City of Women

EIGHTEEN

SHE AWAKENS, SEEING the dead man’s face. Herr Kozig’s half-eyed stare into death. The sight of Franz as his head splinters red. The images flicker inside her mind. They spot her vision as she dresses, as she fills the coffeepot, as she scrubs her teeth with powdered tooth cleaner, as she tries to insert death into the routine of her life.

“I was just about to knock on your door.” Carin says, dressed in a sensibly cut coat and felt hat, coming out of her flat as Sigrid is leaving hers. She does not inquire about Sigrid’s “friend.” She does not even inquire about her brother. She only says, as she buttons her coat, “Would you mind stepping in for a moment?”

Sigrid hesitates, but then does as she is asked. Carin shuts the door behind them.

“I have a favor to ask of you,” she announces in the sheepishly painful tone adopted by people who never ask favors. “I have to go to a funeral on Thursday out of town,” she says. “I should be back by nightfall, but could I ask you? That is, would you mind looking in on Brigitte?”

Sigrid blinks. It’s not helping. He’s still bleeding! “Mind?”

“I find I’m somehow concerned about the silly cow,” Carin admits. “She seems unwell. Nothing serious, of course. On and off with a fever, and a bit of nausea. That’s common enough, considering how far along she is. Only, her color isn’t good,” she says. And then, “Now that I mention it, your color doesn’t look so good, either. Is something the matter?”

“No. Just a lack of sleep. Isn’t she seeing a doctor?”

“Yes, but the old quack thinks the cure for all ailments is a chorus of the ‘Horst Wessel Lied.’ You know the type. Pictures of the Führer in every room. Party pin on his medical coat. Belligerently condescending toward his female patients. I think, honestly, she’s afraid of the man.”

“Afraid?”

“That she’ll be discovered,” Carin whispers with arch confidentiality. “That he’ll see the invisible J stamped over her private parts. Something.” Carin shrugs. “Spending a week with her mother has addled her brain. I should have anticipated that, I suppose. I may have mentioned, her dear ‘Mutti’ is not only a heinous human being, but has become an equally heinous anti-Semite, ignoring the fact at she was once married to man of Jewish blood. That’s what makes her company so enthralling. She thinks she’s Goebbels in a dress now, and sometimes so do I. But I should have anticipated that a delicate piece of porcelain like Brigitte would go to pieces after a few days. In any case, if you could just look in on her.”

“Of course,” Sigrid answers.

Carin takes a breath. “Thank you,” she says, with a touch of awkwardness. “I really have no one else to ask.”

“I’m sorry, you said you were going to a funeral, and I didn’t offer you my condolences. Was it someone close?” She asks this and then realizes that perhaps the question is too large for a small exchange. Carin shakes her head.

“No. Not any longer, at any rate. A woman I once knew,” she says, straightening her coat. “Or thought I did. We lived together for a year.”

“I’m sorry,” Sigrid repeats.

“Ancient history.” Carin sighs dimly, and reopens the door. “Really nothing more.”

THE U-BAHN IS CROWDED and gray with the standard silence of the commute. Only the rumble of the rails fills the carriage. Sigrid takes the undercoating of noise into herself. She looks at her hands covertly. No blood. But if she closes her eyes, she can still see it there, her fingers drenched in red.

At her job, no one speaks to her any longer beyond what is absolutely necessary. News travels fast, and Kommissar Lang’s visit has turned her into a pariah on the scale of Frau Remki. She doesn’t mind. Mostly she prefers to be left to herself, except for Renate. It stings that Renate also seems to have forgotten her name. Finally at the filing drawers, she whispers, “So you are never going to speak to me again? Is that it?”

Renate gives her a close glare. Then turns back to her filing. “I have a suspicion about you,” she says, and frowns.

“Do you really? What kind of suspicion?”

“Why were you sent to Esterwegen’s office?”

Sigrid inserts a file firmly in place. “There’s a girl in my building who’s gotten into some trouble. Too many stoop transactions, I think.”

“So why was the Geheime Staatspolizei interested in you?”

“Because I was foolish enough to befriend the child. She seemed lonely.”

“That’s all? A girl in your building?” Her voice is bluntly skeptical.

