Edge of Eternity
Where Were You Then
Edge of Eternity
features some of the biggest and most important historical events of the second half of the twentieth century, from the building of the Berlin Wall to the Cuban Missile Crisis. We’re collecting your memories of where you were and what you were doing when some of these events took place as part of a major digital project. We’ll publish a selection in the second edition ebook and paperback editions of
Edge of Eternity
, publishing in 2015.
To take part and share your memory of Where You Were Then, visit:
KEN FOLLETT
EDGE OF ETERNITY
MACMILLAN
To all the freedom fighters, especially Barbara
Cast of characters
American
Dewar Family
Cameron Dewar
Ursula ‘Beep’ Dewar,
his sister
Woody Dewar,
his father
Bella Dewar,
his mother
Peshkov-Jakes Family
George Jakes
Jacky Jakes,
his mother
Greg Peshkov,
his father
Lev Peshkov,
his grandfather
Marga,
his grandmother
Marquand Family
Verena Marquand
Percy Marquand,
her father
Babe Lee,
her mother
CIA
Florence Geary
Tony Savino
Tim Tedder,
semi-retired
Keith Dorset
Others
Maria Summers
Joseph Hugo,
FBI
Larry Mawhinney,
Pentagon
Nelly Fordham,
old flame of Greg Peshkov
Dennis Wilson,
aide to Bobby Kennedy
Skip Dickerson,
aide to Lyndon Johnson
Leopold ‘Lee’ Montgomery,
reporter
Herb Gould,
television journalist on
This Day
Suzy Cannon,
gossip reporter
Frank Lindeman,
television network owner
Real Historical Characters
John F. Kennedy,
35th US President
Jackie,
his wife
Bobby Kennedy,
his brother
Dave Powers,
assistant to President Kennedy
Pierre Salinger,
President Kennedy’s press officer
Revd Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.,
President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Lyndon B. Johnson,
36th US President
Richard Nixon,
37th US President
Jimmy Carter,
39th US President
Ronald Reagan,
40th US President
George H. W. Bush,
41st US President
British
Leckwith-Williams Family
Dave Williams
Evie Williams,
his sister
Daisy Williams,
his mother
Lloyd Williams, MP,
his father
Ethel Leckwith (née Williams),
Dave’s grandmother
Murray Family
Jasper Murray
Anna Murray,
his sister
Eva Murray,
his mother
Musicians in the Guardsmen and Plum Nellie
Lenny,
Dave Williams’s cousin
Lew,
drummer
Buzz,
bass player
Geoffrey
lead guitarist
Others
Earl Fitzherbert,
called Fitz
Sam Cakebread,
friend of Jasper Murray
Byron Chesterfield (real name Brian Chesnowitz),
music agent
Hank Remington (real name Harry Riley),
pop star
Eric Chapman,
record company executive
German
Franck Family
Rebecca Hoffmann
Carla Franck,
Rebecca’s adoptive mother
Werner Franck,
Rebecca’s adoptive father
Walli Franck,
son of Carla
Lili Franck,
daughter of Werner and Carla
Maud von Ulrich (née Lady Maud Fitzherbert),
Carla’s mother
Hans Hoffmann,
Rebecca’s husband
Others
Bernd Held,
schoolteacher
Karolin Koontz,
folk singer
Odo Vossler,
clergyman
Real Historical Characters
Walter Ulbricht,
First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party (Communist)
Erich Honecker,
Ulbricht’s successor
Egon Krenz,
successor to Honecker
Polish
Stanislaw ‘Staz’ Pawlak,
army officer
Lidka,
girlfriend of Cam Dewar
Danuta Gorski,
Solidarity activist
Real Historical Characters
Anna Walentynowicz,
crane driver
Lech Wałȩsa,
leader of the trade union Solidarity
General Jaruzelski,
Prime Minister
Russian
Dvorkin-Peshkov Family
Tania Dvorkin,
journalist
Dimka Dvorkin,
Kremlin aide, Tania’s twin brother
Nina,
Dimka’s girlfriend
Anya Dvorkin,
their mother
Grigori Peshkov,
their grandfather
Katerina Peshkov,
their grandmother
Vladimir, always called Volodya,
their uncle
Zoya,
Volodya’s wife
Others
Daniil Antonov,
features editor at
TASS
Pyotr Opotkin,
features editor-in-chief
Vasili Yenkov,
dissident
Natalya Smotrov,
official in the Foreign Ministry
Nik Smotrov,
Natalya’s husband
Yevgeny Filipov,
aide to Defence Minister Rodion Malinovsky
