Leaving Berlin

7

The play had an early curtain so cars started pulling up to the doors even before dusk. The Deutsches Theater was set back from the street, fronted by a small park and a semicircular driveway, designed for carriages, a more graceful time. Now the trees were stumps, burned black, and the coaches were jeeps and official cars with tiny flags on their radio antennas, but the building was lighted, almost blazing in the gathering dark, and there was the unmistakable hum of an event, voices rising, calling out to each other, car doors slamming, then sweeping back out to the street. Opening night, the ruins just background shadows, the neoclassical façade still intact, lit up by the bright lobby chandeliers.

“I didn’t know there were so many cars in Berlin,” Irene said. “My God.”

They had walked from Marienstrasse, two streets away, and now had to weave through the line of waiting cars in the driveway.

All the Allies were here, many in uniform, so that the evening seemed a kind of international conference, the meetings they no longer had. Airplanes were still droning overhead, delivering coal, but they receded into the background too, like the ruins, while everyone faced the light. Alex thought of the photographs of the famous Weimar openings, white tie at the Zoo Palast, now bulky wool coats in the unheated salon, but the same eager sense of occasion, Berlin having its moment.

There were drinks for sale in the lobby, a crowded milling, no one prepared yet to go inside, the drama still here, heads turning to the doors as they opened, craning. The Kulturbund was out in force, wartime jersey dressed up with flashes of costume jewelry, sneaking glances at the Allied wives in better coats and permanent waves, everyone clinking glasses of Sekt as if the blockade were over, some bad memory.

“Remember, you’re not going to be feeling well later,” Alex said, handing Irene a glass.

“In our play,” she said. “Look, is that General Clay?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never met him.”

“I think so. Or maybe they all look that way.”

“Alex.” Ruth Berlau, behind them. “You got the tickets? Well, of course you did, you’re here. I’m so glad. You don’t mind they’re upstairs? The Americans all wanted the orchestra. So then the French had to- But of course you can see everything up there, the full stage.” Fluttering now. “You can feel it, yes? Everyone so excited. All these years, and now-a million things to do. Everyone thinks it just happens by itself.”

“How’s Bert? Nervous?”

“Oh, you know him. Like a slug. He pretends-but he must feel it too. It’s the homecoming. I said to him, you arrived in October but it’s tonight that you come home. Be sure you make an entry in your journal. January 11, 1949. Years from now, people will look for that. How you felt when Mother Courage opened. I’m sorry,” she said, finally turning to Irene.

“Irene Gerhardt,” Alex said, introducing her. “An old Berlin friend. From before the war.”

“The war,” Ruth said vaguely, distracted. “Do you know what is so interesting? We were here at rehearsal. So in the Thirty Years’ War. And I went for a walk in the Tiergarten, and it was the same. The same landscape.” She held out her hands, a scale weighing. “Outside, inside-the same. What a vision he had. And now everyone will feel the play is about them. A play about war. In Berlin. Who knows better about that?”

“Irene, how wonderful. You’re here. I was hoping-” Elsbeth leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek. Still pale, the Dresden doll skin pasty, eyes retreating. “And Alex. You’re here too. How is Er-?” Stopping in time, a quick, awkward glance to see who might have heard, but Ruth had already drifted away.

“Better. He’s better.”

“Well, yes, Gustav helped him with the medicine. He’s so generous, you know, and for family-”

“He’s here?” Irene said.

“Getting drinks. But, my God, look at all these lights. We’re down to two hours a day now. Electricity. It comes and you rush to do everything at once. The ironing. The sewing machine. Everything all at once, before it goes off again. And of course the refrigerator, it’s hopeless. I said we would be better off if we had an icebox, like in the old hinterhofs. But then where do you get the ice? The worst part is you never know when the two hours come. Once it was one in the morning. So you iron when you want to be sleeping.”

Alex glanced toward the bar, spotting Gustav’s tall head, Elsbeth’s litany of complaint indistinct, background noise. Maybe the way people talked during the Thirty Years’ War too, consumed by domestic grievances. But someone who would try to keep Irene in sight, a possible monkey wrench in the plan.

“Where are you sitting?” he said suddenly, trying not to sound anxious.

“Where? With the Bowens,” she said. She fished a ticket out of her purse. “Good seats, I think. You know, he’s the British-Row D. So close. They said we should come. I don’t like to, you know. I’m afraid to go to the East. But Gustav said, what could be safer? Travel with the British command. Who would dare to bother you? And I thought, well, that’s right, isn’t it? And it’s Brecht.” She looked at Irene. “Like the old days. How long has it been? You remember Papa?” Smiling now, dropping her voice. “ ‘Quatsch. Plays about whores.’ ”

“No, he preferred the real thing.”

Elsbeth giggled, suddenly a girl, then looked around. “Why don’t you come see me?” she said, keeping her voice low, intimate. “You never come anymore.”

“I will. I promise.”

“And Erich?” Almost a whisper. “He’s with you?”

“No. He went to the West,” she said, looking at Alex.

“The West? How?”

“I don’t know. Someone helped him, I guess. He sent a message. He’s safe. Don’t worry.” Saying it to herself.

“Where?” Elsbeth said, pressing.

“I don’t know. He said he would write. I’ll let you know.”

“We’ll never see him again,” Elsbeth said, looking down. “The Russians will squeeze and squeeze and then they’ll come in and that will be that. That’s how it’s going to end. How else? They’ll round us up. I’m sure Gustav is on a list.”

“What list?” Gustav said, joining them. “Irene.” Nodding to her, then to Alex. “How is your patient? It was TB?”

Elsbeth put a hand on his arm. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Ah, family secrets.”

“He’s fine,” Irene said.

“And you? No Russian friend tonight?” he said, a suppressed sneer.

“He was called back to Moscow,” Irene said evenly.

“For good?”

Irene shrugged.

“So you’re alone now. No protector? I said this would happen, no? It’s always the same.”

“Alex protects me. So you don’t have to worry.”

Gustav hesitated, not sure how to take this.

“Oh, it’s so nice to see you,” Elsbeth said again, taking Irene’s hand. “What are you doing after? Maybe we can-” Not noticing Irene’s hand grow rigid, alarmed.

“What are you thinking?” Gustav said. “We told the Bowens-” He broke off and turned to Irene. “Our hosts. But another time.”

“Yes, it’s better really. I’m not feeling well tonight.” In the play again.

“Yes, what’s wrong?” Gustav said, a doctor’s question.

“I don’t know. My stomach. It’s nothing, maybe something I ate. And the next day you’re fine.”

“Too many rations perhaps,” Gustav said, the edge back in his voice. “You should come to our sector. Seventeen hundred calories a day. A stomach problem? No, hunger. Thanks to the Russians. Of course it’s different for you. He probably gave you extra rations. Payoks.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Irene said, looking at him. “As much as I wanted. I never went hungry.”

Gustav, held by her gaze, took a step back, a physical retreat. “Well, we should find the Bowens.”

“They helped Gustav with the license,” Elsbeth said, explaining them. “So he could practice again. They think the Americans are mad. To make it so hard, if you were a Party member. Everyone was, all the doctors.”

“Some even believed in it,” Irene said smoothly, avoiding Gustav’s eye.

“Well, everything seemed different in those days,” Elsbeth said. “It’s funny, though, you know, to ride in a car with a British flag. Like the ones on the planes. That bombed us. Maybe even the ones that killed-”

“The British bombed at night,” Gustav said, annoyed. “In the daytime it was the Americans.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Elsbeth said. “It was the Americans. So at least we don’t ride with them.”

Gustav straightened himself to go, a heel-clicking motion. “I hope you feel better.”

“Do you know the play?” Elsbeth said suddenly. “I read it. She loses everything in the war. Her children. But she goes back to it. To make her living. So maybe she’s part of it too. Do you think that’s what he meant?”

Irene, not answering, leaned over and kissed her cheek. “With Brecht it’s always more than one thing. I’ll come see you soon.”

Elsbeth nodded, letting Gustav pull her away into the crowd.

“Why did you tell her Erich was in the West?”

“Well, he will be, won’t he? At least now Gustav won’t be tempted to turn him in. If he’s already gone.”

“He wouldn’t do that. He doesn’t want to go near the police. Any police. You do that and before you know it, they start looking at you.”

Irene lowered her head. “What if I never see her again?”

Alex said nothing.

“You know what it feels like with her?” Irene said quietly. “She’s just waiting now. On a platform, maybe. Bags packed. Waiting.”

“Irene-”

“There you are,” Martin said. “Can I borrow him for a few pictures? Neues Deutschland. Quite an evening, yes?”

“You’ll be all right?” Alex said to Irene, waiting for her to nod. “She hasn’t been feeling well,” he said to Martin.

“I thought maybe you and Comrade Seghers,” Martin said, not listening. “She’s over here.” Nodding toward the familiar white hair, pulled back in a bun. “Both friends of Brecht. And of course in your own right-”

“What news of Aaron? Any?”

Martin stopped, as if someone had clutched his shoulder. “No.” His eyes darted anxiously, not here, not now.

“Does anyone know where he is? His wife?”

“I don’t know. Herr Meier-Alex-please. Tonight-”

Alex looked around the room. Did anyone else feel it, the undertow? People slipping away under the bright lights. Not just late to work at DEFA. People everyone here knew. Now no longer talked about, like nervous tics kept under control, willed away.

“You say you’ll come to see me, but you never do,” Anna Seghers said, taking his hand.

“But I will. It’s been a busy time.”

“Oh, with this one?” she said, nodding to Martin. “Always arranging things.”

“Stand together. Just there. That’s right.”

Flashbulbs.

“I wanted to ask you,” Alex said, turning to her, another picture, casually chatting. “Have you heard anything about Aaron? Where he is? I’m worried-”

“No, nothing,” she said, looking at him. “Someone said they’re keeping him in Potsdam, but I think it’s a rumor only.”

“But why?”

“Alex,” she said, touching his arm, a quieting, like a finger to the lips.

“Can’t anyone do something?”

