She stopped, looking toward the creek as if it were the past, then shook her head. “Well, never mind. You don’t want to hear all that. You want to know about Karl. That was Berlin. We went to Berlin-I never knew whether it was Matthew’s idea or the party’s. The party’s, I suppose. I don’t know if he had any ideas by then. He liked being a soldier. It suited him. Which is odd when you think of it, since he’d never obeyed an order in his life. But now he did. I suppose he thought they were moving him back from the front lines to some other unit. Anyway, we went. Not so romantic this time, though. It was useful to them to have an Englishman there. The Huns always gave us a wide berth-I suppose they thought we were all like Uncle Arthur. The German comrades couldn’t do much. I think they were paralyzed with fear. I know I was. But Matthew-well, naturally he was up for anything. I’d no idea what he was actually doing-he kept telling me it was better my not knowing, but of course that only meant I imagined the worst. I hated it. Terrible little flats. Not that I minded that, really. I was doing a course at the university, that was our cover, and students weren’t expected to live high. And God knows it was better than Spain. Berlin was pretty. If you weren’t being thrown into jail, you could have a good time there. But I hadn’t come for any of that. I was just-isn’t it awful? I suppose I was actually a camp follower, just like those women they used to drag along. Except my soldier was never there. He was always out fighting the good fight. And of course it was the good fight, so you couldn’t complain. I’d go to the meetings just to be with him. You can’t imagine the dreariness of it, all secret and squalid and-endless. Hours of it. Matthew would natter on and I’d just drift off. I doubt he even noticed I was there. But Karl did. At least, he said he did. I don’t remember him being there, but I wasn’t seeing much of anything then except Matthew and how miserable I was. But Karl remembered me. Evidently I made a striking impression. So.”
She got up and began to walk, absently kicking small stones as she paced.
“So you went to bed with him because he saw you at a few meetings?”
She snorted, a pretend laugh. “I said I’d tell you what happened. I didn’t say it would make sense.”
His stare followed her as she paced, waiting. “When was all this?”
“Just after he got here. I was getting a pass and he recognized me. And then later he asked me about it. Wondered why it wasn’t in my file.”
“And why wasn’t it?”
“Nobody ever asked. I was just a wife. Daniel was vetted in London. They knew I’d been in Spain. So had lots of people. It was the thing to do. Maybe no one there thought anything of it. But you know what it’s like here.” She turned to face him. “Look, I was scared. Is that so hard for you to understand? Being here is all Daniel ever cared about. You know what happens if they pull your security clearance. I couldn’t do that to him. Just because his wife went to some silly meetings? They didn’t mean anything anyway. I don’t even remember what they talked about. It was all-innocent. But would your lot believe that? ‘Why didn’t you tell us before? Who else was there?’ You know what it’s like. They’d never trust him after that.”
“Is that where you met him? At the meetings?”
“No,” she said dismissively, “he didn’t know anything about that. We met at the university.”
“So it was your little secret.”
“I didn’t think it mattered. It didn’t. And then later-well, then it was too late. They’d always want to know why I hadn’t told them in the first place. I just wanted things to go on as they were. No one was the wiser. What did it matter?”
“But Karl was wiser.”
“Yes.”
“So you decided to do Daniel a real favor and make a new friend.”
She stared at him. “That’s right. I needed a friend.”
“And was he? A friend?” She shrugged and turned away, pacing again.
“What else?”
“Why should there be anything else?”
“Because there is. Emma, half the people on the Hill went to political meetings ten years ago. You didn’t sleep with him for that.”
“Maybe I wanted to. Who knows why we do things? Why do you?”
“What else?”
“Oh, leave me alone.”
“What happened in Berlin? To your husband?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He left.”
“Just like that.”
“Yes, just like that. He deserted me.” She looked at him for a reaction. “I guess my charms weren’t enough to keep him. He must have had something more important to do.”
“But where did he go?”
“I’ve no idea. I never heard from him. I assume he died. Given everything.”
“Did you try to find him?”
“No. He left me, you see. He didn’t want to be found.”
“What did you do? Go back to London?”
“No, I stayed on.”
“You stayed on. In Berlin. With a missing Communist husband.”
“Nobody knew he was my husband. That was-I don’t know, part of it. Look, I know it sounds silly now, but things were different then. He didn’t want anybody to know. For my sake. In case something happened.”
“What the hell was he doing?”
