Wunderland(53)

“What’s this?” the guard asked.

“Perfume.”

He unscrewed the bulbed top of the little flask and held the vessel beneath his nose. “German?”

“French.”

“Ooh-la-la.” He lifted his brows again. “Smells expensive.”

“I don’t know,” she said shortly. “It was a gift.”

The guard nodded pleasantly. Then, keeping his sky-blue gaze locked on hers, he poured the pale liquid onto the ground.

“What??” Ava sat up sharply in her seat. “What the hell…”

“It’s fine,” Ulrich muttered.

“Why did you do that?” she hissed, ignoring him.

“You clearly didn’t read up on our rules.” The guard smiled condescendingly. “You’re not permitted to bring foreign luxury goods worth over twenty-five marks over the border.”

“But it was a gift. How am I supposed to know how much it’s worth?”

“Perhaps next time, simply ask.”

Opening her mouth to argue, Ava threw a furious glance at Ulrich. Seeing his expression, she shut it again and simply glared. The guard laughed, clearly pleased with the reaction.

“Just be thankful I didn’t arrest you for smuggling.” Still smiling, he screwed the cap back on and tossed both the purse and the empty bottle back into her lap. Flipping his rubber stamp and inkpad from his pocket, he marked her card with a flourish.

“Have a nice visit with Papa,” he said, handing it back through the window.



* * *





“What an Arschloch.” As Ulrich pulled onto the dreary gray road Ava realized she was shaking.

“Could have been worse. That Eastern couple is still back there.”

Ava looked over her shoulder and saw that he was right: the blue Trabi was now parked by the side of the road, while its occupants—the weepy woman and camel-faced man—huddled beside it.

“What’s going on with them, do you think?”

He shrugged. “Either they were trying to smuggle something in, or the guard was in the mood for some extra cash. Or maybe both.”

“And all that, for the honor of being here.” Glancing out the window, Ava shook out another B&H. They were barely out of the FRG, and yet already the landscape seemed to belong to a completely different universe. The road itself—before the border black and smooth—looked bleached with age and populated mostly by more toylike Trabants. The fields flanking the highway flickered by in dried-out tones of brown and beige, broken by the occasional dirty-looking buildings. Even the air felt heavier, more stifling. She pulled her knees up to her chest, arranging her woolen circle skirt around them.

“And this is the good part,” he said. “Once you get farther in, there are places where it looks like the war’s still on.” He looked at her again curiously. “Why’d you tell him we were just friends?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I thought that if I got myself into trouble it’d be better that way for you.”

He nodded, his expression unreadable. For a moment neither of them spoke. “I can’t believe you’ve never made the crossing before,” he said at last.

“I know.” The change of topic came as a relief. “Ilse sometimes goes to Berlin for work. But she’s never taken me. She’s always had the old witch next door spend the night.”

“The one with the wart on her nose?”

Ava nodded, smiling slightly. “When I was little, I’d lie awake waiting for her to try to shove me into her cooking pot. Or turn me into a log and burn me. Like Mother Trudy.”

“Interesting,” he said in English, in his Sherlock Holmes voice. “Do you think our prim and proper Ilse was hiding a Berlin lover?”

Ava grimaced. “God, I hope not.”

“Why not? She’s a good-looking woman.”

Ava looked at him flatly. “You’re going to make me vomit. Seriously.” She took another drag on her cigarette, then coughed. Her eyes stung from lack of sleep and surplus smoke. “Any man who touches her,” she went on glumly, “probably gets frostbite. That’s probably what we’ll find out happened to my father. Poor Nikolaus. Frozen to death before he even saw his firstborn child.”

“Lucky we don’t have that problem.” He flashed a sly smile in her direction. “If anything, touching you makes me too hot.”

It was true: the first few times they’d consummated their new status he’d been so ardent that it was over before they’d technically started. Secretly, Ava found she hadn’t minded; while not unpleasant, their lovemaking left her feeling strangely distanced, as though he were an embattled athlete and she a spectator, watching from the stands. She’d struggled to understand why this should be. After all, she hadn’t felt this sort of remove with either of her prior boyfriends—both of whom had been immeasurably less devoted and considerate. Then again (she wondered), could that itself be the issue: that Ulrich’s love was so certain, so densely unconditional that it actually pushed her away? The thought struck her as both absurd and unaccountably unsettling.

“Sorry,” she said, and turned back to the window. As she started rolling it up, a building outside caught her attention: bone white and surrounded with rubble, it was little more than a bombed-out shell. It was like passing an enormous open grave.