Edge of Eternity (51 page)

All Walli could do was follow. It was dark now. He heard no sound from the cellar to his rear. Regular cops were not normally equipped with grenades, he guessed, but Hans could get some from nearby border guards in a couple of minutes.

Walli could see nothing, but he could hear the panting of his fellow fugitives, and the scrape of their knees on the boards. The child began to cry. Yesterday, Walli would have cursed it for a dangerous nuisance, but today he was a father-to-be, and he felt only pity for the frightened kid.

What would the police do with their grenades? Would they play safe, and drop one into the shaft, where it might do little damage? Or would one have the nerve to climb down the ladder and throw one lethally into the tunnel? That might kill all the escapers.

Walli decided he had to do more to discourage the cops. He lay down, rolled over, pulled the gun, and raised himself on his left elbow. He could see nothing, but he pointed the gun back along the tunnel and pulled the trigger.

Several people screamed.

Cristina said: ‘What was that?’

Walli put the gun away and resumed crawling. ‘I was just discouraging the cops.’

‘Warn us next time, for Christ’s sake.’

He saw light ahead. The tunnel seemed shorter going back. He heard cries of relief as people realized they were at the end. He found himself going faster, pushing up against Cristina’s shoes.

Behind him, there was an explosion.

He felt the shock wave, but it was weak, and he knew immediately that they had dropped the first grenade down into the shaft. He had never paid enough attention to physics in school, but he guessed that in those circumstances nearly all the explosive force would go upwards.

However, he could foresee what Hans would do next. Having made sure that there was no longer someone lying in wait inside the tunnel entrance, he would now send a cop down the ladder to throw a grenade into the tunnel.

Ahead, the group were emerging into the cellar of the disused grocery. ‘Quickly!’ Walli yelled. ‘Climb the ladder fast!’

Cristina exited the tunnel and stood in the shaft, smiling. ‘Relax,’ she said. ‘This is the West. We’re out – we’re free!’

‘Grenades!’ Walli yelled. ‘Go up, fast as you can!’

The couple with the child were climbing the ladder with painful slowness. The male student and Cristina followed. Walli stood at the foot of the ladder, trembling with impatience and fear. He went up right behind Cristina, his face at her knees. He reached the top and saw them all standing around, laughing and hugging. ‘Lie flat!’ he yelled. ‘Grenades!’ He threw himself to the floor.

There was a terrific boom. The shock wave seemed to rock the cellar. Then there was a gushing sound like a fountain, and he guessed that earth was spurting from the mouth of the tunnel. Confirming his guess, a rain of mud and small stones fell on him. The hoist over the shaft collapsed and fell into the hole.

The noise died away. The cellar was quiet except for the sobbing of the child. Walli looked around. The kid had a nosebleed, but otherwise seemed unhurt, and no one else appeared injured. He looked over the lip of the shaft and saw that the tunnel had fallen in.

He stood upright, shakily. He had made it. He was alive and free. And alone.

*  *  *

Rebecca had spent a lot of her father’s money on the apartment in Hamburg. The place was the ground floor of a grand old merchant’s house. All the rooms were big enough to allow Bernd to turn the wheelchair – even the bathroom. She had installed every known aid for a man paralysed from the waist down. Walls and ceilings were festooned with ropes and grab handles that enabled him to wash and dress himself and get in and out of bed. He could even cook in the kitchen, if he wanted to; though, like most men, he could not prepare anything more complicated than eggs.

She was determined – furiously determined – that she and Bernd were going to live as normal an existence as possible, despite his injury. They would enjoy their marriage and their work and their freedom. Life for them would be busy and varied and satisfying. Anything less would give the victory to the tyrants on the other side of the Wall.

Bernd’s condition had not changed since he left the hospital. The doctors said he might improve, and he should keep hoping. One day, they insisted, he might be able to father children. Rebecca should never stop trying.

She felt she had a lot to be happy about. She was teaching again, doing what she was good at, opening the minds of young people to the intellectual riches of the world they lived in. She was in love with Bernd, whose kindness and humour made every day a pleasure. They were free to read what they liked, think what they liked, and say what they liked, without having to worry about police spies.

