Alex was quiet for a minute, letting this settle.
“He is charged with high treason and counterrevolutionary activities. These are very serious charges. You don’t want to get in the way of Party discipline in a case like this.”
“High treason? Aaron? And what’s Kleinbard charged with? Laughing at Stalin’s building plans?”
Markus stared, then came out from behind the chair. “Comrade Kleinbard is another matter.” He put a hand to his chin, thinking. “There may be something I can do.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Markus looked at him. “Why? Who are these people to you?”
“I just think it’s the right thing to do, that’s all. Germany needs people like him.”
“And not people like us?” Markus said, his eyes amused. “Alex,” he said, drawing the word out, an intimacy. “Everyone has his part to play. Now you.” He walked to the door, hand on the knob. “Next time a café, yes? Like old friends. To come here-” He let it drift, unfinished, then opened the door. “You understand about Irene? Stay close. The eyes she doesn’t suspect. He’ll send for her, you’ll see. A sensualist. And then we have him.”
The door opposite opened as they stepped into the corridor, a small confusion of people, two men leading out a short old woman. She looked up at Alex and stopped, her eyes puzzled, trying to place him. His heart stopped. The woman in Lützowplatz. But he’d had a hat then, half covering his face. No sign now that she’d actually recognized him, just some vague stirring. He turned his face away. Keep moving, don’t draw attention. He started toward the reception area, expecting to hear the voice any second, a hoarse screech, finger outstretched, pointing.
“English overcoat,” she said, low, half to herself.
Involuntarily he looked down. Why hadn’t he got rid of it, flung it in the rubble somewhere or let it pass from hand to hand in the black market? But who threw away a winter coat in Berlin? Last year’s, from Bullocks, now marking him like a fingerprint.
“English overcoat,” she said again, still working it out.
“Yes, Pani, you’ve told us,” one of the men said, a little weary. Pani. Polish. Two men, one to translate. Things got lost that way, language to language, a police form of the telephone game. A longer process, cumbersome. “A few more pictures to look at, yes? And then you can go.” Expecting nothing.
But Markus would know what she meant, ears up, alert. A woman he’d already interviewed, his only lead. He’d catch the smallest nuance. Alex felt Markus’s eyes boring into his back. He’d know. After everything, Markovsky in the river, to be tripped up by a coat. Alex turned. Markus had stopped, staring straight ahead over his shoulder, his face white. The others stopped now too, the whole room suddenly still. Alex followed his gaze. Not the old woman, someone else, haggard, prison thin, standing by the secretary’s desk, her head raised to meet Markus’s eyes. A blank expression, and then a gasp, her face crinkling.
“Markus,” she whispered, face moving now, some uncontrollable tic. “It’s you?”
“Mother,” he said, a whisper, still, not moving.
She nodded, eyes moist.
“Mutti,” he said, another whisper, his body still rigid, the shock of seeing someone dead.
She started toward him, tentative, the rest of the room watching.
“Markus. This place,” she said, a hand open to it. “What are you doing here?”
He said nothing, still stunned, afraid even, and when she reached him she held back too, extending her arms to him and then stopping short, as if he were some fragile object, easy to break.
“Markus.” She raised a hand to his cheek, barely touching it, a blind woman forming a picture. “My God. You were just a child.” Resting her hand against the side of his face. “A child.” Her eyes, already moist, began to overflow. “What did they tell you?” she said, her hand now at his hair, Markus not even blinking. “Never mind. Tell me later.”
“Mutti,” he said, trying to make the ghost real or go away.
There was some movement to his side, the two policemen leading away the Polish woman. Alex watched them, hardly breathing, but Markus didn’t notice, too dazed by the hand on his cheek.
“Markus. Am I so different? Let me hold you.” She leaned into his chest, her arms around him, then turned her head, so that her gaze fell on Alex. A moment of confusion. “Alex? Alex Meier?”
“Frau Engel,” Alex said, his head dipping.
“You went to America.”
“Yes.”
The sound of his voice, an outsider, seemed to snap some spell in Markus, and he began to move, disentangling himself, a kind of military correctness.
“It’s a surprise, seeing you here. Where are you staying?” he said, polite, to a stranger.
“Where am I staying?” Frau Engel said, vague, then distressed, something she saw she ought to know but didn’t. She turned, flailing, to a man standing near them.
“Comrade Engel will be at the guest house. Of the Central Secretariat,” the man said.
“Oh, not with Markus?” she said, wistful.
“Perhaps later. When you know each other better. When he has had time to prepare for you. If you both wish.”
“Know each other? Who could know him better?” Then she caught Markus’s expression, someone watching a specimen, wary. “But perhaps later would be better, yes.”
“Is she still-?” Markus started to ask the man, then caught himself. “I mean-”
“A prisoner? No. Released,” his mother said, opening her hand, an odd flourish. “I have the papers.”
“I am merely escorting her to you,” the man said. “To make sure she arrives safely. Comrade Engel’s sentence was commuted. In full.”
“They gave me papers. So it must be. I don’t know why. I was an enemy of the people. And then I wasn’t. Like that. All these years an enemy.” She reached up again to his cheek. “While you were growing up. Your whole life. They took away your whole life. And then one day I’m on a train. It’s over.”
“Comrade Engel-”
“Oh yes, excuse me. I didn’t mean-” She pulled away from Markus, almost cowering. “Such talk. Pay no attention. I can’t think-” Fluttering, wings broken.
“You were arrested for counterrevolutionary statements,” Markus said simply, a policeman’s voice. “This time away-to rehabilitate yourself-the Party must have felt-” He stopped, letting this trail off.
Frau Engel looked at him, her eyes getting wider, something she hadn’t expected.
“Yes, that’s right,” she said quietly. “To rehabilitate myself.”
Alex watched the elevator doors close on the Polish woman. She hadn’t recognized him. A tweed coat. How many must there be in Berlin? Now Markus’s secretary was coming over.
“I’m sorry, sir. It’s Major Saratov. On the phone. I told him you were-” She blushed, a kind of apology.
Markus glanced around the room, suddenly aware that everyone was still watching. “Mutti, I must work,” he said, almost relieved. “I’ll come see you later. We’ll talk then.”
“Yes. Later.”
“Alex will go with you,” he said, eyes brighter, pleased with himself, a way to ease Alex out too. “Get you settled. Isn’t it nice, his being here again? Like old times.”
Frau Engel stared at him, not responding, as if he were speaking another language.
“Alex, you’ll make sure everything’s all right?” Busy again, official.
“I have a car downstairs,” the escort said.
“Good,” Markus said, about to head to the waiting phone, then hesitated. A scene still public, not yet played out, people waiting for an embrace. He turned to his mother, at a loss, then put his hands on her arms. “Mutti,” he said. “You must be tired.”
“Tired?”
“Get some rest. I’ll come later.” And then his voice softened, private, someone else talking. “Are you all right?”
She nodded.
Another second, the crack in the ice growing wider, then he dropped his hands and started for the phone.