“That doesn’t make him a Nazi.”
“Not drafted. The father arranged a commission. From his Nazi friends. You’re surprised? Nobody forced him. The sister, Elsbeth, she even goes to rallies with her Nazi husband. We have photographs of this. An official party member.”
“Doctors had to join, didn’t they?” Alex said absently, his mind still back on we. We who? Who would have photographs?
“They live over in the West now,” Markus said. “It’s easier for them there.” He looked at Alex. “You’re like Kurt a little bit. He was always taken in by them too. But in the end—” His voice tailed off.
“And Irene?” Alex said. “You think she was a Nazi? She was in love with him.”
“Whatever that means to her.”
Alex ignored this. “They never married?”
Markus shook his head. “He said it was a risk for her. If he was arrested. And then he went to Spain. And that was the end of it.”
“But you expected her to—what? Wear black for the rest of her life? A young girl?”
“Maybe wait a little.”
“But she didn’t,” Alex said, curious, leading.
“A woman like that? Kurt thought she was—well, I don’t know what. Not somebody who works for Goebbels. Who marries—a sham marriage, to hide her affairs.”
“Worked for Goebbels how?”
“Everyone at Ufa worked for him, everyone in Kino. And what were they making? Propaganda. Our great National Socialist heroes. So how would Kurt have felt about that? A wonderful way to honor his memory—make films for the Nazis.”
“But what did she do?”
“Production assistant,” he said easily, familiar with her file. “Later, bigger jobs. So maybe she slept with someone. Then after, when there’s no more Goebbels, she goes to the Americans. The old Ufa crowd, back again, but now for the Americans.”
“Erich Pommer.”
“Yes, exactly, Pommer. But it’s not so easy getting a license to work. Even from old friends. Not after so many Horst Wessel films. So she changes sides again. Now DEFA. Soviet zone. Back to Babelsberg.”
“Then why hire her, if she’s so—what? Unreliable? It’s a Soviet studio.”
Markus hesitated, not expecting this, suddenly cautious, then raised his eyebrow, suggestive.
Alex looked away, just meeting his eyes a kind of complicity. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“What happened to everybody, you asked. So there’s an answer. People you knew—maybe they’re not the same.”
“None of us are,” Alex said, looking at him.
“No,” Markus said, meeting the look. “You, for instance, are now an honored guest of the Soviet Military Administration.” He waved his hand to the room. “A public figure. How you live, who you see. These things are noticed. You want to be with people of the future, not the past.”
“Are you telling me not to see them? The family?”
“I’m telling you who they are. It’s not like the old days. People like you—guests of the state—set an example.”
“Is this official or just some personal advice?”
“Official?”
“Hotel Lux graduate. Don’t you work for the Party?”
“Don’t you?” Markus said. “A very generous stipend.” He paused. “No. I’m not speaking officially.”
“Good. Then since it’s just between the two of us—” He looked up. “And even if it isn’t. Being a guest works two ways. You don’t have to keep me and I don’t have to stay. I travel on a Dutch passport. If the Party doesn’t like the example I’m setting, I’ll start packing. But Fritz von Bernuth saved my life. So if I want to see his family, I’ll see them.”
Markus’s face twitched. “Your famous temper,” he said finally, forcing a small arch smile. “Sometimes confused with political principle.”
Alex dug his nails into his palm. Don’t rise to it. Every answer reported.
“Not by me,” he said.
Another pause, as if Markus’s fingers were on a chess piece. Defuse it.
“I’m a little touchy about Fritz, that’s all. He was a good friend to my father.”
Markus nodded, accepting this.
“Now both dead,” Alex said. “And yours? I should have asked earlier. Your mother?”
A flash in Markus’s eyes that Alex couldn’t interpret, almost panic.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said quickly. “She’s dead?”
Another flash and then the eyes cleared, Markus in control again. “She’s in Russia.”
“Oh. She’s staying there?”
“For now,” Markus said, a twist to his mouth. “Like your wife.”
Alex sidestepped this. “It must have been difficult for you. During the war. To be a German in Moscow.”
“By that time I could speak Russian, so not so difficult,” he said, suddenly thoughtful. “But of course people were suspicious. The Wehrmacht did terrible things, and some people thought, well, maybe it’s something in the blood. Not the Party, of course. To them we were Communists only. Even then they were planning for after the war. A new Germany. So we were well treated.” He paused. “We were the future.” Said plainly, without his usual edge, maybe what he really believed.
“You’re sure of that?” A voice next to them, waiting for an opening, stepping closer now. “Markus.” A formal hello, with a bow, the awkward body of a tall man.
“Well, Ernst,” Markus said, surprised. “In the east? What are you doing here?” Trying to keep his voice genial, but displeased. “You have joined the Kulturbund now?”
“A guest only.”
“Yes? Whose?”
“I’ll let you find that out,” the man said, as if he were proposing a game. He turned to Alex, dipping his head and handing him a business card. “Ernst Ferber, RIAS.”
Alex looked at the card. Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor. Then, underneath, Radio in the American Sector.
“The initials work in both languages,” he said.
“Yes, it’s convenient.”
“Propaganda is the same word in both too,” Markus said.
“As you say,” Ernst said.