He sat for a minute looking at her. An old cotton wrapper dotted with patches of sweat, wrists thin enough to snap. Like one of the grim DPs he’d seen plodding across the Tiergarten. Where had Emil been?
“I went to the Elisabeth,” he said. “Frau Dzuris said you worked there.“
“With the children. There was no one to help, so—” She winced. “So I went there.”
“Did they get out? Before the raid?”
“Not bombs. Shells. The Russians. Then the fire.” She turned her head, eyes filling. “No one got out.”
He turned the cloth over, feeling helpless.
“Don’t think about it now.”
“No one got out.”
But she had, somehow. Another Berlin story.
“Tell me later,” he said softly. “Get some sleep.”
He smoothed her hair again, as if it would empty her head, and in a few minutes it seemed to work. The little gasps evened out and became almost soundless, so that only the faint movement of her chest showed she was breathing at all. Where was Hannelore?
He watched her sleep for a while, then got up and looked around the jumbled room. Clothes had been flung over the chair, a pair of shoes resting on top. Without thinking, he began putting things away, filling time. A messy room is the sign of a messy mind-his mother’s old saying, ingrained after all. He realized, absurdly, that he was tidying up for the doctor. As if it mattered.
He opened the closet door. He had left a few things with Hal, but they were gone, traded perhaps on one of the message boards. In their place, a fur coat was hanging next to some dresses. A little ragged, but still fur, the kind of thing he’d heard they collected to send to the troops on the eastern front. But Hannelore had kept hers. A present, no doubt, from a friend in the ministry. Or maybe just salvaged after one of the bombing raids, when the owner hadn’t got out.
He went into the living room. There wasn’t much to straighten here-the lumpy couch, a suitcase neatly set underneath, some stray cups that hadn’t been washed. Near the window table, something new-an empty birdcage, Hannelore’s one addition to the room. Otherwise, just as before. He washed the cups in cold water, then wiped off the sink counter, settling in. When there was nothing left to do, he stood by the window smoking, thinking about the hospital. What else had she seen? All the time he’d imagined her in the old flat getting dressed to go out, frowning at herself in the mirror, safe under some bell jar of memory. The last four years were only supposed to have happened to him.
A few cigarettes later, he heard Hannelore on the stairs.
“Leave the door open,” she said, switching off her flashlight. “He’ll never find it otherwise.”
“Where’s the doctor?”
“He’s coming. They had to get him. How is she?”
“Sleeping.”
She grunted and went into the kitchen, pulling down a bottle hidden over the top shelf.
“Where’s Steve?” Jake said.
“You ruined that for me,” she said, pouring a drink. “He’ll never come back now.”
“Don’t worry, there’re plenty more where he came from.”
“You think it’s so easy. What am I supposed to do now?”
“I’ll make it up to you. I’ll pay for the room, too. She can’t sleep out here.”
“No, only me, is that it? How can I bring people to a couch?”
“I said I’d pay. You can take a vacation, give yourself a rest. You could use it.”
“Go to hell,” she said, then noticed the washed cups on the counter. “Ha. Maid service too. My ship has come in.” But she sounded mollified now, already counting the money. “You have a cigarette?”
He gave her one and lit it.
“I’ll move her out as soon as she’s better. Here, take this.” He handed her some money. “I can’t move her now.”
“All right, all right, nobody’s throwing anybody out. I like Lena. She was always nice to me. Not like some,” she said, looking at him. “She used to come sometimes during the war, bring coffee, have a little visit. Not for me. I knew why she came. She wanted to be here, just sit in the flat. Make sure it was still here. It reminded her, I suppose. Such foolishness. Everything just so. ‘Hannelore, you moved the chair. Didn’t you like it over here?’ I knew what she was up to. And my god, what did it matter, with the bombs every night, where a chair was? ‘If it makes you so happy, move it back,’ I’d say, and you know, she would? Foolishness.“ She finished off the drink.
“Yes,” Jake said. Another bell jar. “Did Hal give you the apartment?”
“Of course. He was a friend of mine, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know,” he said, genuinely surprised.
“Oh you, you never noticed anything. Just her. That’s all you could see. Hal was very nice. I always liked the Americans. Even you, a little. You weren’t a bad sort. Sometimes,” she added, then paused. “Don’t make trouble for me. I was never a Nazi, I don’t care what you think. Never. The BDM only-all the girls in school had to join. But not a Nazi. Do you know what they’ll do? They’ll give me a Number V ration card-that’s a death card. You can’t live on that.”
“I don’t want to make trouble for you. I’m grateful to you.”
“Huh,” she said, putting out her cigarette. “But I’m still on the couch. Well, let me get my things.”
When she came back she was in a silk nightgown, her heavy breasts bulging. Hal’s friend.
“Does it embarrass you?” she said, almost coquettish. “Well, I can’t help that if I’m out here.” She spread a sheet on the couch.
“Is she still sleeping?”
Hannelore nodded. “She doesn’t look so good,” she said.
“How long has she been sick?”
“A week, maybe two. When she came, I thought she was just tired. You know, everyone looks tired now. I didn’t know. What could I do? There wasn’t much to eat.”
“I’ll bring some food tomorrow. For both of you.”
“And some cigarettes maybe?” She had begun wiping her face with a damp cloth, taking off years with the rouge. How old would she be now, twenty-five?
“Sure.”
“Herr Geismar,” she said to herself, shaking her head. “Back in Berlin. Who would have thought? Even the old room, eh?”
“I’ll wait up,” Jake said. “Sleep if you like.”
“Oh, with a man in the room. Not likely. Maybe just a little rest.”
But in a little while she was out, her mouth open, the sheet barely covering her breasts, the unconcerned sleep of a child. More waiting, staring out into the eerie darkness of Wittenbergplatz. He made mental lists-food, medicine if he could get it from the dispensary, faking an illness. If not, Gunther, who could get anything. But what medicine? He glanced at his watch. One-thirty. What kind of doctor came at two in the morning?
He came at three, a little tapping up the stairs, then a skeletal frame in the doorway, clearing his throat as if he were ringing a bell. He was almost grotesquely thin, with sunken concentration camp eyes. Where had Danny found him? A rucksack for a medicine bag.
“You’re the doctor?”
“Rosen.” He nodded formally. “Where is she?”
Jake pointed to the bedroom, watching Rosen take in the sleeping Hannelore on the couch.
“First, somewhere to wash my hands.”
Jake assumed it was a euphemism, but in the bathroom Rosen really did wash his hands, then dry them methodically, like a surgeon.
“Should I boil some water?” Jake said, at a loss.
“Why? Is she having a baby?”
In the bedroom, Jake woke her gently, then stepped aside as Rosen felt her throat with his clean hands, presumably testing for swelling. A palm on her forehead instead of a thermometer.
“How long?”
“I don’t know. She said a week or so.”
