City of Women

TWENTY-ONE

SHE REMEMBERS THE TUNNEL. There’s a tunnel that connects the Anhalter Bahnhof, rising imperiously in stacks of yellow Greppiner brick above the Saarlandstrasse to the equally imperious Hotel Excelsior, with its massive columned façade. Sigrid remembers the tunnel from her childhood because of the row of underground shops where her mother once bought her a velvet frock, dark blue, like a night sky. She thought it was so very sophisticated, and was worried when her father wanted to know how much it was going to set him back. The shopgirl told him, and he snorted as if the price had blown up in his head like a sneeze. Her mother, however, intervened. It’s important, Günter, that she have something nice. Her father acquiesced, as he usually did, with a sigh that filled and then deflated his cheeks, making them resemble a gasbag. Later that afternoon they had lunch at a small café in the Pariser Platz that served a fruit cup that included oranges, and then rented a toboggan to go sledding down the drive of the Reichstag Building with a multitude of Berliner families. She remembers her father’s laughter as the two of them careened sideways into a snowbank. A boy’s laughter. A happy, unfettered chuckle. It made her feel good to hear him laugh, but also sad in a way, because his laughter was all about his own snow antics. It was not shared with her.

OUTSIDE THE STATION, a brass band of middle-aged Brownshirts has assembled in the open plaza with air-raid sandbags as a backdrop. The brassy clash as they tune up echoes in the vaulted ceilings of the bahnhof’s main portal.

Inside, the grandly appointed booking house, built for empire, has taken on a grimy, patched-up wartime face. Sandbags, boarded-up windows, chips, and cracks in the masonry. An immense swastika banner, edged with grime, hangs above the heads of the hordes of drab travelers, who grumble as they are herded by the loudspeakers.

Sigrid moves through the crowd with the same colorless sense of destination, but her eyes are crisp and alert. She has left her baggage behind in the rubble of the bombing. She had bathed and changed in the flat across the Askanischer Platz, picked out a clean dress from the wardrobe rack, scrubbed the residue of the bomb blast from her skin with a scouring brush in the tub down the hall, and then slept like a stone on the bed, without dreams. The bloodied, smoked, stained clothes she has left behind like a discarded skin. She has been born into a new entity. Part human, dressed in Carin’s sensible blue topcoat; part machinery, which armors her with purpose. When she spies Ericha loitering by the schedule cabinets she snatches her arm. Ericha snaps around with a dangerously cornered expression. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve made some adjustments to the plan,” Sigrid answers. “Come,” she orders, and hauls her to a spot by the long row of schedule tables.

“I thought we had an agreement,” the girl hisses at her.

But Sigrid is covering the area with an extended German glance. “Where are they?”

“Where are who?”

“Frau Weiss and her daughters?”

“In the restaurant. They were hungry, I thought they should eat.”

“Are they alone?”

“Alone? It’s a crowded restaurant at lunchtime.”

“You know what I mean. Do you have someone with them?”

“No. No one. Look, you still haven’t explained—”

“What about the ‘addition’ you told me about? Where is he?”

“He’s hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Then there may still be time.”

“Sigrid.”

“He’s a traitor, Ericha.”

“What? What are you saying?”

“I’m saying whoever you think he may be, he’s either a fraud or he’s been turned. These people in this other group you’re connected with, they’re not to be trusted, do you understand? They’ve been compromised by the Gestapo.”

“No. No, you’re wrong.”

“Not this time,” Sigrid insists. “I know you’d like to believe that your instincts are infallible, but you’re not the pope. You’ve made a mistake. Now, come. We’ve got to get moving. Where is your man Becker? I don’t see him.”

“No,” Ericha repeats. Her voice has grown full and dark.

“No? No, what?”

“No. You are wrong,” she says. “The addition,” she says, and shakes her head. “He’s a German-speaking Czech. The British parachuted him into the protectorate to organize sabotage cells in the arms factories. He’s been on the run from the Gestapo for months, all the way from Prague.”

