“Mutti,” he said, trying to make the ghost real or go away.
There was some movement to his side, the two policemen leading away the Polish woman. Alex watched them, hardly breathing, but Markus didn’t notice, too dazed by the hand on his cheek.
“Markus. Am I so different? Let me hold you.” She leaned into his chest, her arms around him, then turned her head, so that her gaze fell on Alex. A moment of confusion. “Alex? Alex Meier?”
“Frau Engel,” Alex said, his head dipping.
“You went to America.”
“Yes.”
The sound of his voice, an outsider, seemed to snap some spell in Markus, and he began to move, disentangling himself, a kind of military correctness.
“It’s a surprise, seeing you here. Where are you staying?” he said, polite, to a stranger.
“Where am I staying?” Frau Engel said, vague, then distressed, something she saw she ought to know but didn’t. She turned, flailing, to a man standing near them.
“Comrade Engel will be at the guest house. Of the Central Secretariat,” the man said.
“Oh, not with Markus?” she said, wistful.
“Perhaps later. When you know each other better. When he has had time to prepare for you. If you both wish.”
“Know each other? Who could know him better?” Then she caught Markus’s expression, someone watching a specimen, wary. “But perhaps later would be better, yes.”
“Is she still—?” Markus started to ask the man, then caught himself. “I mean—”
“A prisoner? No. Released,” his mother said, opening her hand, an odd flourish. “I have the papers.”
“I am merely escorting her to you,” the man said. “To make sure she arrives safely. Comrade Engel’s sentence was commuted. In full.”
“They gave me papers. So it must be. I don’t know why. I was an enemy of the people. And then I wasn’t. Like that. All these years an enemy.” She reached up again to his cheek. “While you were growing up. Your whole life. They took away your whole life. And then one day I’m on a train. It’s over.”
“Comrade Engel—”
“Oh yes, excuse me. I didn’t mean—” She pulled away from Markus, almost cowering. “Such talk. Pay no attention. I can’t think—” Fluttering, wings broken.
“You were arrested for counterrevolutionary statements,” Markus said simply, a policeman’s voice. “This time away—to rehabilitate yourself—the Party must have felt—” He stopped, letting this trail off.
Frau Engel looked at him, her eyes getting wider, something she hadn’t expected.
“Yes, that’s right,” she said quietly. “To rehabilitate myself.”
Alex watched the elevator doors close on the Polish woman. She hadn’t recognized him. A tweed coat. How many must there be in Berlin? Now Markus’s secretary was coming over.
“I’m sorry, sir. It’s Major Saratov. On the phone. I told him you were—” She blushed, a kind of apology.
Markus glanced around the room, suddenly aware that everyone was still watching. “Mutti, I must work,” he said, almost relieved. “I’ll come see you later. We’ll talk then.”
“Yes. Later.”
“Alex will go with you,” he said, eyes brighter, pleased with himself, a way to ease Alex out too. “Get you settled. Isn’t it nice, his being here again? Like old times.”
Frau Engel stared at him, not responding, as if he were speaking another language.
“Alex, you’ll make sure everything’s all right?” Busy again, official.
“I have a car downstairs,” the escort said.
“Good,” Markus said, about to head to the waiting phone, then hesitated. A scene still public, not yet played out, people waiting for an embrace. He turned to his mother, at a loss, then put his hands on her arms. “Mutti,” he said. “You must be tired.”
“Tired?”
“Get some rest. I’ll come later.” And then his voice softened, private, someone else talking. “Are you all right?”
She nodded.
Another second, the crack in the ice growing wider, then he dropped his hands and started for the phone.
Frau Engel insisted on taking the stairs.
“It’s foolish, I know. But it reminds me, the lift. Closed up like that. You had to stand.”
“In prison?”
She nodded. “The isolation box. It was a punishment.”
“For what?”
She looked at him, surprised. “Nothing.”
Two men in uniform overtook them on the landing, Frau Engel making herself flat against the wall to let them pass.
“What is this place? They’re police?”
“State Security. German.”
“He works here? He’s one of them?” Her eyes large, apprehensive.
Alex said nothing.
“Markus,” she said to herself.
On the street, she drew in some air, then shivered.
“I’m always cold now.” In the winter light her face was ash gray, what Berlin had looked like that first morning, lifeless.
“Where did they send you? Can I ask?”
She shrugged. “A work camp. Near the nickel mines. Norilsk. Always cold. Well, so now that’s over.” She put her hand on his wrist. “What does he do for them? He’s one of them?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.”
“He doesn’t say. But he just got a promotion. He told me that,” he said. “So he can help you.”
“Help me?”
“Someone with influence. It’s useful.”
“I was afraid. When I saw him, his uniform,” she said simply. “How is that? To be afraid of your own child? And did you see? He’s afraid of me. Some disease you can catch.” She touched her hand. “Contaminated.”