“Shall I come too?” she said, playing along now.
“No, no. You’re busy. Why don’t you come this evening? See the flat and then we’ll get something to eat.”
“I don’t know when Sasha—”
“Well, just call if you can’t. Nice having a phone, isn’t it? Here’s the number.”
They left separately and sat apart on the tram down to Alexanderplatz and then on the S-Bahn to Savignyplatz. Dr. Mutter was only a few blocks down on Schlüterstrasse, but Erich seemed winded by the walk.
The door was opened by a nurse who seemed to be doing double-duty as a maid.
“You have an appointment?”
“We’re here to see Frau Mutter. Tell her Alex Meier.”
“Meier?” she said, a slight twitch, perhaps reacting to the name. Only Aryan patients still. “Wait here.”
A vestibule with a coatrack, drafty, separated from the hall by another door. Elsbeth came almost at once.
“Alex? It’s you?” she said, forehead wrinkled in disbelief, her hand to her throat, a film gesture. She had become her mother, hair wrapped around her head in a braided crown, her face an old woman’s, pinched. Then she noticed Erich, a sharp intake of breath, now clutching her throat, and her face seemed to dissolve. “Erich?” she said, a whisper. “Erich—?”
He reached over to her, hugging her, both now crying.
“I thought you were dead,” she said, touching him, making sure he was real. “Dead. Back from the dead. Unless maybe it’s me who’s dead. They say that’s when you see them, when you’re dead yourself.”
“Elsbeth,” Erich said, disconcerted by this, something she was saying to herself.
“And you,” she said to Alex. “Back too. I thought I would never see you again. But how is it possible?” she said, turning to Erich. “The POWs don’t come back. They keep them there.”
“They’ve started to release them,” Alex said. “Three weeks ago. It’s taken him that long to get to Berlin. He needs to see a doctor. Is your husband here?”
“Gustav? Seeing patients.” She motioned her head inside the house. “It’s his day at home. From the hospital. Are you ill?” she said to Erich. “What?”
“He’s been in a prison camp,” Alex said. “Somebody needs to look at him.”
“So you brought him to Gustav? I don’t understand,” she said to Alex. “Why are you with him? How did you know where—?”
“He went to see Irene.”
“Oh, Irene,” she said, a slight stiffening. “And she sends him here? She won’t even talk to Gustav.”
“Elsbeth,” Alex said, a willed patience. “Can we come in? He’s very weak. You can see for yourself.”
“Weak. Yes, yes, come in. I’m sorry.” She took Erich’s arm. “You’re all right? Did they make you walk? Is it possible, all the way from Russia?”
Erich touched her hair, a faint smile, familiar. “A truck.”
“And you go to Irene?”
“I didn’t know where you were living. She told me.”
She stared at him again. “Back from the dead. Maybe everyone comes back. Wouldn’t that be—?” She turned, leading them in.
The flat was filled with furniture, almost a prewar feel after the austere rooms he’d seen in the East, some leftover Christmas greens still on the mantel. But there were none of the porcelain knickknacks that must have been here before, the clutter of silver frames on the piano, all sold, he assumed, to the men in long coats in the Tiergarten for PX food tins during the first hard winters. Elsbeth, thinner than before, was buttoned up in a nondescript sweater, her old creamy complexion drained away.
“Would you like some tea?” she said, an almost surreal politeness.
“Elsbeth, is your husband—?” Leading her back.
“Yes, I’ll tell him. I hate to interrupt when he has patients. Oh, but what am I saying? It’s you, isn’t it? Come back. But Erich,” she said, a new thought, “did you want to live here? It’s only a flat, as you see, and Gustav—”
“He’s staying with friends of Irene’s,” Alex interrupted. “He doesn’t need a bed. Just a doctor.”
“Yes. Let me get Gustav. Oh, look at you, so thin. You came back. You know father’s dead?”
Erich nodded. Something that had happened years ago.
“And the boys. Both. I was doing volunteer work at the hospital. So many people—the raids. So I wasn’t here. I saw them later, when they dug them out. Both. You can’t imagine how they looked. At first I didn’t recognize them, just the size, so small, so it had to be them. If I had been here—well, Gustav says, don’t think that, but he didn’t see them. All smashed. Like dolls.” She stopped, catching herself. “I’ll get him.”
Erich looked at Alex, not saying anything. Back from the dead.
“Well, Erich,” Dr. Mutter said, coming in and clapping him on the shoulder, a public family welcome. “Thank God. We thought—you know, so many stories.” Tall, with thinning blond hair, a long Nordic face. He turned to Alex, waiting.
“This is Alex Meier,” Elsbeth said. “A friend of the family. A long time ago. Before you knew me.”
“And now here again,” Mutter said, nodding, pointedly not offering his hand. “With Erich.”
“He’s sick,” Alex said plainly. “He needs you to examine him. See what’s wrong.”
“Why didn’t he go to the hospital? We’re not supposed to—”
“He lost his papers,” Alex said, looking at him.
“Lost or never had? Elsbeth said he was released but I haven’t heard they’re doing that. If he’s here illegally, you know it’s against the law to—”
Alex stared at him, his head swimming. The kind of unforgiving precise face that might have been at his parents’ selection. Able to work, over here. The others, there.
“Really, Gustav—” Elsbeth began.