The Diplomat's Wife(82)
CHAPTER 21
I lift my cheek from Paul’s back, looking up as he slows the motorcycle, then pulls over to the side of the road. We have been on back roads like this for hours, single lanes winding through rolling, snow-covered hills. Except for the occasional house or car passing in the opposite direction, we have seen no one. “What’s wrong?” I ask now, straightening.
He puts one foot on the ground, then turns to face me. “Nothing. We’re just outside Berlin, but it’s only six and I’d like it to be a little darker before we make our way into the city. Hungry?” I nod. I have not eaten anything since the roll in my Prague hotel room the previous day. “We passed a pub a few miles back, so I thought we’d stop and get something to eat.”
Paul turns the bike around and begins to drive slowly in the direction from which we came. He stopped the bike only once before, pulling off the road before the Czech-German border to bypass the official crossing. My heart pounded as we walked the bike through the woods, branches crackling beneath our feet, expecting that we would be apprehended at any moment. I was so terrified that I barely noticed the throbbing pain in my ankle. But thirty minutes later, we emerged on the German side of the border, pushing the bike up to the road and riding away once more.
For hours as we have ridden, I have clung to Paul, sheltering myself from the wind behind his broad torso. The questions and disbelief keep rising up, threatening to overwhelm me. I have grieved Paul’s death for years, the loss immutably woven into the tapestry of my life. How could I have woken and breathed each day, not knowing that he was out there somewhere, alive? How is it possible that he is here again, in this most improbable of times and places? But I push the thoughts down, reveling in the chance to be close to him again, fearful that at any moment the mirage will disappear.
We pull up in front of a small tavern, smoke rising from the chimney. Paul helps me off the bike, his hand lingering longer than is necessary on my shoulder. I shiver, my reaction to his touch even stronger than it was years ago. “Sorry,” he mumbles, pulling back. I nod and start for the door. He follows closely, a half step behind, as if he is afraid that I will disappear.
Inside, a dozen or so tables fill the small room, empty except for one where a small group of men in hunting garb are gathered. “I’ll be right back,” I say, spotting a sign for the water closet. When I return, Paul is seated at a table in the corner, close to the fireplace but as far from the hunters as possible. Two mugs of dark beer sit before him.
“I ordered us some food, too.”
“But how? You don’t speak German.”
He winks. “I’ve picked up a thing or two these past few years.” He hands me a mug, then raises the other. “A toast,” he proposes.
“To what? The success of our mission?”
“No,” he replies quickly. “That’s bad luck. One of the guys in my unit, a replacement for a man we lost at Bastogne, toasted the unit on our last night in Paris. And look what happened.” A shadow crosses his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head. “To your happiness,” he says instead.
Happiness. Happiness would have been finding you years ago, I want to say. Instead, I touch my mug to his, then swallow the rich, dark beer. “Thank you. But what about your happiness?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know what that means anymore really. I mean, I’m fine. I’m not going to wallow in self-pity.” He winks. “Seems some girl in Salzburg taught me better. It’s a miracle I’m alive, and I’ve got my work. But happiness? I left that behind on a September morning in Paris about two years ago.”
Suddenly it feels as if a hand is squeezing hard around my heart. If I meant so much to you, why didn’t you come for me? But before I can speak, a stout woman appears and sets down two large bowls in front of us. The food is simple peasant fare: a hearty beef stew, thick hunks of bread. When the waitress has gone again, I look at Paul, hesitating. Perhaps, I realize, the answer is not one I want to hear.
A loud burst of laughter erupts from the table of hunters, jarring me from my thoughts. A chill runs up my spine. In my desperation to get across the border, I had almost forgotten where I was going. I am in Germany, and not just passing through, as I had with Renata after arriving at the airport in Munich. This time, I am going to Berlin, which had been the very heart of Nazi power. I study the hunters, wondering where they had been during the war. Had they fought for Germany, killed Jews in the camps?
“So what’s the plan?” Paul asks. I look back at him, his question a welcome distraction. “Once we get into Berlin, I mean.”
I hesitate. In my hurry to flee Prague, I hadn’t thought much about it. “I don’t know,” I admit. “Go to Oranienburger Strasse, try to find Marcelitis’s apartment, persuade him to talk to us.”
“You know that Oranienburger Strasse is in east Berlin?” I nod. I know from my work at the Foreign Office that the sector is controlled by the Soviets. “And if he’s not there?” Paul asks. “Or if it’s not even his apartment? Or what if he is there but won’t talk to you?”
“I don’t know,” I repeat. My frustration rises. “Why are you giving me a hard time?”
“Because I want to ask you one more time to reconsider. You’re a diplomat’s wife, Marta, not a goddamned spy.” I turn away, too stung to respond. There is a harshness to Paul’s voice I have never heard before. “I know you did some incredibly brave things during the war. But things are different now. You have a daughter.” So do you, I think, wishing I could tell Paul the truth about Rachel. But I cannot, not now. “You need to consider your safety, for her sake. Once we get into Berlin, there’s no turning back. We might not even be able to get out if the Russians make good on their threat to blockade the city. Why don’t you let me go for you instead?”