The Empire of Night

33

I told Stockman I wanted to finish my coffee before I left and he bade me good night and consulted with the bartender — I presumed about having his pot of coffee delivered — then he walked across the floor, pretty steadily for all the drinking he must have done tonight, and he vanished into the lobby.

I gave him a couple of minutes to negotiate the elevator, and I emerged into the grand reception lounge of the Adlon ground floor. I stepped clear of the overhanging mezzanine, held aloft by square columns of yellow sienna marble, and I moved into the center of the lounge, with its frescoed ceiling vaulting high above me.

I carefully checked the scattering of people in the lobby. No eyes turning to me. No Herr Wagner.

To my left now was the reception desk, and there were empty settings of overstuffed chairs before it, but I moved on to the nearest chair and table of the Palm Court at the south end of the reception lounge. I sat in the center of three chairs closely arced around a small round table. I faced north across the central floor with a clear view of the stairs from the Unter den Linden doors. I ordered a pot of coffee. And, just in case, two cups.

The coffee was still warm when Mother swirled through the revolving door. She was surely tired after a long day of rehearsal, but she could do nothing other than make a dynamic entrance into such a public space as this. I knew that she would instantly, though covertly, assess her effect on her impromptu audience. I rose from my chair and began to applaud in broad, smooth undulations, though making no sound whatsoever. She was still fifty yards away and the sound was irrelevant anyway.

She saw me.

She fell out of the Grande Dame role and strode my way. To a viewer she was simply another woman walking across an open space. But I knew that this throttling back on her stage star aura meant she was all business.

She arrived.

“I’m having coffee,” I said. “Would you like some?”

“Good evening to you as well, my darling Christopher,” she said.

She used my real name but she spoke it low. When she wanted to be all business with me, she had to be the one who initiated it. Thus her umbrage at the missed niceties of greeting.

“Good evening, Madam Cobb,” I said, also low. “Who are you thinking of, may I ask? I am still your humble and eager scribe, Joseph Hunter.”

She stiffened. I realized she’d been unaware of the name she’d used.

And now I stiffened a little from the same twist of fear she’d just experienced. Her lapse had not been heard, much less understood. But she was capable of forgetting like this in a crucial moment, a crucial circumstance.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Hunter,” she said. “What did I call you?”

“Christopher.”

She laughed lightly.

“Well, you see,” she said. “That’s my son’s name. He’s been much on my mind lately.”

“You may have good reason not to recognize me.”

“I’d say so,” she said.

We were speaking very low now, and it was safe, but she kept up the pretense a little longer. She said, “When I last saw my son, he had stitches in his cheek in that very place.”

“Did he indeed,” I said. “I got this from my college days in Heidelberg.”

“You went to Heidelberg, did you? You never mentioned this.”

“I revealed it only tonight, to Sir Albert,” I said.

“I’m sure he was impressed,” she said.

“He’s having coffee himself at the moment,” I said. “We can chat for a few minutes if you like.”

She began to sit on the chair to my left but glanced again at my scar and circled the table to sit on my right so as not to see it. I settled into my center chair and we leaned toward each other.

I could smell the orange blossom and violet of her Guerlain perfume. And the familiar musk of my mother herself, from her dozen hours on the stage, which the French scent was intended to cover. And the licorice bite of her Sen-Sen, covering the whiskey, which she always took in true moderation after a long day of rehearsing but for which she always felt guilty.

She looked with seeming casualness around her. So did I. As I’d thought, no one was near enough to have heard a syllable of this. And we were clear of the vaulted ceiling, so the acoustics remained local.

We could speak privately like this.

“He drinks too much,” she said, gently.

“For which I am grateful,” I said.

“It must make you look like a real pal sometimes,” she said. There was a cat-tongue rasp to her tone, as if I were being a hypocrite, taking advantage of him.

I leaned closer. “Do you remember why we’re risking our necks?” I said.

She sighed.

“What the hell is that sigh all about?” I said.

“You’re right, is what it’s about.”

I never could quite figure out how she was able to switch me from irritation to guilt in the time it takes for an electric light bulb to go from dark to bright.

“How was rehearsal?” I asked, trying to soothe things.

“This is terrible, wearying work,” she said. “A never-ending assault on your mind and heart.”

It was never like that when she was still perceived to be a leading lady. I didn’t say this. “Two casts at once, in two languages,” I said.

She looked at me. “Not the theater, child.”

She’d flipped on another light. She meant the spy work.

“You got into this all on your own,” I said.

“I’m not blaming you.”

“You didn’t have to fall in love with him,” I said.

She turned her face from me, as if she were hiding something.

“Are those real tears or fake?” I said.

She plucked a handkerchief out of her lizard skin bag and dabbed at her eyes. “Both,” she said.

“Look,” I said. “I’m sorry this has gotten complicated.”

“I need to go,” she said.

“Have you gone through his things?”

She turned her face sharply to me. “It hasn’t gotten that far,” she said.

I wasn’t sure what distinction she was drawing.

“I don’t have a key,” she said.

“I’m not prying,” I said.

“I know you have to ask.”

“I’m asking if you can do this, given your feelings.”

“I’m gathering as much information as I can.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I can do this,” she said.

She was no Hamlet.

She said, “How was your adventure at the docks?”

I had to make a decision now about my mother and this role she’d taken on. The more she knew, the more she could inadvertently reveal, especially to a man she had feelings for. But the less she knew, the less she might recognize as useful information. I stalled for thinking time by leaning forward and topping off my coffee cup from the Adlon Oblige pot.

Her feelings for men. They came and they went. Readily. How deeply could this Albert possibly be touching her?

“Coffee?” I asked.

“Yes, dear,” she said.

I filled the second cup as well.

She knew what was at stake for her and for me and even for the country she wanted to serve.

She took up her cup and sipped. As did I.

She was a smart woman. Trask trusted her with Stockman. I could use her help.

So I told her most everything that had happened on this day.

Among the omissions: I didn’t tell her about the cadaver act at the Kabarett. She didn’t need more ideas on how to reinvent herself.

When I’d finished, she said, “I should go now. I have things to listen for.”

She rose.

I rose with her. “Just be careful about asking leading questions,” I said.

“I understand,” she said.

She turned, but she paused and turned back. She touched my arm. “Thank you,” she said. “For trusting me.”

“Even when you’re in love.” I said it as a declaration. In fact, I said it to try it out, to try to hear if it was true.

She said, “Love only makes me stupid in one way. My mind is always untouched.”

And with this, she whisked away as if she were making an entrance into a swank hotel through a revolving door.