by Joseph Kanon
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Oh, you mean you might like it. And have to say something good about our Berlin.”
“Your Berlin. There are two now?” Ferber said, baiting him.
“If you listen to the Americans. But here you are,” Dymshits said, not rising to it. “You see how easily people come and go? Despite what your radio says.”
“As long as they don’t leave the zone.”
“Why would anyone want to leave?”
Ferber shrugged.
Alex watched them volley. Not the way he’d imagined, but maybe another piece of luck, something he could use. Ferber at the theater all evening. Ferber shot him a darting look, what? Alex glanced back.
“One more picture?” Martin said. “With the major this time?”
Anna and Alex grouped next to him, their backs to the door.
“I see all your usual theater critics have come out,” Ferber said to Dymshits, another tease.
Dymshits turned to see a thickset man coming through the door. Receding hairline, head shaved on both sides, his face set in a scowl of suspicion. He looked, Alex thought, a little like J. Edgar Hoover, the same bulldog stance, the eyes sweeping the room, as if he were looking for snipers.
“Who’s that?” Alex said, slightly mesmerized.
“Erich Mielke,” Ferber said. “A great lover of the theater. Runs K-5 and the new K-5, whatever they’re calling it now.”
“Police, you mean.”
“But not parking tickets. You better be careful. People have been known to disappear when Comrade Mielke’s around. Now you see them, now you don’t.”
“Another American fantasy,” Dymshits said. “Herr Ferber—”
“Suit yourself,” Ferber said, holding up his hands. “Just don’t go anywhere alone.”
“Well, right now I want to use the men’s room before we go in. Think that’s safe enough?” Trying to keep his voice light, not an invitation, but Ferber heard it.
“In pairs,” Ferber said, beginning to split off with him.
“American wit,” Dymshits said. “But I wonder. How many of your security people go to the theater, take an interest in such things?”
Ferber grinned. “I’ll give you that one. But let’s make a bet. Keep an eye on Mielke. See how long he stays awake.”
“Of course he stays awake. Why would he come?”
“I’ll give you that one too,” Ferber said. “Herr Meier?”
But Alex had stopped, rooted. Behind Mielke, probably in attendance, Markus had just noticed him. Another complication, Markus not likely to ignore him, let him melt away. Obsessed with Irene, always eager to keep an eye out. He thought of Mielke’s quick glance sweeping the room. Markus nodded, a polite secret smile between them. How do you become invisible when everyone is watching?
Ferber moved him toward the men’s room.
“What’s wrong? It’s tonight? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it was safer. You said you were there every night.”
“Not this night.”
“Never mind. Maybe it’s better. We’ll meet you there after the play. Nobody on your staff will be expecting it then. What’s the setup down there?”
“Staff entrance in the back. With a parking lot. Just use my name at the gate. Studio one-ten. Ground floor. If I’m not there yet, anybody can set you up.”
“No, be there.”
“I came with people. I can’t just—”
“They’ll understand. You have to rush back. Mother Courage is news, no?”
“Let’s hope so. How are you going to work this? You coming with him?”
Alex nodded. “The U-Bahn, like you said. But you’ll have a car for us later, right?”
“Herr Meier, such a pleasure to see you.” Markus, without Mielke in tow. “Herr Ferber.”
Ferber gave him a perfunctory nod, then glanced toward the men’s room. “Well, I’d better go before there’s a line. Enjoy the play.” Sliding off.
“What did he want?”
“What he always wants. For me to go on the radio. Don’t worry, I said no. The last thing I’d want to do.”
“That’s right. You prefer the quiet life.” Smiling to himself, some private joke.
“I see you’re with the boss. Another promotion?”
Markus cocked his head. “It’s good that I know you from before. Your true feelings. Someone else might misinterpret.” He held his glance for a second, then moved on. “You’re here with her?”
“Isn’t that what you want?”
“I want you to be careful. A woman like that—”
“You don’t have to worry about that. She’s already making new friends.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. You know how friendly the Russians can be.”
“Alex—”
“And not a sign of Markovsky. I don’t think she has any idea where he is. We’re just chasing our tails with this.”
“An American idiom?”
“Going in circles, getting nowhere. She’s hurt, that’s all.”
“Hurt?”
“You spend time with somebody and he leaves without even saying good-bye? It makes her feel like—” He stopped.
“Yes,” Markus said, amused. “She’d be convincing at that. Just keep your ears open.”
“But does that sound like the kind of thing he would do?”
Markus looked up.
“I don’t think so either. That’s not the way it makes sense. He didn’t say good-bye because he wasn’t going anywhere. Something happened to him. You’ve checked with the police?”
