Rebecca’s tears were cold on her cheeks.
It was October, and a biting wind from the North Sea was blowing across Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg. This graveyard was one of the largest in the world, a thousand acres of sadness and mourning. It had a monument to victims of Nazi persecution, a walled grove for resistance fighters, and a mass grave for the thirty-eight thousand Hamburg men, women, and children killed in ten days by Operation Gomorrah, the Allied bombing campaign of summer 1943.
There was no special area for victims of the Wall.
Rebecca knelt down and picked up the dead leaves scattered over her husband’s grave. Then she placed a single red rose on the earth.
She stood still, looking at the tombstone, remembering him.
Bernd had been dead a year. He had lived to sixty-two, which was good for a man with a spinal cord injury. In the end his kidneys had failed, a common cause of death in such cases.
Rebecca thought about his life. It had been blighted by the Wall, and by the injury he had received escaping from East Germany, but despite that he had lived well. He had been a good schoolteacher, perhaps a great one. He had defied the tyranny of East German Communism and escaped to freedom. His first marriage had ended in divorce, but he and Rebecca had loved each other passionately for twenty years.
She did not need to come here to remember him. She thought about him every day. His death was an amputation: she was constantly surprised to find he was not there. Alone in the flat they had shared for so long, she often talked to him, telling him about her day, commenting on the news, saying how she felt, hungry or tired or restless. She had not altered the place, and it still had the ropes and handles that had enabled him to move himself around. His wheelchair stood at the side of the bed as if ready for him to sit upright and haul himself into it. When she masturbated, she imagined him lying beside her, one arm around her, the warmth of his body, his lips on hers.
Fortunately her work was constantly absorbing and challenging. She was now a junior minister in the foreign affairs department of the West German government. Because she spoke Russian and had lived in East Germany she specialized in Eastern Europe. She had little free time.
Tragically, the reunification of Germany seemed ever farther away. Die-hard East German leader Erich Honecker appeared unassailable. People were still being killed trying to escape across the Wall. And in the Soviet Union the death of Andropov had only brought in yet another ailing septuagenarian leader, Konstantin Chernenko. From Berlin to Vladivostok, the Soviet empire was a bog in which its citizens struggled and often sank but never made progress.
Rebecca realized her mind had wandered from Bernd. It was time to go. “Good-bye, my love,” she said softly, and she walked slowly away from the grave.
She pulled her heavy coat around her and folded her arms as she crossed the cold cemetery. She gratefully got into her vehicle and turned on the engine. She was still driving the van with the wheelchair hoist. It was time she traded it in for a normal car.
She drove to her apartment. Outside her building was a shiny black Mercedes S500, with a chauffeur in a cap standing beside it. Her spirits lifted. As she expected, she found that Walli had let himself into the apartment with his own key. He was sitting at the kitchen table with the radio on, tapping his foot to a pop song. On the table was a copy of Plum Nellie’s latest album, The Interpretation of Dreams. “I’m glad I caught you,” he said. “I’m on my way to the airport. I’m flying to San Francisco.” He stood up to kiss her.
He would be forty in a couple of years, and he looked great. He still smoked, but he never took drugs or alcohol. He was wearing a tan leather jacket over a blue denim shirt. Some girl ought to snap him up, Rebecca thought; but although he had girlfriends he seemed in no hurry to settle down.
When she kissed him she touched his arm and noticed that the leather of his jacket was as soft as silk. It had probably cost a fortune. She said: “But you’ve only just finished your album.”
“We’re doing a tour of the States. I’m going to Daisy Farm for three weeks of rehearsal. We open in Philadelphia in a month.”
“Give the boys my love.”
“Sure will.”
“It’s a while since you toured.”
“Three years. Hence the long rehearsal. But stadium gigs are where it’s at now. It’s not like the All-Star Touring Beat Revue, with twelve bands playing two or three songs each to a couple of thousand people in a theater or gymnasium. It’s just fifty thousand people and us.”
“Will you do some European dates?”
“Yes, but they haven’t been fixed yet.”
“Any in Germany?”
“Almost certainly.”
“Let me know.”
“Of course. I may be able to get you a free ticket.”
