“Oh.” Almost a gasp, involuntary. Ilse had spotted the blood. Still behind a wrapped present, out of the SA’s line of sight.
Alex went over to her quickly, taking her elbow. “It’s okay,” he said, maneuvering her toward the sitting room. “Nerves,” he said to the policeman. “She’s easily upset.”
“But—”
“I know. But it’s all over. The police are here.”
The SA men were clomping down the stairs.
“Now look. Frightening the maids,” Fritz said. “I hope they keep you locked up.”
“Get her out of here,” Alex said, handing Ilse to Irene, almost a whisper, then went back to stand by the closet, in front of the blood.
“Is that everyone?” the policeman said, watching them file out, awkward and sheepish. “So. I’m sorry for your trouble. A misunderstanding. Now good night.”
“But aren’t you going to arrest him?” Fritz said.
“Arrest him?”
“A man breaks into your house—”
“Breaks in here?” He pointed to the door. “I don’t see any signs of that. You opened the door to him, yes?”
“Do you think he was a guest? I’d have this rabble in my house?”
“It was maybe too much enthusiasm,” the policeman said, “looking for Communists. Better, I think, to forget this evening. In the Christmas spirit.” He glanced again at the tree, then the present underneath. A few inches.
“Yes,” Irene said, coming back. “Just go. Leave us, please.”
Fritz said nothing for a minute, looking at the policeman, then turned away. “Rabble.”
Outside Hans was back at the steps, one last threat. “We’ll watch. And when we get them, it won’t go so easy for you. You’ll see.”
The policeman pushed him away from the door. “Shut up. Idiot. He’s von Bernuth.”
Alex closed the door, bolting it, then waved to the maid. “The drapes. Every window.”
The room itself seemed to exhale, everyone stuck in place for a moment, listening for sounds outside.
Alex went over to Fritz. “Thank you. For saying that.”
Fritz looked at him, a quick nod, then, confused by the intimacy, moved away. “Such things. In Germany.”
“Oh God,” Irene said, suddenly frantic, moving the presents and opening the closet door. “Help me.”
“Are they gone?” Erich said, nose still bleeding. He slid out, pulling Kurt with him. “Now do you see?” he said to Fritz.
Fritz said nothing, his body slack.
“Here, let me,” Irene said, moving into Erich’s place, cradling Kurt’s head in her lap. “Where’s the water?” Dabbing at his head with her handkerchief to stanch the blood around the cut.
“Careful. You’ll get blood on your dress,” Elsbeth said.
“Oh, my dress,” Irene said, dismissive.
Alex helped Erich to his feet. “Are you all right? Is your nose broken?”
“I don’t think so. How do you know? I mean, how does it—?”
“Never mind that,” Irene said “This is going to need stitches. Ilse, call the doctor.”
“Now?” Erich said. “You heard them. They’re watching the house.”
“Get Lessing. Tell him to bring flowers. A Christmas call,” she said, but offhand, distracted, her eyes on Kurt.
It was then that Alex finally took it in, her hand soothing the side of his face, her body draped over his. He felt a prickling on his skin, peeking through a crack at something he wasn’t meant to see. The way her hand moved, soft, familiar. He stood still, hearing the blood in his ears. How long? All the while? Erich’s friend. Always around. But when? Not the summer, the air thick with sex, no one but the two of them. That couldn’t have been a lie. But then when? She looked up suddenly, feeling his stare, caught, and he knew again. How long? Did they do the same things? At least she didn’t look away, pretend he hadn’t seen, didn’t know. It would be in his face. She held his look. I’m sorry. I’m not sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s not about you. Don’t look at me like that. It’s different. I couldn’t help it. You have no right— “I’ll get Lessing,” he said, breaking into her look, all the words, and then he turned to the door and it was over.
Outside he had stood for a minute, expecting to see a waiting SA uniform come out of the shadows, but no one was there. The street had been as empty and quiet as it was now, and he wondered for a second if both of them, the memory and this gray morning, were part of the same Berlin dream. The people he’d just seen were dead, lost to the past. And in the half-light the grim street now seemed something he’d imagined too. When he woke up, the hot Pacific sun would be burning off the morning fog and he’d be getting Peter ready for school, hurrying him for the bus, nursing a coffee.
He turned back to Hausvogteiplatz. Except he was awake, here, and it had already started. “Just settle in and we’ll be in touch,” Campbell had said. Some vague timetable, a week or two, not the moment he got here, the first meeting already set. “You can walk there. Through the park. Early.” Why so soon? He looked up. No fog to burn off. As light as Berlin was going to get.
* * *
Just as the bellboy had said, he had no trouble at the sector boundary. A barrier had been set up for car inspections, but even those seemed random and listless. Pedestrians just walked across the street. The Tiergarten had been broken up into garden allotments and was still bare of the tall trees of his childhood, but at least the debris he’d seen in photographs—a downed plane, burned-out trucks—had been cleared away. Now what? There were two ways to Lützowplatz, zigzagging down past the embassy quarter or straight out to the Grosser Stern and then down. Did it matter? No one had said how the meeting would happen, maybe not until he was out of the park, so he just kept to the road. A few people in dingy overcoats had already begun to gather near the charred Reichstag to swap watches and heirlooms and PX tins, the new Wertheim’s. No birds, an eerie quiet.
He was almost at the Victory Column when the car pulled up.