“But we don’t know yet what is happening. Perhaps questions only. Maybe an indiscretion.” Her voice low, one more smile for the camera. “We don’t know the reasoning. The Party doesn’t always explain. That doesn’t mean they have no reason.”

Alex looked at her, wondering if she could possibly believe this. The Party innocent until proven guilty, not Aaron. But her eyes gave away nothing, her voice even, not shaded with irony.

“It’s not the Fascists,” she said, then looked away, flustered.

“No,” Alex said. “It’s us.”

Seghers looked up at this, about to respond, then caught herself, seeing Dymshits coming to join them. “Major,” she said, her voice louder, a signal to Alex.

“My favorite writers. What a good picture, seeing you together like this.” His glasses were shining in the lobby light, the slicked-back Thalberg hair gleaming. His body seemed to bounce, as if he were clapping his hands in delight. “Everyone is here. They say Emil Jannings might come. He hasn’t been well, but for such an occasion-”

“A man who makes films for the Nazis?” Anna said, surprised. “He’s invited?”

“Not invited. It’s a question of getting tickets. Look around. They come from all over Berlin. So why not Jannings. It’s not the old Germany anymore,” he said to Anna, a gentle reproach. “Tonight it’s the new Germany. And where is it? Here. In the East. They all come to us.”

“It’s a great credit to the Office of Cultural Affairs,” Martin said, hovering.

“Well, that,” Dymshits said, taking the compliment seriously. “No. Ask these two. It’s about the artists, always the artists. Who else makes the culture? But we provide maybe the good climate, so it can flourish. That’s our legacy, I hope. That we understood the importance of culture, that we made it grow here.” A speech he must have made before, but the voice genuine, believing. “So we ask the artists to come home, and here you are. At such an evening.” He looked around again, ready to be dazzled. “You know the play? To read, yes, but to actually see it? And now with Dessau doing the music-you’ve never heard the songs like this. I saw them rehearse-don’t tell Brecht, he doesn’t like it, people coming in.”

“You’re not people,” Martin said politely.

Dymshits bowed. “Tonight, yes. Part of the audience only. So nice to see you all here. Zweig too, I think, somewhere.” Vaguely looking around, everyone easy to lose in a crowd. “Ah, look who couldn’t resist,” Dymshits said, nodding to the door. “Even RIAS tonight.”

“What?” Alex said, not expecting this.

“So, Ferber, no American jazz tonight? What will your audience think?”

“You can ask them yourself. They’re all over here.”

Dymshits lowered his head in a touché gesture. “As are you, I see. An evening of real culture for a change? You know these people?” he said, introducing them.

“We have met at the Kulturbund,” Ferber said to Alex.

“Yes, at the reception. I thought you were at the radio station every night.”

“Well, not tonight. Not now, anyway.”

“You mean you’ll be there later?” Alex said, catching his eye, Ferber finally alert.

“Another night owl,” Dymshits said pleasantly. “Maybe you’re going to broadcast a review of the play?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Oh, you mean you might like it. And have to say something good about our Berlin.”

“Your Berlin. There are two now?” Ferber said, baiting him.

“If you listen to the Americans. But here you are,” Dymshits said, not rising to it. “You see how easily people come and go? Despite what your radio says.”

“As long as they don’t leave the zone.”

“Why would anyone want to leave?”

Ferber shrugged.

Alex watched them volley. Not the way he’d imagined, but maybe another piece of luck, something he could use. Ferber at the theater all evening. Ferber shot him a darting look, what? Alex glanced back.

“One more picture?” Martin said. “With the major this time?”

Anna and Alex grouped next to him, their backs to the door.

“I see all your usual theater critics have come out,” Ferber said to Dymshits, another tease.

Dymshits turned to see a thickset man coming through the door. Receding hairline, head shaved on both sides, his face set in a scowl of suspicion. He looked, Alex thought, a little like J. Edgar Hoover, the same bulldog stance, the eyes sweeping the room, as if he were looking for snipers.

“Who’s that?” Alex said, slightly mesmerized.

“Erich Mielke,” Ferber said. “A great lover of the theater. Runs K-5 and the new K-5, whatever they’re calling it now.”

“Police, you mean.”

“But not parking tickets. You better be careful. People have been known to disappear when Comrade Mielke’s around. Now you see them, now you don’t.”

“Another American fantasy,” Dymshits said. “Herr Ferber-”

“Suit yourself,” Ferber said, holding up his hands. “Just don’t go anywhere alone.”

“Well, right now I want to use the men’s room before we go in. Think that’s safe enough?” Trying to keep his voice light, not an invitation, but Ferber heard it.

“In pairs,” Ferber said, beginning to split off with him.

“American wit,” Dymshits said. “But I wonder. How many of your security people go to the theater, take an interest in such things?”

Ferber grinned. “I’ll give you that one. But let’s make a bet. Keep an eye on Mielke. See how long he stays awake.”

“Of course he stays awake. Why would he come?”

“I’ll give you that one too,” Ferber said. “Herr Meier?”

But Alex had stopped, rooted. Behind Mielke, probably in attendance, Markus had just noticed him. Another complication, Markus not likely to ignore him, let him melt away. Obsessed with Irene, always eager to keep an eye out. He thought of Mielke’s quick glance sweeping the room. Markus nodded, a polite secret smile between them. How do you become invisible when everyone is watching?

Ferber moved him toward the men’s room.

“What’s wrong? It’s tonight? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought it was safer. You said you were there every night.”

“Not this night.”

“Never mind. Maybe it’s better. We’ll meet you there after the play. Nobody on your staff will be expecting it then. What’s the setup down there?”

“Staff entrance in the back. With a parking lot. Just use my name at the gate. Studio one-ten. Ground floor. If I’m not there yet, anybody can set you up.”

“No, be there.”

“I came with people. I can’t just-”

“They’ll understand. You have to rush back. Mother Courage is news, no?”

“Let’s hope so. How are you going to work this? You coming with him?”

Alex nodded. “The U-Bahn, like you said. But you’ll have a car for us later, right?”

“Herr Meier, such a pleasure to see you.” Markus, without Mielke in tow. “Herr Ferber.”

Ferber gave him a perfunctory nod, then glanced toward the men’s room. “Well, I’d better go before there’s a line. Enjoy the play.” Sliding off.

“What did he want?”

“What he always wants. For me to go on the radio. Don’t worry, I said no. The last thing I’d want to do.”

“That’s right. You prefer the quiet life.” Smiling to himself, some private joke.

“I see you’re with the boss. Another promotion?”

Markus cocked his head. “It’s good that I know you from before. Your true feelings. Someone else might misinterpret.” He held his glance for a second, then moved on. “You’re here with her?”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

“I want you to be careful. A woman like that-”

“You don’t have to worry about that. She’s already making new friends.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. You know how friendly the Russians can be.”

“Alex-”

“And not a sign of Markovsky. I don’t think she has any idea where he is. We’re just chasing our tails with this.”

“An American idiom?”

“Going in circles, getting nowhere. She’s hurt, that’s all.”

“Hurt?”

“You spend time with somebody and he leaves without even saying good-bye? It makes her feel like-” He stopped.

“Yes,” Markus said, amused. “She’d be convincing at that. Just keep your ears open.”

“But does that sound like the kind of thing he would do?”

Markus looked up.

“I don’t think so either. That’s not the way it makes sense. He didn’t say good-bye because he wasn’t going anywhere. Something happened to him. You’ve checked with the police?”

“Of course we’ve checked,” Markus said quickly, annoyed. “Everything. It’s not so easy to hide a body. Even in Berlin. Karlshorst doesn’t think he’s dead-they’re still looking. So we keep looking too.”

“What do they say, Karlshorst?” Alex said, curious, testing the ice.

“Well, Karlshorst,” Markus said, unexpectedly sharp, an exposed nerve. “They don’t always share things. It’s for security reasons,” he said, looking up, correcting himself. “In sensitive cases.”

Alex nodded. The defection was still a Russian secret.

“Have you heard anything more about Aaron?”

Markus glanced up. “Don’t ask about this. I was able to intervene in the case of your friend Kleinbard, but the other-”

“You mean you got him out?”

“A bureaucratic procedure only. A Party review.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank the Party.”

Alex said nothing, letting this pass.

“And there she is,” Markus said, talking half to himself, staring past Alex’s shoulders. People were beginning to move in to their seats, the whole lobby in motion, Irene standing fixed in her own island near the doors, a rock in a stream. “As you say. New friends.”

Alex stood still, a prickling at the back of his neck. The Russian who’d been in her room. Now smiling, making small talk. Irene’s world. Something Alex thought he knew, had accepted, until it was in front of him and his blood jumped. What he really felt, the same wrench in his stomach, seeing Kurt’s head in her lap.

“Everything is so easy for them,” Markus was saying.

“Who?”

“That family. The von Bernuths. If you dropped something, someone was always there to pick it up. So why not do whatever you wanted? With so many servants. And we were the servants. We were glad to pick up, just to be part of that house. Remember at Christmas, the big tree? The parties. Even Kurt, a good Communist, but for her? A servant. Sometimes I think it was that house he loved, not her. That life. You fall down, always a soft carpet. I used to think, what is it like to be them? Everything so easy.”

Alex looked at him, oddly touched. A boy with his face pressed against the glass.

“They don’t feel that way now,” he said.

“No?” Markus said, coming back. “Well, a child’s memory only. What does a child see?”

“It’s gone. The money, everything.”

“Yes, I know. You wrote about this. And then the war. But look how she stands. The shoulders. That’s not money, something else.”

“That’s Fritz,” Alex said. “Well, I’d better go rescue her.”

Markus smiled. “Still the servant. But servants hear things, so it’s good. Maybe you could bring her one day, to see my mother. Someone from the old days,” he said, trying to sound casual.

Alex stopped. “I forgot to ask. How is she?”

“Not so well. Still at the Central Secretariat guest house. She prefers it there.” He hesitated, weighing, then looked up. “Can I tell you something? You’re the only one now from those days. The others-”

Alex waited, his silence a kind of assent.

“We’re strangers to each other,” Markus said finally. “I know,” he said before Alex could answer. “She’s my mother. But it’s too many years maybe. Maybe that.”

