“I don’t care what these papers print!” Kiepert rages.
He’s so passionate that I can’t make him see reason. It’s as if he is on fire and using all of the oxygen in my apartment. I want him to leave, and I claim I must go to attend rehearsal. He says he will wait for me. Exasperated, I pretend to head to the theater and instead take a walk. It’s winter and the streets are too cold. I spot a little shop selling stationery and confections. I go inside to browse and warm up. The items for sale are exquisite. I pick out a frosted pink card decorated with hearts and, unbidden, an image of Non comes to me. I wonder if she’s an orchid among buttercups now? She’s a young woman. When she was a child, Edouard’s men reported that she had my dark hair and features; they said no one would fail to recognize her as mine.
I return to my apartment and Kiepert—thankfully—is gone.
I take out the pink card I purchased and write my lost daughter a letter that I know I’ll never send. I tell her what I’ve been doing in Berlin these past six months without Edouard’s guidance. I confide in her about Kiepert and von Schilling. Then I say what is truly important: I apologize for failing to save her. “If I had known what a disaster Anna’s attempt would create and the danger it would put you in, I never would have undertaken it. One false move destroyed our future together. I have never forgiven Rousseau for hiring Anna and I never will. Never.” I underline the last word. “He and I are no longer on speaking terms. How can I look at him when all he reminds me of is the way I failed you?”
*
We walk along the Ratsplatz beneath a vault of stars and I slip my hand inside my white muff. Von Schilling has taken me to Freiberg’s Christmas Market. I am charmed by the dozens of stalls selling brightly colored toys, roasted almonds, and wooden trains. Everywhere, there are children laughing. Von Schilling doesn’t notice; all he talks about is war.
“We don’t want to be like the French, going into battle in red and blue.”
I try to turn our conversation to something more pleasant as we walk arm in arm—the elaborate facades of the renaissance buildings, I say, are delightful—but von Schilling continues describing the importance of green uniforms over red. Music from the carousel dances into the night, German songs I’ve never heard before. The air is crisp and the Christmas stalls are decorated with fairy lights, selling bags of chocolate nuts and gingerbread cookies. Edouard would love this, I think. Out of habit and hope I glance around, but he isn’t here. I notice straw shoes, hundreds of them, lined up on long tables and selling briskly.
“What are all those shoes for?” I ask.
“The Pantoffeln? Children find presents in them on Nikolaustag.”
“In The Netherlands we put out klompen: wooden shoes.”
“The Netherlands?”
I hesitate; that was careless. “Yes. My family—we settled there. After India.”
The general nods and I focus on the Black Forest pines decorated with lights. I look at cinnamon cookies on red platters, spiced biscuits in the shape of snowmen. I ask von Schilling the names of everything: Zimsterne, Spekulativs, Stube.
“How many languages do you speak?” he asks me.
“If my Spanish was better, six.”
“That’s impressive, especially for a woman. You would enjoy meeting Elsbeth Schragmuller. She has a doctorate in political -science. She’s also a very unusual woman. She could develop your talents. There’s a good deal of money to be made at this juncture in time. I will introduce you.”
In the twinkling lights, our breaths are a pair of ghosts haunting the space between us. I let him slip his hand into my muff and I ask for some Spekulativs.
*
It’s been eight months since I’ve last spoken to Edouard. I cancel my performances—I have no desire to dance. Still, he doesn’t appear. I wait for him to bang down my door or at least phone and demand to know what I’m doing. I plan how I’ll tell him that there’s more money to be made in being a mistress than in dancing, but he doesn’t materialize, doesn’t even call. I consider sending him a telegram, something cryptic, forcing him to come to me. But what if it doesn’t work? What if he’s only interested in Pearl Buttons now? Immediately, I pick up the phone and dial. It rings several times before I’m put through.
“Von Schilling.”
*