Sigrid responds with a direct look. “What else you would you like me to say, Renate?”

Renate shrugs. “I don’t know. The truth, perhaps.”

A frown as she continues filing. “And what does that mean?”

“Who was the man?” Renate asks evenly.

“What man?”

Only a tick of her eyes suffices for the German Glance. “The man you were bedding.”

“I told you.”

“No. No, you didn’t tell me. In fact you made a point of not telling me.”

“Perhaps I thought it was my business.”

“Or perhaps there was something about him you didn’t want me to know. Something that shamed you.”

And now Sigrid’s eyes ignite. “I think that this conversation is over,” she says, gathering her folders together.

“Is he a Jew?” Renate asks bluntly.

Not a blink. Not a breath of hesitation. “Of course not, that’s absurd.”

“Is it?”

“Where would I meet a Jew, Renate?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve been giving it some thought, and it all makes sense. Why did you have to get the condoms? Why couldn’t he get them? Why wouldn’t you answer me when I asked if he was in the army?”

“Renate, listen to yourself. You’re not making any sense at all. Why would I look for such trouble?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you wouldn’t. But it would explain things. Like why you’ve been so edgy about him.”

“I’m a married woman, Renate,” she points out.

Renate shakes her head. “It’s more than that, and you know it.” And then she says, “I think that you and I should discontinue our friendship for a while, Frau Schr��der.”

“Because I don’t brag about the details of my bedroom escapades?”

“Like me, you mean? No. That’s not it. Because you won’t tell me the truth. And what good is a friend if there is no truth between them?”

Sigrid picks out a file and sticks it under her arm. “Now, that’s funny.”

“You think so?”

“And if I do tell you what you want to hear, just to satisfy you? If I pretend your ‘suspicion’ is correct, then what do you say?”

Renate’s eyes are fixed on her. “Then I would say I am ashamed for you. I would say that you have polluted your body, polluted your womb with some Jew’s dirty spunk. And I would say that, were it me, I would sooner abort such a growth with a table fork than give birth to a half-breed.”

Only the smallest of shrugs as Sigrid absorbs this. “Then what good is the truth?”

“Is it the truth?”

“No.” Sigrid shoves the filing drawer closed. “It’s not.”

IN THE KU’DAMM there’s a weinstube, a wine restaurant, with a view of the tall spire of the Gedächtniskirche. It’s the sort of place that Kaspar might have taken her for a birthday or anniversary years ago. The sort of place where Sigrid would have dressed to patronize. Gloves, her good dress. A stylish hat with a veil. But since the total war decrees were issued by the Propaganda Ministry, the windows have been shuttered, the awning rolled up, and the door locked. And she is dressed in the out-of-fashion coat from the doctor’s office. She knocks, as instructed, as a splash of rain spatters the sidewalk. No answer. But when she knocks again, the door cracks open and an old uncle pokes out his head with a pair of soggy, looming eyes.

“Closed,” the old uncle tells her.

“Yes. But I was told to come here,” she tries to explain quickly. “By the Herr Leutnant.”

“The Herr Leutnant?” A thick, boggy voice.

“Yes. He said I should knock and that you would let me in.” A German Glance, and the old uncle opens the door just wide enough for her to squeeze through. Inside, she finds the dining room gloomy and lit only by the daylight that filters through the shutters. The bar is covered by a long canvas tarp, and chairs are stacked on tabletops. The old man is wearing a dirty apron over a wool pullover.

“Is that her, Otto?” a voice calls.

“It is, Herr Leutnant.”

“Good. Show her over, won’t you?”

The cover has slipped to reveal a bit of glass on a shrouded mirror. She pulls off her scarf and runs her fingers through her hair, covertly peering into her reflection.

“This way, please.” The old man frowns.

She spots Wolfram first through the forest of chair legs, seated at the single table in the room set with linen. He is dressed in mufti, a cashmere coat and well-blocked roll-brim hat on the table beside his elbow. He doesn’t exactly smile at the sight of her, but she likes the light in his eyes. “You made it,” he observes. “You’ll pardon me if I don’t stand. My leg is killing me today.”

