Edge of Eternity (129 page)

Walli told them he had a penthouse in Hamburg. He was not married, though he had a girlfriend. About every eighteen months or two years he went to California, moved into Dave Williams’s farmhouse for four months, and made a new album with Plum Nellie. ‘I’m an addict,’ he said. ‘But I’ve been clean for seven years, eight come September. When I do a gig with the band, I have a guard outside my dressing room to search people for drugs.’ He shrugged. ‘It seems extreme, I know, but there it is.’

Walli had questions, too, especially for Alice. While she was answering them, Lili looked around the table. This was her family: her parents, her sister, her brother, her niece, and her oldest friend and singing partner. How lucky she was to have them all together in the same room, eating and talking and drinking wine.

The thought occurred to her that some families did this every week, and took it for granted.

Karolin was sitting next to Walli, and Lili watched them together. They were having a good time. They still made one another laugh, she noticed. If things had been different – if the Berlin Wall had fallen – might their romance have been rekindled? They were still young: Walli was thirty-three, Karolin thirty-five. Lili pushed the thought away: it was an idle speculation, a foolish fantasy.

Walli retold the story of his escape from Berlin for Alice’s benefit. When he got to the part where he sat all night waiting for Karolin, who did not show up, she interrupted him. ‘I was frightened,’ she said. ‘Frightened for myself, and for the baby inside me.’

‘I don’t blame you,’ Walli said. ‘You did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong. The only wrong was the Wall.’

He described how he had driven through the checkpoint, busting the barrier. ‘I’ll never forget that man I killed,’ he said.

Carla said: ‘It wasn’t your fault – he was shooting at you!’

‘I know,’ Walli said, and Lili knew from his tone of voice that at last he was at peace about this. ‘I feel sorry, but I don’t feel guilty. I wasn’t wrong to escape; he wasn’t wrong to shoot at me.’

‘Like you said,’ Lili put in, ‘the only wrong is the Wall.’

54

Cam Dewar’s boss, Keith Dorset, was a podgy man with sandy hair. Like a lot of CIA men, he dressed badly. Today he wore a brown tweed jacket, grey flannel trousers, a white shirt with brown pencil stripes and a dull green tie. Seeing him walking down the street, the eye would slide over him while the brain dismissed him as a person of no account. Perhaps this was the effect he sought, Cameron thought. Or perhaps he just had bad taste.

‘About your girlfriend, Lidka,’ Keith said, sitting behind a large desk in the American Embassy.

Cam was pretty sure Lidka was free of any sinister associations, but he looked forward to having this confirmed.

Keith said: ‘Your request is denied.’

Cam was astonished. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Your request is denied. Which of those four words are you having trouble understanding?’

CIA men sometimes behaved as if they were in the army, and able to bark orders at everyone below them in rank. But Cam was not that easily intimidated. He had worked at the White House. ‘Denied for what reason?’ he said.

‘I don’t have to give reasons.’

At the age of thirty-four, Cam had his first real girlfriend. After twenty years of rejection he was sleeping with a woman who seemed to want nothing but to make him happy. Panic at the prospect of losing her made him foolhardy. ‘You don’t
have
to be an asshole, either,’ he snapped.

‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that. One more smartass remark and you’re on a plane home.’

Cam did not want to be sent home. He backed off. ‘I apologize. But I’d still like to know the reasons for your denial, if I may.’

‘You have what we call “close and continuing contact” with her, don’t you?’

‘Of course. I told you that myself. Why is it a problem?’

‘Statistics. Most of the traitors we catch spying against the United States turn out to have relatives or close friends who are foreigners.’

Cam had suspected something like this. ‘I’m not willing to give her up for statistical reasons. Do you have anything specific against her?’

‘What makes you think you have the right to cross-examine me?’

‘I’ll take that as a no.’

‘I warned you about wisecracks.’

They were interrupted by another agent, Tony Savino, who approached with a sheet of paper in his hand. ‘I’m just looking at the acceptance list for this morning’s press conference,’ he said. ‘Tania Dvorkin is coming for
TASS
.’ He looked at Cam. ‘She’s the woman who spoke to you at the Egyptian Embassy, isn’t she?’

