forecast. If any country rejected Communism outright, then Gorbachev would send in the tanks.
That did not sound right to George, sitting in a meeting of the House intelligence oversight committee. Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia were running ahead of the USSR, moving toward free enterprise and democracy, and Gorbachev was doing nothing to hold them back.
But President Bush and Defense Secretary Cheney believed passionately in the Soviet menace, and as always the CIA was under pressure to tell the president what he wanted to hear.
The meeting left George feeling dissatisfied and anxious. He took the dinky Capitol subway train back to the Cannon House Office Building, where he had a suite of three crowded rooms. The lobby had a reception desk, a couch for waiting visitors, and a round table for meetings. To one side was the administration office, crammed with staff desks and bookshelves and filing cabinets. On the opposite side was George’s own room, with a desk and a conference table and a picture of Bobby Kennedy.
He was intrigued to see, on his list of afternoon appointments, a clergyman from Anniston, Alabama, the Reverend Clarence Bowyer, who wanted to talk to him about civil rights.
George would never forget Anniston. It was the town where the Freedom Riders had been attacked by a mob and their bus firebombed. It was the only time someone had tried seriously to kill George.
He must have said yes to the man’s request for a meeting, though he could not now remember why. He assumed that a preacher from Alabama who wanted to see him would be African American, and he was startled when his assistant ushered in a white man. The Reverend Bowyer was about George’s age, dressed in a gray suit with a white shirt and a dark tie, but wearing trainers, perhaps because he had to do a lot of walking in Washington. He had large front teeth and a receding chin, and salt-and-pepper hair that accentuated the resemblance to a red squirrel. There was something vaguely familiar about him. With him was a teenage boy who looked just like him.
“I try to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to soldiers and others working at the Anniston army depot,” Bowyer said, introducing himself. “Many of my congregation are African Americans.”
Bowyer was sincere, George thought; and he had a mixed-race church, which was unusual. “What’s your interest in civil rights, Reverend?”
“Well, sir, I was a segregationist as a young man.”
“Many people were,” George said. “We’ve all learned a lot.”
“I’ve done more than learn,” said Bowyer. “I have spent decades in deep repentance.”
That seemed a little strong. Some of the people who asked for meetings with congressmen were more or less crazy. George’s staff did their best to filter out the lunatics, but now and again one would slip through the net. However, Bowyer struck George as pretty sane. “Repentance,” George repeated, playing for time.
“Congressman Jakes,” said Bowyer solemnly, “I have come here to apologize to you.”
“What for, exactly?”
“In 1961 I hit you with a crowbar. I believe I broke your arm.”
In a flash George understood why the man looked familiar. He had been in the mob at Anniston. He had tried to hit Maria, but George had put his arm in the way. It still hurt in cold weather. George stared in astonishment at this earnest clergyman. “So that was you,” he said.
“Yes, sir. I don’t have any excuses to offer. I knew what I was doing, and I did wrong. But I have never forgotten you. I just would like you to know how sorry I am, and I wanted my son, Clam, to witness my confession of evildoing.”
George was nonplussed. Nothing like this had ever happened to him. “So you became a preacher,” he said.
“At first I became a drinker. Because of whisky, I lost my job and my home and my car. Then one Sunday the Lord led my footsteps to a little mission in a shack in a poor neighborhood. The preacher, who happened to be black, took as his text the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew’s gospel, especially verse forty: ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these the least of my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’”
George had heard more than one sermon on that verse. Its message was that a wrong done to anyone was a wrong done to Jesus. African Americans, who had more wrongs done to them than most citizens, gained strong consolation from that notion. The verse was even quoted on the Wales Window at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.
Bowyer said: “I went into that church to mock, and I came out saved.”
George said: “I’m glad to hear of your change of heart, Reverend.”
“I do not deserve your forgiveness, Congressman, but I hope for God’s.” Bowyer stood up. “I will not take up any more of your valuable time. Thank you.”
George stood too. He felt that he had not responded adequately to a man in the grip of powerful emotion. “Before you go,” he said, “let us shake hands.” He took Bowyer’s hand in both of his. “If God can forgive you, Clarence, I guess I should too.”
Bowyer choked up. Tears came to his eyes as he shook George’s hand.
On impulse, George embraced him. The man was shaking with sobs.
After a minute, George broke the hug and stepped back. Bowyer tried to speak but was unable to. Weeping, he turned and left the room.
His son shook George’s hand. “Thank you, Congressman,” the boy said in a shaky voice. “I can’t express how much your forgiveness means to my father. You are a great man, sir.” He followed Bowyer out of the room.
