"You can't marry me, Greg," she said. She slipped the diamond ring off her finger and put it down on the red-checked tablecloth. "You already have a family."
She walked out of the restaurant.
iii
The world crisis came to a head in June, and Carla and her family were at the center of it.
The Marshall Plan had been signed into law by President Truman, and the first shipments of aid were arriving in Europe, to the fury of the Kremlin.
On Friday, June 18, the Western Allies alerted Germans that they would make an important announcement at eight o'clock that evening. Carla's family gathered around the radio in the kitchen, tuned to Radio Frankfurt, and waited anxiously. The war had been over for three years, yet still they did not know what the future held: capitalism or Communism, unity or fragmentation, freedom or subjugation, prosperity or destitution.
Werner sat beside Carla with Walli, now two and a half, on his knee. They had married quietly a year ago. Carla was working as a nurse again. She was also a Berlin city councilor for the Social Democrats. So was Frieda's husband, Heinrich.
In East Germany the Russians had banned the Social Democratic Party, but Berlin was an oasis in the Soviet sector, ruled by a council of the four main Allies called the Kommandatura, which had vetoed the ban. As a result, the Social Democrats had won, and the Communists had come a poor third after the conservative Christian Democrats. The Russians were incensed and did everything they could to obstruct the elected council. Carla found it frustrating, but she could not give up the hope of independence from the Soviets.
Werner had managed to start a small business. He had searched through the ruins of his father's factory and scavenged a small horde of electrical supplies and radio parts. Germans could not afford to buy new radios, but everyone wanted their old ones repaired. Werner had found some engineers formerly employed at the factory and set them to work fixing broken wireless sets. He was the manager and salesman, going to houses and apartment buildings, knocking on doors, drumming up business.
Maud, also at the kitchen table this evening, worked as an interpreter for the Americans. She was one of the best, and often translated at meetings of the Kommandatura.
Carla's brother, Erik, was wearing the uniform of a policeman. Having joined the Communist Party--to the dismay of his family--he had got a job as a police officer in the new East German force organized by the Russian occupiers. Erik said the Western Allies were trying to split Germany in two. "You Social Democrats are secessionists," he said, quoting the Communist line in the same way he had parroted Nazi propaganda.
"The Western Allies haven't divided anything," Carla retorted. "They've opened the borders between their zones. Why don't the Soviets do the same? Then we would be one country again." He seemed not to hear her.
Rebecca was almost seventeen. Carla and Werner had legally adopted her. She was doing well at school and good at languages.
Carla was pregnant again, though she had not told Werner. She was thrilled. He had an adopted daughter and a stepson, but now he would have a child of his own as well. She knew he would be delighted when she told him. She was waiting a little longer to be sure.
But she yearned to know in what kind of country her three children were going to live.
An American officer called Robert Lochner came on the air. He had been raised in Germany and spoke the language effortlessly. Beginning at seven o'clock on Monday morning, he explained, West Germany would have a new currency, the deutsche mark.
Carla was not surprised. The reichsmark was worth less every day. Most people were paid in reichsmarks, if they had a job at all, and the currency could be used for basics such as food rations and bus fares, but everyone preferred to get groceries or cigarettes. Werner charged people in reichsmarks in his business but offered overnight service for five cigarettes and delivery anywhere in the city for three eggs.
Carla knew from Maud that the new currency had been discussed at the Kommandatura. The Russians had demanded plates so that they could print it. But they had debased the old currency by printing too much, and there was no point in a new currency if the same thing was going to happen. Consequently the West refused and the Soviets sulked.
Now the West had decided to go ahead without the cooperation of the Soviets. Carla was pleased, for the new currency would be good for Germany, but she felt apprehensive about the Soviet reaction.
People in West Germany could exchange sixty inflated old reichsmarks for three deutsche marks and ninety new pennies, said Lochner.
Then he said that none of this would apply in Berlin, at least at first, whereupon there was a collective groan in the kitchen.
