Edge of Eternity (2014), a Novel by Ken Follett: summary

The book starts out in Germany in 1961, where Rebecca Hoffmann finds herself manipulated by her husband, a Stasi (unofficial name for the secret police) officer. Hans married her just to spy on her and it was the orders of the Stasi. She was at the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. The Communism and American troops living in a shaky cohabitation of Germany of the Cold War.

The 1112-page bestseller is book three of the Century Trilogy published by Signet (Penguin Group) International edition, an imprint of New American Library, New York in July 2015. The author is a British novelist. However, there are too many names mentioned in the book that I had difficult time remembering who was who. Overall, it is interesting, entertaining, informative and inspiring.

The author brings numerous big names in history into fiction characters such as: JFK, Nikita Khrushchev, RFK, Martin Luther King, and Mikhail Gorbachev. In Moscow Dimka is an aide to First Secretary Khurschev; in USA George Jakes Peskhov is an aide to Bobby Kennedy and also having some conversations to Martin Luther King. 

I found myself more enjoyable at Berlin and Moscow part. Dimka’s character is memorable one though he is not a hero. There is no specific antagonist in the story, most of characters are the victim of the regime. Like the Franks in East Berlin are the victim of the East Germany regime and Dimka’s family (his twin Tanya and Lev Peshkov) and Vasili in Moscow also have the same struggling, the Communism. Meanwhile George Jakes, a young black American, was a freedom fighter. A white American, Alan Shepard, can orbit the earth, but a black American can’t enter a restroom. At the end of the book, everyone is happy. The Berlin Wall has fallen, the Iron Curtain has torn down, and Obama has won the election.

Edge of Eternity (2014), a Novel by Ken Follett: summary

The Franks, Berlin in 1961

East Germany was a Communist tyranny now, and Rebecca saw no point in engaging in politics. So she channeled her idealism into teaching, and hoped that the next generation would be less dogmatic, more compassionate, smarter. Her subject was Russian, but she also had to teach an English class. She did not speak English, though she had picked up a smattering from her British grandmother, Maud, still feisty at seventy.

The school was desperately short of teachers because half the staff had emigrated to West Germany, where salaries were higher and people were free. The story was the same in most schools in East Germany. And it was not just teachers. Doctors could double their earning by moving west. Bern Held was probably Rebecca’s best friend outside her family. He was a slim, dark-haired man of forty, with a livid scar he got while he was at war. He taught physics and a divorced man with no children.

Rebecca’s father, Werner, had a factory making television sets. But her mother was determined to stay in the East. The house they lived in had been in her family for generations. Her mother Carla, was well-known Social Democrat. Her grandmother, Maud, was the sister of an English Earl. Rebecca was adopted, her real parents were killed at the end of the war. She got the letter from a Stasi official, and it ordered her to present herself at the headquarter office for questioning. Everyone knew about the letters and everyone dreaded receiving one. Her family was deeply suspect. After the interrogating, she just found her husband was a Stasi man.

Her husband had been marrying her in order to spy her and her family. The deception worked too well. She was in rage. Her twelve-year old sister was doing her homework while she got home. She could hear the grand piano in drawing room. Her brother, Walli, was playing a blues.

George Jakes in Maryland

He was about to graduate from Harvard Law School. Now he has was here at his mother’s modest suburban home in Prince George’s County, Maryland, outside Washington, DC. Jacky Jakes had never been actress. Her career had ended up before it began when, at age of sixteen, she had become pregnant with George. She had gained that careworn face raising him alone for first six years of his life, working as a waitress and living in a tiny house at the back of Union Station, and drilling him in the need for hard work and education and respectability. George and her mother had shared books. Her father had been a literature professor at a Negro college, and she had been a reader from childhood.

Senator Greg Peshkov, George’s father, had got him a vacation job as a law clerk at the firm, and as they both had hoped, the temporary post had led to the offer of a full-time job after graduation. He knew she was at the University of Chicago Law School, and like him was about to graduate. He had met her a couple of times before he liked her. They met her in a bus, when the Freedom Riders stroke.

Walli’s sister, Lili, was almost three years younger. After the war, when their parents had been desperately working hours to feed the family, Rebecca had often been left in charge of Walli and Lili. She was like a second mother. And every school in East Germany is short of teachers, because so many have moved to the West.

East Berliners who worked in the West for higher wages paid in valuable deutschmarks. Walli’s father was a Grenzganger, though he worked for profits, not wages. Walli himself crossed over at least once a week, usually to go with his friends to West Berlin cinemas, which showed sexy, violent American films that were more exciting than the preachy fables in Communist fables in Communist movie houses.