“Give it some time.”

“She says things. I think, who is this woman? Does she know what it was like for me, to suffer for her crimes?”

“For you?” Alex said.

“Yes. All the children. After the parents were taken away. We were-orphans. Imagine what terrible things might have happened. Only the Party saved us.”

Alex stood still, unable to speak, people brushing past on their way into the theater. He thought of her bony hand on the railing, too afraid to risk the elevator, a punishment box. He’s one of them.

Finally, at a loss, he just nodded and said, “I’ll bring Irene.” But of course she’d be gone, another ghost after tonight.

He went over to her, still talking to the Russian. “We should go up.”

“Yes,” she said, relieved to get away.

“We meet again,” the Russian said to Alex.

Alex acknowledged this with a look, taking Irene’s elbow.

“But a minute,” the Russian said, blocking them. “The general wanted to meet you.” This to Irene.

“General?”

“Saratov. The one who replaces Markovsky. He had to use the toilet, but I know he wanted-ah, here. General, Frau Gerhardt.”

“I have heard of you, of course,” he said, a curt nod to Irene, but taking them both in.

Saratov was barrel-chested and dark, a short man with none of Markovsky’s blond good looks-Georgian, perhaps, or Armenian, a permanent stubble on his face that suggested hair everywhere else, and an almost feral alertness in his eyes.

“I was told you were beautiful and I can see the reports were accurate.”

A line meant to be charming but said without inflection, something memorized from a foreign language.

“Well, I think exaggerated,” Irene said, “but thank you. When did you arrive in Berlin?” Making conversation.

Saratov ignored this, looking at Alex instead, waiting for the Russian to introduce him.

“Your friend,” the Russian said to Irene, prodding her to do it, Alex unknown to him.

“Oh, Alex Meier. A friend since childhood. Here in Berlin. He’s back from America to be with us again. A writer, very celebrated. You never think someone you knew as a child can be famous-”

“America,” Saratov said, not interested in the rest. “You were there how long?”

“Fifteen years,” Alex said, returning his stare. A hard-liner, close to Beria.

“A very long time.”

“The Nazis took a long time to be defeated.”

“But you didn’t return immediately.”

“No one did. It wasn’t allowed. And then the Soviet Military Administration invited me to come home. So here I am.”

Saratov grunted, frowning a little, as if Alex had been impertinent. He turned back to Irene.

“You were a friend of Major Markovsky.”

“Yes, we knew each other.”

“Then you’ll be pleased that I bring good news of him.”

“Yes?” Irene said, momentarily still, blinded. Only her hands moved, clutching her purse as if it were about to slide between her fingers.

“Yes, he is well. In Moscow.”

Alex froze. Don’t react. But Saratov’s eyes were fixed on Irene, a beady relentless gaze. Her hands jerked again, tighter on the purse, and Alex thought of a hare in a trap, pulling at its leg.

“In Moscow,” she said, buying time, even a second. Alex held his breath, the noise around them now just a hum. And then she found it, some miraculous reserve of will, and smiled. The von Bernuth shoulders. “Oh, I’m so glad. We were worried. People came asking questions-they said he was missing. So you found him?”

“Not missing,” Saratov said smoothly. “More misplaced. He became ill and he went to the infirmary, but not his assigned one. No one thought to look in the other. A foolish mistake. I’m sorry if anyone disturbed you-”

“No, no, I’m so happy to know it. So he’s back in Moscow?” The hands still now, finding the part.

“Yes, with his wife.” A jab, just to see the reaction.

Irene looked down. “Yes, of course. His wife.”

“You knew he had a wife.”

She raised her head, meeting his eyes. “Of course. He often spoke of her. She must be happy that he’s back.”

Saratov, not expecting this, said nothing.

The lights flickered, the call to go in.

“So,” Irene said. “No more mystery. All is well in the end. Like a play.”

“Yes, a good ending,” Saratov said, his voice steady, almost insistent.

Alex looked over at him, uneasy. Close to Beria. They rewrote history, whole swatches of it, why not Markovsky? People erased from photographs, evidence fabricated, confessions taken down. The world was what you said it was. Markovsky was happy in Moscow, Irene discarded-but wasn’t that the way of things, the way it had to end? And now it had. But why?

“I hope you will be easy now in your mind,” Saratov said, putting on his hat.

“Yes, thank you for telling me. You’re not coming in?”

“No. Leon here is the one for the theater. I prefer facts.”

Alex looked at him again. Was he toying with them? Watching the hare twisting in the trap.

“I came for the reception only. A courtesy to Major Dymshits. And my German, you know-I don’t think it’s up to this. A whole evening.”

“It will come to you. Sasha-Major Markovsky-had only a little when he arrived.”

“No doubt he had an excellent teacher.” Dipping his head, but not smiling.

“And what good will it do him now?” Leon said. “In Moscow, I mean,” he said, catching Saratov’s glance.

“We’d better go up,” Alex said.

“I’ll say good night, then,” Saratov said.

The lights flickered again.

“Don’t worry,” Leon said to Irene as Saratov left.

“Worry?”

“Sometimes his manner-but it’s just his manner.” He paused, a quick side glance to Alex. “Maybe we’ll see each other again.”

“And you,” Irene said. “Is your wife in Moscow too?”

“In Perm,” he said, a knowing faint smile. “Even further away.”

Irene turned toward the stairs, not answering.

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Alex said.

“The family friend,” Leon said, another smile.

Alex looked at him. Not here. Not tonight. “And what are you?” he said, then started for the stairs.

“My God,” Irene said on the landing. “I’m shaking.”

“No, you were perfect.”

“He kept looking at me, just to see how- But what does it mean? Why would he say that? Sasha in Moscow.”

“I’m not sure.”

“To see what I know, I think. If I’m surprised. If I’m not surprised. And either way he suspects.”

“Maybe. And maybe he wants you to think he doesn’t suspect. They’re walking away from it. So you don’t have to worry anymore.”

“And then put a rope around my neck.”

He took her elbow. “They don’t know he’s dead.”

“They must know something. Why would they make such a lie?”

“I don’t know. I have to think.”

“Oh, think. Look at me. Shaking. I really will be sick.”

“We’re almost there. Remember, go to the ladies’ room before the curtain. Establish it.”

“And he doesn’t even come to the play. So maybe he’s outside. Waiting to see who comes out. Who doesn’t believe him about Moscow.”

“Shh. Let’s find our seats. Check the sight lines.”

“The sight-?”

“Who can see us.”

They were in the first ring, three rows up, last seats on the aisle. Alex stood for a minute, trying to locate faces. The Russian, Leon, he spotted in the swarm of people below-a seat back in the orchestra, out of the way. But where was Markus, sharp-eyed Mielke? He turned his head slowly, scanning the mezzanine. Not up here. Beneath the overhang? Anna Seghers’s white hair, Dymshits still working the aisle below, greeting people, Ferber next to a group of Americans. But what about the people he didn’t know? Hundreds of eyes.

“Okay, go to the ladies’ room now.”

“I’m so nervous, it’s for real.”

He continued to stand, letting people get by him to their center seats, his eyes circling the theater. Markus and Mielke, there, in a box. Spotting him, nodding, but getting into chairs facing the stage-they’d have to swivel around to see him after the play started. Still looking for Markovsky, Karlshorst keeping things to themselves again, but neither of them aware there was a corpse in a drawer, fished out near Bellevue. Why say he was in Moscow? Maybe Irene was right-some trap, baiting them with surprise, just to see how they bit. Maybe Saratov, new to the job, wanted the whole thing off his desk, filed away. But the leak couldn’t be filed away, still talking in Wiesbaden, Saratov’s worst nightmare-a willing defector or a kidnapped one, did it matter? Someone who knew, who’d sat at the same desk. Unless-Alex stopped, looking straight out at the curtain, the noise rising up from the orchestra like heat. Unless they knew there was no defector, had never been. Unless they knew.

He stood for another minute, staring straight ahead, thinking, before he caught the movement, Elsbeth waving from below. Front orchestra with the-what were their names? Now pantomiming “Where’s Irene?” Alex signaling back, touching his stomach, then cocking his head toward the restrooms. Elsbeth nodded and excused herself, making her way up the crowded aisle. Not what he’d intended. Now she’d be concerned all evening, keeping them in sight. He looked again toward Markus’s box. Leaning close to hear what Mielke had to say, but both facing forward. Dymshits taking his seat now. Where was Martin? Probably in the balcony. Ferber still with the Americans. Leon out of sight. He made another sweep of the first tier. No glasses looking away from the stage, no one facing backward. In the murmuring, expectant theater, no one seemed to be watching him.

Markovsky alive and well in Moscow. Some mischievous game, our phantom versus your phantom? We know. Not in Wiesbaden. But then where was he? Still somewhere in Berlin, waiting for Irene. Alex’s eye stopped on two Russians, sitting in a box opposite, staring across. But they could be looking at anybody. If they knew who he was, what he was going to do, they wouldn’t just watch, wait for an excuse. What would be the charge? Counterrevolutionary activities, like Aaron? Worse? In the end, did it matter? They took you to Sachsenhausen because they could. The charges came later.

“Herr Meier, what a nice surprise.” Herb Kleinbard, taking the seat behind him, out free, just as Markus had said. “It gives me the chance to thank you. For your help. Roberta told me-” He turned to her, bringing her into the conversation.

“No, I made inquiries, that’s all,” Alex said, dismissing it, aware that Roberta seemed somehow embarrassed, awkward in his presence, as if she now regretted drawing him into their lives. “Everything is all right now, I hope?”

“Yes. A bureaucratic mistake. But of course, a worry if one doesn’t know this,” he said, a nod to Roberta, explaining her.

“Yes,” she said simply, still in a kind of retreat. “Alex was very kind. A good neighbor.” Glancing at him, then looking away, uncomfortable, eager to move on. What had she told Herb? How desperate she had been? How Alex had helped?

“And neighbors tonight, I think,” Herb said. “You’re sitting there?”

