Page 471 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

Tanya admired her guts. If I were a lesbian I could fall for Danuta, she thought. All the men Tanya had loved had been courageous.

"Now I'm part of this Round Table," Danuta went on. "Every day, all day."

"It is really a round table?"

"Yes, a huge one. The theory is that no one is in charge. But, in practise, Lech Walesa chairs the meetings."

Tanya marveled. An uneducated electrician was dominating the debate on the future of Poland. This kind of thing had been the dream of her grandfather the Bolshevik factory worker Grigori Peshkov. Yet Walesa was the anti-Communist. In a way she was glad Grandfather Grigori had not lived to see this irony. It might have broken his heart.

"Will anything come of the Round Table?" Tanya asked.

Before Danuta could answer, Marek said: "It's a trick. Jaruzelski wants to cripple the opposition by co-opting its leaders, making them part of the Communist government without changing the system. It's his strategy for staying in power."

Danuta said: "Marek is probably right. But the trick is not going to work. We're demanding independent trade unions, a free press, and real elections."

Tanya was shocked. "Jaruzelski is actually discussing free elections?" Poland already had phony elections, in which only Communist parties and their allies were allowed to field candidates.

"The talks keep breaking down. But he needs to stop the strikes, so he reconvenes the Round Table, and we demand elections again."

"What's behind the strikes?" Tanya said. "I mean, fundamentally?"

Marek interrupted again. "You know what people are saying? 'Forty-five years of Communism, and still there's no toilet paper.' We're poor! Communism doesn't work."

"Marek is right," said Danuta again. "A few weeks ago a store here in Warsaw announced that it would be accepting down payments for television sets on the following Monday. It didn't have any TVs, mind you, it was just hoping to get some. People started queuing on the Friday beforehand. By Monday morning there were fifteen thousand people in line--just to put their names on a list!"

Danuta stepped into the kitchen and returned with a fragrant bowl of zupa ogorkowa, the sour cucumber soup that Tanya loved. "So what will happen?" Tanya asked as she tucked in. "Will there be real elections?"

"No," said Marek.

"Maybe," said Danuta. "The latest proposal is that two-thirds of the seats in parliament should be reserved for the Communist Party, and there should be free elections for the remainder."

Marek said: "So we would still have phony elections!"

Danuta said: "But this would be better than what we have now! Don't you agree, Tanya?"

"I don't know," said Tanya.

*

The spring thaw had not arrived, and Moscow was still under its duvet of snow, when the new Hungarian prime minister came to see Mikhail Gorbachev.

Yevgeny Filipov knew that Miklos Nemeth was coming, and he buttonholed Dimka outside the leader's office a few minutes before the meeting. "This nonsense must be stopped!" he said.

These days, Filipov was looking increasingly frantic, Dimka observed. His gray hair was untidy, and he went everywhere in a rush. He was now in his early sixties, and his face was permanently set in the disapproving frown he had worn for so much of his life. His baggy suits and ultra-short haircut were back in fashion: kids in the West called the look retro.

Filipov hated Gorbachev. The Soviet leader stood for everything Filipov had been fighting against all his life: relaxation of rules instead of strict party discipline; individual initiative as opposed to central planning; friendship with the West rather than war against capitalist imperialism. Dimka could almost sympathize with a man who had wasted his days fighting a losing battle.

At least, Dimka hoped it had been a losing battle. The conflict was not over yet.

"What nonsense in particular are we talking about?" Dimka said wearily.

"Independent political parties!" Filipov said as if he were mentioning an atrocity. "The Hungarians have started a dangerous trend. Jaruzelski is now talking about the s

ame thing in Poland. Jaruzelski!"

Dimka understood Filipov's incredulity. It was, indeed, astonishing that the Polish tyrant was now talking of making Solidarity a part of the nation's future, and of allowing political parties to compete in a Western-style election.

And Filipov did not know it all. Dimka's sister, in Warsaw for TASS, was sending him accurate information. Jaruzelski was up against the wall, and Solidarity was adamant. They were not just talking, they were planning an election.

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