“Oh my God, you killed them. Killed them.” Covering her face with a hand.
“What’s that?” Alex said, noticing the dark oozing. “Blood?”
“I don’t know. My head-” She leaned back against the seat. “I hit my head.” She turned. “How could you do that?”
“They were already over.”
“No,” she said vaguely. “Not over. Not yet. First Sasha, now- Oh, it’s so hard to breathe.” She clutched her stomach, a corset hold and sucked in air. “I feel-”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Dizzy.” She put a hand to her head. “There’s blood. How is there blood?”
“You hit your-”
But she had slumped over, a thud as her head fell against the car window.
“Irene.”
No sound, just the trucks and planes outside.
He took the first left out of the traffic, toward Viktoriapark, everything suddenly dark without the truck headlights.
“Irene.” He tried to remember her smashing against the windshield. How hard? But he’d been looking behind, dodging. He said her name again, frantic now. More blood.
He pulled over to the curb. No one following. The blood was still welling on her head, a sign of life. He felt for a pulse on her neck, then tried to shake her awake, as if she were just napping. He took her hand, feeling her slipping away, like the smooth slide of the car going down. And she’d been right. It hadn’t been over. Not yet. He’d pushed it. No witnesses. The car waiting at RIAS. Who’d known he’d be coming.
He took a breath, then another. No time to think about that now. Irene was unconscious, a head wound, not a hangover you slept off. Think. If Sasha were alive, he could call Karlshorst. But Sasha was lying in a drawer. Or in Wiesbaden. Or in Moscow. Why say that? To see her reaction. Or his. He looked over at her. Motionless. Think. Not Marienstrasse. A hospital.
He propped her against the door, head back, afraid to rearrange her limp body. A broken rib could puncture a lung. A hospital. He put the car in gear and headed toward Yorckstrasse to cross the Anhalter switching yards. The woman had come out of RIAS just after he went in. A leak, alerting the waiting car. Someone close to Ferber. Or sent by Ferber himself? Who went to birthday lunches at the Adlon, turned up at the Kulturbund, comfortable in the East. Who knew Erich was coming.
He glanced over at Irene, still quiet, breathing shallow. Faster. Pallasstrasse. Past the ruins of the Sportpalast, where Hitler had made his speeches. A thousand years. Where Elsbeth and Gustav must have raised their arms, shouting, glowing. Now home from the theater, with any luck still up.
All of Schlüterstrasse was dark, another electricity cut, but there was a flicker of candlelight coming from the front room. Alex stopped the car, put it in neutral and ran to the door, ringing the bell and knocking at the same time, everything urgent. A pinprick of light at the foyer door, Gustav peering out.
“Quick!” Alex said. “Open.”
Gustav held the door ajar. “What do you want? Coming here at such an hour?”
“Irene’s been hurt. Quick. Come with me.”
“Irene?” Elsbeth’s voice, coming from behind. Still dressed for the theater.
“Do you have admitting privileges at the Charité?” Alex said.
Gustav, not expecting this, gave an automatic nod. “But the Elisabeth is closer. Magdeburger Platz.”
“That’s where you volunteer?” Alex said to Elsbeth.
She stared at him, too startled to answer.
“They’d know you there, then. But you never go to the East.”
“Why this-? What do you want?” Gustav said.
“I want you to give her your name. A loan,” Alex said to Elsbeth.
“My name?”
Alex looked at Gustav. “You admit her as Elsbeth Mutter. No one will question it. Your wife.”
“What has she done?”
“Nothing. She fell in the dark. Charité was the nearest hospital. So you brought her there.”
“To admit her under a false name? Are you crazy? To think I would do such a thing?”
“You’ll do it.” He turned to Elsbeth. “She’s in the car. Unconscious. We don’t have time to argue. You used to borrow her clothes. Now she’s borrowing your name. Just until we see what’s wrong. And we can move her.”
“Get out of here.”
“Gustav, my sister-”
“First the brother. Now this. What has she done? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I never heard any of this. Leave us alone now, please. Go.”
“She’s hurt,” Alex said. “She needs your help.”
Gustav started to close the door. Alex put his hand up, pushing through, then shoved Gustav against the wall, hand on his chest.
“Now listen to me. Carefully. I have an old friend at Clay’s headquarters whose idea of a good time is putting Nazis away. One call and I’ll have him reopen your case. One call.”
“They can’t prove anything.”
“Maybe not. But do you want to go through it all again? Defend yourself? And meanwhile your license gets suspended while they try to decide just how guilty you are. That usually takes a little time. Which we don’t have. So decide.”
Gustav glared at him. “Jew.”
Alex went still for a second, then let it go. “Your wife just tripped in the dark. A nasty fall. Her head. You’ll want her seen right away.” He dropped his hand. “Get in the car.”
“How can you talk to Gustav this way?” Elsbeth said.
“She’s hurt,” Alex said. “And that’s all you can say? Be nice to Gustav?”
“He’s a good man,” Elsbeth said vaguely, not really following. “We’re decent people.” Shoulders back, the von Bernuth posture.
Alex looked at her, dismayed, then turned to Gustav. “Do you need anything? To admit her? Papers?”
“Just my signature.”
“Then let’s go.”
Gustav checked Irene’s pulse, her pupils, feeling lightly for broken bones.
“How long has she been unconscious?” he said, daubing the dried blood on her head with a handkerchief.
“Half an hour. Maybe more.”
“Let’s hurry, then.”
In the car, Gustav was sullen.
“It’s illegal, what you’re doing.”
“I’m keeping her safe. If anyone checks the hospitals, she’s not there.”
“And why would they check?”
Alex ignored this. “Remember, she tripped. In the street. No car. Nothing that needs to be reported.”
“Except you. Like gangsters. What is it, something with the black market? I thought she didn’t need that. Sleeping with Russians.”
“When we get there, you’re not just a doctor. You’re her husband. Worried. Got it?”
They went to the emergency entrance and got Irene onto a gurney, wheeling her into the exam room, her eyes fluttering open, surprised, then closing again.
“She’s awake,” Alex said.
Gustav, on his own turf now, paid no attention, handling the admitting staff with efficiency, a doctor who knew what he was doing. Alex was asked to wait in the hallway.
“Just give me a second.” He took Irene’s hand, bending low to her ear. “Can you hear me? You’re here as Elsbeth. Gustav will take care of you.”
Her eyes opened, confused.
“If they check, there is no Irene. Do you understand? She’s not here.”
She took this in, then smiled faintly. “No, in Wiesbaden.”
“Somewhere. Anyway, not here. You’re safe this way.”
Another twitch, almost a smile. “Clever Alex.”
“You must leave her now,” a nurse was saying.
“Remember, you’re Elsbeth, yes?”
She nodded, then clutched his hand. “Those people. They’re dead?”
“You fell in the dark. In the street. That’s all you remember. I’ll be here. Just outside.”
She grasped his hand again. “You were right. They were waiting for us.”
“Ssh. No more. Remember, you’re Elsbeth.”
The wait in the hall seemed endless, a movie scene in a maternity ward, pacing, smoking, staring into space.
“No ribs broken,” Gustav said, finally coming out with an X-ray folder. “Just a bad bruise. The concussion is something else. No major clotting. But a concussion is always serious. Let’s see how she is in the morning.”