“Yes. And here’s Irene. Roberta, you remember Frau Gerhardt?”

More awkwardness, Irene still a mystery to her, a woman with a car from Karlshorst.

“Feeling better?” Alex said. “She hasn’t been well today. I think only Brecht could bring her out.”

“A special occasion, yes,” Herb said. Then, to Alex, “Thank you again. You’re modest, but I know what it means. To help in such a situation. People don’t want to get involved, they don’t know it’s a mistake, they’re afraid. So I thank you.”

Alex received this with a nod. “But it was Roberta, really. She wouldn’t give up, and now here you are.”

“We should sit,” Roberta said. Not wanting to talk about it.

“Did they treat you-? I mean, you’re all right?”

“Yes. Such places, they’re not pleasant. Well, we know that. Not country clubs. But you know, you put it out of your mind. An evening like this, to see this in Berlin, you forget the bad times.”

Alex looked at him. “I was there. I never forgot.”

Herb met his eyes. “No, that’s right. You don’t forget.” No longer pretending, but still unsure what it meant, how he was going to live with it.

“Oh, they’re starting,” Roberta said, taking her seat as the theater went dark.

Irene leaned over to him as they sat down. “Now what?” she whispered. “They’re right behind us. People you know.”

Alex said nothing, trying to make out the stage in the still black air, even the tinkle of voices disappearing, a void.

“What can we do?” she said even fainter.

“We go ahead. We have to. I’ll tell you when. Watch the play.”

Suddenly, a flash of light, the stage flooded with it, stark, exposed, nothing shaded or softened. The Recruiting Officer and the Sergeant talking, a sharp tang in the language, Brecht’s German. An almost palpable pleasure went through the audience, street German, irreverent, theirs. Off he’s gone like a louse from a scratch. You know what the trouble with peace is? No organization. And Ruth, as usual, was right: the stage was the Tiergarten, the street outside, the harsh bareness of it, another wasteland. The Thirty Years’ War. No props or scenery needed. The eye filled it with rubble and scorched trees. A faint harmonica, the canteen wagon rolling onto the stage, Eilif and Swiss Cheese pulling like oxen, up on the seat Mother Courage with dumb Kattrin, Helene Weigel calling out a good day, the voice perfect, a whole character in a line, and then the first song and Dymshits was right too, Dessau’s music gave Weigel her range, coarse and defiant, almost bawdy, the unselfconscious irony hinting at the horrors to come. Alex looked around. A magic in the theater, that moment of breathing together, seeing the extraordinary. And now happening here, with the rubble outside, Germany still alive, capable of art, a future.

Alex sat still, letting the language roll over him. Weigel fighting with Eilif now, drawing papers out of the helmet, omens of death. He shook his head. Pay attention to the audience, not the play. Over the railing, somewhere below, Elsbeth was watching a mother lose her children. Markus and Mielke, down right in a privileged box. How many in the audience were their informants, diligently filing reports? Maybe even on the play. Did any of them trust Brecht really, always slipping something by in a line?

He squinted, trying to see the faces, but the effect of the floodlit stage was to make the rest of the theater even darker. Unless you were in the first few rows, you were swallowed up in the shadows. These ring seats were even less visible. He could barely make out the audience, but they couldn’t see him at all. Unless they were sitting right behind him.

Onstage Mother Courage had lost Eilif and now was opening the second scene selling a capon, a long screech of German that Weigel massaged like an aria, reaching for notes. No one was looking anywhere else. As good a time as intermission, when people get lost in the crowd.

“Now,” he said faintly to Irene’s ear.

She started, as absorbed in the play as the rest of the audience, then nodded and moved her hands to her stomach, waiting a bit, then bending over, a soft grunt, almost inaudible. Alex put his arm around her shoulders, helping her out of her seat and starting up the stairs to the exit.

“We have to go,” he whispered to Roberta. “She’s not feeling well. Take our seats, they’re closer.” And not empty if anyone looked, one body as good as another in the dark. “Her time of the month. She’ll be all right tomorrow.”

Roberta seemed to shrink from this, embarrassed again, and just nodded, turning her head back toward the stage.

At the curtain covering the exit door Alex turned, trying to make out the Russians across. Had they noticed? He waited for a second to see if anyone had followed, some furtive movement, but all he could hear was Weigel arguing with the cook.

They went down the hall, no ushers, Alex’s arm still around her shoulder. The stairs would be trickier, visible to the concession sellers in the lobby. But everyone, it seemed, wanted to see the play, even standing in the back. They slid out the exit door, away from the waiting cars out front. A stagehand having a cigarette, shivering.

“Not feeling well,” Alex said, still whispering.

The stagehand just looked at them, indifferent.

They headed toward Luisenstrasse, the way to Irene’s flat, but then turned right at the corner instead, heading up to the Charité. If anyone was following, he’d have to turn too or risk losing them. They slowed, waiting a minute, but no one turned into the street. A car had come over the bridge and swept past without slowing. A man helping a woman get to the hospital, what you’d expect to see here.

“Where did he leave the key?”

“Under the fender,” Irene said. “It’s taped there.”

“Hell of a risk. Anybody could-”

“It’s DEFA’s car, he doesn’t care.”

The car was in the faculty lot, just in from the street, the key still in place. Irene put her hand on the door, then looked up.

“What if something-?”

Alex shook his head. “Ready?”

“If anything does, I’ll-”

He looked up, waiting.

“I’ll never forget you did this for him.”

Alex opened his door. “We’d better stick to the main roads. At least they’ll be cleared. It’s easy to get lost if they’re not-”

“Don’t worry. I know Berlin. That’s all I know, Berlin.”

He headed north toward Invalidenpark, away from the theater and any cars that might recognize them, then swung east to connect with Torstrasse.

“You never told me where he is.”

“Friedrichshain. By the park.”

“So far.”

“Not from me.”

“No, from the radio. In Schöneberg, no?”

“We’re not going to the radio. Not now, anyway.”

“But I thought-”

“That’s the choke point. The one place they don’t want him to go. They don’t want him to broadcast. So they’ll be waiting to stop him there. If they know.”

“But it’s how he pays.”

“He will. But not there.”

There was more traffic than he expected, Soviet trucks sputtering diesel and a few prewar cars, so it took a while to reach Prenzlauer Allee. He turned up, then drove between the cemeteries and across Greifswalder Strasse.

“I think we’re all right,” he said. “You see anything?”

“How would I know? They all look alike to me.”

“You’d notice if it’s the same one.”

To be safe, he detoured in a short loop, then came down Am Friedrichshain from the east.

“Press number five,” he said, idling the car at the green door.

But Erich was already there, waiting.

“Oh, so pale,” Irene said, a mother hen’s fluttering, as he got in the back. “You still have the fever?”

“It’s better,” Erich said. “Let’s go.”

“Duck a little,” Alex said, “so no one sees your head.”

“They’re following you?”

“Not yet.”

“I have a message for you. He said to tell you the refrigerator is still working.”

Alex smiled.

“Who said?” Irene asked.

“No one.” Alex looked at her. “No one.”

She said nothing, turning to the side window. “But he helps Erich,” she said finally. “How do you arrange these things?” Not really a question. She raised her voice, to the back. “You have your coat? It’s cold.”

“Yes, I’m warm enough. Don’t worry.”

“Enka’s,” she said vaguely. “I kept it. I didn’t want to sell it. For those prices. He always had good things, Enka.”

“It’s lucky for me you kept it,” Erich said.

“Yes,” Irene said, “At least we have the coats on our backs. Imagine if father knew this. Leaving Berlin with nothing. Just the coats on our backs. And a purse,” she said, raising it.

“How’s your voice?” Alex said to Erich. “Still hoarse?”

“Not so much. I’ve been thinking what to say. What will he ask, do you think?”

“He won’t. I will.”

“You?” Irene said.

“Well, not on the air. I can’t use my voice. They’d pick it up right away. I’ve written some questions out. You just answer, then say whatever you want.”

“But we’re not on the radio?”

“You will be. Make a tape recording, they can play it anytime. Don’t worry, you’ll sound as if you’re there in the studio.”

They were crossing the Spree now, into Spittelmarkt, and turning up to the center.

“We’re going to the house?” Erich said, suddenly excited, head up.

“It’s not there anymore, Erich,” Irene said gently, to a child. “It was bombed.”

“But it’s just up here. Let me see. I want to see it.”

“There isn’t time,” Alex said.

“But it would be the last time. I can’t come back.”

Irene turned to Alex. “We have one minute? We can spare that? If he wants to see.”

“Stay in the car. One minute.”

He turned into Kleine Jägerstrasse, stopping the car by the mound of rubble where he’d had his morning cigarette. The street was deserted. In the moonlight you could see the jagged outline of the remaining walls, still, lifeless.

“Oh,” Erich said. “Look. Only the door.”

“I told you. It’s gone,” Irene said.

“So many years. And then gone. I thought it would always be like that, the way we lived here.”

“So sentimental,” Irene said. “It was an ugly house.”

“Not to me. Not to Mama. She loved it. And to be like this-who was it, the British or the Amis?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter? By that time it wasn’t ours anyway. Papa sold it. To the Nazis. Well, who else was here to buy it? So it’s not von Bernuth for a long time. You miss it? What do you miss? Your own childhood, that’s all. The house-” She waved, letting the house slip away.

“Still,” Erich said.

“It wasn’t the same after Mama died,” Irene said, partly to herself now. “He let it go. Like everything else. I think he never liked it here anyway. He liked the farm. Where he could bully his Poles.”

“He never bullied-”

“Ouf,” Irene said. “More stories. Anyway, they have it now, the farm, so in the end-” She trailed off, then turned to Erich. “And we have our coats. So that’s something. Maybe this time we won’t be so careless.”

“Who was careless?”

“Well, maybe not you, so young. Look at Papa, one card game and another piece of furniture’s gone. Look at me.” She stopped, gazing out the window at the house. “You know, when you put us in the book,” she said to Alex. “The girl wasn’t me.”

“No, I-”

“You thought it was, maybe, but it wasn’t. A story. Now I think you want to put me in another story. And I’m not her either.”

