Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy

“I’ll go get him myself,” she said finally. “I’ll go through the wall and find him and bring him out again.”

“You just said you heard people from other countries were having trouble getting out. What if you can’t get out again yourself?”

“Then we’ll be stuck there together,” she said nobly, making me wince.

“And what if he’s not there? What if he’s in West Berlin? Or what if he’s already gone back to London—or even the U.S.? What if he’s been calling your apartment to tell you when to pick him up at the airport?”

“He isn’t. I told you, I can feel it in my bones. He’s in trouble. He needs me.”

We argued for another half hour before I could finally make her promise she wouldn’t go near the wall before I got to West Berlin. I couldn’t always count on Quinn’s word, but, all told, she had kept more promises than she had broken and there was a very good chance she’d keep this one. She’d made a passing mention of maxed-out credit cards before I hung up.

* * *

When the plane touched down at Berlin Tegel, jet lag hit as if someone had dropped a heavy blanket on me. I managed to drag myself through customs and the baggage claim and finally through the entrance gate and straight into bedlam.

I was caught in a sea of utterly joyful people, hugging, kissing, laughing, calling to each other in German but also several other languages, occasionally even English. At least three people kissed me on both cheeks, and more tried. The hugs were harder to avoid—arms came out of the crowd to embrace me while I tried to find the city bus, which my travel agent had told me to take to Am Zoo, the hotel where Quinn was staying. If she was still there.

I didn’t have to wait long at the stop, but more people had jammed themselves onto the bus than I’d have thought possible. Nonetheless, several near the door pulled me and my one small bag up into their midst, ignoring my protests that there was no room.

“You’re North American? U.S. or Canadian?” a woman asked in a heavy German accent.

“Uh, U.S.” I felt awkward. We were pressed up against each other so tightly I could feel her breath against my face. She had been drinking beer. So had everyone else around me.

“I’ll go there one day. I never thought I would, but now I know I will!” Her wide blue eyes, already red from crying, welled up and spilled over. With great difficulty, she maneuvered one hand into the shopping bag she was holding and came up with a piece of toilet paper. I looked down; the bag was bulging. Besides toilet paper, I could see bananas, marmalade, peanut butter, face cream, shampoo, and, on top, CDs by Duran Duran and Cyndi Lauper.

“Soft enough to wipe your eyes,” the woman said as she did so. “Nothing will ever be the same. My mother dreamed of this. She saw the wall go up. I only wish she had lived to see it come down again.”

“It’s not down yet,” a man said. “Not all the way.”

“It will be!” said someone else, and everyone around me cheered.

As the bus lumbered along, I found out from the people around me what had happened while I was still in transit. The party secretary in East Germany had announced there would be no more restrictions on travel to the west, effective immediately. Thousands of East Berliners, on foot or in cars, promptly made a beeline for the wall, papers in hand, demanding to cross into West Berlin. They were met by bewildered guards who, unsure of their orders, refused to let them through. In a few hours, thousands became tens of thousands, until the guards finally gave in and opened the border. But some brave souls had decided to break through the wall literally, using sledgehammers and power saws. West Berliners who gathered on the other side greeted them with champagne, embraces, even money. There was music and people were dancing on top of the Berlin Wall. The whole city was caught up in the spirit; it was the biggest street party ever.

By the time the bus reached Ku’damm, I was feeling quite a lot of that spirit myself. I was no longer tired, my face hurt from smiling, and in spite of myself, my own eyes were welling up.

But as I struggled through the heaving masses on the street looking for the hotel, I wanted to kill my sister.

* * *

Quinn had added my name to the hotel room. The people at the Am Zoo front desk were delighted to see me, or rather, my credit card, which Quinn had assured them would take care of the bill, incidentals included. I made a hopeful joke about discounts for historical events but suddenly no one understood English well enough to get it.

The room was nice enough, though I wasn’t sure it was really worth the small fortune I would be paying for it. I was relieved to see my sister’s things very much in evidence—it meant she hadn’t gone—although she was out. Of course. Probably dancing in the streets with everyone else in West Berlin. Crisis or no crisis, she never could resist a party.

I looked out the window at the teeming streets, and jet lag hit again. Even if I’d known my way around the city, I had no energy to elbow my way through all those people. I lay down on the bed and passed out.

The next thing I knew, Quinn was shaking me like a rag doll.

* * *

“Come on, Jean, you’ve got to wake up!”

Squinting against the bright overhead light, I tried to pull away from her. “Stop—you’re gonna give me brain damage!”

Apparently she thought I was talking in my sleep; I had to use a self-defense move to get away from her. It worked but I almost dislocated an elbow. Then instead of standing back so I could get up, she actually went for me again. I rolled away, got tangled in the duvet, and landed on the floor.

“Don’t touch me; I’m awake already!” I yelled as she loomed over me.

“I was just going to help you up,” she said, looking offended. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Somebody shook me out of a sound sleep. What’s your excuse?” I used the bed to pull myself up to a sitting position.

“The Berlin Wall is coming down,” she said. “It’s history, happening right here, right now, before our very eyes.”

My very eyes still hurt from the bright light in the room: I glared up at her murderously. “And that’s why you couldn’t wake me up in a more civilized fashion?”

“I tried. You were dead to the world.”

“I’m jet-lagged. I spent the night not sleeping in a transatlantic sardine can.”

“Well, perk up, ’cause you have to see this; it’s amazing! The East Berlin guards are trading hats with the West Berlin ones; they’ve got their arms around each other and they’re singing.”

I struggled to my feet, batting away the hand she offered to help. “Then Martin isn’t trapped anymore, and he and his family can see each other whenever they want. Our work here is done.”

Quinn blinked at me, baffled. “What work?”

“Democracy. Liberté, egalité, fraternité. Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, they’re free at last. Martin and his family included. Right now, he’s probably bonding with the sisters and brother he’s never met in between hugging his parents. That’s your cue to slip away quietly with your sister and go home and hug your parents. I’ll help you pack.”

“There aren’t any flights out now,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“Who’d want to leave? Jean, you slept the day away; there wouldn’t be any flights now even if it weren’t the most incredible day in recent German history.”

I almost laughed; being all of twenty, my sister’s idea of recent history was last Christmas. “Fine. Let’s pack your stuff. I’ve got one little bag I haven’t even opened. Then we’ll be all ready to fly out tomorrow morning.”

Quinn shook her head so vigorously her curls flew. “No, we’re here now. It’s happening right now. Every second is history. Twenty years from now, do you want to have to tell everyone that you were in Berlin when the wall came down and you watched it on TV in your hotel room?”