He was also consumed by curiosity. Why had she not turned up at their rendezvous, nine days ago, to escape with him? He was almost certain something had happened to spoil their plan: her father had somehow divined what was afoot and locked her in her room, or a similar stroke of bad luck. But he also suffered a fear, faint but not negligible, that she had changed her mind about coming with him. He could hardly contemplate the possible reason why. Did she still love him? People could change. In the East German media he had been portrayed as a heartless killer. Had that affected her?
Soon he would know.
His parents were devastated by what had happened, but they had not tried to make him change his plans. They had not wanted him to leave home, feeling that he was much too young, but they knew that now he could not stay in the East without being jailed. They had asked what he was going to do in the West--study, or work--and he had said he could not make any decisions until he had talked to Karolin. They had accepted that, and for the first time his father had not tried to tell him what to do. They were treating him like a grown-up. He had been demanding this for years, but now that it had happened he felt lost and scared.
People began to come out of the college.
The building was an old bank converted into classrooms. The students were all girls in their late teens, learning to be typists and secretaries and bookkeepers and travel agents. They carried bags and books and folders. They wore spring sweater-and-skirt combinations, a bit old-fashioned: trainee secretaries were expected to dress modestly.
At last Karolin emerged, wearing a green twinset, carrying her books in an old leather briefcase.
She looked different, Walli thought; a bit more round-faced. She could not have put on much weight in a week, could she? She was with two other girls, chatting, though she did not laugh when they did. Walli feared that if he spoke to her now the other girls would notice him. That would be dangerous: even though he was disguised, they might know that the notorious murderer and escaper Walli Franck had been Karolin's boyfriend, and suspect that this boy in dark glasses was he.
He felt panic rise: surely his purpose could not be so easily frustrated, now at the last moment, after all he had been through? Then the two friends turned left and waved good-bye, and Karolin crossed the street on her own.
As she came near, Walli took off his sunglasses and said: "Hello, baby."
She looked, recognized him, and gave a squeal of shock, stopping in her tracks. He saw astonishment and fear on her face, and something else--could it be guilt? Then she ran to him, dropped her briefcase, and threw herself into his arms. They hugged and kissed, and Walli was swamped by relief and happiness. His first question was answered: she still loved him.
After a minute he realized passersby were staring--some smiling, others looking with disapproval. He put his sunglasses back on. "Let's go," he said. "I don't want people to recognize me." He picked up her dropped briefcase.
They walked away from the college, holding hands. "How did you get back?" she said. "Is it safe? What are you going to do? Does anyone know you're here?"
"We've got so much to talk about," he said. "We need a place to sit down and be private." Across the street he spotted a church. Perhaps it would be open for people seeking spiritual calm.
He led Karolin to the door. "You're limping," she said.
"That border guard shot me in the leg."
"Does it hurt?"
"You bet it does."
The church door was unlocked, and they went in.
It was a plain Protestant hall, dimly lit, with rows of hard benches. At the far end a woman in a head scarf was dusting the lectern. Walli and Karolin sat in the back row and spoke in low voices.
"I love you," Walli said.
"I love you, too."
"What happened on Sunday morning? You were supposed to meet me."
"I got scared," she said.
This was not the answer he had been expecting, and he found it hard to understand. "I was scared, too," he said. "But we made each other a promise."
"I know."
He could see that she was in an agony of remorse; but there was something else. He did not want to torture her, but he had to know the truth. "I took a terrible risk," he said. "You shouldn't have backed out without a word."
"I'm sorry."
"I wouldn't have done it to you," he said. Then he added accusingly: "I love you too much."
She flinched as if he had struck her. But her answer was spirited. "I'm not a coward," she said.
"If you love me, how could you have let me down?"
"I'd give my life for you."
"If that was true, you would have come with me. How can you say it, now?"
"Because it's not just my life at risk."
"It's mine, too."
"And someone else's."
Walli was baffled. "Whose, for God's sake?"
"I'm talking about the life of our child."
"What?"
"We're going to have a baby. I'm pregnant, Walli."
Walli's mouth fell open. He could not speak. His world turned upside-down in an instant. Karolin was pregnant. A baby was coming into their lives.
His child.
"Oh, my God," he said at last.
"I was so torn, Walli," she said in anguish. "You have to try to understand that. I wanted to go with you, but I couldn't put the baby in danger. I couldn't get in the van, knowing you were going to crash through the barrier. I wouldn't care if I got injured, but not the child." She was pleading with him. "Say you understand."
"I understand," he said. "I think."
"Thank you."
He took her hand. "All right, let's talk about what we're going to do."
"I know what I'm going to do," she said firmly. "I already love this baby. I'm not going to get rid of it."
She had been living with the knowledge for some weeks, he guessed, and she had thought long and hard. All the same he was taken aback by her strength of purpose. "You speak as if it's nothing to do with me," he said.
"This is my body!" she said fiercely. The cleaner looked round, and Karolin lowered her voice, though she continued to speak forcefully. "I will not be told what to do with my body by any man, you or my father!"