Alex stared at her. “What do you-?”

But she cut him off, turning to Erich again. “But you’ll be safe, that’s all that matters. So take a look and now it’s gone, poof. Bricks. That time, too. Gone.”

“Okay?” Alex said, putting the car in gear, anxious to start again.

“Never mind,” Irene said, a stage cheerfulness. “We’ll start over.” She nodded to Erich. “Maybe for once a von Bernuth who amounts to something.”

Erich smiled. “Do you remember what you used to say to me?”

“What I-?”

“Remember who you are. You used to say that. Remember who you are.”

“Well, in those days.”

“Always proud of that, who we were. So you don’t change.”

Irene said nothing and turned back to face the street.

“Look, the French Church. The dome’s gone,” Erich said, still having his last look at the city. Alex thought of the day he’d left for good, Berlin draped in swastikas, everything intact. “What happened to St. Hedwig’s? Is it all right?”

“No, bombed too,” Irene said. “Where are we going?” This to Alex, who was looking in the rearview mirror. Nobody.

“The Kulturbund.”

The club was quiet, the few people there already in the dining room. Up the stairs, past Goethe. Martin’s office was dark, but unlocked, the tape recorder still on the side table. A portable mike had been attached to it, a makeshift studio, ready to send the word to Dresden and points east. Alex looked through the supply cabinet for a spool of tape and started threading it.

“Are we supposed to be here? What if someone-?”

“He’s at the theater. Let’s just hope he doesn’t count these,” he said, tapping the spool. “Here, give me a voice check. Directly into the mike, don’t turn your head. Your normal voice. Irene, close the door. Ready?”

Erich nodded, looking at the paper Alex had given him.

“Just introduce yourself, who you are, and take it from there. Use the questions if you need them. To keep things going. It’s really what you want to say. What it was like for you there. Here we go,” he said, switching on the recorder.

For a second, Erich said nothing, watching the spools turn, the machine a fascination in itself. Alex pointed to the mike.

“My name is Erich von Bernuth.” Alex made a lowering motion with his hand. Erich nodded. “I’m from Berlin. All my life, until I joined the army in 1940. I was not a Nazi, but Germany was at war, so I thought it was the right thing to do. The army. My family had always been in the army.” Alex raised his hand, steering him back. “Now I don’t know, what was the right thing. I saw terrible-But I was a soldier, so you do what a soldier does.” Now a circling motion with Alex’s hand, move on. “But I want to tell you about what happened after. What is happening to other German soldiers. So many years later. I was captured, taken prisoner, at Stalingrad. We were sent to a camp, I don’t know where, we were never told. Many died, of course, in the transport. The wounded.” He stopped, waiting for Alex to nod. “The conditions in the camp were very hard. So more died. Typhus, other diseases. The work. But this was war, you don’t expect- Maybe they thought we deserved this treatment, for everything they had lost in the war, their own men. Then the war ends. Those of us who had survived, we thought, now it’s over, they’ll send us home. Such conditions in wartime, it’s one thing, but now- Of course you know they didn’t. Your sons and husbands are still there. Slaves. Or they are back in Germany. Slaves here. I was one of these. I was sent to the Erzgebirge, to work in the uranium mines. Maybe some of you have heard of this. Have heard rumors. But now you hear the truth. I was a prisoner there and I escaped. This is what it was like, this is what I want to tell you.”

Alex was nodding, clear sailing now. Erich had found his voice, unaffected, sure of itself, the quiet authority of a survivor. It would be a good radio voice, personal, artless. The barracks. The radioactive slime. The sick, sent back to work. The despair of knowing you would never be released, would be worked to death. The voice picked up speed, a steady rumble through the little office, unprompted now. Everything he had come to say.

By the door, Irene was watching, her face clouded over, near tears. What was she seeing? The boy he’d been? The prisoner dodging rat bites? A man at a microphone, no longer young. Maybe some daydream of what might happen next. Remember who you are.

And then he stopped-not abruptly, not fading away, just finished, an affidavit ready for signing. Alex glanced at the tape-almost near the end. Everything Ferber could want, questions spliced in, wrap-up added, the best kind of interview. More than airfare out. Propaganda that was true.

“That was perfect,” he said to Erich, putting the reel into an envelope and replacing it with a fresh one on the machine.

Erich nodded, coughing, his body suddenly folding in on itself, as if the talk had exhausted him.

“Now let’s get you out of here.”

“Cargo,” Erich said between coughs, a wry smile. “For the airlift.”

They took Friedrichstrasse, safety in numbers, but there were only a few cars and nobody trailing behind. They were almost at Leipziger Strasse before they saw the roadblock farther along. Alex pulled over to the side, watching.

“They stopping everybody?”

“I can’t tell,” Irene said. “Maybe a random check. They do that sometimes.”

“But why tonight? Let’s try somewhere else.”

He headed west and turned down Wilhelmstrasse, past Goering’s Air Ministry, standing alone in the rubble, unscathed, a Berlin irony.

“They’re here too,” Alex said, idling again by the curb.

“Someone just crossed. Walking. They didn’t stop him,” Irene said. “Only the cars. Look, not all. They just waved that one on.”

“We can’t take the chance. Here, you drive and I’ll walk him across.”

“A woman driving? If they’re after us, they’re looking for a couple, no? Not two men. Not you.”

Alex looked at her.

“And then he’s safe,” she said, nodding to Erich, slumped in his seat. She opened her purse. “Here, give me the tape.”

“What if-?”

“And what if they find it on you?”

She took the envelope, not waiting for an answer, and opened the door.

Alex moved the car into the street. Two cars in front, the first being held up, guards looking at papers. The second pulled up, a quick check with the flashlight, another wave. Their turn.

“Papers?” a guard said, bored, shining his flashlight into the back.

Alex handed him his ID card.

“What’s the matter with him?”

“Drunk. Let me see if I can find-” Beginning to fumble with Erich’s coat.

“Never mind.” He looked down at the ID card, making a show of reading it carefully, then handed it back. “Go.” He motioned with his hand.

Irene was coming up on the sidewalk, slowing a little, trying to see if everything was all right. Alex watched her as she passed, purse clutched under her arm.

“Fräulein, out alone? All dressed up,” the guard said, the voice of a soldier in a bar. “Where to?”

Irene shrugged. “Meeting a friend. At the station,” she said, cocking her head toward the Anhalter Bahnhof down the street.

“Be careful there. An American friend?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t met him yet.”

The guard grinned. “How about a Russian friend?”

“For free?” Irene said, playing, then turned, beginning to move off.

“Worth it,” he called to her back. She wriggled her hand, almost out of sight now.

The guard looked back, surprised to see Alex still there, and waved him through again. “Go, go. Next.”

They passed Irene, not slowing until they were two streets away, dark to the checkpoint, then waited with the motor running, the roofless shell of the Anhalter off to their right.

“As good as Weigel,” Alex said when she got in.

“It’s what he thought,” she said, then looked out the window as they started again. “What they think we all are.”

They were heading straight for Hallesches Tor, no traffic, making up time.

“So, nothing,” Irene said. “Nobody’s following.”

“See how Erich’s doing. He’s been half asleep. You need to get him to the hospital when you get there.”

“An Ami hospital.”

“That was the deal.”

“The deal. Who made this deal?”

Alex looked at her. “Ferber.”

“Oh, Ferber. At the play.” She looked at her watch. “Swiss Cheese must be gone by now. Only Kattrin left. Do you think anyone sees we’re gone?” Then, thinking, “And what happens, when they ask you? About me?”

“I took you home. After that-”

“Yes, after that. Then they watch you.”

She said nothing for a minute, looking out as they crossed the canal and headed up the Mehringdamm.

“You say you’re coming after, but you can’t, can you?”

“We’ll see.”

“It’s like going to America. You can’t do it. You’re a traitor there.”

“Not that bad,” he said, trying to be light. “Uncooperative witness, that’s all.” He paused. “Times change. It won’t always be like this.”

She looked up toward Viktoriapark. “But you had to leave. That’s why she divorced you?”

“Lots of reasons.”

“You didn’t love her.”

“Do you really want to talk about this? Now?”

“When else? I’m almost gone,” she said. “Listen.” Outside, the roar of planes, coming in low a few streets ahead.

“You didn’t love her. Not like me.”

He turned to her. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing, I guess,” she said, looking down. “I just wanted to hear it. Something pleasant to think about in my new life.” She raised her head, facing the windshield. “And what will that be, I wonder. No Sashas anymore. All-what? Joes.”

“It doesn’t have to be like that.”

She looked away. “But it will.”

A kind of grunt from the back, Erich awake again. “They’re so low. We must be close.”

“We’re here.”

He pulled into the broad circular road that fronted Tempelhof, then the inner driveway that led to the building itself. Where taxis used to pull up, dropping passengers, now busy with jeeps and staff cars, the trucks out back on the runways, loading, leaving in fleets on the service roads. He had expected the airport to be bristling with guards, but there weren’t any at the doors-maybe all out on the field, where the goods were. The main building, with its square marble columns, was oddly empty, a passenger terminal without passengers, its soaring space echoing with the sounds of planes landing.

They hurried across the waiting hall to the departure gates. Through the windows he could see the floodlights on the field, shining on the runways. Planes pulled up in rows at the gates, assembly-line style, workers swarming over them like ants even before they stopped. German civilians, throwing sacks of coal down chutes from the planes, then lifting them onto trucks. A mobile canteen was making the rounds of the landing area, offering coffee and doughnuts to the pilots, quick snacks for the return trip. Mother Courage in a truck, Alex thought, selling her capon. Had anyone looked for them at intermission? Wind from the propellers was blowing dust across the field. Everybody busy. He had to ask two cargo workers before he was directed to a soldier with a clipboard.

“You the dispatcher?”

“The what?” Cupping his ear.

“With the manifests. What’s going out.”

“Going out?” he said, a wise guy smirk. “It’s supposed to be coming in.”

“You should have two passengers on there,” Alex said, nodding to the clipboard.

The soldier glanced at Erich, then Irene, still in her theater clothes, giving her the once-over.

