Wunderland(110)

At first there is no response. But just as she is breathing a sigh of sheepish relief she hears a door upstairs slam. The sound is followed by the forgotten-yet-familiar rhythm of Franz’s uneven footsteps, syncopated by the drag of his weak leg, punctuated by the thud of his cane.

With a deep breath, she forces herself to remain rooted, reminding herself of every reason she has found for coming here in the first place: the dank basement of Sicherheitsdienst headquarters. The fragrant farmlands of the New Germany. The once-forbidden and hallowed halls of higher learning…

Franz reaches the entrance. There is another brief silence before the inside bolt is thrown back.

And then: there he is. Taller than she’d remembered, or than she’d noticed last November; he must have grown several centimeters. But there’s the same mass of dark curls, though now shaggier and longer. The same brown eyes, warm and liquid and even larger-looking because his face is so much more drawn and thin. But they are still framed by those ridiculously long lashes. The most lovely eyes of any woman I know.

“Ja?” he says.

“Hallo.” It comes out between a giggle and a croak. Feeling her cheeks heat, she fakes a cough, forces a laugh. “Sorry,” she says. “Fighting a cold.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” His expression is wary but not surprised. “Ren’s not here. She’s off at the Community Center, learning how to finger-wave and backward roll.”

This time the laugh is real. “You make it sound as though she’s practicing gymnastics.”

The quip slips out almost before she’s aware of having come up with it. She worries briefly that she’s already ruined it all; that now he’ll know that she’s really here for him.

But Franz just smiles the same smile she’d forgotten she’d always loved: sleepy. Sweet. Just a little bit impish.

“I’d give her ten seconds before she fell on her face,” he says.

“If that.” She manages another laugh. “What time is she back?”

“Six-ish, I think. Unless she burns the place down with her curling tongs before then.” He shrugs. “I’ll tell her you stopped by.”

“Actually,” she says quickly, “I’m glad you’re here. I had a question for you.”

He pauses, his hand still on the door.

“Renate and I were talking about a Kafka quote,” she goes on. She hopes desperately that she sounds as natural and nonchalant as she did while practicing it in her head. Lying effectively, she has learned, requires sticking mostly to the truth: finding just enough honest bits to land on amid the flow of her fabrication that, by hopping from one to the next, she can credibly navigate her way through the deception.

“I was trying to remember which book it came from,” she goes on now. “I even popped into your room, because I thought I remembered that you had it. But she said you’d gotten rid of your Kafka.”

“She told you I’d dumped them?”

“Because of the ban.”

“And you don’t believe it?”

She shrugs, though the question sets off an alarm. What answer does he want? Of course I do? I know you’re a loyal citizen? Though of course, that would be a lie in and of itself—not just the loyalty part but the citizenship too. They both know that he’s no longer, legally, a German. He is simply a “subject of the State.”

Franz is still waiting, his expression indecipherable. Ilse hesitates, then takes the leap.

“Of course I don’t,” she says, and offers a guileless smile.

As his dark eyes narrow there’s a plunging sensation in her stomach. I’ve ruined it, she thinks again. But then he breaks into a laugh, those deeply husky peals of hilarity that always feel like their own rewards for unlocking. The relief is so sharp that her limbs weaken with it.

Stepping back, he opens the door fully. “I’ll admit I’ve missed you, von Fischer,” he says.

“Me as well,” she says, and steps in.



* * *





His room hasn’t changed much since the days when Ilse was a regular household member here. The carpet is gone, as are most of the carpets in the house (sold, Ilse assumes). So is the Karl Marx poster he’d had above his desk for years. In its place (and Ilse can’t help but smile when she sees it) is a red-toned French movie poster for Une Nuit à l’Opéra, with cartoon pictures of Groucho, Harpo, and Chico.

“Have you switched political parties?” she asks, indicating it with her chin.

He smiles. “You might say I’ve raised my standards.”

Giggling, she lowers herself into his creaky desk chair. As he surveys his crowded bookshelf, she surreptitiously studies the rest of the space: the worn leather armchair. The rumpled bed with the paisley bedspread. The ashtray perched precariously on the leaning tower of books that seems a permanent extension of his bedside table. There is no sign of anything even vaguely illicit.

“So when are you really leaving?”

“Two days, ten hours. Actually—” A quick glance at his bedside clock. “Nine and a half hours now.”

The immediacy makes her gut plummet. Had Renate mentioned it would be this soon?

“I take it you’re excited,” she manages.

“Relieved, mainly. They made us jump through more hoops than you can imagine. On both sides.” He is running his hands across the eighteen-volume set of the Brockhaus Conversations-Lexikon that has resided on his top shelf for as long as Ilse remembers. “What was the quote?”