Page 150 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"I'll buy that," said George, and they went out.

PART FOUR

GUN

1963

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Joe Henry's Dance Band had a regular Saturday night gig in the restaurant of the Europe Hotel in East Berlin, playing jazz standards and show tunes for the East German elite and their wives. Joe, whose real name was Josef Heinried, was not much of a drummer, in Walli's opinion; but he could keep the beat, even when drunk, and besides, he was an official of the musicians' union, so he could not be fired.

Joe arrived at the staff entrance of the hotel at six P.M. in an old black Framo V901 van with his precious drums in the back packed tight with cushions. While Joe sat at the bar drinking beer, it was Walli's job to carry the drums from the van to the stage, unpack them from their leather cases, and set up the kit the way Joe liked it. There was a bass drum with a kick pedal, two tom-toms, a snare drum, a high hat, a crash cymbal, and a cowbell. Walli handled them as gently as if they were eggs: they were American Slingerland drums that Joe had won from a GI in a card game back in the 1940s, and he would never get another set like it.

The pay was lousy, but as part of the deal Walli and Karolin performed for twenty minutes in the interval, as the Bobbsey Twins, and, most importantly, they got musicians' union cards, even though Walli at seventeen was too young.

Walli's English grandmother, Maud, had chortled when he told her the name of the duo. "Are you Flossie and Freddie, or Bert and Nan?" she had said. "Oh, Walli, you do make me laugh." It turned out that the Bobbsey Twins were not a bit like the Everly Brothers. There was a series of old-fashioned books for children about the impossibly perfect Bobbsey family with two sets of beautiful rosy-cheeked twins. Walli and Karolin had decided to stick with the name anyway.

Joe was an idiot but Walli was learning from him just the same. Joe made sure the band was too loud to be ignored, though not so loud that people complained they could not converse. He gave each band member the spotlight in one number, keeping the musicians happy. He always opened with a well-known number, and he liked to finish while the dance floor was packed, leaving people wanting more.

Walli did not know what the future held, but he knew what he wanted. He was going to be a musician, the leader of a band, popular and famous; and he was going to play rock music. Perhaps the Communists would soften their attitude to American culture, and permit pop groups. Maybe Communism would fall. Best of all, Walli might find a way to go to America.

All that was a long way off. Right now his ambition was that the Bobbsey Twins would become popular enough for him and Karolin to become full-time professionals.

Joe's musicians drifted in while Walli was setting up, and they began to play at seven sharp.

Communists were ambivalent about jazz. They were suspicious of everything American, but the Nazis had banned jazz, which made jazz anti-Fascist. In the end they permitted it because so many people liked it. Joe's band had no vocalist, so there was no problem about songs that celebrated bourgeois values, such as "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" or "Puttin' on the Ritz."

Karolin arrived a minute later, and her presence lit up the shabby backstage area with a glow like candlelight, bathing the gray walls in a rosy wash and making the grimy corners vanish into shadow.

For the first time, there was something in Walli's life that mattered as much as music. He had had girlfriends before, in fact they came without much effort by him. And they had usually been willing to have sex with him, so intercourse for Walli was not the unattainable dream it was for most of his schoolmates. But he had experienced nothing like the overwhelming love and passion he felt for Karolin. "We think the same way--we even say the same thing sometimes," he had told Grandmother Maud, and she had said: "Ah--soul mates." Walli and Karolin could talk about sex as easily as they talked about music, confiding what they liked and did not like--though there was not much that Karolin did not like.

The band would play for another hour. Walli and Karolin got into the back of Joe's van and lay down. It became a boudoir, dimly lit by the yellow glow from the car park lights; Joe's cushions were a velvet divan, and Karolin a languorous odalisque, opening her robes to offer her body to Walli's kisses.

They had tried sex using a condom, but neither of them liked it. Sometimes they had intercourse without a condom, and Walli withdrew at the last moment, but Karolin said that was not really safe. Tonight they used their hands. After Walli had come into Karolin's handkerchief, she showed him how to please

her, guiding his fingers, and she came with a little "Oh!" that sounded more like surprise than anything else.

"Sex with the one you love is the second-best thing in the world," Maud had said to Walli. Somehow a grandmother could say things that a mother could not.

"If that's second best, what's first?" he had asked.

"Seeing your children happy."

"I thought you were going to say: 'Playing ragtime,'" Walli had said, and she had laughed.

As always, Walli and Karolin went from sex to music with no break, as if it were all one. Walli taught Karolin a new song. He had a radio in his bedroom and he listened to American stations broadcasting from West Berlin, so he knew all the popular numbers. This one was called "If I Had a Hammer," and it was a hit for an American trio called Peter, Paul and Mary. It had a compelling beat, and he felt sure the audience would love it.

Karolin was doubtful about the lyrics, which mentioned justice and freedom.

Walli said: "In America, Pete Seeger is called a Communist for writing it! I think it annoys bullies everywhere."

"How does that help us?" Karolin said with remorseless practicality.

"No one here will understand the English words."

"All right," she said, giving in reluctantly. Then she said: "I have to stop doing this, anyway."

Walli was shocked. "What do you mean?"

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