Rebecca had a long-term aim, too. She yearned to be reunited with her family one day. Not her original family: the memory of her biological parents was poignant, but distant and vague. However, Carla had rescued her from the hell of war, and had made her feel safe and loved, even when they were all hungry and cold and scared. Over the years the house in Mitte had filled with people to love and be loved by Rebecca: baby Walli, then her new father Werner, then a baby girl, Lili. Even Grandmother Maud, that impossibly dignified old English lady, had loved and cared for Rebecca.

She would be reunited with them when all West Germans were reunited with all East Germans. Many people thought that day might never come. Perhaps they were right. But Carla and Werner had taught Rebecca that, if you wanted change, you had to take political action to get it. ‘In my family, apathy isn’t an option,’ Rebecca had said to Bernd. So they had joined the Free Democratic Party, which was liberal though not as socialist as Willy Brandt’s Social Democratic Party. Rebecca was branch secretary and Bernd was treasurer.

In West Germany you could join any party you liked except the Communist Party, which was banned. Rebecca disapproved of that prohibition. She hated Communism, but banning it was the kind of thing Communists did, not Democrats.

Rebecca and Bernd drove to work together every day. They came home after school, and Bernd laid the table while Rebecca prepared dinner. Some days, after they had eaten, Bernd’s masseur came. Because Bernd could not move his legs, they had to be massaged regularly to improve the circulation and prevent, or at least slow, the wasting of nerves and muscles. Rebecca cleared away while Bernd went into the bedroom with the masseur, Heinz.

This evening she sat down with a pile of exercise books and began marking. She had asked her pupils to write an imaginary advertisement about the attractions of Moscow as a holiday destination. They liked tongue-in-cheek assignments.

After an hour Heinz departed, and Rebecca went into the bedroom.

Bernd lay naked on the bed. His upper body was strongly muscular, because he constantly had to use his arms to move himself. His legs looked like those of an old man, thin and pale.

He usually felt good, physically and mentally, after massage. Rebecca leaned over him and kissed his lips, long and slow. ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘I’m so happy to be with you.’ She said it often, because it was true, and because he needed reassurance: she knew that sometimes he wondered how she could love a cripple.

She stood facing him and took off her clothes. He liked her to do this, he said, even though it never gave him a hard-on. She had learned that paralysed men rarely got psychogenic erections, the kind caused by sexy sights or thoughts. All the same, his eyes followed her with evident enjoyment as she unfastened her bra, slid her stockings off, and stepped out of her panties.

‘You look great,’ he said.

‘And I’m all yours.’

‘Lucky me.’

She lay beside him and they caressed each other languorously. Sex with Bernd, before and after his accident, had always been about soft kisses and murmured endearments, not just fucking. In that way he was different from her first husband. Hans had had a programme: kiss, undress, get hard, come. Bernd’s philosophy was anything you like, in any order.

After a while she straddled him then manoeuvred so that he could kiss her breasts and suck her nipples. He had adored her breasts right from the start, and now he enjoyed them with the same intensity and relish as before the accident; and that aroused her more than anything.

When she was ready, she said: ‘Do you want to try?’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘We should always try.’

She moved back, so that she was astride his withered legs, and bent over his penis. She manipulated it with her hand. It grew a little, and he got what was called a reflex erection. For a few moments it was hard enough to go inside her, then it quickly subsided. ‘Never mind,’ she said.

‘I don’t mind,’ he said, but she knew it was not true. He would have liked to have an orgasm. He wanted children, too.

She lay beside him, took his hand, and placed it on her vagina. He positioned his fingers in the way she had taught him, then she pressed his hand with her own and moved rhythmically. It was like masturbation, but using his hand. He stroked her hair fondly with his other hand. It worked, as it always did, and she had a delightful orgasm.

Lying beside him afterwards, she said: ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Not just for that.’

‘What, then?’

‘For coming with me. For escaping. I can never tell you enough how grateful I am.’

‘Good.’

