On the way to the Press Club they had something to talk about and it helped them relax.
At the door, he offered her his arm and they walked down the reception line. Eyebrows were raised; they felt it.
Neal Hazzard studied Ernestine from head to toe in a second or so. He caught Sean with a glance that read: “Jesus, what a dish.”
“Fraulein Falkenstein, I’d like you to meet Colonel Hazzard, Mrs. Hazzard.”
“Lovely affair.”
“Any relation to Ulrich Falkenstein?”
“My uncle.”
They tried to avoid the voices trailing after them.
“Say, is that O’Sullivan with a German girl?”
“For her, he should make an exception.”
“That’s Falkenstein’s niece. She works in Judge Cohen’s section.”
“I’ll bet General Hansen told him to bring her. Show of friendship and all that.”
While the gossips had their say, Sean found the friendly, homely face of Nelson Goodfellow Bradbury deep in a mug of beer at the bar. He introduced Ernestine and they retreated to a quiet table in the garden and Sean excused himself to report his whereabouts to Headquarters.
In all the time they had been in Berlin, Sean had never been seen socially in the company of a German. His dates were either American girls or those working in the foreign missions.
Big Nellie sat with the girl and remembered a lot of things from way back. He was the one who had told Sean his brother was dead. And in Rombaden, Sean confided his unadulterated hatred of Germans.
Was it this particular girl because of her obvious intelligence and beauty who broke the barrier, or was it because she was the niece of Falkenstein? Was this the beginning of a softening process?
“I have enjoyed your column over the last year and a half,” Ernestine said.
“I didn’t realize I was read here in Berlin.”
“My uncle has an arrangement to receive a number of American and British papers. You have been a friend of the Berliners.”
“Because the Berliners have been our friends.”
“I understand you and the colonel are old comrades?”
“We go back a ways.”
There was an awkward second. Perhaps a question she wanted to ask; perhaps one he wanted to ask.
Sean returned and after a moment Big Nellie ambled away.
They talked for a long time about things that both of them liked: the kind of music they heard tonight; the kind of books she had read since living with her uncle. There was much in common.
When it was time for them to leave, Sean drove her home and both of them said it was a nice evening and perhaps ... sometime again.... And the moment he drove away he was annoyed with himself for enjoying it and wanting to see more of her.
Ernestine slipped quietly into the apartment. The light was on in the living room.
“How was the evening?” Ulrich asked.
“The concert was lovely. It was a pity you couldn’t attend.”
“And the colonel?”
“Quite civilized. In fact, he can be quite charming. As you know he can discuss many things on a wide range of subjects.”
“All O’Sullivan and I ever talked about was good Germans and bad Germans.”
“We avoided that.”
Ernestine brewed some tea and felt uncomfortable with her uncle’s obvious cynicism.
“Ernestine, darling,” he said, “Colonel O’Sullivan has had to set aside some deep feelings to be seen with you.”
“Under it all, he is just a human being. He was bound to become lonely. We all become lonely, Uncle.”
“And you? I have never seen you look as radiant as when you came in just now.”
“I am sure the invitation was mainly for you to make a public show of friendship.”
“And you will see him again?”
“Perhaps.”
“You are a young woman in the bloom of life. How long has it been since you had a date? Isn’t it strange that the first time you have gone out in months, it should be with an American?”
For a time, Ernestine made dates with German boys she had known and colleagues at work. She saw in them something of Dietrich Rascher, her father, her brother. She was frightened of all of them.
“Certainly O’Sullivan is civilized to stifle certain emotions, but eventually his hatred will burst through.”
Ernestine wanted to defend Sean. Her uncle had worked with him in Rombaden under severe circumstances. Uncle never got to know him as a warm and gentle person. That image of the iron-willed dedicated Prussian faded when he spoke. Why was she defending him in her own mind? She knew she wanted to see him again.
“It is strange how enemies are irresistibly drawn to each other. But love between enemies is not love. It is a desire to destroy each other,” Ulrich said.
“You are making a lot over nothing.”
“If it is nothing, then promise you won’t see him again.”
“I did enjoy the evening so much, Uncle.”
“I don’t want you hurt, Ernestine ... I don’t want you hurt. “
Chapter Thirty-four
IGOR SHAVED. IN THE mirror he could see the image of Lotte in the doorway behind him putting on her negligee. She was pouting.
“Are you going out?”
“Yes.”
“This makes four nights in a row. What is so important?”
“I am a colonel. Nikolai Trepovitch is a general. He ordered me to a meeting. I go.”
“Why must you always hold your meetings in the middle of the night?”
“So we can sleep late in the morning.”
“But I can’t sleep when you are gone.”
“You are a delightful fraud. When I return I always find you dead to the world.”
“That is because I take pills.”
He doused his face, rinsed his razor, and put on a lotion that he had obtained from an American at the Air Safety Center.
Lotte had her arms around him, squeezed him. He lifted her up and carried her into the bedroom, deposited her, and tugged on his boots.
“When will you give me a baby?” she asked.
What a liar! Oh, maybe she did want a child in the same way a little girl wants to play with a doll. She was clever enough to please him with the thought. They had been discreet, never showing up together at public functions. That was tolerable to the command. But anything like having a German mistress bear his child would mean immediate banishment.
A month earlier, Igor had gone through particular hell. The party, for some reason, decided it would be of propaganda value to dispatch his wife, Olga, to a convention of the League of German Women Communists and an inspection of Russian Berlin. Igor was compelled to stand like an adoring clod at the airport with a bouquet of flowers and embrace her with emotion at the ramp for the photographers. She was as drab as he remembered her.
For a week Igor escorted her on a well-documented tour of the Soviet Sector with the story sent out to the Communist world of this son and daughter separated by their dedication to the greater cause.
Olga visited a site in Treptower Park which would become a great memorial cemetery to the Russians who died storming Berlin. She visited an orphanage and had words for the future comrades. She attended a church service as visible proof of the Soviet Union’s democratic attitude toward religion.
Olga addressed the convention of German Women Communists with venom against the imperialists trying to enslave them and pleading for German motherhood to protect the peace by giving their sons and daughters to the forward march of world communism.
There was a final banquet at which Olga surprised her husband by presenting him with the Order of Lenin at the command of Comrade Stalin.
The agony ended with him rushing back to Lotte to calm the distraught girl an hour after his wife flew back to Leningrad.
“I do want your baby,” Lotte said again. “One day you must leave. All soldiers leave.”