Gradually, too gradually, the pain began to ease and the flooding too, although for a long time that was imperceptible as well, so she remained where she was, too frightened to move. She felt very weak, her legs trembling under her weight, when she finally tried to get up. She did so only briefly, just to get a tampon from the cabinet. She had to clean herself again after even that little movement, and realized a tampon wasn’t going to do it. Sitting once more, she fashioned a thick pad from a larger towel, holding it to herself until she could put on fresh underwear to keep it in place. She wrapped the already stained clothes in the earlier towel and bundled them into the corner of the bathroom, to be disposed of the following morning. Whimpering again, this time from the sheer effort, Elke swabbed clean the floor in the living-room and bathroom: she had to stop frequently, staying kneeling as she was, when dizziness swirled around her. Once she recovered to find she had toppled sideways, and supposed she had momentarily lost consciousness. Her stomach still ached but there was no nausea. She decided against calling a doctor: she could manage by herself.
She was laying another towel over the bedsheet, for additional protection, when the telephone rang. Elke hesitated and then groped towards it.
‘Where have you been? I’ve been worried as hell! I called several times today when I thought you would be home!’
‘I left early for Marienfels. Then I called in to see Ida.’
‘Your voice doesn’t sound right. What’s wrong?’
‘I’d already gone to bed: was almost asleep. My period’s very bad this time.’ The contradiction screamed in her head. Not my period! I’ve just miscarried: miscarried your child while you were fucking someone else!
‘Would you like me to come round?’
‘No!’ The weakness of her voice took away the force of the rejection.
‘Tomorrow?’
‘I’ll come to you, at Rochusplatz.’
‘You’re sure I can’t do anything?’
‘Positive.’
In bed Elke curled practically in an ironic foetal position, because it made the pain better. And cried. There was no specific reason: no one thing that filled her mind, for her to focus on. It was everything: she cried bitterly, uncontrollably, about everything. Everything and nothing. Maybe nothing – having nothing – most of all.
The following afternoon a subdued Horst Kissel called Elke’s Chancellery number and said the grey Audi, number BN-278, was registered in the name of Ms Jutta Sneider. The address was in a block of apartments in the Nord-Stadt district.
‘It wasn’t easy,’ Kissel complained.
‘But you did it, didn’t you?’ said Elke. She believed she could understand her sister’s indifference to the man.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
He’d always prepared, made her think for months that every time they met was special, but she had the feeling tonight that he’d prepared more carefully – tried harder – than before. The glasses were out, the wine opened, the flowers displayed, a soft, beguiling orchestral movement already playing. All so welcoming: welcoming and loving and intimate. All so false. Reimann held her close to him – although careful again, not too tightly – and she made herself hold him close in return. She made herself kiss him back, too, with the same fervency. He kept an arm around her shoulders, walked her to a chair and settled her. As he did so he knelt at her side, which Elke considered to be taking the supposed attentiveness too far. He retained her hand, as well. He’d held the hand of a woman called Jutta Sneider like this, Elke thought. With which of them did he practise?
‘You should have let me come last night.’ He’d wanted to – almost insisted upon doing so – because of the way she’d sounded. And he should have done, ignoring her refusal. She appeared wan, pale-faced: unsteady on her feet, even. He didn’t like her to be as frail as this. The feeling wasn’t professional.
‘I didn’t want you to.’ She’d expected to be more repelled, more resistant to any contact with him than she was. She’d actually enjoyed his touch, wanting it. Wouldn’t lose, she reminded herself.
‘I’ve been with you before when it’s happened. A lot of times. I could have looked after you.’
Elke refused the conversation. Instead, things arranged in her own mind, she said: ‘How was your trip?’
Reimann got up from his kneeling position, shrugging. ‘All right.’
‘Are you worried you didn’t get what you wanted?’ It was a serious question, but cynically Elke recognized the ambiguity.