The doorbell rang. They looked at one another in puzzlement: they expected no one. Bernd said: ‘Maybe Heinz left something behind.’

Rebecca was mildly annoyed. Her euphoria had been shattered. She put on a robe and went to the door, feeling grumpy.

There stood Walli. He looked thin and smelled ripe. He wore jeans, American baseball shoes, and a grubby shirt – no coat. He was carrying a guitar and nothing else.

‘Hello, Rebecca,’ he said.

Her grumpiness evaporated in a flash. She smiled broadly. ‘Walli!’ she said. ‘What a wonderful surprise! I’m so happy to see you!’

She stood back and he stepped into the hallway.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said.

‘I’ve come to live with you,’ he said.

22

The most racist city in America was probably Birmingham, Alabama. George Jakes flew there in April 1963.

Last time he came to Alabama, he recalled vividly, they had tried to kill him.

Birmingham was a dirty industrial city, and from the plane it had a delicate rose-pink aura of pollution, like the chiffon scarf around the neck of an old prostitute.

George felt the hostility as he walked through the terminal. He was the only coloured man in a suit. He remembered the attack on him and Maria and the Freedom Riders in Anniston, just sixty miles away: the bombs, the baseball bats, the whirling lengths of iron chain, and most of all the faces, twisted and deformed into masks of hatred and madness.

He walked out of the airport, located the taxi stand, and got into the first car in line.

‘Get out of the car, boy,’ said the driver.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I don’t drive for no goddamn Nigras.’

George sighed. He was reluctant to get out. He felt like sitting here in protest. He did not like to make things easy for racists. But he had a job to do in Birmingham, and he could not do it in jail. So he got out.

Standing by the open door, he looked down the line. The car behind had a white driver: he assumed he would get the same treatment again. Then, three cars back, a dark-brown arm came out of the window and waved at him.

He stepped away from the first cab.

‘Close the door!’ the driver yelled.

George hesitated, then said: ‘I don’t close doors for no goddamn segregationists.’ It was not a very good line, but it gave him some small satisfaction, and he walked away leaving the door wide open.

He jumped into the cab with the black driver. ‘I know where you’re going,’ the man said. ‘Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.’

The church was the base of fiery preacher Fred Shuttlesworth. He had founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, after the state courts outlawed the moderate National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Clearly, George thought, any Negro arriving at the airport was assumed to be a civil rights campaigner.

But George was not going to the church. ‘Take me to the Gaston Motel, please,’ he said.

‘I know the Gaston,’ said the driver. ‘I saw Little Stevie Wonder in the lounge there. It’s just a block from the church.’

It was a hot day and the cab had no air-conditioning. George wound down the window and let the slipstream cool his perspiring skin.

He had been sent by Bobby Kennedy with a message for Martin Luther King. The message was stop pushing, calm things down, end your protests, things are changing. George had a feeling that Dr King was not going to like it.

The Gaston was a low-built modern hotel. Its owner, A. G. Gaston, was a coal miner who had become Birmingham’s leading black businessman. George knew that Gaston was nervous about the disruption being brought to Birmingham by King’s campaign, but gave his qualified support nonetheless. George’s taxi drove through the entrance into a motor court.

Martin Luther King was in room 30, the motel’s only suite; but before seeing him, George had lunch with Verena Marquand in the nearby Jockey Boy Restaurant. When he asked for his hamburger medium rare, the waitress looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language.

Verena ordered a salad. She looked more alluring than ever in white pants and a black blouse. George wondered if she had a boyfriend. ‘You’re on a downhill slope,’ he said to her while they were waiting for their food. ‘First Atlanta, now Birmingham. Come to Washington, before you find yourself stuck in Mudslide, Mississippi.’ He was teasing, but he did think that if she came to Washington he might ask her out on a date.

‘I go where the movement takes me,’ she replied seriously.

Their lunch arrived. ‘Why did King decide to target this town?’ George asked while they were eating.

‘The Commissioner of Public Safety – effectively the chief of police – is a vicious white racist called Eugene “Bull” Connor.’