Walli guessed that her father had tried to persuade her to have an abortion. "I'm not your father," Walli said. "I'm not going to tell you what to do, and I don't want to talk you into an abortion."
"I'm sorry."
"But is this our baby, or just yours?"
She began to cry. "Ours," she said.
"Then shall we talk about what we're going to do--together?"
She squeezed his hand. "You're so grown-up," she said. "It's a good thing--you're going to be a father before you're eighteen."
That was a shocking thought. He pictured his own father, with his short haircut and his waistcoats. Now Walli would be required to play that role: commanding, authoritative, reliable, always able to provide for the family. He was not ready, no matter what Karolin said.
But he had to do it, anyway.
"When?" he said.
"November."
"Do you want to get married?"
She smiled through her tears. "Do you want to marry me?"
"More than anything in the world."
"Thank you." She hugged him.
The cleaner coughed reprovingly. Conversation was permitted, but physical contact was not.
Walli said: "You know I can't stay here in the East."
"Couldn't your father get a lawyer?" she said. "Or exert some political pressure? The government might issue a pardon, if all the circumstances were explained."
Karolin's family were not political. Walli's were, and he knew with total certainty that he was never going to receive a pardon for killing a border guard. "It's impossible," he said. "If I stay here they'll execute me for murder."
"So what can you do?"
"I have to go back to the West, and I have to stay there, unless Communism collapses, and I
don't see that happening in my lifetime."
"No."
"You'll have to come with me to West Berlin."
"How?"
"We'll go out the way I came in. Some students have dug a tunnel under Bernauer Strasse." He looked at his watch. Time was passing quickly. "We need to be there around sundown."
She looked horrified. "Today?"
"Yes, right away."
"Oh, God."
"Wouldn't you prefer our child to grow up in a free country?"
She grimaced as if in pain at the conflict within her. "I'd prefer not to take terrible risks."
"So would I. But we have no choice."
She looked away from him, at the rows of pews and the assiduous cleaner, and at a plaque on the wall saying I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. It was not helpful, Walli thought, but Karolin made up her mind. "Then let's go," she said, and she stood up.
They left the church. Walli headed north. Karolin was subdued, and he tried to cheer her up. "The Bobbsey Twins are having an adventure," he said. She smiled briefly.
Walli considered whether they might be under surveillance. He was pretty sure no one had seen him leave his parents' house this morning: he had gone out the back way and no one had followed him. But did Karolin have a tail? Perhaps there had been another man waiting outside her college for her to emerge, someone expert at making himself inconspicuous.
Walli started to look behind him every minute or so to check whether there might be one person always in view. He did not see anyone suspicious, but he succeeded in spooking Karolin. "What are you doing?" she said fearfully.
"Checking for a tail."
"You mean the man in the cap?"
"Maybe. Let's catch a bus." They were passing a stop, and Walli pulled Karolin to the end of the queue.
"Why?"
"To see if anyone gets on and off with us."
Unfortunately it was rush hour, and millions of Berliners were catching buses and trains home. By the time a bus came, there were several people in line behind Walli and Karolin. As they boarded he looked hard at each of them. There was a woman in a raincoat, a pretty girl, a man in blue overalls, a man in a suit with a trilby hat, and two teenagers.
They rode the bus three stops east, then got off. The woman in the raincoat and the man in overalls got off behind them. Walli headed west, going back the way they had come, figuring that anyone who followed them on such an illogical route must be suspicious.
But no one did.
"I'm pretty sure we're not being tailed," he said to Karolin.
"I'm so scared," she said.
The sun was going down. They needed to hurry. They turned north, heading for Wedding. Walli checked behind him again. He saw a middle-aged man in the brown canvas coat of a warehouseman, but no one he had noticed earlier. "I think we're all right," he said.
"I'm not going to see my family again, am I?" Karolin said.
"Not for a while," Walli replied. "Unless they escape, too."
"My father would never leave. He loves his buses."
"They have buses in the West."
"You don't know him."
Walli did know him, and Karolin was right. Her father was as different as could be from the clever, strong-willed Werner. Karolin's father had no political or religious ideas and cared nothing for freedom of speech. If he lived in a democracy he probably would not bother to vote. He liked his work and his family and his pub. His favorite food was bread. Communism gave him everything he needed. He would never escape to the West.
It was twilight when Walli and Karolin reached Strelitzer Strasse.
Karolin became increasingly jumpy as they walked along the street toward where it dead-ended at the Wall.
Ahead Walli noticed a young couple with a child. He wondered if they, too, were escaping. Yes, they were: they opened the door to the yard and disappeared.
Walli and Karolin reached the place, and Walli said: "We go in here."
Karolin said: "I want my mother with me when I have the baby."
"We're almost there!" Walli said. "Through this door there's a yard with a hatch. We go down the shaft and along the tunnel to freedom!"
"I'm not scared of escaping," she said. "I'm scared of giving birth."