In practice the Vopos (East Germany Cops) stopped anyone who caught their eye. Entire families crossing together, parents, and children, were almost certain to be challenged on suspicion of trying to leave the East permanently, especially if they had luggage. He made crossing for singing contest this time. While he was waiting his turn, getting impatient, he was approached by a pretty girl. She was going to enter the contest with his brother playing guitar.

Maryland, USA

Martin Luther King was head of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, one of the more important civil rights group. He was one of the options to George, but he preferred Bobby Kennedy for his career. Maria Summers was very smart. George was half in love with her. He was desperate for opportunity to be alone with her, but the people in whose homes the Freedom Riders stayed was solid, respectable black citizens, many of them devout Christians, who would not have allowed their guest rooms to be used for smooching. The Riders were served politely in the white restaurants while the rally was. But George felt sure that as they left each town the signs would return; and the Freedom Ride would have been a waste of time.

On the fifth day of the Ride one of their number had been jailed for insisting on his right to a shoeshine. The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had been the first man in space, less than a month ago. Alan Shepard was the first American in space. A white American can orbit the earth, but a black American can’t enter a restroom.

Moscow

It was summer in Moscow, Tanya just arrived in time from Yakutsk, Siberia. She shared a flat with her mother, Anya, and twin brother, Dmitri, always called Dimka. They lived at a Government House, an apartment building for Moscow’s privileged elite. Tanya’s mother said it was spacious only by Soviet standards: the Berlin apartment she had lived in as a child, when Grandfather Grigori had been a diplomat, had been much more grand. She worked for TASS, the Soviet news agency. She was a rising star, able to produce lively and interesting articles. Her late father had been a colonel in the KGB, the secret police; and her uncle Volodya was a general in Red Army Intelligence.

Tanya admired him for a completely different set of reasons: because he was bright, brave, and a world-class writer. Vasili was thirty but he liked girls. He worked as a radio script editor and was a naturally untidy man. Vasili and Tanya worked together produced an illegal news sheet called Dissidence. They reported on censorship, demonstration, trials, and political prisoners.

Dimka was an aid to Nikita Khrushchev, first secretary and chairman of the Presidium, but all he felt he should not be here. General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev was a reformer. His program included a limited degree of cultural tolerance, and so far no action had been taken against the poetry reading. Khrushchev’s hold on power was not strong. He was a Communist heart and soul, but he was also a reformer who saw failings in the Soviet system and wanted to implement new ideas. But the old Stalinist and Kremlin were not yet defeated. They were alert for any opportunity to weaken Khrushchev and rolled back his reforms.

The recent report said American President, JFK, had authorized a crackpot CIA plan for an invasion in Cuba at a place called the Bay Pigs. Khrushchev had failed to achieve the main foreign policy objective: a permanent resolution of the Berlin situation. East Germany was their frontier post in Europe. Its border secure the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia. Busy on Cuba issue, the first secretary was concerned about the arrest of leading Tanya Dvorkin and Vasili Yenkov. Dimka’s father was in KGB, died last year. His grandfather Grigori Peskhov in the October Revolution, his uncle, Vladimir (Vollodya) Peshkov, was a general.

George Jakes in USA

Verena Marquand was graduating from English Department. However, there were a few people of color at Harvard that all knew one another. She was an ardent civil rights campaigner, and was going to work for Martin Luther King in Atlanta after graduation. Her parents were a tall, well-dressed black man and a white woman with an elaborate blond coiffure.  Percy Marquand, was famous movie star. Babe Lee was a theater actress.

George’s grandparents were Russian immigrants. His grandfather, Lev Peshkov, had started out running bars and nightclubs, and now owned a Hollywood studio. People said he was a ruthless businessman with little respect for the law. On the other hand, he had been kind to his black grandson, giving him a generous allowance as well as paying his tuition. Lev Peshkov was widely believed to have been a criminal himself, a bootlegger in days of Prohibition. George’s grandmother, Marga was his second wife. He also had a wife, Olga, in Buffalo, and a daughter, Daisy, who was married to an Englishman and lived in London. So George had English cousins he had never met.

Washington DC

George was trying to forget Maria Summers. He was dating a girl, a history graduate who worked as a secretary in at National Museum of American History. She was attractive and intelligent, but it was not working: he still thought about Maria all the time. Perhaps Verena might be more effective cure. The Department of Justice was housed in a grand classical building across the street from the White House. His mother recalled him: there were a thousand smart young men willing to work for Martin Luther King. But there was only one Negro sitting in the office next to Bobby Kennedy. George had seen only one interracial couple in the ballroom: Percy Marquand and Babe Lee.

 

Rebecca in East Berlin

She was under investigation as a social parasite. Her friend from school named Bernd Held, was under investigation for ideological unreliability. After a year of fake marriage it was good to know that someone genuinely found her desirable, even lovable. The East German regime had done what everyone said could not be done: they had built a wall across the middle of Berlin. Rebecca was on the wrong side.

