“No.”

“You’ll have to come with me to West Berlin.”

“How?”

“We’ll go out the way I came in. Some students have dug a tunnel under Bernauer Strasse.” He looked at his watch. Time was passing quickly. “We need to be there around sundown.”

She looked horrified. “Today?”

“Yes, right away.”

“Oh, God.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer our child to grow up in a free country?”

She grimaced as if in pain at the conflict within her. “I’d prefer not to take terrible risks.”

“So would I. But we have no choice.”

She looked away from him, at the rows of pews and the assiduous cleaner, and at a plaque on the wall saying I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. It was not helpful, Walli thought, but Karolin made up her mind. “Then let’s go,” she said, and she stood up.

They left the church. Walli headed north. Karolin was subdued, and he tried to cheer her up. “The Bobbsey Twins are having an adventure,” he said. She smiled briefly.

Walli considered whether they might be under surveillance. He was pretty sure no one had seen him leave his parents’ house this morning: he had gone out the back way and no one had followed him. But did Karolin have a tail? Perhaps there had been another man waiting outside her college for her to emerge, someone expert at making himself inconspicuous.

Walli started to look behind him every minute or so to check whether there might be one person always in view. He did not see anyone suspicious, but he succeeded in spooking Karolin. “What are you doing?” she said fearfully.

“Checking for a tail.”

“You mean the man in the cap?”

“Maybe. Let’s catch a bus.” They were passing a stop, and Walli pulled Karolin to the end of the queue.

“Why?”

“To see if anyone gets on and off with us.”

Unfortunately it was rush hour, and millions of Berliners were catching buses and trains home. By the time a bus came, there were several people in line behind Walli and Karolin. As they boarded he looked hard at each of them. There was a woman in a raincoat, a pretty girl, a man in blue overalls, a man in a suit with a trilby hat, and two teenagers.

They rode the bus three stops east, then got off. The woman in the raincoat and the man in overalls got off behind them. Walli headed west, going back the way they had come, figuring that anyone who followed them on such an illogical route must be suspicious.

But no one did.

“I’m pretty sure we’re not being tailed,” he said to Karolin.

“I’m so scared,” she said.

The sun was going down. They needed to hurry. They turned north, heading for Wedding. Walli checked behind him again. He saw a middle-aged man in the brown canvas coat of a warehouseman, but no one he had noticed earlier. “I think we’re all right,” he said.

“I’m not going to see my family again, am I?” Karolin said.