“I’m sorry,” says Sigrid, “but Wolfram shrugs it off.” The old uncle suddenly adopts a proper hausherr’s bearing and offers Sigrid a seat. She accepts, listening to the delicate scuff of the chair. “Thank you.”

A correct nod for the gnädige Frau.

“Do you want something to drink?” Wolfram asks, screwing out a cigarette in an enameled ashtray that he’s already dirtied.

“Oh, um. A coffee would be nice.”

“Nothing stronger?”

“Coffee.”

“You’ll regret it,” he says, putting aside the copy of the Vossische Zeitung he’d been smoking over. “A coffee for the lady, and I’ll have another Gilka.”

The old uncle shows them the shadow of a bow, then quickly removes the empty glass and the dirty ashtray. There is no fussing with ration cards.

“So, such an extraordinary establishment, and it serves only you,” she notes. “I’m very impressed.”

But Wolfram reacts as if perhaps he’s only now noticed that he’s the only patron and that he does not find this astonishing in the least. “Not me, personally, but it does serve my office,” he says, lifting a leather briefcase from the floor beside his false leg and setting it on his lap. “I have a gift for you,” he says, thumbing open its clasp. Out of the case comes a box the size of a book, wrapped in colored tissue and ribbons.

The old uncle arrives. “Gnädige Frau,” he says, and sets the coffee on the linen tablecloth, with a sugar bowl and small cream pitcher filled with a chalky liquid that is nothing like cream. “And for the Herr Leutnant,” he says, setting down the glass of Gilka with a clean ashtray.

When he shuffles away, Sigrid looks down at the package, then up at Wolfram. “Shall I open it?”

“That’s normally the procedure with a gift,” he says.

Carefully, she removes the tissue from the box and opens the lid. It is a book. A newly minted edition, bookshop fresh, with the author’s Charlie Chaplin face glowering up at her from the dust jacket. His eyes like pellets of coal. The fetlock of hair slicked over his brow. The postage-stamp mustache. Sigrid stares into the face. The title is in heavy script: Mein Kampf.

“I thought this was an appropriate choice. Have you read it?”

“No.”

“Then I won’t tell you how it ends,” he says, and then assures her, “You should find everything required within.”

She gives Wolfram half a glance, trying unsuccessfully to read his face. Then lifts the book’s cover only long enough to see the thick envelope fitted securely into the hollowed-out pages.

“I see. Very clandestine.”

“I think you’ll find that all is in order,” Wolfram tells her. “Except I was expecting a man with a Jewish face. You left him out.”

“He’s dead.”

“Really? What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says as she replaces the book into its box, then inserts the box into her bag. “He’s dead. That’s all.”

“How different you’ve become,” Wolfram observes. “So much tougher than you were.”

But Sigrid only shakes her head. “No. Not tougher. Just numb.” Then she frowns at her cup. “This coffee is terrible.”

“I tried to warn you. The Kümmel, on the other hand, is very smooth. Smoke?”

“I’ll share one,” she tells him, and watches him light up. The patrician’s profile. The damage reflected in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Wolfram,” she suddenly says, observing him.

He exhales smoke, and lifts an eyebrow. “Sorry? For what are you sorry?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

“For breaking my heart?”

Almost a smile. “Is your heart broken? I doubt that. I hear you go through women like you do cigarettes,” she says, cheating a drag.

“Again. You cannot believe everything my sister tells you,” he repeats. “So you haven’t mentioned.”

“Mentioned what?”

“Our friend the chess player. I hope he has been improving his game.”

“He’s playing well enough to beat me,” she tells him, staring archly at a spot on the table linen. Then shakes her head. “I don’t know what to do about him.”

“Then I think that you had better drop him.”

She lifts her eyes.

“Please understand, I say this not out of jealousy, Sigrid,” he tells her. “I don’t believe in jealousy. But he is dangerous. Dangerous because he has nothing to live for. And even more dangerous, because he doesn’t yet know it.”

She takes a breath. “And you can tell all this, Herr Leutnant, from a chess game?”

Wolfram shrugs, and taps his cigarette ash. “You will do what you will do, Frau Schröder. That much I have learned about you. But remember, you ignored my warning about the coffee.” Picking up his snifter of Gilka, he clinks it against Sigrid’s coffee cup in a toast. “Prost,” he offers efficiently, taking a deep swallow, sets down the glass, and removes a creamy white envelope from his coat, sliding it across the table.