Washington DC in 1961-1962

The East German regime was close to collapse. George was thrilled to find Maria Summers was originally turned down for a job in the White House. Her grandfather was a preacher. Maria’s father had gone to a Negro college and law school. In 1930, in the Depression, he had opened a storefront law firm in the South Side neighborhood, where no one could afford a postage, stamp. His clients had paid him in kind: homemade cakes, eggs from their backyard hens, a free haircut, some carpentry around his office. Maria knew her mother would disapprove of her daughter going swim with married man if he were anyone other than the president. 

The Bureau had important information about Martin Luther King. The FBI director J. Edgar Hoover hated Martin Luther King. Not a single FBI agent was black. He also hated Bobby Kennedy. George dropped at the FBI headquarter. The office was on another floor of the Justice Department building.  Dr. King sometimes telephones a New York attorney and got advice on tax and publishing matters from a Communist.

Maria Summers

She still called him Mr. President most of the time. She loved him. Maria had learned not to torture herself with thoughts of her lover’s wife. Maria knew she was cruelly betraying a decent woman, and it grieved her, so she did not think about it. President’s wife was out of town again.

Dr. King

Martin Luther King was a handsome man of thirty-three, with a mustache and prematurely receding black hair. King and George had met before on the Freedom Right. King explained Stanley Levison was not a Communist. On the other hand, if it was bad news George wanted to hear first. Perhaps the FBI had caught King out in an extramarital affair, or something that kind.

The audience and consisted of sanitation workers and their family and their supporters. Looking their worn shoes and their old coats and hats, Jasper Murray, the journalist, realized that there were some of the poorest people in America. They were ill-educated and they did dirty jobs and they lived in the city that called them second-class citizens, nigras, boys. But they had the spirit, they believed in a better life. They had a dream.

King’s voice shook with feeling, and Jasper recalled from that in the Bible, Moses had never reached Canaan. He encouraged his audience they would get to the Promised Land.  The next day, at the end of afternoon Jasper would try to arrange interview with King. Jasper had once already interview with King on the speech ‘I have a dream’ speech, when he was a student in 1963. Jasper spotted the white Cadillac that he knew, was loaned to King, along with a chauffeur, by a black-owned Memphis funeral home. King was tucking his shirt in, as if dressing after a shower. He was probably getting ready to go out for dinner, Jasper thought.

A shot rang out. King staggered back, threw up his arms like a man on a cross, hit the wall behind him, and fell. King’s aides took cover around the white Cadillac. Then there was no second shot. He had no hope. That night, the inner cities of the United States exploded. There were riots in one hundred ten cities. In Washington, twenty thousand people overwhelmed the police and set fire to the buildings.

   

The Williams and the Dewars in London

Dave’s father, Lloyd Williams was an M. P. Dave Williams was thirteen years old. Ursula Dewar, known as Beep, was also thirteen, but she seemed older than Dave.  His mother, Daisy, was an American. Dave’s grandmother’s, Eth Leckwith, was to be introduced to the House of Lords. The two families, Dewar and Williams, were assembling in the hall. Woody Dewar was a photographer on a one year assignment in London, had brought his wife, and his children, Cameron and Beep. All American seemed fascinated by the pantomime of British public life, so Dewars were joining the celebration. 

   

Young family friend Jasper Murray was there too. He was eighteen and a Viking, tall and broad with blond hair. Jasper’s mother, had been refugee from Nazi Germany, and Dave’s mother, Daisy, had taken her in, with characteristic generosity. Jasper studied French and German in one of the larger colleges of London University. He wrote for the student newspaper and wanted to be a journalist.

Cameron Dewar was fifteen years old and in love for the first time. Evie never give attention to him. She was in love with Jasper Murray. Evie Williams was the center of attention, she was the star of the evening. She was good actor on the stage.

Rebecca and Bernd in West Berlin

They had living together three months in the old town house in Berlin. Hans Hoffman did not want to be divorced, he wanted to start again. Rebecca and Bernd escaped to West Berlin, they almost got caught. Bernd fell like a stone to get West Germany. Three days later Bern opened his eyes, he had undergone several operation. He was now a teacher in a wheelchair.

Dimka

He met a woman named Nina. Dimka spent most weekends with her. Dimka’s mother, Anya, wanted to meet Nina. He felt disloyal to Nina when he admired Natalya Smotrov. Natalya was a married woman who worked for the Defense Ministry. The Defense Ministry was so slow in sending arms to Soviet’s comrades in Cuba. In fact, Cuba was the only revolutionary state in the American continent. It was proof that Marxism applied all over the world, not just in the East. Communism was supposed to be joyous crusade to make better world. Sometimes the Soviet Union was more like a medieval monastery where everyone had taken vows of poverty and obedience.

