Leaving Berlin

2

The reception had been called for four, the early hour, Martin explained, because of the difficulties getting home in the dark. “The West refuses to sell us coal, so naturally there are shortages.” “And we refuse to sell them food.” “Because they refuse to sell us coal.” The kind of airless, circular argument Alex remembered from meetings in Brentwood, before he stopped going.

Even at this hour, though, the sky was already dusky, filled with clouds promising snow. They picked their way along a path cleared through the rubble toward the light of the club windows. The Kulturbund was on Jägerstrasse, just off Friedrichstrasse, and suddenly familiar.

“Well,” Alex said. “The old Club von Berlin.” Where Fritz had often spent the afternoons, napping after a brandy.

“I don’t know,” Martin said, slightly stiff. “Now the Kulturbund.” The only thing it had ever been to him.

“The Nazis changed the name. Herrenclub, I think, but it was the same people. Landowners. Old money. Funny it should be here, the Kulturbund.”

“Funny?”

“Culture was the last thing on their minds.” Nodding over papers in the library. Playing cards in one of the private rooms. Buying each other drinks in the bar, maybe even where Fritz had arranged the favor for him, Oranienburg for a price.

“Then it’s good, yes? Better.”

“The waiters had tailcoats, I remember,” Alex said.

“Yes,” Martin said, uncomfortable.

“Still?” Alex said, amused. “So. Socialist tailcoats.”

Martin looked away, not sure how to answer.

Inside they could hear tinkling glasses and voices floating down the marble staircase.

“I thought we’d be early,” Alex said, giving up his coat.

“Everyone is anxious to meet you,” Martin said, leading the way. “Goethe.” He pointed to the portrait on the landing.

At the top they were met by a huddle of men, all wearing lapel pins with the SED handshake.

“Such an honor. Your trip was comfortable?”

One polite question after another until they blended into one, the usual official welcome. Alex nodded and smiled, automatic responses. No one knew.

There were two dining rooms, one with walnut paneling and the other, where the party was, with a burgundy satin brocade, the long members’ table now pushed against the wall for a buffet spread. He smiled to himself. Anxious to meet him, but already filling plates, the eager freeloading of any faculty lounge. Someone handed him a glass of sweet champagne. The room looked neglected, the brass railings dull and the carpet tired, but it was otherwise much as he remembered, plush furniture and heavy drapes, like a room in the von Bernuth house. Was she already here?

“So, my friend. Ruth told me she saw you.” Brecht, grasping his arm as he shook his hand, the stub of a cigar smoldering in his mouth.

“Yes, she’s here?”

“Still in Leipzig. She likes to make these little trips. I said, send a letter. But, well, Ruth. So, you’re here. All the little birds returning to the nest. And Feuchtwanger was sorry to see you go, yes? Always sorry, but he stays. How is it there now?”

“Still warm and sunny.”

Brecht shrugged. “So, sun. But now everyone’s here. Speaking German again.” He waved his hand to the room, and, as if in response, the sound rose, lapping at them, the comfortable babble of one’s own language. “There’s a spirit, you can feel it.”

“I hear they’re giving you a theater.” Making conversation, sleepwalking. Had the British soldiers seen anything?

Another shrug. “People come up to you in the street. They know who you are. In California, who do they know? So it’s flattering. But the work we can do now. Not Quatsch for some studio. Wait till you seen Helene. Magnificent. You’re at the Adlon too, Ruth said? It’s comfortable. Better than a house, while this is going on.” A finger to the ceiling, the unseen stream of planes. “They won’t sell us coal, so it’s a problem.” Martin’s explanation, what everybody knew.

Alex looked over Brecht’s shoulder. The room was filling up, men in old suits and women without makeup in wool skirts and thin shapeless cardigans.

“You know who’s also here? Zweig. Soon everybody. Except Saint Thomas maybe. The bourgeois comforts, very important to him. A Biedermeier soul, Herr Mann. Biedermeier prose too,” he said, a small twinkle, having fun. “A stuffed sofa, with tassels. In his case maybe Switzerland would be better.”

“Why should he go anywhere?”

“He can’t stay there. It’s starting again. He thinks the Nobel will protect him? Not if they-well, you know this. Who better? I congratulate you, by the way. I didn’t know-forgive me-you had such strong-” He paused, peering at Alex. “A dark horse. All the time-I didn’t know you were even in the Party.”

“I’m not. Other people were. But that was their business. Most of them left anyway. After ’39.”

Brecht looked around, hesitant. “Well, that time. It’s not so well understood here. How people felt. To them, you know, it was a kind of disloyalty. Not to follow the Party.”

“And be nice to Hitler. But of course Stalin knew what he was doing all along.”

A flicker of caution, then a small smile, unable to resist. “He usually did,” Brecht said, a boy being naughty. He looked at Alex. “They’ll ask you to join now. Just tell them you’re not a joiner. No organizations. A writer works alone.”

“Is that what you said?”

“It’s enough discipline with Helene,” he said, waving the cigar, then lowered his voice. “Then you’re not obliged-to do what they say. A little independence. They have to work with you. Push-pull. And they will. It’s a new start here.” He cocked his head west. “Over there, business as usual. It doesn’t change. Nazis. The Americans don’t care, as long as they’re not Communists. Like the committee. But here there’s a chance.” Believing it, like Martin. “But first, bread. They’re reissuing your books?”

Alex nodded. “All of them. Even Notes in Exile. Pieces.”

“Make sure they pay. They can afford it. They get a subsidy. It’s a priority with the Russians, culture. Coal not so much,” he said, another wry shrug. “You’ve met Dymshits?”

“Not yet.”

“A lover of German literature-Goethe, by heart. There he is. Sasha,” he said, approaching a slight man with dark hair and glasses, eyes slightly watery. “Meet our guest of honor. Major Dymshits.”

“I’m so pleased,” he said, taking Alex’s hand. Another face from the faculty lounge, bookish, an eager smile. “Welcome.”

“I gather you’re responsible for bringing me here.”

“Your talent brings you here,” he said with a quiet flourish, his German precise but accented.

Alex nodded, a court gesture. “My thanks in any case. And for this reception. So much-”

“My advice is have some ham now. It always goes first.” A polite joke, the smile in place again. “Artists are always hungry, it seems. There is so much I want to ask you. The scene in The Last Fence when the shirt catches on the barbed wire- Perhaps a lunch one day, if you would like that?”

“Of course,” Alex said. That easy. Just as Willy had hoped. When that was all they’d wanted.

People were still coming in, more men than women, none with her blond hair. She wouldn’t stay in a corner, she’d come up to him. Almost family. How would she look? Fifteen years.

“This is your publisher,” Dymshits was saying. “Aaron Stein. Aaron will be taking care of you at Aufbau.”

“An honor,” Stein said, bowing, a younger version of Dymshits, the same glasses and gentle Semitic face. “We’re so pleased. I hope you will come to the offices, meet everyone. We’re just down the street. Notes in Exile-”

“Of course it’s a favorite with him,” Dymshits said. “Both of you exiles. Aaron was in Mexico City with Janka and Anna Seghers.”

“Mexico. What was that like?”

“All right,” Aaron said tentatively. “Of course, foreign. Walter had a little Spanish, from his time in Spain, you know, but most of us-so we had each other. Los Angeles was better, I think. Anyway we used to think so. Everyone wanted to go to America.”

“Even those of us who were already there,” Brecht said, a growl in his voice. “Where was it, this America we’d heard about? In Burbank? Culver City? No, not possible. So maybe nowhere. No such place.”

“Like Mahagonny,” Dymshits said.

Brecht ignored this, taking a drink instead.

“Here’s Colonel Tulpanov,” Dymshits said, standing straighter. “He very rarely comes, so you see how popular you are.”

“His boss,” Brecht said.

Dymshits shot him a glance, pretending not to be annoyed.

Tulpanov, in military uniform and short-cropped hair, had none of Dymshits’s easy manner. There was an awkward exchange, welcome and thank you, then a blank pause, waiting for Dymshits to fill it with small talk.

“You know where they are?” Brecht said, a nod to Tulpanov. “The Information Administration? Goebbels’s old offices.”

“The building doesn’t matter,” Dymshits said quickly, before Tulpanov could decide whether to take offense. “It’s what we do inside. Anyway, there were not so many buildings left standing. In those days you took what you could get. You know, we had a theater open that first month. Then more.” This directly to Brecht. “Newspapers. Film licenses. So Berlin would have a life again. Ah, Bernhard, come and meet our guest.”

After that it was a succession of handshakes, a blur of introductions. Brecht had drifted away to provoke someone else, and Tulpanov held court by the drinks table, obviously just waiting to leave. Dymshits gave a formal toast, welcoming Alex home to build the new Germany. “As we know,” he said, “politics follows culture,” and people nodded as if it made sense to them. Alex looked at their bright, attentive faces, Brecht’s cynicism as out of place here as it had been in California, and for the first time felt the hope that warmed the room. Shabby suits and no stockings, but they had survived, waited in hiding or miraculously escaped, for this new chance, the idea the Nazis hadn’t managed to kill.

Nothing was being asked of him. He acknowledged the toast with a few words of appreciation, thanking everybody for the welcome, but no one expected a speech. It was enough that he was here. Dymshits wanted lunch, some literary conversation. Aaron Stein hoped that he would help Aufbau by giving an opinion now and then on an English book. Martin wanted him to make the Kulturbund a kind of second home. But all he really had to do was collect his stipend and work as he pleased. In America there had never been enough. Without Marjorie’s paycheck, how would they have managed? And now here in the Soviet zone, of all places, he was comfortable, even prized. Everyone seemed oddly grateful that he had come. There were polite questions about America, whether he thought they would accept a neutral Germany or try to rearm their zone, asked hesitantly, fearing the answer, and it occurred to him, an unexpected irony, that despite the blockade it was they who felt besieged, that his welcome was that of a soldier who’d managed to get through the lines and rejoin his unit.

“I hope you won’t mind.” Someone speaking English. “I just wanted to tell you I think it was great what you did, standing up to them. It’s about time.” A woman holding a plate heaped with salami and potato salad, the voice New York quick. “I’m Roberta Kleinbard,” she said, motioning with the plate as a substitute for a handshake. “God, it’s such a relief to speak English. You don’t mind, do you? Herb says I’ll never learn German if I keep falling back on it. But it’s hard. You read the papers and that’s all right and then somebody wants to really talk and half of it just sails over your head.”

“You’re living here?”

She nodded. “We figured it was just a matter of time back home. You know, like you with the committee. Herb was in the Party. Nobody’s going to hire him once that comes out.”

“What does he do?”

