West Berlin made Walli nostalgic. He remembered being a teenager with a guitar, playing Everly Brothers hits in the Minnesänger folk club just off the Ku’damm, and dreaming of going to America to be a pop star. I got what I wanted, he thought—and a lot that I didn’t.
While he was checking into his hotel he ran into Jasper Murray. “I heard you were over here,” said Walli. “I guess what’s happening in Germany is exciting to cover.”
“It is,” said Jasper. “Americans aren’t normally interested in European news, but this is special.”
“Your show, This Day, isn’t the same without you. I hear its ratings are down.”
“I probably ought to pretend to be sorry. What are you up to these days?”
“Making a new album. I left Dave mixing it in California. He’ll probably fuck it up with strings and a glockenspiel.”
“What brings you to Berlin?”
“I’m meeting my daughter, Alice. She escaped from East Germany.”
“Are your parents still there?”
“Yes, and my sister Lili.” And Karolin, Walli thought, but he did not mention her. He longed for her to escape, too. Deep in his heart he still missed her, despite all the years that had passed. “Rebecca’s here in the West,” he added. “She’s a big shot in the Foreign Office now.”
“I know. She’s been helpful to me. Maybe we could do a piece on a family divided by the Wall. It would show the human suffering caused by the Cold War.”
“No,” said Walli firmly. He had not forgotten the interview Jasper had done back in the sixties, which had caused so much trouble for the Francks in the East. “My family would be made to suffer by the East German government.”
“Too bad. Good to see you, anyhow.”
Walli checked into the Presidential Suite. He turned on the TV in the living room. The set was a Franck, made in his father’s factory. The news was all about people fleeing East Germany via Hungary and, now, via Czechoslovakia too. He left the set on with the sound low. It was his habit to have the TV on when he was doing other things. He had been thrilled to learn that Elvis did the same.
He took a shower and put on fresh clothes. Then the desk called to say that Alice and Helmut were downstairs. “Send them up,” Walli said.
He felt nervous, which was silly. This was his daughter. But he had seen her only once in her twenty-five years. At that time she had been a skinny teenager with long fair hair, reminding him of Karolin when he had first met her, back in the sixties.
A minute later the bell rang and he opened the door. Alice was now a young woman, with no teenage gawkiness. Her fair hair was cut in a bob, so she no longer looked so strikingly like the young Karolin, though she had Karolin’s thousand-candlepower smile. She was dressed in shabby East German clothes and down-at-heel shoes, and Walli made a mental note to take her shopping.
He kissed her awkwardly on both cheeks and shook hands with Helmut.
Alice looked around the suite and said: “Wow, nice room.”
It was nothing by comparison with hotels in Los Angeles, but Walli did not tell her that. She had a lot to learn, but there was plenty of time.
He ordered coffee and cakes from room service. They sat around the table in the living room. “This is weird,” Walli said candidly. “You’re my kid, but we’re strangers.”
“I know your songs, though,” Alice said. “Every one. You weren’t there, but you’ve been singing to me all my life.”
“That’s kind of awesome.”
“Yeah.”
They told him the story of their escape in detail. “Looking back, it was easy,” Alice said. “But at the time I was scared to death.”
They were living temporarily in an apartment rented for them by the Franck factory accountant, Enok Andersen. “What are you going to do, long term?” Walli asked.
Helmut said: “I’m an electrical engineer, but I’d like to learn about business. Next week I’m going on the road with one of the salesmen for Franck televisions. Your father, Werner, says that’s the way to begin.”
Alice said: “In the East I was working in a pharmacy. At first I’ll probably do the same here, but one day I’d like to have my own shop.”
Walli was pleased they were thinking about work. He had nursed a secret anxiety that they might want to live on his money, which would have been bad for them. He smiled and said: “I’m glad neither of you wants to be in the music business.”
Alice said: “But the main thing we want to do is have children.”
“I’m so glad. I can’t wait to be a granddad rock star. Are you going to get married?”
