Edge of Eternity (14 page)

Her mother was in tears. “We
will
see you,” she said. “You can fly to West Berlin any time you want, and we can just walk across the border and meet you. We'll have picnics on the beach at the Wannsee.”

Rebecca was trying not to cry. She put the money in a small shoulder bag that was all she was taking. Anything more in the way of luggage might get her arrested by the Vopos at the border. She wanted to linger, but she was afraid she might lose her nerve altogether. She kissed and hugged each of them: Grandmother Maud; her adoptive father, Werner; her adoptive brother and sister, Lili and Walli; and last of all Carla, the woman who had saved her life, the mother who was not her mother, and was for that reason even the more precious.

Then, her eyes full of tears, she left the house.

It was a bright summer morning, the sky blue and cloudless. She tried to feel optimistic: she was beginning a new life, away from the grim repression of a Communist regime. And she would see her family again, one way or another.

She walked briskly, threading through the streets of the old city center. She passed the sprawling campus of the Charité hospital and turned on to Invaliden Strasse. To her left was the Sandkrug Bridge, which carried traffic over the Berlin-Spandau Ship Canal to West Berlin.

Except that today it did not.

At first Rebecca was not sure what she was looking at. There was a line of cars that stopped short of the bridge. Beyond the cars, a crowd of people stood looking at something. Perhaps there had been a crash on the bridge. But to her right, in the Platz vor dem Neuen Tor, twenty or thirty East German soldiers stood around doing nothing. Behind them were two Soviet tanks.

It was puzzling and frightening.

She pushed through the crowd. Now she could see the problem. A crude barbed-wire fence had been erected across the near end of the bridge. A small gap in the fence was manned by police who seemed to be refusing to let anyone through.

Rebecca was tempted to ask what was going on, but she did not want to draw attention to herself. She was not far from Friedrich Strasse Station: from there she could go by subway directly to Marienfelde.

She turned south, walking faster now, and took a zigzag course around a series of university buildings to the station.

There was something wrong here, too.

Several dozen people were crowded around the entrance. Rebecca fought her way to the front and read a notice pasted to the wall that said only what was obvious: the station was closed. At the top of the steps, a line of police with guns formed a barrier. No one was being admitted to the platforms.

Rebecca began to be fearful. Perhaps it was a coincidence that the first two crossing places she had chosen were blocked. And perhaps not.

There were eighty-one places where people could cross from East to West Berlin. The next nearest was the Brandenburg Gate, where the
broad Unter den Linden passed through the monumental arch into the Tiergarten. She walked south on Friedrich Strasse.

As soon as she turned west on Unter den Linden she knew she was in trouble. Here again there were tanks and soldiers. Hundreds of people were gathered in front of the famous gateway. When she got to the front of the crowd, Rebecca saw another barbed-wire fence. It was strung across wooden sawhorses and guarded by East German police.

Young men who looked like Walli—leather jackets, narrow trousers, Elvis hairstyles—were shouting insults from a safe distance. On the West Berlin side, similar types were yelling angrily, and occasionally throwing stones at the police.

Looking more closely, Rebecca saw that the various policemen—Vopos, border police, and factory militia—were making holes in the road, planting tall concrete posts, and stringing barbed wire from post to post in a more permanent arrangement.

Permanent, she thought, and her spirits sank into an abyss.

She spoke to a man next to her. “Is it everywhere?” she said. “This fence?”

“Everywhere,” he said. “The bastards.”

The East German regime had done what everyone said could not be done: they had built a wall across the middle of Berlin.

And Rebecca was on the wrong side.

G
eorge felt wary when he went to lunch with Larry Mawhinney at the Electric Diner. George was not sure why Larry had suggested this, but he agreed out of curiosity. He and Larry were the same age and had similar jobs: Larry was an aide in the office of air force chief of staff General Curtis LeMay. But their bosses were at loggerheads: the Kennedy brothers mistrusted the military.

Larry wore the uniform of an air force lieutenant. He was all soldier: clean shaven, with buzz-cut fair hair, his tie knotted tightly, his shoes shiny. “The Pentagon hates segregation,” he said.

George raised his eyebrows. “Really? I thought the army was traditionally reluctant to trust Negroes with guns.”

Mawhinney lifted a placatory hand. “I know what you mean. But, one, that attitude was always overtaken by necessity: Negroes have fought in every conflict since the War of Independence. And two, it's history. The Pentagon today needs men of color in the military. And we don't want the expense and inefficiency of segregation: two sets of bathrooms, two sets of barracks, prejudice and hatred between men who are supposed to be fighting side by side.”

“Okay, I buy that,” said George.

Larry cut into his grilled-cheese sandwich and George took a forkful of chili con carne. Larry said: “So, Khrushchev got what he wanted in Berlin.”

George sensed that this was the real subject of the lunch. “Thank God we don't have to go to war with the Soviets,” he said.

“Kennedy chickened out,” Larry said. “The East German regime was close to collapse. There might have been a counterrevolution, if the
president had taken a tougher line. But the Wall has stopped the flood of refugees to the West, and now the Soviets can do anything they like in East Berlin. Our West German allies are mad as hell about it.”

