Alex took a gulp of air, then another, calming himself, aware suddenly that his own breathing was the only sound he could hear. The planes had stopped, leaving an eerie silence. He held up his hand. Everything beyond was black, no moon or streetlamps, not even the pinprick of a flashlight. What drowning would feel like, swallowed up in the dark. He stood still for a minute, willing himself not to panic. They were going to leave him here, in place, to race between traps. Nobody could keep that up indefinitely. A matter of time and then caught. One side or the other.
He started to walk. Stay close to the wall, the only marker. If he moved even a few yards away, he’d be lost, going in circles. A pair of headlights swooped into the black. Where Wilhelmstrasse must be. He was about to duck, an automatic crouch, when he realized the car couldn’t see him. The fog had made him invisible too. He could go anywhere and no one would know.
It must have been a piece of girder, something low to the ground, because nothing hit his shin as he tripped and pitched forward, suddenly flying. He put his hands out to break the fall, slamming onto the frozen ground, something sharp hitting the side of his forehead, a warm ooze of blood. He lay motionless for a second, angry at his clumsiness, then sank flat to the ground, the dread back, weighting him down. They’d keep him here. The cold spread across his face then moved down along the rest of him, a damp tomb cold. He’d never get out. He felt as if the marshy Brandenburg soil was reaching up to reclaim him, pull him under. He would die here after all, his exile just a reprieve from the inevitable. Did it matter who pulled the trigger? The Nazis. Markus. Campbell. The end would be the same. What his parents must have felt, climbing into the train, too dazed to resist. Their only comfort knowing they’d saved him.
And he’d come back. A bet against history. Now lying in the rubble. Waiting for what? To be a victim, like the others? No. He pushed himself up. He couldn’t die here, not in Germany. One more Jew. He touched his forehead. Blood but not streaming, a Band-Aid cut. Think. Play your own side. Berlin had. On its knees for a cigarette. Now on seventeen hundred calories a day. He got up and began to pick his way carefully through the debris, then faster, more confident in the dark, suddenly feeling he could walk all the way back to Santa Monica Pier. He had one head start: he knew where Markovsky was. Make up the rest of the story. Isn’t that what writers do? Smoke and mirrors.
If Campbell leaked Markovsky’s defection tonight, Karlshorst would know by morning. They’d come to see Irene again, but what she’d already told them would fit. She just had to keep saying it, frame the story. Be surprised. Disappointed. Maybe even angry that he hadn’t confided in her, just went off with a kiss to her head. But she had to prepare herself, know they’d be coming.
He turned up toward Marienstrasse, following the curb to the bridge. A street he could find in the dark. Maybe there’d even be a few window lights now that he was back in the Soviet sector, out of the blockade. Think it through. What could go wrong? Markovsky himself, bobbing to the surface. But there was nothing he could do about that now. The stones would hold or they wouldn’t. As long as they bought him time. Campbell would know how to feed the story, add kindling. What did Markovsky tell us today? Reports leaking back to Karlshorst, everyone focused on them, not dredging the Spree. If they managed the story right, it could be more valuable than Markovsky himself. Assuming nothing went wrong, no weak link.
He stopped on the bridge, turning his back to a lone truck that was lumbering across. And if they found the body? You had to plan for the unexpected. Look at Lützowplatz. He heard Campbell’s voice again, lodged somewhere in the back of his mind. It wasn’t supposed to go that way. But how was it supposed to go? If they found Markovsky, there’d be hundreds of suspects. Berlin was a desperate city. A Russian alone at night. Anybody might have done it. But only one had seen him last. Nobody made it through a real interrogation. If it came to that. Three people in the room, one of them dead. They’d both be at risk, as long as she was here, easy to pick up, her protector gone.
He found the door with no trouble, then felt his way up the stairs. Underneath the door there was the thin flicker of candlelight. A soft three raps.
“Oh, you’re hurt,” she said, her eyes drawn immediately to the blood. She was clutching at her robe and holding a candle like some figure in a folktale wakened in the night. “What—?”
“I tripped. It’s nothing,” he said, stepping inside, closing the door behind him. He lowered his voice. “Frau Schmidt. Is she still away?”
“What? Oh, Frau Schmidt. No, she’s back.” Fluttering, as if she were having trouble following. “But why—I thought you said we shouldn’t see—”
“It’s all right. Nobody followed.”
“How do you know?” she said, her voice still distracted, clutching the robe tighter.
“Were you sleeping?” he said, finally noticing it.
She shook her head. “Why did you come? You said—”
“I know. I needed to see you. Do you have something for this?” He touched his forehead. “A bandage. A piece of cloth.”
“Who’s that?” A voice from the other end of the room, the German accented, Russian.
“A friend,” Irene said faintly.
“Another friend,” the man said, amused by this, stepping forward now into the candlelight, buttoning his uniform.
“No. A friend,” Irene said, at a loss, looking over at Alex.
The room seemed to dissolve for a minute, as if he had brought the fog in with him, shrouding everything outside the reach of the candle, the flash of brass buttons, her eyes staring at him. Like that night in Kleine J?gerstrasse, a whole conversation in a look, everything understood in a second. The same bright sheen in her eyes, the tiny spark of defiance behind the dismay. When things came back into focus he almost expected to see the Christmas tree, Kurt lying among the presents. But there was only a Russian officer, buttoning his tunic, watching them both.
“I’ll go,” Alex said, not moving, his eyes still talking to her.
“No need,” the Russian said calmly, picking up his hat. “I’m leaving.”
They all stood still for another second, just looking, then the Russian started for the door.