Nikita Khrushchev shipped the missiles secretly. They put them in boxes labelled ‘drainage pipes’. Even the ships’s captains would not know what was inside. Khrushchev signed Dimka in charge in the project. So far, Dimka’s strategy was working. It seemed no one suspected what the Soviet Union was up to in Cuba.

President JFK already knew Khrushchev deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba. If one missile landed on a medium-size American city, six hundred thousand people would die. In 1968, news also came from Vietnam. At a road junction in Saigon a Buddhist monk called Thich Quang Duc, doused in five gallons of gasoline, had calmly struck a match and set him alight. His suicide was a protest at the persecution of the Buddhist majority by the American-sponsored President Ngo Dinh Diem, who was a Catholic. There was no end to the travails of President Kennedy.  

  

Tanya had a suspicion, never voiced, that Nina had manipulated Dimka into the marriage. The Dvorkins were an elite family, and Nina was ambitious.

Vasili Yenkov was script editor and sentenced two years in labor camp for possessing a leaflet about Ustin Bodian, the dissident singer. Vasili was an electrician in a power station in Siberia.

Dimka in Vietnam, 1965

Dimka Dvorkin flew to Vietnam in 1965 along with large group of Foreign Ministry official and aides including Natalya Smotrov. It was his first trip outside the Soviet Union. But he was even more excited about being with Natalya. They were far away from Moscow, out of range his wife and Natalya’s husband. Dimka was feeling more optimistic in general. Kosygin, his boss since the fall of Nikita Khrushchev, understood that the Soviet Union was losing the Cold War because of its economy. Soviet industry was inefficient, and Soviet citizens were poor. Kosygin’s aim was to make the USSR more productive. They had to compete with the Americans in prosperity, not just in tanks and missiles.

Part of economic problem was that so much of the national income was spent on the military. In hope of reducing this crippling expense, Khrushchev had come up with the policy of peaceful coexistence, living side by side with the capitalist without fighting wars. Khrushchev had done much implement the idea: his quarrels in Berlin and Cuba had required more military expenditure, not less.

Hanoi was the ancient capital of ancient country, long oppressed by foreigners, first the Chinese, the French, then the Americans. Vietnam was more crowded and was also split in two.  

Vietnam leader Ho Chi Minh had defeated France in anticolonial war of fifties. Americans refused to accept his authority, he was undemocratic Communist. The unelected Saigon regime was tyrannical and unpopular, and under attack by resistance fighters called Vietcong. The South Vietnamese army was so weak in 1965, it had to be propped up by twenty three thousand Am

erican troops.

The Americans were pretending that South Vietnam was a separate country, just as the Soviet Union pretended that East Germany was a country. To Dimka, Vietnam was a mirror image of Germany.

Moscow

Konstantin Chernenko died in Moscow. Dimka and Natalya, were at home, eating bean forsupper with thei daughter, Katya, a schoolgirl of fifteen, and Dimka’s son , Grisha, a university student of twenty one. Chernenko was dead. He suffered from cirrhosis and emphysema. All Moscow was waiting impatiently for him to expire. The succession will be decided in the next few hours, Dimka said to his wife Natalya, they have to act.

Mikhail Gorbachev was second secretary, and therefore officially deputy to the late leader. Gorbachev had won that race by only one vote.

Tanya and Vasili had been more and less living together, unofficially for two years. They were not married: once they became a legal couple they would never be allowed to leave the USSR together. Tanya continued to write reports for TASS that followed the party line slavishly. Vasili was now lead writer on a television show.

A radio commentator was describing a visit by Gorbachev and his wife to a jeans factory in Leningrad. Previous Soviet leader had visited steel mills and shipyards. Gorbachev celebrated consumer goods. She took his wife with him. She was attractive and well-dressed, like American first lady. She was intelligent, too, she had worked as a university lecturer until her husband became first secretary.

The Soviet economy was getting worse and worse, and Gorbachev was going to stop subsidizing all the East European states. Dimka had big office in Kremlin now, he was the one who declared the freedom of the East European. After forty years of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was coming to an end. The Iron Curtain was coming down. Suddenly people were allowed to walk over the border and into the West, that could be change even more momentous than free election.

East German government would continue to allow people to go to Hungary. By November there were demonstrations every week in major towns in East Germany. The numbers grew larger and the crowds grew bolder. Thousands of Berliners were gathering on both sides of infamous Wall, demanding to exercise their brand-new right to cross over, while the government did nothing—and the armed guards grew increasingly nervous. A new generation of leaders came to power, most importantly Gorbachev. Rebecca remembered that day in August 1961, when she was thirty, and she had left home to walk to West Berlin and found all the crossing points blocked by barbed wire.

