Trudy's Promise by Marcia Preston

Author:Marcia Preston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2008-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

The next day Trudy had nothing to do but wait on the promised phone call from Garret Thompson. The hotel left a newspaper outside her door, and she read the news section to practice her English. On the front page was an account of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s visit to East Berlin, in response to Kennedy’s speech on the other side of the wall. According to the Washington Post, Khrushchev had told the Party members who showed up to cheer him that he thought the wall was a splendid idea. She wondered if the American press was as biased as the communist newspapers in East Berlin.

She ate fruit and muffins from Thompson’s gift basket, showered and washed her hair; she pressed her new clothes with an iron she found in the closet—and still Thompson had not called. Staring out the fifth-story window at the street below, she heard Sandra’s warning in her head. Garret Thompson doesn’t do anybody a favor unless he gets a bigger one in return.

By twelve-thirty the phone still hadn’t rung. What if Thompson’s promise to help her was nothing but a lie? What if he abandoned her in the United States—how would she get home?

Then the phone rang. “We have an appointment with the German ambassador at two o’clock,” Thompson said without preamble. “I’ll pick you up in front of the hotel at one-thirty.”

The magnitude of her relief softened her knees. “I will be ready,” she said.

She wore one of the new suits. Thompson zoomed into the driveway in a silver sports car and leaned to open the passenger-side door from the inside. He was a big man and the car looked too small for him. His hair touched the ceiling.

Trudy climbed in and Thompson mumbled a greeting. She noticed a red streak on the side of his neck, and his face looked like a headache. Hangover, she diagnosed. He pulled away before she’d even shut the door.

“Thank you for the new clothes,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

He said nothing more. She kept quiet and looked out the window as they drove through traffic.

The German ambassador received them in a well-appointed sitting room off his office. He was plump and jovial, with a full head of silver hair.

“It is a pleasure to speak to a countryman in our mother tongue,” he said, shining a practiced smile at her and then Thompson. His secretary offered tea from a silver service.

Trudy sat in a peach-colored satin chair and explained her situation to Ambassador Veltman, stressing her desperation to remove her baby from East Berlin. The ambassador listened with a frown on his jowly face. She showed him a picture of Stefan and made sure to voice her appreciation for Thompson’s generous help. Thompson was still silent, sipping his tea with a glazed expression in his eyes.

When she stopped talking, the ambassador nodded, his face solemn. She waited for him to say what he could do.

“It is a sad situation between East and West Berlin,” he said. “The East German government is quite difficult to deal with.

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