He looked over her shoulder at the threshold, another line to cross. Don’t. This betrayal worse than the other, or maybe just part of the same one now. What they wanted. More.
“I know you,” she said. “Don’t I?”
Already betrayed, so that when he nodded, his head filled with her, nobody ever wanted me like you, the nod seemed like a small lie.
* * *
“Be careful in the hall. Don’t make too much noise.” She was whispering, her breath faster, the same reckless eagerness as before, the way he remembered. “Frau Schmidt. I think she listens at the door. She used to be the block warden. Now she can’t stop.” She put her fingers to her lips, turning to the door, opening it slowly. A small foyer, the stairs opposite. “Can you see? Should I light a match?” Still whispering, conspiratorial. She turned, holding him again. “Maybe it’s better. You can’t see me. How I look. We’ll be the same,” she said, kissing him again. “This way. It’s better by the stairs.” The one visible part of the room, under a skylight.
Her foot bumped into something—a pail, a child’s toy, something that clattered.
“Ouf.” She giggled again. “Now she’s setting traps. Wait.” She reached into her purse and took out a match, lighting it, and waving it over the floor. “Okay.” She took his hand, leading him to the stairs. “Just hold the rail. Here. It’s the first step.”
A faint noise, furtive, from out of the dark, beside the stairs. “Irene.”
She froze.
“Over here.”
Someone moved away from the wall, approaching them. “Thank God. I’ve been waiting.”
Almost there, the thin pale face ghostlike in the dim light.
“Erich,” she said. “Erich?”
“I didn’t know if you were still living here.” Both whispering.
“Erich.” Almost a sob now, falling on him. “My God. How you look. So skinny. My God.”
They held each other for a minute, Erich shaking, a nervous relief, exhausted.
“Shh. It’s okay,” Irene was saying, patting him. “Everything’s okay. Erich.”
“I have to hide. Can you hide me?”
“Hide?”
“We escaped—” He raised his head, noticing Alex for the first time. An odd, startled look, seeing the dead. “Alex?” His eyes darting, confused. What had he heard, waiting by the stairs? Irene giggling, intimate.
“Yes.”
“It’s you?” An inexplicable presence.
“What do you mean, escaped?” Irene said, now studying his face. “You’re all right?” She looked down. “Like a skeleton.” Her voice broke, a whimper at the back of it. “My God, what have they done to you?”
Alex looked at him, the boy they’d hidden under the stairs. His hair, once the color of Irene’s, was now indeterminate, cropped short, prison style, easy for delousing. Dirty, streaked with grime, his skin drawn tight over the bones, so that his eyes seemed to bulge out, too big for his face. Holding onto the newel, some support.
“Come,” Irene said. “Alex, help me with him. Just hold onto the rail.”
A flickering light appeared, a candle coming out of a door.
“Who is it? What’s going on?”
“It’s only me, Frau Schmidt. Another power cut—it’s hard to see.”
Erich swerved away, his back to the candle.
“Frau Gerhardt,” Frau Schmidt said, holding the candle higher. “Two visitors?”
“Can I borrow the candle?” Irene said, breezy. “For the stairs? So kind. I’ll replace it tomorrow. Thank you.” She took the candle before Frau Schmidt could object.
“It’s late,” Frau Schmidt said. “For parties.”
“It’s not a party,” Irene said. “It’s my—” Then stopped, catching herself. “Well, it’s to make sure I got home safely.”
“And now you are home.”
“Yes,” Irene said, not biting. “Thank you again.” Moving up the stairs, the others shuffling behind.
At the door, she asked Alex to hold the candle while she fumbled for the key, Erich leaning against the wall, holding himself, drained. “In the old days, she’d make a report,” Irene said. “The old witch. Quick, inside. Erich, can you walk? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just tired.” He sank onto the couch, looking dazed. “Alex,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Never mind,” Irene said, fussing with his jacket. “We’ll explain later. You’re freezing. You don’t have a coat?”
“A coat,” Erich said with a laugh, some joke only he knew.
“Here, put this around you.” Irene draped an afghan around his shoulders, then began stroking his face. “What’s happened to you? Are you hungry?”
“Something to drink maybe.”
“Alex, it’s over there,” she said, nodding to a side table. “My God, so cold.” Rubbing Erich’s hands.
“Well, the truck. No heat.”
“What truck?”
“Rudi had a cousin with a truck. That’s how we got away. But no heat in the back. Thank you,” he said, taking the glass from Alex, then looking up. “I don’t understand. You’re in Berlin? I thought you were—”
“I came back. Drink. It’ll warm you up.”
Erich tossed it back, then shuddered.
“Are you hurt?” Irene said. “Escaped from where?”
“The camp. Where they shipped us, the POWs. Back to Germany, but not home. Slave labor.” He looked over. “People die in the camp. They get sick. I can’t go back there.” His voice wavering, involuntary tears.
“Shh. You’re here.”
He looked again at Alex. “You’re with Irene?” The confusion nagging at him.
“I just brought her home. From a party.”
“A party.” Something unimaginable.
“Did they feed you? You look—”
Erich shook his head. “They don’t die of that.”
Alex and Irene looked at each other. The illogic of hunger.
“There’s plenty here,” Irene said. “Sasha sent—” She stopped and went over to the kitchen counter. “Some cheese maybe?”