Carla went to bed wondering what the Soviets would do. She lay beside Werner, part of her brain listening in case Walli, in the next room, should cry. The Soviet occupiers had been getting angrier for the last few months. A journalist called Dieter Friede had been kidnapped in the American zone by the Soviet secret police, then held captive; the Soviets at first denied all knowledge, then said they had arrested him as a spy. Three students had been expelled from university for criticizing the Russians in a magazine. Worst of all, a Soviet fighter aircraft buzzed a British European Airways passenger plane landing at Gatow airport and clipped its wing, causing both planes to crash and killing four BEA crew, ten passengers, and the Soviet pilot. When the Russians got angry, someone else always suffered.
Next morning the Soviets announced it would be a crime to import deutsche marks into East Germany. This included Berlin, the statement said, "which is part of the Soviet zone." The Americans immediately denounced this phrase and affirmed that Berlin was an international city, but the temperature was rising, and Carla remained anxious.
On Monday, West Germany got the new currency.
On Tuesday, a Red Army courier came to Carla's house and summoned her to city hall.
She had been summoned this way before, but all the same she was fearful as she left home. There was nothing to stop the Soviets imprisoning her. The Communists had all the same arbitrary powers the Nazis had assumed. They were even using the old concentration camps.
The famous Red City Hall had been damaged by bombing, and the city government was based in the New City Hall in Parochial Strasse. Both buildings were in the Mitte district, where Carla lived, which was in the Soviet zone.
When she got there she found that Acting Mayor Louise Schroeder and others had also been called for a meeting with the Soviet liaison officer, Major Otshkin. He informed them that the East German currency was to be reformed, and in future only the new ostmark would be legal in the Soviet zone.
Acting Mayor Schroeder immediately saw the crucial point. "Are you telling us that this will apply in all sectors of Berlin?"
"Yes."
Frau Schroeder was not easily intimidated. "Under the city constitution, the Soviet occupying power cannot make such a rule for the other sectors," she said firmly. "The other Allies must be consulted."
"They will not object." He handed over a sheet of paper. "This is Marshal Sokolovsky's decree. You will bring it before the city council tomorrow."
Later that evening, as Carla got into bed with Werner, she said: "You can see what the Soviet tactic is. If the city council were to pass the decree, it would be difficult for the democratically minded Western Allies to overturn it."
"But the council won't pass it. The Communists are a minority, and no one else will want the ostmark."
"No. Which is why I'm wondering what Marshal Sokolovsky has up his sleeve."
The next morning's newspapers announced that from Friday there would be two competing currencies in Berlin, the ostmark and the deutsche mark. It turned out that the Americans had secretly flown in 250 million in the new currency in wooden boxes marked "Clay" and "Bird Dog," which were now stashed all over Berlin.
During the day Carla began to hear rumors from West Germany. The new money had brought about a miracle there. Overnight, more goods had appeared in shop windows: baskets of cherries and nea
tly tied bundles of carrots from the surrounding countryside, butter and eggs and pastries, and long-hoarded luxuries such as new shoes, handbags, and even stockings at four deutsche marks the pair. People had been waiting until they could sell things for real money.
That afternoon Carla set off for city hall to attend the council meeting scheduled for four o'clock. As she drew near she saw dozens of Red Army trucks parked in the streets around the building, their drivers lounging around, smoking. They were mostly American vehicles that must have been given to the USSR as Lend-Lease aid during the war. She got an inkling of their purpose when she began to hear the sound of an unruly mob. What the Soviet governor had up his sleeve, she suspected, was a truncheon.
In front of city hall, red flags fluttered above a crowd of several thousand, most of them wearing Communist Party badges. Loudspeaker trucks blared angry speeches, and the crowd chanted: "Down with the secessionists."
Carla did not see how she was going to reach the building. A handful of policemen looked on uninterestedly, making no attempt to help councilors get through. It reminded Carla painfully of the attitude of police on the day the Brownshirts had trashed her mother's office, fifteen years ago. She was quite sure the Communist councilors were already inside, and that if Social Democrats did not get into the building the minority would pass the decree and claim it to be valid.
