Tadek saw Morris regarding her closely. It was obvious the OSS agent was calculating and working things out in his mind.
“Why?” Morris finally asked, his head cocked slightly.
“Just to see everything with my own eyes.”
Morris considered, stirring his coffee, searching for signs on her face. Tadek could almost read the thoughts passing through the American’s mind at that moment. What was there for her, in the obliterated carcass of the city? Or who? Tadek would bet any money that Morris was thinking about Frau Hanke and things that she brought from her scavenging trips to the heart of Berlin. The US War department supplied Morris’s group with food just fine but the housekeeper still insisted that she needed things that the Amis couldn’t provide. Good shampoo for Fräulein Neumann. Good soap for Fräulein Neumann. Nylon stockings for Fräulein Neumann. Gruppenführer Neumann was quite a smoker and left an entire cabinet filled with cartons of good cigarettes and cigars before he’d disappeared from the city – an unwittingly wise thing to do, for now, when the Reichsmark plunged so low it virtually lost any value, it was the cigarettes – the new Berlin currency – that allowed Frau Hanke to spoil her only surviving charge, with all the loyalty of a true servant of the family.
What else was she smuggling into the house, for Fräulein Neumann? Messages from a friend in hiding? Tadek wondered, along with Morris, even though neither of them uttered a single word. There was no need; they spoke quite often when the entire house would go to sleep and they stayed up in Neumann’s former study, making plans, pondering strategies, speculating about Neumann’s whereabouts. Morris was certain Gerlinde’s father was still on the continent. Tadek was of the opinion that Neumann was on the continent all right, just not the European one.
It was during one of these conversations that Morris admitted to Tadek that when he had first arrived here with his OSS group, he considered banning all comings and goings by both Frau Hanke and Gerlinde Neumann but then realized that it would be quite an unwise thing to do. After all, how would Otto Neumann establish contact with his only daughter, if the house had been turned into a virtual fortress? And so, the loyal Frau Hanke was allowed to roam free.
Was that what they’d been hoping for all along? Did the American indeed calculate it all correctly?
“I understand that you’re afraid that I’ll run away.” Gerlinde’s voice cut into the wild torrent of Tadek’s thoughts. “You can send one or two of your men to accompany me if you like.”
Instead of replying to her, Morris looked at Tadek. That would be utterly idiotic and they both understood it. No contact would approach her with two American OSS men on her tail.
Morris stirred his coffee some more, took a sip. It was lukewarm now but he still drank it. “As a matter of fact, I thought to send Tadeusz to accompany you.”
Tadek kept his face impassive so as not to betray his emotions. It was truly outstanding how they’d learned to understand each other without a single word exchanged.
“It would do you both good,” the American continued. “I’ll tell Johnson to drop you off at the Tiergarten. Walk around there, stretch your legs, see the ruins of the Reichstag if you like. He’ll collect you a couple of hours later. Will a couple of hours do?”
Gerlinde regarded him closely but even if she suspected something, her face didn’t betray anything.
“Couple of hours will do just fine,” she replied evenly.
“I don’t need to tell you that you have to stay together the entire time, do I?”
“No, Agent Morris. It’s quite clear.”
The jeep had long sped away but Gerlinde still stood on the same spot, a look of utter disbelief etched into her features. She turned her head slowly this way and that, taking in her surroundings, yet didn’t budge. She hadn’t said a word the entire time that they’d driven there, only stared around with horror, her fingers clasping at the door of the open jeep in silent desperation. The rubble was mostly cleared from the roads and neatly piled up along its sides and the middle. The sun burst in golden torrents through the empty sockets of the bombed-out buildings. Inside some of them, entire rooms could still be visible, with furniture, cupboards, wallpaper, and neatly made beds. The rooms, cut in half, like the lives of their former inhabitants. Not counting his stay at Neumann’s suburban villa and the street-to-street fighting along with the Russians, it was Tadek’s first time in the heart of Berlin as a civilian; a civilian, who could actually look around without fear of catching a bullet from some Hitlerjugend pup’s rifle.
It was not how he’d always imagined he’d see it.
In front of them, across from the overgrown lawns, replete with the singed bodies of the trees, the former building of the Reichstag stood, just as singed and riddled with bullets. Red flags fluttered their wings in the wind, completing the picture of utter obliteration in their mocking brightness. A blood-spattered past stared right back at them and for the life of them, neither could look away.
“War Merit Cross?” A child’s voice, from behind.
Startled, Tadek swung round. The boy, hardly
