The motor again. He glanced toward the bridge. The British truck. Don’t think. Run. He raced over to Willy. Eyes closed. Alex felt his neck for a pulse but there was nothing, the skin already cool or was that his imagination? The morning was cold. You could see your breath, coming now in quick puffs. The sound of the truck again. Oddly, the other car engine was still running and for one crazy second Alex fought the impulse to turn it off. Disappear. Now. No one here but the dead. No witnesses.
He darted behind Willy’s car and then followed the standing wall until there was a break and he could slip behind. Not as neat as the square here, piles of rubble. But what did it matter? Run. In a few seconds they’d be here. He listened to the sound of his shoes crunching on the dust and mortar and he realized he had never run so fast, that he was somehow trying to outrun the sound of his own running, make it disappear. An old woman was stopped at the next corner and turned, terrified, and he saw what she must be seeing, a man running too fast, still waving a gun in his hand, his shoes slipping on loose bricks as if he were splashing through puddles, and he knew he should stop, slow down, but he couldn’t. He kept running, away from the British soldiers who must now be swarming over the cars in Lützowplatz. Running from the old woman, who must have seen his face. Running away from all of it, all the lines he never thought he would cross, sprinting over them.
It was only when he reached the Budapester Strasse bridge, where there were a few cars, that he put the gun in his coat pocket and slowed to a walk. He felt the sweat on his face. Sweating in the early morning cold. Slow down. Breathe. No witnesses. On the bridge, after a quick glance around, he tossed the gun over, a plop in the water, and then started to walk again, forcing himself not to run, draw attention. A man’s startled eyes as you aimed a gun. His head opening. That’s what this is.
By the time he reached the Adlon, he was breathing normally again, a guest just back from a long walk. A new doorman, the day shift, said good morning, and for an anxious moment Alex wondered if anything showed in his face. How do you look after you’ve killed a man? But the doorman simply waved him through. No one knew. Upstairs, he lay on the bed and kept replaying Lützowplatz in his mind. Willy’s grimace. They move you up faster here. His panic, running, and now this strange troubled relief afterward. Nothing in his face. Getting away with something. And now what? A protected source, one contact. But someone knew enough to follow Willy. They knew he was here, even if they didn’t know who he was. Three bodies in the square, two guns, an impossible arithmetic. They’d be looking. Whoever they were.
When he finally did close his eyes it was not so much sleep as sheer animal exhaustion, the body shutting down for repair, a void, like the space where his house had been. Irene with a Russian. Frau Gerhardt. Someone he didn’t know, even if he’d known every part of her. It would be easier that way, someone he didn’t know. You want a ticket back, this is it. When he heard the knocking on the door he was at the von Bernuth house, the SA pounding, Kurt bleeding, Irene meeting his eyes. But it was only Martin coming to collect him. His eyes were still scratchy, tired. No hot water, an astringent splash of cold. They’d be waiting at the Kulturbund, maybe one of them open for a little business. Not understanding what it would mean until he was in it, over his head.
2
KULTURBUND
THE RECEPTION HAD BEEN called for four, the early hour, Martin explained, because of the difficulties getting home in the dark. “The West refuses to sell us coal, so naturally there are shortages.” “And we refuse to sell them food.” “Because they refuse to sell us coal.” The kind of airless, circular argument Alex remembered from meetings in Brentwood, before he stopped going.
Even at this hour, though, the sky was already dusky, filled with clouds promising snow. They picked their way along a path cleared through the rubble toward the light of the club windows. The Kulturbund was on J?gerstrasse, just off Friedrichstrasse, and suddenly familiar.
“Well,” Alex said. “The old Club von Berlin.” Where Fritz had often spent the afternoons, napping after a brandy.
“I don’t know,” Martin said, slightly stiff. “Now the Kulturbund.” The only thing it had ever been to him.
“The Nazis changed the name. Herrenclub, I think, but it was the same people. Landowners. Old money. Funny it should be here, the Kulturbund.”
“Funny?”
“Culture was the last thing on their minds.” Nodding over papers in the library. Playing cards in one of the private rooms. Buying each other drinks in the bar, maybe even where Fritz had arranged the favor for him, Oranienburg for a price.
“Then it’s good, yes? Better.”
“The waiters had tailcoats, I remember,” Alex said.
“Yes,” Martin said, uncomfortable.
“Still?” Alex said, amused. “So. Socialist tailcoats.”
Martin looked away, not sure how to answer.
Inside they could hear tinkling glasses and voices floating down the marble staircase.
“I thought we’d be early,” Alex said, giving up his coat.
“Everyone is anxious to meet you,” Martin said, leading the way. “Goethe.” He pointed to the portrait on the landing.
At the top they were met by a huddle of men, all wearing lapel pins with the SED handshake.
“Such an honor. Your trip was comfortable?”
One polite question after another until they blended into one, the usual official welcome. Alex nodded and smiled, automatic responses. No one knew.
There were two dining rooms, one with walnut paneling and the other, where the party was, with a burgundy satin brocade, the long members’ table now pushed against the wall for a buffet spread. He smiled to himself. Anxious to meet him, but already filling plates, the eager freeloading of any faculty lounge. Someone handed him a glass of sweet champagne. The room looked neglected, the brass railings dull and the carpet tired, but it was otherwise much as he remembered, plush furniture and heavy drapes, like a room in the von Bernuth house. Was she already here?
“So, my friend. Ruth told me she saw you.” Brecht, grasping his arm as he shook his hand, the stub of a cigar smoldering in his mouth.