A look, and then she removes the envelope’s contents and pauses. Another Reisepass. Lifting open the document’s linen facing, she is confronted by her own glum expression. “So. You did steal my card,” is all she says.

“I needed a photograph. And I knew you would never stand for one. So now, Frau Schröder, should you ever decide to take a holiday outside the borders of our Fatherland, you have the Reisepass necessary to satisfy the rubber-stamp brigades.”

“I see,” she says, and reinserts the booklet in the envelope, but as she does a small brass capsule tumbles out onto the table linen. “And what is this?”

Wolfram reaches over and picks it up in his fingers. “Remove the brass cap like this,” he instructs, exposing the tip of a tiny glass vial. “Insert the glass vial into the back of your mouth, and bite down. In case,” he tells her quietly, “you ever need to make a different decision.”

Sigrid gazes deeply at the vial as if gazing at a hole that has suddenly opened up in front of her. “Is it… Is it painful?”

“Painful?” he repeats. The muscle in the line of his jaw twitches lightly. “It’s instantaneous.” Slipping the brass cap back into place, he reinserts the capsule into the envelope. “Are you sure you won’t have that glass of Gilka now?”

“Wolfram, I think I may be under surveillance,” she says suddenly.

His response is unperturbed. “Yes, that’s right,” he nods. “One of the bloodhounds of the Burgstrasse Gestapo office has your scent in his nostrils. A Kommissar Lang, I think.”

Sigrid feels a jolt. “You mean you know this?”

“The Abwehr doesn’t exactly have a brotherly relationship with the Geheime Staatspolizei. But I try to keep a few of their number on our payroll. There’s a fellow named Rössner. Not so bad. He’s an old-time Kriminalpolizei bull, who thought the Gestapo would be good for his career. In any case, he’s been very cooperative.”

“Cooperative? I don’t understand what that means.”

“Keep an eye peeled for him. Medium height. Not much of a chin, but more off a belly. Ears stick out like a monkey’s. He favors a brown snap-brim fedora. You’ll spot him, I’m sure.”

“And he’s watching me?”

“Yes, but I pay him to have very poor eyesight. Also, he much prefers stopping off at the corner Kneipe for a short one to traipsing about town wearing out his shoe leather.”

She gazes at him with gratitude and regret. “Once again, you are my champion, Herr Leutnant,” she says.

But Wolfram only turns up his wrist to frown at his watch. “I must go,” he says. But outside, he turns to her. “Here, take this. It’s the key to the flat in the Askanischer Platz,” he tells her. “In the event that you have use of it.” The street is chilled by a sharp breeze.

“Yes. Thank you,” she tells him. “It could be handy.” And then she asks, “Will you kiss me?”

The gun sight. “Why?”

“Because I’m asking you to. Because I want you to.”

A small bob of his Adam’s apple and the gun sight lifts. He kisses her once, as if he might steal a breath from her, then breaks away. She watches him quick-march down the Ku’damm with his cane, as the clock in the Gedächtniskirche chimes the hour.

Two o’clock.

She must head for the zoo.

FOR SEVERAL MINUTES she pretends to be examining the posters placarding a Litfass column across the street. Paper drives are advertised. Clothing drives. Get rid of old clothing and shoes! A bloated toadlike face: The Jew—The inciter of war, the prolonger of war, the caption incites.

She is watching the street. Watching the pedestrians on the sidewalk. But there is no monkey-eared fellow with a big belly and wearing a snap-brim hat. So she crosses at the signal and enters the Zoologischer Garten through the Gartenufer gate. Passes the beaver dam, now vacant after bombing, as well as the rabbit hutches and the bear den. She has a memory of standing in front of the bear den, holding her mother’s hand, wondering if the huge brown sow, named Berlonia, frisking with her cubs, was really as hungry for bad little girls as her mother had always claimed. Now Berlonia, if it is still she, is alone. Her snout silver. She appears listless and apolitical. No matter, Sigrid is on the lookout for a different species of wild beast. For an instant, she thinks she sees him, prowling the path. But when she looks again, he is gone.

