Words echo in her head, impossible words: Grant’s dead. Your husband is dead.
They are surrounded by green shade, a small halfhearted orchard of some kind. Ahead, an old barn sheds paint into the grass. Lionel is already jumping out of the car.
“Where are we?”
“A kilometer or two from Hildesheim. We’re going to leave the car here and walk into town for the train.”
“The train!”
“It’s the Frankfurt line, headed into Zurich.” Lionel yanks at the doors of the barn. The old wood gives way in a rush of thick air. “They won’t be looking there.”
They. Who are they? The police, probably. She and Lionel are running from the German police. That is real, that is reality.
Violet opens the door and forces her stiffened muscles onto the carpet of sparse grass and rotting leaves. A few cracks of sunlight mottle the air before her. She watches Lionel as he forces the barn doors into submission and pauses, catching his breath a little, blinking.
“You’re shattered,” she says. “You should sleep a few hours.”
“Not yet.”
“When does the train leave?”
He takes out his watch. “Two hours.”
“The walk into town will take a quarter hour. Lie down, Lionel.”
He rubs his forehead. “If I sleep now, I might not stop.”
“I’ll wake you. I’ll keep watch.”
Lionel watches her doubtfully, exhaustion warring with his unstoppable momentum. His face is so drawn and quartered, his strong shoulders so gaunt. Violet straightens and fills herself with compassion. “Come.” She puts her arms around him. “Come and rest. Let me do this for you.”
“I’ll just put the motor away first.”
He drives the car into the barn. He’s too long for the rear seat; Violet finds a pile of old straw and spreads the blanket on top. The air is warm and musty, smelling of ancient summer sunshine, trapped and released. Lionel arranges himself on the blanket, arms crossed on his massive chest, eyes closed to the rafters above. Asleep in an instant.
Violet settles her gold watch on his chest, against his knitted hands, so she can keep an eye on the time and on Lionel. He sleeps at a profound depth. His limbs are absolutely limp, his breathing so slow she keeps checking his pulse, as if he were a patient in a hospital, or a newborn baby. She watches the dust drift around his face, counts the motes as they strike his skin. She wonders, if she touches his forehead with her fingers, whether she can find his thoughts. Can make some sense of it all: his actions, her illogical faith in him.
Lionel’s eyes blink open exactly two minutes before Violet intends to wake him. He lifts his head suddenly, as if he’s shocked by her; the watch rolls off his chest and into the blanket. “What time is it?”
“Three-thirty.”
His head falls back. “Damn.”
“We can stay here. We can catch the train tomorrow.”
“No. It’s got to be this one.” He heaves himself upward, stretches, and turns to fold the blanket.
On the road to Hildesheim, Violet’s sensible black shoes turn white with dust. She holds her pocketbook and the small bag with the rolls and apples inside; Lionel carries her valise in one hand and his jacket in the other. The brim of his hat rides low on his brow, and he stares long down the road, as if trying to pick out some detail in the distance.
Grant’s dead. The truth. Your husband’s dead.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Violet says. “It does matter. I need to know.”
Lionel sighs. “Yes, I expect so.”
“How did he die? Was it when you hit him in Wittenberg?”
“No.” Lionel switches the valise to his other hand and flings the jacket to his shoulder. “He followed us to Berlin. Went to your flat.”
“And he was killed there?”
“Yes. A gunshot to the chest.”
“I see.” But Violet doesn’t see. Walter’s chest torn open, his heart bleeding out into the calm parquet of their apartment in Kronenstrasse. She should feel something; she shouldn’t be this clear. Numb and clear, both at once. “Did he suffer?”
“I imagine he died very quickly. There was a great deal of blood.”
“You were there.”
He stops and sets the valise in the dust. “Just ask me, Violet. For God’s sake. Ask me if I did it.”
Violet opens her mouth, and she only realizes she’s crying when the tears run past her lips and onto her tongue. She tries to speak, but instead a shuddering sob of a gasp wracks her chest, and she puts out her hands to stop Lionel from reaching for her. “I can’t. I can’t ask you.”
“Violet . . .”
“Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me any more.”
He takes her in his arms anyway and holds her, there by the side of the dusty road, while she weeps for the husband she detested, for the lover she hardly knows.
“Just say,” she says, hiccupping and sobbing, “just say you had no choice. He left you no choice. Just say you did it for me.”
Lionel strokes her hair. “Violet, I did it all for you.”