They walked for two hours, then came to a long, deserted beach. Partway along, a rough track emerged from trees to dead-end at the high-tide mark.
Parked there was the bronze Trabant with Carla at the wheel.
There was no one else in sight.
Werner and Lili got into the car and Carla drove off, leaving the Stasi man stranded.
Lili resisted the temptation to wave good-bye.
Werner said to Carla: "You shook off the other guy."
"Yes," said Carla. "I created a diversion outside the grocery store by setting fire to a rubbish bin."
Werner grinned. "A trick you learned from me many years ago."
"Absolutely. Naturally he got out of his car and went to see what was happening."
"And then . . ."
"While he was distracted, I put a nail in his tire. Left him changing the wheel."
"Nice."
Lili said: "You two did this stuff in the war, didn't you?"
There was a pause. They never spoke much about the war. Eventually Carla said: "Yes, we did a little bit, nothing worth boasting about."
That was all they ever said.
They drove to a village and slowed down at a small house with a sign in English saying BAR. A man standing outside directed them to park in a field at the back, out of sight.
They went inside to a small bar too charming to be a government enterprise. Right away Lili saw her sister, Rebecca, and threw her arms around her. They had not been together for eighteen years. Lili tried to look at Rebecca's face but could not see for tears. Carla and Werner hugged Rebecca in turn.
When at last Lili's vision cleared she saw that Rebecca looked middle-aged, which was no surprise: she would be fifty next birthday. She was heavier than Lili remembered.
But the most striking thing was how smart she looked. She wore a blue summer dress with a pattern of small dots, and a matching jacket. Around her neck was a silver chain with a single large pearl, and she had a chunky silver bracelet on her arm. Her smart sandals had a cork heel. Slung over her shoulder was a navy blue leather bag. Politics was not notably well paid, as far as Lili knew. Could it be that everyone in West Germany was this well dressed?
Rebecca led them through the bar to a private room at the back where a long table was already laid with cold meat platters, bowls of salad, and bottles of wine. Standing by the table was a thin, handsome, wasted-looking man in a white T-shirt and skinny black jeans. He might have been in his forties, or perhaps younger if he had suffered an illness. Lili assumed he must be an employee of the bar.
Carla gasped, and Werner said, "Oh, my God."
Lili saw that the thin man was gazing expectantly at her. She suddenly noticed his almond-shaped eyes and realized that she was looking at her brother, Walli. She let out a small scream of shock: he looked so old!
Carla embraced Walli, saying: "My little boy! My poor little boy!"
Lili hugged and kissed him, crying all over again. "You look so different," she sobbed. "What happened to you?"
"Rock and roll," he replied with a laugh. "But I'm getting over it." He looked at his older sister. "Rebecca sacrificed a year of her life--and a great career opportunity--to save me."
"Of course I did," said Rebecca. "I'm your sister."
Lili felt sure Rebecca had not hesitated. For her, nothing came before family. Lili had a theory that it was because she was adopted that she felt so strongly.
Werner held Walli in his arms a long time. "We didn't know," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "We didn't know you were coming."
Rebecca said: "I decided to keep it a complete secret."
Carla said: "Isn't it dangerous?"
"It certainly is," said Rebecca. "But Walli wanted to take the risk."
Then Karolin walked in with her family. Like the others, she took a few moments to recognize Walli, then she gave a cry of shock.
"Hello, Karolin," he said. He took her hands and kissed her on both cheeks. "It's so good to see you again."
Odo said: "I'm Odo, Karolin's husband. I'm very glad to meet you at last."
Something flashed across Walli's face. It was gone in a split second, but Lili knew that Walli had seen and understood something about Odo that had shocked him, and had then covered up his shock instantly. The two men shook hands amiably.
Karolin said: "And this is Alice."
"Alice?" said Walli. He looked dazedly at the tall sixteen-year-old girl with long fair hair draping her face like curtains. "I wrote a song about you," he said. "When you were little."
"I know," she said, and kissed his cheek.
Odo said: "Alice knows her history. We told her everything, as soon as she was old enough to understand."
Lili wondered whether Walli heard the note of righteousness in Odo's voice. Or was she being oversensitive?
Walli said to Alice: "I love you, but Odo raised you. I'll never forget that, and I'm sure you won't either."
For a minute he choked up. Then he regained control and said: "Everybody, let's sit down and eat. This is a happy day." Lili realized that Walli had probably paid for everything.
They all sat around the table. For a few moments they were like strangers, feeling awkward, trying to think of something to say. Then several people spoke at once, all asking Walli questions. Everyone laughed. "One at a time!" Walli said, and they all relaxed.
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."
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
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, gray 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 Lidk
a 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 smart-ass 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. "Tanya 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."
*
Tanya 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 lamppost. 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 Defense Committee that produced pamphlets about workers' grievances and human rights violations. These illegal publications were called bibula. Danuta lived in the same building as Tanya.
While the American press officer was reading out the announcement he had already given them in printed form, Danuta murmured to Tanya: "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. Tanya 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 color.
"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, Tanya 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," Tanya said.
"You have to tell me what this is about," Cam said firmly.
Tanya 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?"
Tanya hesitated.
Cam said: "He knows mine."
Tanya 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." Tanya walked quickly out of the building.
She gave Staz the message that evening. Next day she kissed him good-bye 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.
Tanya 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. Tanya 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 coworkers. 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.
Tanya 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 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 spiderweb 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 Tanya 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.
T
hen 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. Tanya 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. Tanya asked the nearest man who he was. "Klemens Gniech, the director of the shipyard," she was told. "Not a bad guy."
Tanya was aghast. How weak people were!
Gniech was offering negotiations if the strikers would first go back to work. To Tanya 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 mustache. Although he seemed to Tanya 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?" Tanya asked her neighbor.
"Lech Walesa. He's only an electrician, but everyone knows him."
The director tried to argue with Walesa in front of the crowd, but the little man with the big mustache gave him no leeway. "I declare an occupation strike!" he roared, and the crowd shouted their agreement.
Both the director and Walesa stepped down from the excavator. Walesa 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.
Walesa 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 in the Health and Safety Center to negotiate. Tanya 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 Tanya's press card showed that she was a Soviet reporter for TASS, and if the strikers discovered that they would throw her out.