The opening he should take, Reimann recognized: curiously, inexplicably, he was reluctant to seize it. He did so, however, but with effort. ‘It’s still not complete: I’ve got the financial figures and statistics but I’m still short of the political background to fit it all together.’ He’d told her he was going to Frankfurt, to investigate the financial pressures and uncertainties caused by the changes in the East.
‘Where did you stay?’ asked Elke, another rehearsed question.
‘The Steigenberger,’ replied Reimann, at once. She looked positively ill, which she hadn’t at other times, no matter how bad her period.
‘You didn’t tell me, before you left. I could have called you. Just to talk.’ She could expose his lie, by checking with the hotel. But why should she waste a telephone call? She knew already that he was lying.
‘I didn’t think: I’d hoped it wouldn’t take me as long as it did. And I did try to call you.’
So Jutta Sneider was a good fuck, worth staying with. Elke said: ‘We shouldn’t do that again. I’d like to talk to you, when you are away.’
‘You’re right,’ Reimann accepted. He’d find an escape, when the moment came. But he didn’t want to do that, either. Not cut himself off from her. The reflection unsettled him because it wasn’t the sort of reflection he should have had.
‘Did you have a good time?’ It was a question Elke had particularly planned, and she asked it intent upon his reaction.
‘A good time!’ echoed Reimann, bemused. He nevertheless considered the question, answering it for his own satisfaction. No, he decided. He hadn’t had a good time: the entire weekend had been an ordeal, from beginning to end. He’d feigned and faked everything: affection, interest, consideration, sex. His only interest had been how quickly time would pass, so that he could leave. Aware of Elke’s attention upon him, Reimann said: ‘I was working, all the time. I ate-not very well – and worked and slept.’
‘And you come back to find me like this!’ tempted Elke.
‘I’ve come back to find you unwell and it worries me,’ said Reimann. ‘I was thinking, while I was away. If it’s going to be as bad as this we should get some professional advice. I don’t want it to go on: I want it fixed.’
‘It won’t be as bad again,’ said Elke. Like everything else, she’d worked that out. He was good at seeming genuinely concerned.
‘You can’t possibly know that,’ argued Reimann.
‘Let’s see what happens next month,’ said Elke. ‘I’m not going to waste the time of a doctor or specialist unnecessarily.’
‘Just one more month,’ he insisted. He poured the wine at last, handing her a glass. Close to her again he said, sincerely: ‘I missed you. I missed you like hell and could hardly wait to get back.’ That remark wasn’t professional either.
Maybe Jutta Sneider hadn’t been such a good fuck after all. Elke said: ‘I was lonely, too.’ He was a superb actor, she decided. Or a superb liar. Obviously a combination of both.
He said: ‘I guessed you wouldn’t want to go out tonight.’
‘No,’ said Elke, quickly. Appearing to remember, she said: ‘I saw Horst yesterday. He gave me another story to pass on.’ She took it from her handbag and gave it to him.
Reimann accepted the envelope without interest, carrying it across to his desk. It was cluttered, but in the manner of someone who worked, not like Kissel’s, carefully arranged into chaos. ‘I’ll send it on tomorrow. He’s becoming quite popular.’
‘Have yo
u got any here? Ones that have been published?’ Elke asked him, knowing of the back copies stacked in a pile beside the desk.
As if responding to a cue, Reimann gestured towards the heap. ‘Help yourself while I make us something to eat. It’s trout. I didn’t know how you’d feel so I took a chance with trout.’
‘Trout’s fine.’ Elke accepted. A lot of things were working out fine.
By the time Reimann announced that the meal was ready, Elke had read five back copies. All had included articles under Reimann’s byline, as well as Kissel’s fiction. As always the meal was perfect, and she ate without any feeling of sickness, positively hungry. Reimann hovered constantly, trying to anticipate whatever she wanted. Elke decided against going back to the desk and the magazines afterwards, although she wanted to. Instead she sat on the voluminous leather couch while Reimann cleared away.