“Passengers,” he repeated, as if trying to get the joke. “You think this is Pan Am?”

“Orders came from Howley. Direct.”

“Not to me.”

“Then get on the phone.”

The soldier looked up, ready to argue, then stopped, thrown by Alex’s voice.

“Now,” Alex said.

The soldier waited another second, then crossed over to a phone.

“You better be right. Get my ass in a sling calling-”

“You don’t and you’ve got trouble you can’t even imagine.”

“Who the fuck are you anyway?”

“They there?” Alex said. “Tell them Don Campbell. BOB. Two passengers. Howley already okayed it.”

“B-O-?”

“B, as in Bob.”

“Very funny. What’s-?”

“Just say it. They’ll know.”

The soldier listened to the phone for a minute and hung up.

“Okay?” Alex said.

“Sorry. I didn’t know who you were.”

“What did they say?”

“Said give him whatever he wants.”

“Okay, then one more thing. In case somebody else fucked up. Make sure somebody meets the plane and takes him to the hospital. Ours. Military. Get him taken care of, whatever the doc says. Anybody asks, use my name again. And if he has a problem with that, tell him I’ll have General Clay call. But that won’t be pleasant. She goes with him to the hospital to make sure everything’s okay, then find her a billet. Decent. For a lady. You need a name for that,” he said, nodding to the manifest, “it’s von Bernuth. V as in VIP. Understood?”

“Listen, I didn’t mean-”

“Just make the call. Now how about a plane?”

The soldier led them back to the gate.

“C-54 down there, as soon as it’s unloaded. Nothing much going back, so they can even bunk down.” He looked at Erich. “It gets cold that altitude. I’ll get some packing quilts put in for them.”

“Thank you.”

“Sorry about- What is BOB anyway? Something secret?”

Alex just looked at him.

“Right. Okay. Let me go tell the pilot. As soon as the krauts get the POM off, get them on board. Come on.”

They went down the stairs to the field. A truck next to the plane was being stacked with boxes of dried potatoes, the handlers moving quickly, speeded up, like people in silent films. Everything around them, in fact, seemed to be in motion, trucks pulling away, propellers whirring, planes lifting off at the end of the field. Not on tarmac, Alex noticed. Hitler’s showcase had never been paved, the runways just dirt though the grass, now covered with perforated steel plates, a temporary fix, like a pontoon bridge, to accommodate the traffic.

“My God. How low they are,” Erich said, pointing to a plane coming in over an apartment block, from this angle almost grazing the roof with its landing wheels. He turned to Alex. “Where are we going? West, yes, but where?”

“Frankfurt. Wiesbaden, probably.”

“Wiesbaden,” Irene said, a wry smile to herself. “For the waters.”

“Mm.” A kind of grunt, preoccupied, working something out.

“What’s wrong? You look-”

“Maybe nothing. Just thinking.”

“Thinking,” she said.

“It’s all so efficient, isn’t it?” he said, looking at the airfield.

“You about ready?” the dispatching soldier said. “The POM’s almost off. Pilot says you’re going to have some company. Layover crew being rotated back.” He looked at Alex. “They’ll make sure he gets to the hospital. Like you said.”

“And you’ll call. So the orders are there.”

“And I’ll call.” He turned to one of the ground crew. “Karl, get a ladder.” He nodded to Irene and smiled. “Better watch it in those shoes. Okay, that’s the last of the spuds. You first,” he said to Erich.

“How can I thank you?” Erich said to Alex.

“Just get well,” Alex said, hand on his shoulder.

“But to do all this-”

“It was an old debt. Better get on.”

He pointed to the ladder on the side of the fuselage. The rotating crew had arrived, throwing duffels up to the open hatch and climbing up after them.

“Wait,” Irene said, suddenly grabbing Erich. “I’ll say good-bye too. You’ll be fine now. They’ll take care of you.”

“You’re not coming?”

“Not yet.” She brushed the hair off his forehead. “I want to listen to you on the radio.”

“Let’s move it,” the soldier yelled.

“I’ll come later. Write me where you are.”

“Irene-” Alex said.

She hugged Erich and patted his shoulder. “Go, go,” she said, pushing him a little. “Listen to the doctors.” She looked up. “So tall. A man.”

He hesitated, confused.

“Don’t worry. I’ll come soon. Alex will arrange it. Hurry.”

She shooed him away then watched him climb the ladder and wave from the hatch.

“What are you doing?” Alex said.

“I’ve been thinking too. I’m going to stay.” She turned to him. “With you.”

“Don’t forget why we’re doing this.”

“I know. To protect me. But this way, we protect each other.”

“And when they find Markovsky?”

“Maybe they never do. And why should it be me? I’m the last one to do it. What am I now? Someone they can paw under the table. No one to say-”

“Irene.”

“Don’t you want me to stay?” She leaned forward, her mouth at his ear. “You didn’t love her. Not like me,” she said, her breath running through him. “It’s what you wanted.”

“You can’t.”

“And me. It’s what I want. Do you know when I knew? After the checkpoint, on the road, when I saw the car pass. I thought, what if he doesn’t stop? Just keeps going. What then? Go back to the guard, be what he thought? And Frankfurt, will that be any different? Passed from one to the next. And not so young anymore. So maybe not a Sasha. Just some-” She pulled her head back, looking at him. “You’re my last chance. I saw it. So clear. Maybe that’s why you came back. You didn’t know it. But maybe that’s why. Someone who still loves me. We can love each other.”

“Until there’s someone else.”

“You want to wrap up the good-byes over there?” the soldier shouted.

“That’s what you think?” she said. “That I want that life?” She looked up. “It’s a kind of love anyway, isn’t it? The kind we have.” She leaned forward again, at his ear. “I’ll make it be enough for you.” The old voice, the way she used to sound, just the two of them. My last chance.

He pulled back, suddenly light-headed, weightless. What Campbell wanted. Markus. Stay close. “You have to go,” he said.

“Oh, have to,” she said, a von Bernuth toss of the head. “It’s safe if we’re together.” She put her hand on his chest. “We’ll be together.” The only thing he’d ever wanted.

“Now or never,” the soldier yelled.

They headed straight west on Dudenstrasse, passing over S-Bahn tracks and the Anhalter station yards. The bridge’s walls were bomb damaged, patched with lumber rails, the street lined with ruined commercial buildings, another wasteland. For a while they were quiet, letting the air settle around them.

“We can still get you out,” he said finally. “Another plane.”

“To Frankfurt? And what’s my life there?” She lit a cigarette. “Anyway, it’s done.”

“They’ll still want to talk to you.”

“Like before. I know. But then it’s over. You’re important to them. You have privileges. Not just payoks. A certain respect. They don’t want to offend you.”

“That’s how it works?”

She glanced over at him. “Everywhere, I think.”

“And Erich’s interview?”

“I don’t know. What do we say about that? RIAS taking advantage of a sick boy. I wish he had come to see me first, ask me what to do. But he didn’t. And now he’s gone.”

Alex said nothing, then glanced at his watch. “The play should be over. Unless they’re still taking curtain calls.”

“You’re still worried? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. Nothing.”

“I thought you would be happy.” She turned to him. “We can have a life.”

“With all my privileges.”

“Yes, why not? It’s hard now. Without privileges.” She drew on the cigarette. “It’s not just that.”

“I’m not Markovsky.”

“No. You love me.”

“I mean I can’t protect you from them. I’m not Karlshorst.”

“Well, but clever. You’ll make a story for us.”

He looked at her. Another story.

RIAS was a brand-new office building, horseshoe shaped and open at the back, its curved prow sticking into a small quiet square that seemed more intersection than Platz. One long side of the building bordered the park behind the Rathaus Schöneberg, pitch dark now, the only light coming from a few RIAS windows and the bulb over the entrance door. The one café in the square was closed. Alex drove past the back entrance gate and parked in the shadow of the shuttered café opposite the front door.

“What are we doing?” Irene said.

“Waiting. Ferber said to go to the back, so we’ll use the front.”

“You don’t trust him?”

“But who’s around him? Just in case. I don’t want to leave the tape if he’s not here. So we wait.”

“How will you know it’s him?”

“Who else comes to work this late? We’ll see him pull in. The play must be over. Just a few minutes.”

Headlights. A car approaching along the park side then stopping short of the turnoff for the back gate.

“Why is it parking there?” Irene said.

“I don’t know. To watch maybe. They’d want to grab Erich before he gets in the building.”

“But he’s not here.”

“They don’t know that. Everybody’s expecting the interview. As planned. Just wait. See if they get out of the car.”

“Or if they’re like us,” Irene said, reaching for another cigarette.

“No, don’t. They might see the match.”

“You really think-?”

“I don’t know, but they’re still in the car.”

It was a long ten minutes before more headlights appeared, moving fast, then turned to the back gate, a few people getting out, heading toward the building as the driver parked the car.

“That must be Ferber. It’s a station car. Let’s give him a few minutes.”

“The other car’s still there.”

“Waiting for Erich.”

“You’re so sure.”

“No. Careful.”

“Ouf. Then let me. I’ll give him the tape and we’re finished.”

“No. Ferber’s expecting me. You had nothing to do with this. You want to be able to say that. No idea what Erich was doing. Remember?”

“And if I knew? What then?”

“You’d need Sasha. And he isn’t here anymore.”

He reached up, fiddling with the overhead light.

“Now what?”

“It goes on when you open the door. They’d see. Okay, sit tight and keep an eye on them. If there’s any trouble, start blowing the horn.”

“You’re serious. You think they-?”

“They’re still there, aren’t they?”

He opened the door and crept out, still in the café’s shadow, then crossed the square on the lower side, away from the park. When he reached the front steps and the overhead light, he climbed quickly, the envelope jammed under his arm.

A reception desk off the foyer, on the other side a waiting room with magazines.

“Yes, please?” the receptionist said, surprised to see someone at this hour.

“Herr Ferber. I have an appointment.”

“Herr Ferber’s at the theater.”

“He just came in. Call him. Studio one-ten. Tell him his interview is here.”

