Edge of Eternity (78 page)

The captain was unperturbed. “Conscription is based on residence, not citizenship.”

“That can't be right.”

The captain began to look irritated. “If you don't believe me, check it out.”

“That's exactly what I'm going to do.”

Jasper left the building and returned to the office. The personnel department would know about this kind of thing. He would go and see Mrs. Salzman.

He gave her the box of chocolates.

“You're sweet,” she said. “Mr. Gould likes you, too.”

“What did he say?”

“Just thanked me for sending you to him. He hasn't made up his mind yet. But I don't know of anyone else under consideration.”

“That's great news! But I have a little problem you might be able to help me with.” He showed her the letter from the army. “This must be a mistake, surely?”

Mrs. Salzman put her glasses on and read the letter. “Oh, dear,” she said. “How unlucky. And just when you were getting along so well!”

Jasper could hardly believe his ears. “You're not saying I'm really liable for military service?”

“You are,” she said sadly. “We've had this trouble before with foreign employees. The government says that if you want to live and work in the United States, you ought to help defend the country from Communist aggression.”

“Are you telling me I'm going in the army?”

“Not necessarily.”

Jasper's heart leaped with hope. “What's the alternative?”

“You can go home. They won't try to stop you from leaving the country.”

“This is outrageous! Can't you get me out of it?”

“Do you have a hidden medical condition of any kind? Flat feet, tuberculosis, a hole in the heart?”

“Never been ill.”

She lowered her voice. “And I presume you're not homosexual.”

“No!”

“Your family doesn't belong to a religion that forbids military service?”

“My father's a colonel in the British army.”

“I'm so sorry.”

Jasper began to believe it. “I'm really leaving. Even if I get the job on
This Day,
I won't be able to take it up.” He was struck by a thought. “Don't they have to give you your job back when you've finished your military service?”

“Only if you've held the job for a year.”

“So I might not even be able to return to my job as clerk-typist on the radio station!”

“There's no guarantee.”

“Whereas if I leave the United States now . . .”

“You can just go home. But you'll never work in the USA again.”

“Jesus.”

“What will you do? Leave, or join the army?”

“I really don't know,” he said. “Thank you for your help.”

“Thank you for the chocolates, Mr. Murray.”

Jasper left her office in a daze. He could not return to his desk: he had to think. He went outside again. Normally he loved the streets of New York: the high buildings, the mighty Mack trucks, the extravagantly styled cars, the glittering window displays of the fabulous stores. Today it had all turned sour.

He walked toward the East River and sat in a park from which he could see the Brooklyn Bridge. He thought about leaving all this and going home to London with his tail between his legs. He thought about spending two long years working for a provincial British newspaper. He thought about never again being able to work in the USA.

Then he thought about the army: short hair, marching, bullying sergeants, violence. He thought about the hot jungles of Southeast Asia. He might have to shoot small thin peasant men in pajamas. He might be killed, or crippled.

He thought of all the people he knew in London who had envied his going to the States. Anna and Hank had taken him to dinner at the
Savoy to celebrate. Daisy had given a farewell party for him at the house in Great Peter Street. His mother had cried.

He would be like a bride who comes home from the honeymoon and announces a divorce. The humiliation seemed worse than the risk of death in Vietnam.

What was he going to do?

T
he St. Gertrud Youth Club had changed.

It had started out more or less harmless, Lili recalled. The East German government approved of traditional dancing, even if it took place in the basement of a church. And the government was happy for a Protestant pastor such as Odo Vossler to chat to youngsters about relationships and sex, since his views were likely to be as puritanical as their own.

Two years later the club was not so innocent. They no longer began the evening with a folk dance. They played rock music and danced in the energetic individualist style that youngsters all over the world called freaking out. Later, Lili and Karolin would play guitars and sing songs about freedom. The evening always ended with a discussion, led by Pastor Odo; and these discussions regularly strayed into forbidden territory: democracy, religion, the shortcomings of the East German government, and the overwhelming attraction of life in the West.

Such talk was commonplace at Lili's home, but for some of the kids it was a new and liberating experience to hear the government criticized and the ideas of Communism challenged.

This was not the only place where such things went on. Three or four evenings a week, Lili and Karolin took their guitars to a different church hall or a private house in or near Berlin. They knew that what they were doing was dangerous, but both felt they had little to lose. Karolin knew that she would never be reunited with Walli while the Berlin Wall remained standing. After the American newspapers ran stories about Walli and Karolin, the Stasi had punished the family by having Lili expelled from college: now she worked as a waitress in the canteen of
the Ministry of Transport. Both young women had been determined not to let the government stifle them. Now they were famous among young people who secretly opposed the Communists. They made tape recordings of their songs that were passed around from one fan to another. Lili felt they were keeping the flame alight.

For Lili there was another attraction at St. Gertrud's: Thorsten Greiner. He was twenty-two, but he had a baby face like Paul McCartney's that made him look younger. He shared Lili's passion for music. He had recently broken up with a girl called Helga who was just not intelligent enough for him—in Lili's opinion.