The Grosse Raubtierhaus is still intact. Still warm and smelling of animal needs. Animal hopes. She finds Ericha stationed in front of an enormous white Siberian tiger, pacing off the length of his cage. There are many words she could speak. Too many to actually fit into a workable sentence. So instead she simply asks. “Am I late?”

Gazing at the cage. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” she answers. Then her voice dips, and she pulls off her gloves. “There’s a man over there watching us.”

“Yes. He’s a friend. Call him Becker.”

“And what does he do, Herr Becker?”

“He says he once trafficked cocaine in Friedrichshain. Maybe that’s true. All I know is that he’s been expert at losing the Gestapo.”

Sigrid gives the man a glance. Tall, reedy, chinless. In his thirties, wearing a fur Alpiner on his head. He’s smoking while studying a racing form.

“I see,” Sigrid says, thoughtfully. “And where did you find a gentleman with such a skill?”

“You know the rules,” Ericha reminds her. Then, staring forward, she says, “I spoke to Rudi. He told me what happened in the street.”

“And what do you think it means?” Sigrid asks.

“I think it means Kozig panicked. He recognized Franz from the Grosse Hamburger Strasse and assumed the worst.”

“But that doesn’t explain how the Sipo came out of the woodwork.”

A shrug. “Maybe they thought they were onto something and were simply shadowing Franz to see what turned up.”

“There’s also another explanation.”

“That Franz betrayed us?”

“You think that’s impossible.”

“I think nothing is impossible. But it makes no difference now. Besides, he knew only so much.”

“He knew about you,” Sigrid points out.

“I’ve already switched to a different location. Even if the Gestapo did turn him, their information will be useless to them.”

“So. What next?’

“We continue as planned, what else?”

Sigrid takes a breath. She looks into the tiger’s face, and the tiger looks back. “I have something for you,” she tells the girl, and hands her the box. “But don’t read it until you have the necessary privacy.”

Ericha takes the box. Lifts the lid on it, then closes it again. “That’s quite a joke,” she says without smiling.

“Not mine. But appropriate, I think. It contains everything that’s required.”

“Everything that’s required,” she repeats vacantly, turning her attention toward the tiger. “Do you feel sympathy for him?”

“For the tiger?”

“For the tiger in a cage.” She gives a shallow sigh. “When I was a child, I thought I was a tiger. My mother assumed it was a game. That I was pretending. So at first she indulged me. Then she became frustrated when I wouldn’t stop. And then angry, I remember, when I refused to use a knife and fork at the table, because tigers ate with their paws and fangs. She exploded. It was the first time she struck me. The first time,” she says. “But not the last.” And then she stares into Sigrid’s face. And Sigrid sees the tiger in it.

“Ericha, you know I must ask you.”

“It was a trap,” Ericha announces, cutting her off.

Sigrid turns her head. “What?”

“The address on the cigarette card. That’s what you were going to ask about, correct? The abortionist? It was a trap. I spotted them as soon as I stepped off the tram. A pair of them in the front seat of a sedan, waiting.”

Sigrid is feeling an abyss open up in her. “You’re sure?”

“You think by now I can’t recognize the Sipo when I see them, Frau Schröder? I’m sure. Very sure. It was a black Mercedes 260D. The standard Gestapo hearse. I pretended to be waiting to catch a transfer just to see what would happen. Then there comes a woman, alone, going up the steps and through the door. They wait for a few minutes. Give her time to pay her money, I suppose. That must be part of the arrangement, so they can get their cut. Anyway, they wait for another moment, then out of the car they come. Tossing away their cigarette butts. Up the steps and through the door, too. I wait until I see them reverse the process, out of the door and down the steps, only now they have the woman between them in wrist manacles and she is sobbing. She collapses at the bottom of the steps, so they drag her on her knees into the rear of the car.”

“Ericha,” Sigrid whispers, her eyes steaming.

“I don’t blame you,” Ericha says, staring back at the pacing tiger. “I don’t blame you,” she repeats. “I only,” she says, but then can’t say any more. The tears roll coldly down her cheeks, until Sigrid envelops her.