George sat back down, feeling dazed. Well, he thought, how about that?
• • •
He told Maria about it that evening.
Her reaction was unsympathetic. “I guess you’re entitled to forgive them, it was your arm that got broken,” she said. “Me, I’m not big on mercy for segregationists. I’d like to see Reverend Bowyer serve a couple of years in jail, or maybe on a chain gang. Then perhaps I’d accept his apology. All those corrupt judges and brutal cops and bomb makers are still walking around free, you know. They’ve never been brought to justice for what they did. Some are probably drawing their damn pensions. And they want forgiveness, too? I’m not going to help them feel comfortable. If their guilt makes them miserable, I’m glad. It’s the least they deserve.”
George smiled. Maria was getting feistier in her fifties. She was one of the most senior people in the State Department, respected by Republicans and Democrats alike. She carried herself with confidence and authority.
They were in her apartment, and she was making dinner, sea bass stuffed with herbs, while George laid the table. A delicate aroma filled the room, making George’s mouth water. Maria topped up his glass of Lynmar Chardonnay, then put broccoli into a steamer. She was a little heavier than she had used to be, and she was trying to adopt George’s lean cuisine tastes.
After dinner they took their coffee to the couch. Maria was in a mellow mood. “I want to be able to look back and say that the world was a safer place when I left the State Department than when I arrived,” she said. “I want my nephews and nieces, and my godson, Jack, to raise their children without the threat of a superpower holocaust hanging over them. Then I’ll be able to say that my life was well spent.”
“I understand how you feel,” said George. “But it seems like a pipe dream. Is it possible?”
“Maybe. The Soviet bloc is nearer to collapse than at any time since the Second World War. Our ambassador to Moscow believes that the Brezhnev Doctrine is dead.”
The Brezhnev Doctrine said that the Soviet Union controlled Eastern Europe, just as the Monroe Doctrine gave the same rights to the USA in South America.
George nodded. “If Gorbachev no longer wants to boss the Communist empire, that’s a huge geopolitical gain for the USA.”
“And we should be doing everything we can to help Gorbachev stay in power. But we’re not, because President Bush believes the whole thing is a confidence trick by Gorbachev. So he’s actually planning to increase our nuclear weapons in Europe.”
“Which is guaranteed to undermine Gorbachev and encourage the hawks in the Kremlin.”
“Exactly. Anyway, I have a bunch of Germans coming tomorrow to try and set him straight.”
“Good luck with that,” George said skeptically.
“Yeah.”
George finished his coffee but he did not want to go. He felt comfortable, full of good food and wine, and he always enjoyed talking to Maria. “You know something?” he said. “Aside from my son and my mother, I like you better than anyone else in the world.”
“How is Verena?” Maria said sharply.
George smiled. “She’s seeing your old boyfriend Lee Montgomery. He’s a Washington Post editor now. I think it’s serious.”
“Good.”
“Do you remember . . .” He probably should not say this, but he had drunk half a bottle of wine, and he thought, What the hell. “Do you remember the time we had sex on this couch?”
“George,” she said, “I don’t do it often enough to forget.”
“Unfortunately, neither do I.”
She laughed, but said: “I’m glad.”
He felt nostalgic. “How long ago was that?”
“It was the night Nixon resigned, fifteen years ago. You were young and handsome.”
“And you were almost as beautiful as you are today.”
“Why, you smooth talker.”
“It was nice, wasn’t it? The sex, I mean.”
“Nice?” She pretended to be offended. “Is that all?”
“Yeah.”
He was possessed by a feeling of regret for missed opportunities. “What happened to us?”
“We had separate paths to follow.”
“I guess.” There was a silence, then George said: “Do you want to do it again?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
They kissed, and immediately he remembered how it had been the first time: so relaxed, so natural, so right.
Her body had changed. It was softer, less taut, the skin dryer to his touch. He guessed the same was true of his own body: the wrestling muscles had gone long ago. But it made no difference. Her lips and tongue were fervently busy on his, and he felt the same eager pleasure at being drawn into the arms of a sensual and loving woman.
She unbuttoned his shirt. While he was taking it off, she stood up and quickly slipped out of her dress.
George said: “Before we go any farther . . .”
“What?” She sat down again. “Are you having second thoughts?”
“On the contrary. That’s a pretty bra, by the way.”
“Thank you. You can take it off me in a minute.” She unbuckled his belt.
“But there’s something I want to say. At the risk of spoiling everything . . .”
“Go ahead,” she said. “Take a chance.”
“I’m realizing something. I guess I should have figured it out before.”