Rebecca laughed. As Walli’s sister she was treated like royalty whenever she went backstage at a Plum Nellie gig. The band had often talked in interviews about the old days in Hamburg, and how Walli’s big sister used to give them their only good meal of the week. For that she was famous in the world of rock and roll.
“Have a great tour,” she said.
“You’re about to fly to Budapest, aren’t you?”
“For a trade conference, yes.”
“Will there be some East Germans there?”
“Yes, why?”
“Do you think one of them might be able to get an album to Alice?”
Rebecca grimaced. “I don’t know. My relations with East German politicians are not warm. They think I’m a lackey of the capitalist-imperialists, and I think they are unelected thugs who rule by terror and keep their people imprisoned.”
Walli smiled. “So, not much common ground, then.”
“No. But I’ll try.”
“Thanks.” He handed her the disc.
Rebecca looked at the photograph on the sleeve, of four middle-aged men with long hair and blue jeans. Buzz, the randy bass player, was overweight. The gay drummer, Lew, was losing his hair. Dave, the leader of the band, had a touch of gray in his hair. They were established, successful, and rich. She remembered the hungry kids who had come here to this apartment: thin, scruffy, witty, charming, and full of hopes and dreams. “You’ve done well,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Walli. “We have.”
• • •
On the last evening of the Budapest conference, Rebecca and the other delegates were given a tasting of Tokaj wines. They were taken to a cellar owned by the Hungarian government bottling organization. It was in the Pest district, east of the Danube River. They were offered several different kinds of white wine: dry; strong; the lightly alcoholic nectar called eszencia; and the famous slow-fermented aszú.
All over the world, government officials were bad at throwing parties, and Rebecca feared this would be a dull occasion. However, the old cellar with its arched ceilings and stacked cases of booze had a cozy feel, and there were spicy Hungarian snacks of dumplings, stuffed mushrooms, and sausages.
Rebecca picked out one of the East German delegates and gave him her most engaging smile. “Our German wines are superior, don’t you think?” she said.
She chatted flirtatiously with him for a few minutes, then asked him the question. “I have a niece in East Berlin, and I want to send her a pop record, but I’m afraid it might get damaged in the mail. Would you take it for me?”
“Yes, I suppose I could,” he said dubiously.
“I’ll give it to you tomorrow at breakfast, if I may. You’re very kind.”
“Okay.” He looked troubled, and Rebecca thought there was a chance he might hand over the disc to the Stasi. But all she could do was try.
When the wine had relaxed everyone, Rebecca was approached by Frederik Bíró, a Hungarian politician of her own age whom she liked. He specialized in foreign policy, as she did. “What’s the truth about this country?” she asked him. “How is it doing, really?”
He looked at his watch. “We’re about a mile from your hotel,” he said. He spoke good German, like most educated Hungarians. “Would you like to walk back with me?”
They got their coats and left. Their route followed the broad, dark river. On the far bank, the lights of the medieval town of Buda rose romantically to a hilltop palace.
“The Communists promised prosperity, and the people are disappointed,” Bíró said as they walked. “Even Communist Party members complain about the Kádár government.” Rebecca guessed that he felt freer to talk out in the open air where they could not be bugged.
She said: “And the solution?”
“The strange thing is that everyone knows the answer. We need to decentralize decisions, introduce limited markets, and legitimize the semi-illegal gray economy so that it can grow.”
“Who stands in the way of this?” She realized she was firing questions at him like a courtroom lawyer. “Forgive me,” she said. “I don’t mean to interrogate you.”
“Not at all,” he said with a smile. “I like people who speak in a direct way. It saves time.”
“Men often resent being spoken to that way by a woman.”
“Not me. You could say that I have a weakness for assertive women.”
“Are you married to one?”
“I was. I’m divorced now.”
Rebecca realized this was none of her business. “You were about to tell me who stands in the way of reform.”
“About fifteen thousand bureaucrats who would lose their power and their jobs; fifty thousand top Communist Party officials who make almost all the decisions; and János Kádár, who has been our leader since 1956.”
Rebecca raised her eyebrows. Bíró was being remarkably frank. The thought crossed her mind that Bíró’s candid remarks may not have been totally spontaneous. Had this conversation perhaps been planned? She said: “Does Kádár have an alternative solution?”
“Yes,” said Bíró. “To maintain the standard of living of Hungarian workers, he is borrowing more and more money from Western banks, including German ones.”
