Edge of Eternity

  "Let's try it."

  They went outside. It was early summer, and still light. They sat on a doorstep and tried out the song. They sounded good together, and Walli improvised a harmony on the last line.

  Karolin had a pure contralto voice that he thought could sound thrilling, and he suggested that their second number could be a sad song, for contrast. She rejected "All My Trials" as too depressing, but she liked "Nobody's Fault but Mine," a slow spiritual. When they ran through it, the hairs stood up on the back of Walli's neck.

  An American soldier entering the club smiled at them and said in English: "My God, it's the Bobbsey Twins."

  Karolin laughed and said to Walli: "I guess we do look alike--fair hair and green eyes. Who are the Bobbsey Twins?"

  Walli had not noticed the color of her eyes, and he was flattered that she was aware of his. "I've never heard of them," he said.

  "All the same, it sounds like a good name for a duo. Like the Everly Brothers."

  "Do we need a name?"

  "We do if we win."

  "Okay. Let's go back in. It must be almost our turn."

  "One more thing," she said. "When we do 'Noch Einen Tanz,' we should look at one another now and again, and smile."

  "Okay."

  "Almost as if we're boyfriend and girlfriend, you know? It will look good onstage."

  "Sure." It would not be difficult to smile at Karolin as if she were his girlfriend.

  Back inside, a blond girl was strumming a guitar and singing "Freight Train." She was not as beautiful as Karolin, but she was pretty in a more obvious way. Next, a virtuoso guitarist played a complicated fingerpicking blues. Then Danni Hausmann called Walli's name.

  He felt tense as he faced the audience. Most of the guitarists had fancy leather straps, but Walli had never bothered to get one, and his instrument was held around his neck by a piece of string. Now, suddenly, he wished he had a strap.

  Karolin said: "Good evening, we're the Bobbsey Twins."

  Walli played a chord and began to sing, and found he no longer cared about a strap. The song was a waltz, and he strummed it jauntily. Karolin pretended to be a wanton strumpet, and Walli responded by becoming a stiff Prussian lieutenant.

  The audience laughed.

  Something happened to Walli then. There were only a hundred or so people in the place, and the sound they made was no more than an appreciative collective chuckle, but it gave him a feeling that he had not experienced before, a feeling a bit like the kick from the first puff of a cigarette.

  They laughed several more times, and at the end of the song they applauded loudly.

  Walli liked that even better.

  "They love us!" Karolin said in an excited whisper.

  Walli began to play "Nobody's Fault but Mine," plucking the steel strings with his fingernails to sharpen the drama of the plangent sevenths, and the crowd went quiet. Karolin changed and became a fallen woman in despair. Walli watched the audience. No one was talking. One woman had tears in her eyes, and he wondered if she had lived through what Karolin was singing about.

  Their hushed concentration was even better than the laughter.

  At the end they cheered and called for more.

  The rule was two numbers each, so Walli and Karolin came down off the stage, ignoring the cries for an encore, but Hausmann told them to go back. They had not rehearsed a third song, and they looked at one another in panic. Then Walli said: "Do you know 'This Land Is Your Land'?" and Karolin nodded.

  The audience joined in, which made Karolin sing louder, and Walli was surprised by the power of her voice. He sang a high harmony, and their two voices soared above the sound of the crowd.

  When finally they left the stage he felt exhilarated. Karolin's eyes were shining. "We were really good!" she said. "You're better than my brother."

  Walli said: "Have you got any cigarettes?"

  They sat through another hour of the contest, smoking. "I think we were the best," Walli said.

  Karolin was more cautious. "They liked the blond girl who sang 'Freight Train,'" she said.

  At last the result was announced.

  The Bobbsey Twins came second.

  The winner was the Joan Baez look-alike.

  Walli was angry. "She could hardly play!" he said.

  Karolin was more philosophical. "People love Joan Baez."