“We’ve been talking about that,” she said. “We never cared about it, living in the East, but now we kind of want to. How would you feel about that?”
“Marriage itself is not a big issue for me, but I’d be kind of thrilled if you decided to do it.”
“Good. Daddy, would you sing at my wedding?”
That came from behind and knocked Walli over. It was all he could do not to cry. “Sure, honey,” he managed to say. “I’d be glad to.” To cover his emotion he turned to the television.
The screen was showing a demonstration the previous evening in Leipzig, in East Germany. Protesters carrying candles marched in silence from a church. They were peaceful, but police vans drove into the crowd, running over several people, then the cops jumped out and started arresting marchers.
Helmut said: “Those bastards.”
Walli said: “What is the demonstration about?”
“The right to travel,” said Helmut. “We’ve escaped, but we can’t go back. Alice has you, now, but she can’t visit her mother. And I’m separated from both my parents. We don’t know if we’ll ever see them again.”
Alice said angrily: “People are demonstrating because there’s no reason why we should live like this. I should be able to see my mother as well as my father. We should be allowed to go to and fro between East and West. Germany is one country. We should get rid of that Wall.”
“Amen to that,” said Walli.
• • •
Dimka liked his boss. Gorbachev in his deepest soul believed in the truth. Since Lenin died, every Soviet leader had been a liar. They had all glossed over what was wrong and declined to acknowledge reality. The most striking characteristic of Soviet leadership for the last sixty-five years was the refusal to face facts. Gorbachev was different. As he struggled to navigate through the storm that was battering the Soviet Union, he held on to that one guiding principle, that the truth must be told. Dimka was full of admiration.
Both Dimka and Gorbachev were pleased when Erich Honecker was deposed as leader of East Germany. Honecker had lost control of the country and the party. But they were disappointed by his successor. To Dimka’s annoyance, Honecker’s loyal deputy, Egon Krenz, took over. It was like replacing Tweedledum with Tweedledee.
All the same, Dimka thought Gorbachev would have to give Krenz a helping hand. The Soviet Union could not permit the collapse of East Germany. Perhaps the USSR could live with democratic elections in Poland and market forces in Hungary, but Germany was different. It was divided, like Europe, into East and West, Communist and capitalist; and if West Germany were to triumph that would signal the ascendancy of capitalism, and the end of the dream of Marx and Lenin. Even Gorbachev could not allow that—could he?
Krenz made the usual pilgrimage to Moscow two weeks later. Dimka shook the hand of a fleshy-faced man with thick gray hair and a look of smug satisfaction. He might have been a heartthrob in his youth.
In the grand office with the yellow-paneled walls, Gorbachev greeted him with cool courtesy.
Krenz brought with him a report by his chief economic planner saying that East Germany was bankrupt. The report had been suppressed by Honecker, Krenz claimed. Dimka knew that the truth about East Germany’s economy had been hidden for decades. All the propaganda about economic growth had been lies. Productivity in factories and mines was as low as 50 percent of that in the West.
“We have kept going by borrowing,” Krenz told Gorbachev, sitting on a black leather chair in the grand Kremlin room. “Ten billion deutschmarks a year.”
Even Gorbachev was shocked. “Ten billion?”
“We have been taking out short-term loans to pay the interest on long-term loans.”
Dimka put in: “Which is illegal. If the banks find out . . .”
“The interest on our debt is now four and a half billion dollars a year, which is two-thirds of our entire foreign currency earnings. We must have your help to deal with this crisis.”
Gorbachev bristled. He hated it when East European leaders begged for money.
Krenz wheedled. “East Germany is in a sense the child of the Soviet Union.” He tried a masculine joke. “One should acknowledge the paternity of one’s children.”
Gorbachev did not even smile. “We are in no position to offer you assistance,” he said bluntly. “Not in the present condition of the USSR.”
Dimka was surprised. He had not expected Gorbachev to be this tough.