WALKING DOWN THE TAUENZIEN STRASSE, she keeps her arm clamped around Ericha’s shoulder. Becker is close behind, but, crossing at the light, she picks up something else behind them as well. A feeling. A presence. She risks a glance at the dusky shadows of pedestrians, head bent against the cold, and for an instant she catches him. Far back, but there.

“What is it?” Ericha asks.

“Nothing.”

“You’ve started walking faster. Is there trouble?”

“It’s nothing.”

“We should split up.”

“No. No, we’re not splitting up.” Hurrying Ericha down the steps to the U-Bahn platform, they catch a train as it is about to leave the station. The doors close. She searches the car and sees that Becker has made it aboard, standing, holding on to a handle, eyes still glued to his racing form. But no sign of Egon in pursuit of her.

“Where are we going?” Ericha whispers.

“Never mind,” Sigrid tells her. “You’ll find out.”

THE FLAT in the Askanischer Platz is cold, and the air inside is stale. Sigrid turns on a lamp by the bed, illluminating the room’s drabness in the pale output of a wartime lightbulb. Without Wolfram in the bed, the place seems squalid. “Sit,” she commands Ericha, and sets about lighting the coke stove. It stinks of coal dust and sulfur but produces a few fingers of warmth. Ericha draws in a breath and holds it before finally exhaling.

“We’re getting them out,” the girl says, sluggishly crawling out of her coat. “The mother and her children.”

“When?”

“In three days.”

“And how will it happen?” Sigrid asks from the window, peering around the edge of the bulky blackout curtain.

“They’ll take the train to Dresden first, then from Dresden to Lübeck. It’s the longest way, but the cheapest. Also the safest. The Gestapo comb the express trains. Anyway, that’s how we have it arranged. I’ll meet them at the Nollendorfplatz, pass on their documents, and escort them to Anhalter Bahnhof. The intercity to Dresden leaves from platform B at five past two.”

“Then this spot is perfect. You can stay here till then,” Sigrid says. Down in the street, ghost lights illuminate the arches of the station’s façade. She tries to catch Egon’s figure in the settling twilight, but figures populating the Saarlandstrasse are no more than silhouettes. “I don’t see your man Becker,” she says.

“He’s out there,” Ericha assures her leadenly. “Whether you see him or not.”

“You should tell him to be on the lookout for a man with a brown snap-brim who has a pair of ears that stick out. He could be Gestapo.”

But Ericha says nothing in response to this. Only stares into the air.

“What time have you arranged to meet them?” Sigrid asks.

“What?”

“What time have you arranged to meet them? The woman and her children.”

“An hour before the train. But I should mention. There’s been an addition.”

“An addition?”

“Not another U-boat. Just a man who needs to get out of the country.”

Sigrid suddenly feels off kilter. “But we have no papers for an addition. No plans. No money for the passage…”

“He has his own resources. We are simply to transport him to Lübeck with our group and get him on the ship for Sweden.”

Sigrid narrows her eyes. “Say that again?”

“Why? I think you must have heard me.”

“Heard you, yes. But the way you put it: ‘We are simply to transport him’? Are you following orders?”

She frowns “No. Of course not orders. But I’ve made connections with another group. A better-funded group, with a much broader network. Not just in Berlin. We can increase our effectiveness tenfold if we work with them.”

“Work with or for them?”

“It’s cooperation. Please, Sigrid.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand,” the girl suddenly bites. Her eyes flash blankly, and then cool. “I’m sorry,” she offers. “I’m sorry, I just can’t answer questions. It is what it is,” she says. “Can you accept that?”

Sigrid looks into the girl’s face. She looks suddenly childlike.

“Yes,” Sigrid whispers. “Yes, of course I can. If that’s what you need me to do.” Ericha holds her gaze for an instant longer, then turns away.

“I’m very thirsty,” the girl says with a small swallow. “Do you think,” she asks, “that I could get a glass of water?”

“Water?” Sigrid repeats. Then stands quickly. “Yes. Yes, I’ll bring it to you.” She goes into the small kitchenette across from the bath. There’s a window over the sink and a large rip in the blackout curtain. As she fills a water glass from the tap, she can see a flicker of light down in the alleyway. A match touching a cigarette, which glows red and then vanishes.

Ericha accepts the water glass without words, and Sigrid watches her drain it in two long drinks, then takes away the emptied glass and sets it on the nightstand.

