Edge of Eternity (146 page)

Lili sympathized: she yearned for Alice to have the opportunities in life that she herself had missed. But it could not possibly be that easy.

Helmut said: ‘Can we? Really?’

‘No, you cannot,’ said Werner firmly. He pointed at the television set. ‘First of all, I don’t see anyone actually walking across the border yet. Let’s see if it really happens. Second, the Hungarian government could change its mind at any time and start arresting people. Third, if the Hungarians really do start to let people leave, the Soviets will send in the tanks and put a stop to it.’

Lili thought her father might be too pessimistic. Now seventy, he was becoming timid in his old age. She had noticed it in business. He had scorned the idea of remote controls for television sets, and when they rapidly became indispensable his factory had had to scramble to catch up. ‘We’ll see,’ Lili said. ‘In the next few days, some people are bound to try to escape. Then we’ll find out whether anyone stops them.’

Alice said excitedly: ‘What if Grandfather Werner is wrong? We can’t just ignore a chance like this! What should we do?’

Her mother, Karolin, said anxiously: ‘It sounds dangerous.’

Werner said to Lili: ‘What makes you think the East German government will continue to allow us to go to Hungary?’

‘They’ll have to,’ Lili argued. ‘If they cancelled the summer holidays of thousands of families, there really would be a revolution.’

‘Even if it turns out to be safe for others, it may be different for us.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we’re the Franck family,’ Werner said in a tone of exasperation. ‘Your mother was a Social Democrat city councillor, your sister humiliated Hans Hoffmann, Walli killed a border guard, and you and Karolin sing protest songs. And our family business is in West Berlin so they can’t confiscate it. We’ve always been an irritant to the Communists. In consequence, unfortunately, we get special treatment.’

Lili said: ‘So we have to take special precautions, that’s all. Alice and Helmut will be extra cautious.’

‘I want to go, whatever the danger,’ Alice said emphatically. ‘I understand the risk, and I’m prepared to take it.’ She looked accusingly at her grandfather. ‘You’ve raised two generations under Communism. It’s mean, it’s brutal, it’s stupid and it’s broke – yet it’s still here. I want to live in the West. So does Helmut. We want our children to grow up in freedom and prosperity.’ She turned to her fiancé. ‘Don’t we?’

‘Yes,’ he said, though Lili sensed he was more wary than Alice.

‘It’s mad,’ said Werner.

Carla spoke for the first time. ‘It’s not mad, my darling,’ she said forcefully to Werner. ‘It’s dangerous, yes. But remember the things we did, the risks we took for freedom.’

‘Some of our number died.’

Carla would not let up. ‘But we thought it was worth the risk.’

‘There was a war on. We had to defeat the Nazis.’

‘This is Alice and Helmut’s war – the Cold War.’

Werner hesitated, then sighed. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said reluctantly.

‘Okay,’ said Carla. ‘In that case, let’s make a plan.’

Lili looked at the TV again. In Hungary, they were still dismantling the fence.

*  *  *

On election day in Poland, Tania went to church with Danuta, who was a candidate.

It was a sunny Sunday, 4 June, with a few puffy clouds in a blue sky. Danuta dressed her two children in their best clothes and brushed their hair. Marek put on a tie in the red and white colours of Solidarity, which were also the colours of the Polish flag. Danuta wore a hat, a white straw bowler with a red feather.

Tania was in an agony of doubt. Was all this really happening? An election, in Poland? The fence coming down in Hungary? Disarmament in Europe? Did Gorbachev really mean it about openness and restructuring?

Tania dreamed of freedom with Vasili. The two of them would tour the world: Paris, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Delhi. Vasili would be interviewed on television and talk about his work and the long years of secrecy. Tania would write travel articles, maybe a book of her own.

But when she woke up from her daydream she waited, hour by hour, for the bad news: the roadblocks, the tanks, the arrests, the curfew, and the bald men in bad suits coming on television to announce that they had foiled a counter-revolutionary plot financed by the capitalist-imperialists.

The priest told his congregation to vote for the most godly candidates. As all Communists were, in principle, atheists, that was a clear steer. The authoritarian Polish clergy did not much like the liberal Solidarity movement, but they knew who their real enemies were.