"You'll be fine," Walli said desperately. "They have great hospitals in the West. You'll be surrounded by doctors and nurses."
"I want my mother," she said.
Over her shoulder Walli saw, four hundred yards away at the corner of the street, the man in the brown canvas coat talking to a policeman. "Shit!" he said. "We were followed." He looked at the door, then at Karolin. "It's now or never," he said. "I have no choice, I have to go. Are you coming with me, or not?"
She was crying. "I want to, but I can't," she said.
A car came around the corner, traveling fast. It stopped beside the policeman and the tail. A familiar figure jumped out of the car, a tall man with a stoop: Hans Hoffmann. He spoke to the man in the brown coat.
Walli said to Karolin: "Either follow me, or walk quickly away from here. There's going to be trouble." He stared at her. "I love you," he said. Then he dashed through the door.
Standing over the hatch was Cristina, still wearing the head scarf and the gun in her belt. When she saw Walli she threw the iron doors open. "You may need that gun," Walli said to her. "The police are coming."
He took one look back. The wooden door in the wall remained shut. Karolin had not followed him. Pain twisted in his stomach: it was the end.
He scrambled down the steps.
In the cellar the young couple with the child were standing with one of the students. "Hurry!" Walli yelled. "The police are coming!"
They went down the shaft: mother first, then child, then father. The child was slow on the ladder.
Cristina came down the steps and shut the iron trapdoor behind her with a clang. "How did the police get onto us?" she said.
"The Stasi were following my girlfriend."
"You stupid fool, you've betrayed us all."
"Then I'll go last," Walli said.
The male student went down the shaft, and Cristina made to follow.
"Give me your gun," Walli said.
She hesitated.
Walli said: "If I'm behind you, you won't be able to use it."
She handed it to him.
He took it gingerly. It looked exactly like the pistol his father had pulled from its hiding place in the kitchen, the day Rebecca and Bernd had escaped.
Cristina noticed his unease. "Have you ever fired a gun?" she said.
"Never."
She took it back from him and moved a lever near the hammer. "Now the safety catch is off," she said. "All you do is point it and pull the trigger." She put the safety catch on again and handed the gun back to him. Then she went down the ladder.
Walli could hear shouts and car engines outside. He could not guess what the police were doing, but it was clear he was running out of time.
He saw how things had gone wrong. Hans Hoffmann had had Karolin under surveillance, no doubt hoping that Walli might come back for her. The tail had seen her meet a boy and go off with him. Someone had decided not to arrest them immediately, but to see whether they would lead their watchers to a group of co-conspirators. There had been a slick change of personnel after they got off the bus, and a new follower had taken over, the man in the brown coat. At some point he had realized they were heading for the Wall, and had pressed the panic button.
Now the police and the Stasi were outside, searching the rear of the derelict buildings, trying to figure out where Walli and Karolin had gone. They would find the trapdoor any second now.
With the pistol in his hand Walli went down the shaft, following the others.
As he reached the foot of the ladder he heard the clang of the iron hatch. The police had located the entrance. A moment later there were gruff shouts of surprise and triumph as they saw the hole in the floor.
Walli had to wait a long, agonizing moment at
the mouth of the tunnel, until Cristina disappeared inside. He followed her, then stopped. He was slim, and he was just about able to turn in the narrow passage. He peeked out, looking up the shaft, and saw the bulk of a policeman stepping onto the ladder.
This was hopeless. The police were too close. All they had to do was point their guns into the tunnel and fire. Walli himself would be shot, and when he fell the bullets would pass over him and hit the next in line--and so on: the slaughter would be bloody. And he knew they would not hesitate to shoot, for no mercy was shown to escapers, ever. It would be carnage.
He had to keep them out of the shaft.
But he did not want to kill another man.
Kneeling just inside the mouth of the tunnel, he moved the safety catch of the Walther. Then he put his hand holding the gun outside the tunnel, pointed it upward, and pulled the trigger.
The gun kicked in his hand. The bang was very loud in the confined space. Immediately afterward he heard shouts of dismay and fear, but not of pain, and he guessed he had scared them without actually hitting anyone. He peeped out and saw the cop scrambling back up the ladder and out of the shaft.
He waited. He knew the escapers ahead of him would be slow, because of the child. He could hear the cops discussing in angry tones what they were going to do. None of them was willing to go down the shaft: it was suicide, one said. But they could not just let people escape!
To reinforce the danger to them, Walli fired the gun again. He heard sudden panic movements as if they had all pulled back from the shaft. He thought he had succeeded in scaring them off. He turned to crawl away.
Then he heard a voice he knew well. Hans Hoffmann said: "We need grenades."
"Oh, fuck," said Walli.
He stuck the gun in his belt and began to crawl along the tunnel. There was nothing for it now but to get as far along as possible. In no time he felt Cristina's shoes in front of him. "Hurry up!" he yelled. "The cops are getting grenades!"
"I can't go faster than the guy in front of me!" she yelled back.
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.