Edge of Eternity (91 page)

This secret policeman had been waiting for them, Dave realized. It was hard to imagine why.

“Answer the question. What is your sister's name?”

“She was Frau Maud von Ulrich, as your spies have obviously informed you.”

Dave noticed that Fitz was getting annoyed, and breaking his own injunction to say as little as possible.

The man said: “How is it that Lord Fitzherbert has a German sister?”

“She married a friend of mine called Walter von Ulrich, who was a German diplomat in London. He was killed by the Gestapo during the Second World War. What did you do in the war?”

Dave saw, from the look of fury on the tall man's face, that he had understood; but he did not answer the question. Instead he turned to Dave. “Where is Walli Franck?”

Dave was astonished. “I don't know.”

“Of course you know. He is in your music group.”

“The group has split. I haven't seen Walli for months. I don't know where he is.”

“This is not believable. You are partners.”

“Partners fall out.”

“What is the reason for your quarrel?”

“Personal and musical differences.” In truth the differences were purely personal. Dave and Walli had never had any musical differences.

“Yet now you wish to attend the funeral of his grandmother.”

“She was my great-aunt.”

“Where did you last see Walli Franck?”

“In San Francisco.”

“The address, please.”

Dave hesitated. This was getting nasty.

“Answer, please. Walli Franck is wanted for murder.”

“I last saw him in Buena Vista Park. That's on Haight Street. I don't know where he lives.”

“Do you realize that it is a crime to obstruct the police in the course of their duty?”

“Of course.”

“And that if you commit such a crime in East Germany, you may be arrested and tried and put in jail here?”

Dave was suddenly frightened, but he tried to remain calm. “And then millions of fans all over the world would demand my release.”

“They will not be allowed to interfere with justice.”

Fitz put in: “Are you sure your comrades in Moscow would be pleased with you for creating a major international diplomatic incident over this?”

The tall man laughed scornfully, but he was not convincing.

Dave had a flash of insight. “You're Hans Hoffmann, aren't you?”

The interpreter did not translate this, but instead said quickly: “His name is of no concern to you.”

But Dave could tell by the tall man's face that his guess had been right. He said: “Walli told me about you. His sister threw you out, and you've been taking revenge on her family ever since.”

“Just answer the question.”

“Is this part of your revenge? Harassing two innocent men on their way to a funeral? Is that the kind of people you Communists are?”

“Wait here, please.” Hans and his interpreter left the room, and Dave heard from the other side of the door the sound of a bolt being shot.

“I'm sorry,” Dave said. “This seems to be about Walli. You would have been better off on your own.”

“Not your fault. I just hope we don't miss the funeral.” Fitz took out his cigar case. “You don't smoke, Dave, do you?”

Dave shook his head. “Not tobacco, anyhow.”

“Marijuana is bad for you.”

“And I suppose cigars are healthy?”

Fitz smiled. “Touché.”

“I've had this argument with my father. He drinks Scotch. You parliamentarians have a clear policy: all dangerous drugs are illegal, except the ones you like. And then you complain that young people won't listen.”

“You're right, of course.”

It was a big cigar, and Fitz smoked it all and dropped the stub in a stamped-tin ashtray. Eleven o'clock came and went. They had missed the funeral for which they had flown from London.

At half past eleven the door opened again. Hans Hoffmann stood there. With a little smile he said: “You may enter East Germany.” Then he walked away.

Dave and Fitz found their car. “We'd better go straight to the house, now,” said Fitz. He gave the driver the address.

They drove along Friedrich Strasse to Unter den Linden. The old government buildings were fine but the sidewalks were deserted. “My God,” said Fitz. “This used to be one of the busiest shopping streets in Europe. Look at it now. Merthyr Tydfil on a Monday.”

The car pulled up outside a town house in better condition than the other homes. “Maud's daughter seems to be more affluent than her neighbors,” Fitz remarked.