“And how will you pay the interest on those loans?”
“What a good question,” said Bíró.
They drew level with Rebecca’s hotel, across the street from the river. She stopped and leaned on the embankment wall. “Is Kádár a permanent fixture?”
“Not necessarily. I’m close to a promising young man called Miklós Németh.”
Ah, Rebecca thought, so this is the point of the conversation: to tell the German government, quietly and informally, that Németh is the reformist rival to Kádár.
“He’s in his thirties, and very bright,” Bíró continued. “But we fear a Hungarian repeat of the Soviet situation: Brezhnev replaced by Andropov and then Chernenko. It’s like the queue for the toilet in a home for old men.”
Rebecca laughed. She liked Bíró.
He bent his head and kissed her.
She was only half surprised. She had sensed that he was attracted to her. What surprised her was how excited she felt to be kissed. She kissed him back eagerly.
Then she drew back. She put her hands on his chest and pushed him away a little. She studied him in the lamplight. No man of fifty looked like Adonis, but Frederik had a face that suggested intelligence and compassion and the ability to smile wryly at life’s ironies. He had gray hair cut short and blue eyes. He was wearing a dark-blue coat and a bright red scarf, conservatism with a touch of gaiety.
She said: “Why did you get divorced?”
“I had an affair, and my wife left me. Feel free to condemn me.”
“No,” she said. “I’ve made mistakes.”
“I regretted it, when it was too late.”
“Children?”
“Two, grown up. They have forgiven me. Marta has remarried, but I’m still single. What’s your story?”
“I divorced my first husband when I discovered he worked for the Stasi. My second husband was injured escaping over the Berlin Wall. He was in a wheelchair, but we were happy together for twenty years. He died a year ago.”
“My word, you’re about due for some good luck.”
“Perhaps I am. Would you walk me to the hotel entrance, please?”
They crossed the road. On the corner of the block, where the streetlights were less glaring, she kissed him again. She enjoyed it even more this time, and pressed her body against his.
“Spend the night with me,” he said.
She was sorely tempted. “No,” she said. “It’s too soon. I hardly know you.”
“But you’re going home tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“We may never meet again.”
“I’m sure we will.”
“We could go to my apartment. Or I’ll come to your room.”
“No, though I’m flattered by your persistence. Good night.”
“Good night, then.”
She turned away.
He said: “I travel often to Bonn. I’ll be there in ten days’ time.”
She turned back, smiling.
He said: “Will you have dinner with me?”
“I’d love to,” she said. “Call me.”
“Okay.”
She walked into the hotel lobby, smiling.
• • •
Lili was at home in Berlin-Mitte one afternoon when her niece, Alice, came, in a rainstorm, to borrow books. Alice had been refused admission to university, despite her outstanding grades, because of her mother’s underground career as a protest singer. However, Alice was determined to educate herself, so she was studying English in the evenings after she finished her shift at the factory. Carla had a small collection of English-language novels inherited from Grandmother Maud. Lili happened to be at home when Alice called, and they went upstairs to the drawing room and looked through the books together while the rain drummed on the windows. They were old editions, prewar, Lili guessed. Alice picked out a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. She would be the fourth generation to read them, Lili calculated.
Alice said: “We’ve applied for permission to go to West Germany.” She was all youthful eagerness.
“We?” Lili asked.
“Helmut and I.”
Helmut Kappel was her boyfriend. He was a year older, twenty-two, and studying at university.
“Any special reason?”
“I’ve said we want to visit my father in Hamburg. Helmut’s grandparents are in Frankfurt. But Plum Nellie are doing a world tour, and we really want to see my father onstage. Maybe we can time our visit to coincide with his German gig, if he does one.”
“I’m sure he will.”
“Do you think they’ll let us go?”
“You may be lucky.” Lili did not want to discourage youthful optimism, but she was doubtful. She herself had always been refused permission. Very few people were allowed to go. The authorities would suspect that people as young as Alice and Helmut did not intend to come back.
Lili suspected it herself. Alice had often talked wistfully of living in West Germany. Like most young people, she wanted to read uncensored books and newspapers, see new films and plays, and listen to music regardless of whether it was approved by the seventy-two-year-old Erich Honecker. If she managed to get out of East Germany, why would she come back?