“Architect. And what’s an architect supposed to do if he can’t do that? Work at Schrafft’s?” She waved her hand in dismissal. “They won’t be satisfied till they hunt us all down. It’s not illegal, but tell that to the boss. The client. Anyway, he was from here originally and God knows they could use architects.” She cocked her head to the invisible ruins outside. “So I thought, it’s better than sitting around waiting for some subpoena. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction.”

“And how has it been? For you, I mean.”

“Well, it’s not New York, let’s face it. Try and get a decent lipstick. They’re going through a rough time. You know, just keeping warm. But Herb’s working. He’s not sitting in some jail for taking the Fifth. He likes it. And the plans they’re working on-like starting over. But this time you build it the way you want it to look. You’re not going to do that in New York. So it’s good for him.” She looked around. “I know he’s dying to meet you. He wanted-did you know Neutra? Out in California? Neutra’s like a god to him.”

“No, never met him.”

“But you were in Los Angeles, right? I just thought, you know, Germans, they’d naturally know each other.”

“Neutra’s been there a long time. He probably thinks of himself as American. Anyway, he was Austrian. Vienna, I think.”

“And not German, there’s a difference, and everybody here would know that, right? And there’s me with my foot in my mouth again.” She rolled her eyes.

Alex smiled. “Only the Austrians care. So you’re mostly right. Anyway, never met him. What about you? What do you do while your husband’s building Berlin?”

“Well, they’re not building it yet, so I’m still helping him with the drawings. That’s how we met. I was a draftsman. And there’s Richie to look after.”

“Your son?” he said, a sudden drop in his stomach, unexpected.

“Mm. But he’s in school now, so he’s gone most of the day.” She looked away, following her thought. “You do get homesick sometimes. And some of the ideas they have. About the States. All we do is beat up people on picket lines and lynch Negroes. Not that things are so wonderful but-”

“They really say that?”

“Well, the Russians. But you see things in Richie’s books now, so you wonder what they’re getting in the schools. The evils of capitalism, all right, fine, plenty of those to go around, I agree, but lynching-are we talking about the same place?” She looked back. “But it’s better than having his father in jail. And things’ll improve.”

“They might even have lipstick soon,” he said lightly.

She flushed, as if she’d been caught at something. “I can’t believe I said that. Lipstick when-”

“No, it’s nice to see a woman looking her best. Even Socialist ones,” he said, harmless party talk, then saw that she had taken it as a pass, her eyes moving to the room.

“Is your wife here?”

“No, she’s-in the States. We’re separated.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it. “Because of this-you coming here?”

“Because of a lot of things.”

“They never talk about that, the strain it puts on people. Do you testify? Do you cooperate? What it does to the families. Always wondering. Are they watching? Friends of ours, they’d see a car parked outside-so, FBI? How do you know? It’s the strain.”

He looked at her, at a loss, not what he had meant, but now Martin joined them, slightly shiny from the wine.

“There you are. I have to steal him for a few minutes. You don’t mind? Anna’s here,” he said, lowering his voice.

He led Alex across the room, his bad leg skipping over the floor, to a woman talking to a small circle of men. Anna Seghers was shorter than Alex had expected but otherwise the same woman he’d seen in jacket photos for years. Her hair was white now, pulled back around her head, a halo effect that made her seem radiant. Martin, clearly dazzled, presented Alex as if she were granting him an audience, a gnädige Frau. Alex dipped his head as he took her hand.

“Oh, I’m not as grand as that,” she said easily. “Or as old. How nice to meet you finally. Not just in your books. Welcome home.”

“And you not just in yours.”

“Tell me, did you have anything to do with the film they made of The Seventh Cross? They said every German in Hollywood had a hand in the script.”

“Not this one,” Alex said, holding his hands up. “All clean.”

Seghers laughed. “Good. Now we can be friends. But I suppose I shouldn’t complain. It was very nice to have the money. Even in Mexico money doesn’t go very far. So, a godsend. And how are you getting on here?”

“I’ve just arrived. Literally. Last night.”

“The first few days, it’s difficult,” she said, her voice warm, confiding. “When you see Berlin now. The trick is to see what it’s going to be. Germany without Fascism. Sometimes I thought I would never see that. I hoped, but- And now it’s here. So never mind the mess, you can always clear bricks away. Fascists were a little harder, no?”

“You sure they’re all gone?”

“Well, it’s like weeds, always there. So you get new soil, not so good for them. Change the economic system and they don’t grow so well.”

“Maybe they become something else.”

She looked at him, interested. “Maybe. Let’s talk about this. Not here. You have to meet a hundred people. Say nice things. The same nice things. I know how it is. But maybe you’ll come see me? Come for tea and we can talk all afternoon. About what the Fascists become. Martin, you’ll tell him where?” Meeting everyone, just as Willy said. A true believer, used for ribbon cutting.

Martin nodded, impressed, the invitation clearly an honor.

“Ach, there’s Brecht,” she said, noticing him across the room. “Poking, poking with the finger. More mischief. He thinks he’s eighteen years old still. Well, maybe that’s the answer, he is. You knew him in America?”

“Yes.”

“Not a happy time for him. He says. Imagine what it was for Helene. But of course he doesn’t. Imagine it. And now making everyone dance. First this, then that. Now he wants a car and a driver. When everything is so difficult for people, scarcely enough to go around, he wants a car and a driver. Like a-” She searched for the word.

“Great dramatist.”

Now it was Seghers who smiled. “I look forward to our tea. Come this week. You’re free?”

Alex opened his hands.

“We have a few things scheduled,” Martin said, playing secretary.

“The Kulturbund,” Seghers said, an indulgent glance to Martin. “They hate to see us actually write. Fill the days, fill the days.”

“It’s lunch with Dymshits.”

“Well, then you must go. Our masters.” She put a hand on Alex’s arm. “It won’t always be like this. An occupied country. Now they can do what they like-take away factories, anything. Well, so it’s the spoils. It’s difficult for the German Party, people think we’re lackeys, but what else can we do? Wait. And one day, it’s a German government. And at least when they leave, they leave a workers’ state. A German idea. Marx always had Germany in mind. I often wonder, how would it have been if it had happened here, not Russia. Well, we’ll see.” She stopped, cutting herself off. Did Campbell, anyone, really want to hear all this? Just static in the air. “Go have your lunch with Dymshits. He’s a cultivated man. Brecht says he reminds him of Irving Thalberg.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Brecht never knew Thalberg. He was dead before Brecht got there. Years before.”

Seghers snorted. “Typical Bert. So your wife is here? I’d like to meet-”

Alex shook his head. “In America. She’s American.”

“Ah,” Seghers said, looking at him, shuffling through stories, reluctant to ask. “Maybe later. When things are easier here.”

“Yes, maybe later.” A harmless lie, closing things off.

He felt someone hovering at his side and turned. A young man with wire-rimmed glasses and dark, neatly combed hair.

“So you don’t recognize me.”

Alex stared, trying to imagine the face fifteen years ago. Serious, sharp-edged now, not a hint of the youthful fuzziness he must have had in old school pictures. “I’m sorry.”

“No? Well, who remembers the younger brother? There’s a clue.”

Another look.

“Never mind. I don’t blame you. I was ten years old. So things have changed.” He held out his hand. “Markus Engel.”

“Kurt’s brother?” His head in her lap.

“Ah, now the bell goes off. The little brother. Maybe you didn’t even notice back then. But of course I knew you. All of Kurt’s friends.” He turned his head. “Comrade Seghers. We haven’t met but I recognized you from your photographs.”

“If only I still looked like that,” she said pleasantly. “Well, I’ll leave you to talk old times.” She took Alex’s hand. “So glad you’re with us. I’ll have Martin arrange the tea.”

Markus watched her go. “A good Communist. There should be more like her.”

Alex looked at him, surprised. “Aren’t there?”

“I mean the exiles. So many years in the West, it changes people sometimes. But not her.” He half smiled at Alex. “Or you it seems. You came back.” He paused. “You didn’t bring your wife, I think? She’s staying in America?”

The third person to ask, but this time a hint of interrogation, something for the file. Alex looked up, alert. Not unkempt and eager like Kurt, controlled, a policeman’s calm eyes, watching.

“Yes,” Alex said.

“Let’s hope, not too long. It’s not good for families to be apart.” Innocuous but somehow pointed, fishing for a reaction. The leverage of family left behind, what Campbell had wanted to know too.

“I’m afraid for good. We’re separated.”

“Oh,” Markus said, not sure where to take this. “And still you come. So a matter of conviction. Admirable. But you know it’s a serious issue, this exposure to the West. Not for you,” he said hastily. “Not the writers. But the Russian soldiers, POWs-it confuses them. Comrade Stalin immediately saw the problem. How it’s necessary to re-educate them if they’ve been in the West.”

Alex looked at him, disconcerted. Re-educate. Kurt’s little brother.

“It’s a long time you’re away,” Markus said.

“So I’m hopelessly tainted.”

A delayed reaction, taking this in. “I see, a joke. I’m saying only that you weren’t here. You’re meeting lots of old friends tonight? Ones you can recognize?” he said, smiling.

“You’re the first.”

“And your old house? Lützowplatz, I remember, yes? It’s still standing?”

Alex looked at him, unable to speak. What did he know?

“Often people do that,” Markus said. “Go to see if it’s still there. An understandable curiosity.”

“Yes, you wonder. So I went this morning.” Something easily checked. Play it out.

“An early riser.”

“Not too early,” Alex said vaguely. “I slept in a little. A long drive yesterday. But what a memory you have. Lützowplatz.”

“Well, I was reminded of it. There was an incident there this morning.”

“Oh?”

“You didn’t see anything yourself?”

“No. What kind of incident?” Keeping his voice steady.

Markus stared at him, then waved his hand. “Traffic accident. Carelessness.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“I think so, yes. Imagine surviving the war and then a stupid accident. A man was seen running away. Maybe the cause, it’s hard to say.” Then, at Alex’s expression, “I thought you might have seen-”

“No. Nothing. Not the house either. It was gone. The whole thing.”

Markus held his eyes for a moment, then decided to move on. “It’s difficult, coming back. I was with the first group in ’45. The streets-I didn’t know where I was. I thought, what city is this? But then, little by little-”

Alex took a breath, half listening, his mind darting. Of course Markus could get times from the Adlon doorman. But they wouldn’t be precise enough to put him there, already on his way back when the traffic accident happened. Why call it that? Why bring it up at all? And then back off. He saw him suddenly as a young boy, maybe even the boy he’d actually been, poking a toad with a stick, toying with it. Toying with him now. Don’t react. Nobody knew. Nobody in this noisy room suspected anything.