‘Are you going to stay tonight?’ he asked, returning.
‘I didn’t know if you’d want me to, as I …’
‘… I could become irritated by your thinking that,’ he cut in. ‘I very much want you to stay.’
There were still some prepared questions. Elke said: ‘Will you be going away again soon?’
‘I don’t know. I hope not,’ said Reimann. He put out his arm, invitingly, and Elke settled into his shoulder. Again she enjoyed the physical contact.
‘Any more rude letters? Or cables?’
He had to respond professionally, Reimann told himself, remaining reluctant to do so. ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I’m frightened there will be if I can’t provide the material they want.’
‘You’ll tell me if the pressure starts, won’t you?’ urged Elke. ‘You never know. I might be able to help.’
‘Help!’ seized Reimann instantly. He was almost over the final barrier. All she had to do was part with one item – it wasn’t really necessary on the first occasion for it to be particularly important – and the flow would start like water finding its way through a crack in a dam.
‘Not by doing anything I shouldn’t,’ said Elke, in apparent correction. ‘I mean we could discuss things, like we have in the past.’
That wasn’t what she’d meant, Reimann gauged: Elke was drawing back from an over-commitment. He said: ‘That would be helpful: I’ve found it extremely useful when we’ve done that.’
Was Jutta Sneider employed in any section of the government, Elke wondered. It was the source of substantial employment in the city, so it was a possibility. She said: ‘So we’ll talk if you’ve got a problem.’
‘Definitely,’ he promised.
Elke was glad, as usual at such times of the month, that he considerately let her go into the bedroom ahead of him to undress and put on a nightgown. She still needed the additional protection of a pad – a proper one she had bought that day – and as well as a supporting belt she wore underwear.
Reimann got into bed beside her, sighing with genuine contentment, stretching out a gentle arm to embrace her. ‘It’s so good, just being here next to you. I love you very much.’
Had he used such sentimentality upon Jutta Sneider, like everything else? wondered Elke. She decided he’d told several other lies that night: how many more would there be that she could isolate?
‘Remember, I don’t want her becoming suspicious.’
‘She won’t,’ Turev assured Sorokin. ‘Don’t overlook her need to be the person in charge. She’ll be flattered.’
‘You’re ready to wind up everything else?’
‘Within hours of her arriving here in Moscow. A day after we’ve got her here there won’t be a trace of Jutta Sneider ever having been in Bonn.’
‘I hope you’re right about Reimann’s reaction.’
‘I’ve timed his arrival in East Berlin to follow immediately.’
Chapter Forty
Elke was in a hurry to get all her decisions settled and established, although there was no definite cause for urgency in any of those plans. A meeting of the special committee was rescheduled for the Friday, with its inevitably increased workload, so she got a telephone recommendation from her regular physician and made an appointment with the gynaecologist early in the week. He was an urbane, grey-haired man with a pink polished face and the affectation of making towers with his fingers, which he collapsed at the end of sentences, to emphasize the finality of what he said. He listened to her account of increased difficulty with her periods and asked whether she was involved in a sexual relationship: without any of the awkwardness she would have shown so very recently Elke admitted, almost proudly, that she was. Under further, gently uncritical questioning she conceded that the relationship was extremely active, that she enjoyed it, but that it came after many years of total abstinence. When she said that, the man’s fingers collapsed even though he wasn’t talking himself. Elke insisted, again without any embarrassment, that there had not been any pregnancy alarms, reflecting as she did how easy it was becoming to lie. The consultation took an hour and concluded with her being prescribed a birth control pill which the gynaecologist assured her would ease the period difficulties in addition to providing the protection she obviously needed.
When she returned to the Chancellery Elke found waiting for her a letter of appreciation from the counter-intelligence department, praising her creation of a referencing system that had enabled their inquiries to be concluded so quickly and so satisfactorily. A copy was marked for Günther Werle, and attached to her original security letter was a copy of a personal commendation from Werle that was being recorded on her work file. When Elke thanked him, at their winding-up session for the day, the Cabinet Secretary said it was nothing less than she deserved to mark the efficiency with which she ran the entire Secretariat.