Alice said: “You know, most of the things that got this family into bad odor with the authorities actually happened before I was born. They shouldn’t be punishing me.”
But her mother, Karolin, was still singing those songs, Lili thought.
The doorbell sounded, and a minute later they heard agitated voices in the hall. They went downstairs to investigate, and found Karolin standing there in a wet raincoat. Inexplicably, she was carrying a suitcase. She had been let in by Carla, who stood beside her in the hall, wearing an apron over her formal work clothes.
Karolin’s face was red and puffy with crying.
Alice said: “Mother . . . ?”
Lili said: “Has something happened?”
Karolin said: “Alice, your stepfather has left me.”
Lili was flabbergasted. Odo Vossler? It was surprising to her that mild Odo had the guts to leave his wife.
Alice put her arms around her mother, saying nothing.
Carla said: “When did this happen?”
Karolin wiped her nose with a handkerchief. “He told me three hours ago. He wants a divorce.”
Lili thought: Poor Alice, left by two fathers.
Carla said indignantly: “But pastors are not supposed to get divorced.”
“He’s leaving the clergy, too.”
“Good grief.”
Lili realized that an earthquake had struck the family.
Carla became practical. “You’d better sit down. We’ll go in the kitchen. Alice, take your mother’s coat and hang it up to dry. Lili, make coffee.”
Lili put water on to boil and took a cake out of the cupboard. Carla said: “Karolin, whatever has come over Odo?”
She looked down. “He is . . .” She obviously found this difficult to say. Averting her eyes, she said quietly: “Odo tells me he has realized that he is homosexual.”
Alice gave a little scream.
Carla said: “What a terrible shock!”
Lili had a sudden flash of memory. Five years ago, when they had all met up in Hungary, and Walli had met Odo for the first time, she had seen a startled reaction pass over Walli’s face, brief but vivid. Had Walli intuited the truth about Odo in that moment?
Lili herself had always suspected that Odo’s love for Karolin was not a grand passion but more of a Christian mission. If a man should ever propose to Lili, she did not want him to do it out of the kindness of his heart. He should desire her so much he could hardly keep his hands off her: that was a good reason for a proposal of marriage.
Karolin looked up. Now that the awful truth was out, she was able to meet Carla’s eye. “It’s not a shock, really,” she said quietly. “I sort of knew.”
“How?”
“When we were first married, there was a young man called Paul, very good-looking. He was invited for supper a couple of times a week, and Bible study in the vestry, and on Saturday afternoons they would go for long invigorating walks in Treptower Park. Perhaps they never did anything—Odo is not a deceiving man. But, when he made love to me, somehow I felt sure he was thinking about Paul.”
“What happened? How did it end?”
Lili cut the cake into slices while she listened. She put the slices on a plate. No one ate any.
Karolin said: “I never knew the full story. Paul stopped coming to the house and to church. Odo never explained why. Perhaps they both pulled back from physical love.”
Carla said: “Being a pastor, Odo must have suffered a terrible conflict.”
“I know. I’m so sorry for him, when I’m not feeling angry.”
“Poor Odo.”
“But Paul was only the first of half a dozen boys, all very similar, terribly good-looking and sincere Christians.”
“And now?”
“Now Odo has found real love. He is abjectly apologetic to me, but he has made up his mind to face what he truly is. He’s moving in with a man called Eugen Freud.”
“What will he do?”
“He wants to be a teacher in a theological college. He says it’s his real vocation.”
Lili poured boiling water on the ground coffee in the jug. Now that Odo and Karolin had split up, she wondered how Walli would feel. Of course he could not be reunited with Karolin and Alice because of the accursed Berlin Wall. But would he want to? He had not settled permanently with another woman. It seemed to Lili that Karolin really was the love of his life.
But all that was academic. The Communists had decreed that they could not be together.
Carla said: “If Odo has resigned as pastor, you’ll have to leave your house.”
“Yes. I’m homeless.”
“Don’t be silly. You’ll always have a home here.”
“I knew you’d say that,” said Karolin, and she burst into tears.
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll go,” said Lili.
There were two men on the doorstep. One wore a chauffeur’s uniform and held an umbrella over the other man, who was Hans Hoffmann.