Vera Pletner,
Dimka’s secretary
Valentin,
Dimka’s friend
Marshal Mikhail Pushnoy
Real Historical Characters
Nikita Sergeyevitch Khrushchev,
First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Andrei Gromyko,
Foreign Minister under Khrushchev
Rodion Malinovsky,
Defence Minister under Khrushchev
Alexei Kosygin,
Chairman of the Council of Ministers
Leonid Brezhnev,
Khrushchev’s successor
Yuri Andropov,
successor to Brezhnev
Konstantin Chernenko,
successor to Andropov
Mikhail Gorbachev,
successor to Chernenko
Other Nations
Paz Oliva,
Cuban general
Frederik Bíró,
Hungarian politician
Enok Andersen,
Danish accountant
Contents
Part One
WALL
1961
1
Rebecca Hoffmann was summoned by the secret police on a rainy Monday in 1961.
It began as an ordinary morning. Her husband drove her to work in his tan Trabant 500. The graceful old streets of central Berlin still had gaps from wartime bombing, except where new concrete buildings stood up like ill-matched false teeth. Hans was thinking about his job as he drove. ‘The courts serve the judges, the lawyers, the police, the government – everyone except the victims of crime,’ he said. ‘This is to be expected in Western capitalist countries, but under Communism the courts ought surely to serve the people. My colleagues don’t seem to realize that.’ Hans worked for the Ministry of Justice.
‘We’ve been married almost a year, and I’ve known you for two, but I’ve never met one of your colleagues,’ Rebecca said.
‘They would bore you,’ he said immediately. ‘They’re all lawyers.’
‘Any women among them?’
‘No. Not in my section, anyway.’ Hans’s job was administration: appointing judges, scheduling trials, managing courthouses.
‘I’d like to meet them, all the same.’
Hans was a strong man who had learned to rein himself in. Watching him, Rebecca saw in his eyes a familiar flash of anger at her insistence. He controlled it by an effort of will. ‘I’ll arrange something,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we’ll all go to a bar one evening.’
Hans had been the first man Rebecca had met who matched up to her father. He was confident and authoritative, but he always listened to her. He had a good job – not many people had a car of their own in East Germany – and men who worked in the government were usually hard-line Communists, but Hans, surprisingly, shared Rebecca’s political scepticism. Like her father he was tall, handsome and well dressed. He was the man she had been waiting for.
Only once during their courtship had she doubted him, briefly. They had been in a minor car crash. It had been wholly the fault of the other driver, who had come out of a side street without stopping. Such things happened every day, but Hans had been mad with rage. Although the damage to the two cars was minimal, he had called the police, shown them his Department of Justice identity card, and had the other driver arrested for dangerous driving and taken off to jail.
Afterwards he had apologized to Rebecca for losing his temper. She had been scared by his vindictiveness, and had come close to ending their relationship. But he had explained that he had not been his normal self, due to pressure at work, and she had believed him. Her faith had been justified: he had never done such a thing again.
When they had been dating for a year, and sleeping together most weekends for six months, Rebecca wondered why he did not ask her to marry him. They were not kids: she had then been twenty-eight, he thirty-three. So she had proposed to him. He had been startled, but said yes.
Now he pulled up outside her school. It was a modern building, and well equipped: the Communists were serious about education. Outside the gates, five or six older boys were standing under a tree, smoking cigarettes. Ignoring their stares, Rebecca kissed Hans on the lips. Then she got out.