proving he'd been snooping.
Thank God I didn't say Leonore's name,Heinrich thought. He managed a rather sickly answering smile. That avoided the lie direct, anyhow. Willi took it for agreement. He went back to the papers scattered across his desk. Heinrich, who kept his work area almost surgically neat, wondered how Willi ever found anything. But he did. Though he had his problems, that wasn't one of them.
When Heinrich wanted to do something at lunch, the time before he could leave crawled on hands and knees. Today, when he really didn't, hours flew by. Had he done anything more than blink once or twice before he got up from his desk? If he had, it didn't feel that way. At the same time, Willi headed out the door with Ilse. That had to mean Rolf Stolle never called her back. Willi was smirking. Seeing him with the secretary made Heinrich a little less uncomfortable about paying a call on his wife, but only a little.
Why didn't I say no?Heinrich wondered, waiting for the bus that would take him up to the park. He could have stood Erika and her sister up even after saying yes, but that never occurred to him. What he said he would do, he did.
Brakes squealing, the bus stopped in front of him. He climbed aboard, stuck his account card in the slot, and then put it back in his pocket. The bus wasn't too crowded. He sat down as it pulled out into traffic.
Ten minutes later, he got off at Wichmannstrasse, a little north of Burggrafen-Strasse. When he looked across to the Tiergarten, he saw that it wasn't very crowded, either. Not surprising, on this cold, gray winter's day. A few stubborn people sat on the benches and fed the squirrels and the few stubborn birds that hadn't flown south.
Reluctantly, he turned his back on the park and walked south down Wichmannstrasse to where it branched, then turned right onto Burggrafen-Strasse. The neighborhood dated from the last years of the nineteenth century or the start of the twentieth. Time had mellowed the bricks on the housefronts. Here and there, gray or greenish or even orange lichen spread over the brickwork, as if it came not from the time of the Kaisers but from the Neolithic age.
Here was 20 Burggrafen-Strasse, here was 18…and here, looking very little different from the houses on either side, was 16. With a sour half smile, Heinrich went up the slate walkway, climbed three red-brick steps, and stood in front of a door whose ornate carved floral border spoke of Victorian bourgeois respectability. Wishing he were somewhere, anywhere, else, Heinrich rang the bell.
'It's open,' Erika called. 'Come on in.'
He did. The entry hall was narrow and cramped. It made a dogleg to the left, so he couldn't see any of the rest of the house from the doorway. A polished brass coat-and-hat rack by the door offered a mute hint. Heinrich took it, hanging his black leather greatcoat and high-crowned cap on two of the hooks. Then, with a shrug, he went into the front room-and stopped in his tracks.
He'd seen plenty of seduction scenes in films. He'd never expected to walk into one in real life, but he did now. It was almost too perfect. A pair of champagne flutes sat on a coffee table. Behind it, on a couch, lolled Erika Dorsch. She wore something white and lacy that didn't cover very much of her and didn't cover that very well. There were no perfumes in films, either. This one-Chanel? — was devastating. 'Hello, Heinrich,' Erika murmured.
If he wasn't going to go forward and do what she obviously wanted him to do, he should have turned on his heel and got out of there as fast as he could. He realized that later. At the moment, captivated if not quite captured, he simply stared. 'Where's your sister?' he blurted.
Erika laughed musically. She sat up, which put even more of her on display as the lingerie gave ground. 'You were the one who said she'd be here,' she answered. 'I never did.'
Heinrich thought back. She was right. He'd assumed what he wanted to assume. Maybe she'd let him-no, she'd certainly let him-do that, but she hadn't lied. The collar of his uniform shirt felt much too tight. 'I'd better go,' he muttered-the first half-smart thing he'd said, and it wasn't any better than half-smart.
'Don't be silly. You just got here.' Erika patted the couch by her. 'Sit down. Make yourself at home. Have something to drink.'
He didn't. 'This is…' He cast about for a word. He didn't take long to find one. 'This is ridiculous. What on earth do you want with me?'
'About what you'd expect,' she answered. 'Do I have to draw you a picture? I don't think so-you're smart. And you'regemutlich. You're…not bad-looking.' He almost laughed. Even she couldn't push it any further than that. Then venom filled her voice as she went on, 'And Willi's a two-timing asshole. So why not?'
She leaned forward to pick up one of the flutes. A pink nipple appeared for a moment as the lace shifted. Then it vanished again. Heinrich hadn't added a memory to thethings I'm glad I saw even if I wasn't supposed to file since he was sixteen. He did now.
'Why not?' Erika repeated, this time making it a serious question. 'Who'd know? Nobody but us, and I'd get some of my own back. Willi's probably out fucking that little whore right now.'
So he was. Heinrich knew that, where Erika only suspected it. But she'd asked him why not, and he thought he owed her an answer. That was also, at best, half-smart. Again, he didn't realize it till later. His thinking, just then, was less sharp than it might have been. He said, 'I love my wife. I don't want to do anything to hurt her.'
Erika laughed at him. 'You sound like a script from the Propaganda Ministry-except I happen to know that every Propaganda Minister from Goebbels on has screwed around on his wife whenever he got the chance. So where does that leave you?'
'Say whatever you want,' he answered. 'I don't think this is a good idea.'
'No? Part of you does.' Erika wasn't looking at his face.
Heinrich intended to have a good long talk with that part, too. The trouble was, it talked back. Unhappily, he said, 'Find some other way to get even with Willi. Find some way to make him happy, if you can, and for him to make you happy, too. I know the two of you used to be.'
Her eyes flashed. 'You don't know as much as you think you do.'
'Who ever does, when it's somebody else's marriage?' Heinrich said reasonably-he was reasonable most of the time, even when being reasonable wasn't. 'But that's how it looked from the outside.'
'I don't care how it looked,' Erika said. 'And I didn't ask you to come over here to tell you stories about my miserable marriage.'
'No, you asked me to come over here so you could blow holes in it-and in mine,' Heinrich said.
'Mine's already got holes in it,' Erika said. Heinrich waited to see if she'd add anything about his. She didn't. Instead, she went on, 'I asked you to come over so I could forget about mine for a little while.'
She wouldn't forget hers. Heinrich was blind to many things that went on around him, but not to that. If this went forward, Willi would be in the back of her mind-or more likely the front of her mind-every second. She'd be gloating and laughing at him with every kiss, with every caress. Didn't she see as much herself?
He thought about asking her. While he thought, Erika lost patience. 'Heinrich,' she said in a voice more imperious than seductive, 'are you going to make love to me or not?'
He had to fight the giggles. They wouldn't do just now. What she reminded him of was a Hitler Jugend physical-training instructor who'd always bawled out, 'Well, are you going to push yourselves or not?'
'Well?' she said when he didn't answer right away. He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. The giggles were very close.
He had to say something. What came out was, 'I'm sorry, Erika.'
'Sorry?' The heat that might have been passion turned to fury. One way or another, itwould come out. 'You think you're sorry now?I'll make you sorry, God damn you! Get out of here!' She grabbed the empty champagne flute and threw it at him. He ducked. It smashed against the wall behind him. He beat a hasty retreat as she reached for the full one. That got him in the seat of the pants. It didn't break till it hit the floor.
He had his greatcoat and cap on (the cap askew) and was out the door before he realized he had a wet spot back there. He shrugged. The coat would cover it till he got back to the office, and then he could sit on it till it dried. All things considered, he would rather have eaten lunch.
XI
Lise Gimpel knew something was wrong when Heinrich poured himself a healthy slug of schnapps as soon as
