Page 458 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"Why don't you play your father's record?" Hans said.

Alice withdrew the inner white envelope from the colored sleeve. Then with finger and thumb she took the black plastic disc from the envelope.

It came out in two pieces.

Hans said: "It seems to be broken. What a shame."

Alice began to cry.

Hans stood up. "I know the way out," he said, and he left.

*

Unter den Linden was the broad boulevard through East Berlin to the Brandenburg Gate. Under another name, the street continued into West Berlin through the park called the Tiergarten. Since 1961, though, Unter den Linden had dead-ended at the Brandenburg Gate, blocked by the Berlin Wall. From the park on the west side, the view of the Brandenburg Gate was disfigured by a high, ugly, gray-green fence covered with graffiti, and a sign in German that said: WARNING

YOU ARE NOW LEAVING

WEST BERLIN

Beyond the fence was the killing field of the Wall.

Plum Nellie's road crew built a stage right up against the ugly fence and stacked a mighty wall of loudspeakers facing out into the park. On Walli's instructions, equally powerful speakers faced the other way, into East Berlin. He wanted Alice to hear him. A reporter had told him that the East German government objected to the speakers. "Tell them that if they take their wall down, I'll do the same with mine," Walli had said, and the quote was in all the papers.

Originally they had thought to do the German gig in Hamburg, but then Walli had heard about Hans Hoffmann breaking Alice's disc, and in retaliation he had asked Dave to reschedule in Berlin, so that a million East Germans would be able to hear the songs Hoffmann had attempted to deny to Alice. Dave had loved the idea.

Now they stood together, looking at the stage from the side as thousands of fans gathered in the park. "This is going to be the loudest we've ever been," said Dave.

"Good," said Walli. "I want them to hear my guitar all the way to fucking Leipzig."

"Remember the old days?" Dave said. "Those tinny little speakers they had in baseball stadiums?"

"No one could hear us--we couldn't hear ourselves!"

"Now a hundred thousand people can listen to music that sounds the way we intended."

"It's kind of a miracle."

When Walli returned to his dressing room, Rebecca was there. "This is fantastic," she said. "There must be a hundred thousand people in the park!"

She was with a gray-haired man of about her own age. "This is my friend Fred Biro," she said.

Walli shook his hand, and Fred said: "It's an honor to meet you." He spoke German with a Hungarian accent.

Walli was amused. So his sister was dating at the age of fifty-three! Well, good for her. The guy seemed to be her type, intellectual but not too solemn. And she looked younger, with a Princess Diana hairstyle and a purple dress.

They chatted for a while, then left him to get ready. Walli changed into clean blue jeans and a flame-red shirt. Peering into the mirror, he put on eyeliner so that the crowd could read his expression better. He remembered with disgust the times when he had had to manage his drug intake so carefully: a small amount to keep him level during the performance, and a big hit afterward as his reward. He was not for one second tempted to return to those habits.

He was called to go onstage. He joined up with Dave, Buzz, and Lew. Dave's whole family was there to wish them well: his wife, Beep; their eleven-year-old son, John Lee; Dave's parents, Daisy and Lloyd; and even his sister, Evie; all looking proud of their Dave. Walli was glad to see them all, but their presence reminded him poignantly that he was not able to see his own family: Werner and Carla, Lili, Karolin and Alice.

But with any luck they would be listening on the other side of the Wall.

The band went onstage and the crowd roared their welcome.

*

Unter den Linden was jammed with thousands of Plum Nellie fans, old and young. Lili and her family, including Karolin, Alice, and Alice's boyfriend, Helmut, had been there since early morning. They had secured a position close to the barrier the police had set up to keep the crowd at a distance from the Wall. As the crowd had grown through the day, the street had developed a festival atmosphere, with people talking to strangers and sharing their picnics and playing Plum Nellie tapes on portable boom boxes. As darkness fell they opened bottles of beer and wine.

Then the band came on, and the crowd went wild.

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