The election had come sooner than Solidarity expected. The union had rushed to raise money, rent offices, hire staff, and mount a national election campaign, all in a few weeks. Jaruzelski had done this deliberately, to wrong-foot Solidarity, knowing that the government had an organization firmly in place and ready to go.

However, that was the last smart thing Jaruzelski had done. Since then the Communists had been lethargic, as if they were so sure of winning that they could hardly be bothered to campaign. Their slogan was ‘With us it’s safer,’ which sounded like a condom ad. Tania had put that joke in her report for
TASS
, and to her surprise the editors had not taken it out.

In the people’s minds this was a contest between General Jaruzelski, the country’s brutal leader for almost a decade, and the troublemaking electrician Lech Wałȩsa. Danuta had her photograph taken with Wałȩsa, as did every other Solidarity candidate, and the photographs had been put up everywhere. Throughout the campaign the union published a daily newspaper, written mostly by Danuta and her women friends. Solidarity’s most popular poster showed Gary Cooper as Marshal Will Kane, holding a ballot paper instead of a gun, with the slogan: H
IGH
N
OON
, 4 J
UNE
1989.

Perhaps the incompetence of the Communist campaign was to be expected, Tania thought. After all, the idea of going cap in hand to the people and saying ‘Please vote for me’ was totally alien to the Polish ruling elite.

The new upper chamber, called the Senate, had one hundred seats, and the Communists expected to win most of those. The Polish people had their backs to the wall, economically, and they would probably vote for the familiar Jaruzelski rather than the maverick Wałȩsa, Tania expected. In the lower chamber, called the Sejm, the Communists could not lose, because 65 per cent of the seats were reserved for them and their allies.

Solidarity’s aspirations were modest. They figured that if they won a substantial minority of votes, the Communists would be forced to give them a voice in the government.

Tania hoped they were right.

After Mass, Danuta shook hands with everyone in the church.

Then Tania and the Gorski family went to the polling station. The ballot paper was long and complicated, so Solidarity had set up a stall outside to show people how to vote. Instead of marking their preferred candidates, they had to put a line through the ones they did not like. The Solidarity campaigners gleefully showed model ballot papers with all the Communists crossed out.

Tania watched people voting. For most this was their first experience of a free election. She observed a shabbily dressed woman moving her pencil down the list, giving a little grunt of fulfilment each time she identified a Communist, and running her pencil through the name with a smile of pleasure. Tania suspected the government might have been unwise to choose a system of marking the paper in which rejection could feel so physically satisfying.

She talked to some of them, asking what was on their minds when they made their choices. ‘I voted Communist,’ said a woman in an expensive coat. ‘They made this election possible.’ But most seemed to have picked Solidarity candidates. Tania’s sample was, of course, completely unscientific.

She went to Danuta’s place for lunch, then the two women left Marek in charge of the children and drove in Tania’s car to Solidarity headquarters, which was upstairs at the Café Surprise, in the city centre.

The mood there was up. The opinion polls gave Solidarity a lead, but no one relied on that because almost 50 per cent were don’t-knows. However, reports coming in from all over the country said morale was high. Tania herself felt cheerful and optimistic. Whatever the result, a real election seemed to be taking place in a Soviet bloc country, and that alone was reason to be glad.

After the polls closed that evening, Tania went with Danuta to see her votes being counted. This was a tense moment. If the authorities decided to cheat, there were a hundred ways they could fix the result. Solidarity scrutineers watched closely, but no one saw any serious irregularity. This in itself was amazing.

And Danuta won by a landslide.

She had not really been expecting it, Tania could tell from her look of pale shock. ‘I’m a deputy,’ she said unbelievingly. ‘Elected by the people.’ Then her face broke into that huge toothy grin, and she began to accept everyone’s congratulations. So many people kissed her that Tania began to worry about hygiene.

As soon as they could get away they drove through the lamplit streets back to the Café Surprise, where everyone was gathered around the television sets. Danuta’s result was not the only landslide: Solidarity candidates were doing better than anyone expected, by far. ‘This is wonderful!’ said Tania.

‘No, it’s not,’ said Danuta gloomily.

Tania realized that the Solidarity people were subdued. She was baffled by this glum reaction to triumphant news. ‘What on earth is wrong?’

‘We’re doing too well,’ Danuta said. ‘The Communists can’t accept this. There will be a reaction.’

Tania had not thought of that.