Among the other things waiting for her when she had returned from the gynaecologist was a message from the personnel directorate that there was no Jutta Sneider listed on any of the government employment records.
It had been Elke’s insistence that they spend the second night at Rochusplatz, although not because of the continuing period discomfort which she let Reimann infer. Elke reached Nord-Stadt quite quickly, although it was more difficult locating the address she had for Jutta Sneider. The identification was helped by the Audi parked outside. Elke’s impressions, at seeing the apartment block, were mixed. There were vaguely formed thoughts of the woman being outside and an idea of confrontation (instantly dismissed as foolish), but over-all it was a bizarre feeling of disappointment, which was more foolish than a confrontation. The block was cheap and tawdry, a crumbling place for crumbling people. Jutta Sneider hadn’t looked cheap and tawdry during that snatched sight on the ferry, and later, walking along the river path. Elke waited, hopefully, for almost an hour but the woman didn’t emerge. Elke didn’t know what she would have done if Jutta Sneider had come out. Nothing, she supposed. What could she have done?
Reimann’s greeting was as solicitous as she expected, and although Elke no longer had either discomfort or weakness she allowed him to prepare the promised meal. He ushered her towards the couch, but she went instead back to the desk, intent upon the magazines she hadn’t got around to studying the previous night. This time she actually sat at the desk, the pages spread before her. Once, coming into the room from the kitchen, he asked her what she thought, and Elke, scarcely bothering to look up, insisted she was impressed. She’d read all she wanted by the time he announced dinner.
Towards its end, casually, he said: ‘We’re becoming quite a domesticated couple, aren’t we?’
Elke hesitated and then, with her new-found attitude, became irked by her own uncertainty. ‘I always thought to be domesticated people had to be married?’ She spoke looking directly at him, holding his eyes for a change.
‘Yes,’ he said, returning the gaze unwaveringly. ‘I suppose that’s how it has to be.’
Why not go on? Elke thought; she’d never know now what, if anything, she had to lose. She said: ‘And we’re not married.’
‘I know. Which seems quite
wrong, don’t you think?’ What was he doing, saying? How could he encourage such a meaningless conversation? He was forgetting everything: professionalism, training, common sense, everything. It was madness! Stark, raving madness!
Elke regarded him warily across the table, searching for the right response. Was he telling her, clumsily but still telling her, what she wanted to hear? That he’d been undecided, unable to make a choice, but now he had, and that he’d chosen her? That the previous weekend had not, in fact, been anything like it had appeared to be? That it had been the end of a competing affair, not a continuation of it? Cautiously Elke said: ‘Maybe wrong isn’t the way to think about it. Too protracted seems better.’
He couldn’t retreat now, endangering everything. It was only words: always an escape. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Too protracted.’
‘So!’ demanded Elke, unashamedly bold.
Reimann decided, anxiously, that he had to give himself time – space – but not for the one moment risk her guessing his avoidance. Training! he thought, summoning the proper reminders to mind at last. Training and professionalism. He had to use it, hide behind it. He said: ‘I wouldn’t – couldn’t – consider asking anyone to marry me with all the uncertainty going on in Australia. That wouldn’t be fair: not fair to you.’
‘Shouldn’t I be the judge of that?’
‘No!’ he said, forcefully, fully recovered. ‘That’s never the way it’s going to be. I’ll make the decisions, always.’
Surely he’d said it! But not properly. Determined now, Elke demanded: ‘Are you asking me to marry you?’
Reimann sat utterly without expression or reply for several moments, so long that Elke began to regret her insistence. At last he said: ‘Yes, I think I am. But when I say so: when I think it’s right – safe – to do so.’
Little Grey Mice Page 40