The receptionist picked up the phone, put out and hesitant, but Ferber responded immediately and came running down the hall.

“But where is-?”

Alex handed him the tape. “He’s here. Splice in questions or just run it with an intro. It’s just what you want-everything we said.”

“But where-?”

“Safe. I couldn’t take the chance.” He touched the envelope. “It’s the real thing. I guarantee it.”

“Thank you,” Ferber said, putting his hand on Alex’s arm. “I’m not sure why you’re doing this, but I thank you.”

“They’re Germans in the mines.”

“You should come over to us,” Ferber said, almost offhand.

Alex met his eyes for a second, then looked down the hall. “Is there another door? That way?” he said, nodding away from the park side.

“Mettestrasse, yes,” he said, his voice careful, the way you talk to a drunk. “There’s some trouble?”

“No. But it’s bright out there. Why give anyone a look.”

“I won’t forget this.”

“You have to. I was never here.”

“Just a messenger.”

“That’s right. A boy.”

They’d reached the side door.

“Listen tomorrow,” Ferber said, holding up the tape. “You’ll thank him? He’s brave to do this.”

“He’s dying. That makes it easier.”

“And you?”

Alex looked at him, not sure how to answer, and opened the door.

He walked back, away from the entrance light, circling around the car from behind.

“Oh, I didn’t see you,” Irene said, startled.

Alex closed the passenger door. “Everything quiet?”

“So suspicious. Someone just got in. A woman. They were waiting for her, not you.”

“Good.”

He started the car without the lights, turning right, away from the park, down to Wexstrasse.

“It went okay?” Irene said.

“He’ll air it tomorrow.”

“So that’s that,” she said, looking down. “And now he doesn’t come back.”

“No.”

“So. And now?”

“Now we get you home. You weren’t feeling well, remember? I forgot to ask Ferber. How the play was.”

“How would it be? A triumph,” she said, a radio critic’s voice. “A landmark.”

“See those lights?” he said suddenly, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Is it the same car?”

“Oh, not again. So they’re going this way too. It’s a busy street.”

“Not that busy.”

He stopped for a red light at Innsbrucker Platz, the other car still coming up from behind, then looked both ways quickly and stepped on the gas, shooting though the intersection. The car followed, running the light.

“See that.”

At the next fork, he went right on Hauptstrasse.

“We’re going back to Tempelhof?”

“That’s what they’ll think. They don’t know we’ve already been.”

“Yes, and maybe they just keep going to Potsdamer Platz,” she said, skeptical.

“Let’s see,” he said, swerving onto a side street, dark, lined with tenements.

In a few seconds, lights appeared in the mirror.

“We have to get back to the main road,” he said. “They’ll trap us here.”

He saw the car in Lützowplatz, screeching, cutting him off.

“What do they want?” Irene said nervously.

“Erich,” Alex said, turning left, back to Hauptstrasse.

“Erich,” she repeated, working this out.

“And whoever’s helping him. Hold on. I’m going to speed up.”

He shot into Hauptstrasse, making a sharp turn to avoid an oncoming truck, racing the motor.

Irene swiveled around, facing the back. “They’re there.”

Alex went faster.

“And if they catch up?”

“They’ll try to cut us off. Christ, a light,” he said, slowing for a red, too many trucks crossing to risk not stopping.

“They’re coming,” Irene said.

Lights brighter now, flashing in the mirror, pulling onto the left lane to overtake them.

Green light. Alex felt the car jerk as he hit the gas pedal, a plane taking off. The other car now close behind. Then suddenly alongside, racing to get ahead, anticipating, beginning to move right, as if it were already in front and could make Alex stop by cutting him off. The cars almost touching. Alex moved farther right, away from the car, close to the curb now, then veered sharply left, into the other car’s lane. A squeal as the car braked to avoid being hit, then the crunch of fenders, a jolt from behind. Alex kept speeding ahead, trucks coming from the opposite direction, boxing them in, a narrow raceway. Another bump from behind as the car tried to make them move over.

“What are they doing?” Irene said, alarmed. “They’ll kill us.”

“Hold on.”

They were almost at the big intersection, traffic going in several directions, the streets like spokes. Alex held the left lane to continue on Hauptsrasse, then suddenly swerved farther left, then again, a U-turn effect, horns blaring, a truck’s air brakes hissing, cutting off the chase car as Alex crossed back over Hauptstrasse and shot east toward Tempelhof. A tiny sound from Irene, too shaken to say anything, the car filled with the sound of their breathing, horns still blowing behind. An adrenaline calm, blood pulsing but his hands steady on the wheel. No need to be careful anymore, the speed carrying him with a life of its own, some rushing stream. The lights were back in the mirror, getting closer.

“Alex, stop,” Irene said, her voice breaking, scared.

“We can’t.”

“You’ll kill us. We’ll die here.”

“Here or Sachsenhausen. What do you pick? That’s what it means.”

“What, helping Erich?” she said, bewildered, a wail. “Oh God, look. Behind again. So fast.”

An oncoming truck blinked its lights, a slow-down signal.

The car engine louder, making shuddering noises.

“They’re still there. We can’t get away,” Irene said, almost sobbing with fear now.

“I know.”

Alex had stayed in the left lane but now realized that if they gained on the right they could push him into the trucks. He banked right, the lesser of two evils, trying to straddle the lanes to block the other car. The Horch was beginning to throb from the strain, the car behind close enough again to smash into the bumper. They lurched forward, Alex hitting the steering wheel, Irene pitching farther, into the dashboard, her head knocking against the windshield. She clutched her chest, gulping air. Alex again moved right, near the overpass bridge wall now. The other car pulled sharp right, pushing them into it, a loud crunch as Alex hit the wall before he could yank the steering wheel left. The sound of scraping metal, Irene thrown against the door.

“All right?”

A grunt, no time for more, her eyes fixed on the other car.

“Alex!”

The car had gained again, about to repeat a push to the right, forcing them into the wall. Fenders near.

Alex slammed on the brakes, the stop throwing them both forward again, his chest on the wheel, Irene tossed into the dash, bracing herself with her hands then falling back, limp. The other car, caught in its own momentum, swept in front of them, across the lane, brushing against the wall as the driver tried to pull it out of a spin, jerking back left. The car swerved around, fishtailing back against the wall, now just a temporary wooden fence, the speed of its turn flinging it against the slats, splintering them. And then suddenly the back wheels were off the edge, the car stopped with its lights raised off the road.

Alex grabbed the gearshift, moving without thinking. Here or Sachsenhausen. No witnesses. He pressed on the gas, aiming for the front of the other car.

“What are you doing?” Irene shouted.

He heard the crunch as he rammed into the other car and hit his brake, then watched, a moment that stretched, like a held breath, as the car jerked back, the lights pointing upward now as it plunged down to the S-Bahn tracks. Distant screams. Irene gasped. Across the road, a truck was slowing. Move. It was then that he saw the other car had taken another chunk out of the damaged bridge, a jagged edge of pavement where Alex’s front tire had caught and for a terrible moment he imagined the hole growing, bits of concrete falling away, wider and wider, until the side of the bridge was gone, swallowing the Horch, their own plunge down just seconds away.

He shoved the stick into reverse and gunned the engine but the sudden lurch had the effect of making them jerk forward, not back, he could feel it in his stomach, the right front tire slipping, heading into a fall. Then the rear tires gripped, pulling them back, even the right front, tugged up over the jagged edge, the car shooting backward until he braked again, then shifted and started away, the air around them suddenly flashing bright. More trucks stopped on the other side, one driver climbing down from his cab and running across the road, looking over the broken guardrail. The light must have been the gas tank exploding. How many in the car? Had anyone been conscious when it burst into flames, felt the sudden heat? More truck drivers on the road, shouts, yelling for Alex to stop. Don’t stop.

“What are you doing? What are you doing?” Like a chant, hysterical.

Don’t stop. No one behind, the traffic all airlift cargoes, heading away from Tempelhof.

“Oh my God, you killed them. Killed them.” Covering her face with a hand.

“What’s that?” Alex said, noticing the dark oozing. “Blood?”

“I don’t know. My head-” She leaned back against the seat. “I hit my head.” She turned. “How could you do that?”

“They were already over.”

“No,” she said vaguely. “Not over. Not yet. First Sasha, now- Oh, it’s so hard to breathe.” She clutched her stomach, a corset hold and sucked in air. “I feel-”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Dizzy.” She put a hand to her head. “There’s blood. How is there blood?”

“You hit your-”

But she had slumped over, a thud as her head fell against the car window.

“Irene.”

No sound, just the trucks and planes outside.

He took the first left out of the traffic, toward Viktoriapark, everything suddenly dark without the truck headlights.

“Irene.” He tried to remember her smashing against the windshield. How hard? But he’d been looking behind, dodging. He said her name again, frantic now. More blood.

He pulled over to the curb. No one following. The blood was still welling on her head, a sign of life. He felt for a pulse on her neck, then tried to shake her awake, as if she were just napping. He took her hand, feeling her slipping away, like the smooth slide of the car going down. And she’d been right. It hadn’t been over. Not yet. He’d pushed it. No witnesses. The car waiting at RIAS. Who’d known he’d be coming.

He took a breath, then another. No time to think about that now. Irene was unconscious, a head wound, not a hangover you slept off. Think. If Sasha were alive, he could call Karlshorst. But Sasha was lying in a drawer. Or in Wiesbaden. Or in Moscow. Why say that? To see her reaction. Or his. He looked over at her. Motionless. Think. Not Marienstrasse. A hospital.

He propped her against the door, head back, afraid to rearrange her limp body. A broken rib could puncture a lung. A hospital. He put the car in gear and headed toward Yorckstrasse to cross the Anhalter switching yards. The woman had come out of RIAS just after he went in. A leak, alerting the waiting car. Someone close to Ferber. Or sent by Ferber himself? Who went to birthday lunches at the Adlon, turned up at the Kulturbund, comfortable in the East. Who knew Erich was coming.

He glanced over at Irene, still quiet, breathing shallow. Faster. Pallasstrasse. Past the ruins of the Sportpalast, where Hitler had made his speeches. A thousand years. Where Elsbeth and Gustav must have raised their arms, shouting, glowing. Now home from the theater, with any luck still up.