One evening in 1967 Thorsten brought to the club the latest record by the Beatles. On one side was a bouncingly happy number called “Penny Lane,” which they all danced to energetically; on the other a weirdly fascinating song, “Strawberry Fields Forever,” to which Lili and others did a kind of slow dream-dance, swaying to the music and waving their arms and hands like underwater plants. They played both sides of the disc again and again.

When people asked Thorsten how he got the record, he tapped the side of his nose in a mysterious gesture and said nothing. But Lili knew the truth. Once a week Thorsten's uncle Horst drove across the border into West Berlin in a van full of bolts of cloth and cheap clothing, the East's largest export. Horst always gave the border guards a share of the comic books, pop records, makeup, and fashionable clothes he brought back.

Lili's parents thought the music was frivolous. For them only politics was serious. But they failed to understand that for Lili and her generation the music was political, even when the songs were about love. New ways of playing guitars and singing were all tied up with long hair and different clothes, racial tolerance and sexual freedom. Every song by the Beatles or Bob Dylan said to the older generation: “We don't do things your way.” For teenagers in East Germany that was a stridently political message, and the government knew it and banned the records.

They were all freaking out to “Strawberry Fields Forever” when the police arrived.

Lili was dancing opposite Thorsten. She understood English, and she was intrigued by John Lennon singing: “Living is easy with eyes
closed, misunderstanding all you see.” It so vividly described most people in East Germany, she thought.

Lili was among the first to spot the uniforms coming through the street door. She knew right away that the Stasi had at last caught up with the St. Gertrud Youth Club. It was inevitable: young people were bound to talk about exciting things they did. No one knew how many East German citizens were informers for the secret police, but Lili's mother said it was more than the Gestapo had. “We couldn't do now what we did in the war,” Carla had said; though when Lili had asked what she did in the war her mother had clammed up, as always. Anyway, it had been likely all along that sooner or later the Stasi would get wind of what was going on in the basement of St. Gertrud's Church.

Lili immediately stopped dancing and looked around for Karolin, but could not see her. Odo was not in sight either. They must have left the basement. In the corner opposite the street door was a staircase that led directly to the pastor's house alongside the church. They had probably gone out that way for some reason.

Lili said to Thorsten: “I'm going to fetch Odo.”

She was able to push through the crowd of dancers and slip away before most people realized they were being raided. Thorsten followed her. They got to the top of the staircase before Lennon sang: “Let me take you down—” and stopped abruptly.

The harsh voice of a police officer began to give orders below as they crossed the hall of the pastor's residence. It was a large house for a single man: Odo was lucky. Lili had not been here often, but she knew he had a study on the ground floor at the front, and she guessed this was the likeliest place to find him. The door was ajar, and she pushed it wide and stepped inside.

There, in an oak-paneled room with bookshelves full of works of biblical scholarship, Odo and Karolin were locked in a passionate embrace. They were kissing with their mouths open. Karolin's hands were on Odo's head, her fingers buried in his long, thick hair. Odo was stroking and squeezing Karolin's breasts. She pressed against him, her body curved tautly like an archer's bow.

Lili was shocked silent. She thought of Karolin as her brother's wife, the fact that they were not actually married a mere technicality. It had
never occurred to her that Karolin could become fond of another man—let alone the pastor! For a moment her mind searched wildly for some alternative explanation: they were rehearsing a play, or doing calisthenics.

Then Thorsten said: “My God!”

Odo and Karolin jumped apart with a suddenness that was almost comic. Shock and guilt showed on their faces. After a moment they spoke together. Odo said: “We were going to tell you.” At the same time Karolin said: “Oh, Lili, I'm so sorry . . .”

For a frozen moment, Lili was vividly conscious of details: the check pattern of Odo's jacket, Karolin's nipples poking through her dress, Odo's theological degree in a brass frame on the wall, the old-fashioned flowered carpet with a threadbare patch in front of the fireplace.

Then she remembered the emergency that had brought her upstairs. “The police have come,” she said. “They're in the basement.”

Odo said: “Hell!” He strode out and Lili heard him hurrying down the stairs.

Karolin stared at Lili. Neither woman knew what to say. Then Karolin broke the spell. “I must go with him,” she said, and followed Odo.

Lili and Thorsten were left in the study. It was a nice place for kissing, Lili thought sadly: the oak paneling, the fireplace, the books, the carpet. She wondered how often Odo and Karolin had done this, and when it had started. She thought about Walli. Poor Walli.

She heard shouting from downstairs, and that energized her. She had no reason to return to the basement, she realized. Her coat was down there but the evening was not bitterly cold: she could manage without it. She might escape.

The front door of the house was on the opposite side of the building from the basement entrance. She wondered whether the police had the whole place surrounded, and decided probably not.

She crossed the hall and opened the front door. There were no police in sight.

She said to Thorsten: “Shall we leave?”

“Yes, quickly.”

