He suffered an anxious moment when a police car drove past. The cop in the passenger seat gave Walli a hard stare. If they asked to see his driving license he was done for. He cursed his foolishness in not staying in the back of the van. But they drove on without stopping.

In Walli’s imagination, both he and Karolin would be killed by the guards if something went wrong. But now for the first time it occurred to him that one might be hit while the other survived. That was a terrible prospect. They often said “I love you” to one another, but Walli was feeling it in a different way. To love someone, he now realized, was to have something so precious that you could not bear to lose it.

An even worse possibility struck him: one of them might be crippled, like Bernd. How would Walli feel if Karolin were paralyzed and it was his fault? He would want to commit suicide.

At last his watch said seven o’clock. He wondered if any of these thoughts had occurred to her. Almost certainly they had. What else would she have been thinking of in the night? Would she come walking along the street, sit next to him in the van, and quietly tell him she was not willing to take the risk? What would he do then? He could not give up, and live out his life behind the Iron Curtain. But could he leave her and go alone?

He was disappointed when seven fifteen came around and she had not appeared.

By seven thirty he was worried, and by eight he was in despair.

What had gone wrong?

Had Karolin’s father discovered there was no rehearsal tomorrow for the college’s May Day parade? Why would he trouble to check a thing like that?

Was Karolin ill? She had been perfectly well last night.

Had she changed her mind?

She might have.

She had never been as sure as he of the need to escape. She voiced doubts and foresaw difficulties. When they had talked about it last night, he had suspected she was against the whole idea until he mentioned raising their children in East Germany. That was when she had come round to Walli’s way of thinking. But now it looked as if she had had second thoughts.

He decided to give her until nine o’clock.

Then what? Go alone?

He no longer felt hungry. The tension in his guts was such that he knew he could not eat. He was thirsty, though. He would almost have given his guitar for hot coffee with cream in it.

At eight forty-five, a slim girl with long fair hair came walking along the street toward the van, and Walli’s heart beat faster; but as she came closer he saw that she had dark eyebrows and a small mouth and an overbite. It was not Karolin.

At nine Karolin still had not appeared.

Go or stay?

If you ever sing that song again, you’re fired.