‘So far the government hasn’t won anything,’ Danuta went on. ‘Even where they’re unopposed, some Communist candidates haven’t even gained the minimum fifty per cent. It’s too degrading. Jaruzelski will have to disallow the result.’

‘I’m going to speak to my brother,’ Tania said.

She had a special number that enabled her to get through to the Kremlin quickly. It was late, but Dimka was still at the office. ‘Yes, Jaruzelski just called here,’ he told her. ‘I gather the Communists are being humiliated.’

‘What did Jaruzelski say?’

‘He wants to impose martial law again, exactly as he did eight years ago.’

Tania’s heart sank. ‘Shit.’ She remembered Danuta being dragged off to jail by the ZOMO thugs while her children cried. ‘Not again.’

‘He proposes to declare the election null and void. “We still hold the levers of power in our hands,” he said.’

‘It’s true,’ Tania said dismally. ‘They have all the guns.’

‘But Jaruzelski is scared of doing this on his own. He wants Gorbachev’s support.’

Tania was heartened. ‘What did Gorbi say?’

‘He hasn’t responded yet. Someone’s waking him up right now.’

‘What do you think he’ll do?’

‘He’ll probably tell Jaruzelski to solve his own problems. That’s what he’s been saying for the last four years. But I can’t be sure. To see the Party rejected so completely in a free election . . . that could be too much even for Gorbachev.’

‘When will you know?’

‘Gorbachev is just going to say yes or no then go back to sleep. Call me in an hour.’

Tania hung up. She did not know what to think. Clearly Jaruzelski was ready to clamp down, arrest all the Solidarity activists, throw civil liberties out the window, and re-impose his dictatorship, just as he had in 1981. It was what always happened when Communist countries got the smell of freedom in their nostrils. But Gorbachev said the old days were over. Was it true?

Poland was about to find out.

Tania stared at the phone in an agony of suspense. What should she tell Danuta? She did not want to panic everyone. But maybe they should be warned of Jaruzelski’s intentions.

Danuta said to her: ‘Now you’re looking glum, too. What did your brother say?’

Tania hesitated, then decided to say that nothing had been decided, which was the simple truth. ‘Jaruzelski called Gorbachev but hasn’t reached him yet.’

They continued to watch the screens. Solidarity was winning everything. So far, the Communists had not won a single contested seat. More results just confirmed the early signs. Landslide was hardly a strong enough word: it was more like a tsunami.

In the room over the café, euphoria mingled with fear. The gradual shift in power for which they had hoped was now out of the question. One of two things would happen in the next twenty-four hours. The Communists might again seize power by force. Or, if they did not, they were finished for ever.

Tania forced herself to wait a full hour before calling Moscow again.

‘They talked,’ Dimka said. ‘Gorbachev refused to back a crackdown.’

‘Thank heaven,’ said Tania. ‘So what is Jaruzelski going to do?’

‘Backpedal just as fast as he can.’

‘Really?’ Tania could hardly believe such good news.

‘He’s out of options.’

‘I suppose he is.’

‘Enjoy the celebration.’

Tania hung up and spoke to Danuta. ‘There will be no violence,’ she said. ‘Gorbachev has ruled it out.’

‘Oh, my God,’ said Danuta in a voice that mingled incredulity with jubilation. ‘We really have won, haven’t we?’

‘Yes,’ said Tania, with a feeling of satisfaction and hope that went all the way to the bottom of her heart. ‘This is the beginning of the end.’

*  *  *

It was high summer and sweltering hot in Bucharest on 7 July. Dimka and Natalya were there with Gorbachev for a Warsaw Pact summit. Their host was Nicolae Ceauşescu, the mad dictator of Romania.

The most important item on the agenda was ‘The Hungary problem’. Dimka knew it had been put on the list by the East German leader, Erich Honecker. Hungary’s liberalization threatened all the other Warsaw Pact countries, by calling attention to the repressive nature of their unreformed regimes, but it was worst for East Germany. Hundreds of East Germans on holiday in Hungary were leaving their tents and walking into the woods and through holes in the old fence to Austria and freedom. The roads leading from Lake Balaton to the frontier were littered with their tinny Trabant and Wartburg cars, abandoned without regret. Most had no passports, but that did not matter: they were transported to West Germany where they were automatically given citizenship and helped to settle. No doubt they soon replaced their old cars with more reliable and comfortable Volkswagens.