Gunther took a drink, looking down into the glass. “You forget, I’m a friend to the Soviet peoples.” The accented German of the prosecutor, bitter, the trial still there after all. “Who knows?” he said, almost airy now, playing with it. “Maybe soon an employee. The general admires my work. There are not so many opportunities.”
“You’d work for him?” Jake said, thrown by this. “You’d work for the Russians?”
“My friend, what difference does it make? When you leave, who will be here? We have to live. Calm yourself,” he said, waving his hand, “for now it’s not attractive. I’m working on a case.” He raised his glass, a reassuring toast.
“You see?” Danny said. “That’s what he likes. Old Sherlock. It’s not the money with him.”
“Then I’ll try to keep you interested,” Jake said, getting up. He looked down at Gunther, placidly draining his glass. “That’s quite a future you have in mind, you and Vassily. You know, he was in the market when Shaeffer got hit. I guess that would make him the greifer.”
Gunther lowered the glass, drawn by the word. His face was slack, eyes lost and empty like one of the children on the platform. He looked at Jake for a moment, then grunted, slowly moving the glass aside, pushing it out of sight with everything else. “Be careful he doesn’t become yours,” he said, his voice composed, neutral.
“But—” Jake said, then stopped.
“But you have someone waiting,” Gunther said. “The other matter we discussed-the living arrangements?”
“It’s taken care of,” Jake said, deliberately not looking at Danny.
“Good. Sometimes it’s enough, just moving.” He looked down. “Of course, not always.”
Outside, the street was full of drivers, bored privates in khaki standing by while their officers danced. The GI on guard duty was talking to Lena, leaning casually against the jeep.
“He says he knows Texas,” she said, smiling as Jake approached. “There are hills there, so that’s good.”
It took Jake a second, preoccupied, to realize she was back with the children.
“That’s right, lots of hills,” the soldier said in a cowpoke drawl. Any driver, maybe even him, pulled out of the pool to escort the visitor around.
“They’ll like that,” she said as Jake started the motor. “Like home.” Rolling Silesian hills.
“Let’s hope so.”
“What were you doing?”
“Seeing a man about a place. We can have it tomorrow.” He swung into the street.
“So soon.”
“Why not? There’s not much to pack.”
“Oh, it’s easy for you. That’s how you live. A gypsy,” she said, but smiling.
“Well, I’m used to it,” he said. Tents and hotels and rented rooms.
“No, you like it.”
He glanced over at her. “Will you?”
“Of course,” she said, a forced brightness. “We’ll be gypsies. One suitcase. You don’t think I can do it?”
He smiled. “Well, maybe two cases.”
There was no one in the street outside the flat, still safe, and no one inside either, Hannelore’s party, as expected, running late.
“I have to wash,” she said. “I won’t be long. Look at the mess she’s left. Well, I won’t miss that.”
“I’ll clean it up.”
“No, in the morning. It’s so late. Am I standing up?”
But when the bathroom door closed, he went over to the sink anyway, thinking of when she’d been sick, washing the dishes to fill the time, waiting for the doctor, tidying up as a kind of medicine. Only three weeks ago. There wasn’t much to do-cups, some scattered papers near the typewriter. Most of his clothes were at Gelferstrasse. Not even one suitcase. It would take only minutes to leave, another room. And yet it occurred to him that Frau Hinkel was wrong-he was home here, all the years before the war, then these last weeks when it seemed a kind of sanctuary, here longer than anywhere he’d ever been. His place. Nothing remarkable-the rumpled sofa where Hal used to pass out, the table where Lena had sat with coffee, sunlight pouring across her robe; his private piece of Berlin. But not a refuge anymore, a trap.
He heard the click of the door as Lena left the bathroom, and he walked over to the window, turning out the light behind him. Nothing. Wittenbergplatz was quiet. He looked up and down the street, eyes in two directions. Maybe Frau Hinkel was wrong about that too. But U-boats kept moving. His cards were lucky. Pariserstrasse was rubble, in a day this flat would be gone, but Lena was still here, brushing out her hair probably, sitting on the bed in her nightgown, waiting for him. He looked around in the dark. Just rooms.
In the bathroom he brushed his teeth, then washed off the day’s layer of grime, coming alive with the water. She’d be wearing the prewar silk, a sentimental choice for their last night here, straps hanging loose on her shoulders. Maybe already packing, ready to go somewhere new. But when he opened the door, he saw her lying on the bed in the dim lamplight, curled up like one of the children, eyes closed. A long day. He stood for a moment looking at her face, damp from the heat, but not the fever of those days when he’d kept watch. A few of her things had been folded in a neat pile. Life in a suitcase, the last thing she wanted, but she’d said it. He turned off the light, undressed, and slipped quietly onto his side of the bed, trying not to wake her, thinking of that first night, when they hadn’t made love either, just lay together. He turned on his side and she stirred.
“Jacob,” she said, only half awake. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. Go to sleep.”
“No, I wanted—”
“Ssh.” He smoothed her forehead, whispering. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow. We’ll go to the lakes.” Like a bedtime promise to a child.
“A boat,” she murmured vaguely, not really following, still drowsy. “All right.” A pause. “Thank you for everything,” she said, oddly polite.
“Any time,” he said, smiling at her words.
In the quiet he thought she had drifted off, but she moved closer, facing him, eyes now open. She put her hand on his cheek. “Do you know something? I’ve never loved you as much as I did tonight.”
“When was that, exactly?” he said softly. “So I can do it again.”
“Don’t joke,” she said, leaning her head into his. She stroked his cheek. “Never so much. When you read to him. I saw how it would have been. If nothing had happened.”
He saw her eyes in the basement again, not tired, brimming with something else, a sadness out of reach, hanging in the air between them like rubble dust.
“Sleep,” he said. He moved his hand up to close her eyes, but she took it in hers.
“Let me see it again,” she said, tracing. “Yes, there.” Satisfied, her eyes closing finally. Contents — Previous Chapter / Next Chapter
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Brian had been as good as his word. Jake’s name was listed at the Grunewald yacht club and the boat was his for a signature.
“He said you’d be by,” the British soldier said at the marina landing. “I’ll have Roger bring it round for you. Know how to handle a sail?” Jake nodded. “ ‘Course, she’s only a sunny. Nothing to it. Still, we like to ask. Some of the lads—” He jerked his head toward the terrace cafe, where soldiers sat drinking beer under a row of flapping Union Jacks, one table in kilts, still in parade dress. “Wait here, I won’t be a sec.”
Lena was standing with her face to the sun, oblivious to everything but the day. There was a breeze off the lake, fresh, not even a trace of the city’s smell.
The boat was a small single-masted sailboat scarcely big enough for two, with a toylike tiller and oars. It bobbed unsteadily when Jake stepped in, so that he planted his feet apart and held the dock piling before he reached for Lena’s hand, but she grinned at his concern, slipping off her shoes and leaping in, surefooted, her skirt