“Of course we’ve checked,” Markus said quickly, annoyed. “Everything. It’s not so easy to hide a body. Even in Berlin. Karlshorst doesn’t think he’s dead—they’re still looking. So we keep looking too.”
“What do they say, Karlshorst?” Alex said, curious, testing the ice.
“Well, Karlshorst,” Markus said, unexpectedly sharp, an exposed nerve. “They don’t always share things. It’s for security reasons,” he said, looking up, correcting himself. “In sensitive cases.”
Alex nodded. The defection was still a Russian secret.
“Have you heard anything more about Aaron?”
Markus glanced up. “Don’t ask about this. I was able to intervene in the case of your friend Kleinbard, but the other—”
“You mean you got him out?”
“A bureaucratic procedure only. A Party review.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank the Party.”
Alex said nothing, letting this pass.
“And there she is,” Markus said, talking half to himself, staring past Alex’s shoulders. People were beginning to move in to their seats, the whole lobby in motion, Irene standing fixed in her own island near the doors, a rock in a stream. “As you say. New friends.”
Alex stood still, a prickling at the back of his neck. The Russian who’d been in her room. Now smiling, making small talk. Irene’s world. Something Alex thought he knew, had accepted, until it was in front of him and his blood jumped. What he really felt, the same wrench in his stomach, seeing Kurt’s head in her lap.
“Everything is so easy for them,” Markus was saying.
“Who?”
“That family. The von Bernuths. If you dropped something, someone was always there to pick it up. So why not do whatever you wanted? With so many servants. And we were the servants. We were glad to pick up, just to be part of that house. Remember at Christmas, the big tree? The parties. Even Kurt, a good Communist, but for her? A servant. Sometimes I think it was that house he loved, not her. That life. You fall down, always a soft carpet. I used to think, what is it like to be them? Everything so easy.”
Alex looked at him, oddly touched. A boy with his face pressed against the glass.
“They don’t feel that way now,” he said.
“No?” Markus said, coming back. “Well, a child’s memory only. What does a child see?”
&
nbsp; “It’s gone. The money, everything.”
“Yes, I know. You wrote about this. And then the war. But look how she stands. The shoulders. That’s not money, something else.”
“That’s Fritz,” Alex said. “Well, I’d better go rescue her.”
Markus smiled. “Still the servant. But servants hear things, so it’s good. Maybe you could bring her one day, to see my mother. Someone from the old days,” he said, trying to sound casual.
Alex stopped. “I forgot to ask. How is she?”
“Not so well. Still at the Central Secretariat guest house. She prefers it there.” He hesitated, weighing, then looked up. “Can I tell you something? You’re the only one now from those days. The others—”
Alex waited, his silence a kind of assent.
“We’re strangers to each other,” Markus said finally. “I know,” he said before Alex could answer. “She’s my mother. But it’s too many years maybe. Maybe that.”
“Give it some time.”
“She says things. I think, who is this woman? Does she know what it was like for me, to suffer for her crimes?”
“For you?” Alex said.
“Yes. All the children. After the parents were taken away. We were—orphans. Imagine what terrible things might have happened. Only the Party saved us.”
Alex stood still, unable to speak, people brushing past on their way into the theater. He thought of her bony hand on the railing, too afraid to risk the elevator, a punishment box. He’s one of them.
Finally, at a loss, he just nodded and said, “I’ll bring Irene.” But of course she’d be gone, another ghost after tonight.
He went over to her, still talking to the Russian. “We should go up.”
“Yes,” she said, relieved to get away.
“We meet again,” the Russian said to Alex.
Alex acknowledged this with a look, taking Irene’s elbow.
“But a minute,” the Russian said, blocking them. “The general wanted to meet you.” This to Irene.
“General?”
“Saratov. The one who replaces Markovsky. He had to use the toilet, but I know he wanted—ah, here. General, Frau Gerhardt.”
“I have heard of you, of course,” he said, a curt nod to Irene, but taking them both in.
Saratov was barrel-chested and dark, a short man with none of Markovsky’s blond good looks—Georgian, perhaps, or Armenian, a permanent stubble on his face that suggested hair everywhere else, and an almost feral alertness in his eyes.
“I was told you were beautiful and I can see the reports were accurate.”
A line meant to be charming but said without inflection, something memorized from a foreign language.
“Well, I think exaggerated,” Irene said, “but thank you. When did you arrive in Berlin?” Making conversation.
Saratov ignored this, looking at Alex instead, waiting for the Russian to introduce him.
“Your friend,” the Russian said to Irene, prodding her to do it, Alex unknown to him.