The barrier had now been there for half her life time. The Berlin Wall has fallen down, Mr. Gorbachev tore down the wall. The first person Rebecca saw was her father. Everyone was shouting. There was George, Maria Summer’s husband for the last twelve years, now white-haired at seventy-two. Jack, a lawyer, George’s son with Verena, at age twenty-eight, with his wife and their daughter. They were all watching TV. Onstage was the first African American president with his wife and their girls. It was election night, and Barack Obama had won. Maria knew why her husband was crying. Her husband was crying for Bobby, Martin, and Jack. For all the freedom fighters, dead and alive.

******

June 16, 2017

  

Sekapur Sirih

Buku fiksi yang sangat panjang, terdiri dari 1112 halaman dicetak oleh Signet, merupakan buku ketiga dari Century Trilogy, diterbitkan tahun 2015, terbitan pertamanya sendiri pada tahun 2014. Ken Follett adalah novelis berkebangsaan Inggris. Walau tidak membaca buku pertama dan keduanya, namun fiksi dapat diikuti tanpa mengalami kesulitan. Banyaknya tokoh sempat membuat bingung, namun karena penulis sering menyebutkannya, sangat membantu memahaminya. Sejumlah tokoh muncul dan terputus terkadang sedikit mengurangi kenyamanan, tapi karena memuat narasi dan percakapan berkelas dan penuturan sejarah actual maka cerita ini tetap menarik dinikmati

Ada empat latar negara dalam novel ini: Jerman (Berlin Timur dan Berlin Barat), Uni Soviet, Amerika Serikat, dan Inggris. Kisah sejarah perang dingin pada tahun enam puluhan, di mana Uni Soviet mengontrol Berlin Timur (Jerman Timur) setelah Jerman lepas dari Hitler. Sementara Jerman Barat bersekutu dengan Amerika Serikat.

Sejarah, politik, espionase internasional, akhir runtuhnya komunis di Jerman, perang Vietnam, ancaman penyerangan ke negara Cuba, penyebaran paham komunis oleh USSR di berbagai belahan dunia, isu ras di Amerika, peluncuran satelit, dan prestasi Yuri Gagarin dibumbui dengan kisah dramatis keluarga, percintaan, pengkhianatan, perpisahan, kesuksesan, pembunuhan, kehancuran dan semua tokoh berakhir pada kebahagiaan.

Ada tokoh George Jakes berkulit hitam berayahkan Rusia bekerja pada departemen Kehakiman di Gedung Putih, sebagai pembantu Robert Kennedy (saudara dari preisedn JFK) -- berjuang membela hak-hak kulit hitam; ada tokoh muda seniman/ artis terkenal bersaudara Evie dan Dave dari Inggris; tokoh wanita pemberani Rebecca dan keluarganya yang terberai oleh Tembok Berlin dan terintimidasi oleh rezim komunis Berlin Timur, dan adik adopsinya Walli, gitaris dan pencipta lagu ternama mendunia; tokoh kembar Dimka dan Tanya di Moskow dari keluarga elite, harus hidup berdamai walau tidak suka dengan rezim Stalinisme dan Kremlin.

Penulis sangat lihai dalam menghubungkan semua tokoh terpaut satu sama lain walau beda benua dan perjuangan hidup, dihubungkan dengan situasi politik yang berkecambuk saat itu dengan memasukkan tokoh-tokoh internasional ke dalam percakapan tokoh fiksi seperti JFK, RFK, Nikita Khrushchev, Michael Gorbachev, dan Martin Luther King yang berinteraksi langsung dengan para tokoh. Dan di akhir semuanya bahagia dan diakhiri pada usia tua, manakala sejumlah tokoh dikisahkan sejak berusia belasan.

Terjemahan Ringkasan dalam Bahasa Indonesia novel Edge of Eternity karya Ken Follet: summary

Berlin Timur

Tinggal di balik tembok Berlin wilayah Timur adalah mimpi buruk bagi Rebecca dan keluarganya. Perlakuan Stasi dan Polisi Jerman Timur(Vopos) perbatasan semakin semema-mena. Para Vopos akan selalu mencurigai keluarga atau warga yang hendak melintas ke Jerman Barat. Ayah Rebecca adalah seorang pengusaha pabrik pembuatan televisi di Jerman Barat, dan ia harus bolak-balik perbatasan menemui keluarganya. Rebecca adalah anak adopsi, gadis yatim piatu yang diangkat keluarga Frank. Kedua orang tua kandungnya telah tewas dalam perang. Rebecca memiliki dua saudara yakni anak-anak kandung dari Frank, mereka juga jauh lebih muda dari dirinya; Walli dan Lili. Bahkan ketika orang tuanya bekerja, Rebecca berperan sebagai ibu bagi mereka.

