And then suddenly, over Martin’s shoulder, he saw the lipstick, a tiny splash of red across the room, and she was there. He stopped listening. Martin was talking, his mouth moving, the whole room now just some indistinct hum. Lipstick, a plain white blouse, bright against the crowd of drab cardigans. And now she was turning her head, facing him, her eyes skimming over shoulders, finding his. What had he thought it would be like? Blood rushing through him, a purely physical reaction. He had wondered whether he would recognize her, whether the years had worn her away. But blood rushed through him, stopping up his ears, and they were looking at each other and what he felt was the secrecy of that summer, when it had been just the two of them, all these people oblivious, not even audible. Talking with her eyes, the way she had done that night at the house. My God. I never thought I would see you again. Do I look the same? I was afraid. What you would think. So many years. But we’re here, aren’t we? Both. Look at you. I remember everything. From that time. Do you? A sudden welling in the eyes. Don’t say anything. Not yet. Just keep looking. One more minute. Nobody sees us.
Then someone touched her arm, drawing her away from his gaze and she turned her head back, now only a side glimpse to Alex, something she’d done in Pomerania, the secret between them, while Elsbeth primped and Fritz drank and nobody knew. So close they could speak in glimpses. And now it was all here again, the hot afternoons with the smell of the fields, hiding in the dunes, the taste of her. He kept staring until she looked around again, then away, as if she knew what he was seeing, her head thrown back, his face between her legs.
A man’s back, in gray uniform, cut her off. The Russian? Not alone after all. The look maybe the only private conversation they’d have all night.
“Herr Meier—” Martin’s voice came back.
“Sorry. I’ve just seen somebody,” he said, turning to go.
“You don’t want the toilet? It’s there.” Holding out his arm.
“Oh, the toilet. Yes.” How long had he been dreaming, not listening? Her hair was longer, not bobbed, but still the color of straw.
In the men’s room he had to wait in line, the others smoking and grumbling, already unsteady from vodka. When he washed his hands, he looked up in the mirror. A conversation in a glance. What if it hadn’t happened at all, the words in his head just what he wanted her to say? He splashed a little cold water under his eyes. Remember why you’re here. Go and meet the Russian.
“You see who’s here? That little shit Engel.” Two men behind him, wiping their hands, thinking they were whispering, not alcohol loud.
“Ulbricht’s ears. Everything goes straight to him. They’re worse than the Russians.”
“Careful,” the first said, an elbow and a nod toward a closed stall.
Alex kept looking at the mirror, the face he had now, not the one she’d known. Different people. The words in his head.
A boy handed him a towel. “Herr Meier.”
Alex turned. The bellhop from the Adlon.
“Hello. You’re working here too?”
“Something extra. When they have parties.”
The other men who had been washing left, now just someone peeing in a stall. The boy started brushing the back of Alex’s jacket.
“You’re enjoying Berlin?”
“Yes, of course.” Saying nothing.
“There is so much to see,” he said without irony, a tourist brochure, so that for a second Alex thought he was making a joke. “You have been to Volkspark Friedrichshain perhaps?”
Alex looked up into the mirror.
“They are building a mountain there.”
“A mountain?” Alex said, confused.
“Yes, with the rubble. Over the flak tower. Some day soon, just trees and grass. It’s interesting to see.”
Alex kept looking at the mirror. The man flushed the toilet.
“Go tomorrow,” the boy said under the sound, no ambiguity now, looking at each other in the mirror. “The Fairy Tale Fountain.” He gave a final whisk with the brush as the other man came to the sink and turned.
“Here,” Alex said, reaching into his pocket for a tip.
“No, it’s not allowed,” the boy said.
“One good thing about Socialism, eh?” the man said, soaping his hands.
The boy had turned away, busying himself with the towels. Not much older than Peter.
* * *
“So. Another admirer who wants to meet you.” Brecht, now wreathed in cigar smoke. “Matthias Fritsch,” he said, presenting a bald man. “How can a man have so many readers when his books are banned? So maybe he hasn’t read them really.”
“Every one, I assure you,” Fritsch said, taking Alex’s hand. “A pleasure.”
“Thank you,” Alex said, distracted, still rattled by the message in the men’s room. Tomorrow.
“Contraband literature,” Brecht said. “The only kind that’s worth reading. It’s an idea. You could do something with that.”
“You could,” Fritsch said.
Alex noticed Markus, still there. “Markus Engel,” he said, introducing him. “A friend from the old days.”
Markus bowed, visibly pleased, but the others barely took him in, not someone in their world.
“Matthias is at DEFA,” Brecht said. “Very important. Close to Janka. So maybe useful to you. You see how I arrange things? And for just a small commission.”
“How small?” Fritsch said, an old familiarity. “He says it’s a business for whores, and now who plays the pimp?”
“I said capitalism makes us whores. The film business, just more so.”
Alex was only half following this. Capitalism as a brothel was a Brecht conceit he’d heard before, and it struck him that what Brecht had really been in exile from all these years was not Berlin, but the twenties, with their tart, almost thrilling nihilism. Now that the worst had actually happened, just outside, his cynicism sounded like posturing, dated.
“But perhaps we can tempt you,” Fritsch said to Alex.
Alex held up his hands. “Books only.”
“Come see us anyway,” Fritsch said. “Babelsberg. So much damage, all the soundstages, but now a few are working again. I’ll give you a tour.”
“Wonderful films,” Brecht said. “Boy meets tractor.”
“He never changes,” Fritsch said, indulgent. “Some good work too. Serious.”
“Boy loses tractor,” Brecht said, impish.
“I’d like that,” Alex said, polite.
And then she was coming toward them, here, not a memory. How did they greet each other? A social kiss? A hug? Everyone watching. Even Markus, still hovering at the edge of the circle.
But Irene knew. She took his hands and swept them up in hers, holding them, a gesture as welcoming as a hug without its intimacy.
“My old friend,” she said, voice husky. The same voice. “So many years.”
“So you know our Irene,” Fritsch said.
“Yes,” Alex said, feeling her hands, touching.
She was smiling, not the stare of a few minutes ago, something for the room, reaching for her old lightness.
“Do I look so different?”