“The first group?” he said, picking up the thread. “From the army?”

“No, I was in exile, like you. But east.”

“East.”

“Moscow. At the Hotel Lux.” A name he assumed Alex would recognize.

“A hotel? All during-”

Markus smiled a little. “Not the Adlon. They kept all the Germans there, the German Communists. The SED leadership now, all Hotel Lux graduates. They say it was our Heidelberg. Well, if they could see it. Not so nice as the real Heidelberg.”

“But when-? I don’t know where to start. What happened to everybody? Kurt?”

“He was killed in Spain. It was after that we left for Russia. My mother and me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Markus shrugged. “A long time ago. At least a hero’s death. One of the first, in the International Brigade.”

“I didn’t know.”

“She never told you? Irene? You were so close to them, the family. Always at the house.”

Alex shook his head. “We weren’t in touch. After I left.”

“No, she wouldn’t have time to write. That kind of woman.”

“What kind?”

“The kind she is. She would already have another man by then. Kurt just dead and-” His voice unexpectedly bitter, a grudge he’d nursed for years. “Not that the others in that family were any better. Nazis.”

“The von Bernuths? They weren’t Nazis. They hid Kurt. From the SA. I was there.”

“Oh, the famous night under the stairs? That was for Erich.”

“I went for the doctor,” Alex said slowly, making a point. “For your brother. He needed stitches, not Erich.”

“Yes, and then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“Erich. He follows Kurt like a puppy. So, meetings. Leaflets. Illegal then. But what is it for him, politics? A fast car. Maybe a woman he shouldn’t be seeing. It’s exciting and then he comes to his senses and leaves her. And where does he go? Into the Wehrmacht.”

“That doesn’t make him a Nazi.”

“Not drafted. The father arranged a commission. From his Nazi friends. You’re surprised? Nobody forced him. The sister, Elsbeth, she even goes to rallies with her Nazi husband. We have photographs of this. An official party member.”

“Doctors had to join, didn’t they?” Alex said absently, his mind still back on we. We who? Who would have photographs?

“They live over in the West now,” Markus said. “It’s easier for them there.” He looked at Alex. “You’re like Kurt a little bit. He was always taken in by them too. But in the end-” His voice tailed off.

“And Irene?” Alex said. “You think she was a Nazi? She was in love with him.”

“Whatever that means to her.”

Alex ignored this. “They never married?”

Markus shook his head. “He said it was a risk for her. If he was arrested. And then he went to Spain. And that was the end of it.”

“But you expected her to-what? Wear black for the rest of her life? A young girl?”

“Maybe wait a little.”

“But she didn’t,” Alex said, curious, leading.

“A woman like that? Kurt thought she was-well, I don’t know what. Not somebody who works for Goebbels. Who marries-a sham marriage, to hide her affairs.”

“Worked for Goebbels how?”

“Everyone at Ufa worked for him, everyone in Kino. And what were they making? Propaganda. Our great National Socialist heroes. So how would Kurt have felt about that? A wonderful way to honor his memory-make films for the Nazis.”

“But what did she do?”

“Production assistant,” he said easily, familiar with her file. “Later, bigger jobs. So maybe she slept with someone. Then after, when there’s no more Goebbels, she goes to the Americans. The old Ufa crowd, back again, but now for the Americans.”

“Erich Pommer.”

“Yes, exactly, Pommer. But it’s not so easy getting a license to work. Even from old friends. Not after so many Horst Wessel films. So she changes sides again. Now DEFA. Soviet zone. Back to Babelsberg.”

“Then why hire her, if she’s so-what? Unreliable? It’s a Soviet studio.”

Markus hesitated, not expecting this, suddenly cautious, then raised his eyebrow, suggestive.

Alex looked away, just meeting his eyes a kind of complicity. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“What happened to everybody, you asked. So there’s an answer. People you knew-maybe they’re not the same.”

“None of us are,” Alex said, looking at him.

“No,” Markus said, meeting the look. “You, for instance, are now an honored guest of the Soviet Military Administration.” He waved his hand to the room. “A public figure. How you live, who you see. These things are noticed. You want to be with people of the future, not the past.”

“Are you telling me not to see them? The family?”

“I’m telling you who they are. It’s not like the old days. People like you-guests of the state-set an example.”

“Is this official or just some personal advice?”

“Official?”

“Hotel Lux graduate. Don’t you work for the Party?”

“Don’t you?” Markus said. “A very generous stipend.” He paused. “No. I’m not speaking officially.”

“Good. Then since it’s just between the two of us-” He looked up. “And even if it isn’t. Being a guest works two ways. You don’t have to keep me and I don’t have to stay. I travel on a Dutch passport. If the Party doesn’t like the example I’m setting, I’ll start packing. But Fritz von Bernuth saved my life. So if I want to see his family, I’ll see them.”

Markus’s face twitched. “Your famous temper,” he said finally, forcing a small arch smile. “Sometimes confused with political principle.”

Alex dug his nails into his palm. Don’t rise to it. Every answer reported.

“Not by me,” he said.

Another pause, as if Markus’s fingers were on a chess piece. Defuse it.

“I’m a little touchy about Fritz, that’s all. He was a good friend to my father.”

Markus nodded, accepting this.

“Now both dead,” Alex said. “And yours? I should have asked earlier. Your mother?”

A flash in Markus’s eyes that Alex couldn’t interpret, almost panic.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said quickly. “She’s dead?”

Another flash and then the eyes cleared, Markus in control again. “She’s in Russia.”

“Oh. She’s staying there?”

“For now,” Markus said, a twist to his mouth. “Like your wife.”

Alex sidestepped this. “It must have been difficult for you. During the war. To be a German in Moscow.”

“By that time I could speak Russian, so not so difficult,” he said, suddenly thoughtful. “But of course people were suspicious. The Wehrmacht did terrible things, and some people thought, well, maybe it’s something in the blood. Not the Party, of course. To them we were Communists only. Even then they were planning for after the war. A new Germany. So we were well treated.” He paused. “We were the future.” Said plainly, without his usual edge, maybe what he really believed.

“You’re sure of that?” A voice next to them, waiting for an opening, stepping closer now. “Markus.” A formal hello, with a bow, the awkward body of a tall man.

“Well, Ernst,” Markus said, surprised. “In the east? What are you doing here?” Trying to keep his voice genial, but displeased. “You have joined the Kulturbund now?”

“A guest only.”

“Yes? Whose?”

“I’ll let you find that out,” the man said, as if he were proposing a game. He turned to Alex, dipping his head and handing him a business card. “Ernst Ferber, RIAS.”

Alex looked at the card. Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor. Then, underneath, Radio in the American Sector.

“The initials work in both languages,” he said.

“Yes, it’s convenient.”

“Propaganda is the same word in both too,” Markus said.

“As you say,” Ernst said.

“You want to interview him? RIAS? A man who left America?”

“No, I wanted to be sure he’s really here. The news can be so unreliable these days. And of course to pay my respects.” This to Alex, with another dip of his head. “The Last Fence. An important book for us. You must know that.”

“Thank you.”

“He is not giving interviews to RIAS,” Markus said.

“Not now, no. I don’t expect that. Perhaps later. Meanwhile, you can listen to the music. Everybody does. Even in Karlshorst, I hear. The Russians listen to us.”

“Nonsense. What do you mean, perhaps later?”

“Well, he’s here now. Under your protection,” he said to Markus. “Let’s see for how long. A man who writes The Last Fence.”

“I’ve come to stay,” Alex said quickly, before Markus could answer for him.

“I know why you’re here,” Ferber said, looking at him, and for a second Alex stopped breathing, not sure if something else was being said. RIAS a natural cover. “A strange time in America. Some excesses, maybe.” He turned to Markus. “You know how that can be.” Then, back to Alex, “But as I say, you may change your mind, and that would be an interesting story for us. Meanwhile you are welcome to visit anytime.” He nodded to the card. “Come have coffee, see the station. If you can travel. He’s allowed?”

“Everyone’s allowed to travel in Berlin,” Markus said, annoyed. “Look at you. In the Russian sector. Who stops you?”

“Good,” Ferber said to Alex, aware he was needling Markus by ignoring him. “Then I hope you will come. I knew your father a little. At the university. It would be a pleasure to talk. Maybe you could explain it, why you- Well, we’ll save it for the coffee.” He shook hands, a good-bye. “Markus, I’ll do a favor for you. No need to turn the Kulturbund upside down. No one brought me. I just came. Not very gracious, I know, an uninvited guest, but I drank very little, so it’s not too bad. So now maybe you’ll tell me something. The men in Lützowplatz this morning. You’ve made an identification yet? Not the American, the Germans. All Karlshorst will say is ‘Not yet identified.’ Of course, records are not so complete since-”

“The accident, you mean?” Alex said, assuming a puzzled expression, waiting for Markus’s response.

“An accident with guns?” Ferber said, raising an eyebrow. “Well, a Berlin accident. So, ‘Not yet’?”

“Not yet.” Markus paused. “Lützowplatz. The British sector. Why ask Karlshorst? What makes you think they’re from the East?”

Ferber looked at him. “Just a guess. Well, thank you for your hospitality.”

“What did he mean, with guns?” Alex said when he left.

“I don’t know,” Markus said, shrugging this off. “Some joke of his. He’s a great one for making jokes. Coming here like that. Be careful of him.”

“Him too?”

“I say these things only to help you. You’re new to Berlin-not the old one, this one. If you broadcast for him, it would be a provocation.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going on the radio. Anywhere. Just the men’s room. Would you excuse me for a moment?” Anxious to be out of it. How much longer? He looked around.

“Let me show you,” Martin said, suddenly there, or perhaps there all along.

“I can find-”

“Please,” Martin said, beginning to escort him, a bobbing motion, dragging his bad foot.

“You really don’t have to-”

They were already out of the room, just under the portrait of Goethe.

“Herr Meier, a word?” Martin said, his voice lower, almost conspiratorial. “Herr Engel, he’s an old friend?”

“Not really. I knew his brother. He was a child-”

“You know he’s state security?”

“Markus?” Alex said, pretending to be surprised. And then, curious, “A German?”

“They have a special department for Germans. Now under the police. But when the Russians leave-”

“Thanks for letting me know. I don’t think I said anything-”

“It’s not a question of that. You’re free to say what you like,” he said simply. “It’s not Gestapo here anymore.”

“Then why the red flag?”

Martin licked his lips, hesitating. “The Kulturbund. It’s a very free atmosphere, as you see. Sometimes the police misinterpret.” He looked up. “You don’t want to say anything that might-”

“No, I don’t want to do that.” He looked around the old club. “Do the walls have ears too?”