All of Schlüterstrasse was dark, another electricity cut, but there was a flicker of candlelight coming from the front room. Alex stopped the car, put it in neutral and ran to the door, ringing the bell and knocking at the same time, everything urgent. A pinprick of light at the foyer door, Gustav peering out.

“Quick!” Alex said. “Open.”

Gustav held the door ajar. “What do you want? Coming here at such an hour?”

“Irene’s been hurt. Quick. Come with me.”

“Irene?” Elsbeth’s voice, coming from behind. Still dressed for the theater.

“Do you have admitting privileges at the Charité?” Alex said.

Gustav, not expecting this, gave an automatic nod. “But the Elisabeth is closer. Magdeburger Platz.”

“That’s where you volunteer?” Alex said to Elsbeth.

She stared at him, too startled to answer.

“They’d know you there, then. But you never go to the East.”

“Why this-? What do you want?” Gustav said.

“I want you to give her your name. A loan,” Alex said to Elsbeth.

“My name?”

Alex looked at Gustav. “You admit her as Elsbeth Mutter. No one will question it. Your wife.”

“What has she done?”

“Nothing. She fell in the dark. Charité was the nearest hospital. So you brought her there.”

“To admit her under a false name? Are you crazy? To think I would do such a thing?”

“You’ll do it.” He turned to Elsbeth. “She’s in the car. Unconscious. We don’t have time to argue. You used to borrow her clothes. Now she’s borrowing your name. Just until we see what’s wrong. And we can move her.”

“Get out of here.”

“Gustav, my sister-”

“First the brother. Now this. What has she done? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I never heard any of this. Leave us alone now, please. Go.”

“She’s hurt,” Alex said. “She needs your help.”

Gustav started to close the door. Alex put his hand up, pushing through, then shoved Gustav against the wall, hand on his chest.

“Now listen to me. Carefully. I have an old friend at Clay’s headquarters whose idea of a good time is putting Nazis away. One call and I’ll have him reopen your case. One call.”

“They can’t prove anything.”

“Maybe not. But do you want to go through it all again? Defend yourself? And meanwhile your license gets suspended while they try to decide just how guilty you are. That usually takes a little time. Which we don’t have. So decide.”

Gustav glared at him. “Jew.”

Alex went still for a second, then let it go. “Your wife just tripped in the dark. A nasty fall. Her head. You’ll want her seen right away.” He dropped his hand. “Get in the car.”

“How can you talk to Gustav this way?” Elsbeth said.

“She’s hurt,” Alex said. “And that’s all you can say? Be nice to Gustav?”

“He’s a good man,” Elsbeth said vaguely, not really following. “We’re decent people.” Shoulders back, the von Bernuth posture.

Alex looked at her, dismayed, then turned to Gustav. “Do you need anything? To admit her? Papers?”

“Just my signature.”

“Then let’s go.”

Gustav checked Irene’s pulse, her pupils, feeling lightly for broken bones.

“How long has she been unconscious?” he said, daubing the dried blood on her head with a handkerchief.

“Half an hour. Maybe more.”

“Let’s hurry, then.”

In the car, Gustav was sullen.

“It’s illegal, what you’re doing.”

“I’m keeping her safe. If anyone checks the hospitals, she’s not there.”

“And why would they check?”

Alex ignored this. “Remember, she tripped. In the street. No car. Nothing that needs to be reported.”

“Except you. Like gangsters. What is it, something with the black market? I thought she didn’t need that. Sleeping with Russians.”

“When we get there, you’re not just a doctor. You’re her husband. Worried. Got it?”

They went to the emergency entrance and got Irene onto a gurney, wheeling her into the exam room, her eyes fluttering open, surprised, then closing again.

“She’s awake,” Alex said.

Gustav, on his own turf now, paid no attention, handling the admitting staff with efficiency, a doctor who knew what he was doing. Alex was asked to wait in the hallway.

“Just give me a second.” He took Irene’s hand, bending low to her ear. “Can you hear me? You’re here as Elsbeth. Gustav will take care of you.”

Her eyes opened, confused.

“If they check, there is no Irene. Do you understand? She’s not here.”

She took this in, then smiled faintly. “No, in Wiesbaden.”

“Somewhere. Anyway, not here. You’re safe this way.”

Another twitch, almost a smile. “Clever Alex.”

“You must leave her now,” a nurse was saying.

“Remember, you’re Elsbeth, yes?”

She nodded, then clutched his hand. “Those people. They’re dead?”

“You fell in the dark. In the street. That’s all you remember. I’ll be here. Just outside.”

She grasped his hand again. “You were right. They were waiting for us.”

“Ssh. No more. Remember, you’re Elsbeth.”

The wait in the hall seemed endless, a movie scene in a maternity ward, pacing, smoking, staring into space.

“No ribs broken,” Gustav said, finally coming out with an X-ray folder. “Just a bad bruise. The concussion is something else. No major clotting. But a concussion is always serious. Let’s see how she is in the morning.”

“But she’ll be all right?”

“I think so. But let’s see how the night goes.” He glanced at Alex. “Do you want to tell me how she did this?”

“Does it matter? I mean, for the diagnosis?” He caught Gustav’s look. “In a car. We stopped too fast for a light. She hit her head.”

“I see. And that’s why it’s important no one knows who she is.”

“Can I see her now?”

“In the morning. We’ve moved her upstairs. She’s asleep.” He began taking off his white jacket. “So good night.”

“I’ll give you a lift.”

“In the getaway car? I don’t think so. I’ll call a taxi. I’m finished with this.”

“But you’ll be back in the morning. To see how-”

“Of course. I’m her doctor.” He looked over at Alex. “And her husband.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Gustav said. “For something like this. A criminal act.”

“A small one. To keep her safe.”

“And me?”

“Don’t get caught. Then you’ll both be safe.”

Outside he checked the car for damage. There were dents on the bumpers and scratches on the side where he’d scraped the overpass wall, but nothing that would attract notice in a city of patched- together heaps. He moved the car back to the Charité faculty lot and picked up Irene’s purse, fishing for her house key. Put her at Marienstrasse.

He made noise on the stairs, enough to reach Frau Schmidt’s block warden ears, then knocked on the door while he slipped the key in so that it sounded as if Irene were opening it to him. Entertaining a visitor, the usual. Alex spoke to the empty room, a phantom Irene, hoping his voice would carry, and shut the door behind him, imagining Frau Schmidt below, nodding her head, pursing her lips. Or maybe already in bed, but aware of the sounds above in the flat, Irene moving about, making tea for some new friend. He left the curtains open so that the light would be visible, Irene at home.

In the bedroom there was the smell of her, powder and perfume, gifts from Sasha, and he stood for a minute breathing her in, staring at the bed. Where they’d made love. Where others had too. And now where she imagined some new life together, trusting him, living off his privileges. He gripped the bedpost, suddenly aware how impossible that would be now. He’d planned the evening to evade her watchdogs, but anyone following her would have stopped them earlier. Certainly at the airport, the escape hatch. But no one had. Instead they’d been waiting at RIAS, knowing he’d be coming with Erich. Which meant they knew about him. They’d been waiting for him. He felt a shiver of cold. They knew. How much? But just helping Erich would put him in Sachsenhausen. And the car burning on the S-Bahn tracks? Being Alex Meier couldn’t protect him anymore, not the privileges, not the pictures in Neues Deutschland, the ode to Stalin. They knew. He had to get out.

He went back to the main room, breathing fast. Take some tea, think it through. Dieter’s advice. He went over to the heirloom shelf and picked up the candlestick. Washed clean, no sight of blood, still their secret. Why say Markovsky was in Moscow? Toying with him, a cat with a mouse, knowing Sasha wasn’t in Wiesbaden. Who knew about Erich’s interview? Ferber? Who sent an assistant out to the waiting car? But that one was easy, just a matter of listening to RIAS tomorrow. If they broadcast the tape, then it wasn’t Ferber. Someone else. They’d been waiting for him.

He sat down, still in his coat, cold again, thinking of that first night at the Adlon when he lay in a cold sweat feeling the dread creep over him. And now it had finally come. They knew. Think about the interview. He tried to work through the chronology, when, who knew, eliminating. Until there were two. Two. And Irene. Who didn’t want to go West. Who wanted to make a life with him. He looked at the piano shelf, lined with framed photographs. Irene at DEFA, Irene in the old house, her hair now a period touch, Irene with a man who must be Gerhardt, in a flashy topcoat, Irene with Elsbeth and Erich, a golden summer, before anything had happened. Remember who you are. Who learned to do anything to survive. Who’d just had another Russian in her bed.

He stopped. He was mixing things up, confusing the issue. They knew. For how long? How much time did he have? Just leave now and walk through the Gate, into the park, his first morning again. And do what? Go to Föhrenweg, to people who didn’t want him back, had never wanted him. Think of something. Make them want you. He was a mouse, wriggling in the cat’s claws, waiting for the inevitable. He had to get out.

He switched off the light and crept quietly down the stairs, still in Irene’s bed in Frau Schmidt’s hearing. In the street he didn’t bother to look around. If they were going to pick him up, they would. Or toy with him some more. Maybe wait to see if Erich was still with him. No one who’d followed his car from RIAS had survived. Irene had been home in Marienstrasse. So there was only Erich to account for, still stashed away somewhere.

He walked up to Nordbahnhof, then caught the late tram that ran along Danziger Strasse. You have to trust somebody, Dieter had said. He sat looking through the tram window at the dark city, juggling memories, what people had said. One more story. But even if his instinct was right, two now one, what he didn’t know was who else knew.

He got off just before Prenzlauer Allee and walked down Rykestrasse. No waiting car parked in front, still in the cat’s paw. On his door an envelope had been pinned with a tack. Inside he turned on the overhead light. An official envelope, in Russian and German. A summons to appear at the trial of Aaron Stein, a perverse gift of time. Maybe enough to work something out. They wouldn’t come to get him until he’d helped them destroy someone else.