“I saw your notice in Pariserstrasse,” he began in German.
“For my son. He doesn’t know we’re here. They took him to work in the east. A few weeks they said, and now look—”
“You were bombed out?”
“Oh, it was terrible. The British at night, the Amis in the day—” A quick glance, to see if she had offended him. “Why did they want to bomb everything? Did they think we were Hitler? The building was hit twice. The second time—”
The daughter-in-law offered him water and sat down. In the other room, the children watched through the door.
“Was Lena there?”
“No, at the hospital.”
“The hospital?”
“Not hurt. She worked there. The Elisabeth. You know the one, in Liitzowstrasse. I said it was God protecting her for her good works. You know, the others, in the basement, didn’t make it. Herr Bloch, his Greta, everybody. They killed them all.” Another glance. “Herr Bloch wouldn’t go to the public shelter. Not him. But I never trusted the cellar. It’s not deep enough, I said, and you see it wasn’t.” She had begun to wring her hands, and Jake saw the flesh of her upper arms hanging in folds, like strips of dough. “So many dead. Terrible, you can’t imagine, all night—”
“But Lena, she was all right?”
She nodded. “She came back. But of course we had to move.”
“Where did she go?”
“She had a friend from the hospital. After that, I don’t know. It was hit too, I heard. A hospital. They bombed even the sick.” She shook her head.
“But she didn’t leave an address?”
“With me? I was already gone. You know, there wasn’t time for addresses. You found whatever you could. Perhaps she had relatives, I don’t know. She never said. You can’t imagine what it was like. The noise. But do you know the strange thing? The telephones worked right to the end. That’s the thing I remember about Pariserstrasse. The bombs and everybody running and there was a telephone ringing. Even then.”
“And her husband?”
“Away somewhere. In the war.” She waved her hand. “They left the women for the Russians. Oh, that was terrible. Thank God I—” She glanced toward her daughter-in-law. “I was lucky.”
“But she must be somewhere,” Jake said.
“I don’t know. I told your friend.”
“What friend?”
“The soldier yesterday. I didn’t know what to think. Now I see. You didn’t want to come yourself, that explains it. You were always careful, I remember. In case Emil—” She leaned forward and put her hand on his arm, an unexpected confidante. “But you know, none of that matters anymore. So many years.”
“I didn’t send anybody here.”
She withdrew her hand. “No? Well, then, I don’t know.”
“Who was he?”
She shrugged. “He didn’t say. They don’t, you know. Just, how many are living here? Do you have milk cards for the children? Where did you work in the war? It’s worse than the Nazis. Maybe he was counting the dead. They do that, so you can’t use the name for the ration cards.”
“What did he say?”
“Did I know where she was living, had I seen Emil, that’s all. Like you.” She looked at him. “Is something wrong? We’re good people here. I have children to—”
“No, no. Nothing. I’m not here for the police. I just want to find Lena. We were friends.”
She smiled faintly. “Yes. I always thought so. Not a word from her,” she said, as if she still hoped for a chat over coffee. “So proper, always. Well, what does it matter now? I’m sorry I can’t help. Perhaps the hospital would know.”
He took out his notepad and wrote down the Gelferstrasse address. “If you do hear from her—”
“Of course. It’s not likely, you know. Many people left Berlin before the end. Many people. It was hard to find a place. Even like this. You see how we live now.”
Jake looked around the shabby room, then stood. “I didn’t know about the children. I would have brought some chocolate. Perhaps you can use these?” He offered her a pack of cigarettes.
She widened her eyes, then grabbed his hand and shook it with both of hers. “Thank you. You see,” she said to her daughter-in-law, “I always said it wasn’t the Amis. You can see how kind they are. It’s the British who wanted the bombing. That Churchill.” She turned back to Jake. “I remember you were always polite. I wish we were back in the American zone, not here with the British.”
Jake headed for the door, then turned. “The soldier yesterday-he was British?”
“No, American.”
He stood for a second, puzzled. Not an official, then.
“If he comes back, you will let me know? ”
She nodded, clutching the cigarettes, nervous again. “You’re sure there’s nothing wrong?”
Jake shook his head. “Maybe just another old friend. He might know something.”
“No,” she said, answering something else. “There was only you.”
A hospital would have records, Jake thought, but when he got there he saw that a fire had swept through that stretch of Liitzowstrasse, taking the Elisabeth and all its paper with it. Only a few walls were left, black and open to the sky, one of Ron’s decayed molars. A work brigade of women was clearing the site, handing pails of bricks along a line that snaked over the heaps of fallen beams and charred bed-frames. The breeze that had come up during the night was now a steady hot wind, blowing ashes, so that the women had had to cover their mouths with kerchiefs, like bandits. Jake stood for a while watching, trying not to notice the heavy stench that hung in the street. How long before one didn’t smell it anymore?
He wondered what she’d done here. Emil hadn’t wanted her to work, a traditional husband, so she’d left Columbia for idle afternoons at home. They’d had to take on Hannelore instead, a thick girl with inadequate English and, Jake assumed, a direct line to Nanny Wendt. But Lena still came to parties, until it became awkward to see foreigners and Emil asked her to stop, and then she only saw Jake. Had he ever suspected? Frau Dzuris didn’t seem to think so, but how could she know? There’d only been a few times in Pariserstrasse, when they couldn’t go to his place because Hal was there. Always careful, alert even to the flick of a curtain at a neighbor’s window. But Frau Dzuris had known somehow, maybe just from the look on their faces.
Emil, surprisingly, had been at the Anhalter when they’d all come to see Jake off, a defiantly raucous party, Hal and the rest of the gang guzzling champagne while Emil looked uneasily at the platform guards. Lena had given him flowers, the respectable send-off for an old boss, never meeting his eye until one of the party became sick and in the confusion of hustling him to the men’s room they’d finally had a moment together.
“Why did you bring him?” Jake said.
“He was there when they called from the office. I couldn’t come alone. How would it look?” She paused, looking down. “He wanted to come. He likes you.”
“Lena,” he said, reaching for her.
“No. No scenes. I want him to see me drink champagne and wave, like the others. Then we’ll take a taxi home and that’s the end.”
“I’ll come back,” he said, hurrying, hearing the loud bursts of English near the men’s room.
“No, you won’t. Not now,” she said simply, nodding toward all the uniforms on the platform.
“I’ll come back for you,” he said, looking at her until she raised her eyes again, her face softening, no longer public.
She shook her head slowly, glancing to see if the others were still away, then put her hand up to his cheek and held it there for a moment, her eyes on him, as if she were trying to memorize his face. “No. But think of me sometimes,” she said.
He stood there, just looking. “Lena,” he said, moving his face against her hand, but then she dropped it, a quick graze as she looked over his shoulder.