Sigrid stops. Stares sharply into Ericha’s face. “So, that’s his story. We all have a story,” she says. “How do you know it’s not a lie?”

“I know, Frau Schröder,” she whispers blankly, “because I am the traitor.”

Sigrid goes silent. Closes her eyes and then opens them. Ericha is glaring straight ahead. “What I told you,” she says, “about the address on the cigarette card. It was not completely accurate. The Sipo detectives were waiting there. But the woman they arrested was me.”

“Child,” Sigrid whispers. But Ericha is still glaring like the tiger in its cage. “They took me to the Alex first,” she says. “But my name must have been on a list, because after a few hours, they trucked me over to the Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. I was told they had prepared a little show for my benefit. A little show that should also be very educational. So I was taken down into the cellar, and manacled to a chair. Then in came two big Stapo men, dragging a woman between them, and I was made to watch while they stripped her, chained her to a table, and proceeded to beat her body with rubber truncheons.” The tears come only now, one followed by another, as the girl replays the scene inside her head. “At first she screamed. Sobbed. But after a while there were only these horrible animal grunts as the blows fell. Only then,” she says, “did they explain their proposition to me. It was very simple, really. All I need do is help them spring this trap. All I need do is betray everyone and everything, and I would not be harmed. Otherwise, I would be next on the table.”

She shakes her head at the unseeable point of her gaze. “I should have resisted. I should have let them pummel me into a spot of grease. But I didn’t,” she whispers. “I couldn’t. Because all I could think,” she says, and then must restart the sentence. “All I could think was that the baby would never survive the beating. It’s ridiculous, I know. Only a few hours before, I was going to pay a man to scrape it away. But at that instant—I can’t explain. It had come to life inside me.” Turning her head, she suddenly looks Sigrid in the face. “And now, I am a murderer. I have murdered all those who have trusted me. All to save myself and this little tadpole growing in my belly. So you understand. You must go, Sigrid Schröder. Right now. Before I murder you as well.”

Sigrid stares. Then smears a tear from her face. “Becker?” she asks.

“My watchdog. But he’s not alone. I recognize one by the stairs with the newspaper, and another smoking by the news kiosk.”

“That makes three.”

“Please, Sigrid,” she starts to say, but Sigrid won’t let her finish.

“I’ll handle this now, if you don’t mind, Fräulein Kohl,” she announces. “What do you think they’re going to do with you when their little trap is sprung? Set you loose, or drop you into some hole you’ll never climb out of?”

“They won’t. I’m still of some value to them.”

“And when you’re not?”

Ericha gazes at her with eyes like wind tunnels.

“You’re a fine one for moralizing, Fräulein,” Sigrid continues. “So if you’re going to have this baby, don’t you think you have a moral responsibility to keep its mother out of some godforsaken camp in the marshes of Poland?”

From outside comes the noise of a brassy march struck up by the SA band, an anthem, popular on the radio, called, “Onward to Moscow!” It turns heads and prompts a pattering of applause, which suddenly swell as a company of troops come marching into the concourse with rifles, greatcoats, and full packs.

Sigrid peers starkly. “This man from Prague,” she says, “can the Gestapo identify him?”

“No. Only I have seen his photo.”

“Fine. Where are you supposed to meet him?”

“By the schedule table.”

“And what are supposed to do when you see him?”

“Ask him for a light for my cigarette.”

“All right,” Sigrid says. “Let’s see what we can do with that.” Quickly searching faces, Sigrid picks a stranger from the crowd at random. Just the first male traveler her eyes find, who happens to be standing in the spot where she needs a male traveler to be standing. “Now, do you see that man at the end of the schedule cabinet, smoking his pipe? Go ask him for a light.”

She stares.

“Go. I’m right behind you.”

