The Diplomat's Wife(83)
“I’m going to find Marcelitis,” I insist.
Paul scrapes the bottom of the bowl, finishing his stew. “Were you always this stubborn?”
“It’s almost dark,” I say, draining the last of my beer. “We should go.”
Outside, we walk to the bike. “Here,” Paul says, handing the helmet to me. Our fingers brush, sending a jolt of electricity through me. I look up and our eyes meet. Suddenly his face is above mine, his breath warm on my forehead. “Marta,” he says softly, staring down at me. He lowers his lips toward mine. Unable to control myself, I raise my face to his. Then a vision of Rachel appears in my mind.
I pull back. “Paul, stop, I can’t.”
He searches my eyes, his expression hurt and confused. “Do you love him?” he demands.
“What?” I ask, still flustered.
“Your husband—do you love him?”
That question again, I think, remembering Emma. I hesitate. “I married him.”
“And me?” he presses. “I know that you still have feelings for me, Marta. I could feel it just now.”
I bite my lip. “Would it change anything if I did?”
“No, of course not,” he replies quickly, looking away. Neither of us speak for several seconds.
“I’m sorry if you came after me for this,” I say.
He shakes his head. “I came after you because it was my job.” But the pain underneath his voice tells a different story. I study his face as he stares off into the distance.
“But why…” I pause, biting my lip. “Why didn’t you come after me sooner? After you recovered from the crash?”
“Does it matter?” His eyes are hollow, his face a mask of bitterness I have never seen before.
I reach out and touch his arm. “Paul, I…”
He turns, pulling away from my touch. “Let’s just concentrate on finding Marcelitis,” he says coldly. “Then you can go home.”
As I climb on the bike behind him, I can tell that Paul is angry. Jealous. Defensiveness rises in me. It isn’t fair of him to blame me for my choices. He was dead, or at least I thought so. It is not as if I chose someone else over him. I am seized once more with the urge to tell him about Rachel. But would the truth just make things worse? Before I can consider the question further, he starts the engine. The motorcycle lurches forward and I grab him quickly so as not to fall backward as we pull onto the road.
An hour later we reach the outskirts of Berlin. It is as if the war ended yesterday, I think as we pass through the residential neighborhoods. The city is a wasteland. The aftermath of the bombings is evident everywhere, street after street of once-elegant houses reduced to rubble. Paul drives more slowly here, weaving between the large craters and debris that litter the roadway. A charred smell lingers in the air. Though it is early evening, the streets are eerily silent. The few houses that still stand are dark and shuttered. Like the Jewish Quarter in Kraków after everyone had been sent away. I remember Jacob and I passing through on our way out of the city, watching his jaw tighten as he took in the once-vibrant neighborhood where Emma had been raised, now an empty shell of its former self. I can still see the curtains blowing through broken windows, feel the shattered glass crunching beneath my feet.
A sense of sick satisfaction rises inside me. So the Germans suffered, too. Good, I think, wrapping my arms more tightly around Paul. We stop at a red light. On the corner sits a house completely destroyed except for the garage. Through the half-open garage door, I see a woman and three small children sitting around an open fire. Nearby stands a man, breaking a wooden chair into pieces for kindling. The smallest child, no older than five, looks out into the street and, noticing us, stands and takes a few steps forward, eyes widening as he takes in the motorcycle, our strange clothes. He is nearly as thin as I had been in prison. For a moment I wonder if he is going to run into the street and beg us for money. But the man hurries forward and pulls him back, scolding him in words I cannot hear. I notice then the rags wrapped around the child’s feet where shoes should have been. Children, like those we had seen so long ago through the window in Paris, those on the boat when I came to England. Like Emma’s children. These were not the Germans I had imagined. My satisfaction disappears, replaced by a lump in my throat.
It is nearly dark now as we near the city center. Here there is new construction, identical concrete houses set too close together, tall apartment blocks being crudely erected amid the grand architecture of old Berlin. The sidewalks are thick with pedestrians making their way home from work, but the streets are strangely empty except for some buses. “Not many cars,” I observe.
“Not many people here can afford to own them now,” Paul replies. “But you make a good point. We should lose the bike so as not to attract attention.” He pulls over to the curb, helps me dismount. “Wait here,” he says, disappearing around the corner with the bike. I stand on the street, watching the people as they pass, thin, pale and silent. They walk by shells of former buildings matter-of-factly, not looking up. “Ready?” Paul asks, walking up behind me. He leads me expertly through the streets, turning right, then left.
“Do you know where we’re going?” I ask in a low voice.
He nods. “I’ve been here a few times in recent months for my work.”