“A bomb?”
“Shrapnel. Like a knife in the air.” She made a cutting motion with her hand. “So he bled out. Before the all clear. You don’t think you can feel these things? I do.” She paused. “Anyway, and if it’s not true? Then Erich’s dead? Is that better?”
“No.”
“Oh, let’s not talk about these things,” she said, putting her hand on his sleeve. “Tell me something from before. A story. You were always good at that. Let’s talk about those times. The way things were before.”
And for a second he saw her then, eyes shining and eager, joking about Fritz, certain that life was on her side. Maybe the way he would always see her, having missed everything else.
“Irene,” he said, at a loss.
“I’m sorry, I have to leave.” Markovsky, suddenly there. What had he overheard? But what was there to overhear? “An emergency.”
“What’s wrong?” Irene said.
“Some trouble. A labor action. Down in Aue,” he said, in a hurry, distracted. “They should have called me earlier. They always leave things too late, and then it’s a mess. I have to go now. My apologies,” he said to Alex.
“Tonight? In the dark? It can’t wait?”
“No. I’ll send a car to take you home.”
“No, no, don’t. It’s not far. Alex can take me home. He’s an old Berliner, he knows the way.”
“A labor action?” Alex said. In a workers’ state, the contradiction its own bad joke.
“Well, it’s always something, you know,” Markovsky said, brushing it off, no details. “One trouble or another. Maybe not so serious in the end. We’ll see.”
“But it’s so far,” Irene said. “At night. Can’t you go in the-”
“No,” Markovsky said, cutting her off. “I’m sorry. Oh, there’s Franz. My apologies again. Anyway, now you can talk about old times, eh?”
“That’s just what we were doing,” Alex said.
“Good, good,” Markovsky said, preoccupied. “The car is ready?” Then a quick kiss to Irene’s hand, public behavior. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” And then he was gone, rushing to put out a fire.
“Where’s Aue?”
“Near the Czech border. He goes there sometimes. I don’t know why. He doesn’t tell me things. Work things. Well, maybe I don’t ask either.”
But you have to, Alex thought. How else can I do this? He looked away.
“So shall we do that? Go somewhere and talk about old times?”
“I can’t leave. I’m the guest of honor,” he said, palms out.
“My famous friend,” she said softly, raising her hand to the side of his head, then brushing her fingers over his hair. “Gray. So soon.”
“Just a little.” Feeling her fingers.
“Like your father. Very distinguished. So what has your life been? Safe in America. You have a wife?”
“I did. We’re separated.”
“So. What was she like?”
“She was like you.”
Irene let her hand fall.
“The same hair. She looked like you. A little. But she wasn’t.”
“Don’t.”
“What difference does it make now? It was probably true. My fault, not hers.”
“And what do I say? To something like that.” She looked at him for a moment, unsettled. “Anyway, you don’t mean it.”
“No?”
“No. Just something to make me feel-I don’t know what. I can tell. I always know what you’re thinking. Remember? We wouldn’t have to talk. I’d know.” She glanced up. “I know you better than anybody.”
He met her eyes, another minute, not saying anything, then she turned away.
“So go talk to them. I’ll rescue Matthias from Brecht. It won’t be much longer. Nothing goes late anymore. During the war people wanted to get home before the first sirens, so everything was early. You get in the habit. Imagine, in Berlin, where we used to- Yes, I know, don’t look back. I don’t. It’s just seeing you, I think. You won’t leave without me?” The old voice, ironic, flirtatious.
“I think it might have been true, though.”
She stopped. “That you married me?” She looked down. “Well. But then look what happened. So maybe I wasn’t the best choice.”
The party went on for another hour, wine and vodka being poured even after the food had run out. Alex had to thank the Kulturbund officers, which prompted another toast. In the smoky room, warmed now by body heat and alcohol, it seemed everyone wanted to see him again-Fritsch at Babelsberg, gentle Aaron Stein at Aufbau, Brecht back at the Adlon bar. Willy would have been pleased. Except Willy was dead. Alex put the drink down, his head already slightly fuzzy, and looked around the room, sweating again. How long before they knew? Some slip, an unexpected witness. Nobody got away with murder. In broad daylight. Irene, over with Fritsch, glanced toward him, her private half smile. I always know what you’re thinking, she’d said, and for a moment Alex wanted to laugh, some perverse release. How about bodies crumpling over, Willy grabbing his sleeve, just do it, running through the streets, Markus checking times with the doorman? He lit a cigarette, steadying his hands. No one knew. All he had to do was be who they thought he was.
The lights dimmed twice, like the end of a theater intermission, and people finally began to leave. Glasses were tossed back, coats retrieved, the noise louder than before, shouting good-byes, and then they were all out in the street, where it had begun to snow, covering the ruined buildings in white lace, drifting down through the open roofs. There were a few official cars, leaving skid marks behind, but most of the guests were walking, their footprints crisscrossing the snow in all directions, like bird tracks.
“I love it like this,” Irene said, lifting her face. “Everything clean. Well, until tomorrow. And listen.” They both held their heads still. Somebody laughing farther down Jägerstrasse, the end of a good-bye, then nothing but the steady hum of the planes heading to Tempelhof, even their drone muffled tonight. “So quiet.” She was tying a scarf over her head, a few flakes landing on her face. “You’ll ruin your shoes,” she said. “Should we get a car from Sasha? I can call.”
“No.”
“Oh, you don’t approve.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No.” She put her arm in his. “So, you know Marienstrasse?”
“Behind Schiffbauerdamm.”
“Yes, but it’s blocked that way. I’ll show you.”
They walked up Friedrichstrasse, lighted only by the snow. At Unter den Linden it was even darker, a long empty stretch without traffic. The city felt like a house shut up for the season, the furniture covered in white sheets.
“You remember Kranzler’s used to be here,” she said. Then, “Nobody approves. So it’s not just you. Maybe I should find an Ami. Would that be better?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You think I don’t hear you? What you think?”
“I wasn’t here. I don’t blame-”
“Sasha was later. It wasn’t for that, to protect me. Nothing could protect you then. Not the women.”
He turned to her, waiting.
“You want to know what happened? I was like all the others. Afraid to move. I was in Babelsberg then. I thought it would be safer. And Enka’s friends disguised me-you know, the makeup department. They made me look like someone dying from syphilis.” She forced a small laugh. “If that’s what they look like.”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
Alex said nothing, the only sound their soft footfalls in the snow.
“They didn’t care. Mongols. Maybe they don’t have it there. Maybe they didn’t give a damn.” She paused. “You know, when it happens you think, well, now I know the worst. And I survived it. And then it happens again and that’s the worst. So you think, what if it doesn’t stop? Every night. They’re drunk, they come looking. If you hide, it’s worse. They get angry, sometimes they shoot. They shot my friend Marthe. She was screaming and it upset them.”
“Irene-”
“Yes, I know.” She shrugged. “It was a bad time. Nothing’s the same after. Even when it happens to everybody, you think it only happens to you.” She looked over at him. “Damaged goods.”