Di apartemen tua dan besar juga tinggal nenek Maud, berdarah  Inggris. Kakek Walli dulu seorang diplomat Jerman yang bertugas di London. Rebeca kini mengajar di sebuah sekolah dan ia telah menikah dengan seorang anggota Stasi (polisi Jerman Timur). Hans Hoffman, suaminya juga turut tinggal di rumah warisan ibu angkat Rebecca.

Ibu angkat Rebecca tidak mau meninggalkan rumahnya berpindah ke Jerman Barat, kediaman keluarganya yang sudah turun temurun. Sepucuk surat dari kantor Stasi mengelisahkan Rebecca, ia pun diinterogasi oleh pihak Stasi. Ia sangat kecewa dan marah ketika mendapati bahwa Hans menikahi dirinya untuk memata-matai keluarganya. Keduanya pun bercerai dan Rebecca membuka hatinya; jatuh cinta dengan teman sekerjanya juga seorang guru. Sudah tidak asing, jika seorang Stasi bertindak seenaknya. Dibakar cemburu Bernd, kekasih Rebecca yang baru, keduanya dituduh pengkhianat negara.

Keduanya pun memutuskan melarikan diri ke Jerman Barat. Nyaris tertangkap, Bernd harus pincang karena terjatuh dari atap ketika menyebrangi tembok. Kepincangan kaki Bernd tidak meluruhkan keinginan Rebecca menikahi pria di atas kursi roda itu. Keduanya pun menempati apartemen sederhana dan kembali bekerja sebagai pengajar. Walli, adik lelaki Rebecca, rutin berkunjung ke Jerman Barat. Umumnya anak-anak muda senang dengan fashion, musik dan film Amerika yang bisa dinikmati di Jerman Barat. Remaja itu gemar bermain musik; piano dan gitar.

Ayahnya sendiri kecewa dengan keinginan Walli menjadi musisi, pewaris yang  diandalkan untuk melanjutkan pabrik ayahnya di Jerman Barat. Walli mengikuti sebuah kontes di sebuah bar ketika bertemu Karolin yang juga turut audisi ketika itu. Keduanya jatuh cinta, gadis sekolahan itu pun hamil. Ayah Karolin seorang PNS yang takut kehilangan pekerjaannya, dan diancamoleh Stasi. Jika ia merestui pernikahan putrinya dengan Walli, ia terancam kehilangan pekerjaan. Keluarga Walli sedang dalam pengawasan Stasi, sejak pelarian Rebecca dan Bernd.

Kini Walli dan Karolin pun diincar. Keduanya nekat ingin kawin lari ke Berlin Barat. Walli menabrak seorang anggota Stasi dan dituduh menjadi seorang pembunuh, padahal ketika itu dalam pengejaran; ia tidak sengaja menabrak sang petugas. Walli pun berlabel DPO. Remaja enam belas tahun itu tidak berani pulang ke Berlin Timur, dan Karolin yang tengah hamil pun jelas sudah dipersulit pada perbatasan. Walli akhirnya terbang ke London ke rumah sepupunya Dave Williams, masih keluarga nenek Maud.

Moscow

Seorang wanita muda, seorang jurnalis yang sedang naik daun, Tanya Dvorkin, baru saja kembali dari Siberia selesaikan riset tulisan artikelnya tentang para tahanan politik di daerah dingin itu. Tanya, kembarannya Dimka, ibunya Anya, dan kakek neneknya dari pihak ibunya tinggal di sebuah apartemen mewah milik pemerintah yang dihuni oleh para elite politik. Kakek, paman, dan mendiang ayah Tanya adalah jendral besar. Kembaran Tanya Dimka, kini menjadi pembantu Jendral Nikita Khrushchev, jendral reformator dan pesohor. Mereka membidangi pengawasan kebudayaan dan seni. Simalakama, ketika Tanya dan rekannya seorang penyiar radio dan juga penulis berkelas internasional, Vasili, masuk dalam daftar penangkapan departemen pertahanan. Dimka dengan upaya mengamankan saudari kembarnya Tanya ke proyek peluncuran misil di Cuba. Dimka mendapat kepercayaan dan tugas dalam mengirimkan misil dan nuklir ke Cuba untuk mengancam Amerika Serikat, yang mereka duga akan menyerang Cuba.