“You must rest,” Sigrid tells her. She expects resistance to this, but is surprised when Ericha slumps sideways on the mattress.

“Rest,” the girl repeats. “That’s a foreign word.”

Sigrid slips off Ericha’s shoes and lifts her feet onto the bed. Drapes the bedspread over her and perches on the edge of the mattress.

“I want you to promise me something, Frau Schröder,” Ericha says. “When the day comes to do this, I want you to promise me that you’ll stay home. Press your husband’s shirts like a good hausfrau or argue with your mother-in-law. Better yet, go to your lover.”

“Ericha.”

“Everything will go smoothly without you. It’s all planned out, and there’s no reason why anything should go wrong. But if it does, then there’s no reason they should get us all. So you will promise me that you will stay away from the Anhalter Bahnhof.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You must.”

“So now you’re giving the orders?”

“Someone will have to continue, Sigrid. If we’re taken, then someone must be left.”

“What about your new friends with their broad network. They won’t be continuing?”

“They’re not interested in saving people. They’re only interested in politics. So you must agree. You must promise me.”

“Close your eyes,” she whispers, and brushes a strand of hair from the girl’s forehead. “If I must promise you, then I will promise you.”

Ericha nods lightly. “Thank you,” she breathes as her eyes drift shut. But when Sigrid starts to stand, the girl squeezes her wrist.

“Stay,” Ericha whispers. “Can you? Just for a bit?”

Gently, Sigrid places her hand over Ericha’s. “Yes,” she whispers. “I can stay.”

SHE IS STANDING on the landing, the walls shake with the bombing. Fire scorches the ceiling, and all she can think of are the sand buckets. Where are the sand buckets? When the floorboards beneath her feet separate, she latches onto the railing, but the railing is attached to nothing, and she is falling, plummeting into a swirling black hole.

Sigrid awakes with a start, settled in the padded armchair by the bed. She blinks, dimly trying to decide where she is, and then wipes her face with her hands. The stove has gone out, and the room is cold. She can see daylight edging through a crack in the blackout curtain, so she shoves it aside, and the Berlin morning invades the room. Her heart falls when she sees that bedclothes are twisted in a heap but the bed is empty.

SHE LOCKS THE DOOR to Wolfram’s flat and travels down the stairs, excusing herself around a young female Ostarbeiter scrubbing the tile floor of the foyer. The woman mumbles contritely in Polish and keeps her eyes on her scrub bucket. Outside, the chill of the morning awaits her. She carefully glances about, checking for idling autos or any men loitering innocuously about the newspaper canisters, but sees only a few Berliners minding their own business as they travel the sidewalk. So she is shocked when a hand seizes her from behind by the hair, and yanks her to one side. “This way, Liebste,” Egon tells her and guides her painfully into the narrow alley around the corner.

“You’re hurting me.”

“Hurting you? You’re lucky I don’t wring your fucking neck.” He pushes her roughly against the alley wall and presses his face into hers. Holding up the diamond pouch, he turns it upside so the contents spill out. “Rock sugar,” he seethes. “You took my diamonds and left me rock sugar.”

“That’s right,” she breathes.

“Why?”

“Because there are those who have needs greater than yours.”

“Sigrid,” he says, pronouncing her name as if he might bite it in half. “Sigrid, I want my diamonds.”

“Go to hell,” she tells him.

“You bitch,” he swears, and cracks her across the face with the back of his hand. She expels a yelp of pain, as he seizes her chin in his hand. “I want my property!”

“It’s not,” she manages. “It’s not your property.”

“It is! It belongs to me!”

“No. No, it belongs to the Jews whom you sent to their deaths.”

Silence.

“It belongs to them! Like that pretty watch you wear. Like the money in your pocket and the fancy coat on your back.”

His face hangs in front of her, still contorted.

“I know what you are,” she assures him. “I know what you’ve done.”

His teeth grind. “You know nothing.”

“How many lives, Egon? How many lives did you trade for your own?”

“So now you think you are the expert. But you’re not. You’re an idiot! A silly cunt who knows nothing!”

“Tell me about Freya.”

“Freya,” he repeats.

“I hear she is quite the dish. Was she good in the sack?”