  The club began to empty, and Walli and Karolin headed for the door. Walli felt dejected. As they were leaving, Danni Hausmann stopped them. He was in his early twenties, and dressed in modern casual clothes, a black roll-neck sweater and jeans. "Could you two do half an hour next Monday?" he said.

  Walli was too surprised to reply, but Karolin quickly said: "Sure!"

  "But the Joan Baez imitator won," said Walli, then he thought: Why am I arguing?

  Danni said: "You two seem to have the range to keep an audience happy for more than one or two numbers. Have you got enough songs for a set?"

  Once again Walli hesitated, and again Karolin jumped in. "We will by Monday," she said.

  Walli remembered that his father planned to imprison him in the house for a month of evenings, but he decided not to mention that.

  "Thanks," said Danni. "You get the early slot, eight thirty. Be here by seven thirty."

  They were elated as they walked out into the lamplit street. Walli had no idea what he would do about his father, but he felt optimistic that everything would work out.

  It turned out that Karolin, too, lived in East Berlin. They caught a bus and began to talk about which numbers they would do next week. There were lots of folk songs they both knew.

  They got off the bus and headed into the park. Karolin frowned and said: "The guy behind."

  Walli looked back. There was a man in a cap thirty or forty yards behind them, smoking as he walked. "What about him?"

  "Wasn't he in the Minnesanger?"

  The man did not meet Walli's eye, even though Walli stared at him. "I don't think so," said Walli. "Do you like the Everly Brothers?"

  "Yes!"

  As they walked, Walli started to play "All I Have to Do Is Dream," strumming the guitar that hung around his neck on its string. Karolin joined in eagerly. They sang together as they crossed the park. He played the Chuck Berry hit "Back in the USA."

  They were belting out the refrain, "I'm so glad I'm living in the USA," when Karolin halted suddenly and said: "Hush!" Walli realized they had reached the border, and saw three Vopos under a streetlight glaring at them malevolently.

  He shut up immediately, and hoped they had stopped soon enough.

  One of the cops was a sergeant, and he looked past Walli. Walli glanced back and saw the man in the cap give a curt nod. The sergeant took a step toward Walli and Karolin and said: "Papers." The man in the cap spoke into a walkie-talkie.

  Walli frowned. It seemed Karolin had been right, and they had been followed.

  It occurred to him that Hans might be behind this.

  Could he possibly be so petty and vengeful?

  Yes, he could.

  The sergeant looked at Walli's identity card and said: "You're only fifteen. You shouldn't be out this late."

  Walli bit his tongue. There was no point in arguing with them.

  The sergeant looked at Karolin's card and said: "You're seventeen! What are you doing with this child?"

  This made Walli recall the row with his father, and he said angrily: "I'm not a child."

  The sergeant ignored him. "You could go out with me," he said to Karolin. "I'm a real man." The other two Vopos laughed appreciatively.

  Karolin said nothing, but the sergeant persisted. "How about it?" he said.

  "You must be out of your mind," Karolin said quietly.

  The man was stung. "Now that's just rude," he said.

  Walli had noticed this about some men. If a girl gave them the brush-off they became indignant, but any other response was taken as encouragement. What were women supposed to do?

  Karolin said: "Give me back my ca
rd, please."

  The sergeant said: "Are you a virgin?"

  Karolin blushed.

  Once again the other two cops sniggered.

  "They ought to put that on women's identity cards," said the man. "Virgin, or not."

  "Knock it off," Walli said.

  "I'm gentle with virgins."

  Walli was boiling. "That uniform doesn't give you the right to pester girls!"

  "Oh, doesn't it?" The sergeant did not give back their identity cards.

  A tan Trabant 500 pulled up and Hans Hoffmann got out. Walli began to feel frightened. How could he be in this much trouble? All he had done was sing in the park.

  Hans approached and said: "Show me that thing you have around your neck."

  Walli summoned up the nerve to say: "Why?"

  "Because I suspect it is being used to smuggle capitalist-imperialist propaganda into the German Democratic Republic. Give it here."

