She started, as absorbed in the play as the rest of the audience, then nodded and moved her hands to her stomach, waiting a bit, then bending over, a soft grunt, almost inaudible. Alex put his arm around her shoulders, helping her out of her seat and starting up the stairs to the exit.
“We have to go,” he whispered to Roberta. “She’s not feeling well. Take our seats, they’re closer.” And not empty if anyone looked, one body as good as another in the dark. “Her time of the month. She’ll be all right tomorrow.”
Roberta seemed to shrink from this, embarrassed again, and just nodded, turning her head back toward the stage.
At the curtain covering the exit door Alex turned, trying to make out the Russians across. Had they noticed? He waited for a second to see if anyone had followed, some furtive movement, but all he could hear was Weigel arguing with the cook.
They went down the hall, no ushers, Alex’s arm still around her shoulder. The stairs would be trickier, visible to the concession sellers in the lobby. But everyone, it seemed, wanted to see the play, even standing in the back. They slid out the exit door, away from the waiting cars out front. A stagehand having a cigarette, shivering.
“Not feeling well,” Alex said, still whispering.
The stagehand just looked at them, indifferent.
They headed toward Luisenstrasse, the way to Irene’s flat, but then turned right at the corner instead, heading up to the Charité. If anyone was following, he’d have to turn too or risk losing them. They slowed, waiting a minute, but no one turned into the street. A car had come over the bridge and swept past without slowing. A man helping a woman get to the hospital, what you’d expect to see here.
“Where did he leave the key?”
“Under the fender,” Irene said. “It’s taped there.”
“Hell of a risk. Anybody could-”
“It’s DEFA’s car, he doesn’t care.”
The car was in the faculty lot, just in from the street, the key still in place. Irene put her hand on the door, then looked up.
“What if something-?”
Alex shook his head. “Ready?”
“If anything does, I’ll-”
He looked up, waiting.
“I’ll never forget you did this for him.”
Alex opened his door. “We’d better stick to the main roads. At least they’ll be cleared. It’s easy to get lost if they’re not-”
“Don’t worry. I know Berlin. That’s all I know, Berlin.”
He headed north toward Invalidenpark, away from the theater and any cars that might recognize them, then swung east to connect with Torstrasse.
“You never told me where he is.”
“Friedrichshain. By the park.”
“So far.”
“Not from me.”
“No, from the radio. In Schöneberg, no?”
“We’re not going to the radio. Not now, anyway.”
“But I thought-”
“That’s the choke point. The one place they don’t want him to go. They don’t want him to broadcast. So they’ll be waiting to stop him there. If they know.”
“But it’s how he pays.”
“He will. But not there.”
There was more traffic than he expected, Soviet trucks sputtering diesel and a few prewar cars, so it took a while to reach Prenzlauer Allee. He turned up, then drove between the cemeteries and across Greifswalder Strasse.
“I think we’re all right,” he said. “You see anything?”
“How would I know? They all look alike to me.”
“You’d notice if it’s the same one.”
To be safe, he detoured in a short loop, then came down Am Friedrichshain from the east.
“Press number five,” he said, idling the car at the green door.
But Erich was already there, waiting.
“Oh, so pale,” Irene said, a mother hen’s fluttering, as he got in the back. “You still have the fever?”
“It’s better,” Erich said. “Let’s go.”
“Duck a little,” Alex said, “so no one sees your head.”
“They’re following you?”
“Not yet.”
“I have a message for you. He said to tell you the refrigerator is still working.”
Alex smiled.
“Who said?” Irene asked.
“No one.” Alex looked at her. “No one.”
She said nothing, turning to the side window. “But he helps Erich,” she said finally. “How do you arrange these things?” Not really a question. She raised her voice, to the back. “You have your coat? It’s cold.”
“Yes, I’m warm enough. Don’t worry.”
“Enka’s,” she said vaguely. “I kept it. I didn’t want to sell it. For those prices. He always had good things, Enka.”
“It’s lucky for me you kept it,” Erich said.
“Yes,” Irene said, “At least we have the coats on our backs. Imagine if father knew this. Leaving Berlin with nothing. Just the coats on our backs. And a purse,” she said, raising it.
“How’s your voice?” Alex said to Erich. “Still hoarse?”
“Not so much. I’ve been thinking what to say. What will he ask, do you think?”
“He won’t. I will.”
“You?” Irene said.
“Well, not on the air. I can’t use my voice. They’d pick it up right away. I’ve written some questions out. You just answer, then say whatever you want.”
“But we’re not on the radio?”
“You will be. Make a tape recording, they can play it anytime. Don’t worry, you’ll sound as if you’re there in the studio.”
They were crossing the Spree now, into Spittelmarkt, and turning up to the center.
“We’re going to the house?” Erich said, suddenly excited, head up.
“It’s not there anymore, Erich,” Irene said gently, to a child. “It was bombed.”
“But it’s just up here. Let me see. I want to see it.”
“There isn’t time,” Alex said.
“But it would be the last time. I can’t come back.”
Irene turned to Alex. “We have one minute? We can spare that? If he wants to see.”
“Stay in the car. One minute.”
He turned into Kleine Jägerstrasse, stopping the car by the mound of rubble where he’d had his morning cigarette. The street was deserted. In the moonlight you could see the jagged outline of the remaining walls, still, lifeless.
“Oh,” Erich said. “Look. Only the door.”
“I told you. It’s gone,” Irene said.
“So many years. And then gone. I thought it would always be like that, the way we lived here.”
“So sentimental,” Irene said. “It was an ugly house.”
“Not to me. Not to Mama. She loved it. And to be like this-who was it, the British or the Amis?”
“I don’t know. Does it matter? By that time it wasn’t ours anyway. Papa sold it. To the Nazis. Well, who else was here to buy it? So it’s not von Bernuth for a long time. You miss it? What do you miss? Your own childhood, that’s all. The house-” She waved, letting the house slip away.
“Still,” Erich said.
“It wasn’t the same after Mama died,” Irene said, partly to herself now. “He let it go. Like everything else. I think he never liked it here anyway. He liked the farm. Where he could bully his Poles.”
“He never bullied-”
“Ouf,” Irene said. “More stories. Anyway, they have it now, the farm, so in the end-” She trailed off, then turned to Erich. “And we have our coats. So that’s something. Maybe this time we won’t be so careless.”
“Who was careless?”
“Well, maybe not you, so young. Look at Papa, one card game and another piece of furniture’s gone. Look at me.” She stopped, gazing out the window at the house. “You know, when you put us in the book,” she said to Alex. “The girl wasn’t me.”
“No, I-”
“You thought it was, maybe, but it wasn’t. A story. Now I think you want to put me in another story. And I’m not her either.”
Alex stared at her. “What do you-?”
But she cut him off, turning to Erich again. “But you’ll be safe, that’s all that matters. So take a look and now it’s gone, poof. Bricks. That time, too. Gone.”
“Okay?” Alex said, putting the car in gear, anxious to start again.
“Never mind,” Irene said, a stage cheerfulness. “We’ll start over.” She nodded to Erich. “Maybe for once a von Bernuth who amounts to something.”