Some minutes after lights out, Macurdy activated his cloak, then got up and went to the door, where he listened intently. After a bit he heard two men walking down the corridor, one murmuring, the other chuckling.
He scanned the auras in his room. Only Philipp was awake, and he seemed on the edge of sleep. Presumably, hopefully, it was safe to open the door, despite the light it would let in. After a few minutes of hearing nothing outside, Macurdy pulled it open and stepped out, closing it softly behind him.
He glanced toward the guard at the south ell, which was much the nearest. The man had noticed nothing. But the risk would be greater when the women's door opened; it would be more visible to him.
Macurdy scratched at it anyway, and it opened at once. Berta peered out, failing to see him. "It's me," he whispered, barely breathing the words, and touched her wrist. Starting, she saw him. "I can make myself hard to see," he breathed, "as if I'm invisible. You will be too, if you hold onto me."
After staring for a moment, she took his sleeve and stepped out, closing the door softly behind her.
Macurdy held a finger to his lips and glanced toward the guard again. The man was looking toward them, frowning. He'd noticed the door open, then close, but seemingly nothing else. Berta's eyes followed Macurdy's, and she froze, but the guard turned away.
Macurdy nodded reassurance, and they started down the corridor hand in hand, Berta's aura and sweaty palm reflecting extreme nervousness. The guard at the farther ell never even glanced their way.
"To the cellar, you said," Macurdy whispered.
She nodded. They walked down the staircase-the foyer guard was almost asleep on his feet and from the foyer into the cellar stairway, and down. The cellar corridor was more poorly lit than those on the other floors, and they saw no sign of guards.
"Which way?" Macurdy whispered.
Berta had recovered from her fright. "Beneath the north wing, I suppose," she whispered back. "It's a room the guards use when they smuggle in girls from town. They call it the `party room.' I don't think they use it during the week. They have no way to bring girls then."
Starting north from the stairs, they tried doors. Most were unlocked, the rooms empty. Macurdy could have opened those that were locked-their lever locks would be easy-but it wasn't the time for that. Then, beneath the north wing, he opened a door to a large room with a hodge-podge of furnishings. The thin light from the corridor showed sofas, a love seat, chairs, and on the floor, several large mattresses pushed together.
There were even paintings on two walls. Macurdy decided that furnishings must be stored in some of the rooms, and the guardsmen had plundered them. They stepped inside, and he tried the light switch; a table lamp turned on, and he closed the door behind them. On the inside, the door had a 5 x 10 cm oak bar that pivoted on a lag screw, and screwed to the door frame was a hand-carved wooden bracket. Macurdy seated the bar.
They examined the room more closely. At one side stood a table, with cards, bottle opener, and a box that held a bottle of brandy, two of schnapps, and several liters of beer. By one wall were two sets of large laundry tubs; over their rims hung several military-issue towels.
Berta put a hand on his arm, and they kissed, lingeringly, then passionately, his hands stroking the small of her back. Within a minute they'd begun undressing each other, and within another were naked on a mattress, fondling, kissing. Soon Berta was on her back, knees drawn high, Macurdy on top, rocking slowly. When they'd finished, they lay tangled for a bit, then cleaned up, and opening two bottles of warm beer, sat naked together on the love seat, drinking and touching.
"Why do you think the cellar is off limits?" he asked. "Could there be valuables stored here?"
"I don't know. At first I wondered if there were people locked up down here, but I'm sure there aren't. There are plenty of prison and labor camps for that."
She changed the subject. "Where did you learn to make yourself invisible? That's a valuable talent."
"From my first wife." It wasn't strictly true, but close enough. "Do you ever think of escaping this place and going to Switzerland?"
"Sometimes. But while I'm here, I'd like to see what this place is about. Perhaps learn new skills; something to help me make a living."
She made a face. "I just want to be away from here. The Swiss know how to live: peacefully and democratically! I could get clients from doctors there, help their patients recover from surgeries." She shrugged. "Many I could heal without surgery, but doctors don't like that, so I compromise."
She cocked an eye at Macurdy. "What would you do, if you were in Switzerland? A man who can make himself invisible could surely find people he'd be willing to rob."
"In a decent country like Switzerland, I wouldn't care to be a robber. I've been a healer, too, though I don't have the experience you have."
"Why do you pretend to be feeble-minded?"
"It helps keep me out of the army. Even with my leg, they might take me for clerical work or a flak battery, but since I seem so stupid, they consider me unsuitable. So I worked on the docks at Lubeck, and got married there. For mutual convenience; there was no love involved."
Berta told herself it would be easy to love a man who could screw like this one. "Lubeck is a long way from here," she said. "Why did you come so far?"
"My wife is from Kempten. We came here so she could care for her grandparents."
"I suppose you want to get back to her."
"Not necessarily. As I said, it was a marriage of convenience. She was a barmaid and party girl. There were men who threatened her, for part of the money she made. I protected her, and we shared a place to live."
Berta traced the large scars on his leg with a finger. "And this?"
"An air raid on Lubeck, the same as my other scars. I would be much more crippled than I am, if I weren't a healer." Her aura indicated acceptance of his lies. Her reading of auras seemed less acute than his. And that was a dozen years past, a dozen years of observing people.
"If we go to Switzerland together," Berta said, "we can do very well as healers. We can rent a nice apartment and live like real people."
Her fingers had moved from his knee upward. Now she fondled him, felt him swell. After a little loveplay, they went back to the mattress.
Later they dressed, and returned to their rooms without incident. For a bit, Macurdy lay in bed contemplating. What had he accomplished, beyond adultery? He'd learned something, he answered, learned he could move around the building at night. The next time he'd go alone and find out what the locked rooms had in them.
Meanwhile he'd avoid further trysts with Berta, so far as possible. He'd enjoyed it too much. Adultery as an espionage tool was bad enough; pleasure made it worse.
That night he dreamed of Mary. They were in Fritzi's getaway shack in the mountains, although in the dream, the shack wasn't really the shack. He told her about Berta, and they'd wept together. Then her lips moved, but there was no longer any sound, and he wanted so terribly to hear her words. Then Sarkia was there from his past, seeming ancient, and told him he was deaf from syphilis he'd gotten in his adultery.
Mary wasn't there any longer, and he was looking for her in the cellar of the schloss-heard sounds from the party room and was afraid to look in-when he was wakened by a hand on his shoulder. "Montag! Montag! Wake up!" The whisper was Schurz's. Macurdy raised himself on an elbow, shaking the cobwebs from his mind. "Come to the washroom with me!" Schurz's aura glittered with vivid anger.