Edge of Eternity (49 page)

Danni led him to the back of a building and they went in by the rear entrance of a disused shop. It seemed to have been a grocery store, for on the walls were enamel advertisements for canned salmon and cocoa. However, the shop and the rooms around it were full of loose earth, piled high, leaving only a narrow passage through; and Walli began to guess what was going on here.

Danni opened a door and went down a concrete stair lit by an electric bulb. Walli followed. Danni called out a phrase that might have been code: ‘Submariners coming in!’ At the foot of the stairs was a large cellar, undoubtedly used by the grocer for storage. Now there was a hole a yard square in the floor, and a surprisingly professional-looking hoist over it.

They had dug a tunnel.

‘How long has this been here?’ Walli asked. If his sister had known about it last year she might have escaped this way, and avoided Bernd’s crippling injury.

‘Too long,’ said Danni. ‘We finished it a week ago.’

‘Oh.’ That was too late to have been any use to Rebecca.

Danni added: ‘We only use it in twilight. In daytime we would be too visible, and at night we would have to use flashlights, which might call attention to us. All the same, the risk of discovery increases every time we bring people across.’

A young man in jeans came up a ladder out of the hole: presumably one of the student tunnellers. He looked hard at Walli then said: ‘Who’s this, Danni?’

‘I vouch for him, Becker,’ said Danni. ‘I’ve known him since before the Wall went up.’

‘Why is he here?’ Becker was hostile and suspicious.

‘To go across.’

‘He wants to go to the East?’

Walli explained: ‘I escaped last week, but I need to go back for my girlfriend. I can’t cross by a regular checkpoint because I killed a border guard, so I’m wanted for murder.’

‘You’re that guy?’ Becker looked at him again. ‘Yeah, I recognize you from the photograph in the paper.’ His attitude changed. ‘You can go, but you haven’t got much time.’ He looked at his watch. ‘They’ll start coming through from the East in ten minutes exactly. There’s hardly room to pass someone in the tunnel, and I don’t want you to cause a traffic jam and slow down the escapers.’

Walli was scared, but he did not want to lose this chance. ‘I’ll go right away,’ he said, concealing his fear.

‘Okay, go.’

He shook Danni’s hand. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back for my guitar.’

‘Good luck with your girl.’

Walli scrambled down the ladder.

The shaft was three yards deep. At the bottom was the entrance to a tunnel about a yard square. It was neatly built, Walli saw immediately. There was a plank floor, and the roof was propped at intervals. He dropped to his hands and knees and began to crawl.

After a few seconds he realized there were no lights. He kept crawling as it became completely dark. He felt viscerally scared. He knew that the real danger would come when he emerged into East Germany at the other end of the tunnel, but his animal instincts told him to be frightened now, as he crawled forward unable to see an inch in front of his face.

To distract himself, he tried to picture the streetscape above. He was passing beneath the road, then the Wall, then the half-demolished houses on the Communist side; but he did not know how much farther the tunnel went, nor where it terminated.

He was breathing hard with the effort, his hands and knees were sore from crawling on planks, and the bullet wound in his calf was burning with pain; but all he could do was grit his teeth and go on.

The tunnel could not be infinite. It must end eventually. He just had to keep crawling. The sense that he was lost in endless darkness was just childish panic. He had to stay calm. He could do that. Karolin was at the end of this tunnel – not literally but, all the same, the thought of her sexy wide-mouthed smile gave him strength to combat his fear.

Was there a glimmer ahead, or did he imagine it? For a long time it remained too faint to be sure of; but at last it strengthened, and a couple of seconds later he emerged into electric light.

There was another shaft above his head. He went up a ladder and found himself in another basement. Three people stood staring at him. Two had luggage: he guessed they were escapers. The third, presumably one of the student organizers, looked at him and said: ‘I don’t know you!’

‘Danni brought me,’ he said. ‘I’m Walli Franck.’

‘Too many people know about this tunnel!’ the man said. His voice was shrill with anxiety.

Well, of course, Walli thought; everyone who escapes through it obviously knows the secret. He understood why Danni had said that the danger increased every time it was used. He wondered whether it would still be open when he wanted to return. The thought of being trapped in East Germany again almost made him want to turn around and crawl all the way back.

The man turned to the two with bags. ‘Go,’ he said. They went down the shaft. Returning his attention to Walli, he pointed to a flight of stone steps. ‘Go to the top and wait,’ he said. ‘When the coast is clear, Cristina will open the hatch from the outside. You get out. Then you’re on your own.’

