Alex turned, facing out. “And what do you think he tells her?” He paused. “In bed.”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe something. And it’s what he’s going to tell you. Without even knowing it. Just because you’re around. Anyway, it’s a little late for second thoughts, isn’t it?” He glanced at his watch. “I’d better get you to Lützowplatz. It’s been awhile. Even for a slow walker.”
“I never said I’d do something like this.”
“Who are you worried about? Markovsky? He’s a thug, just like the rest of them. Your friend? Ask yourself what she’s doing with him. There aren’t any good guys in this one.”
“I thought we were the good guys.”
“We are. You don’t want to forget that.” He tossed the cigarette out the window and put the car in gear. “Look, you have a problem, you’d better tell me now. You can go right back to the Adlon. Hang out with your new friends. If you want to live here. But I thought the deal was you wanted to get back to the States. Show us what a good citizen you are.”
“By doing this.”
“Well, this is what we have.” Willy turned back into the park. “So what’s the problem? Is there something I should know?”
Alex shook his head. “It’s just—someone you know.”
“How long since you’ve seen her? Irene.”
“Fifteen years.”
“A lot happens in fifteen years. Especially here. You think you know her? Maybe not so much anymore.” He slowed the car. “Not someone sleeping with Markovsky.”
Alex stared straight ahead. When he woke up, he’d be getting Peter ready for school.
“Here’s the bridge. You should get out here. If anybody’s watching, they’ll be expecting you to walk over.”
“Why would they be watching?”
“It’s what they do.” He looked over at Alex. “You all right? You look— You know, we all get cold feet in the beginning. You’ll be okay. A chance like this.” A verbal pat on the shoulder, part of the team.
Alex sat for another minute. The kitchen would be bright with sun, even that early.
“What do I do? I mean, how do I contact her?”
“She’ll be at your party. You’re a big deal. Everyone wants to meet you.”
“With the boyfriend?”
“Unless he’s out at Karlshorst.”
“Doing whatever he does.”
“At the moment, running interference between Moscow and the SED, the German Party. They have this idea that Moscow should stop robbing the zone blind with reparations. And send back the POWs.”
“And he’s going to talk to me about all this?”
Willy looked at him. “You’d be surprised what people will say. Once they trust you.” He nodded to the window. “You’d better go. See if your house is still there. Which side of the square was it?”
Alex stared out the window. You think you know her? Maybe not so much anymore. It was easy to cross a line in Berlin, as easy as going from one sector to another. Finish your cereal, he’d be saying to Peter.
“The east side,” he said finally.
“We’re not expecting gold right away. It’s all valuable. Just keeping track. Where he goes when he’s away. When he’s coming back.”
Alex opened the car door and turned. “The kind of thing you’d tell your mistress.”
Willy met his look. “We’ll be in touch.”
On the bridge, the one he’d crossed a thousand times coming home from the park, there was a stalled army truck with a Union Jack on its door, soldiers busy with wrenches. The British sector, where Elsbeth’s husband was practicing medicine again. First do no harm. He glanced down at the thick oily water of the Landwehrkanal. There had been bodies here after the war, floating for months. A lot happens in fifteen years. At the end of the bridge there was a car parked across the street, maybe waiting to see him come into the square. What they did in Berlin. It didn’t matter if they were really watching, as long as you thought they might be. Oranienburg with the peek hole in the door.
Willy’s car came up from behind and passed him. Don’t look. You’ve walked here to see the house, the predictable motions of homecoming. But when he reached the square nothing was there, no sturdy door or hanging staircase, just an empty space where the house had been. For a second he felt light-headed, lost, as if he had ended up in the wrong street. He had expected at least some fragment of their lives, maybe the frame of the big window where his mother had kept the piano, the ground-floor corner where his father’s study had been. Then the evenings would come back, his mother’s music, her long conservatory fingers, hair pulled back in a tight bun so that not even a wisp would fall in her eyes, his father wreathed in cigarette smoke, head back, listening, the music rising and falling. How he would always remember them, in a room filled with music. But that had all been erased, not even a headstone of rubble left. A vacant lot. And a parked car waiting for someone. He crossed the street, looking preoccupied, as if he hadn’t noticed it. Up ahead he could still see Willy’s car, driving slowly, probably keeping a rearview eye on him until he turned back. Two cars watching.