*
‘I made a terrible mistake,’ said Karolin to Lili, sitting in the kitchen of the town house in Berlin-Mitte. ‘I should have gone with Walli. Would you fill a hottie for me? I’ve got backache again.’
Lili took a rubber bottle from the cupboard and filled it at the hot tap. She felt Karolin was too hard on herself. She said: ‘You did what you thought was best for your baby.’
‘I was timid,’ Karolin said.
Lili arranged the bottle behind Karolin. ‘Would you like some warm milk?’
‘Yes, please.’
Lili poured milk into a pan and put it on to heat.
‘I acted from fear,’ Karolin went on. ‘I thought Walli was too young to be trustworthy. I thought my parents could be relied upon. It was the reverse of the truth.’
Karolin’s father had thrown her out after the Stasi threatened to get him fired from his job as a bus station supervisor. Lili had been shocked. She had not known there were parents who would do such things. ‘I can’t imagine my parents turning on me,’ Lili said.
‘They never would,’ Karolin said. ‘And when I turned up on their doorstep, homeless and penniless and six months pregnant, they took me in without a moment’s hesitation.’ She winced at another pang.
Lili poured warm milk into a cup and gave it to Karolin.
Karolin took a sip, and said: ‘I’m so grateful to you and your family. But the truth is I’ll never trust anyone again. The only person you can rely upon in this life is yourself. That’s what I’ve learned.’ She frowned, then she said: ‘Oh, God!’
‘What?’
‘I’ve wet myself.’ A damp patch spread across the front of her skirt.
‘Your waters have broken,’ Lili said. ‘That means the baby is coming.’
‘I’ve got to clean myself up.’ Karolin stood up, then groaned. ‘I don’t think I can make it to the bathroom,’ she said.
Lili heard the front door open then shut. ‘Mother’s home,’ she said. ‘Thank God!’ A moment later, Carla came into the kitchen. She took in the scene at a glance and said: ‘How often are the pains coming?’
‘Every minute or two,’ Karolin replied.
‘Goodness, we don’t have much time,’ said Carla. ‘I’m not even going to try to get you upstairs.’ Briskly, she started putting towels on the floor. ‘Lie down right here,’ she said. ‘I gave birth to Walli on this floor,’ she added brightly, ‘so I expect it will do for you.’ Karolin lay down, and Carla pulled off the soaked underwear.
Lili was frightened, even though her competent mother was now here. Lili could not imagine how a whole baby could emerge through such a tiny opening. Her fear grew worse, not better, a few minutes later when she saw the opening begin to enlarge.
‘This is nice and quick,’ said Carla calmly. ‘Lucky you.’
Karolin’s groans of agony seemed restrained: Lili felt she would have been screaming her head off
Carla said to Lili: ‘Put your hand here, and hold the head when it comes out.’ Lili hesitated, and Carla said: ‘Go on, it will be all right.’
The kitchen door opened, and Lili’s father appeared. ‘Have you heard the news?’ he said.
‘This is no place for men,’ Carla said without looking at him. ‘Go to the bedroom, open the bottom drawer of the chest, and bring me the light-blue cashmere shawl.’
‘All right,’ Werner said. ‘But someone shot President Kennedy. He’s dead.’
‘Tell me later,’ said Carla. ‘Bring me that shawl.’
Werner disappeared.
‘What did he say about Kennedy?’ Carla asked a minute later.
‘I think the baby’s coming out,’ Lili said fearfully.
Karolin gave a huge wail of pain and effort, and the baby’s head squeezed out. Lili supported it with one hand. It was wet and slimy and warm. ‘It’s alive!’ she said. She found herself overflowing with an emotion of love and protectiveness for the tiny scrap of new life.
And she was no longer frightened.
*
Jasper’s newspaper was produced in a tiny office in the student union building. The room contained one desk, two phones and three chairs. Jasper met Pete Donegan there half an hour after leaving the theatre.
‘There are five thousand students in this college and another twenty thousand or more at other London colleges, and a lot are American,’ Jasper said as soon as Pete walked in. ‘We need to call all our writers and get them working straight away. They must talk to every American student they can think of, preferably tonight, tomorrow morning at the latest. If we do this right we can make a huge profit.’
‘What’s the splash?’
‘Probably “Heartbreak of US Students”. Get a mug shot of anyone who gives a good quote. I’ll do the American teachers: Heslop in English, Rawlings in Engineering . . . Cooper in Philosophy will say something outrageous, he always does.’
‘We ought to have a biography of Kennedy as a sidebar,’ said Donegan. ‘And maybe a page of pictures of his life – Harvard, the navy, his wedding to Jackie—’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Jasper. ‘Didn’t he study in London at one point? His father was American ambassador here – a right-wing Hitler-supporting bastard, apparently – but I seem to recall that the son went to the London School of Economics.’
‘That’s right, it comes back to me now,’ said Donegan. ‘But his studies were cut short, after only a few weeks.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Jasper excitedly. ‘Someone there must have met him. It makes no difference if they spoke to him for less than five minutes. We just need one quote, I don’t care if it’s only: “He was quite tall”. Our splash is “The Student JFK I Knew, by LSE Prof”.’
‘I’ll get on it right away,’ said Donegan.
*
When George Jakes was a mile from the White House, traffic slowed to a stop for no apparent reason. He banged on his steering wheel in frustration. He pictured Maria weeping alone somewhere.
People started to blare their horns. Several cars ahead, a driver got out and spoke to someone on the sidewalk. At the corner, half a dozen people were gathered around a parked car with its windows open, listening, presumably to the car radio. George saw a well-dressed woman clap her hand to her mouth in horror.
In front of George’s Mercedes was a new white Chevrolet Impala. The door opened and the driver got out. He was wearing a suit and hat, and might have been a salesman making calls. He looked around, saw George in his open-top car, and said: ‘Is it true?’
‘Yes,’ George said. ‘The President has been shot.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘I don’t know.’ There was no radio in George’s car.
The salesman approached the open window of a Buick. ‘Is the President dead?’
George did not hear the reply.
The traffic was not moving.
George turned off his engine, jumped out of the car, and started to run.
He was dismayed to realize that he had got out of shape. He always seemed too busy to work out. He tried to remember when was the last time he had done some vigorous exercise. He found himself perspiring and breathing hard. Despite his impatience, he had to alternate jogging with fast walking.
His shirt was soaked with sweat when he reached the White House. Maria was not in the press office. ‘She went to the National Archives building to do some research,’ said Nelly Fordham, whose face was wet with tears. ‘She probably hasn’t even heard the news yet.’
‘Do we know whether the President is dead?’
‘Yes, he is,’ said Nelly, and she sobbed afresh.
‘I don’t want Maria to hear it from a stranger,’ George said, and he left the building and ran along Pennsylvania Avenue towards the National Archives.