‘She sure is,’ Cam said.

Keith said: ‘What’s the subject of the press conference?’

‘The launch of a new, streamlined protocol for Polish and American museums to loan each other works of art, it says here.’ Tony looked up from the paper. ‘Not the kind of thing to attract
TASS
’s star writer, is it?’

Cam said: ‘She must be coming to see me.’

*  *  *

Tania spotted Cam Dewar as soon as she walked into the briefing room at the American Embassy. A tall, thin figure, he was standing at the back like a lamp post. If he had not been here, she would have sought him out after the press conference, but this was better, less noticeable.

However, she did not want to look too purposeful when she approached him, so she decided to listen to the announcement first. She sat next to a Polish journalist whom she liked: Danuta Gorski, a feisty brunette with a big toothy grin. Danuta was a member of a semi-underground movement called the Defence Committee that produced pamphlets about workers’ grievances and human rights violations. These illegal publications were called
bibula.
Danuta lived in the same building as Tania.

While the American press officer was reading out the announcement he had already given them in printed form, Danuta murmured to Tania: ‘You might want to take a trip to Gdansk.’

‘Why?’

‘There’s going to be a strike at the Lenin Shipyard.’

‘There are strikes everywhere.’ Workers were demanding pay rises to compensate for a massive government increase in food prices. Tania reported these as ‘work stoppages’, for strikes happened only in capitalist countries.

‘Believe me,’ said Danuta, ‘this one could be different.’

The Polish government was dealing with each strike swiftly, granting pay rises and other concessions on a local basis, keen to shut down protests before they could spread like stains on a cloth. The nightmare of the ruling elite – and the dream of dissidents – was that the stains would join up until the cloth was entirely a new colour.

‘Different how?’

‘They fired a crane operator who is a member of our committee – but they picked the wrong person to victimize. Anna Walentynowicz is a woman, a widow, and fifty-one years old.’

‘So she attracts a lot of sympathy from chivalrous Polish men.’

‘And she’s a popular figure. They call her Pani Ania, Mrs Annie.’

‘I might take a look.’ Dimka wanted to hear about any protest that promised to become serious, in case he might need to discourage a Kremlin crackdown.

As the press conference was breaking up, Tania passed Cam Dewar and spoke to him quietly in Russian. ‘Go to the Cathedral of St John on Friday at two and look at the Baryczkowski Crucifix.’

‘That’s not a good place,’ the young man hissed.

‘Take it or leave it,’ Tania said.

‘You have to tell me what this is about,’ Cam said firmly.

Tania realized she had to risk talking to him for another minute. ‘A line of communication in case the Soviet Union should invade Western Europe,’ she said. ‘The possibility of forming a group of Polish officers who would switch sides.’

The American’s jaw dropped. ‘Oh . . . Oh . . .’ he stuttered. ‘Right, yes.’

She smiled at him. ‘Satisfied?’

‘What’s his name?’

Tania hesitated.

Cam said: ‘He knows mine.’

Tania decided she had to trust this man. She had already placed her own life in his hands. ‘Stanislaw Pawlak,’ she said. ‘Known as Staz.’

‘Tell Staz that for security reasons he should never speak to anyone here at the embassy except me.’

‘Okay.’ Tania walked quickly out of the building.

She gave Staz the message that evening. Next day she kissed him goodbye and drove two hundred miles north to the Baltic Sea. She had an old but reliable Mercedes-Benz 280S with vertically aligned twin headlamps. In the late afternoon she checked into a hotel in the old town of Gdansk, directly across the river from the wharves and dry docks of the shipyard, which was on Ostrow Island.

On the following day it was one week exactly since the firing of Anna Walentynowicz.

Tania got up early, put on canvas overalls, crossed the bridge to the island, reached the shipyard gate before sunrise, and strolled in with a group of young workers.

It was her lucky day.

The shipyard was plastered with newly pasted posters calling for Pani Ania to be given her job back. Small groups were gathering around the posters. A few people were handing out leaflets. Tania took one and deciphered the Polish.

