Chapter 3 – May Day, 1989
Throughout Eastern Europe the Soviet fortress was showing hairline fractures.
In East Germany the ruling Socialist Union Party (SED) was enraged when some Soviet magazines dared to publish articles condemning Stalin as a toady of Hitler. So for the first time, some of Mother Russia’s leading magazines were withheld from those they were published to persuade.
On television East German leader Erich Honecker had delivered a triumphant speech marking the completion of the three millionth apartment built during his reign. But word was already racing through the streets that his statistics were bloated with nursing home rooms, spaces in hostels, and every existing domicile that had ever been “improved” by repairs.
Concealed far from public sight was a report by the Politburo’s chief economist showing that the German Democratic Republic was siphoning off five hundred million marks a month from the public treasury to repay the money western banks had loaned the nation to stay afloat. The report predicted that the whole ship of state would sink by 1991.
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On the micro level was the street on which Greta, with Heidi dragooned to help, had stationed the pushcart with the umbrella on top. On the top shelf were glass jars stuffed with long-stemmed red carnations. On the level below were freshly-harvested clusters of spargel, the white asparagus so prized by all Germans each spring.
The two stood uneasily on a shaded fringe of Marx-Engels Platz, where the glorious annual International Workers and Peasants Day crowd would endure tiresome sermons by party poohbahs praising Socialist solidarity. But all that came only after the crowd stood at curbside with aching feet to cheer as waves of tanks, Free German Youth, union delegations, brass bands, and goosestepping soldiers filed by. Trailing behind was a column of black Russian-made Lada Oka SUVs that carried the sclerotic, vodka-soaked geriatrics who embodied the GDR’s past and future.
“I’d never been able to understand goose stepping,” said Greta more or less to herself. “We Germans invented it, but I don’t know why every dictator on earth wants to copy it. What if one guy has a sore leg and can’t raise it enough, or some guy simply has a bad hangover, or somebody gets too frisky and kicks the guy ahead of him in the butt?
“Anyway,” said Greta to Heidi, “let’s look for what I call ‘street signs’ as people walk by on their way to the parade. So far I don’t see any glorious holiday spirit. They look more like people out on an errand. Kind of grim faced.”
Problem was, everyone seemed to have their eyes trained on the ground. So, soon Greta was shouting out, “Carnations for the parade!” As if on cue, a man with a briefcase stopped long enough to grab one and say “Thanks, I forgot mine.” Then came a woman with two children, buying three and again allowing that she’d also forgotten. The flower girls cringed when a policeman stopped, but he was only interested in grabbing a carnation on the way to his curbside post.
After the sounds of music and marching receded, it was quiet again. Then they heard applause smatter through the square as the party officials held forth.
Heidi straightened the still-ample supply on the cart. “I don’t think we did so well,” she said.
“I think we’ll really find out when the speeches peter out,” said her mother. “I don’t think people wanted to hold those spargel bunches during a long parade. Now they’ll be thinking ‘Aha! Won’t Frau Helga be surprised when I bring home some white asparagus for dinner!’”
And it happened. As the crowd dispersed, people tended to slow their pace, lift their eyes, and look about. But now the hurdle was hesitation. People would appr