The man is a dull Berliner mensch with a bland, midwinter face. He carries a worn valise, and is peering at the schedules with a stiff frown, the stem of his pipe locked between his teeth. He looks at Ericha in a perplexed manner when she asks him for a light for her cigarette. Sets down his valise to search his pockets for a lighter. Sigrid notes a swastika pin attached to his lapel. Even better, she thinks.

“Let’s go,” she says to Ericha, pulling the girl away by the arm, as she spots Becker and a Stapo trench coat by the kiosk closing in. “Just keep walking.”

Behind them, they can hear the anonymous pipe smoker stammering loudly. Protesting his innocence. “This can’t be! I’m a Party member! A Party member!” he repeats fervently. Then suddenly there is a man in front of them, blocking their way, his eyes hard as steel balls, glaring from beneath his snap-brim fedora. Sigrid can feel Ericha’s urge to break away, her urge to flee, but she holds her arm tightly.

“You have five minutes,” the man hisses, his monkeylike ears flushing red. “I can’t delay them longer.” And then he pushes past.

Ericha looks astonished, but when she starts to speak, Sigrid cuts her off. “No explanations now, please, only action.” The SA band has marched into the station behind the troops, and the drum major has struck up an old military chestnut, “Watch on the Rhine,” squeaky with brass, solemn and ponderous. Sigrid plows straight into the crowd that has gathered to listen, with Ericha in tow, not looking back. The restaurant is crowded with grim-faced patrons, girding themselves for wartime rail travel. Waitresses negotiate the piles of tableside luggage as children wail above the rumble of conversation. Sigrid brushes past the young hostess at the entrance, and starts giving orders. “Come! Come! You’re going to miss the train!”

The expression on Frau Weiss’s face freezes up, but Sigrid is already at their table, handing their suitcases to Ericha. “Is your meal paid for?”

A glance to Ericha from Frau Weiss. “Yes.”

“Then let’s go. You can have a second cup of coffee in Frankfurt. No more dawdling,” she insists, and hoists the youngest girl up into her arms. “Come, little one, to the train. Don’t forget your tiger.”

Outside the restaurant, she sees Becker and his man in the trench coat furiously searching the crowds. “To the boarding platforms,” Sigrid instructs Frau Weiss. “Follow me and don’t stop for anyone.” Behind them a whistle blasts. Someone shouts, “Halt!”

“Keep going!” She is heading for the troops. They are out of formation now, crowding the platform as they are being boarded by harried transport officers. Wives and sweethearts are saying good-bye. Babies are being handed up to the windows to be kissed. BdM girls are decorating the soldiers’ backpacks with flags and tossing handfuls of tiny white swastika confetti.

“Kaspar!” she shouts, and one of the soldiers turns around. He blinks at her, his cap and shoulders dusted with the swastika snowflakes.

“Kiss the little one good-bye,” she prompts.

The man blinks again. But kisses the little girls on the cheek, giving the terrain a soldier’s reconnaissance. “Be good! Do as your mummy says,” he instructs loudly enough for everyone to hear. Sigrid grips him by the collar of his greatcoat. “Now, kiss your wife good-bye,” she tells him. The kiss, in that instant, contains all that she has to give. When she breaks away, she tells him, “They’re behind us.”

The child has started to whine uncomfortably in Sigrid’s grip as they cross the platform to the waiting train. Frau Weiss steps up, carrying her elder daughter, and coos at the child in Sigrid’s grip to reassure her. “It’s all right, Liebchen. It’s all all right.” A pair of rail porters are loading bags from trolleys onto the baggage car.

“Ericha,” Sigrid says, “leave the suitcases and keep walking.”

More whistles blowing behind them. Heads turning. She can hear Kaspar’s voice like a barrier, barring the way of their pursuers. “You pig. You desk coward. You think you can just shove past a frontline soldier without a word?” More voices join in, and a flood of angry invective chafes the air.

“My God,” she hears a woman bleat to her companion. “Did you see? Those soldiers just knocked that man to his knees!”