Krenz was baffled. “Then what am I to do?”
“You must be honest with your people, and tell them that they cannot continue to live in the manner they have become used to.”
“There will be trouble,” Krenz said. “A state of emergency would have to be declared. Measures must be taken to prevent a mass breakthrough across the Wall.”
Dimka thought this was approaching political blackmail. Gorbachev did, too, and he stiffened. “In that case, do not expect to be rescued by the Red Army,” Gorbachev said. “You have to solve these problems yourself.”
Did he really mean it? Was the USSR really going to wash its hands of East Germany? Dimka’s excitement mounted with his astonishment. Was Gorbachev willing to go all the way?
Krenz looked like a priest who has realized there is no God. East Germany had been created by the Soviet Union, subsidized from the Kremlin’s coffers, and protected by the strength of the Soviet military. He could not take in the idea that that was all over. He clearly had absolutely no idea what to do next.
When he had gone, Gorbachev said to Dimka: “Issue a reminder to commanders of our forces in East Germany. They must not under any circumstances get involved in conflicts between the government there and its citizens. This is an absolute priority.”
My God, Dimka thought, is this really the end?
• • •
By November there were demonstrations every week in major towns in East Germany. The numbers grew larger and the crowds grew bolder. They could not be crushed by brutal police baton charges.
Lili and Karolin were invited to play at a rally in the Alexander Platz, not far from their home. Several hundred thousand people showed up. Someone had painted a huge placard with the slogan WIR SIND DAS VOLK, “We are the people.” All around the edges of the square were police in riot gear, waiting for the order to wade into the crowd with their truncheons. But the cops looked more frightened than the demonstrators.
Speaker after speaker denounced the Communist regime, and the police did nothing.
The organizers permitted pro-Communist speakers, too, and to Lili’s astonishment the government’s chosen defender was Hans Hoffmann. From her position in the wings, where she and Karolin were waiting for their turn onstage, she stared at the familiar, stooped figure of the man who had persecuted her family for a quarter of a century. Despite his expensive blue coat he was shivering from the cold—or perhaps it was fear.
When Hans tried to smile amiably, he succeeded only in looking like a vampire. “Comrades,” he said, “the party has listened to the voices of the people, and new measures are on the way.”
The crowd knew this was bullshit, and they began to hiss.
“But we must proceed in an orderly fashion, acknowledging the leading role of the party in developing Communism.”
The hissing turned to booing.
Lili watched Hans closely. His expression showed rage and frustration. A year ago, one word from him could have destroyed any of the people in the crowd; but now, suddenly, they seemed to have the power. He could not even shut them up. He had to raise his voice to a shout in order to be heard, even with the help of the microphone. “In particular, we must not make every member of the state security organizations into scapegoats for whatever mistakes may have been made by the former leadership.”
This was no less than a plea for sympathy on behalf of the bullies and sadists who had been oppressing the people for decades, and the crowd was outraged. They jeered and yelled: “Stasi raus,” “Stasi out.”
Hans yelled at the top of his voice: “After all, they were only obeying orders!”
That brought a roar of incredulous laughter.
For Hans, to be laughed at was the worst fate. He flushed with rage. Suddenly Lili recalled the scene, twenty-eight years ago, when Rebecca had thrown Hans’s shoes at him from the upstairs window. It had been the scornful laughter of the women neighbors that had driven Hans into a fury.
Now Hans remained at the microphone, unable to speak over the noise, but unwilling to give in. It was a battle of wills between him and the crowd, and he lost. His arrogant expression crumpled, and he seemed close to tears. At last he turned from the microphone and stepped away from the lectern.
He cast one more look at the crowd, laughing and jeering at him, and gave up. As he walked off, he saw Lili and recognized her. Their eyes met as she walked onstage with Karolin, both carrying guitars. In that instant he looked like a beaten dog, so tragic that Lili almost felt sorry for him.