They went out, closing the door quietly.

“I'll see you home,” Thorsten said.

They hurried around the corner, then slowed their pace when they were out of sight of the church. Thorsten said: “That must have been a shock for you.”

“I thought she loved Walli!” Lili wailed. “How could she do this to him?” She began to cry.

Thorsten put his arm around her shoulders as they walked along. “When was it that Walli left?”

“Almost four years ago.”

“Have Karolin's prospects of emigrating got any better?”

Lili shook her head. “Worse.”

“She needs someone to help her raise Alice.”

“She has me, and my family!”

“Perhaps she feels that Alice needs a father.”

“But . . . the pastor!”

“Most men wouldn't even think about taking on an unmarried mother. Odo is different just because he is a pastor.”

At the house, Lili had to ring the doorbell because her key was in her coat. Her mother came to the door, saw her face, and said: “What on earth has happened?”

Lili and Thorsten stepped inside. Lili said: “The police raided the church, and I went to warn Karolin and found her kissing Odo!” She burst into fresh tears.

Carla closed the front door. “You mean
really
kissing him?”

“Yes, like mad!” said Lili.

“Come into the kitchen and have a cup of coffee, both of you.”

As soon as they had told their story, Lili's father left, intending to do what he could to ensure that Karolin did not spend the night in jail. Carla then pointed out that Thorsten probably ought to go home in case his parents had heard of the raid and were worrying about him. Lili saw him to the door and he kissed her on the lips, briefly but delightfully, before walking away.

Then the three women were alone in the kitchen: Lili, Carla, and Grandmother Maud. Alice, now three years old, was asleep upstairs.

Carla said to Lili: “Don't be too hard on Karolin.”

“Why not?” said Lili. “She's betrayed Walli!”

“It's been four years—”

“Grandmother waited four years for Grandfather Walter,” Lili said. “And she didn't even have a baby!”

“That's true,” said Maud. “Although I thought about Gus Dewar.”

“Woody's father?” said Carla, surprised. “I didn't know that.”

“Walter was tempted, too,” Maud went on, with the cheerful indiscretion characteristic of people too old to be embarrassed. “By Monika von der Helbard. But nothing happened.”

The way she made light of this annoyed Lili. “It's easy for you, Grandmother,” she said. “Everything is so far in the past.”

Carla said: “I'm sad about this, Lili, but I don't see how we can be angry. Walli may never come home, and Karolin may never leave East Germany. Can we really expect her to spend her life waiting for someone she may never see again?”

“I thought that was what she was going to do. I thought she was committed.” Though Lili realized she could not remember Karolin actually saying it.

“I think she's already waited a long time.”

“Is four years a long time?”

“It's long enough for a young woman to start asking herself whether she wants to sacrifice her life to a memory.”

Both Carla and Maud sympathized with Karolin, Lili realized with dismay.

They discussed the matter until midnight, when Werner came home, accompanied by Karolin—and Odo.

Werner said: “Two of the boys managed to get into fights with police officers, but other than them nobody went to jail, I'm happy to say. However, the youth club is closed.”

Everyone sat at the kitchen table. Odo sat beside Karolin. To Lili's horror, he held Karolin's hand in front of everybody. He said: “Lili, I'm sorry you found out by accident just when we were getting ready to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” she said aggressively, though she thought grimly that she could guess.

“We love each other,” Odo said. “I expect this is hard for you to accept, and we're sorry about that. But we have thought and prayed about it.”

“Prayed?” Lili said incredulously. “I've never known Karolin to pray for anything!”

“People change.”

Weak women change to please men, Lili thought. But before she could say it her mother spoke up. “This is hard for us all, Odo. Walli loves Karolin and the baby he's never seen. We know that from his letters. And we could guess it from Plum Nellie's songs: so many of them are about separation and loss.”

Karolin said: “If you wish, I will leave this house tonight.”

Carla shook her head. “It's hard for us, but it's harder for you, Karolin. I can't ask a normal young woman to dedicate her life to someone she may never see again—even though that person is our beloved son. Werner and I have talked about this. We knew it was coming sooner or later.”

Lili was shocked. Her parents had foreseen this! They had said nothing to her. How could they be so heartless?

Or were they just more sensible? She did not want to believe that.

Odo said: “We want to get married.”

Lili stood up. “No!” she cried.

Odo said: “And we hope you will all give us your blessing: Maud, Werner, Carla, and most of all Lili, who has been such a great friend to Karolin through her years of trouble.”

“Go to hell,” said Lili, and she left the room.

•   •   •

Dave Williams pushed his grandmother around Parliament Square in her wheelchair, followed by a flock of photographers. Plum Nellie's publicist had tipped off the newspapers, so Dave and Ethel had expected the cameras, and they posed cooperatively for ten minutes. Then Dave said: “Thank you, gentlemen,” and turned into the car park of the Palace of Westminster. He paused at the Peers' Entrance, waved for one more shot, then pushed the chair into the House of Lords.