“You sound as if you mean that.”
“I do. I gather you wanted it?”
Her eyes well. “Yes. Not at first, but later. And then it was gone.”
Violet expects him to fill her ears with idiotic platitudes. Well, we’ll have one of our own, or Don’t worry, darling, I’ll give you all the babies you want. She remembers lying in bed, with all that sterile white linen stuffed between her legs, and the doctor above her with his expression of professional sympathy. Never fear, Frau Grant, you’ll have another. But she hadn’t wanted another. She’d wanted this one, her baby.
Lionel’s thumbs move, but he doesn’t speak. She imagines what he’s thinking, the obvious fact that Lionel and Violet have mated in utmost passion, entirely without restriction. No sheepskin condoms from Charlottenstrasse, no useless vinegar douches, no last-instant withdrawal or precarious tabulation of dates.
“Have you had any children?” she asks.
“No. God, no. I’m not . . . I’ve been careful.”
“Except with me.”
“Except with you.” He doesn’t move, doesn’t look at her, doesn’t demand her attention. He doesn’t tell her why, of all women, she is his exception. He doesn’t ask her any of the questions that must be burning in his head: why, for example, she and Walter didn’t have another child. Whether she wants a child with him, Lionel.
Instead, he says, “Violet, in case I haven’t made things clear. I do mean to marry you, if you’ll have me.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you understand, or yes, you’ll have me?”
She looks back up at him. “Both.”
“Good, then.” He exhales. “In the interim, however, I suppose I should exercise a bit more caution. My fault. The heat of the moment and all that.”
“Yes, of course.” And Violet knows, in that moment, that she does not want to be careful. She wants to be thoroughly reckless. She wants the possibility of life, of some mark of permanence between them, some proof that she and Lionel once existed and were in love and lay joyfully together.
A knock sounds. Zimmerservice, calls a voice through the wood and plaster.
“Breakfast,” says Lionel. “Thank God.”
? ? ?
LIONEL HELPS HER DRESS; she buttons his waistcoat and manages, after several tries, to knot his necktie properly. “Not that I wouldn’t rather spend the day shamelessly in bed with you,” he says, picking up his hat, “but I’ve a few loose ends to tie up, if we’re to leave tomorrow. You don’t mind?”
“Not at all. I have to pay a visit to the laboratory. There won’t be many people there, it’s shutting up for August any day, but I want to gather my things and say good-bye.”
“I’ll drive you, then.” He holds out his hand to her, and she takes it.
They drive in silence to Dahlem. Lionel keeps his hands on the wheel, his eyes on the road. Violet keeps to her side of the seat and crosses her hands in her lap. It’s a fine day, hot and clear, and the patches of shade look unbearably inviting. “What sort of loose ends?” asks Violet.
“Oh, the usual.” He changes gears with an expert thrust of his hand. “Bidding friends good-bye. Check in with Goschen on the war situation, see if there’s any news from my regiment. Whether I’m being called back yet. And I’ve got to return the motor, of course.”
Violet shuts her eyes and sees him in uniform, resplendent with khaki and shining leather. The image is so alien, and yet this is his life. His profession, the genuine Lionel. “Who’s Goschen?”
“Sir Edward Goschen. The British ambassador in Berlin.”
“As high as all that? What circles you move in.”
“He’s a friend of my father’s. He’s been splendidly useful since I arrived, introductions and smoothing channels and all that.”
“Naturally.” Violet looks to the side, where the buildings slide past Lionel’s borrowed automobile, giving way to blocks of abundant summer green, as Berlin drifts into the suburbs.
“Darling, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she says, as she might say to Walter, but then she remembers this isn’t Walter. This is Lionel, and he might actually care what she thinks. “Nothing reasonable, anyway. I had a chilling sense of familiarity just now.”
“What’s that?”
“My parents were very good friends with the British ambassador in America.”
“Were they, now? That would have been Bryce, wouldn’t it? James Bryce.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I personally find the chap intolerable.” The white new-built edifice of the institute rises up from the block ahead, lined with young trees. Lionel breezes through the empty intersection and slows the car.
Violet laughs. “So did I.”