  The guitar was so precious that Walli still did not comply, scared as he was. "What if I don't?" he said. "Will I be arrested?"

  The sergeant rubbed the knuckles of his right hand with the palm of his left.

  Hans said: "Yes, eventually."

  Walli ran out of courage. He pulled the string over his head and gave Hans the guitar.

  Hans held the guitar as if to play it, hit the strings, and sang in English: "You ain't nothing but a hound dog." The Vopos laughed hysterically.

  Even the cops listened to pop radio, it seemed.

  Hans pushed his hand under the strings and tried to feel inside the sound hole.

  Walli said: "Be careful!"

  The top E string broke with a ping.

  "It's a delicate musical instrument!" Walli said despairingly.

  Hans's reach was constrained by the strings. He said: "Anyone got a knife?"

  The sergeant put his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a knife with a wide blade--not part of his standard-issue gear, Walli felt sure.

  Hans tried to cut the strings with the blade, but they were tougher than he thought. He managed to snap the B and the G, but could not saw through the thicker ones.

  "There's nothing inside," Walli said pleadingly. "You can tell by the weight."

  Hans looked at him, smiled, then brought the knife down hard, point first, on the soundboard near the bridge.

  The blade went straight through the wood, and Walli cried out in pain.

  Pleased by this response, Hans repeated the action, smashing holes in the guitar. With the surface weakened, the tension in the strings pulled the bridge and the wood surrounding it away from the body of the instrument. He prized away the rest of it, revealing the inside like an empty coffin.

  "No propaganda," he said. "Congratulations--you are innocent." He handed Walli the wrecked guitar, and Walli took it.

  The sergeant handed back their identity cards with a grin.

  Karolin took Walli's arm and drew him away. "Come on," she said in a low voice. "Let's get out of here."

  Walli let her lead him. He could hardly see where he was going. He could not stop crying.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  George Jakes boarded a Greyhound bus in Atlanta, Georgia, on Sunday, May 14, 1961. It was Mother's Day.

  He was scared.

  Maria Summers sat next to him. They always sat together. It had become a regular thing: everyone assumed that the empty seat next to George was reserved for Maria.

  To hide his nervousness, he made conversation with Maria. "So, what did you think of Martin Luther King?"

  King was head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, one of the more important civil rights groups. They had met him last night at a dinner in one of Atlanta's black-owned restaurants.

  "He's an amazing man," said Maria.

  George was not so sure. "He said wonderful things about the Freedom Riders, but he's not here on the bus with us."

  "Put yourself in his place," Maria said reasonably. "He's the leader of a different civil rights group. A general can't become a foot soldier in someone else's regiment."

  George had not looked at it that way. Maria was very smart.

  George was half in love with her. He was desperate for an opportunity to be alone with her, but the people in whose homes the Riders stayed were solid respectable black citizens, many of them devout Christians, who would not have allowed their guest rooms to be used for smooching. And Maria, alluring though she was, did nothing more than sit next to George and talk to him and laugh at his wisecracks. She never did the little physical things that said a woman wanted to be more than friends: she did not touch his arm, or take his hand getting off the bus, or press close to him in a crowd. She did not flirt. She might even be a virgin at twenty-five.

  "You talked to King for a long time," he said.

  "If he wasn't a preacher, I'd say he was coming on to me," she said.

  George was not sure how to respond to that. It would be no surprise to him if a preacher made a pass at a girl as enchanting as Maria. But she was naive about men, he thought. "I talked to King a bit."

  "What did he say to you?"

  George hesitated. It was King's words that had scared George. He decided to tell Maria anyway: she had a right to know. "He says we're not going to make it through Alabama."

  Maria blanched. "Did he really say that?"

  "He said exactly that."

  Now they were both scared.

  The Greyhound pulled out of the bus station.

