“No. They won’t allow that. Only this once. But I’m so glad to see you. Someone from that world. In Berlin again, I never thought-” She stopped, grabbing his hand. “Wait a minute. I can’t bargain with it, but maybe it’s something, if he’s still there. Promise me.”
“Renate, don’t do this.”
“You said they were looking for him, the Americans. So maybe it’s something for you. Lena’s husband-I know where he is. I saw him.”
Jake looked up, stunned. “Where?”
“Promise me,” she said steadily, still covering his hand. “One last bargain.”
He nodded. “Where?”
“Can I believe you?”
“Where?”
“As if I have a choice,” she said.
“Time,” the guard called.
“One minute.” She turned back to Jake, conspiratorial, talking quickly. “Burgstrasse, the old Gestapo building. Number Twenty-six. It was bombed, you know, but they still use part. They kept me there before here.”
“And you saw him there?”
“Out the window, across the courtyard. He didn’t see me. I thought, my god, that’s Emil, why do they have him here? Is he on trial too? Is he?”
“No. What was he doing?”
“Just looking down into the courtyard. Then the lights went out. That’s all. Is that something for you? Can you use that?”
“You’re sure it was him?”
“Of course. My eyes are good, you know, always.”
The guard approached the table.
“Give him some cigarettes,” she said in English, standing. “They’ll be nice to me.”
Jake got up and offered the pack.
“So it’s good?” she said. “One last job for you?”
Jake nodded. “Yes.”
“Then promise me.”
“All right.”
She smiled, then her face twitched, the skin falling slack, as if she were about to weep again, finally drained of all composure. “Then it’s over.”
Before he could react, she moved around the table to Jake and, while the guard stuffed cigarettes into his pocket, put her arms around him, almost falling into him. He stood awkwardly, catching her, not really embracing her, feeling her bones sticking through the smock, brittle enough to snap. She hugged him once, then turned her mouth up to his ear, hidden from the guard. “Thank you. He’s my life.”
She stepped back and let the guard take her arm, but put her other hand on Jake’s chest, pulling at the cloth. “But never tell him. Please.”
When the guard tugged her arm, she went with him, looking over her shoulder at Jake, trying to smile, but the walk was clumsy, a halfhearted, forced shuffle, not even a trace of the lively steps he remembered on the platform.
Burgstrasse was only a few blocks west of the Alex, but he drove, feeling safer in the jeep. There’d be no point in stopping, but he had to see if it was there at all, not some lie, a last attempt to keep playing the angles. The street was across the open sewer of the Spree from the smashed-in cathedral, but part of Number 26 was still standing, just as she’d said, flying a red flag. He passed it slowly, pretending to be lost. Thick walls, stripped now of plaster, a heavy entrance door blocked by guards with Asiatic faces-the familiar Russian hierarchy, Mongols at the bottom. Behind it all, somewhere, Emil looking out a window. But how could Shaeffer get in? A raid in the middle of Berlin, bullets zinging over Lena’s head? Impossible without some trick. But that was his specialty; let him plan it. At least now they knew. Renate’s last catch, her part of the bargain. He stopped near the end of the street to check his wallet-enough money for Frau Metzger until he could get Fleischman to come. One final payment, off the books.
The Prenzlauer building was an old tenement block, three courtyards deep. He followed Renate’s instructions to the second, strung with laundry, then up two flights of murky stairs lighted by a hole some shell had punched through the ceiling. He had to knock a few times before the door finally opened a suspicious crack.
“Frau Metzger? I’ve come about Erich.”
“ You’ve come? And what’s the matter with her, too busy?” She opened the door. “It’s about time. Does she think I’m made of money? Nothing since June, nothing on account. How am I supposed to feed anyone? A boy needs to eat.”
“I’ll pay for what she owes,” Jake said, taking out his wallet.
“So now she’s found an American. Well, it’s not my affair. Better than a Russian, at least. Lots of chocolate for you now,” she said, turning to a child standing near the table. About four, Jake guessed, skinny legs in short pants, with Renate’s dark eyes, but larger, almost too large for the face, wide now in alarm. “Come on, let’s get your things. Don’t be afraid, he’s your mother’s friend,” she said, not unkind but brusque, then turned back to Jake. “Her friend. She’s a fine one. While the rest of us- No, it’s too much,” she said, looking at the money. “She only owes for two months. I’m not a thief. Only what’s owed. I’ll get his things.”
“No, you don’t understand. I’ll send somebody for him. I can’t take him today.”
“What do you mean? She’s not dead, is she?”
“No.”