“May I come in?” said Hans, but he walked into the hall without waiting for an answer. He was holding a package about a foot square.
His driver returned to the black ZIL limousine parked at the curb.
Lili spoke with distaste. “What do you want?”
“To speak to your niece, Alice.”
“How did you know she was here?”
Hans smiled and did not bother to answer. The Stasi knew everything.
Lili went into the kitchen. “It’s Hans Hoffmann. He wants Alice.”
Alice stood up, pale with fear.
Carla said: “Take him upstairs, Lili. Stay with them.”
Karolin half-rose out of her chair. “I should go with her.”
Carla put a restraining hand on Karolin’s arm. “You’re in no state to deal with the Stasi.”
Karolin accepted that and sat back down again. Lili held the door for Alice, who came out of the kitchen into the hall. The two women went upstairs, followed by Hans.
Lili almost offered Hans a cup of coffee, from automatic politeness, but she stopped herself. He could die of thirst first.
Hans picked up the Sherlock Holmes book Alice had left on the table. “English,” he commented, as if that confirmed a suspicion. He sat down, tugging on the knees of his fine wool trousers to prevent creasing. He put the square packet on the floor beside his chair. He said: “So, young Alice, you wish to travel to West Germany. Why?”
He was a big shot now. Lili did not know what his exact title was, but he was more than just a secret policeman. He made speeches at national meetings and spoke to the press. However, he was not too important to persecute the Franck family.
“My father lives in Hamburg,” Alice said in answer to his question. “So does my aunt Rebecca.”
“It happened before I was born. Are you punishing me for it? That isn’t what you mean by Communist justice . . . is it?”
Hans gave that smug I-thought-so nod again. “A smart mouth, just like your grandmother. This family will never learn.”
Lili said angrily: “We have learned that Communism means petty officials can take their revenge, without regard to justice or the law.”
“Do you imagine that such talk is the way to persuade me to grant Alice permission to travel?”
“You’ve made up your mind already,” Lili said wearily. “You’re going to refuse. You wouldn’t have come here to say yes to her. You just want to gloat.”
Alice said: “Where in the writings of Karl Marx do we read that in the Communist state workers are not allowed to travel to other countries?”
“Restrictions are made necessary by the conditions prevailing.”
“No, they’re not. I want to see my father. You prevent me. Why? Just because you can! That has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with tyranny.”
Hans’s mouth twisted. “You bourgeois people,” he said in tones of disgust. “You can’t bear it when others have power over you.”
“Bourgeois?” said Lili. “I don’t have a uniformed chauffeur to hold an umbrella over me while I walk from the car to the house. Nor does Alice. There’s only one bourgeois in this room, Hans.”
He picked up the package and handed it to Alice. “Open it,” he said.
Alice took off the brown paper wrapping. Inside was a copy of Plum Nellie’s latest album, The Interpretation of Dreams. Her face lit up.
Lili wondered what trick Hans was up to now.
“Why don’t you play your father’s record?” Hans said.
Alice withdrew the inner white envelope from the colored sleeve. Then with finger and thumb she took the black plastic disc from the envelope.
It came out in two pieces.
Hans said: “It seems to be broken. What a shame.”
Alice began to cry.
Hans stood up. “I know the way out,” he said, and he left.
Unter den Linden was the broad boulevard through East Berlin to the Brandenburg Gate. Under another name, the street continued into West Berlin through the park called the Tiergarten. Since 1961, though, Unter den Linden had dead-ended at the Brandenburg Gate, blocked by the Berlin Wall. From the park on the west side, the view of the Brandenburg Gate was disfigured by a high, ugly, gray-green fence covered with graffiti, and a sign in German that said:
WARNING
YOU ARE NOW LEAVING
WEST BERLIN
Beyond the fence was the killing field of the Wall.
Plum Nellie’s road crew built a stage right up against the ugly fence and stacked a mighty wall of loudspeakers facing out into the park. On Walli’s instructions, equally powerful speakers faced the other way, into East Berlin. He wanted Alice to hear him. A reporter had told him that the East German government objected to the speakers. “Tell them that if they take their wall down, I’ll do the same with mine,” Walli had said, and the quote was in all the papers.