“What?” Martin said, confused by the idiom.

“Nothing. Has there been some trouble with Markus?”

“No, no,” Martin said quickly. “It’s just something-to know.”

Alex looked at him. Part of the air he breathed.

And then suddenly, over Martin’s shoulder, he saw the lipstick, a tiny splash of red across the room, and she was there. He stopped listening. Martin was talking, his mouth moving, the whole room now just some indistinct hum. Lipstick, a plain white blouse, bright against the crowd of drab cardigans. And now she was turning her head, facing him, her eyes skimming over shoulders, finding his. What had he thought it would be like? Blood rushing through him, a purely physical reaction. He had wondered whether he would recognize her, whether the years had worn her away. But blood rushed through him, stopping up his ears, and they were looking at each other and what he felt was the secrecy of that summer, when it had been just the two of them, all these people oblivious, not even audible. Talking with her eyes, the way she had done that night at the house. My God. I never thought I would see you again. Do I look the same? I was afraid. What you would think. So many years. But we’re here, aren’t we? Both. Look at you. I remember everything. From that time. Do you? A sudden welling in the eyes. Don’t say anything. Not yet. Just keep looking. One more minute. Nobody sees us.

Then someone touched her arm, drawing her away from his gaze and she turned her head back, now only a side glimpse to Alex, something she’d done in Pomerania, the secret between them, while Elsbeth primped and Fritz drank and nobody knew. So close they could speak in glimpses. And now it was all here again, the hot afternoons with the smell of the fields, hiding in the dunes, the taste of her. He kept staring until she looked around again, then away, as if she knew what he was seeing, her head thrown back, his face between her legs.

A man’s back, in gray uniform, cut her off. The Russian? Not alone after all. The look maybe the only private conversation they’d have all night.

“Herr Meier-” Martin’s voice came back.

“Sorry. I’ve just seen somebody,” he said, turning to go.

“You don’t want the toilet? It’s there.” Holding out his arm.

“Oh, the toilet. Yes.” How long had he been dreaming, not listening? Her hair was longer, not bobbed, but still the color of straw.

In the men’s room he had to wait in line, the others smoking and grumbling, already unsteady from vodka. When he washed his hands, he looked up in the mirror. A conversation in a glance. What if it hadn’t happened at all, the words in his head just what he wanted her to say? He splashed a little cold water under his eyes. Remember why you’re here. Go and meet the Russian.

“You see who’s here? That little shit Engel.” Two men behind him, wiping their hands, thinking they were whispering, not alcohol loud.

“Ulbricht’s ears. Everything goes straight to him. They’re worse than the Russians.”

“Careful,” the first said, an elbow and a nod toward a closed stall.

Alex kept looking at the mirror, the face he had now, not the one she’d known. Different people. The words in his head.

A boy handed him a towel. “Herr Meier.”

Alex turned. The bellhop from the Adlon.

“Hello. You’re working here too?”

“Something extra. When they have parties.”

The other men who had been washing left, now just someone peeing in a stall. The boy started brushing the back of Alex’s jacket.

“You’re enjoying Berlin?”

“Yes, of course.” Saying nothing.

“There is so much to see,” he said without irony, a tourist brochure, so that for a second Alex thought he was making a joke. “You have been to Volkspark Friedrichshain perhaps?”

Alex looked up into the mirror.

“They are building a mountain there.”

“A mountain?” Alex said, confused.

“Yes, with the rubble. Over the flak tower. Some day soon, just trees and grass. It’s interesting to see.”

Alex kept looking at the mirror. The man flushed the toilet.

“Go tomorrow,” the boy said under the sound, no ambiguity now, looking at each other in the mirror. “The Fairy Tale Fountain.” He gave a final whisk with the brush as the other man came to the sink and turned.

“Here,” Alex said, reaching into his pocket for a tip.

“No, it’s not allowed,” the boy said.

“One good thing about Socialism, eh?” the man said, soaping his hands.

The boy had turned away, busying himself with the towels. Not much older than Peter.

“So. Another admirer who wants to meet you.” Brecht, now wreathed in cigar smoke. “Matthias Fritsch,” he said, presenting a bald man. “How can a man have so many readers when his books are banned? So maybe he hasn’t read them really.”

“Every one, I assure you,” Fritsch said, taking Alex’s hand. “A pleasure.”

“Thank you,” Alex said, distracted, still rattled by the message in the men’s room. Tomorrow.

“Contraband literature,” Brecht said. “The only kind that’s worth reading. It’s an idea. You could do something with that.”

“You could,” Fritsch said.

Alex noticed Markus, still there. “Markus Engel,” he said, introducing him. “A friend from the old days.”

Markus bowed, visibly pleased, but the others barely took him in, not someone in their world.

“Matthias is at DEFA,” Brecht said. “Very important. Close to Janka. So maybe useful to you. You see how I arrange things? And for just a small commission.”

“How small?” Fritsch said, an old familiarity. “He says it’s a business for whores, and now who plays the pimp?”

“I said capitalism makes us whores. The film business, just more so.”

Alex was only half following this. Capitalism as a brothel was a Brecht conceit he’d heard before, and it struck him that what Brecht had really been in exile from all these years was not Berlin, but the twenties, with their tart, almost thrilling nihilism. Now that the worst had actually happened, just outside, his cynicism sounded like posturing, dated.

“But perhaps we can tempt you,” Fritsch said to Alex.

Alex held up his hands. “Books only.”

“Come see us anyway,” Fritsch said. “Babelsberg. So much damage, all the soundstages, but now a few are working again. I’ll give you a tour.”

“Wonderful films,” Brecht said. “Boy meets tractor.”

“He never changes,” Fritsch said, indulgent. “Some good work too. Serious.”

“Boy loses tractor,” Brecht said, impish.

“I’d like that,” Alex said, polite.

And then she was coming toward them, here, not a memory. How did they greet each other? A social kiss? A hug? Everyone watching. Even Markus, still hovering at the edge of the circle.

But Irene knew. She took his hands and swept them up in hers, holding them, a gesture as welcoming as a hug without its intimacy.

“My old friend,” she said, voice husky. The same voice. “So many years.”

“So you know our Irene,” Fritsch said.

“Yes,” Alex said, feeling her hands, touching.

She was smiling, not the stare of a few minutes ago, something for the room, reaching for her old lightness.

“Do I look so different?”

Alex shook his head, playing with her. “No, the same.”

But she wasn’t the same. Up close he could see the years, the sparkling eyes duller now, worn. Her face was thinner and yet somehow fuller, the skin slack under her chin, a little puffy.

“You see, Sasha?” she said to the Russian next to her. “It must be true. He knows me longer than anybody.”

“I believe it,” he said genially, then offered his hand. “Alexander Markovsky. Welcome to Berlin.”

“Two Alexanders. All my men Alexanders. So confusing. So, Sasha, Alex,” she said, pointing in turn.

Markus shifted on his feet.

“Markus, you’re here too? How nice.” She held out her hand. “Alex, you remember Kurt’s brother?”

“We’ve just been talking.”

“Oh, about old times?” she said airily, but wanting to know.

“What happened to everyone,” Alex said. “It’s such a long time.”

“Not always a pleasant story,” Markus said.

“Who said history would be pleasant?” Brecht said, drawing on the cigar stub, still going.

“But a homecoming is pleasant,” Markovsky said, steering back to Alex.

“Yes, and now famous,” Irene said. “My old friend.” The voice husky again as she repeated the phrase.

“An honor for the Kulturbund,” Martin said.

“But if you’re an old friend,” Fritsch said to Irene, “get him to come work for us.”

“Ouf, use my influence. What influence?” Then, looking up at Alex, “He doesn’t listen to me now. It’s too long ago.” Two conversations, one for the room.

“He will. Everyone does what Irene says,” Fritsch said, party chat.

“It’s better. In the end,” Markovsky said, the same easy tone.

Alex looked at him. Fleshy, but not fat, blunt hands. A wife in Moscow. Trying to be pleasant, not an occupier, the horrors of ’45 someone else’s bad behavior. Holding Irene’s arm in his, her protector. What had it been like, at the mercy of the Russians? Frau, komme. Sometimes several in one night, gangs of them.

“It’s not true,” Irene said. “No one does what I say.”

“I will,” Brecht said, dipping his head.

“Good. Then get me a ticket for Courage, yes? Opening night. Already people say it’s impossible.”

“Ah, for that you have to ask Helene,” Brecht said.

“You see?” Irene said. “No one.”

“You work together?” Alex said to Fritsch.

“Yes. Well, not so much anymore. But during the war-”

“Kolberg. We worked together on Kolberg. My God.”

Alex waited.

“Goebbels’s last big production,” Markus said, intending a barb, but instead prompting a survivor’s nostalgia.

“How crazy was that time,” Fritsch said. “The Allies are advancing and we’re staging battles. Uniforms. Cannons. Heinrich George in the lead-his salary alone. And the bombing is going on round the clock then.”

“And no film stock,” Irene said.

“No. And what does she do? She tells the director to keep shooting anyway. So week after week we shot scenes but there’s nothing in the camera.”

“Why?” Markovsky said.

“The crew,” Irene said. “They would have been drafted. To defend Berlin. But as long as we’re shooting, they’re in an essential industry. Essential. Kolberg. Well, so at least it was good for that.”

“You saved their lives,” Fritsch said.

“Well, not me.”

“It was a propaganda film?” Markus said.

“They were all propaganda films,” Fritsch said. “It was wartime. Even Zarah Leander films-propaganda. The wife waiting at home? How many did? And Kolberg? A German victory. Just around the corner. Except when it opened-January, that last January of the war-there were no theaters left, almost none. All bombed. So all that expense-”

“You found the stock then to finish?” Markus said.

“It was already finished. We just kept filming to save the crew. She might have been shot,” Fritsch said. “So it was a great thing, what she did.”

“Oh-” Irene said, waving this off.

“Your husband was in the crew, yes?” Markus said. “Makeup, someone told me.”

“That’s right,” she said, looking at him.

“Maybe that explains the lipstick,” he said. “So difficult to get now. But maybe you had a good supply. From the old days. Your husband.”

“No,” she said, touching her lip. “This? A present.”

“Yes, a present,” Markovsky repeated, aware finally of Markus’s tone.

Markus took a step backward, as if someone were about to raise a hand to him, his body wound tight.

“Of course,” he said. “Lipstick wouldn’t last so long, would it?” Not sure how to walk away from it.

Brecht, who’d been quiet, said, “Thank God for the black market. Where would our women be without it?”