Sebenarnya perintahan USSR separuh hati menolong Cuba, namun karena motivasi keberlangsungan paham komunis di wilayah daratan Amerika, setelah mereka sukses menyebarkan pahamnya di Benua Timur. Itupun Amerika menghadang komunis di Vietnam. Tapi tidak dengan Vasili, lelaki tampan itu, harus ditahan di Siberia sebagai pengkhianat negara. Ia dan Tanya secara sembunyi-sembunyi menerbitkan tulisan yang anti-komunis -- secara jujur memberitakan keadaan Moskow dan USSR yang sebenarnya.

London

Sepupu Dave Williams, seumuran dengan Walli, keduanya memiliki minat yang sama yakni musik. Keduanya pun giat mengikuti audisi dan sering menyanyi di panggung-panggung tempat hiburan di London, hingga akhirnya manajer musik melirik mereka. Walau tidak mudah keduanya pun terkenal hingga pada akhirnya tinggal di Amerika. Walli tidak pernah pulang bahkan putrinya Alice sudah berusia tiga tahun ia belum pernah melihatnya sekalipun. Kehidupan glamour Hollywood membuat Walli terjerumus dalam narkoba, sekaligus mengubahnya. Cinta dan kesetiaanya pada Karolin membuatnya bertahan tidak menikah.

Sebuah surat yang dititipkan lewat Rebecca di Jerman Barat menghancurkan hatinya, Karolin menikah dengan seorang pendeta. Walli semakin terpukul mendalam dalam menceburkan diri dalam narkoba. Dave Williams memiliki tunangan yang hampir dinikahinya juga diambil Walli. Grup musik mereka pecah dan jalan sendiri-sendiri.

Seorang putra dari teman ibu Dave bernama Jasper Murray berambisi bekerja sebagai jurnalis di Amerika. Ia pun diterima dengan melalui perjalanan panjang hingga juga ikut perang dalam perang Vietnam, walau ia sendiri adalah warga Inggris. Ia pun akhirnya berpindah kewarganegaraan dan menjadi jurnalis terkenal di Amerika. Saudari perempuannya Anna Murray juga menjadi seorang publisher ternama di London. Evie Williams, kakak dari Dave menjadi aktris ternama bahkan hingga Hollywood. Gadis yang sempat jatuh cinta pada Jasper Murray.

George di Maryland, Amerika Serikat

Setelah Yuri Gagarin berhasil mencetak rekor sebagai manusia pertama sampai di angkasa luar, Amerika tidak mau kalah, mereka mengirimkan Alan Shepard. Walau telah ada warga Amerika berangkat ke ruang angkasa, tetapi masalah toilet masih isu berat di Amerika. Penduduk berkulit hitam tidak boleh menggunakan kamar mandi kulit putih. Dan tempat umum, perkantoran, tempat belanja, restoran, ada tanda untuk kulit hitam. Di bis pun mereka harus di belakang dan bertanda khusus. 

George salah satu anak muda yang turut dalam relli protes ‘Rider’ dan menuntut persamaan hak para Negro (istilah saat itu). Ibu George, Jacky Jakes, berkulit hitam, namun ayahnya seorang keturunan Rusia, yang tidak pernah menikahi ibunya. Greg Peshkov adalah seorang senator, sementara ayahnya Peshkov adalah imigran pelarian politik dari rezim komunis Soviet. Lelaki kaya berpenampilan necis itu berhasil membangun bisnis hingga memiliki studio di Hollywood. Nenek George dari ayahnya, Marga, juga wanita Rusia, adalah istri kedua dari kakeknya.

George mempunyai sepupu berkulit putih di London. Kakek George memiliki putri dari istri pertamanya, Olga. Bibi George bernama Daisy menikah dengan pria Inggris dan kini tinggal di London. Kakek-neneknya menyayangi George, walau mereka berbeda kulit. Kakeknya membiayai hidup dan kuliah George. Lelaki muda itu telah lulusan dari jurusan hukum dari Harvard, dan ayah George telah mencarikannya pekerjaan sementara pada kantor temannya.

Mahasiswa berkulit hitam masih sangat jarang di kampusnya, sehingga ia dengan mudah mengenali Verena Marquand, gadis kuit hitam yang sangat cantik di kampusnya. Putri seorang bintang Hollywood berkulit hitam dan beribukan pelakon panggung berkulit putih. Namun hati George sempat tertambat pada Maria Summers, teman seperjuangan pada pergerakan ‘Rider’. Namun sayang, ia tidak ketemu lagi dengan gadis itu. Cucu dari pendeta dan ayahnya seorang pengacara. Dengan tidak sulit, George akhirnya diterima pada Departemen Kehakiman dan bekerja sebagai pembantu Robert Kennedy, adik sang presiden.