Anna Walentynowicz became an embarrassment because her example motivated others. She became an embarrassment because she stood up for others and was able to organize her co-workers. The authorities always try to isolate those who have leadership qualities. If we do not fight against this, then we will have no one to stand up for us when they raise work quotas, when health and safety regulations are broken or when we are forced to work overtime.

Tania was struck by that. This was not about more pay or shorter hours: it was about the right of Polish workers to organize for themselves, independently of the Communist hierarchy. She had a feeling that this was a significant development. It started a small glow of hope in her belly.

She walked around the yard as the daylight strengthened. The sheer scale of shipbuilding was awesome: the thousands of workers, the kilotons of steel, the millions of rivets. The high sides of half-built ships rose far above her head, their mountainous weight perilously balanced by spider-web scaffolding. Immense cranes bowed their heads over each ship, like adoring Magi around a giant manger.

Everywhere she went, workers were downing tools to read the leaflet and discuss the case.

A few men started a march, and Tania followed them. They went in procession around the yard, carrying makeshift placards, handing out leaflets, calling on others to join them, growing in numbers. Eventually, they came to the main gate, where they began telling arriving workers that they were on strike.

They closed the factory gate, sounded the siren, and flew the Polish national flag from the nearest building.

Then they elected a strike committee.

While that was going on they were interrupted. A man in a suit clambered up on an excavator and began to shout at the crowd. Tania could not understand everything he said, but he seemed to be arguing against the formation of a strike committee – and the workers were listening to him. Tania asked the nearest man who he was. ‘Klemens Gniech, the Director of the shipyard,’ she was told. ‘Not a bad guy.’

Tania was aghast. How weak people were!

Gniech was offering negotiations if the strikers would first go back to work. To Tania this seemed a transparent trick. Many people booed and jeered Gniech, but others nodded agreement, and a few drifted away, apparently headed for their workplaces. Surely it could not fall apart so fast?

Then someone jumped up on the excavator and tapped the Director on the shoulder. The newcomer was a small, square-shouldered man with a bushy moustache. Although he seemed to Tania an unimpressive figure, the crowd recognized him and cheered. They evidently knew who he was. ‘Remember me?’ he yelled at the Director in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘I worked here for ten years – then you fired me!’

‘Who’s that?’ Tania asked her neighbour.

‘Lech Wałȩsa. He’s only an electrician, but everyone knows him.’

The Director tried to argue with Wałȩsa in front of the crowd, but the little man with the big moustache gave him no leeway. ‘I declare an occupation strike!’ he roared, and the crowd shouted their agreement.

Both the Director and Wałȩsa stepped down from the excavator. Wałȩsa took command, something everyone seemed to accept without question. When he ordered the Director’s chauffeur to drive in his limousine and fetch Anna Walentynowicz, the chauffeur did as he was told and, even more astonishing, the Director made no objection.

Wałȩsa organized the election of a strike committee. The limousine returned with Anna, who was greeted by a storm of applause. She was a small woman with hair as short as a man’s. She had round glasses and wore a blouse with bold horizontal stripes.

The strike committee and the Director went into the Health and Safety Centre to negotiate. Tania was tempted to try to insinuate herself in there with them, but she decided not to push her luck: she was fortunate to have got inside the gates. The workers were welcoming the Western media, but Tania’s press card showed that she was a Soviet reporter for
TASS
, and if the strikers discovered that they would throw her out.

However, the negotiators must have had microphones on their tables, for their entire discussion was broadcast over loudspeakers to the crowd outside – which struck Tania as democratic in the extreme. The strikers could instantly express their feelings about what was said by booing or cheering.

She figured out that the strikers now had several demands in addition to the reinstatement of Anna, including security from reprisals. The one that the Director could not accept, surprisingly, was for a monument outside the factory gates to commemorate the massacre by police of shipyard workers protesting against food price rises in 1970.

Tania wondered whether this strike would also end in a massacre. If it did, she realized with a chill, she was right in the firing line.

Gniech explained that the area in front of the gates had been designated for a hospital.