“Yes.”
“And how does it end? Well, how? All those people back there,” she said, tossing her head toward the Kulturbund. “What do they think it’s going to be like? A paradise.” She snorted. “They’re worse than the Russians. They believe in the Party. The Russians know better.” She turned to him suddenly. “You don’t believe in it either. Not like that. I know you. Why are you here?”
“I had nowhere else to go,” he said.
“So we’re a fine pair. They make parties for you and give you payoks and I’m—both of us kept by the Russians. How things turn out.”
Up ahead he saw the lights of the elevated station, soldiers guarding the stairs. Still an occupied city.
“Why are you?” he said. “With a Russian. After what happened.”
“Sleeping with him, you mean. You can say it, we don’t have secrets from each other.”
“No,” he said, looking away.
“Well, why not? He didn’t rape me. And the Russians—they’re here. I live in the Russian sector. How can I move? Even to get a room in Berlin, it’s impossible now.” A sly look toward him. “Unless of course you’re a guest of the Party. But then you’re still in the East. So, a Russian.”
“Do you care for him?”
“Oh, care for him. What does it mean? He helps me. It’s useful to have a Russian friend. You saw how even Markus doesn’t make trouble for me.”
“And when they leave?”
“When is that? Maybe never. I used to think the Nazis would be forever too. It felt like it. You never see the end of things when you’re in them.”
“No.”
They were on the bridge now, collars up against the wind off the water.
“How pretty it is, in the snow,” she said, stopping at the rail, looking down at the narrow Spree.
In fact it was the same raw landscape they’d just walked through, piles of bricks and scaffolding and empty lots, but the few lights were flashing now on the water, a lantern effect, soft through the scrim of snow, and you could see the city you wanted to see.
“Remember all the cafés?” She pointed to the terrace along Schiffbauerdamm. “At night. And the boats.” Seeing it through her own lens, sun umbrellas and waiters with trays, not the cold black water and rusting girders. “Oh, it’s so good to see you,” she said, reaching up to brush some snow off his coat, her hand on his chest. “I never thought— And now you’re here. Just the same.”
“No, not the—” The rest swallowed by an S-Bahn train squealing into the overhead station.
“Well, the same to me. I know, everything’s different. But it feels the same. Nobody knew me like you did. The way it was with us. Just a look.”
“What about Kurt?”
“Well, Kurt. Now you’re going to be angry again. So that’s the same anyway. Jealous,” she said, turning, putting her arm in his again to walk. “It’s getting cold here. You want to talk about Kurt? After all this time? It was something different, that’s all.”
“Different how?”
“It was like being in love with a pilot. Or a—I don’t know, skier, something like that. The way a little girl is in love. With her own idea, not the person.”
“And what was your idea?”
“Oh, the revolutionary, the fighter. Someone to save the world, while everyone else sits around and watches it go to hell. Maybe someone I wanted to be myself. When all I could do was argue with my father, stupid things like that. But he was really going to fight. So, very romantic. And then a week later, he’s dead, so what was the point? We were—how old? Now you can see what foolishness it was, but then—”
“Then you were in love with him.”
“Shall I tell you something? I never knew what he was thinking.”
Alex stopped, looking at her.
“Never. So it was different. You know, it’s different with different people. Enka—we never made love but I loved him. So what was that? Kurt. Well, Kurt. I’m not sorry—except that it made you so angry. Why did it? All right, I know. You thought I loved him instead. It was never instead. But it ruined everything between us. I used to think about that sometimes. What if it had never happened? But you would have gone anyway. The way things were after Oranienburg. I kept wanting to tell you, it wasn’t instead. It was—just something else.”
Alex said nothing. They had turned off Friedrichstrasse.
“You don’t believe me?”
“It doesn’t work that way for me, that’s all.”
“And do you know what? If it were Kurt here, not you, I could never say these things. He never knew me. Not like you did.”
Alex looked away. “Well, he was busy saving the world.”
“Don’t.” She stopped, looking around at the street. “Anyway, nobody saved it.” She turned to him. “He thought he was, though. So you should leave him that.”
“Why does Markus blame you?” he said, starting to walk again, away from Kurt.
“He blames everybody. So angry and he used to be so nice, remember? Well, you can imagine what it was like there for him. People being taken away. No mother—”
“He said his mother is still there.”
“Well, buried. She must be by now. They sent her to one of the camps. Siberia, wherever they send them. And they don’t come back.”
“Sent her why?”
“Why. A spy, probably. Isn’t that what they used to say about all of them? She was German, that was really the reason. They purged the Germans.”