Page 468 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

After a while Uncle Volodya came out, holding the arm of his thirty-nine-year-old son, Kotya. A strong man with a heroic war record, Volodya was now as helpless as a child, following where he was led, sobbing uncontrollably into a handkerchief that was already sodden with tears. They had been married forty years.

Tanya went in with her cousin Galina, the daughter of Volodya and Zoya. She was shocked by her aunt's appearance. Zoya had been head-turningly beautiful, even into her sixties, but now she was cadaverously thin, almost bald, and clearly only days or perhaps hours from the end. However, she was drifting in and out of sleep, and did not seem to be in pain. Tanya guessed she was dosed with morphine.

"Volodya went to America after the war, to find out how they had made the Hiroshima bomb," Zoya said, contentedly indiscreet under the influence of the drug. Tanya thought of telling her to say no more, then reflected that these secrets no longer mattered to anyone. "He brought back a Sears Roebuck Catalogue," Zoya went on, smiling at the memory. "It was full of beautiful things that any American could buy: dresses, bicycles, records, warm coats for children, even tractors for farmers. I wouldn't have believed it--I would have taken it for propaganda--but Volodya had been there and knew it was true. Ever since then I've wanted to go to America, just to see it. Just to look at all that plenty. I don't think I'll make it now, though." She closed her eyes again. "Never mind," she murmured, and she seemed to sleep again.

After a few minutes, Tanya and Galina went out, and two of the grandchildren took their places at the bedside.

Dimka had arrived and joined the group waiting in the corridor. He took Tanya and Vasili aside and spoke to them in a low voice. "I recommended you for the conference in Naples," he said to Vasili.

"Thank you--"

"Don't thank

me. I was unsuccessful. I had a conversation today with the unpleasant Yevgeny Filipov. He's in charge of this kind of thing now, and he knows that you were sent to Siberia for subversive activities back in 1961."

Tanya said: "But Vasili has been rehabilitated!"

"Filipov knows that. Rehabilitation is one thing, he said, and going abroad is another. It's out of the question." Dimka touched Tanya's arm. "I'm sorry, sister."

"We're stuck here, then," Tanya said.

Vasili said bitterly: "A leaflet at a poetry reading, a quarter of a century ago, and I'm still being punished. We keep thinking that our country is changing, but it never really does."

Tanya said: "Like Aunt Zoya, we're never going to see the world outside."

"Don't give up yet," said Dimka.

PART TEN

WALL

1988-1989

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Jasper Murray was fired in the fall of 1988.

He was not surprised. The atmosphere in Washington was different. President Reagan remained popular, despite having committed crimes far worse than those that had brought Nixon down: financing terrorism in Nicaragua, trading weapons for hostages with Iran, and turning women and girls into mangled corpses on the streets of Beirut. Reagan's collaborator Vice President George H. W. Bush looked likely to become the next president. Somehow--and Jasper could not figure out how this trick had been worked--people who challenged the president and caught him out cheating and lying were no longer heroes, as they had been in the seventies, but instead were considered disloyal and even anti-American.

So Jasper was not shocked, but he was deeply hurt. He had joined This Day twenty years ago, and he had helped make it a hugely respected news show. To be fired seemed like a negation of his life's work. His generous severance package did nothing to soothe the pain.

He probably should not have made a crack about Reagan at the end of his last broadcast. After telling the audience he was leaving, he had said: "And remember: if the president tells you it's raining, and he seems really, really sincere--take a look out of the window anyway . . . just to make sure." Frank Lindeman had been livid.

Jasper's colleagues threw a farewell party in the Old Ebbitt Grill that was attended by most of Washington's movers and shakers. Leaning against the bar, late in the evening, Jasper made a speech. Wounded, sad, and defiant, he said: "I love this country. I loved it the first time I came here, back in 1963. I love it because it's free. My mother escaped from Nazi Germany; the rest of her family never made it. The first thing Hitler did was take over the press and make it subservient to the government. Lenin did the same." Jasper had drunk a few glasses of wine, and as a result he was a shade more candid. "America is free because it has disrespectful newspapers and television shows to expose and shame presidents who fuck the Constitution up the ass." He raised his glass. "Here's to the free press. Here's to disrespect. And God bless America."

Next day Suzy Cannon, always eager to kick a man when he was down, published a long, vitriolic profile of Jasper. She managed to suggest that both his service in Vietnam and his naturalization as an American citizen were desperate attempts to conceal a virulent hatred of the United States. She also portrayed him as a ruthless sexual predator who had taken Verena away from George Jakes just as he had stolen Evie Williams from Cam Dewar back in the sixties.

The result was that he found it difficult to get another job. After several weeks of trying, at last another network offered him a position as European correspondent--based in Bonn.

"Surely you can do better than that," Verena said. She had no time for losers.

"No network will hire me as an anchor."

They were in the living room late in the evening, having just watched the news and about to get ready for bed.

"But Germany?" Verena said. "Isn't that a post for a kid on his way up the ladder?"

"Not necessarily. Eastern Europe is in turmoil. There could be some interesting stories coming out of that part of the world in the next year or two."

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