“Bert,” Irene said quickly, darting her eyes toward Markovsky, “don’t be silly. Sasha doesn’t go on the black market. It’s from Russia.”

But Markovsky missed most of this, focused now on Markus. “I’m sorry, you are-?”

“Markus Engel.” A military response, erect, without the salute.

“Ah, K-5. Under Mielke, yes?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Markus said, both pleased and wary that Markovsky knew who he was.

“What happened this morning?” Meant to be an aside, but loud enough for Alex to hear.

“We’re investigating,” Markus said, voice low, reluctant, waiting to be dressed down.

“Such carelessness,” Markovsky said, in charge. “Whose idea was that? And now the British. Making protests. All day, on the phone. Directly to Maltsev. You can imagine how pleased he is. So who answers for that? Formal protests.”

“About what?” Alex said, unable to resist.

“Oh,” Markovsky said, turning, checking himself. “The usual foolishness. Our allies refuse to accept the reality of the situation here, so they like to make difficulties. Isn’t that right, Engel?” The tone dismissive, a question to a servant.

“Yes, Major. Exactly.”

Alex watched, fascinated, as Markus looked away, embarrassed, then back to Irene, who had seen this, then finally to Markovsky again, dismayed at his own impotence.

“But usually it’s not the British,” Markovsky said, making the conversation general. “In the end, realists. Not like our American friends. You were a long time there.”

“And an even longer time here. Before,” Alex said smoothly. “It’s good to be back.”

“It’s good to have you,” Markovsky said, playing host.

Markus glanced at Alex, annoyed, as if Markovsky had slipped his arm through Alex’s, one more protected, off-limits.

“I must say good night,” Markus said, formal.

“I never see you,” Irene said, giving her hand, the only one who seemed to notice his leaving. “So busy you are always.”

“What did you think of America?” Markovsky said to Alex.

“They took me in. When the Nazis- You don’t forget that.”

“And then threw you out again,” Brecht said.

Alex smiled. “And then threw me out.”

“Well, so it’s good for us,” Markovsky said, making an effect. “And now back with old friends. You were sweethearts maybe?” Half teasing.

“No, never sweethearts,” Irene said, looking at Alex. “Something else.” Then, quickly, “Anyway Elsbeth was the pretty one. So there was no chance for me.” She looked again at Alex.

“Elsbeth,” Markovsky said.

“My sister.”

“Two of them,” Markovsky said, shaking his head, an affectionate joke.

“And Alex, you know, was so serious. A writer, even then. You had to watch what you said. You know we’re in a book? My father said it was another family, but it was us.”

“And what were you like? In the book,” Markovsky said, familiar.

“Like I am. Well, like I was. A long time ago now.”

“People don’t change.”

“No? Maybe. But the world does.” She looked at Alex. “You remember the old house.”

“I went to see it. This morning.”

She nodded. “It’s sad, to think of it like that. But you know he sold it to the Nazis, so-”

“To the Reichsbank. A man told me.”

“Yes, the bank. So at least no one else ever lived there. Just us.”

“Junkers,” Brecht said. “Are we supposed to be sentimental?”

“No, polite,” Markovsky said, turning to him.

“Oh, Bert, he’s never polite,” Irene said easily. “Are you, darling? It’s part of his art.”

Brecht took this and held on, a social lifesaver. “I still can’t get you a ticket,” he said, almost winking. “But what about a drink instead?”

“A drink also,” Irene volleyed back, putting her finger on his chest.

Brecht bowed, a waiter’s gesture, and left with Fritsch.

“It’s just the way he talks,” Irene said to Markovsky. “And you know, he’s right. There’s no reason to be sentimental. I never liked the house anyway.”

“But your family’s house-” Markovsky said, and Alex realized that it was part of her appeal for him, someone who’d known that life.

“Ouf. It was like here,” she said, waving her hand. “A museum. But the country house I always liked. And now that’s gone too.”

“Fritz sold it?” Alex said.

“No. All the big farms were broken up. After the war. They just took it.”

“Land reform,” Markovsky said, explaining, suddenly uncomfortable. “A more equitable distribution.”

“Oh, I’m not blaming you. I’m sure it’s right-give the land to the people who farm it. My father would have sold it anyway, so what’s the difference? It would still be gone. Don’t worry, I forgive you,” she said, teasing.

“She forgives me. I’m the politburo,” Markovsky said, but smiling, charmed.

Alex looked at them, a life together he knew nothing about.

“Major Markovsky, the telephone.” The bellboy from the Adlon, his eyes fixed on Markovsky, not even a glance to Alex. “They said urgent.”

“Urgent. At this hour?” Markovsky said, checking his watch. “Excuse me a moment. There was some trouble this morning, so maybe it’s that.”

“The phone is here,” the boy said, leading him away, still ignoring Alex.

“So,” Irene said, her voice suddenly her own again, not at a party. “My God, what do I say to you? Why are you here? You leave America and everyone else wants to go there.”

“I had to leave.”

“And the whole world to choose, you come here? Who comes to Berlin?”

“People,” he said, indicating the room. “Brecht.”

“Oh, Bert. He thinks it’s like before. Well, maybe for him. When he was first here, we took a walk up Friedrichstrasse, where the theaters used to be. Gone. I thought, now you’ll see what it’s like. And you know what he says? You see those people looking at us? They know it’s me. So that’s how it is for him.” She paused. “Not for us.”

“Tell me how you are,” he said, looking at her.

“How I am,” she said, flustered. “I’m- I still have the flat. Marienstrasse, by the Charité. The upper floors were hit, but not mine. So. Sasha brings food.”

“And lipstick.”

She looked up at him. “He’s all right, you know. Don’t judge.”

“I wasn’t.”

“No? Well, so maybe it’s me, I judge myself. You think it was so easy to survive here? The bombs every night. The shelters. Nothing to eat. My God, to have a bath. People on the street in dark glasses, wrapped in blankets-for the smoke, you know-I thought it’s some Ufa film, people from space. Except, no, it’s everybody, we’re living like this. And then after, it’s worse-” She stopped. “After a while that’s all you think about. Getting through it. The reckoning? That comes later.” She looked up. “So I go with him. Markus didn’t tell you? He likes to do that, I think. He blames me for Kurt. Why, I don’t know. Maybe I took a gun and went to Spain and shot him and that’s how it happened. And you? Do you still blame me for Kurt?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Yes,” she said and then for a minute neither of them said anything.

“What about the others? Markus said Elsbeth was a Nazi. Elsbeth?”

“Well, but that husband of hers. A madman. I think he still believes, a little anyway. So of course she does what he says. And now, since the children were-”

“What?”

“He didn’t tell you this? Both killed. A direct hit. She was away from the house and when she came back-the nanny, both boys, in the cellar, where they were supposed to go, but a direct hit. I think she went a little crazy then. You know, ‘If I had been there, they wouldn’t,’ things like that. And now they only have each other, she and Gustav, so whatever he says-”

“Do you see her?”

“Sometimes. When he’s out. Then I don’t have to listen to him. You ought to go. She’d be pleased.”

“And Markus said Erich was-I’m sorry.”

“But at least not dead. I’d know if he were dead. I’d feel it.” Putting a hand to her chest. “He’ll come back.”

“Irene-”

“No, it’s true. You can feel these things. People you know. You don’t believe it? That you can sense-?”

“No.”

“I knew something would happen to Enka.”

“Your husband.”

“I suppose you know all about that too? From Markus? Another black mark against me.”

“He was killed?”

She nodded. “His own fault. But I could feel it, that something would happen. We were in a big shelter in Gesundbrunnen. Why there, I can’t remember. Probably on a tram. They were always diverting the trams, you never knew where you’d end up. And then of course in a raid they’d have to stop. So, there. An old U-Bahn station. Small rooms, where they used to store equipment. Just phosphorus paint for light, a real cave. I knew Enka would hate it. And they had a candle, you know, to tell you when the oxygen was running out. So many people. They’d paint the number on the wall-how many could fit-but it was a joke. Sardines. Hot. And what could you do? Stop breathing to save the air? They put the candle up high, so you’d know when the oxygen was almost gone-the carbon dioxide fills the room from below, that was the idea anyway, but Enka just watched it burning and I knew he would panic. He was a coward about such things. Not everything, but a thing like that-” She stopped, aware that she was becoming lost in the story. “So he did. Panic. Sweating, trying to breathe, you know what that’s like. No one could stop him. At the door, he just pushed them aside. And you know it was a danger to everybody if the door was left open-blast-so they let him go. Of course he was wrong about the candle, there was still air in the room. Another half hour, maybe more. And I just sat there and I knew. I could feel when it happened.”

“A bomb?”

“Shrapnel. Like a knife in the air.” She made a cutting motion with her hand. “So he bled out. Before the all clear. You don’t think you can feel these things? I do.” She paused. “Anyway, and if it’s not true? Then Erich’s dead? Is that better?”

“No.”

“Oh, let’s not talk about these things,” she said, putting her hand on his sleeve. “Tell me something from before. A story. You were always good at that. Let’s talk about those times. The way things were before.”

And for a second he saw her then, eyes shining and eager, joking about Fritz, certain that life was on her side. Maybe the way he would always see her, having missed everything else.

“Irene,” he said, at a loss.

“I’m sorry, I have to leave.” Markovsky, suddenly there. What had he overheard? But what was there to overhear? “An emergency.”

“What’s wrong?” Irene said.

“Some trouble. A labor action. Down in Aue,” he said, in a hurry, distracted. “They should have called me earlier. They always leave things too late, and then it’s a mess. I have to go now. My apologies,” he said to Alex.

“Tonight? In the dark? It can’t wait?”

“No. I’ll send a car to take you home.”

“No, no, don’t. It’s not far. Alex can take me home. He’s an old Berliner, he knows the way.”

“A labor action?” Alex said. In a workers’ state, the contradiction its own bad joke.

“Well, it’s always something, you know,” Markovsky said, brushing it off, no details. “One trouble or another. Maybe not so serious in the end. We’ll see.”

“But it’s so far,” Irene said. “At night. Can’t you go in the-”

“No,” Markovsky said, cutting her off. “I’m sorry. Oh, there’s Franz. My apologies again. Anyway, now you can talk about old times, eh?”

“That’s just what we were doing,” Alex said.

“Good, good,” Markovsky said, preoccupied. “The car is ready?” Then a quick kiss to Irene’s hand, public behavior. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” And then he was gone, rushing to put out a fire.

“Where’s Aue?”

“Near the Czech border. He goes there sometimes. I don’t know why. He doesn’t tell me things. Work things. Well, maybe I don’t ask either.”

But you have to, Alex thought. How else can I do this? He looked away.

“So shall we do that? Go somewhere and talk about old times?”