Dave explained. “Walli's father owns a television factory in West Berlin. Somehow he manages to run it from here. I guess it still makes money.”

They went into the house. The family introduced themselves. Walli's parents were Werner and Carla, a handsome man and a plain woman with strong features. Walli's sister, Lili, was nineteen and attractive, and did not look like Walli at all. Dave was intrigued to meet Karolin, who had long fair hair parted in the center and forming curtains either side of her face. With her was Alice, the inspiration for the song, a shy four-year-old with a black ribbon in her hair for mourning. Karolin's husband, Odo, was a little older, about thirty. He had fashionably long hair but wore a clerical collar.

Dave explained why they had missed the funeral. They mixed languages, though the Germans spoke English better than the English spoke German. Dave sensed that the family's attitude to Fitz was equivocal. It was understandable: he had after all been harsh to Maud, and her daughter might think it was too late to make amends. However, it was also too late to remonstrate, and no one spoke of the fifty-year estrangement.

A dozen friends and neighbors who had attended the funeral were having coffee and snacks served by Carla and Lili. Dave talked to Karolin about guitars. It turned out she and Lili were underground stars. They were not allowed to make records, because their songs were about freedom, but people made tape recordings of their performances and loaned them to one another. It was a bit like samizdat publishing in the Soviet Union. They discussed cassette tapes, a new format, more convenient though with poor sound quality. Dave offered to send Karolin some cassettes and a deck, but she said they would only be stolen by the secret police.

Dave had assumed Karolin must be a hard-hearted woman, to break off her relationship with Walli and marry Odo, but to his surprise he liked her. She seemed kind and smart. She spoke of Walli with great affection and wanted to know all about his life.

Dave told her how he and Walli had quarreled. She was distressed
by the story. “It's not like him,” she said. “Walli was never the type to fool around. Girls used to fall for him all the time, and he could have had a different one every weekend, but he never did.”

Dave shrugged. “He's changed.”

“What about your former fiancée? What's her name?”

“Ursula, but everyone calls her Beep. To be honest, it's not surprising that she should be unfaithful. She's kind of wild. It's part of what makes her so attractive.”

“I think you still have feelings for her.”

“I was crazy about her.” Dave gave an evasive answer because he did not know how he felt now. He was angry with Beep, enraged by her betrayal, but if she wanted to come back to him he was not sure what he would do.

Fitz came over to where the two of them were sitting. “Dave,” he said, “I'd like to see the grave before we return to West Berlin. Would you mind?”

“Of course not.” Dave stood up. “We should probably go soon.”

Karolin said to Dave: “If you do speak to Walli, please give him my love. Tell him I long for the day when he can meet Alice. I will tell her all about him when she's old enough.”

They all had messages for Walli: Werner, Carla, and Lili. Dave guessed he would have to speak to Walli just to pass them on.

As they were leaving, Carla said to Fitz: “You should have something of Maud's.”

“I'd like that.”

“I know just the thing.” She disappeared for a minute and came back with an old leather-bound photograph album. Fitz opened it. The pictures were all monochrome, some sepia, many faded. They had captions in large loopy handwriting, presumably Maud's. The oldest had been taken in a grand country house. Dave read: “Ty Gwyn, 1905.” That was the Fitzherbert country residence, now Aberowen College of Further Education.

Seeing photos of himself and Maud as young people made Fitz cry. Tears rolled down the papery old skin of his wrinkled face and soaked into the collar of his immaculate white shirt. He spoke with difficulty. “Good times never come back,” he said.

They took their leave. The chauffeur drove them to a large and charmless municipal cemetery, and they found Maud's grave. The earth had already been returned to the pit, forming a small mound that was, pathetically, the size and approximate shape of a human being. They stood side by side for a few minutes, saying nothing. The only sound was birdsong.

Fitz wiped his face with a large white handkerchief. “Let's go,” he said.

