Page 279 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"Gin and tonic, please."

Twenty minutes later Batchelor was on the sofa with a glass in his hand, and Dave and Walli were playing the song on two guitars and singing in harmony, with Evie joining in on the chorus.

When the song ended he said: "Play it again."

After the second time they looked at him expectantly. There was a pause. Then he said: "I wouldn't be in this business if I didn't know a hit when I heard it. This is a hit."

Dave and Walli grinned. Dave said: "That's what I thought."

"I love it," Batchelor said. "With this, I can get you a recording contract."

Dave put down his guitar, stood up, and shook hands with Batchelor to seal the deal. "We're in business," he said.

Mark took a long sip of his drink. "Did Hank just write the song on the spot, or did he have it in a drawer somewhere?"

Dave grinned. Now that they had shaken hands, he could level with Batchelor. "It's not a Hank Remington song," he said.

Batchelor raised his eyebrows.

Dave said: "You assumed it was, and I apologize for not correcting you, but I wanted you to have an open mind."

"It's a good song, and that's all that matters. But where did you get it?"

"Walli wrote it," said Dave. "This afternoon, while I was in your office."

"Great," said Batchelor. He turned to Walli. "What have you got for the B side?"

*

"You ought to go out," Lili Franck said to Karolin.

This was not Lili's own idea. In fact it was her mother's. Carla was worried about Karolin's health. Since Hans Hoffmann's visit, Karolin had lost weight. She looked pale and listless. Carla had said: "Karolin is only twenty years old. She can't shut herself up like a nun for the rest of her life. Can't you take her out somewhere?"

They were in Karolin's room, now, playing their guitars and singing to Alice, who was sitting on the floor surrounded by toys. Occasionally she clapped her hands enthusiastically, but mostly she ignored them. The song she liked best was "Love Is It."

Karolin said: "I can't go out, I've got Alice to look after."

Lili was prepared to deal with objections. "My mother can watch her," she said. "Or even Grandmother Maud. Alice's not much trouble in the evenings." Alice was now fourteen months and sleeping all night.

"I don't know. It wouldn't feel right."

"You haven't had a night out for years--literally."

"But what would Walli think?"

"He doesn't expect you to hide away and never enjoy yourself, does he?"

"I don't know."

"I'm going to the St. Gertrud Youth Club tonight. Why don't you come with me? There's music and dancing and usually a discussion--I don't think Walli would mind."

The East German leader, Walter Ulbricht, knew that young people needed entertainment, but he had a problem. Everything they liked--pop music, fashion, comics, Hollywood movies--was either unavailable or banned. Sports were approved of, but usually involved separating the boys from the girls.

Lili knew that most people of her age hated the government. Teenagers did not care much about Communism or capitalism, but they were passionate about haircuts, fashion, and pop music. Ulbricht's puritan dislike of everything they held dear had alienated Lili's generation. Worse, they had developed a fantasy, probably wholly unrealistic, about the lives of their contemporaries in the West, whom they imagined to have record players in their bedrooms and cupboards full of hip new clothes and ice cream every day.

Church youth clubs were permitted as a feeble attempt to fill the gap in the lives of adolescents. Such clubs were safely uncontrovers

ial, but not as suffocatingly righteous as the Communist Party youth organization, the Young Pioneers.

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