Sigrid closes her eyes long enough to swallow a beat of her heart, but does not slow. More whistles are blowing. More voices are raised. Track signals clang. “Sigrid, this is the wrong train,” Ericha tells her, with a buried frantic note. “We can’t put them on this train. We don’t have the correct tickets.”

“No one is traveling on this train, child. No one is traveling on any train. Up ahead, you’ll see a certain ticketing superintendent with whom you’ve done business. Only now he’s been paid to open a door. So keep moving.”

The superintendent is a chubby old bear in an old-fashioned Reichsbahn uniform and a peaked cap set too low on his brow. He avoids eye contact, frowns as he unlocks the door at the end of platform, and steps away, seeing nothing.

The cold air and noise of the Möckernstrasse hit them stiffly as they step out onto the sidewalk, and the door thunks shut behind them.

“The tunnel,” Sigrid commands, and heads for the concrete stairwell below the sign that reads PLAZA PASSAGEWAY TO THE HOTEL EXCELSIOR. SHOPPING IN THE TUNNEL. The stairwell leads downward to a bustling corridor, dull yellow with the glow of subterranean lighting. Sigrid has a flash of her mother gazing into a dress shop window, while her father frowns at his watch, but the shops are closed now, NUR ANTRAPPEN notices in the windows.

“Follow me. Hurry, but don’t run,” Sigrid instructs. But Ericha suddenly seems frozen.

“Frau Weiss,” Sigrid calls, and hands off the little girl to her. “Go straight. We’ll catch up.”

When Sigrid turns back, all Ericha says is, “I can’t.”

“You can and you will, if I must drag you, Fräulein Kohl,” Sigrid informs her. “Now, move, please.”

Halfway through the tunnel, Sigrid risks a glance over her shoulder, but there is no sign of the Gestapo. Ahead, a circus clown with a painted red grin is collecting for Winter Relief beside a Party man in full brown regalia and a swastika armband. The clown gives Frau Weiss’s children a jaunty wave, and they gaze back at him widely. “How goes it, little ones?” the clown calls to them. “Can you give up your ice creams today so Mutti can make a donation?” Sigrid quickly intervenes, dropping coins into the collection urn.

“Heil Hitler,” the Party man says, and smiles, flapping her a German salute.

“Heil Hitler, and good afternoon,” Sigrid says, smiling back, but keeps everyone walking, slowing only to pick up the older girl. Good soldier Liesl. The trusting weight of the child in her arms touches something in her, but all she says is, “At the end of the corridor, go left up the steps.”

The stairs leading upward are many, though Sigrid keeps her gaze aimed at the rectangle of hard white daylight waiting for them. As they emerge into the Saarlandstrasse, her eyes search, but only for a instant, before she spots Rudi, crushing out his cigarette on his boot heel, and stuffing the unsmoked butt behind his ear. Flinging open the rear door of his cab, he asks, “Taxi, gnädige Frauen?”

Frau Weiss into the rear first with the little one, and then Sigrid deposits Liesl. “In, please,” she tells Ericha next.

“You knew,” Ericha concludes in a penetrating whisper; her voice sounds as if it is drilling through a deep fog. “You knew that it was me, didn’t you?”

“You’re aware of the rules,” Sigrid answers. “No questions. Now, in, please,” she repeats.

And this time Ericha offers no resistance.

THE DILAPIDATED CANVAS-TOPPED LORRY sits in the dim recesses of an alley beside a bombed-out Handwerk warehouse on the south side of the canal.

“It was just where you said it would be,” Rudi announces. “An Opel Blitz three-tonner.”

“It meets your high standards, I hope?” Sigrid says

A shrug. “It’s a bit of an ogre. The three-tonner handles like a barge full of rocks. But at least it has new tires. I haven’t seen new tires since 1938.”

“And the papers were in place?”

According to the registration, your driver will be a civilian contractor, with a permit to transport a war widow and her children from Berlin to Lübeck, after the family’s flat was bombed, Kaspar’s letter to her had read.

