She makes a movement of her head, neither a shake nor a nod.
“Because I’m in love with you. Because you fill my head, my chest, until I can’t even breathe without you. Because I thought, in my madness, that if I was true to you, if I kept myself whole for you, I might have a chance to deserve you. I hoped to God I would have that chance before the summer was over.”
His eyes blaze; his hands fist. She feels the scintillation of his nerves beneath his layers of clothing. She can’t disbelieve him, and yet she can’t shake this stiffness in her muscles, this dullness in her bones. She cannot take a single step in his direction.
“And God gave me that chance, Violet, and I took it, and now I have you. Or it’s the other way around, really. You have me. You have me, Violet, you have my life in your hands, my beating heart, and you’ve got to decide, you’ve got to tell me, I’ve got to know what you’re going to do with me.”
Violet blinks. Lionel swims before her, his pained face sharp and then blurry, and then sharp again. She brushes the tears with both hands. She takes a single step forward and presses her fingers against his dry cheeks. Her thumbs frame his mouth, his beautiful mouth.
“For now? I’m going to take everything you have to give me.”
? ? ?
THE LIGHT from the window grows blue with age. Lionel stirs at Violet’s shoulder and kisses her neck and ear and hair.
“Hungry yet?”
“Mmm.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“Mmm.”
He laughs and rises from the bed. “Let’s go out. Our last night in Berlin. We can pack when we get back. With luck, we’ll be in London by midnight tomorrow, tucked into a suite at the Ritz.”
“Mmm.”
He takes her hand and pulls her upright into his arms. “Are you always this sleepy after making love?”
? ? ?
THE CAFéS ARE FULL, the streets humming with war talk. Serbia’s reply to Austria was satisfactory, Serbia’s reply was abject and humiliating, Serbia’s reply was unacceptable. The Serbian representative in Vienna had been expelled from the country. No, he had been shot in the streets. A Serbian general had been arrested. No, he was released. No, he was shot in the streets. War was coming. War was impossible. War was already here.
Lionel drinks his wine and lights cigarette after cigarette. “I’ve got to get you out of here. Austria’s going to declare any day. The borders will close.”
Violet looks around her, at the golden room bathed in modern electric light, the animated faces, the excitement like a visible frisson in the smoke-laden air of the café. “How do you know?”
“I just know.” He stubs out his cigarette and drops a few coins on the table. “Come along. Let’s get a newspaper.”
Potsdamer Platz is running over with war-fevered Berliners, with shouts and whoops and scattered singing. Deutschland über Alles. Lionel keeps Violet’s hand securely in his. He elbows his way through the jammed-up clusters of factory workers and brown-suited students and buys a newspaper from a high-voiced boy in a checked cap. He tucks it under his arm and takes up Violet’s hand again.
“Aren’t you going to read it?”
“I already know what it says.”
“Then why buy it?”
“To give to our grandchildren one day, I expect.”
? ? ?
“YOU DON’T look English.” She strokes his lazy face. “Your skin, and your hair. You look wildly exotic for an English gentleman.”
“I beg your pardon. Did I ever claim to be a gentleman?”
“Only your eyes are English, and even there you have these eyelashes.” She touches them. “No proper Englishman would be caught dead with eyelashes like these. They’re just excessive. You’re nothing but a beast, Lionel.”
“As it happens, my mother was quite notoriously Sicilian. Satisfied?”
She rolls him over and puts her arms around his neck. “No, Lionel. I’m not satisfied at all.”
? ? ?
SOMETIME in the darkness, she reaches for Lionel and finds nothing at all, a cool sheet, slightly damp. She hears a noise through the plaster, though, and thinks he must be awake and packing, unable to sleep. Her brain is thick and love-blurred. She takes his pillow instead and folds it into her arms. London by tomorrow, the two of them, Violet and Lionel, a bright new life. She has no trouble sleeping, velvet and dreamless.
? ? ?
HIS HAND on her bare shoulder. “Violet. Violet, wake up.”
“Lionel?”
“I’m sorry, darling. You’ve got to wake up, you’ve got to get dressed.” His hands on her arms, her waist, lifting her gently.
“What time is it?”