She took a deep breath and began to push through the crowd.
For a few steps she made progress unnoticed. Then someone recognized her. "American whore!" he yelled, pointing at her. She pressed on determinedly. Someone else spat at her, and a gob of saliva smeared her dress. She kept going, but she felt panicky. She was surrounded by people who hated her, something she had never experienced, and it made her want to run away. She was shoved, but managed to keep her feet. A hand grasped her dress, and she pulled free with a tearing sound. She wanted to scream. What would they do, rip all her clothes off?
Someone else was fighting his way through the crowd behind her, she realized, and she looked back and saw Heinrich von Kessel, Frieda's husband. He drew level with her and they barreled on together. Heinrich was more aggressive, stamping on toes and vigorously elbowing everyone within range. Together they moved faster, and at last reached the door and went in.
But their ordeal was not over. There were Communist demonstrators inside too, hundreds of them. They had to fight through the corridors. In the meeting hall the demonstrators were everywhere--not just in the visitors' gallery but on the floor of the chamber. Their behavior here was just as aggressive as outside.
Some Social Democrats were here, and others arrived after Carla. Somehow most of the sixty-three had been able to fight their way through the mob. She was relieved. The enemy had not managed to scare them off.
When the speaker of the assembly called for order, a Communist assemblyman standing on a bench urged the demonstrators to stay. When he saw Carla he yelled: "Traitors stay outside!"
It was all grimly reminiscent of 1933: bullying, intimidation, and democracy being undermined by rowdyism. Carla was in despair.
Glancing up to the gallery, she was appalled to see her brother, Erik, among the yelling mob. "You're German!" she screamed at him. "You lived under the Nazis. Have you learned nothing?"
He seemed not to hear her.
Frau Schroeder stood on the platform, calling for calm. She was jeered and booed by the demonstrators. Raising her voice to a shout, she said: "If the city council cannot hold an orderly debate in this building, I will move the meeting to the American sector."
There was renewed abuse, but the twenty-six Communist councilors saw that this move would not suit their purpose. If the council met outside the Soviet zone once, it might do so again, and even move permanently out of the range of Communist intimidation. After a short discussion, one of them stood up and told the demonstrators to leave. They filed out, singing "The Internationale."
"It's obvious whose command they're under," Heinrich said.
At last there was quiet. Frau Schroeder explained the Soviet demand, and said that it could not apply outside the Soviet sector of Berlin unless it was ratified by the other Allies.
A Communist deputy made a speech accusing her of taking orders directly from New York.
Accusations and abuse raged to and fro. Eventually they voted. The Communists unanimously backed the Soviet decree--after accusing others of being controlled from outside. Everyone else voted against, and the motion was defeated. Berlin had refused to be bullied. Carla felt wearily triumphant.
However, it was not yet over.
By the time they left it was seven o'clock in the evening. Most of the mob had disappeared, but there was a thuggish hard core still hanging around the entrance. An elderly woman councilor was kicked and punched as she left. The police looked on with indifference.
Carla and Heinrich left by a side door with a few friends, hoping to depart unobserved, but a Communist on a bicycle was monitoring the exit. He rode off quickly.
As the councilors hurried away, he returned at the head of a small gang. Someone tripped Carla, and she fell to the ground. She was kicked painfully once, twice, three times. Terrified, she covered her belly with her hands. She was almost three months pregnant--the stage at which most miscarriages occurred, she knew. Will Werner's baby die, she thought desperately, kicked to death on a Berlin street by Communist thugs?
Then they disappeared.
The councilors picked themselves up. No one was badly injured. They moved off together, fearful of a recurrence, but it seemed the Communists had roughed up enough people for one day.
Carla got home at eight o'clock. There was no sign of Erik.
Werner was shocked to see her bruises and torn dress. "What happened?" he said. "Are you all right?"
She burst into tears.