‘Thanks.’ Walli went up the steps until his head came up against an iron trapdoor in the ceiling. This had originally been used for deliveries of some kind, he guessed. He crouched on the steps and forced himself to be patient. Lucky for him there was someone keeping watch on the outside, otherwise he might be seen leaving.

After a couple of minutes, the hatch opened. In the evening light, Walli saw a young woman in a grey headscarf. He scrambled out, and two more people with bags hurried down the steps. The young woman called Cristina closed the hatch. She had a pistol stuffed into her belt, he saw with surprise.

Walli looked around. He was in a small walled yard at the back of a derelict apartment building. Cristina pointed to a wooden door in the wall. ‘Go that way,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’

‘Get lost,’ she said. ‘Fast.’

They were all too stressed to be polite.

Walli opened the door and passed through to the street. To his left, a few yards away, was the Wall. He turned right and started walking.

At first he looked around constantly, expecting to see a police car screech up. Then he tried to act normally and saunter along the pavement as he had used to. No matter how he tried, he could not lose the limp: his leg hurt too much.

His first impulse was to go straight to Karolin’s house. But he could not knock on her door. Her father would call the police.

He had not thought this out.

Perhaps it would be better if he met her leaving class tomorrow afternoon. There was nothing suspicious about a boy waiting outside the college for his girlfriend, and Walli had done it often. Somehow he would have to make sure none of her classmates saw his face. He was agonizingly impatient to see her, but he would be mad not to take precautions.

What would he do in the meantime?

The tunnel had come out in Strelitzer Strasse, which ran southwards into the old city centre, Berlin-Mitte, where his family lived. He was only a few blocks from his parents’ house. He could go home.

They might even be pleased to see him.

As he approached their street, he wondered whether the house might be under surveillance. If that was so, he could not go there. He thought again about changing his appearance, but he had nothing with which to disguise himself: when he left his room at the YMCA that morning, he had not dreamed he might be back in East Berlin by nightfall. At his family home there would be hats and scarves and other useful items of attire – but first he had to get there safely.

Happily, it was now dark. He walked along his parents’ street on the opposite side, scanning for people who might be Stasi snoops. He saw no loiterers, no one sitting in a parked car, no one stationed at a window. All the same, he went to the end of the street and walked around the block. Coming back, he ducked down the alley that led to the backyards. He opened a gate, crossed his parents’ yard, and came to the kitchen entrance. It was nine-thirty: his father had not yet locked up the house. Walli opened the door and stepped inside.

The light was on but the kitchen was empty. Dinner was long over and his family would be upstairs in the drawing room. Walli crossed the hall and went up. The drawing-room door was open, and he stepped inside. His mother, father, sister and grandmother were watching television. Walli said: ‘Hello, everyone.’

Lili screamed.

Grandmother Maud said in English: ‘Oh, my goodness!’

Carla went pale and her hands flew to her mouth.

Werner stood up. ‘My boy,’ he said. In two strides he crossed the room and folded Walli into his arms. ‘My boy, thank God.’

In Walli’s heart a dam of pent-up feeling burst, and he wept.

His mother hugged him next, tears flowing freely. Then Lili, then Grandmother Maud. Walli wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his denim shirt, but more kept coming. His overwhelming emotion had taken him by surprise. He had thought himself hardened, at the age of seventeen, to being alone and separated from his family. Now he saw that he had only been postponing the tears.

At last they all calmed down and dried their eyes. Mother re-bandaged Walli’s bullet wound, which had bled while he was in the tunnel. Then she made coffee and brought some cake, and Walli realized he was starving. When he had eaten and drunk his fill, he told them the story. Then, when they had asked all their questions, he went to bed.

*  *  *

Next day, at half past three, he was leaning against a wall across the street from Karolin’s college, wearing a cap and sunglasses. He was early: the girls came out at four.

The sun was shining optimistically on Berlin. The city was a mixture of grand old buildings, hard-edged modern concrete, and slowly disappearing vacant lots where bombs had fallen during the war.

Walli’s heart was full of longing. In a few minutes he would see Karolin’s face, framed by long curtains of fair hair, the wide mouth smiling. He would kiss her hello, and feel the soft roundness of her lips on his. Perhaps they would lie down together, before the night was over, and make love.

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 she had had 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 goodbye, 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 that passers-by 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 headscarf 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.