Then she passed him and moved to center stage. Some of the crowd recognized Lili and Karolin, others knew their names, and they roared a welcome. They went up to the microphones. They strummed a major chord, then together they launched into “This Land Is Your Land.”
And the crowd went wild.
• • •
Bonn was a provincial town on the banks of the Rhine River. It was an unlikely choice for a national capital, and had been picked for precisely that reason, to symbolize its temporary nature, and the faith of the German people that one day Berlin would again be the capital of a reunited Germany. But that had been forty years ago, and Bonn was still the capital.
It was a boring place, but that suited Rebecca, for she worked too hard to have a social life, except when Fred Bíró was in town.
She was busy. Her area of expertise was Eastern Europe, which was in the throes of a revolution whose end no one could see. Most days she had working lunches, but today she took a break. She left the Foreign Office and walked on her own to an inexpensive restaurant where she ordered her favorite dish, Himmel und Erde, heaven and earth, made of potatoes and apples with bacon.
While she was eating, Hans Hoffmann appeared.
Rebecca pushed back her chair and stood up. Her first thought was that he had come to kill her. She was on the point of screaming for help when she noticed the expression on his face. He looked defeated and sad. Her fear vanished: he was no longer dangerous.
“Please don’t be afraid, I mean no harm,” he said.
She remained standing. “What do you want?”
“A few words. A minute or two, no more.”
For a moment she wondered how he had managed to come from East to West Germany, then she realized that travel restrictions did not apply to senior officers in the secret police. They could do anything they liked. He had probably told his colleagues that he had an intelligence mission in Bonn. Perhaps he did.
The restaurant proprietor came over and said: “Is everything all right, Frau Held?”
Rebecca stared at Hans a moment longer. Then she said: “Yes, thank you, Günther, I think it’s okay.” She sat down again and Hans sat opposite.
She picked up her fork and put it down again. She had lost her appetite. “A minute or two, then.”
“Help me,” he said.
She could hardly believe her ears. “What?” she said. “Help you?”
“It’s all falling apart. I have to get out. The crowds laugh at me. I’m afraid they’ll kill me.”
“What on earth do you imagine I might do for you?”
“I need a place to stay, money, papers.”
“Are you out of your mind? After all you’ve done to me and my family?”
“Don’t you understand why I did those things?”
“Because you hate us!”
“Because I love you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I was assigned to spy on you and your family, yes. I dated you in order to get inside the house. But then something happened. I fell in love with you.”
He had said this once before, on the day she escaped over the Wall. He really meant it. He was out of his mind, she decided. She began to feel scared again.
“I told no one of my feelings,” he said, smiling nostalgically, as if he were recalling an innocent youthful romance rather than a wicked deception. “I pretended to be exploiting you and manipulating your feelings. But I really loved you. Then you said we should get married. I was in heaven! I had the perfect excuse to give my superiors.”
He was living in a dream world, but was that not true of the entire East German ruling elite?
“That year that we spent together, as man and wife, was the best time of my life,” Hans said. “And your rejection broke my heart.”
“How can you say that?”
“Why do you think I haven’t remarried?”
She was stupefied. “I don’t know,” she said.
“I have no interest in other women. Rebecca, you are the love of my life.”
She stared at him. She realized that this was not just a stupid story, a hopeless attempt to gain sympathy. Hans was sincere. He meant every word.
“Take me back,” he pleaded.
“No.”
“Please.”
“The answer is no,” she said. “It will always be no. Nothing you could say would change my mind. Please don’t force me to use harsh words to make you understand.” I don’t know why I’m reluctant to hurt him, she thought; he never hesitated to be cruel to me. “Just accept what I have said to you and leave.”
“All right,” he said sadly. “I knew you’d say this, but I had to try.” He stood up. “Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you for that year of happiness. I will always love you.” He turned away and walked out of the restaurant.
Rebecca stared after him, still deep in shock. God in heaven, she thought; I wasn’t expecting that.