At the checkpoint they were again detained. Hans Hoffmann watched, smiling, while they and their cars were thoroughly searched.

“What are you looking for?” Dave asked. “Why would we smuggle something out of East Germany? You don't have anything here that anyone wants!” No one answered him.

A uniformed officer seized on the photograph album and handed it to Hoffmann.

Hoffmann looked through it casually and said: “This will have to be examined by our forensic department.”

“Of course,” Fitz said sadly.

They had to leave without it.

As they drove away, Dave looked back and saw Hans drop the album into a rubbish bin.

•   •   •

George Jakes flew from Portland to Los Angeles to meet Verena with a diamond ring in his pocket.

He had been on the road with Bobby Kennedy, and had not seen Verena since the funeral of Martin Luther King in Atlanta seven weeks earlier.

George was devastated by the assassination. Dr. King had been the bright burning hope of black Americans, and now he was gone, murdered by a white racist with a hunting rifle. President Kennedy had given hope to blacks and he, too, had been killed by a white man with a gun. What was the point of politics if great men could be so easily wiped out? But, George thought, at least we still have Bobby.

Verena was even harder hit. At the funeral she had been bewildered, angry, and lost. The man she had admired, cherished, and served for seven years was gone.

To George's consternation she had not wanted him to console her. He was hurt deeply by this. They lived six hundred miles apart, but he was the man in her life. He figured that her rejection was part of her grief, and would pass.

There was nothing for her in Atlanta—she did not want to work for King's successor, Ralph Abernathy—so she had resigned. George had thought she might move into his apartment in Washington. However, without explanation she had gone back to her parents' home in Los Angeles. Perhaps she needed time alone to grieve.

Or perhaps she wanted something more than just an invitation to move into his place.

Hence the ring.

The next primary was California, which gave George a chance to visit Verena.

At LAX he rented a white Plymouth Valiant, a cheap compact—the campaign was paying—and drove to North Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills.

He passed through tall gates and parked in front of a Tudor-style brick house that he guessed was the size of five genuine Tudor houses. Verena's parents, Percy Marquand and Babe Lee, lived like the stars they were.

A maid let him in and showed him into a living room that had nothing Tudor about it: a white carpet, air-conditioning, and a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out onto a swimming pool. The maid asked if he would like a drink. “A soda, please,” he said. “Any kind.”

When Verena came in he suffered a shock.

She had cut off her wonderful Afro, and her hair was now cropped close to her head, as short as his. She wore black pants, a blue shirt, a leather blazer, and a black beret. It was the uniform of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.

George suppressed his outrage in order to kiss her. She gave him her lips, but only briefly, and he knew right away that she had not moved on from her mood at the funeral. He hoped his proposal would bring her out of it.

They sat on a couch covered in a swirly pattern of burnt orange, primrose yellow, and chocolate brown. The maid brought George a
Coke with ice in a tall glass on a silver tray. When she had gone he took Verena's hand. Holding in his anger, he said as gently as he could: “Why are you wearing that uniform?”

“Isn't it obvious?”

“Not to me.”

“Martin Luther King led a nonviolent campaign, and they shot him.”

George was disappointed in her. He had expected a better argument that that. He said: “Abraham Lincoln fought a civil war, and they shot him, too.”

“Blacks have a right to defend themselves. No one else will—especially not the police.”

George could barely conceal his contempt for these ideas. “You just want to scare whitey. Nothing has ever been achieved by this kind of grandstanding.”

“What has nonviolence achieved? Hundreds of black people lynched and murdered, thousands beaten and jailed.”

George did not want to fight with her—on the contrary, he wanted to bring her back to normal—but he could not help raising his voice. “Plus the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and six black congressmen and a senator!”

“And now white people are saying it's gone far enough. No one has been able to pass a law against housing discrimination.”

“Maybe the whites are afraid they'll have Panthers in Gestapo outfits walking around their nice suburbs carrying guns.”

“The police have guns. We need them too.”