She watched him, smiling a little, saying nothing, and he had the strangest feeling that she knew exactly what was coming.
“I’m realizing that I love you,” he said.
“Do you, really?”
“Yes. Do you mind? Is it okay? Have I ruined the atmosphere?”
“You fool,” she said. “I’ve been in love with you for years.”
• • •
Rebecca arrived at the State Department in Washington on a warm spring day. There were daffodils in the flower beds, and she was full of hope. The Soviet empire was weakening, perhaps fatally. Germany had the chance to become united and free. The Americans just needed a nudge in the right direction.
Rebecca reflected that it was because of Carla, her adoptive mother, that she was here in Washington, representing her country, negotiating with the most powerful men in the world. Carla had taken a terrified thirteen-year-old Jewish girl in wartime Berlin and had given her the confidence to become an international stateswoman. I must get a photograph to send her, Rebecca thought.
With her boss, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, and a handful of aides, she went into the art-moderne State Department building. The two-story lobby featured a huge mural called The Defense of Human Freedoms, which showed the five freedoms being protected by the American military.
The Germans were greeted by a woman whom Rebecca had known, until now, only as a warm, intelligent voice on the phone: Maria Summers. Rebecca was surprised to see that Maria was African American. Then she felt guilty at being surprised: there was no reason why an African American should not hold a high post in the State Department. Finally, Rebecca realized there were very few other dark faces in the building. Maria was unusual and Rebecca’s surprise was, after all, justified.
Maria was friendly and welcoming, but it soon became clear that Secretary of State James Baker did not feel the same. The Germans waited outside his office for five minutes, then ten. Maria was clearly mortified. Rebecca began to worry. This could not be an accident. To keep the German vice chancellor waiting was a calculated insult. Baker must be hostile.
Rebecca had heard before of the Americans doing this kind of thing. Afterward they would tell the media that the visitors had been snubbed because of their views, and embarrassing stories would appear in the press back home. Ronald Reagan had done the same to the British opposition leader, Neil Kinnock, because he, too, was a disarmer.
Rebecca hardly cared about the insult as such. Male politicians postured a lot. It was just boys waving their dicks around. But it meant the meeting was likely to be unproductive, and that was bad news for detente.
After fifteen minutes they were shown in. Baker was a lanky, athletic man with a Texas accent, but there was nothing of the country bumpkin about him: he was immaculately barbered and tailored. He gave Hans-Dietrich Genscher a notably brief handshake and said: “We are deeply disappointed in your attitude.”
Fortunately, Genscher was no pussycat. He had been vice chancellor of Germany and foreign minister for fifteen years, and he knew how to ignore bad manners. A balding man in glasses, he had a fleshy, pugnacious face. “We feel that your policy is out of date,” he said calmly. “The situation in Europe has changed, and you need to take that into account.”
“We have to maintain the strength of the NATO nuclear deterrent,” Baker said as if repeating a mantra.
Genscher controlled his impatience with a visible effort. “We disagree—and so do our people. Four out of five Germans want all nuclear weapons withdrawn from Europe.”
“They are being duped by Kremlin propaganda!”
“We live in a democracy. In the end, the people decide.”
Dick Cheney, the American secretary of defense, was also in the room. “One of the Kremlin’s primary goals is to denuclearize Europe,” he said. “We must not fall into their trap!”
Genscher was clearly irritated to be lectured on European politics by men who knew a good deal less about the subject than he did. He looked like a schoolteacher trying in vain to explain something to pupils who were deliberately being obtuse. “The Cold War is over,” he said.
Rebecca was aghast to see that the discussion was going to be completely profitless. No one was listening: they had all made up their minds beforehand.
She was right. The two sides traded irritable remarks for a few more minutes, then the meeting broke up.
There was no photo opportunity.
As the Germans were leaving, Rebecca racked her brains for some way to rescue this, but came up with nothing.
In the lobby, Maria Summers said to Rebecca: “That didn’t go the way I expected.”
It was not an apology, but it was as near to one as Maria was permitted, by her position, to offer. “That’s okay,” said Rebecca. “I’m sorry there wasn’t more dialogue and less point-scoring.”
“Is there anything we can do to move the senior people closer together on this issue?”
Rebecca was about to say that she did not know, then she was struck by a thought. “Maybe there is,” she said. “Why don’t you bring President Bush to Europe? Let him see for himself. Have him talk to the Poles and the Hungarians. I believe he might change his mind.”
“You’re right,” said Maria. “I’m going to suggest it. Thank you.”
“Good luck,” said Rebecca.