George bristled. “The president avoided World War Three!”

“At the cost of letting the Soviets tighten their grip. It's not exactly a triumph.”

“Is that the Pentagon's view?”

“Pretty much.”

Of course it was, George thought irritably. He now understood: Mawhinney was here to argue the Pentagon's line, in the hope of winning George as a supporter. I should be flattered, he told himself: it shows that people now see me as part of Bobby's inner circle.

But he was not going to listen to an attack on President Kennedy without hitting back. “I suppose I should expect nothing less of General LeMay. Don't they call him ‘Bombs Away' LeMay?”

Mawhinney frowned. If he found his boss's nickname funny, he was not going to show it.

George thought the overbearing, cigar-chewing LeMay deserved mockery. “I believe he once said that if there's a nuclear war, and at the end of it there are two Americans and one Russian left, then we've won.”

“I never heard him say anything like that.”

“Apparently President Kennedy told him: ‘You better hope the Americans are a man and a woman.'”

“We have to be strong!” Mawhinney said, beginning to get riled. “We've lost Cuba and Laos and East Berlin, and we're in danger of losing Vietnam.”

“What do you imagine we can do about Vietnam?”

“Send in the army,” Larry said promptly.

“Don't we already have thousands of military advisers there?”

“It's not enough. The Pentagon has asked the president again and again to send in ground combat troops. It seems he doesn't have the guts.”

That annoyed George because it was so unfair. “President Kennedy does not lack courage,” he snapped.

“Then why won't he attack the Communists in Vietnam?”

“He doesn't believe we can win.”

“He should listen to experienced and knowledgeable generals.”

“Should he? They told him to back the stupid Bay of Pigs invasion. If the Joint Chiefs are experienced and knowledgeable, how come they didn't tell the president that an invasion by Cuban exiles was bound to fail?”

“We
told
him to send air cover—”

“Excuse me, Larry, but the whole idea was to avoid involving Americans. Yet as soon as it went wrong, the Pentagon wanted to send in the marines. The Kennedy brothers suspect you people of a sucker punch. You led him into a doomed invasion by exiles because you wanted to force him to send in U.S. troops.”

“That's not true.”

“Maybe, but he thinks that now you're trying to lure him into Vietnam by the same method. And he's determined not to be fooled a second time.”

“Okay, so he's got a grudge against us because of the Bay of Pigs. Seriously, George, is that a good enough reason to let Vietnam go Communist?”

“We'll have to agree to disagree.”

Mawhinney put down his knife and fork. “Do you want dessert?” He had realized he was wasting his time: George was never going to be a Pentagon ally.

“No dessert, thanks,” George said. He was in Bobby's office to fight for justice, so that his children could grow up as American citizens with equal rights. Someone else would have to fight Communism in Asia.

Mawhinney's face changed and he waved across the restaurant. George glanced back over his own shoulder and got a shock.

The person Mawhinney was waving at was Maria Summers.

She did not see him. She was already turning back to her companion, a white girl of about the same age.

“Is that Maria Summers?” he said incredulously.

“Yeah.”

“You know her.”

“Sure. We were at Chicago Law together.”

“What's she doing in Washington?”

“Funny story. She was originally turned down for a job in the White
House press office. Then the person they appointed didn't work out, and she was the second choice.”

George was thrilled. Maria was in Washington—permanently! He made up his mind to speak to her before leaving the restaurant.

It occurred to him that he might find out more about her from Mawhinney. “Did you date her at law school?”

“No. She only went out with colored guys, and not many of them. She was known as an iceberg.”

George did not take that remark at face value. Any girl who said no was an iceberg, to some men. “Did she have anyone special?”

“There was one guy she was seeing for about a year, but he dumped her because she wouldn't put out.”

“I'm not surprised,” George said. “She comes from a strict family.”

“How do you know that?”

“We were on the first Freedom Ride together. I talked to her a bit.”

“She's pretty.”

“That's the truth.”

They got the check and split it. On the way out George stopped at Maria's table. “Welcome to Washington,” he said.

She smiled warmly. “Hello, George. I've been wondering how soon I'd run into you.”

Larry said: “Hi, Maria. I was just telling George how you were known as an iceberg at Chicago Law.” Larry laughed.

It was a typical male jibe, nothing unusual, but Maria flushed.

Larry walked out of the restaurant, but George stayed behind. “I'm sorry he said that, Maria. And I'm embarrassed that I heard it. It was really crass.”

“Thank you.” She gestured toward the other woman. “This is Antonia Capel. She's a lawyer, too.”

Antonia was a thin, intense woman with hair severely drawn back. “Good to know you,” George said.

Maria said to Antonia: “George got a broken arm protecting me from an Alabama segregationist with a crowbar.”

Antonia was impressed. “George, you're a real gentleman,” she said.

George saw that the girls were ready to leave: their check was on the table in a saucer, covered with a few bills. He said to Maria: “Can I walk you back to the White House?”

“Sure,” she said.

