“Maybe in your country, kid, but not in ours.” He handed Emil his cane. “Just some eyes to make sure you stay out of trouble.” He held out his hand, and Emil took it.
“Thank you, Comrade.”
That word brought a sudden frown to the officer’s cheery face.
Konrad had given him a name and address-Birgit Schlieger, Friedrichstrasse 36-with a small, hand-drawn map. Emil stopped at a corner to try and orient himself. The demolished Tiergarten was to his right. Upturned trees had been cleared, and someone had planted a few twigs to mark their passing. Along the far end, army blankets held up by sticks formed tents. The Opel hummed on the corner behind him. It was quickly becoming dark, and no lights appeared in the houses, only the faint waver of candlelight. He turned the little map ninety degrees and held it to his nose before finding where he was. Friedrichstrasse was on the opposite side of town.
He took a long tram ride to the street-another demolished wreck-but before searching for the apartment, he stopped at a cafe that had a candle on each of its five tables and mildewed, yellow wallpaper peeling in the corners. He settled near the door. The Opel was nowhere to be seen, but in the corner there was a well-fed American Negro with a round face. He wore a brown overcoat and drank his coffee as if it were water. Emil stared- he’d never seen a Negro in the flesh before, skin that dark, absorbing the light like that. The American nodded pleasantly enough at Emil’s stare, then went back to the candlelit paperback novel in his hand.
On the cover: a lurid painting of a terrified woman under a knife. The decadence, Emil supposed, of capitalism.
He ordered coffee and a breadstick. The waitress didn’t notice his accent, or maybe by now she was all too familiar with Slavs. A couple of thin, coal-blackened men sauntered in and began drinking beer.
He wondered if Leonek had found Lena yet. Alive, safe. He hoped. He remembered the field, Lena stretched whitely in the grass, then that white, bloodstained rug.
The bread was dry and the coffee too watery. But finally being off his feet was something. The coffee made his stomach burn, then the bread bloated it. The two Germans were talking coal: load sizes and quotas. They talked about American C-4s flying from Hanover.
The men worked at Tempelhof Airport, he realized, part of the gangs of Germans hired to unload the planes. He wished he could simply sneak into the compound with them, but Konrad had been clear: Trust Birgit. Absolutely. She’s devoted to the Great Red Cause. What about you? Emil had asked. Friends, he said, that’s what I’m devoted to. That, and the longest path to the grave.
He put his money down as the waitress collected his plate. She stopped, one hand on the edge of the table, and stared at it.
“Isn’t it enough?” asked Emil.
She looked from the money to him, and straightened her black skirt. She spoke bitterly: “Osimarks?”
Emil looked down at the bills. He had known this, of course, but it hadn’t occurred to him. The German workers stared; the American read his thriller. “I apologize,” said EmiL “Can I exchange here? Whatever rate you like.”
Her eyes had narrowed to slits, and she chewed the inside of her mouth. “Just leave,” she muttered. She took his plate away.
In the cool darkness, the whine came from everywhere. Laboring plane engines were echoed and redirected by the blasted walls and valleys of rubble. Beneath the sound, though, he could hear footsteps. Very close. Two pairs.
The black shells of Berlin rose all around him. He couldn’t go directly to Konrad s friend, not when he was being followed, yet as he turned he was less and less sure where he was, but he pressed forward, using his cane for leverage against the uneven concrete. He heard water running and women’s voices from dark homes and children squealing. He turned onto a busy street cut down the middle by tram tracks. Berliners on foot squinted into dark shop windows. He didn’t look back, only dove into a crowd and emerged on the other side of the street, behind a sparking, packed tram, and into an alley. Deep in the blackness someone was coughing, hacking, but he turned back to face the street, waiting for the Tempelhof workers.
“A single Mark,” came the whisper, then more coughing.
Emil held his breath, listening to the voices from the crowded, dark street, then the heavy breaths behind. But no one came after him. He glanced back at the old man emerging from the dark. His face was splotched by lumps, some disease taking hold, and his breath was poisonous. Wiry gray hair twisted over his brow, and he started to speak again. Emil slipped back into the street.
He found his way through the crowd again. The Germans held their thin coats tight to themselves, their eyes encircled in darkness. Planes buzzed in the distance. He couldn’t imagine how anyone slept over here.
The Opel seemed to have vanished.
He heard the truck before he saw it: an urgent voice calling in German. Then it was on their street, weaving around pedestrians: a truck topped by bullhorns, with Rias painted on its door. The voice shouted, “ Berlinern und Berlinerin, your city is in danger!” Then it took the next corner.
The Friedrichstrasse third-floor walk-up was a long railroad apartment with large windows on either end and none along its length. Birgit-stout, with a white bun atop her head and deflated bags for cheeks-didn’t smile much. After she introduced Emil to her fat but grinning husband, Dado, she ordered her happier, sweating half into the kitchen, where he knew to close the door.
“Here,” she said, pointing at a scratched dining table. It was an order, so he settled down quickly. “What’s wrong with your leg?” she demanded as she sat opposite him.
“It’s not my leg. I was shot in the stomach.”
She nodded, unfazed. “Americans?”
It took him a moment to understand. “No, no. Back home.”
“Counterrevolutionaries.” She spoke as if she knew all.
The apartment was cluttered like a grandmother’s-lace on the end tables, lace covering the sofa, lace on the shelves. He wondered how her poor grandchildren would fare. On the mottled wall was a portrait of the Comrade Chairman, his thick brown mustache like a roach on his lip. “Konrad Messer sent me.”
“Of course he did,” she said. “Would you like some tea?”
He shrugged.
“Dado!” she called, her mouth stretching at the edges. “Tea!”
He could hear Dado grunting behind the kitchen door as he stood up. Birgit smiled at him, but only briefly.
“Konrad did this before, you know. Sent me someone from your liberated nation. I was of some small assistance. Tell me. Do you know…” She paused, touching her lower lip in thought. “Mihai, yes. General Secretary Mihai? You know him?”
He shook his head.
“You have friends that do.”
“No,” he said. “The General Secretary keeps to himself.”
This seemed to displease her. She tapped her lip, nodding absently until her eyes snapped back to him. “Do you want to get to the Tempelhof air field basement as well?”
“Yes,” he said. “As soon as possible.”
“It’s a simple thing for the children, you know. They’re always cutting through the fence and running wild. The Americans spend half their time rounding up little German boys.”
He smiled obligatorily and nodded.
She brushed some dirt from the corner of her eye. “What for?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why, then, do you want to go to Tempelhof?”
Konrad had told him she would ask this question. He had given Emil the answer, just as he had given it to Janos months before. “For the interests of world socialism.”
She closed her eyes and nodded sharply. This was what she had suspected; the one reason worth her efforts. Dado stumbled out of the kitchen with a metal tray and two glasses filled with hot, brackish water. His blue worker s shirt was stained by tea drippings, and his thick hands were motor-oil black. He set out the glasses with the efficiency of a drunk headwaiter, then departed.
“Tonight?” she asked.
