blowing up in the breeze. Half the terrace seemed to be watching, heads tilted to catch her legs.
“Sit first,” she said to Jake, in control, then pushed the boat off.
“Watch the current,” the soldier said. “It’s not really a lake, you know. People forget.”
Lena nodded, stretching the sail out along the jib, an old hand. They began moving on the water.
“I didn’t know you were a sailor,” Jake said, watching her tie the sail rope.
“I’m from Hamburg. Everyone knows boats there.” She looked around, theatrically sniffing the air. “My father liked it. In the summer we used to go to the sea. Always, every summer. He would take me out with him because my brother was too small.”
“You have a brother?”
“He was killed. In the army,” she said, matter-of-fact.
“I didn’t know.”
“Yes, Peter. The same name.”
“Were there others?”
“No, just him and my parents. There’s no one left now from that life. Except Emil.” She shrugged and lifted her head again. “Pull to your left, we have to bring it around. My god, what a day. So hot.” Deliberately pushing them away from shore.
And in fact, the farther they went, the better it became, away from the war, the burned pockets of woods disappearing in the distance, only the standing pines visible. Not Berlin at all, little waves catching the sun in flashes, postcard blue. He looked across the water, shading his eyes from the glare. Not choked with bodies like the stagnant Landwehrkanal-all flushed to the North Sea with the current, except for what had settled to the bottom, bottles, scraps of shells, even riding boots. The surface, anyway, was bright and clear.
“A brother. I didn’t know. What else? I want to know everything about you.”
“So you can decide?” she said, smiling, determined to be cheerful. “Too late. You’ve already had the sample. It’s like Wertheim’s-no returns permitted, sales final.”
“Wertheim’s never said that.”
“No? Well, I do.” She flicked some water over the side at him.
“That’s all right. I don’t want to return anything.”
She sat back against the prow, hiking her skirt up to her thighs, stretching her white legs in the sun.
“You look beautiful today.”
“You think so? Then let’s not go back. We’ll live here, on the water.”
“Careful you don’t burn.”
“I don’t care. It’s healthy.”
The breeze had died down, the boat barely moving, as still as a beach. They lay on their backs like sunbathers, eyes closed, talking into the air.
“What will it be like, do you think?” she said, her voice lazy, like the quiet slap of water against the side of the boat.
“What?”
“Our life.”
“Why do women always ask that? What happens next.”
“So many have asked you that?”
“Every single one.”
“Maybe we have to plan. What do you tell them?”
“That I don’t know.”
She trailed her hand in the water. “So that’s your answer? ‘I don’t know’?”
“No. I know.”
She said nothing for a minute, then sat up. “I’m going to swim.”
“Not here you’re not.”
“Why not? It’s so hot.”
“You don’t know what’s in there.”
“You think I’m afraid of fish?” She stood, holding on to the mast to steady the boat.
“Not fish,” he said. Bodies. “It’s not clean. You could get sick.”
“Ouf,” she said, waving it off, then reached under to slip off her underpants. “You know, during the raids it was like that. Some nights you were afraid of everything. Then others, nothing. No reason, you just knew nothing would happen. And nothing did.”
She took off her dress, pulling it over her head, then standing with her arms still up, stretched out, everything white but the patch of hair between her legs, brazen. “Your face,” she said, laughing at him. “Don’t worry, I won’t swallow.”
“Come on, Lena. It’s not safe.”
“Oh, safe.” She tossed the dress aside. “You see, a gypsy,” she said, flinging her arms out. She glanced back. “Hold the boat,” she said, still pragmatic. “You don’t want it to swamp.” And then with a light bounce she was over, slicing into the water, her splash spraying the boat as it rocked in her wake.
He leaned over the side, watching her glide beneath the surface, long arms pushing back the water in smooth arcs, hair streaming behind her toward the round curve of her hips, a free streak of white flesh, so graceful that for a second he wondered if he had made her up, just an idea of a woman. But she bobbed up, spitting water and laughing, real.
“You look like a mermaid,” he said.
“With fins,” she said, rolling on her back in a fluid movement to point her toes upward, then slapping the water with them. “It’s wonderful, like silk. Come.”
“I’ll watch.”
She plunged down in a backward dive, making a circle underwater, performing. When she came back up she floated again, eyes closed to the sun, her skin glistening in the light. He looked across the water. They had drifted closer to the Grunewald shore, and he could make out the beach where they’d stood that day when the rain had caught them. Closed into herself, not even wanting to kiss, then shivering on the drive through the woods. Dancing to the records, wanting to come back to life. He thought of her moving down the stairs in Liz’s shoes, tentative. Now splashing like a porpoise in the bright sun, somebody else, a girl who would jump off a boat. Lucky cards.
She swam over and held the side of the boat.
“Had enough?” he said.
“In a minute. It’s so cool. When do we have to go back?”
“Whenever. I don’t want to move till it’s dark.”
“Like thieves. Where is it?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“I have to tell Professor Brandt. He won’t know where I am.”
“I don’t want him to. They’re watching his house.”
“For Emil?”
“For you.”
“Oh,” she said, then ducked her head in the water, still holding on to the side.
“I’ll have somebody check on him, don’t worry.”
“It’s just that he’s alone. There’s no one.”
“Not Emil, that’s for sure. He said he was dead.”
“Dead? Why would he say that?”
Jake shrugged. “Dead to him, maybe. I don’t know. That’s what he said when they questioned him at Kransberg.”
“So they wouldn’t bother him. Arrest him. The Gestapo did thattook the families.”
“The Allies aren’t the Gestapo.”
She looked up at him. “Well, it’s different for you. When you think that way—” She turned back to the water. “Did he say I was dead too?”
“No, he wanted to find you. That was the trouble. That’s how everything started.”
“Then why not let him? And finish it? I don’t want to hide.”
“He’s not the only one looking now.”