Antonia said: “I have to run to the drugstore.”

They stepped out into the mild air of a Washington autumn. Antonia waved good-bye. George and Maria headed for the White House.

George studied her out of the corner of his eye as they crossed Pennsylvania Avenue. She wore a smart black raincoat over a white turtleneck, clothing for a serious political operator, but she could not cover up her warm smile. She was pretty, with a small nose and chin, and her big brown eyes and soft lips were sexy.

“I was arguing with Mawhinney about Vietnam,” George said. “I think he hoped to persuade me as a way of indirectly getting to Bobby.”

“I'm sure of it,” said Maria. “But the president isn't going to give in to the Pentagon on this.”

“How do you know?”

“He's making a speech tonight saying that there are limits to what we can achieve in foreign policy. We cannot right every wrong or reverse every adversity. I've just written the press release for the speech.”

“I'm glad he's going to stand firm.”

“George, you didn't hear what I said. I wrote a press release! Don't you understand how unusual that is? Normally the men write them. The women just type them out.”

George grinned. “Congratulations.” He was happy to be with her, and they had quickly slipped back into their friendly relationship.

“Mind you, I'll find out what they think of it when I get back to the office. What's happening at Justice?”

“It looks like our Freedom Ride really achieved something,” George said eagerly. “Soon all interstate buses will have a sign saying: ‘Seating aboard this vehicle is without regard to race, color, creed, or national origin.' The same words have to be printed on bus tickets.” He was proud of this achievement. “How about that?”

“Well done.” But Maria asked the key question. “Will the ruling be enforced?”

“That's up to us in Justice, and we're trying harder than ever before. We've already acted several times to oppose the authorities in Mississippi and Alabama. And a surprising number of towns in other states are just giving in.”

“It's hard to believe we're really winning. The segregationists always seem to have another dirty trick in reserve.”

“Voter registration is our next campaign. Martin Luther King wants to double the number of black voters in the South by the end of the year.”

Maria said thoughtfully: “What we really need is a new civil rights bill that makes it difficult for Southern states to defy the law.”

“We're working on that.”

“So you're telling me Bobby Kennedy is a civil rights supporter?”

“Hell, no. A year ago the issue wasn't even on his agenda. But Bobby and the president hated those photographs of white mob violence in the South. They made the Kennedys look bad on the front pages of newspapers all over the world.”

“And global politics is what they really care about.”

“Exactly.”

George wanted to ask her for a date, but he held back. He was going to break up with Norine Latimer as soon as possible: that was inevitable, now that Maria was here. But he felt he had to tell Norine their romance was over before he asked Maria out. Anything else would seem dishonest. And the delay would not be long: he would see Norine within a few days.

They entered the West Wing. Black faces in the White House were unusual enough for people to stare at them. They went to the press office. George was surprised to find it a small room jammed with desks. Half a dozen people worked intently with gray Remington typewriters and phones with rows of flashing lights. From an adjoining room came the chatter of teletype machines, punctuated by the bells they rang to herald particularly important messages. There was an inner office that George presumed must belong to press secretary Pierre Salinger.

Everyone seemed to be concentrating hard, no one chatting or looking out of the window.

Maria showed him her desk and introduced the woman at the next typewriter, an attractive redhead in her midthirties. “George, this is my friend Miss Fordham. Nelly, why is everyone so quiet?”

Before Nelly could answer, Salinger came out of his office, a small, chubby man in a tailored European-style suit. With him was President Kennedy.

The president smiled at everyone, nodded to George, and spoke to Maria. “You must be Maria Summers,” he said. “You've written a good press release—clear and emphatic. Well done.”

Maria flushed with pleasure. “Thank you, Mr. President.”

He seemed in no hurry. “What were you doing before you came here?” He asked the question as if there was nothing in the world more interesting.

“I was at Chicago Law.”

“Do you like it in the press office?”

“Oh, yes, it's exciting.”

“Well, I appreciate your good work. Keep it up.”

“I'll do my very best.”

The president went out, and Salinger followed.

George looked at Maria with amusement. She seemed dazed.

After a moment, Nelly Fordham spoke. “Yeah, it takes you like that,” she said. “For a minute there, you were the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Maria looked at her. “Yes,” she said. “That's exactly how I felt.”

•   •   •

Maria was a little lonely, but otherwise happy.

She loved working at the White House, surrounded by bright, sincere people who wanted only to make the world a better place. She felt she could achieve a lot in government. She knew she would have to struggle with prejudice—against women and against Negroes—but she believed she could overcome that with intelligence and determination.

Her family had a history of prevailing against the odds. Her grandfather, Saul Summers, had walked to Chicago from his hometown of Golgotha, Alabama. On the way he had been arrested for “vagrancy” and sentenced to thirty days' labor in a coal mine. While there, he saw a man clubbed to death by guards for trying to escape. After thirty days he was not released, and when he complained he was flogged. He risked his life, escaped, and made it to Chicago. There he eventually became pastor of the Bethlehem Full Gospel Church. Now eighty years old, he was semiretired, still preaching occasionally.