Originally they had thought to do the German gig in Hamburg, but then Walli had heard about Hans Hoffmann breaking Alice’s disc, and in retaliation he had asked Dave to reschedule in Berlin, so that a million East Germans would be able to hear the songs Hoffmann had attempted to deny to Alice. Dave had loved the idea.
Now they stood together, looking at the stage from the side as thousands of fans gathered in the park. “This is going to be the loudest we’ve ever been,” said Dave.
“Good,” said Walli. “I want them to hear my guitar all the way to fucking Leipzig.”
“Remember the old days?” Dave said. “Those tinny little speakers they had in baseball stadiums?”
“No one could hear us—we couldn’t hear ourselves!”
“Now a hundred thousand people can listen to music that sounds the way we intended.”
“It’s kind of a miracle.”
When Walli returned to his dressing room, Rebecca was there. “This is fantastic,” she said. “There must be a hundred thousand people in the park!”
She was with a gray-haired man of about her own age. “This is my friend Fred Bíró,” she said.
Walli shook his hand, and Fred said: “It’s an honor to meet you.” He spoke German with a Hungarian accent.
Walli was amused. So his sister was dating at the age of fifty-three! Well, good for her. The guy seemed to be her type, intellectual but not too solemn. And she looked younger, with a Princess Diana hairstyle and a purple dress.
They chatted for a while, then left him to get ready. Walli changed into clean blue jeans and a flame-red shirt. Peering into the mirror, he put on eyeliner so that the crowd could read his expression better. He remembered with disgust the times when he had had to manage his drug intake so carefully: a small amount to keep him level during the performance, and a big hit afterward as his reward. He was not for one second tempted to return to those habits.
He was called to go onstage. He joined up with Dave, Buzz, and Lew. Dave’s whole family was there to wish them well: his wife, Beep; their eleven-year-old son, John Lee; Dave’s parents, Daisy and Lloyd; and even his sister, Evie; all looking proud of their Dave. Walli was glad to see them all, but their presence reminded him poignantly that he was not able to see his own family: Werner and Carla, Lili, Karolin and Alice.
But with any luck they would be listening on the other side of the Wall.
The band went onstage and the crowd roared their welcome.
• • •
Unter den Linden was jammed with thousands of Plum Nellie fans, old and young. Lili and her family, including Karolin, Alice, and Alice’s boyfriend, Helmut, had been there since early morning. They had secured a position close to the barrier the police had set up to keep the crowd at a distance from the Wall. As the crowd had grown through the day, the street had developed a festival atmosphere, with people talking to strangers and sharing their picnics and playing Plum Nellie tapes on portable boom boxes. As darkness fell they opened bottles of beer and wine.
Then the band came on, and the crowd went wild.
East Berliners could see nothing but the four bronze horses pulling Victory’s chariot atop the arch. But they could hear everything loud and clear: Lew’s drumming; Buzz’s thudding bass; Dave’s rhythm guitar and high harmonies; and, best of all, Walli’s perfect pop baritone and lyrical guitar lines. The familiar songs soared out of the speaker stacks and thrilled the moving, dancing crowd. That’s my brother, Lili kept thinking; my big brother, singing to the world. Werner and Carla looked proud, Karolin was smiling, and Alice’s eyes were shining.
Lili glanced up at a government office building nearby. Standing on a small balcony were half a dozen men in ties and dark coats, clearly visible by the streetlights. They were not dancing. One was taking photographs of the crowd. They must be Stasi, Lili realized. They were making a record of traitors disloyal to the Honecker regime—which was, nowadays, almost everyone.
Looking more closely, she thought she recognized one of the secret policemen. It was Hans Hoffmann, she was almost sure. He was tall and slightly stooped. He seemed to be speaking angrily, moving his right arm in a violent hammering gesture. Walli had said in an interview that the band wanted to play here because East Germans were not allowed to listen to their records. Hans must have known that his breaking Alice’s disc was the reason for this concert and this crowd. No wonder he was angry.
She saw Hans throw up his hands in despair, turn, and leave the balcony, disappearing into the building. One song ended and another began. The crowd yelled their approval as they recognized the opening chords of one of Plum Nellie’s biggest hits. Walli’s voice came through the speakers: “This one is for my little girl.”
Then he sang “I Miss Ya, Alicia.”
Lili looked at Alice. Tears were streaming down her face, but she was smiling.