“All in order,” Rudi assure her. “Very neat.”

“Yes,” Sigrid nods as she surveys the lorry, thinking of Kaspar as she lightly touches the high, side-view mirror. “Very neat.”

Climbing into the cab, Rudi turns over the engine and leaves it idling, the tailpipe stinking of diesel smoke, and then hops back down to the asphalt. Lowering the rear gate, he shoves back the canvas flaps, revealing a conglomeration of mismatched furnishings.

“So should I ask where all the furniture came from?” Sigrid inquires.

Rudi lifts his eyebrows. “I had a chum help me. If a family is moving, I thought it should look convincing. Which means furniture.” He tosses away the nib of a cigarette. “There’s room up front for the lady and her children,” he says. “And a bench in the rear for the Fräulein. We should load up.”

Sigrid peers into a small shack by the taxis’ shed, where a coffeepot sits on an electric hotplate. Frau Weiss clutching a tin cup, with Liesl on her lap. Little Ruthi with her wooden tiger tapping across the wooden floor. Ericha lowers her cigarette as her eyes rise, but Sigrid still avoids her gaze. “It’s time to go,” is all she says.

Rudi lifts the little girls up onto the front seat. Sigrid watches them scoot to the middle with a mixture of uncertainty and anticipation. Then she speaks to Frau Weiss in a confidential tone, handing her a small envelope. “I picked these up at an apothecary. Sedatives. Mild enough for the girls. It’s a long trip to Lübeck, and it’ll help them sleep.”

“Thank you, Frau Schröder,” the woman replies, gripping Sigrid’s hand, her eyes warming with tears.

“Keep your children close, Frau Weiss,” Sigrid tells her.

“I will. Thank you,” she repeats.

“Mama,” the little one calls, and waves the wooden tiger.

“When they reach Lübeck,” Sigrid says, “give them this kiss for me,” she smiles, and carefully kisses the woman’s cheek and watches her climb aboard.

Only now, when there is no other choice, does she look Ericha in the eyes.

“And so it’s you next,” she says. “Come, come. We don’t want the lorry to run out of petrol idling in the alley. Climb aboard.”

“Sigrid.”

“If you’re stopped, which you won’t be, but if you are, tell them that you’re visiting your fiancée in the Kriegsmarine. Heinrich. I think that’s a good name for a fiancée, don’t you? Heinrich Schuler of Third Port Battery Command. Now, climb aboard, or shall I have Rudi lift you up like one of the children? You’d do that for me, wouldn’t you, Rudi? Tell her.”

“I follow the gnädige Frau’s orders,” Rudi confirms. He raises one of the lorry’s hood covers and makes an adjustment, which causes the motor to growl impatiently. “But we must get moving. Lübeck isn’t exactly a Sunday drive.”

“Exactly so. Therefore, no delays, please. I’ve given Rudi your Reisepass along with your travel papers and money for your passage. For once, Fräulein Kohl, just do as you’re told. It’ll be a new experience for you.”

“You haven’t answered me,” Ericha says. Her eyes like shattered blue shards of crystal.

“What I knew, child, is that I wasn’t going to allow that baby inside of you to be born in a concentration camp. Nothing else. Only that.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes.”

“ I can’t simply leave.”

“Yes. You can. It’s an uncomplicated process. You ride in a lorry till you reach a ship. Then you sail in that ship till you reach the shore of Sweden. And then you are safe.” She feels her eyes heating up. Going damp.

“You think I want to be safe?”

“I think that regardless of what you want, Fräulein Kohl, we must have you safe.”

Ericha stares. “And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yes. Frau Schröder.” She swallows. “What about her?”

“She will continue,” Sigrid answers. She looks away to wipe the tears from her eyes. “What else can she do? Now, there’s nothing more to be said,” she declares, and clasps Ericha close. “Except good-bye.” Her eyes suddenly sting. “Think of me often, my dearest girl,” she whispers as she hugs her so very tightly. “I will always think of you.”

