She put her finger to his lips.
“You don’t have to explain anything. Your wife, any of it. Everything that happened to us—it happened somewhere else. Not here,” she said, touching the bed. She looked over at him. “Nobody ever wanted me so much.”
He looked back, the same falling sensation.
“It’s not about that.”
“What, then?”
Everything he couldn’t say.
“We can’t, that’s all. I’m sorry, I should have—”
“No, it was me,” she said. “I wanted it.” She raised her eyes. “We both did, didn’t we?”
He said nothing, at a loss.
“You remember that summer. We thought we had—all the time we wanted. And we didn’t. Only a little.” She moved toward him on the bed. “And then in the war, you know what I learned? I could die any day.” She opened her fingers, something invisible flying out of them. “Any day. So that’s the time we have. One day.” She sat up, her face close. “One day,” she said, kissing him.
Feeling her next to him, his skin alive again, warm.
“So tell me everything later.” The words curling up like ropes, wrapping around him, then folding over each other in knots.
This time it was slower, almost gentle, hands all over, touching what they hadn’t before, so that every part of them felt aroused, blood rushing to the skin, and then a release that went on and on, their bodies pulsing with it, lingering even after they fell back, away from each other, and began to drift.
After a few minutes her breathing changed, the slow, even sound of sleep, her hand still resting on his chest, and he covered her shoulder with the duvet, suddenly aware of the cold seeping through the cracks around the window. No one burned coal at night, burrowing instead under blankets in cold rooms. He lay there without moving, wide awake, watching the faint light from outside on the ceiling, dread moving over him like a cold draft. Everything Campbell had hoped, in her bed, listening. But for how much longer, the golden source back in Moscow, Irene no longer useful. Tell me everything later. But he couldn’t tell her anything, not even that he would leave too. One day. Unless he never got out. And then what? Afternoons in her bed, still lying. Coffee with Markus. His real life bleeding out, Peter a memory, no longer in his life, the best part of him. Irene moved onto her side, her back warm against him. No one ever wanted me the way you did. He couldn’t do this. Give Campbell something else.
He heard the footsteps one flight down, clumping, not worried about being heard. The click of the timer switch, a slit of hallway light under the door. Now on the landing, just outside. He waited for the knock, suddenly apprehensive, then heard the scratch of a key in the lock. Someone with a key. He jumped out of bed, grabbing his pants off the floor, just zipping up when the door swung open. Markovsky, outlined by the hall light behind him. Alex picked up a shirt. Now what? A series of Feydeau doors slamming? People darting in and out? But there was nowhere to go, the bedroom straight off the living room, the old hinterhof style, and now the overhead light was on, catching them like a flashbulb. Irene sat up, holding the duvet to cover herself.
“Sasha,” she said faintly.
Markovsky looked from one to the other. “It didn’t take you long, I see. Get up.”
“It’s not what you think,” she said, but he waved this away, not even interested.
“Get up.”
“What’s wrong?” she said, reaching for her robe.
He watched while she put it on and belted it. “What’s wrong. I knew what you were. But not a liar. Where is he?”
“What are you talking about? Coming here like this—” Trying to go on the offensive, parrying.
“Do you think I’m such a fool? Asking questions and all the time—” He turned to Alex. “And you? Did you know too?”
“What?”
“We captured one. With this type it usually takes a few hours. The interrogation. But no, this one right away. The truck. Lichtenberg. Names. Who else? Ah, von Bernuth? And they just take everything down and I’m standing there and what do I think? How you lied to me. To my face.”
“What are you talking about?” Irene said. “What von Bernuth?”
“Erich. Your brother, no? One of the little birds that flew out of the cage. But now we put him back. Where is he?”
“Erich? Erich’s in Russia. Dead, maybe, I don’t know. What birds? What are you talking about?” she said again, avoiding Alex’s eye, playing it out.
“No, not in Russia. In the Erzgebirge. But now not there either. So where? Here? Where I pay the rent?”
“The Erzgebirge,” Irene said, a gasp. “The mines?” She looked up. “You knew he was there? In that terrible place?”
“You think I know the people there? To me they’re mules, that’s all. Something to haul the stuff out.” Almost spitting it out.
“So you come to me?”
“He got to Berlin, we know that. Where else would he go? The big sister, ready to hide—”
“Sasha, I swear—”
“Where else?” he said, louder.
“Look for yourself,” she said, spreading her hand to take in the flat.
His gaze followed it, landing for a second on Alex, now buttoning his shirt. “And what do I find? Already at it. Old friends. What a slut. And to think I came here to protect you.”
“Protect me?”
“They hear von Bernuth, they don’t know it’s Gerhardt now. Not yet, anyway. But I know. So I think, get him out of there before they see she’s involved. No one has to know. Do you know what it means, helping such a person?”
“But he’s not here. I never saw him. I didn’t even know he was— I thought he was in Russia.”