“Any questions?” he asked as the limousine moved on.
She thought for a moment. “Do the women in East Germany—in the Soviet Union, for that matter—have what Americans call equal rights?”
Kiril smiled his approval. “Women in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik have many rights, Mrs. Brenner. And I assure you, many Russian women have the same. In Moscow, it is a common sight to see women directing traffic, driving trolleys, climbing telephone poles, and working alongside men on construction sites. Depending on their fortitude, they dig ditches and haul heavy equipment. Some women are nurses, like my friend Galya.” He paused. “But I think very few are physicians.”
“You are an excellent guide, Dr. Andreyev,” Adrienne said, pulling a notebook and pen out of her shoulder-bag.
You are a treasure trove of information.
“What am I looking at over there?” she asked, pointing.
“Neue Wache. Literally, New Guardhouse.” It’s a memorial to the victims of militarism and fascism.”
She saw Greek columns and heel-clicking, goose-stepping East German soldiers.
“They change the guards every hour,” he told her.
“Unter den Linden!” he announced with a touch of awe. “The Soviet Embassy. A museum, an opera house. Over there is Humboldt University. It has a newly renovated clinic where your husband’s medical conference will take place.” Kiril ordered the driver to stop, eager to see what Adrienne Brenner’s reaction would be.
The famous Unter den Linden, Adrienne thought. A vast boulevard enlivened by four parallel rows of linden trees on each side. It was the most chillingly barren street she had ever seen. There were red flags on official black limousines parked along the street’s center island. More red flags hung from the long, thin necks of lampposts. They bent obediently over the pavement and made her think of tall gaunt men, tagged and hunched in silent agony.
The boulevard reminded her of an abandoned parking lot but with one appalling exception. Where Unter den Linden began—or ended—she spotted some people. East Germans. They were milling about aimlessly. Despite a mass of shrubbery, nothing grew quite high enough to block the stone columns of Brandenburg Gate—and beyond the columns, the just-begun new Berlin Wall. “Can we stop the car for a moment?” she asked Andreyev.
Kiril nodded. “Halt.”
Adrienne leaned out the window, wanting to see beyond the columns from the same perspective as an East German, hungry for a tantalizing glimpse of West Berlin, now beyond her grasp. She pulled out her notebook and did a quick sketch—poor substitute for a camera—but she didn’t want it confiscated.
“Marx-Engles Platz,” Dr. Andreyev said.
“Why does that sound familiar?” she wondered out loud.
“Probably because it was once part of the famous Lustgarten. Strange how history repeats itself. Hitler held huge rallies and military parades there. Now the East Germans do. Just last evening I witnessed a stunning torchlight parade of tanks and marching soldiers. Do you like parades, Mrs. Brenner?”
“Just the American kind. Kids marching with high school bands and drum majorettes displaying their legs. No tanks. They can be hell on the roads,” she said drily.
She had thought her bluntness would offend him. Incredibly, he seemed pleased. A real enigma, this Dr. Andreyev.
As the limo moved on, she couldn’t help wondering why she sensed a grim purposefulness underneath his running commentary, like a discordant musical theme that contradicts the melody.
“We’d better wrap up this brief preview and head for the hotel before my husband thinks I’ve been kidnapped,” she said reluctantly.
Chapter 25
“Zum Wohle aller!” Kiril said. “For the good of all!”
A smiling Galya repeated the toast in her halting English, and then passed around glasses of champagne.
Kiril tipped his glass in a mock salute to an unsmiling Luka, who stood off to the side.
Adrienne Brenner took a single sip of champagne before setting her glass down. “I’m sure you’re eager to check out the clinic, Kurt. Give me a few minutes to unpack a few things,” she said, and walked into the adjoining bedroom.
Kiril eagerly looked around. He had never been inside a modern hotel suite before. His own room down the corridor—his and Rogov’s—was one used by the hotel’s travelling auditors. Just a couple of narrow beds with the barest essentials. The Brenner suite was spacious. And cheerful, he thought. A sitting room with a nubby couch and two matching chairs. A bedroom nearly as large, with an armoire of glossy oaken wood, flanked by dressers that took up the entire wall. An enormous four-poster bed—
An observation he quickly pushed out of his mind.
He sensed that the Brenners were not impressed—a point in Kiril’s favor. People accustomed to luxury would be reluctant to give it up. He added up the morning’s other favorable points. On the first leg of his impromptu mini-tour, Adrienne Brenner had been both genuinely curious and remarkably open about her obvious distaste for most of what he’d called to her attention. She had not felt the need to be diplomatic about what she was seeing. Nor had she made any attempt to avoid politically awkward subjects. Even in his wildest imagination he had not been prepared for a woman who was so disarmingly direct. Her candor and independence intrigued him. He mentally transported her to Moscow and tried to imagine her standing before some bureaucrat, being told what to do, how to live, what to think. He could not imagine it.
If a police state were as real to her as it seemed, there was virtually no chance she would ever consent to live in one—certainly not in East Germany, let alone the Soviet Union. Would her husband defect without her? Unlikely.
His eyes drifted to Galya, still smiling, talking animatedly to Dr. Brenner. Flirting? He watched her cut through an elaborate cellophane-wrapped basket of fruit.
“Compliments of Colonel Aleksei Andreyev,” Galya told Dr. Brenner.
Kurt Brenner felt as if he’s been hit with an electric charge.
First Dmitri Malik. Now his former subordinate. Does this Aleksei Andreyev think I’ve forgotten his name after all these years? Or is he counting on my remembering? A colonel, now, doubtless KGB, with the same last name as our “tour guide.” What have I gotten myself into? What in god’s name could they possibly want?
As Dr. Brenner excused himself to join his wife in the bedroom, Kiril saw Galya scan the room’s plush appointments. Her focus shifted almost imperceptibly to Adrienne Brenner’s clothes. They were casually strewn across the four-poster.
At first I’m captivated by the heroine’s clothes, her jewelry, even her high-heeled shoes! Then I notice how she acts so casual about the things I long for.
Poor dear Galya. It pained Kiril to see her listless posture. Her not-quite-lifeless eyes. The smile that never quite reached her eyes because she had not quite given up. How much longer before she did once she was condemned to spend the rest of her life in the Soviet Union?
As the five of them rode the elevator down—Galya and the Brenners in front, Kiril and Rogov in the rear—Kiril caught the faint scent of Adrienne Brenner’s perfume. While they waited for their limousine, he felt in league with the wind—urging it on as it blew the folds of Adrienne Brenner’s garment around her legs.
Wondering about the body underneath the cape.
Chapter 26
“The Humboldt University medical clinic!”
Kiril’s announcement had the clarion call of a trumpet.
Adrienne Brenner’s expression brightened as she liberated pen and notebook from her shoulder-bag. Even Galya seemed to perk up, Kiril noticed.