“Oh, Alex Meier. A friend since childhood. Here in Berlin. He’s back from America to be with us again. A writer, very celebrated. You never think someone you knew as a child can be famous—”
“America,” Saratov said, not interested in the rest. “You were there how long?”
“Fifteen years,” Alex said, returning his stare. A hard-liner, close to Beria.
“A very long time.”
“The Nazis took a long time to be defeated.”
“But you didn’t return immediately.”
“No one did. It wasn’t allowed. And then the Soviet Military Administration invited me to come home. So here I am.”
Saratov grunted, frowning a little, as if Alex had been impertinent. He turned back to Irene.
“You were a friend of Major Markovsky.”
“Yes, we knew each other.”
“Then you’ll be pleased that I bring good news of him.”
“Yes?” Irene said, momentarily still, blinded. Only her hands moved, clutching her purse as if it were about to slide between her fingers.
“Yes, he is well. In Moscow.”
Alex froze. Don’t react. But Saratov’s eyes were fixed on Irene, a beady relentless gaze. Her hands jerked again, tighter on the purse, and Alex thought of a hare in a trap, pulling at its leg.
“In Moscow,” she said, buying time, even a second. Alex held his breath, the noise around them now just a hum. And then she found it, some miraculous reserve of will, and smiled. The von Bernuth shoulders. “Oh, I’m so glad. We were worried. People came asking questions—they said he was missing. So you found him?”
“Not missing,” Saratov said smoothly. “More misplaced. He became ill and he went to the infirmary, but not his assigned one. No one thought to look in the other. A foolish mistake. I’m sorry if anyone disturbed you—”
“No, no, I’m so happy to know it. So he’s back in Moscow?” The hands still now, finding the part.
“Yes, with his wife.” A jab, just to see the reaction.
Irene looked down. “Yes, of course. His wife.”
“You knew he had a wife.”
She raised her head, meeting his eyes. “Of course. He often spoke of her. She must be happy that he’s back.”
Saratov, not expecting this, said nothing.
The lights flickered, the call to go in.
“So,” Irene said. “No more mystery. All is well in the end. Like a play.”
“Yes, a good ending,” Saratov said, his voice steady, almost insistent.
Alex looked over at him, uneasy. Close to Beria. They rewrote history, whole swatches of it, why not Markovsky? People erased from photographs, evidence fabricated, confessions taken down. The world was what you said it was. Markovsky was happy in Moscow, Irene discarded—but wasn’t that the way of things, the way it had to end? And now it had. But why?
“I hope you will be easy now in your mind,” Saratov said, putting on his hat.
“Yes, thank you for telling me. You’re not coming in?”
“No. Leon here is the one for the theater. I prefer facts.”
Alex looked at him again. Was he toying with them? Watching the hare twisting in the trap.
“I came for the reception only. A courtesy to Major Dymshits. And my German, you know—I don’t think it’s up to this. A whole evening.”
“It will come to you. Sasha—Major Markovsky—had only a little when he arrived.”
“No doubt he had an excellent teacher.” Dipping his head, but not smiling.
“And what good will it do him now?” Leon said. “In Moscow, I mean,” he said, catching Saratov’s glance.
“We’d better go up,” Alex said.
“I’ll say good night, then,” Saratov said.
The lights flickered again.
“Don’t worry,” Leon said to Irene as Saratov left.
“Worry?”
“Sometimes his manner—but it’s just his manner.” He paused, a quick side glance to Alex. “Maybe we’ll see each other again.”
“And you,” Irene said. “Is your wife in Moscow too?”
“In Perm,” he said, a knowing faint smile. “Even further away.”
Irene turned toward the stairs, not answering.
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Alex said.
“The family friend,” Leon said, another smile.
Alex looked at him. Not here. Not tonight. “And what are you?” he said, then started for the stairs.
“My God,” Irene said on the landing. “I’m shaking.”
“No, you were perfect.”
“He kept looking at me, just to see how— But what does it mean? Why would he say that? Sasha in Moscow.”
“I’m not sure.”
“To see what I know, I think. If I’m surprised. If I’m not surprised. And either way he suspects.”
“Maybe. And maybe he wants you to think he doesn’t suspect. They’re walking away from it. So you don’t have to worry any
more.”
“And then put a rope around my neck.”
He took her elbow. “They don’t know he’s dead.”
“They must know something. Why would they make such a lie?”
“I don’t know. I have to think.”
“Oh, think. Look at me. Shaking. I really will be sick.”
“We’re almost there. Remember, go to the ladies’ room before the curtain. Establish it.”
“And he doesn’t even come to the play. So maybe he’s outside. Waiting to see who comes out. Who doesn’t believe him about Moscow.”
“Shh. Let’s find our seats. Check the sight lines.”
“The sight—?”
“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.