“My God, is that—” He simply can’t believe it. “Is that what this is? A woman’s jealousy? You make me ill, Frau Schröder.”

“You’re a murderer.”

“No. I’m an animal. A simple human animal. If I kill, it’s for the sake of survival.”

“You mean your survival.”

“Yes, my survival!” he blasts her. “You know, you are so thick. Such a fucking hausfrau. I think I would like to crack your stupid skull open! Do you know that?” he hisses, and then freezes up.

She watches his expression go rigid. Her breathing deepens. “Do you feel that?” she asks him.

He stares. “Yes.”

“Then you know what it’s for,” she says, pressing the muzzle of Kozig’s revolver into his belly.

“You won’t use it,” he assures her. “Though I wish to God you would.”

“Take a step back,” she commands.

He waits, but then steps back. She digs something out of her pocket and then drops it on the damp black paving stones. A brown envelope and a fold of Reichsmarks fastened together with a thick elastic. “That’s for you. A Reisepass, a new Arbeitsbuch, a commercial registry card, and travel permit, plus a letter of exemption from military service due to your essential war work. Your name is Hans Richter. You’re an assessor for the National Insurance Office,” she says, still gripping the revolver. “Everything you’ll need to get to where you’re going, including two hundred marks and an up-to-date subscription record for the Völkischer Beobachter.”

“May I pick it up?” he asks grimly.

“Yes.”

He does so, stuffing the envelope into his coat pocket. “Two hundred marks,” he says, “isn’t going to get me far.”

“It’s what you’ve got. You should count yourself lucky that you’re traveling west instead of east.”

“And what if I were to push you against this wall right now, and kiss you hard on the mouth?”

“First you want to kill me, then you want to kiss me. You should make a decision, Egon.”

“You’re the one who is aiding my escape with one hand, while pointing a pistol at me with the other. I think it’s you who should make a decision.”

She stares into his darkened face. Then thumbs back the revolver’s hammer. “I don’t know much about guns,” she admits. “But I believe the next step is to squeeze the trigger.”

Egon lifts his eyes from the pistol. “Becoming a killer takes courage, Frau Schröder. Not fairy-tale courage, but the courage to leave it all behind. To become a different sort of creature.” For a moment, he gazes at her. “I’m not sure you’ve reached that point yet.”

She tightens her grip on the revolver’s handle. She knows that if he tried, he could wrench the thing from her hand. She wonders if he knows it, too. His gaze tells her nothing. It is like staring into a face cut from stone. Then a noise comes from the end of the alley. The Polish scrub girl opens a door and dumps her pail of dirty water. She looks up at them, holding her bucket, and pauses. Speaks a word in Polish. Egon frowns. “Next time,” he tells her, “you’ll have to be stronger,” and then gathers his coat closed and stalks away.

WHEN SHE ENTERS the flat in the Uhlandstrasse, she finds it empty. The door to 11G creaks open into silence. She takes off her scarf and hangs it up. Slips off the coat and hangs it up, too. The wind rattles the taped window glass briefly. She smooths her skirt as she surveys the room’s emptiness. Then walks over to the stove. Drops in three briquettes of coal with the shuttle, and strikes a match. The fire catches. It burns evenly, obediently. She feels the heat on her face grow.

In the bedroom, she checks the mirror. Touches the spot on her cheek where he struck her. A pinkish imprint of the force of his knuckles. It hurts, but she feels numb to the pain. She turns away and retrieves the cigarette tin. She wonders for a moment if Kaspar has ever discovered the tin’s contents. She certainly hadn’t made much of an effort to hide them, even after her run-in with Mother Schröder. A few pairs of flannel stockings, and a nylon chemise in a drawer constitute their only camouflage.

The stove is hot by now, emitting a stinging heat into the air. She must lift the lid with the iron tongs. A bright orange fire fills the stove’s belly. Sigrid opens the tin, and tugs open the ribbon binding the packet of letters. She opens the flap on the top envelope, revealing the heated upstroke of his handwriting. The words without mercy are all she can read. Then she closes the flap and drops the letter into the stove. The envelope writhes, then blackens as she watches it disintegrate in flames.

It takes only a matter of minutes before all of them are ashes.