“You see, then?” The car rolls to a stop next to the curb. Lionel sets the brake and jumps out to open her door. “We’re straight, aren’t we, Violet? As you Americans say. We understand each other. You know I want you to be happy.”
His eyes are a serious gray. Violet leans forward and kisses him good-bye, right there in the open, in front of the entrance to the institute. “I believe you.”
“I’ll come for you later to take you home. Back to the hotel, I mean, to pack up. Is four o’clock all right?”
To pack up. To leave with Lionel on the morning train out of Berlin, to run away with her lover. Or hadn’t she already done that? Already given up everything and crossed the frontier.
“Four o’clock is fine,” she says.
? ? ?
VIOLET CHECKS all the offices, but only Max Planck is still there at his desk. She can see him through the glass, his bowed head and lined face. His secretary’s chair is empty. Violet pokes her head around the door. “Herr Planck?”
“Frau Grant. I thought you were in Wittenberg.” He takes off his glasses, rises, and makes a gesture of welcome.
“I came back early. I . . . I regret to say that I’ve come to tender my resignation, such as it is.” She holds out the ridiculous piece of paper, which relinquishes her title to a post that never really officially existed.
“I’m very sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can say to change your mind? I hope it’s not this wretched situation in the Balkans.” He braces his fingers against the edge of the desk. In the overbright electric light, his eyes are heavy and shadowed, his forehead lined.
“That’s part of it, I suppose, but the real reason is that I’ve left Walter. I’ve left Dr. Grant. I thought I should tell you first; I don’t intend to hide it.” She says all this in a rush, as a single defiant sentence.
“I see.” He looks down and fingers his glasses. “Thank you for telling me. May I be perfectly candid?”
“I hope you will.”
He looks up again. “I’m overjoyed to hear it. I hope you’ll let me know if there’s anything at all I can do for you. Letters, recommendations, anything.”
Violet curls her fingernails into her palms. It doesn’t work; her eyes fill anyway. “Thank you, Herr Planck. I appreciate that tremendously. I’ll write, of course, once I’ve settled what to do. I . . . I am deeply grateful for my time here at the institute.”
“No more grateful than we were to have you.” He holds out his hand. “I wish you all the happiness in the world, Frau Grant. I hope our paths meet again.”
? ? ?
VIOLET FINDS her cramped office, her tiny desk. The space is hot and musty, smelling of rubber and old pencil shavings. Everything is in perfect order; she had already tied off her own loose ends before departing for Wittenberg. The office itself contains very little: no photographs, no personal items, only papers and journals and a few instruments. She opens a drawer and finds her familiar slide rule, the one she brought with her from New York, its paint faded from use. She fingers the worn wood and slips it in her jacket pocket, and when her hand withdraws, it holds the small leather-covered notebook from Walter’s study. On the lower right corner, the number 1912 is stamped in gold.
She places the diary on the desk before her and closes her eyes.
Just open it. Just look.
She has no right. She’s stolen it, Walter’s private thoughts, to which he has every right. If she kept a diary, a personal journal of some kind, she would be outraged to find Walter reading it.
But the suspicion will not quiet. If she doesn’t answer it now, she may never have another opportunity. And isn’t this her affair, as well?
She places her fingers on the smooth leather and opens her eyes.
4 January. Fucked V in my office (desk), then again at home. What a fine snug cunt she has, very supple and muscular, lovely clipping motion when she spends (not often).
5 January. Fucked V briskly on waking, went to laboratory in excellent humor. How she refreshes me, the eager young child. Argument with D—d on procedure for thorium isolation, the usual wrong-headed rubbish. Out to lunch. Looked for B—e at Crown, did not see her.