“Ladies,” Rudi prompts.

Sigrid breaks away and stands back as Ericha accepts a hand from Rudi and climbs into the lorry. Rudi raises the tailgate and chains it shut, and then unlaces the canvas flaps, closing the curtain on the depth of Ericha’s gaze. “Tschüss, Chefin,” he says to Sigrid, as he climbs into the cab.

“Tschüss, Rudi,” she answers. The engine coughs, then turns over, sputtering irritably. But as the old junk heap jerks forward, Ericha parts the canvas flaps. “It’ll never work out,” she calls, tears streaking her face, “between Heinrich and me!”

And Sigrid watches her face as the lorry pulls out into the silvered daylight and turns onto the street.

The feature has started as she steps into the mezzanine balcony of the cinema. On the screen, a squad of soldiers is crouched in a circle around a fallen comrade. There are a few faces in the audience, hard to read in silhouette, staring at the screen. She knows she is late, and is ready to believe that he did not wait, though the thought rips at her heart.

But then she spots him. Under the projector in the back row.

“So,” she hears him say in graveled whisper, “pigs fly.”

“I’m only here,” she tells him, her words thickening in her throat. “I am only here to say good-bye.”

“Then, Frau Schröder,” he tells her, “your timing is impeccable.”

As he shifts, she sees his hand pressed against his side. Sees the pain shaping his face in the flickering glow, and the dark stain on his fingers.

“You’re hurt,” she whispers sharply.

“I suppose one could say that.”

“My God, Egon, we must get you to a doctor.”

“No.”

“It’s all right. There’s a doctor who keeps his mouth shut. No questions. I know where his surgery is.”

“No, Sigrid. No doctors. This is not a matter for doctors,” he says, and swallows pain as he tries to reach into his coat. “I can’t,” he breathes. “I need your help. There’s an envelope.”

“Egon.”

“Please, Sigrid, just get it.”

Carefully, she reaches into his coat. Hand brushing across his chest. An intimate dip into the recesses of his clothing. Then there’s the envelope. Wartime paper, rough against her fingertips. She draws it out.

“Don’t open it until you’re somewhere safe. You’ll find a claim ticket inside,” he tells her, then his face twists. He chokes back a cry. “Fucking hell,” he whispers. “That’s the last time I order the Stammgericht at the Kranzler.”

“Tell me what happened. Tell me,” she whispers her command.

“Your young U-boat.”

A flash of the hawkish eyes, and the angry voice in her ear: Grizmek. I’ve seen you with him. “He found you,” she breathes.

“Well, his knife blade did.”

“And I led him to you,” she says with damp horror, but Egon shakes his head.

“No. Not you. It was my mistake. Like most animals, I’m prone to habit. I foolishly made a return to my old hunting grounds around the Gedächtniskirche, and there he was, waiting. My personal angel of death. He must have spotted me on the street and followed me into the U-Bahn. I didn’t see him till the knife was out.” He nearly smiles. “Justice, isn’t it? A kind of justice? You can’t disagree,” he insists. “Maybe that’s what I was looking for. But never mind. What’s important now is the claim ticket. Take it to the baggage desk at the Bahnhof Zoo. The clerk will give you a leather kit bag in return. Inside of it,” he says, and then must stop to breathe in the pain. “Inside of it,” he repeats, “you’ll find eighty thousand marks.”

“Egon.” She whispers his name. Maybe just to hear it aloud.

“I think, with that kind of wire, you can smuggle out a lot of Jews, don’t you, Frau Schröder? Call it my contribution.” He tries to grin, but then lurches forward for an instant, like a wrestler trying to establish a superior grip on his opponent. When he falls back into the seat, there is blood where he has bitten into his lip. “Go, will you?”

“No.”

