Frustrated, he walked into the bedroom, folded the pages, and stuffed
them underneath the mattress at the foot of his bed. He switched on the
television from habit, then kicked his mud-caked boots into an empty
corner and dropped his coat on top of them. Ilse would scold him for
being lazy, he knew, but after two straight shifts he was simply too
exhausted to care.
He ate his breakfast on the bed. As much as the Spandau papers, the
thought of his father weighed on his mind. Captain Hauer had asked him
why he'd come to Berlin. Hans often wondered that himself Three years
it had been now. He hardly thought of Munich anymore. He'd married
ilse after just five months here in Berlin. Christ, what a wedding it
had been. His mother-still furious at him for becoming a policeman-had
refused to attend, and Hauer had not been included in the plans. But
he'd shown up anyway, Hans remembered. Hans had spied his rigid,
uniformed figure outside the church, standing alone at the end of the
block. Hans had pretended not to notice, but Ilse had waved quite
deliberately to him as they climbed into the wedding car.
Angry again, Hans wolfed down another sausage and tried to concentrate
on the television. A silver-haired windbag of a Frankfurt banker was
dispensing financial advice to viewers saddled with the burden of
surplus cash. Hans snorted in disgust. At fifteen hundred
Deutschemarks per month, a Berlin policeman made barely enough money to
pay rent and buy groceries. Without Ilse's income, they would be
shivering in a cold-water flat in Kreuzberg. He wanted to switch
channels, but the old Siemens black-and-white had been built in the dark
ages before remote control. He stayed where he was.
He took another bite of sausage and stared blankly at the screen.
Beneath his stockinged feet, the wrinkled sheaf of papers waited, a
tantalizing mystery beckoning him to explore. Yet he had already hit a
dead end. The strange, staring eye hovered in his mind, taunting him.
After breakfast, he decided, he would take a shower and then have
another go at the papers.
He never made it off the bed. Exhaustion and the warm air overcame him
even before he finished the sausage. He slid down the duvet, the
unfinished plate balanced precariously on his lap, the Spandau papers
hidden just beneath his feet.
10.15 A.m. French Sector. West Berlin
Ilse hated these visits. No matter how many times she saw her
Gynakologe, she never got used to it. Ever. The astringent smell of
alcohol, the gleaming stainless steel, the cold table, palpating
fingers, the overly solicitous voice of the physician, who sometimes
peered directly into her eyes from between her upraised legs: all these
combined to produce a primal anxiety that solidified like ice in the
hollow of her chest. Ilse knew about the necessity of annual checkups,
but until she and Hans had begun trying to have a child, she'd skipped
more exams than she would care to admit.
All that had changed eighteen months ago. She had been up in the
stirrups so many times now that the stress of the ordeal had almost
diminished to that of a visit to the dentist-but not quite. Unlike many
German women, Ilse possessed an extreme sense of modesty about her body.
She suspected it was because she had never known her mother, but
whatever the reason, being forced to expose herself to a stranger,
albeit a doctor, for her required a considerable act of will. Only her
strong desire to have children allowed her to endure the interminable
series of examinations and therapies designed to enhance fertility.
'All done, Frau Apfel,' Doctor Grauber said. He handed a slide to his
waiting nurse. Ilse heard that hard snap as he stripped off his
surgical gloves and raised the lid of the waste bin with his foot. It
crashed down, sending gooseflesh racing across her neck and shoulders.
'I'll see you in my office after you've dressed.'
Ilse heard the door open and close. The nurse started to help her out
of the stirrups, but she quickly raised herself and reached for her
clothes.
Dr. Grauber's office was messy but well-appointed, full of books and
old medical instruments and framed degrees and the smell of cigars.
Ilse noticed none of this. She was here for one thing-an answer.
Was she pregnant or was she sick? The two possibilities wrestled in her
mind. Her instinct said pregnant. She and Hans had been trying for so
long now, and the other option was too unnatural to think about.
Her body was strong and supple, lean and hard. Like the flanks of a
lioness, Hans said once (as if he knew what a lioness felt like).
How could she be sick? She felt so well.
But she knew. Exterior health was no guarantee of immunity. Ilse had
seen two friends younger than she stricken with cancer. One had died,
the other had lost a breast. She wondered how Hans would react to
something like that. Disfigurement. He would never admit to revulsion,
of course, but it would matter. Hans loved her body-worshipped it,
really. Ever since their first night together, he had slowly encouraged
her until she felt comfortable before him naked.
Now she could turn gracefully about the room like a ballerina, or
sometimes just stand silently, still as alabaster.
'That was quick!' Dr. Grauber boomed, striding in and taking a seat
behind his chaotic desk.
Ilse pressed her back into the tufted leather sofa. She wanted to be
ready, no matter what the diagnosis. As she met the doctor's eyes, a
nurse stepped into the office.
She handed him a slip of paper and went out. Grauber glanced at it,
sighed, then looked up.
What he saw startled him. The poise and concentration with which Ilse
watched him made him forget the slip of paper in his hand. Her blue
eyes shone with frank and disarming curiosity, her skin with luminous
vitality. She wore little or no makeup-the luxury of youth, Grauber
thought-and her hair had that transparent blondness that makes the hands
tingle to touch it. But it wasn't all that, he decided.
Ilse Apfel was no film star. He knew a dozen women as striking as she.
It was something other than fine features, deeper than the glow of
youth. Not elegance, or earthiness, or even a hint of that intangible
scent Grauber called availability.
No, it was, quite simply, grace. Ilse possessed that rare beauty made
