Hans approached and said: ‘Show me that thing you have around your neck.’
Walli summoned up the nerve to say: ‘Why?’
‘Because I suspect it is being used to smuggle capitalist-imperialist propaganda into the German Democratic Republic. Give it here.’
The guitar was so precious that Walli still did not comply, scared as he was. ‘What if I don’t?’ he said. ‘Will I be arrested?’
The sergeant rubbed the knuckles of his right hand with the palm of his left.
Hans said: ‘Yes, eventually.’
Walli ran out of courage. He pulled the string over his head and gave Hans the guitar.
Hans held the guitar as if to play it, hit the strings, and sang in English: ‘You ain’t nothing but a hound dog.’ The Vopos laughed hysterically.
Even the cops listened to pop radio, it seemed.
Hans pushed his hand under the strings and tried to feel inside the sound hole.
Walli said: ‘Be careful!’
The top E string broke with a ping.
‘It’s a delicate musical instrument!’ Walli said despairingly.
Hans’s reach was constrained by the strings. He said: ‘Anyone got a knife?’
The sergeant put his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a knife with a wide blade – not part of his standard issue gear, Walli felt sure.
Hans tried to cut the strings with the blade, but they were tougher than he thought. He managed to snap the B and the G, but could not saw through the thicker ones.
‘There’s nothing inside,’ Walli said pleadingly. ‘You can tell by the weight.’
Hans looked at him, smiled, then brought the knife down hard, point first, on the soundboard near the bridge.
The blade went straight through the wood, and Walli cried out in pain.
Pleased by this response, Hans repeated the action, smashing holes in the guitar. With the surface weakened, the tension in the strings pulled the bridge and the wood surrounding it away from the body of the instrument. He prised away the rest of it, revealing the inside like an empty coffin.
‘No propaganda,’ he said. ‘Congratulations – you are innocent.’ He handed Walli the wrecked guitar, and Walli took it.
The sergeant handed back their identity cards with a grin.
Karolin took Walli’s arm and drew him away. ‘Come on,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Walli let her lead him. He could hardly see where he was going. He could not stop crying.
4
George Jakes boarded a Greyhound bus in Atlanta, Georgia, on Sunday, 14 May 1961. It was Mother’s Day.
He was scared.
Maria Summers sat next to him. They always sat together. It had become a regular thing: everyone assumed that the empty seat next to George was reserved for Maria.
To hide his nervousness, he made conversation with Maria. ‘So, what did you think of Martin Luther King?’
King was head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, one of the more important civil rights groups. They had met him last night at a dinner in one of Atlanta’s black-owned restaurants.
‘He’s an amazing man,’ said Maria.
George was not so sure. ‘He said wonderful things about the Freedom Riders, but he’s not here on the bus with us.’
‘Put yourself in his place,’ Maria said reasonably. ‘He’s the leader of a different civil rights group. A general can’t become a foot soldier in someone else’s regiment.’
George had not looked at it that way. Maria was very smart.
George was half in love with her. He was desperate for an opportunity to be alone with her, but the people in whose homes the Riders stayed were solid, respectable black citizens, many of them devout Christians, who would not have allowed their guest rooms to be used for smooching. And Maria, alluring though she was, did nothing more than sit next to George and talk to him and laugh at his wisecracks. She never did the little physical things that said a woman wanted to be more than friends: she did not touch his arm, or take his hand getting off the bus, or press close to him in a crowd. She did not flirt. She might even be a virgin at twenty-five.
‘You talked to King for a long time,’ he said.
‘If he wasn’t a preacher, I’d say he was coming on to me,’ she said.
George was not sure how to respond to that. It would be no surprise to him if a preacher made a pass at a girl as enchanting as Maria. But she was naive about men, he thought. ‘I talked to King a bit.’
‘What did he say to you?’
George hesitated. It was King’s words that had scared George. He decided to tell Maria anyway: she had a right to know. ‘He says we’re not going to make it through Alabama.’
Maria blanched. ‘Did he really say that?’
‘He said exactly that.’
Now they were both scared.
The Greyhound pulled out of the bus station.
For the first few days George had feared that the Freedom Ride would be too peaceful. Regular bus passengers did not react to the black people sitting in the wrong seats, and sometimes joined in their songs. Nothing had happened when the Riders defied WHITES ONLY and COLORED notices in bus stations. Some towns had even painted over the signs. George feared the segregationists had devised the perfect strategy. There was no trouble and no publicity, and coloured Riders were served politely in the white restaurants. Every evening, they got off the buses and attended meetings unmolested, usually in churches, then stayed overnight with sympathizers. But George felt sure that as they left each town the signs would be restored, and segregation would return; and the Freedom Ride would have been a waste of time.
The irony was striking. For as long as he could remember, George had been wounded and infuriated by the repeated message, sometimes implicit but often spoken aloud, that he was inferior. It made no difference that he was smarter than 99 per cent of white Americans. Nor that he was hardworking, polite, and well dressed. He was looked down upon by ugly white people too stupid or too lazy to do anything harder than pour drinks or pump gas. He could not walk into a department store, sit down in a restaurant, or apply for a job without wondering whether he would be ignored, asked to leave, or rejected because of his colour. It made him burn with resentment. But now, paradoxically, he was disappointed that it was not happening.
Meanwhile, the White House dithered. On the third day of the Ride, the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, had made a speech at the University of Georgia promising to enforce civil rights in the South. Then, three days later, his brother the President had backtracked, withdrawing support from two civil rights bills.
Was this how the segregationists would win? George had wondered. By avoiding confrontation then carrying on as usual?
It was not. Peace had lasted just four days.
On the fifth day of the Ride one of their number had been jailed for insisting on his right to a shoeshine.
Violence had broken out on the sixth.
The victim had been John Lewis, the theology student. He had been attacked by thugs in a white restroom in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Lewis had allowed himself to be punched and kicked without retaliation. George had not seen the incident, which was probably a good thing, for he was not sure he could have matched Lewis’s Gandhian self-restraint.