“Who can see us.”
They were in the first ring, three rows up, last seats on the aisle. Alex stood for a minute, trying to locate faces. The Russian, Leon, he spotted in the swarm of people below—a seat back in the orchestra, out of the way. But where was Markus, sharp-eyed Mielke? He turned his head slowly, scanning the mezzanine. Not up here. Beneath the overhang? Anna Seghers’s white hair, Dymshits still working the aisle below, greeting people, Ferber next to a group of Americans. But what about the people he didn’t know? Hundreds of eyes.
“Okay, go to the ladies’ room now.”
“I’m so nervous, it’s for real.”
He continued to stand, letting people get by him to their center seats, his eyes circling the theater. Markus and Mielke, there, in a box. Spotting him, nodding, but getting into chairs facing the stage—they’d have to swivel around to see him after the play started. Still looking for Markovsky, Karlshorst keeping things to themselves again, but neither of them aware there was a corpse in a drawer, fished out near Bellevue. Why say he was in Moscow? Maybe Irene was right—some trap, baiting them with surprise, just to see how they bit. Maybe Saratov, new to the job, wanted the whole thing off his desk, filed away. But the leak couldn’t be filed away, still talking in Wiesbaden, Saratov’s worst nightmare—a willing defector or a kidnapped one, did it matter? Someone who knew, who’d sat at the same desk. Unless—Alex stopped, looking straight out at the curtain, the noise rising up from the orchestra like heat. Unless they knew there was no defector, had never been. Unless they knew.
He stood for another minute, staring straight ahead, thinking, before he caught the movement, Elsbeth waving from below. Front orchestra with the—what were their names? Now pantomiming “Where’s Irene?” Alex signaling back, touching his stomach, then cocking his head toward the restrooms. Elsbeth nodded and excused herself, making her way up the crowded aisle. Not what he’d intended. Now she’d be concerned all evening, keeping them in sight. He looked again toward Markus’s box. Leaning close to hear what Mielke had to say, but both facing forward. Dymshits taking his seat now. Where was Martin? Probably in the balcony. Ferber still with the Americans. Leon out of sight. He made another sweep of the first tier. No glasses looking away from the stage, no one facing backward. In the murmuring, expectant theater, no one seemed to be watching him.
Markovsky alive and well in Moscow. Some mischievous game, our phantom versus your phantom? We know. Not in Wiesbaden. But then where was he? Still somewhere in Berlin, waiting for Irene. Alex’s eye stopped on two Russians, sitting in a box opposite, staring across. But they could be looking at anybody. If they knew who he was, what he was going to do, they wouldn’t just watch, wait for an excuse. What would be the charge? Counterrevolutionary activities, like Aaron? Worse? In the end, did it matter? They took you to Sachsenhausen because they could. The charges came later.
“Herr Meier, what a nice surprise.” Herb Kleinbard, taking the seat behind him, out free, just as Markus had said. “It gives me the chance to thank you. For your help. Roberta told me—” He turned to her, bringing her into the conversation.
“No, I made inquiries, that’s all,” Alex said, dismissing it, aware that Roberta seemed somehow embarrassed, awkward in his presence, as if she now regretted drawing him into their lives. “Everything is all right now, I hope?”
“Yes. A bureaucratic mistake. But of course, a worry if one doesn’t know this,” he said, a nod to Roberta, explaining her.
“Yes,” she said simply, still in a kind of retreat. “Alex was very kind. A good neighbor.” Glancing at him, then looking away, uncomfortable, eager to move on. What had she told Herb? How desperate she had been? How Alex had helped?
“And neighbors tonight, I think,” Herb said. “You’re sitting there?”
“Yes. And here’s Irene. Roberta, you remember Frau Gerhardt?”
More awkwardness, Irene still a mystery to her, a woman with a car from Karlshorst.
“Feeling better?” Alex said. “She hasn’t been well today. I think only Brecht could bring her out.”
“A special occasion, yes,” Herb said. Then, to Alex, “Thank you again. You’re modest, but I know what it means. To help in such a situation. People don’t want to get involved, they don’t know it’s a mistake, they’re afraid. So I thank you.”
Alex received this with a nod. “But it was Roberta, really. She wouldn’t give up, and now here you are.”
“We should sit,” Roberta said. Not wanting to talk about it.
“Did they treat you—? I mean, you’re all right?”
“Yes. Such places, they’re not pleasant. Well, we know that. Not country clubs. But you know, you put it out of your mind. An evening like this, to see this in Berlin, you forget the bad times.”
Alex looked at him. “I was there. I never forgot.”
Herb met his eyes. “No, that’s right. You don’t forget.” No longer pretending, but still unsure what it meant, how he was going to live with it.
“Oh, they’re starting,” Roberta said, taking her seat as the theater went dark.
Irene leaned over to him as they sat down. “Now what?” she whispered. “They’re right behind us. People you know.”
Alex said nothing, trying to make out the stage in the still black air, even the tinkle of voices disappearing, a void.
“What can we do?” she said even fainter.