“So many, so many,” Frau Dzuris said, shaking her head, then brightened. “But to see you together again-it’s lucky.”
“Yes, for me,” Lena said with a weak smile, looking at Jake. “He saved my life. He got me medicine.”
“You see? The Americans-I always said they were good. But it’s a special case with Lena, eh?” she said to Jake, almost waggish.
“Yes, special.”
“You know, he may not come back,” she said to Lena. “You can’t blame the women. The men made the war and then it’s the women who wait. But for how long? Eva’s waiting. Well, he’s my son, but I don’t know. How many come back from Russia? And we have to eat. How will she feed the children without a man?”
Lena looked over at them still eating the chocolate, her face softening. “They’ve grown. I wouldn’t recognize them.” She seemed for a moment someone else, back in a part of her life Jake had never known, that had happened without him.
“Yes, and what’s to become of them? Living like this, potatoes only. It’s worse than during the war. And now we’ll have the Russians.”
Jake took this as an opening. “Frau Dzuris, the soldier who was looking for Lena and Emil-he was a Russian?”
“No, an Ami.”
“This man?” He handed her the picture.
“No, no, I told you before, tall. Blond, like a German. A German name even.”
“He gave you his name?”
“No, here,” she said, putting her finger above her breast, where a nameplate would have been.
“What name?”
“I don’t remember. But German. I thought, it’s true what they say. No wonder the Amis won-all German officers. Look at Eisenhower,” she said, floating it as a light joke.
Jake took the picture back, disappointed, the lead suddenly gone.
“So he wasn’t looking for Emil,” Lena said to the picture, sounding relieved.
“Something’s wrong?” Frau Dzuris said.
“No,” Jake said. “I just thought it might be this man. The American who was here-did he say why he came to you?”
“Like you-the notice in Pariserstrasse. I thought he must be a friend of yours,” she said to Lena, “from before, when you worked for the Americans. Oh, not like you,” she said, smiling at Jake. She turned to Lena. “You know, I always knew. A woman can tell. And now, to find each other again. Can I say something to you? Don’t wait, not like Eva. So many don’t come back. You have to live. And this one.” To Jake’s embarrassment, she patted his hand. “To remember the chocolate.”
It took them another five minutes to get out of the flat, Frau Dzuris talking, Lena lingering with the children, promising to come again.
“Frau Dzuris,” Jake said to her at the door, “if anyone should come-”
“Don’t worry,” she said, conspiratorial, misunderstanding. “I won’t give you away.” She nodded toward Lena, starting down the stairs. “You take her to America. There’s nothing here now.”
In the street, he stopped and looked back at the building, still puzzled.
“Now what’s the matter?” Lena said. “You see, it wasn’t him. It’s good, yes? No connection.”
“But it should have been. It makes sense. Now I’m back where I started. Anyway, who did come?”
“Your friend said the Americans would look for Emil. Someone from Kransberg, maybe.”
“But not Tully,” he said stubbornly, still preoccupied.
“You think everyone’s looking for Emil,” she said, getting into the jeep to leave.
He started around to his side, then stopped, looking at the ground. “Except the Russian. He was looking for you.”
She glanced over at him. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Trying to add two and two.” He got in the jeep. “But I need Emil to do that. Where the hell is he, anyway?”
“You were never so anxious to see him before.”
Jake turned the key. “Nobody was murdered before.”
Emil didn’t come. The next few days fell into a kind of listless waiting, looking out the window, listening for footsteps on the quiet landing. When they made love now, it seemed hurried, as if they expected someone to come through the door at any minute, their time run out. Hannelore was back, her Russian having moved on, and her presence, chattering, oblivious to the waiting, made the tension worse, so that Jake felt he was pacing even when he was sitting still, watching her lay out cards on the table hour after hour until her future came out right.
“You see, there he is again. The spades mean strength, that’s what Frau Hinkel says. Lena, you have to see her-you won’t believe it, how she sees things. I thought, you know, well, it’s just fun. But she knows. She knew about my mother-how could she know that? I never said a word. And not some gypsy either-a German woman. Right behind KaDeWe, imagine, all this time. It’s a gift to be like that. Here’s the jack again-you see, two men, just as she said.”
“Only two?” Lena said, smiling.
“Two marriages. I said one is enough, but no, she says it always comes up two.”
“What’s the good of knowing that? All during the first, you’ll be wondering about the second.”
Hannelore sighed. “I suppose. Still, you should go.”
“You go,” Lena said. “I don’t want to know.”