“Yes. Please, Sigrid. It isn’t safe here. Besides. I don’t want you to watch me die. Not like this.”

Tears wet her cheeks. “I won’t leave you.”

“You’ve never watched a man die from a belly wound. But I have. It’s ugly. As ugly as it gets. And I’d rather your last memory of me not involve any puking of blood. So, please. Go.” He says this as the pain cuts into him again, and he shudders angrily, trying to contain it. “Go,” he repeats.

But she knows that for once she will not do what he asks of her. “No, Egon,” she says, and wipes the tears from her eyes efficiently. She has given him her breath and the pulse of her body. Given him her passion, her hatred, and her love, her past and future. Given him all that is essential in her, so that she will never be whole without him. But it hasn’t been enough. She knows she must give him one final gift. His freedom.

“I have something for you. Something that will help,” she tells him gently. She had pinned it into her hair in case she was taken. In case she was tossed into in a prison cell with nothing. The small brass capsule. She removes it from the prong of the hairpin and opens it up. “Something that will act very quickly.”

The film projector mutters above them, beaming sterile, blue-white light. He gazes thickly at the glass vial in the palm of her hand. “Your resourcefulness, Sigrid Schröder, continues to astound me.” Then he raises his eyes to hers. “But I can’t,” he says. “I can’t let you waste it.”

“Waste it,” she repeats.

“What happens. what happens when the day comes that you need it for yourself?”

“It won’t come,” she says.

But he manages to shake his head. “You don’t know that. In fact. If you’ve learned anything—it should be how easy it is for people—for people to betray one another. That day may come. And then you’ll have”—he breathes in raggedly—“no way out.”

“I don’t care. I won’t let you suffer like this.”

“Suffer?” He almost smiles. “It’s the least that I deserve. Ask anyone. Ask yourself. Is the selfish bastard worth it?”

“Yes,” she replies. “That’s my decision. He is. Now, no more argument, if you please, Herr Grizmek.” And then, “Please, Egon,” she whispers. “Let me. Let me help you.”

His eyes have closed.

“Egon.”

When they open again, he says, “My daughters.” Staring ahead. “My daughters. When I close my eyes, I can see their faces.” He says this as if it surprises him, or haunts him. When she speaks his name again, he doesn’t answer her. Only stares ahead and grits his teeth through a spasm. Then blinks his eyes once when it ends. The tears steam her eyes as she carefully parts his lips with her fingers. He does not resist as she inserts the vial into the back of his mouth and whispers heat into his ear. “I love you. I will love you always.” The last heat she will ever offer him. He hesitates, infinitesimally, before he bites down. She feels his body flinch. Nothing more than that. A flinch. And then she feels its stillness enter her heart.

She is not sure how long she remains beside him in the darkness. Nor can she determine exactly the point when she separates herself from him, unclasping her hand from his. Closing his eyes, she kisses each lid. A painless calm has formed his expression. Gazing at him, she remembers how only sleep could quiet his face.

AT THE BAGGAGE CLAIM in Bahnhof Zoo, she exchanges the chit in Egon’s envelope for a hefty black leather kit bag, heavily worn around the seams. When she cracks it opens, she sees the hundred-mark denomination of the bank-fresh stacks. Quickly she closes the bag’s clasp. As she passes through the station she witnesses a man coming home to his family from this travels. Two little girls in their mother’s arms chirping happily at their father’s arrival. A small shudder passes through her like a thin length of wire, but she does not slow her pace.

Outside, under a hard white dome of light, she finds the blind man, beneath the clock. A passing rinse of afternoon rain, typical for Berlin, has turned the pavement into a slick mirror, throwing back a distorted reflection of the day.

“A coin in memory of our sacred dead?” the man rasps.

She can feel him gazing at her from behind the dark lenses of this goggles, and peers into their black reflection. “Yes. For the dead,” she agrees. Though as her coins ring in his cup, she bends her head toward his, as if to tell him a secret. “But I am working for the living now.”