"So you don't love him?"
"I do… in a way." Her voice was very small. "He was there for me, Owen, when you weren't. Just not in the same way."
He touched her cheek. "I've never stopped loving you, Greta. Never for a moment. I thought I'd have to wait to search for you after the war but then Otto appeared like a miracle and I came in an instant. I've left my unit. I've thrown my old life away. And now I want you to come away with me. You know Germany is finished. The Nazis have made a mess of the world. Your father and I want to fly you to Switzerland. To a new life."
She shook her head, trembling. "Owen, it isn't that simple. There are vows. Duty. Country."
"Greta, if you stay here with Jürgen you'll be killed. Berlin is going to become a battlefield. We can have happiness if we have the courage to grasp it."
She closed her eyes. "I married Jürgen, Owen. Married him. If you'd come back with us, it might have been different, but you didn't. Did you know he even went ashore in the rough seas at the end of the storm to look for you? He said there was no sign— "
"My airplane was there, I was in the cave, there was a collapse…"
Greta shook her head. "I don't know about all that. It was a painful subject for both of us. I didn't want to remember." She glanced around. "My God, leave everything? My work, my home, my husband— "
"For happiness, Greta. You owe yourself that."
She looked torn. "All this is so sudden, so… bewildering. Papa appearing at my door, you back from the dead. I feel dazed." She shivered, collecting herself, then looked at him with fierce hope. "I want to start over, Owen. You must know that. I want to start over far from Germany and far from Antarctica."
"As far as we can get."
She nodded. "But I don't want to hurt Jürgen. I accepted his comfort. I must think about all this."
"Greta, you're all I've ever wanted. I couldn't bear to lose you again."
She sighed, torn. "When would we leave?"
"Now. We'll walk to your house for your things. Then we disappear before Jürgen even knows I'm alive." He put his hand out, fingered the chain of her locket.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "I must think." She held him away. "Think for myself instead of for the men in my life: you and Jürgen and Papa." She took a deep breath. "I'll give you my answer tomorrow, Owen. Here, at noon. I'll bring what I need to escape if I've decided to come with you. But you have to wait until then. Hide in the ruins and speak to no one."
"Greta, please! Life doesn't give many chances. We have to go now, before it's too late!"
She seemed to waver, then clenched her fists in resolve. "Are you going to meet my father?"
"Later." It was a groan.
"Tell him noon tomorrow." She put her finger to his lips. "Give me time, Owen. Time to listen to my head and to my heart."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Greta wandered the city's battered streets alone for a while, trying to reassert control over her emotions. She didn't expect happiness anymore. Not after losing her first husband, and then Owen, and then in a different way Jürgen: a man who'd taken her back and then come to regard their soulless union as his own fitting self-punishment, refusing to give her up and taking some kind of perverse strength from the pain of their proximity. She'd traded happiness for the surface accomplishments of home and career, traded hope for resignation, and dully moved through a succession of days. She waited, she supposed, for a bomb to take her.
Now she'd been shocked back into life. Shocked back to longing, to desire, and, yes, to betrayal. The impact of seeing Owen again was enough for her to consider leaving her husband, her home, her country, and the dry possessions of an empty existence. She could almost taste the promised freedom.
Her finger traced the golden chain around her neck, the penguin locket warmed by the skin of her breast. Jürgen had given her gift after gift and become frustrated that his presents didn't help but rather hurt, seeming to add to her self-imposed burden of sin at having let Owen die. She'd hated herself for hating Jürgen's effort. Now everything was turned upside down, her husband again a victim of her romantic confusion. She dreaded going back to their home to face him, dreaded having to decide whether to betray him once again. But autumn dusk was falling on an increasingly dangerous city and her town house beckoned as the only sensible destination. At its steps, she unfastened the locket and slipped it into a pocket of her dress.
"Frau Drexler! It's late, we were worried. Are you all right?"
"Yes, Ingrid." Greta pulled off her coat and handed it to the maid, who slung it over her arm. "I had to walk and think and lost track of time. Is Jürgen home?"
"No, not yet." Of course not yet. As the war deepened Drexler's days had grown longer. He often missed dinner, pleading work. Greta suspected a mistress, or at least the periodic whore, and was secretly relieved at not feeling guilt over that aspect of their estrangement as well. While polite and companionable in public, they slept in separate bedrooms in the too-large, echoing town house, rattling about while tens of thousands remained homeless from the bombing. The house's size allowed them to avoid their marriage.
"I won't be requiring a formal dinner tonight, Ingrid. I'm feeling a bit under the weather, and will just take a bite in my room. Tell Herr Drexler I retired early."
"As you wish. Today's caller, he— "
"Disturbed me, Ingrid. A face from the past. Please don't mention the visitor to my husband."
"As you wish." She bit her lip.
Ingrid confided that instruction to Arnold, the cook, as she collected a light dinner. "I think the Führer would say a German wife doesn't keep secrets," she commented disapprovingly.
"I think the Führer would say the German servant does what she is told," he responded.
Greta distractedly paced her suite, struggling with her emotions. Why hadn't she just run away with Owen? Why come back here to torture herself? Because she did retain some feelings for Jürgen, she told herself. For his loyalty, and for the pain of his disappointment when he realized she'd never love him as he loved her.
She sat on her bed and stared numbly at her open wardrobes. What would she take if she left? Practical clothes. Some money, but not all of it: she couldn't do that to Jürgen. Not much more than a shoulder bag to keep from arousing suspicion. The resulting narrow choice was daunting and yet it was odd how little the clothes meant to her now that she contemplated giving them up. They seemed like an anchor she could finally cut loose from. The problem was deciding to take anything of this past. She lay back on the bed, thinking of Owen, wishing she'd kissed him longer, wishing he were beside her now, wishing they'd never met and she didn't have this monstrous choice…
She awoke with a start. She'd fallen asleep. It was dark, the house quiet. Groggily she sat up and turned on a light. After midnight. There was a tray of untouched food that Ingrid had left on the night stand. Her bag and clothes were strewn next to her on the bed. She got up, went to the door, and opened it quietly. Downstairs was dark, the house filled with shadow. Everyone must be asleep. She closed the door again, restless, her mind churning. Perhaps she should draw a bath to relax.
She shed her clothes on the cold tile and waited impatiently for the tub to fill. Idly, she stooped to retrieve the locket from her dress pocket. The penguin would go in her shoulder bag until she and Owen were safely away. She opened the piece again and looked at the pebble, smiling to herself in remembrance: her fear of the cave, the frightening and strange lake, their lovemaking on the rough woolen blankets. Impulsively she closed the locket and slipped it on, looking at herself in the bathroom mirror. It hung just above her breasts as if nesting between two hills, its glow fueled by her own warmth. She studied herself critically, turning to look at her back, the swell of her hips. Would Owen still think her attractive? He'd told her she was pretty. She'd liked that. No one had told her that in a long time.