  For the first few days George had feared that the Freedom Ride would be too peaceful. Regular bus passengers did not react to the black people sitting in the wrong seats, and sometimes joined in their songs. Nothing had happened when the Riders defied WHITES ONLY and COLORED notices in bus stations. Some towns had even painted over the signs. George feared the segregationists had devised the perfect strategy. There was no trouble and no publicity, and colored Riders were served politely in the white restaurants. Every evening they got off the buses and attended meetings unmolested, usually in churches, then stayed overnight with sympathizers. But George felt sure that as they left each town the signs would be restored, and segregation would return; and the Freedom Ride would have been a waste of time.

  The irony was striking. For as long as he could remember, George had been wounded and infuriated by the repeated message, sometimes implicit but often spoken aloud, that he was inferior. It made no difference that he was smarter than 99 percent of white Americans. Nor that he was hardworking, polite, and well dressed. He was looked down upon by ugly white people too stupid or too lazy to do anything harder than pour drinks or pump gas. He could not walk into a department store, sit down in a restaurant, or apply for a job without wondering whether he would be ignored, asked to leave, or rejected because of his color. It made him burn with resentment. But now, paradoxically, he was disappointed that it was not happening.

  Meanwhile the White House dithered. On the third day of the Ride the attorney general, Robert Kennedy, had made a speech at the University of Georgia promising to enforce civil rights in the South. Then, three days later, his brother the president had backtracked, withdrawing support from two civil rights bills.

  Was this how the segregationists would win, George had wondered? By avoiding confrontation, then carrying on as usual?

  It was not. Peace had lasted just four days.

  On the fifth day of the Ride one of their number had been jailed for insisting on his right to a shoeshine.

  Violence had broken out on the sixth.

  The victim had been John Lewis, the theology student. He had been attacked by thugs in a white restroom in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Lewis had allowed himself to be punched and kicked without retaliation. George had not seen the incident, which was probably a good thing, for he was not sure he could have matched Lewis's Gandhian self-restraint.

  George had read short reports of the violence in the next day's papers, but he was disappointed to see the story overshadowed by the rocket flight of Alan Shepard, the first Ame
rican in space. Who cares? George thought sourly. The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had been the first man in space, less than a month ago. The Russians beat us to it. A white American can orbit the earth, but a black American can't enter a restroom.

  Then, in Atlanta, the Riders had been cheered by a welcoming crowd as they got off the bus, and George's spirits had lifted again.

  But that was Georgia, and now they were headed for Alabama.

  "Why did King say we're not going to make it through Alabama?" Maria asked.

  "There's a rumor the Ku Klux Klan are planning something in Birmingham," George said grimly. "Apparently the FBI knows all about it but they haven't done anything to stop it."

  "And the local police?"

  "The police are in the damn Klan."

  "What about those two?" With a jerk of her head Maria indicated the seats across the aisle and a row back.

  George looked over his shoulder at two burly white men sitting together. "What about them?"

  "Don't you smell cop?"

  He saw what she meant. "Do you think they're FBI?"

  "Their clothes are too cheap for the Bureau. My guess is they're Alabama Highway Patrol, undercover."

  George was impressed. "How did you get to be so smart?"

  "My mother made me eat my vegetables. And my father's a lawyer in Chicago, the gangster capital of the USA."

  "So what do you think those two are doing?"

  "I'm not sure, but I don't think they're here to defend our civil rights, do you?"

  George glanced out of the window and saw a sign that read ENTERING ALABAMA. He checked his wristwatch. It was one P.M. The sun was shining out of a blue sky. It's a beautiful day to die, he thought.

  Maria wanted to work in politics or public service. "Protesters can have a big impact, but in the end it's governments that reshape the world," she said. George thought about that, wondering whether he agreed. Maria had applied for a job in the White House press office, and had been called for an interview, but she had not got the job. "They don't hire many black lawyers in Washington," she had said ruefully to George. "I'll probably stay in Chicago and join my father's law firm."

  Across the aisle from George was a middle-aged white woman in a coat and hat, holding on her lap a large white plastic handbag. George smiled at her and said: "Lovely weather for a bus ride."

  "I'm going to visit my daughter in Birmingham," she said, though he had not asked.