“I can’t leave. I’m the guest of honor,” he said, palms out.

“My famous friend,” she said softly, raising her hand to the side of his head, then brushing her fingers over his hair. “Gray. So soon.”

“Just a little.” Feeling her fingers.

“Like your father. Very distinguished. So what has your life been? Safe in America. You have a wife?”

“I did. We’re separated.”

“So. What was she like?”

“She was like you.”

Irene let her hand fall.

“The same hair. She looked like you. A little. But she wasn’t.”

“Don’t.”

“What difference does it make now? It was probably true. My fault, not hers.”

“And what do I say? To something like that.” She looked at him for a moment, unsettled. “Anyway, you don’t mean it.”

“No?”

“No. Just something to make me feel-I don’t know what. I can tell. I always know what you’re thinking. Remember? We wouldn’t have to talk. I’d know.” She glanced up. “I know you better than anybody.”

He met her eyes, another minute, not saying anything, then she turned away.

“So go talk to them. I’ll rescue Matthias from Brecht. It won’t be much longer. Nothing goes late anymore. During the war people wanted to get home before the first sirens, so everything was early. You get in the habit. Imagine, in Berlin, where we used to- Yes, I know, don’t look back. I don’t. It’s just seeing you, I think. You won’t leave without me?” The old voice, ironic, flirtatious.

“I think it might have been true, though.”

She stopped. “That you married me?” She looked down. “Well. But then look what happened. So maybe I wasn’t the best choice.”

The party went on for another hour, wine and vodka being poured even after the food had run out. Alex had to thank the Kulturbund officers, which prompted another toast. In the smoky room, warmed now by body heat and alcohol, it seemed everyone wanted to see him again-Fritsch at Babelsberg, gentle Aaron Stein at Aufbau, Brecht back at the Adlon bar. Willy would have been pleased. Except Willy was dead. Alex put the drink down, his head already slightly fuzzy, and looked around the room, sweating again. How long before they knew? Some slip, an unexpected witness. Nobody got away with murder. In broad daylight. Irene, over with Fritsch, glanced toward him, her private half smile. I always know what you’re thinking, she’d said, and for a moment Alex wanted to laugh, some perverse release. How about bodies crumpling over, Willy grabbing his sleeve, just do it, running through the streets, Markus checking times with the doorman? He lit a cigarette, steadying his hands. No one knew. All he had to do was be who they thought he was.

The lights dimmed twice, like the end of a theater intermission, and people finally began to leave. Glasses were tossed back, coats retrieved, the noise louder than before, shouting good-byes, and then they were all out in the street, where it had begun to snow, covering the ruined buildings in white lace, drifting down through the open roofs. There were a few official cars, leaving skid marks behind, but most of the guests were walking, their footprints crisscrossing the snow in all directions, like bird tracks.

“I love it like this,” Irene said, lifting her face. “Everything clean. Well, until tomorrow. And listen.” They both held their heads still. Somebody laughing farther down Jägerstrasse, the end of a good-bye, then nothing but the steady hum of the planes heading to Tempelhof, even their drone muffled tonight. “So quiet.” She was tying a scarf over her head, a few flakes landing on her face. “You’ll ruin your shoes,” she said. “Should we get a car from Sasha? I can call.”

“No.”

“Oh, you don’t approve.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No.” She put her arm in his. “So, you know Marienstrasse?”

“Behind Schiffbauerdamm.”

“Yes, but it’s blocked that way. I’ll show you.”

They walked up Friedrichstrasse, lighted only by the snow. At Unter den Linden it was even darker, a long empty stretch without traffic. The city felt like a house shut up for the season, the furniture covered in white sheets.

“You remember Kranzler’s used to be here,” she said. Then, “Nobody approves. So it’s not just you. Maybe I should find an Ami. Would that be better?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You think I don’t hear you? What you think?”

“I wasn’t here. I don’t blame-”

“Sasha was later. It wasn’t for that, to protect me. Nothing could protect you then. Not the women.”

He turned to her, waiting.

“You want to know what happened? I was like all the others. Afraid to move. I was in Babelsberg then. I thought it would be safer. And Enka’s friends disguised me-you know, the makeup department. They made me look like someone dying from syphilis.” She forced a small laugh. “If that’s what they look like.”

“Did it work?”

“No.”

Alex said nothing, the only sound their soft footfalls in the snow.

“They didn’t care. Mongols. Maybe they don’t have it there. Maybe they didn’t give a damn.” She paused. “You know, when it happens you think, well, now I know the worst. And I survived it. And then it happens again and that’s the worst. So you think, what if it doesn’t stop? Every night. They’re drunk, they come looking. If you hide, it’s worse. They get angry, sometimes they shoot. They shot my friend Marthe. She was screaming and it upset them.”

“Irene-”

“Yes, I know.” She shrugged. “It was a bad time. Nothing’s the same after. Even when it happens to everybody, you think it only happens to you.” She looked over at him. “Damaged goods.”

“Are you all right? I mean-”

“Yes. I only meant inside. You want to know everything? I got pregnant, of course. Imagine, a Mongol baby. You see how I can say these things? Before, I never would have told you. I don’t know why-ashamed maybe. And now-”

“Did you have it?”

“Are you crazy? A child of rape. Every time you look at it. And no food. Anything. No, I had it taken care of. They had clinics for that then, there were so many, but it wasn’t safe. Soviet army doctors, sometimes just some orderly, they didn’t care what happened to you. So I went to Gustav, Elsbeth’s husband. The Nazi. He didn’t want to do it. Imagine, all the people he killed and he didn’t want to kill this one. But he was in hiding then, waiting for the Amis. He wanted to give himself up to them, not the Russians. So I said I’d tell the Russians where he was and he did it. No anesthesia, nothing for the pain, but no Russian baby either. So that’s how the war was for me. Another story, just like the rest. You wanted to know.”

“Yes.”

“And how does it end? Well, how? All those people back there,” she said, tossing her head toward the Kulturbund. “What do they think it’s going to be like? A paradise.” She snorted. “They’re worse than the Russians. They believe in the Party. The Russians know better.” She turned to him suddenly. “You don’t believe in it either. Not like that. I know you. Why are you here?”

“I had nowhere else to go,” he said.

“So we’re a fine pair. They make parties for you and give you payoks and I’m-both of us kept by the Russians. How things turn out.”

Up ahead he saw the lights of the elevated station, soldiers guarding the stairs. Still an occupied city.

“Why are you?” he said. “With a Russian. After what happened.”

“Sleeping with him, you mean. You can say it, we don’t have secrets from each other.”

“No,” he said, looking away.

“Well, why not? He didn’t rape me. And the Russians-they’re here. I live in the Russian sector. How can I move? Even to get a room in Berlin, it’s impossible now.” A sly look toward him. “Unless of course you’re a guest of the Party. But then you’re still in the East. So, a Russian.”

“Do you care for him?”

“Oh, care for him. What does it mean? He helps me. It’s useful to have a Russian friend. You saw how even Markus doesn’t make trouble for me.”

“And when they leave?”

“When is that? Maybe never. I used to think the Nazis would be forever too. It felt like it. You never see the end of things when you’re in them.”

“No.”

They were on the bridge now, collars up against the wind off the water.

“How pretty it is, in the snow,” she said, stopping at the rail, looking down at the narrow Spree.

In fact it was the same raw landscape they’d just walked through, piles of bricks and scaffolding and empty lots, but the few lights were flashing now on the water, a lantern effect, soft through the scrim of snow, and you could see the city you wanted to see.

“Remember all the cafés?” She pointed to the terrace along Schiffbauerdamm. “At night. And the boats.” Seeing it through her own lens, sun umbrellas and waiters with trays, not the cold black water and rusting girders. “Oh, it’s so good to see you,” she said, reaching up to brush some snow off his coat, her hand on his chest. “I never thought- And now you’re here. Just the same.”

“No, not the-” The rest swallowed by an S-Bahn train squealing into the overhead station.

“Well, the same to me. I know, everything’s different. But it feels the same. Nobody knew me like you did. The way it was with us. Just a look.”

“What about Kurt?”

“Well, Kurt. Now you’re going to be angry again. So that’s the same anyway. Jealous,” she said, turning, putting her arm in his again to walk. “It’s getting cold here. You want to talk about Kurt? After all this time? It was something different, that’s all.”

“Different how?”

“It was like being in love with a pilot. Or a-I don’t know, skier, something like that. The way a little girl is in love. With her own idea, not the person.”

“And what was your idea?”

“Oh, the revolutionary, the fighter. Someone to save the world, while everyone else sits around and watches it go to hell. Maybe someone I wanted to be myself. When all I could do was argue with my father, stupid things like that. But he was really going to fight. So, very romantic. And then a week later, he’s dead, so what was the point? We were-how old? Now you can see what foolishness it was, but then-”

“Then you were in love with him.”

“Shall I tell you something? I never knew what he was thinking.”

Alex stopped, looking at her.

“Never. So it was different. You know, it’s different with different people. Enka-we never made love but I loved him. So what was that? Kurt. Well, Kurt. I’m not sorry-except that it made you so angry. Why did it? All right, I know. You thought I loved him instead. It was never instead. But it ruined everything between us. I used to think about that sometimes. What if it had never happened? But you would have gone anyway. The way things were after Oranienburg. I kept wanting to tell you, it wasn’t instead. It was-just something else.”

Alex said nothing. They had turned off Friedrichstrasse.

“You don’t believe me?”

“It doesn’t work that way for me, that’s all.”

“And do you know what? If it were Kurt here, not you, I could never say these things. He never knew me. Not like you did.”

Alex looked away. “Well, he was busy saving the world.”

“Don’t.” She stopped, looking around at the street. “Anyway, nobody saved it.” She turned to him. “He thought he was, though. So you should leave him that.”

“Why does Markus blame you?” he said, starting to walk again, away from Kurt.

“He blames everybody. So angry and he used to be so nice, remember? Well, you can imagine what it was like there for him. People being taken away. No mother-”

“He said his mother is still there.”

“Well, buried. She must be by now. They sent her to one of the camps. Siberia, wherever they send them. And they don’t come back.”

“Sent her why?”

“Why. A spy, probably. Isn’t that what they used to say about all of them? She was German, that was really the reason. They purged the Germans.”

“Not all of them.”

“No, so imagine what the survivors are like. Well, we know. Lapdogs. Please don’t arrest me. A wonderful incentive for loyalty. You ask them now, they say it was right that people were taken away. Their colleagues. Anyway, poor Markus. A child. They tell him his mother is an enemy of the people. And after a while you believe them. What choice? Everyone else does. And you want to be like everyone else. It must be true. So that’s how they make a Markus. Show us you’re not her. A model Communist. Sasha says that first group who came back, the German Communists-” She tapped the side of her head. “Nothing here but the Party. You had to watch yourself. Maybe they’d report you.”

