Hilde’s unexpected death taught him painfully that these might end with no warning. How terribly he had later missed those lines that might have given him back the sound of her words, breathed life into a dead photograph. And so he felt dogged by the need at least once to write Grete what he hadn’t been able to tell her.
“My love,” he began with Grete’s favorite appellation, “my briefest and yet greatest love! Even though I can never understand why of all the men who admire you, you have chosen me, I am happy. If by some chance I pay that highest price for Germany’s debt, I want you to know—”
“What are you writing?” he heard her say.
She looked sickly, but tranquil; only there was an unfamiliar gleam in her eyes, as if she were preparing herself for something exceedingly grave.
“A letter…,” he answered, confused.
“To whom?”
“To you,” he confessed.
“Aha… and what are you writing to me?”
“You can read it. But not right now.”
“I understand,” she said, “yes, I understand…. But you should know first what I was really so afraid of that I tried to leave you and go I don’t know where. ..”
“What was it?”
“That we’d both survive.”
He thought he had misheard.
“That we both wouldn’t survive. ..”
“No, the opposite! That we’d survive, and you’d finally learn…”
“Learn what?”
“Buback.. love! You listened so patiently to my stories for so long, try just once more not to interrupt, no matter how much you want to. Promise me!”
It was less than fifty days since he first furtively scrutinized her in the sharp light of the German House air-raid shelter. An eternity seemed to have passed since that meeting. Fifty days ago, he admitted shamefully, he’d still believed in the possibility, however small it might be, that Germany could avoid a total and dishonorable defeat. And when he had despaired on realizing the truth, Grete had led him away from the pistol that would have ended his pain. Today it was she who had reached rock bottom.
“I promise!” he said.
“My love… as we were on our way here — it was only yesterday, but I’ve aged since then — I noticed that view, those breathtaking towers, and imagined the stony desert that awaits us at home; Germany lies in rack and ruin, defeated and humbled for generations, because revenge is sweet and the world is itching to enslave us as punishment: poverty, cold, and bondage will dog us till the end of this century and beyond, and I, unfortunately, am one of the many German women who let our men degenerate into barbarians that make your widow killer look like an amateur… now I can’t remember which Greek poet said withholding pussy can become a weapon, forcing men to give up war so they can fuck again — what rubbish! — after all, millions of German women quivered with impatience to see whether their men would send French perfume or Russian furs from the occupied territories, and millions more, like me, convinced themselves they lived only for love, and hate had no place in their lives, so I too played my part in the destruction of our world, and now I’m going to fix it by dancing on Sylt?… oh, love — and pay attention now— that too was the fruit of my sick imagination, just like all the tales I fed my best lovers, so they would keep me as their femme fatale: the tale of the loving young husband, the tale of the mysterious Giancarlo or Gianfranco, whatever it was, and the tale of my tragic love for a theater star — because, you see, Hans finally chose his boyfriend over me, and if they haven’t perished then they’re still secretly in love; that mafioso Gianwhateverhisnamewas from Rome slept with me once in his elegant hotel and then disappeared, while I spent the remaining nights with the hotel chauffeur, who would bring me back after midnight to the pensione in a silver Lancia to the envy of my colleagues, but not, unfortunately, of Martin Siegel— to my sorrow he loved his beautiful wife from the very beginning to the bitter, dogged end, which his devastated spouse described to me so vividly that those adventures gradually became my own past, the kind I wished I had; I was so wild with grief that when this wound on my neck came up I completely blocked out my father the tinsmith, who when I was a child accidentally burned me with a blowtorch — yes, love, this truly is the truth, and in the end I served up all these lies to the first man I ever called my love, because he was the only one worth it, the only one who persuaded me to give up the sure for the unsure, and now, finally, has convinced me to entrust him with my true fate: that of an unsuccessful wife and a dime-a-dozen dancer— when I realized you were the only one who ever really loved me, and as your debtor I decided — and listen closely — to be worse in your eyes than I made myself out to be, so I could therefore be better than I am; do you understand me, love?”
She fell silent, but the question shone on in her gray eyes.
He had to answer, he wanted to, but he didn’t have the right words, the ones that would express the feeling now filling him: that in her confession of false confessions he had found, after all his losses, the only worthwhile trace of his earthly wanderings.
“You don’t respect me at all any more, do you…” she blurted, shattered, “but I simply had to…”
At that moment he knew precisely how to say it, but before he could speak, the bell below jangled.
“Who is it?” she asked fearfully.
“I don’t know….”
“Does Morava know our signal?”
“He might have forgotten….” He wanted to calm her down, but did not believe it himself.
Someone gave the bell two long rings.
He could see fear taking hold of Grete and took action.
“Clothes! Quickly! And under the bed, with the pistol. Don’t show yourself until I tell you to.”
“But what if they—”
“I’ll manage.”
“But…”
A triple long ring.
“Do it!”
“Yes….”
“And no panicking. You’ve got a weapon.”
Yes
He waited for her to dress lightning-fast and disappear beneath the bed, which he managed meanwhile to make up. Anything of hers he saw he shoved over to her with his leg. Finally he was satisfied nothing would give away her presence.
The fourth ring caught him on the steps. Only now did it occur to him that they hadn’t said farewell. But why should they have — why did he even think of it — he’d be back with her in a moment. It might be Morava’s driver, probably with the food, but if not, both Buback’s documents would, after a certain time, secure his safety with either side.
He opened the door wordlessly, waiting to see whether he should speak German or Czech.
When he saw the man at the bell, he knew it did not matter.
Morava cried as they brought Litera out. The tears he had held back since Jitka’s death, so completely that some were scandalized, now streamed down his face; he could not see the steps and had to hold on to the cellar wall.
He felt his colleagues gradually take him by the shoulders and try to calm him, but the dam inside him, built with all his strength to fend off precisely this limitless despair, had finally broken.
The reason for his disintegration was simple shame. He had betrayed Litera because he had failed in his craft, acted like a rookie in sending an unsuspecting man to a pointless death.
Now he had found a powerful ally willing to set all the loyal Communists in Prague on RypFs trail to stop his rabble from cropping up somewhere else. But instead of rejoicing, he was mourning the third death on his conscience. And three times, he repeated to himself in shock, three times the killer had been within his reach. Who else would pay for his incompetence?