November 1989 turned the missing bridge from an unchangeable fact into a question people could ask out loud. Both towns began campaigning for it, which had been unthinkable for forty years. It was not a small request: the old stone piers still stood in the water, but every span had to be built new, and two states had to agree on who would pay. Meanwhile the paper mill, designed to fill planned-economy quotas, had to learn to look for customers instead.November 1989 zmenil chýbajúci most z nemennej danosti na otázku, ktorú sa zrazu dalo nahlas položiť. Obe mestá zaňho začali lobovať, čo štyridsať rokov nebolo mysliteľné. Nešlo o maličkosť: staré kamenné piliere síce v rieke stále stáli, ale všetky mostné polia bolo treba postaviť nanovo a dva štáty sa museli dohodnúť, kto to zaplatí. Papiereň sa medzitým musela naučiť zháňať zákazníkov namiesto plnenia plánu.
