Page 482 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

Poland was about to find out.

Tanya stared at the phone in an agony of suspense. What should she tell Danuta? She did not want to panic everyone. But maybe they should be warned of Jaruzelski's intentions.

Danuta said to her: "Now you're looking glum, too. What did your brother say?"

Tanya hesitated, then decided to say that nothing had been decided, which was the simple truth. "Jaruzelski called Gorbachev but hasn't reached him yet."

They continued to watch the screens. Solidarity was winning everything. So far, the Communists had not won a single contested seat. More results just confirmed the early signs

. Landslide was hardly a strong enough word: it was more like a tsunami.

In the room over the cafe, euphoria mingled with fear. The gradual shift in power for which they had hoped was now out of the question. One of two things would happen in the next twenty-four hours. The Communists might again seize power by force. Or, if they did not, they were finished forever.

Tanya forced herself to wait a full hour before calling Moscow again.

"They talked," Dimka said. "Gorbachev refused to back a crackdown."

"Thank heaven," said Tanya. "So what is Jaruzelski going to do?"

"Backpedal just as fast as he can."

"Really?" Tanya could hardly believe such good news.

"He's out of options."

"I suppose he is."

"Enjoy the celebration."

Tanya hung up and spoke to Danuta. "There will be no violence," she said. "Gorbachev has ruled it out."

"Oh, my God," said Danuta in a voice that mingled incredulity with jubilation. "We really have won, haven't we?"

"Yes," said Tanya, with a feeling of satisfaction and hope that went all the way to the bottom of her heart. "This is the beginning of the end."

*

It was high summer and sweltering hot in Bucharest on July 7. Dimka and Natalya were there with Gorbachev for a Warsaw Pact summit. Their host was Nicolae Ceausescu, the mad dictator of Romania.

The most important item on the agenda was "the Hungary problem." Dimka knew it had been put on the list by the East German leader, Erich Honecker. Hungary's liberalization threatened all the other Warsaw Pact countries, by calling attention to the repressive nature of their unreformed regimes, but it was worst for East Germany. Hundreds of East Germans on holiday in Hungary were leaving their tents and walking into the woods and through holes in the old fence to Austria and freedom. The roads leading from Lake Balaton to the frontier were littered with their tinny Trabant and Wartburg cars, abandoned without regret. Most had no passports, but that did not matter: they were transported to West Germany, where they were automatically given citizenship and helped to settle. No doubt they soon replaced their old cars with more reliable and comfortable Volkswagens.

The Warsaw Pact leaders met in a large room with flag-draped tables arranged in a rectangle. As always, aides such as Dimka and Natalya sat around the edges of the room. Honecker was the driving force, but Ceausescu led the charge. He stood up from his seat next to Gorbachev and began to attack the reformist policies of the Hungarian government. He was a small, bent man with bushy eyebrows and wild eyes. Although he was talking to a few dozen people in a conference room, he shouted and gesticulated as if addressing thousands in a stadium. His twisted lips spat as he ranted. He made no bones about what he wanted: a repeat of 1956. He called for a Warsaw Pact invasion of Hungary to oust Miklos Nemeth and return the country to orthodox Communist Party rule.

Dimka looked around the room. Honecker was nodding. Czech hard man Milos Jakes wore an expression of approval. Bulgaria's Todor Zhivkov clearly agreed. Only Poland's leader, General Jaruzelski, sat unmoving and expressionless, perhaps humbled by his election defeat.

All these men were brutal tyrants, torturers, and mass murderers. Stalin had not been exceptional, he had been typical of Communist leaders. Any political system that allowed such people to rule was evil, Dimka reflected. Why did it take us all so long to figure that out?

But Dimka, like most of the people in the room, was watching Gorbachev.

The rhetoric no longer mattered. It was of no consequence who was right and who was wrong. No one in the room had the power to do anything without the consent of the man with the port-wine stain on his bald head.

Dimka thought he knew what Gorbachev was going to do. But he could never be sure. Gorbachev was divided, like the empire he ruled, between conservative and reformist tendencies. No speeches were likely to change his mind. Most of the time he just looked bored.

Ceausescu's voice rose almost to a scream. At that moment Gorbachev caught the eye of Miklos Nemeth. The Russian gave the Hungarian a slight smile as Ceausescu sputtered saliva and vituperation.

Then, to Dimka's utter astonishment, Gorbachev winked.

Gorbachev held the smile a second longer, then looked away and resumed his bored expression.

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