“Maybe nothing. Maybe something. And it’s what he’s going to tell you. Without even knowing it. Just because you’re around. Anyway, it’s a little late for second thoughts, isn’t it?” He glanced at his watch. “I’d better get you to Lützowplatz. It’s been awhile. Even for a slow walker.”
“I never said I’d do something like this.”
“Who are you worried about? Markovsky? He’s a thug, just like the rest of them. Your friend? Ask yourself what she’s doing with him. There aren’t any good guys in this one.”
“I thought we were the good guys.”
“We are. You don’t want to forget that.” He tossed the cigarette out the window and put the car in gear. “Look, you have a problem, you’d better tell me now. You can go right back to the Adlon. Hang out with your new friends. If you want to live here. But I thought the deal was you wanted to get back to the States. Show us what a good citizen you are.”
“By doing this.”
“Well, this is what we have.” Willy turned back into the park. “So what’s the problem? Is there something I should know?”
Alex shook his head. “It’s just-someone you know.”
“How long since you’ve seen her? Irene.”
“Fifteen years.”
“A lot happens in fifteen years. Especially here. You think you know her? Maybe not so much anymore.” He slowed the car. “Not someone sleeping with Markovsky.”
Alex stared straight ahead. When he woke up, he’d be getting Peter ready for school.
“Here’s the bridge. You should get out here. If anybody’s watching, they’ll be expecting you to walk over.”
“Why would they be watching?”
“It’s what they do.” He looked over at Alex. “You all right? You look- You know, we all get cold feet in the beginning. You’ll be okay. A chance like this.” A verbal pat on the shoulder, part of the team.
Alex sat for another minute. The kitchen would be bright with sun, even that early.
“What do I do? I mean, how do I contact her?”
“She’ll be at your party. You’re a big deal. Everyone wants to meet you.”
“With the boyfriend?”
“Unless he’s out at Karlshorst.”
“Doing whatever he does.”
“At the moment, running interference between Moscow and the SED, the German Party. They have this idea that Moscow should stop robbing the zone blind with reparations. And send back the POWs.”
“And he’s going to talk to me about all this?”
Willy looked at him. “You’d be surprised what people will say. Once they trust you.” He nodded to the window. “You’d better go. See if your house is still there. Which side of the square was it?”
Alex stared out the window. You think you know her? Maybe not so much anymore. It was easy to cross a line in Berlin, as easy as going from one sector to another. Finish your cereal, he’d be saying to Peter.
“The east side,” he said finally.
“We’re not expecting gold right away. It’s all valuable. Just keeping track. Where he goes when he’s away. When he’s coming back.”
Alex opened the car door and turned. “The kind of thing you’d tell your mistress.”
Willy met his look. “We’ll be in touch.”
On the bridge, the one he’d crossed a thousand times coming home from the park, there was a stalled army truck with a Union Jack on its door, soldiers busy with wrenches. The British sector, where Elsbeth’s husband was practicing medicine again. First do no harm. He glanced down at the thick oily water of the Landwehrkanal. There had been bodies here after the war, floating for months. A lot happens in fifteen years. At the end of the bridge there was a car parked across the street, maybe waiting to see him come into the square. What they did in Berlin. It didn’t matter if they were really watching, as long as you thought they might be. Oranienburg with the peek hole in the door.
Willy’s car came up from behind and passed him. Don’t look. You’ve walked here to see the house, the predictable motions of homecoming. But when he reached the square nothing was there, no sturdy door or hanging staircase, just an empty space where the house had been. For a second he felt light-headed, lost, as if he had ended up in the wrong street. He had expected at least some fragment of their lives, maybe the frame of the big window where his mother had kept the piano, the ground-floor corner where his father’s study had been. Then the evenings would come back, his mother’s music, her long conservatory fingers, hair pulled back in a tight bun so that not even a wisp would fall in her eyes, his father wreathed in cigarette smoke, head back, listening, the music rising and falling. How he would always remember them, in a room filled with music. But that had all been erased, not even a headstone of rubble left. A vacant lot. And a parked car waiting for someone. He crossed the street, looking preoccupied, as if he hadn’t noticed it. Up ahead he could still see Willy’s car, driving slowly, probably keeping a rearview eye on him until he turned back. Two cars watching.
He looked away from the parked car and started down Schillstrasse. The rubble had been cleared here, a standing wall without the usual heaps of brick in front. Behind him the sound of a motor, gears switching. Not the parked car, still motionless where it sat. Maybe the British truck. Then, suddenly, there was a screech of tires, a burst of speed, and another car shot into his line of vision then turned in toward the wall, cutting him off, brakes slamming, a man jumping out the back, grabbing his upper arm, the force of it shoving him against the wall. He felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, a pinpoint of focus, everything else a blur, too fast.
“Get in.” A low growl, yanking him now toward the open car door and all he could think was, broad daylight, you do this in broad daylight. But only one. Shouldn’t there be two to pin him, two to make the snatch? The other was waiting behind the wheel. Easy pickings, a writer. If they knew who he was. Not just a man Willy had dropped off. A little drive through the park. Which made him the enemy now, just talking to Willy, and he realized suddenly, as the man was pushing his head down to force him into the car, that this would mean Oranienburg. Or a new Oranienburg. With no one to bribe him out this time. People disappear. Maybe for good, the car a kind of coffin. But only one of them.
Alex pushed back hard, swiveling, flinging the man against the car, and pulled his arm free.
“Scheisse!” Lunging for Alex again, pushing him against the standing wall.
Another screech of tires, Willy’s car backing down the street toward them, a fishtail swerving. No other cars to dodge, coming fast.
The man had grabbed Alex again, a stronger grip this time, still sure of himself, one man. Not even thinking, jerking to some electrical charge running through him, Alex smashed his knee into the man’s groin. A surprised gasp, then a grunt, the man bending over, still trying to hold onto Alex’s sleeve. But this was the split second, the one chance, and Alex yanked himself free, starting to run. He heard a car door open, the driver spilling out in alarm. Two of them.
“Halt! Scheisse!”
And then a swirl of sounds, the kicked man howling and pulling himself up to lunge again, the driver’s footsteps running back to block Alex that way, the scream of brakes as Willy’s car stopped, another door slamming and then a loud crack, jarring, that made all the other sounds go away. For a second everything stopped, the shot still echoing in the air. Then Alex heard the driver inhale, a rasp, and fall to the street, a thump as his body hit. The first man turned, pulling a gun out of his pocket and fired at Willy, who ducked. A moan from the other side of the car, the driver clutching his stomach. Willy jumped up and fired again, hitting the first man, then crouching back down. But not fast enough, the man’s return bullet catching him in the chest, his eyes widening in disbelief. The shot was deafening, loud enough to rip the air, to bring British soldiers running across the bridge, but the square was still empty, as if the sounds hadn’t reached them yet, hadn’t left the inside of Alex’s head, where they drowned out his own ragged breathing. I could die. I could die here.