"You're hurt," Werner said. "Should we go to the hospital?"
She shook her head vigorously. "It's not that," she said. "I'm just bruised. I've had worse." She slumped in a chair. "Christ, I'm tired."
"Who did this?" he asked angrily.
"The usual people," she said. "They call themselves Communists instead of Nazis, but they're the same type. It's 1933 all over again."
Werner put his arms around her.
She could not be consoled. "The bullies and the thugs have been in power for so long!" she sobbed. "Will it ever end?"
iv
That night the Soviet news agency put out an announcement. From six o'clock in the morning, all passenger and freight transport in and out of West Berlin--trains, cars, and canal barges--would be stopped. No supplies of any kind would get through: no food, no milk, no medicines, no coal. Because the electricity generating stations would therefore be shut down, they were switching off the supply of electricity--to western sectors only.
The city was under siege.
Lloyd Williams was at British military headquarters. There was a short parliamentary recess, and Ernie Bevin had gone on holiday to Sandbanks, on the south coast of England, but he was worried enough to send Lloyd to Berlin to observe the introduction of the new currency and keep him informed.
Daisy had not accompanied Lloyd. Their new baby, Davey, was only six months old, and anyway Daisy and Eva Murray were organizing a birth-control clinic for women in Hoxton that was about to open its doors.
Lloyd was desperately afraid that this crisis would lead to war. He had fought in two wars, and he never wanted to see a third. He had two small children who he hoped would grow up in a peaceful world. He was married to the prettiest, sexiest, most lovable woman on the planet and he wanted to spend many long decades with her.
General Clay, the workaholic American military governor, ordered his staff to plan an armored convoy that would barrel down the autobahn from Helmstedt, in the west, straight through Soviet territory to Berlin, sweeping all before it.
Lloyd heard about this plan at the same time as the British governor, Sir Brian Robertson, and heard him say in his clipped soldierly tones: "
If Clay does that, it will be war."
But nothing else made any sense. The Americans came up with other suggestions, Lloyd heard, talking to Clay's younger aides. The secretary of the army, Kenneth Royall, wanted to halt the currency reform. Clay told him it had gone too far to be reversed. Next, Royall proposed evacuating all Americans. Clay told him that was exactly what the Soviets wanted.
Sir Brian wanted to supply the city by air. Most people thought that was impossible. Someone calculated that Berlin required four thousand tons of fuel and food per day. Were there enough airplanes in the world to move that much stuff? No one knew. Nevertheless, Sir Brian ordered the Royal Air Force to make a start.
On Friday afternoon Sir Brian went to see Clay, and Lloyd was invited to be part of the entourage. Sir Brian said to Clay: "The Russians might block the autobahn ahead of your convoy, and wait and see if you have the nerve to attack them, but I don't think they'll shoot planes down."
"I don't see how we can deliver enough supplies by air," Clay said again.
"Nor do I," said Sir Brian. "But we're going to do it until we think of something better."
Clay picked up the phone. "Get me General LeMay in Wiesbaden," he said. After a minute he said: "Curtis, have you got any planes there that can carry coal?"
There was a pause.
"Coal," said Clay more loudly.
Another pause.
"Yes, that is what I said--coal."
A moment later, Clay looked up at Sir Brian. "He says the U.S. Air Force can deliver anything."
The British returned to their headquarters.
On Saturday Lloyd got an army driver and went into the Soviet zone on a personal mission. He drove to the address at which he had visited the von Ulrich family fifteen years ago.
He knew that Maud was still living there. His mother and Maud had resumed correspondence at the end of the war. Maud's letters put a brave face on what was undoubtedly severe hardship. She did not ask for help, and anyway there was nothing Ethel could do for her--rationing was still in force in Britain.
The place looked very different. In 1933 it had been a fine town house, a little run down but still gracious. Now it looked like a dump. Most of the windows had boards or paper instead of glass. There were bullet holes in the stonework, and the garden wall had collapsed. The woodwork had not been painted for many years.