Walli dan Dave

Lagu-lagu ciptaan Walli Frank dan Dave Williams mampu menarik minat penggemar musik dan mereka pun akhirnya tinggal di California. Dave yang sempat jatuh cinta pada Beep Dewar, gadis muda putri dari teman keluarganya, sempat dikenalnya ketika keluarga Dewar tinggal di London. Dave sudah tenar, gadis itupun dengan mudah menerima cintanya. Lain halnya, Walli masih setia pada Karolin di Berlin Timur. Evi Williams saudari dari Dave, tenar menjadi seorang aktris terkenal dan bahkan syuting di Hollywood. Dave sempat menemui ayah George selama di Amerika, bahkan kenalan keluarga Jasper Murray pun direkomendasikan menemui sepupunya George.

Moskow

Dimka akhirnya menikahi Nina, seorang janda tanpa anak, dikenalkan temannya. Mereka pun memilki seorang anak, namun ia kembali jatuh cinta pada rekan kerjanya Natalya, seorang wanita yang sudah bersuami. Pada saat cintanya goyah, tidak berselang lama sejak kelahiran anak mereka, Dimka mendapati istrinya berselingkuh dengan seorang pejabat militer yang tinggal bersebelahan dengan dacha (villa) mereka di luar kota. Situasi politik komunis merosot. Kembarannya Tanya sudah mengingatkannya, kalau si janda Nina, wanita ambisius itu hanya memanfaatkan Dimka agar bisa tinggal di apartemen elite, dan masuk dalam pergaulan elite.

Kehadiran Mikhael Gorbachev seorang reformis dan realis memiliki pandangan berbeda dengan pemimpin lainnya. Memang ia berjiwa komunis, tetapi ia lebih realitis akan situasi ekonomi negaranya. Bila pemimpin sebelumnya lebih senang mengunjung pabrik senjata, maka Gorbachev lebih suka mengunjungi pabrik jeans. Kemerosotan ekonomi dan kemiskinan, memicu Gorbachev memutuskan untuk melepas negara-negara jajahannya: Polandia, Chekoslovakia, juga Jerman Timur dari kekuasaan komunis Soviet.

Penembakan yang berujung pada kematian Presiden Kennedy dan kematian Martin Luther King banyak memengaruhi kebijakan dalam negeri dan luar negeri Amerika. Kematian Kennedy memukul perasaan Maria Summers, wanita gundik dari sang presiden. Perselingkuhan yang tercium oleh George, membuatnya cemburu karena ia menyukai gadis berkulit hitam cantik itu. Kematian Martin Luther King juga memukul Verena dan George secara pribadi karena keduanya secara emosional sangat dekat dengan sang pendeta, tergabung dalam gerakannya.

Kebebasan dan keruntuhan Tembok Berlin bukanlah hasil keras Kennedy, tetapi karya dari Gorbachev. Tidak hanya Jerman saja, negara-negara Uni Soviet pun mendapatkan kebebasannya. Di kota Berlin, banyak keluarga-keluarga yang terpisah selama berdekade akhirnya bersatu kembali. Walli telah sembuh dari ketergantungan narkoba, ia kurus-tirus hampir tidak dikenali ibu dan saudarinya.

Sang musisi tenar itu dan keluarganya akhirnya bisa berkumpul walau dalam usia tua, putrinya, Alicia, telah berumur belasan, pertama kali ia melihatnya. Karolin sudah menjanda, diceraikan suaminya yang ternyata seorang gay.

Tanya akhirnya hidup bersama dengan Vasili yang sudah bebas dari hukuman, novel-novelnya diterjemahkan dan diterbitakan menggunakan nama samaran di Inggris oleh Anna Murray, adik dari jurnalis terkenal Jasper Murray. Karir Dimka berkembang baik dalam masa Gorbachev, dan setelah bercerai dari Nina, ia menikahi Natalya. Nina akhirnya menikahi dengan lelaki menjadi sumber keretakan pernikahannya dengan Dimka.

Sebelum kematiannya, kakeknya membawa George pulang ke kampung halaman di  Moskow, diperkenalkan pada keluarga Peshkov lainnya yakni Tanya dan Dimka, walau mereka sempat heran mengetahui sepupu mereka berkulit hitam.

Setelah pengkhianatan istrinya Verena Marquand, George dan Maria akhirnya menikah pada usia yang tidak muda lagi. Mereka berumur panjang, menyaksikan jika pidato mimpi yang pernah dilontarkan oleh Martin Luther King kini terwujud nyata, keduanya menyaksikan terpilihnya Obama sebagai presiden. Maria sangat paham kenapa suaminya, George, meneteskan air mata ketika menyaksikan tayang TV di mana Obama dan keluarganya tampak di panggung. Kakek berambut putih itu menangis untuk Bobby, Martin, dan Jack. Bagi semua pejuang kemerdekaan hak, baik yang telah meninggal maupun yang masih hidup.

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