The Diplomat's Wife(85)

“But I don’t understand. Why would they…?” He thinks they may come back after us, I realize. Goose bumps form on my arms.

Paul tucks the papers into his jacket and starts toward me. “Let’s discuss this outside, shall—” A shuffling sound comes from the doorway on the far side of the room. Both of our heads snap toward the sound. Someone is here. The noise comes again, louder this time. I hold my breath as Paul takes a step toward the doorway, raising his gun. An orange cat meanders into view, looking at us with disinterest.

I lean against the table, relieved. “Just a cat.”

“For now,” Paul replies. He bends over and scoops up the scrawny animal, his face softening. “She looks hungry.” I cannot help but think of Delia’s well-fed cat, Ruff. He walks to the kitchen and opens one cupboard, then another. “Nothing…” Then he opens the refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of milk. He pulls a bowl from the sink and pours some milk into it, then sets the cat gently down. “Poor thing,” he says, watching the animal drink greedily. “Let’s go.”

“I didn’t know you liked cats,” I remark in a low voice as we make our way back down the stairs.

“Cats, dogs, it doesn’t matter. Growing up on the farm we had every animal you could imagine. But during the war…” He shudders. “You wouldn’t believe what I saw. All kinds of animals left on their own to starve or be killed.”

“I know,” I say, remembering the packs of scrawny dogs that roamed the outskirts of Kraków during the war, searching through piles of garbage. There were stories of people killing them for food. Outside, in the passageway, I stop. “So what are we going to do?” The darkened street is nearly deserted and the few remaining passersby walk quickly with their coats drawn, heads down. I look sideways through the front window of the bookstore. A thin, balding man stands behind the counter, hunched over a ledger. His eyes flick upward, peering out behind wire glasses. Then, meeting my gaze, he looks downward once more. I gesture toward the bookstore with my head. “Maybe he saw something.”

Paul shakes his head. “Even assuming he’s not too scared to talk to us, what’s he going to say? That he saw the police take a man away? And asking will only draw attention to us.”

“I think we’ve already drawn attention,” I reply, remembering the ransacked apartment. “It’s worth a try.”

“I’ll go check,” Paul relents. “Wait here.” He looks both ways out of the passageway, then walks into the bookstore. A look of alarm crosses the bookseller’s face as Paul enters the store. Then, as Paul speaks to him, the man seems to relax slightly, saying something and pointing out the window to the right. A minute later, Paul walks out of the store. “Let’s get out of here.” He leads me around the corner. As we walk, our steps fall into a natural, easy rhythm, Paul’s shortening to match my own. It is as if nothing has changed, as if we had walked the streets of Paris together yesterday, and the years between simply did not exist.

I follow Paul down another block to a café. As we enter, I look up at him, puzzled. “We need to blend in,” he explains. Inside the atmosphere is surprisingly festive, a respite from the dreary street outside. Tiny Christmas lights and sprigs of fir tree adorn the bar and windows, decorating the otherwise plain room. People crowd the bar, drinking and talking merrily. In the distance, piano music plays. What had this café been like during the war? Had it been frequented by the Nazis, like the one we blew up in Kraków? Perhaps it had been a meeting place for the resistance. Or maybe just a café, like it is now, where ordinary Berliners came to escape their troubles for a while.

Paul ushers me through the crowd to a table in the back of the café. “Wait here,” he says, disappearing into the crowd once more. I sit down numbly. A minute later, Paul returns with two cups of coffee, handing me one. “So what did the bookseller say?” I ask, cupping my hands around the warmth as he sits down.

“Pretty much what we expected. Marcelitis was arrested less than an hour before we arrived.” He pulls the flask from his pocket, pouring some of the liquor into his coffee.

This time I cannot help myself. “You’re drinking again,” I observe, struggling to keep my voice even.

“Yes.” He does not offer an explanation but picks up the coffee and takes a large gulp, defiant.

I hesitate, wanting to say more. The accident, everything that happened, seems to have changed him so. But it isn’t my place. I am not sure I even know him anymore. I take a sip of my own coffee, hot and bitter. “Do you really think his arrest has something to do with us?” I ask instead.

“Seems a little coincidental, don’t you think? I mean Marcelitis managed to elude the Soviets for years. Sergiev must have told someone that you were headed to Berlin before he came after you.”

“But that doesn’t explain how they found out Marcelitis’s location and made it to him before we did,” I reply.

“True. You got Marcelitis’s address from your friend Emma, right?”

I nod. “But she would never have given up that information.” As I say this, an uneasy feeling rises up in me. Emma would have broken and talked to save her children. Had the police come after her again?

“Who else?”

“I told Simon over the phone.” At the sound of my husband’s name, Paul looks as though he has been slapped. “But I called from the train station, so I doubt anyone was listening in on the call,” I continue quickly. “And I had Emma send word through the embassy. I don’t know if she gave them the address, though.” My head throbs. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. Marcelitis is gone.” Defeat washes over me. “Dammit. If we hadn’t stopped to eat or—”