“Then Moscow will have nothing to worry about. When they pull out.”

“No, just us. They protect themselves-the rest of us don’t matter. Even Sasha is surprised sometimes, how they go along with everything. As long as it doesn’t touch them.”

“Like what?” Alex said, trying to sound indifferent.

“I don’t know. Labor quotas, things like that. People don’t like to work in the mines. Sasha says it’s difficult, there are never enough.”

“So they force them? Work gangs?”

“No, they pay them. It’s not Siberia. The labor exchanges assign all the workers anyway. That’s how it works-go where you’re needed. But no one likes the mines. So the SED has a hard time filling the quotas.”

“But they do?”

“Not always, so it’s a headache for Sasha.”

“He’s in charge?”

“You’re so interested in this?”

“No, I’m interested in him. He’s-somebody you’re with.”

“You don’t have to worry about him. It’s not Kurt. Or you. Something useful, that’s all.”

“Useful.”

“Well, to have a friend at Karlshorst. He works with Maltsev.”

“Who’s Maltsev? What does he do?” Any information, Willy had said.

“What they all do. Give orders. Anyway, important. You know how I know? Markus. I could see it in his face, the first time he saw me with Sasha. This way,” she said, leading him, “it’s a shortcut.” The street branched off to a wide connecting footpath. “It’s better at the Luisenstrasse end. They cleared all the streets near the hospital first.” There were lights finally, people at home. “You see how lucky we were here. Not too bad, only some top floors. Fires. It was like that. Not too bad in one place and then one street away, everything gone. I’m just down there, near the end.”

They passed under the sound of a radio, loud enough to be heard through the closed window. Waltz music, which Alex heard somewhere in the back of his mind, the rest preoccupied with SED quotas. Sasha says it’s difficult. Would any of this be useful? What else? And then suddenly the music stopped and the lights blinked out, the street pitched into darkness.

“A power cut,” Irene said, a weary resignation. “Careful where you walk. It’s all the time now. But they say it’s worse in the West.”

“How long have you been with-” Alex started, not wanting to let Markovsky go, then stopped, blinded, as a bright light swung into the street behind them. Two lights. Headlights, the same shape as the car in Lützowplatz. He swung his head away and grabbed Irene’s elbow. But where was there to go? A long street, straight, impossible to outrun a car, no heaps of rubble to duck behind, the footpath back at the corner. No Willy to help this time. In the Russian sector, no questions asked. Run. Where?

Without thinking he pushed Irene into the building entrance, pressing her into the doorway corner. Get out of the light. A couple huddled in a doorway. The car began to race toward them, close to the curb, headlamps blazing, tracking. Alex pressed more tightly, away from the street. Make them come for you, get out of the car, not just run you down. He raised one arm, a shield, ready to swing it around in defense, waiting for the crunch of tires stopping in the snow. The car swept past. He took a breath, then realized he’d been panting, running over the rubble again. He looked over his shoulder. Almost at Luisenstrasse now, not even aware of him.

“Alex-”

He dropped his arm. “Sorry.” Still catching his breath.

She put her hand up to his face. “What is it? You’re shaking.”

“I thought I knew the car. Saw it before.”

“Saw it before?” Hand still on his cheek. “When?”

Well, when?

“Before. Following us.”

“Following us? Why? You think Sasha-? No. He doesn’t-” She stopped, looking up at him. “My God, how this feels.” The hand now behind his neck, drawing him down, kissing him, kissing each other, tasting her, his breathing still ragged from fear, now something else, blood rushing to his face, pushing up against her in the corner. “Alex,” she said, kissing him again.

He pulled away.

“Come upstairs,” she said, a whisper, her breath warm on his cheek.

“No.”

“It’s dark. No one will see.” A small giggle. “Really no one. If we can find the stairs.”

“Irene-”

“I knew it would feel the same. When I saw you.” She touched his temple. “All gray. But I knew it would be the same.”

“It’s not.”

“I don’t care.” She put her head next to his. “I just want to feel like before.” The words warm in his ear. “It’s not so much. When we were nicer. Just that.”

“Irene-”

“Why? You don’t want to? What a liar you are,” she said, reaching down, feeling him. “Cars following us. So maybe that was an excuse too.” Playing, oblivious to the look on his face. Another kiss, his mouth opening willingly. “Nobody ever wanted me like you. Nobody. Remember on the beach? My God. And now you don’t want to anymore?” She shook her head, still close to his, her hand gripping him below. “What a liar.”

He looked over her shoulder at the threshold, another line to cross. Don’t. This betrayal worse than the other, or maybe just part of the same one now. What they wanted. More.

“I know you,” she said. “Don’t I?”

Already betrayed, so that when he nodded, his head filled with her, nobody ever wanted me like you, the nod seemed like a small lie.

“Be careful in the hall. Don’t make too much noise.” She was whispering, her breath faster, the same reckless eagerness as before, the way he remembered. “Frau Schmidt. I think she listens at the door. She used to be the block warden. Now she can’t stop.” She put her fingers to her lips, turning to the door, opening it slowly. A small foyer, the stairs opposite. “Can you see? Should I light a match?” Still whispering, conspiratorial. She turned, holding him again. “Maybe it’s better. You can’t see me. How I look. We’ll be the same,” she said, kissing him again. “This way. It’s better by the stairs.” The one visible part of the room, under a skylight.

Her foot bumped into something-a pail, a child’s toy, something that clattered.

“Ouf.” She giggled again. “Now she’s setting traps. Wait.” She reached into her purse and took out a match, lighting it, and waving it over the floor. “Okay.” She took his hand, leading him to the stairs. “Just hold the rail. Here. It’s the first step.”

A faint noise, furtive, from out of the dark, beside the stairs. “Irene.”

She froze.

“Over here.”

Someone moved away from the wall, approaching them. “Thank God. I’ve been waiting.”

Almost there, the thin pale face ghostlike in the dim light.

“Erich,” she said. “Erich?”

“I didn’t know if you were still living here.” Both whispering.

“Erich.” Almost a sob now, falling on him. “My God. How you look. So skinny. My God.”

They held each other for a minute, Erich shaking, a nervous relief, exhausted.

“Shh. It’s okay,” Irene was saying, patting him. “Everything’s okay. Erich.”

“I have to hide. Can you hide me?”

“Hide?”

“We escaped-” He raised his head, noticing Alex for the first time. An odd, startled look, seeing the dead. “Alex?” His eyes darting, confused. What had he heard, waiting by the stairs? Irene giggling, intimate.

“Yes.”

“It’s you?” An inexplicable presence.

“What do you mean, escaped?” Irene said, now studying his face. “You’re all right?” She looked down. “Like a skeleton.” Her voice broke, a whimper at the back of it. “My God, what have they done to you?”

Alex looked at him, the boy they’d hidden under the stairs. His hair, once the color of Irene’s, was now indeterminate, cropped short, prison style, easy for delousing. Dirty, streaked with grime, his skin drawn tight over the bones, so that his eyes seemed to bulge out, too big for his face. Holding onto the newel, some support.

“Come,” Irene said. “Alex, help me with him. Just hold onto the rail.”

A flickering light appeared, a candle coming out of a door.

“Who is it? What’s going on?”

“It’s only me, Frau Schmidt. Another power cut-it’s hard to see.”

Erich swerved away, his back to the candle.

“Frau Gerhardt,” Frau Schmidt said, holding the candle higher. “Two visitors?”

“Can I borrow the candle?” Irene said, breezy. “For the stairs? So kind. I’ll replace it tomorrow. Thank you.” She took the candle before Frau Schmidt could object.

“It’s late,” Frau Schmidt said. “For parties.”

“It’s not a party,” Irene said. “It’s my-” Then stopped, catching herself. “Well, it’s to make sure I got home safely.”

“And now you are home.”

“Yes,” Irene said, not biting. “Thank you again.” Moving up the stairs, the others shuffling behind.

At the door, she asked Alex to hold the candle while she fumbled for the key, Erich leaning against the wall, holding himself, drained. “In the old days, she’d make a report,” Irene said. “The old witch. Quick, inside. Erich, can you walk? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just tired.” He sank onto the couch, looking dazed. “Alex,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Never mind,” Irene said, fussing with his jacket. “We’ll explain later. You’re freezing. You don’t have a coat?”

“A coat,” Erich said with a laugh, some joke only he knew.

“Here, put this around you.” Irene draped an afghan around his shoulders, then began stroking his face. “What’s happened to you? Are you hungry?”

“Something to drink maybe.”

“Alex, it’s over there,” she said, nodding to a side table. “My God, so cold.” Rubbing Erich’s hands.

“Well, the truck. No heat.”

“What truck?”

“Rudi had a cousin with a truck. That’s how we got away. But no heat in the back. Thank you,” he said, taking the glass from Alex, then looking up. “I don’t understand. You’re in Berlin? I thought you were-”

“I came back. Drink. It’ll warm you up.”

Erich tossed it back, then shuddered.

“Are you hurt?” Irene said. “Escaped from where?”

“The camp. Where they shipped us, the POWs. Back to Germany, but not home. Slave labor.” He looked over. “People die in the camp. They get sick. I can’t go back there.” His voice wavering, involuntary tears.

“Shh. You’re here.”

He looked again at Alex. “You’re with Irene?” The confusion nagging at him.

“I just brought her home. From a party.”

“A party.” Something unimaginable.

“Did they feed you? You look-”

Erich shook his head. “They don’t die of that.”

Alex and Irene looked at each other. The illogic of hunger.

“There’s plenty here,” Irene said. “Sasha sent-” She stopped and went over to the kitchen counter. “Some cheese maybe?”

“Do they know?” Alex said. “About the break?”

Erich nodded. “It’s only because of the truck we got away. Rudi’s cousin. Usually they catch you. In one of the villages. The police track you down. German police. Our own people. Sometimes you can get to a bigger town, it’s easier to blend in, but you still have to get through the roadblocks. That’s the Russians. The whole area, all the towns, are blocked off. So they always get you.” Talking partly to himself.

“Well, not here. You’re safe now,” Irene said. She cocked her head to the door. “Except for Frau Schmidt.” Trying to make a joke, but Erich looked up, alert again.

“They’ll come here. I can’t stay here.”

“Don’t be silly. Where would you go? I’ll get Sasha to help-”

“Who’s Sasha?”

“A friend.”

“A Russian friend?”

“Yes,” she said, turning her head, embarrassed.

“He’d turn me in. They have to. It’s a rule with them.”

“They know you’re in Berlin?” Alex said.

“I don’t know. Rudi’s cousin left us in Lichtenberg. If they trace the truck, they’ll know we got that far. So maybe yes. Then it’s the first place they’ll look. Here.”

“I’m Frau Gerhardt, not von Bernuth, so how would they know?”

“They’ll know,” Erich said, irrational now. “They know these things. And then they’ll take you for helping me. Make you work. In the slime. No boots. That’s how they get sick.”

“What slime? Erich-”

But he was standing up. “No. They’ll come. Both of us. I have to hide.”

“All right,” Irene said, humoring him. “But first something to eat. There’s some soup. Let me warm it up for you. If they come, Frau Schmidt will sound the alarm. She’s good for that at least. What’s that on your legs?”

“Sores,” he said, looking down at two lesions. “From the slime.”

“What slime? You keep saying-”

“I can’t go back there. I’ll die.”

Irene took his hand. “You’re safe. Do you understand? Now let me get the soup.”

“They have to get us, you know, so the others won’t find out. Then everyone would-”

“It’s a POW camp?” Alex said.

“POWs, criminals, anyone they can find. They don’t care what happens to us. If we die. People think we’re dead already.”

“No,” Irene said from the stove. “I never thought that.”

“It’s worse than in Russia. They don’t want anyone to think he can get past the patrols.”

“How did you?”

“Rudi’s cousin drives the truck for the TEWA plant. In Neustadt. The same run, every week. So the Russians know him. They don’t look in the back.”

“So they don’t actually know how you got out.”

“They will. Someone always talks. Then they have to track you down.”

“Look,” Irene said. “Across the street. Lights. The power must be back.”

She turned the switch, then stared, appalled at Erich in the light.

“What about upstairs?” Erich said. “Is there an attic?”

“It’s open from the bombs. You’d freeze.”

“Then I’ll find something.”

“Ouf, be sensible. It’s safe here. Where would you go?”

“They’ll come,” he said stubbornly. “They’ll find me here.” Pacing now, determined.

“Come with me then,” Alex said. “They’ll never look for you at the Adlon.”

“The Adlon?” Erich said, another confusion.

“You can’t get a room without papers,” Irene said. “If he stays with you they’ll report-”

“Not with me. There’s a room he can use. Someone who’s out of town,” he said vaguely. “They’ll never look there. He’ll be safe, at least for a day or two. Until we figure out what to do.”

She lowered her head, thinking, then looked up at him. “You’d do this? It’s a risk to you.”

“So was the SA. Remember, under the stairs?”

“Yes,” she said, still looking at him. “How could I forget that night?”

“This’ll be easier. I just have to talk him in. You can’t go like that, though. Let’s get you cleaned up. Look like you’re actually staying there.”

“At the Adlon?” Erich said, slightly dazed.

“I’ll light the geyser,” Irene said, busy. “It never gets really hot, the water, but it’s a bath. Just don’t run it too fast. A trickle, then it’s warm. I still have some clothes from Enka.” She went over and opened a closet door, assessing. “The coat will be big but you have to have a coat. Who walks into the Adlon without a coat? Shall I come with you? We’ll have a drink, everything normal, then you say good-bye-”

“No. We don’t want to draw attention. You kept his clothes?”

“Most I sold. On the black market. That first year, how else could you live? But I never sold the coat. It’s a Schulte, hand tailored. Enka liked things like that.” She watched Erich go into the bathroom, then turned back to Alex. “So much for old times,” she said softly, a faint shrug of the shoulders. “Anyway, it was nice, that you wanted to.” She put her hand on his arm. “How things turn out,” she said, then folded her arms across her chest, holding herself, as if she were going to spill out. “What are we going to do? Look at him.”

“We’ll hide him until he’s better.”

“And then what?”

“Then we’ll do something else. First, let’s get some food in him. Did you keep any shirts? He can’t wear this.”

She kept holding herself, swaying a little. “If they find him, they’ll-shoot him. That’s what they do.”

“What’s the difference, he’s dying where he is.” Then, hearing his tone, “They won’t find him. We’ll think of something.”

“You will, you mean. The Adlon. Imagine. Why do you do this? It’s trouble for you.”

“You think I’d walk away from Erich? Any of you?”

She stared at him, not saying anything.

“Maybe it’s for Fritz,” he said, avoiding her eyes.

She smiled to herself. “How sentimental you are. He did it for the money. Your father paid him.”

“But he did it.”

“And now you. But nobody pays you.” She glanced toward the bathroom, fidgeting, suddenly nervous. “He shouldn’t use so much. Frau Schmidt will be up. She thinks she owns the water too. The Gauleiter.” She turned back to him. “So it’s for Fritz. Not me. But maybe for me a little.”

Waiting for him to agree, something from the lost part of the evening. He looked at her for a minute, listening to the water running. A trickle to get the most out of the geyser.

“I’m not the same person,” he said quietly.

She tipped her head back, not expecting this.

“I have a family.”

She nodded, still surprised. “The wife who wasn’t me.”

“A son.”

“Yes?”

“Everything is for him now. What I do. Sometimes things I don’t want to do. It’s not about me anymore. I can’t explain-” He paused. “It’s not the same.”

“Just now. In the street. It wasn’t the same?” She looked away. “Why are you telling me this? You want to be faithful to a woman you divorced?”

For a second he almost smiled. An Irene response, tart, fast.

“You know before, it was the same for me. So let me think that. Not that everything’s different.” She rapped on the bathroom door. “It’s enough water, Erich. There’s soup ready.” She started setting out a bowl, willed activity, still fidgeting. “So this son. What is he like? A wunderkind?”

“No. Just a boy. A beautiful smile, when he smiles. Serious. He thinks about things.”

She held the soup spoon in midair. “Like his father. And have you thought about this?” She nodded toward the bathroom. “What it means? It’s prison, helping a POW escape. I’ll keep him here. You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Because of some old debt? It’s foolishness. Paying back Fritz?”

“I don’t know why. Does it matter? He needs help.”

“Is that what happened in America? Why you left. Something you had to do. Why? Because you had to. And now look.”

“That’s right. I had to.” Ending it. “Where are the clothes? I’ll pick some out.”

“Who is the friend at the Adlon, the one who’s away?”

“A friend.”

“Oh, without a name.”

“She doesn’t know she’s helping. Neither do you.”

“But how can I go then? See him?”

“You don’t. Not yet. He’s not really there. There’s nobody in the room.”

“Then what do I do?”

“For one thing, don’t tell Sasha.”

“But he could help.”

“You mean that much to him? That he’d do this for you? Maybe you believe it.”

“You don’t know him.”

“He couldn’t. He’s not just some Ivan-five wristwatches and a German girlfriend. He’s a big shot at Karlshorst. Who do you think is after Erich?”

“Oh, Sasha. Chasing soldiers,” she said, dismissive.

“He works for Maltsev,” Alex said, thinking out loud. “Security. So he might hear. Any escapes, there’d be reports. You could keep an ear open-you could do that.”

“How do you mean?”

“If he says anything. What they’re thinking. Do they know he’s in Berlin? They might still think they’re hiding in the woods by the camp. Do they know about the truck? He’d hear things.”

“And if he never says?”

“Ask him how his day was. Talk to him.”

Irene looked at him. “Spy on him, you mean.”

Alex took a breath. “Yes, spy on him.” That easy, the line not even visible.

They left by the Luisenstrasse end of the street, under the elevated tracks, with the charred wreck of the Reichstag looming up on the right. No cars, nobody following. The snow had stopped, patches already disappearing in the streets, leaving a wet sheen. Erich was dressed for the cold, his lower face wrapped in a scarf, a hat covering the rest, safely indistinguishable. But eventually they’d be in the lobby. Work out the logistics. Not the bar, where Brecht might be holding court, with some spillover group from the Kulturbund.

They were lucky. The bellhop was there, immediately at his side, eyes wide, scenting trouble.

“Frau Berlau’s room,” Alex said, a low voice, almost a mumble. “What number?”

“One forty-three.” No hesitation, already part of it.

“Get the key. Meet us there.”

The boy slid away. Not much older than Peter.

On the first floor, no one in the hall, they only had to wait a minute before he reappeared and opened the door.

“The maid won’t come in,” he said. “But she’s back Friday. Frau Berlau.”

Alex nodded, leading Erich inside. “Let me give you something.” He reached into his pocket, but the boy waved it aside.

“Don’t forget the park tomorrow. The Fairy Tale Fountain,” he said, pulling the door closed, this just part of the same drama, in on it.

It was the room of a nun, tidy and austere, a single bed and neatly stacked piles of books, Brecht’s plays, copybooks with production notes and reminders.

Erich began taking off his coat. “Someone’s already in the room?”

“Ruth Berlau. Can you remember that? A friend of yours. She said you could use it. If anyone asks. Don’t go out. No noise. No one’s here, understand? It won’t be for long.”

“And then what. What’s going to happen?” He started shaking, a nervous tremor, crying without tears.

Alex took him by the shoulders. “We’ll get you out. But right now, you need some rest.” He glanced at the bed. “Better sleep on top. Then nobody’ll know. They usually keep a duvet in here,” he said, opening the armoire.

“Out,” Erich said, brooding. “The house in Pomerania maybe. The Poles would hide me.”

Alex shook his head. “It’s gone. Here, this should be warm enough. Off with the shoes.”

“So where? They have to send you back if they find you. It’s an agreement. If I go there,” he said, cocking his head to the West. “They have to send me back. So where do I go?”

“We’ll get you out, don’t worry. But first sleep, okay? In you go.” Talking to a child.

“I can’t stay in Berlin.”

“No. We’ll get you to the West.” Suddenly sure, now that he’d said it. “I have friends there. We’ll fix it, all right? Do you need anything else? Don’t open the door to anybody. Just me. Three knocks like that, okay?” He knocked lightly on the night table. “Three.”

“Like in a story,” Erich said and for a second he did seem like a child, tucked in, drowsy, trusting.

“Good night, my friend,” Alex said. His responsibility now. The last thing he needed. He looked down again. Not a child. An old man’s face, gaunt, a death mask.

Get out of it. Go down to the bar and find Brecht or some other alibi. But his mind was racing, planning. He felt in his pocket and pulled out a business card. Ferber. Happy to give him a tour. He’d need something to get them to keep Erich. Some chip. He owed Fritz this much at least. His stomach tightened, a dread he could feel rushing through him, like blood. Knowing he’d pay somehow. Don’t. And then the odd relief of having no choice, suddenly calm, the way it had felt standing up to the committee.