The Diplomat's Wife Part 21

I look up from my cards to see Paul staring at me. "Your turn," he says. I pick up the top card from the stack, a queen of clubs, and put it in between the two other queens I am holding, then discard the ten of diamonds.

"So tell me about your life," I say. "Not the cla.s.sified parts, I mean. But where do you live when you're not working?"

"Nowhere, really." Paul takes a card from the top of the deck and discards it right away, revealing a five of diamonds. "There's an apartment in Zurich and another in Brussels where myself and a few of the other guys can catch some sleep, get cleaned up, change clothes. But those aren't home to me any more than this room. Mostly I keep moving, take as much work as they can give me. It's not hard, there's lots to be done right now."

I pick up the five of diamonds, rearranging my hand to start a run of the suit. "Do you ever get back to England?"

He shakes his head. "Not since I got out of the hospital. I haven't been back to Paris, either." Or Salzburg, I guess silently as he takes his turn. And if there had been an a.s.signment at the prison in Munich he probably would have turned that one down, too. He is avoiding the places that remind him of me, I realize. Trying to outrun his memories. "The work's not just in Europe, though," he adds. "I've been to Africa twice and I'm supposed to make my first trip to Asia next. When we're done here, I mean."

When we're done here. The reality slams into my chest like a rock: this is going to end. As soon as we get out of Germany, I am going to get on a plane back to England and Paul will be off on his next mission. We will never see each other again. I stare at my cards, not seeing them. "You're up," he says gently. I did not realize he had taken his turn. My hand trembles as I blindly pick up a card, then throw it down again. It was the seven of diamonds, I realize too late; a card I needed. Paul picks it up and shuffles his cards. "Gin!" he declares, laying down all of his cards in neat succession.

I set down my cards. "Congratulations."

"You know what they say, lucky in cards..." His voice trails off.

"Unlucky in love," I finish for him. "Do you really believe that?"

He shrugs. "Look at me. I was on the way to meet the one girl I ever loved when-"

I cut him off. "I'm sure there must have been others since. I mean, Brussels? Zurich? You probably have a girl in every port, as they say." I try to sound light, chiding. But the mention of Paul with other women makes my stomach hurt. Suddenly I understand how he must feel, knowing about me and Simon.

Paul shakes his head. "Not at all. I wish I could say otherwise. The truth is, there's been no one. A few dates here and there over the years. Once I had what we had..." He looks away. "I mean, what's the point?"

"Paul..."

He turns back to me. "I still love you, Marta." My breath catches at the words. "I've always known it, and, well, seeing you again...I know that's wrong to say, but it's the truth."

I take a deep breath. I can hold back the question no longer. "Then why?"

"Why what?"

"Why didn't you come for me?" My words, pent up since our reunion, tumble out on top of one another. "When you recovered, I mean. If I meant so much to you, why didn't you come find me?"

He pauses. "I did." Suddenly I cannot breathe. "Marta, the truth is that as soon as I could get out of bed, I left the hospital. The doctors said it was too soon, that I was going to relapse. But I knew that I had to find you."

"But you never came..."

"I did," he repeats, his voice rising insistently. "For G.o.d's sake, Marta, of course I came for you. How could I not? I went to that address in Kensington you gave me back when we were in Paris, your friend's aunt."

"Delia's house?"

He nods. "She wasn't there. But her butler told me you had gotten married." He pauses, swallowing as if the words hurt his throat. "He said that you moved out, gave me your married name. I looked you up. Even then I knew I had to see you. I went to find you, Marta."

"You came to our house?"

"Yes. I saw you. You were working in the garden." His eyes grow hollow and faraway in the candlelight, as though reliving the moment once more. "I wanted you to know that I was all right, even if we couldn't be together. But then you stood up and I could see that you were pregnant." His voice cracks. "You looked so beautiful. You were already married and expecting a child. There was no way I could interfere with that. So I turned around and left without saying anything."

I do not answer. In my mind, I see the day he is talking about, an early-spring morning. I can almost feel the cool, moist dirt on the backs of my hands as I planted bulbs. I remember thinking that someone was there, behind me in the garden. It was a thought I often had in the months after Paul died, on the street and in the shops, too. I turned around but as always no one was there. Or so I thought. Oh, G.o.d. If only I had known. If only he had known. I see the moment again in my mind, only this time when I stand and turn, Paul is there. I drop the gardening basket in surprise and, heedless of the neighbors or anyone else, run across the yard and throw myself into his arms.

"Marta?" My vision clears and I am in the wine cellar once more. Paul searches my face, concerned. "Are you okay?" He really had come for me. Suddenly I can stand it no longer. I reach across the mattress and grab Paul by the shoulders, drawing him close and bringing his full lips to mine. For a second he is too stunned to respond. Then he begins kissing me back hungrily. We cling to each other desperately, as if to go back to that moment in the garden and rewrite history. "Are you sure?" he whispers between kisses, as he had that night in Paris. I do not answer, but rip his jacket open, hear the b.u.t.tons as they break and scatter across the floor. He presses me back too hard, banging my shoulder against the wall. Playing cards crush beneath me. Clutching fistfuls of his hair, I bury my head in his neck to m.u.f.fle my groans. Then he touches me and it is as if we are in Paris again, two young people in a time and place where shoulds and shouldn'ts do not exist. It is our first time, our reunion and our honeymoon, all of the nights that fate took from us.

When it is over we lie breathless beside each other on the mattress. "Are you okay?" he asks, his fingers still entwined in my hair.

"Yes," I reply. "I'm glad it happened." My body aches as it did after we made love years ago.

"Really?" he asks. I nod. "Well, that's a relief. I wouldn't have wanted to add this to our list of considerable regrets."

I smile. "Me, neither."

He touches my cheek. "I meant what I said before. I still love you." His face is relaxed now, boyish, all of the hardness and pain gone.

"I love you, too." The words feel warm and natural on my tongue. "I never knew you came looking for me. I mean, when I first saw you again, I wondered why you hadn't."

"I did. I was surprised you had met someone else so quickly," he added.

I hesitate. Tell him the truth about Rachel, right now, a voice inside me says. But I am uncertain how he will react, and I do not want to ruin the moment. "You were gone," I reply uneasily. "Forever, I thought."

"I understand. I was glad that you were happy." The sincerity of his voice shatters my heart. Happiness would have been being with him. He rolls onto his side, facing me. "So what now?"

"Now we try to get out of Berlin alive."

"You know what I mean, Marta. What about us?"

I take a deep breath, swallow. "I'm married, Paul."

"Do you love him?"

I look away, unable to lie. "I took vows..." I hear the echo of Emma's words in mine.

Paul rolls away, slamming his hand against the stone wall so hard I am afraid he might have broken a bone. "Dammit, Marta. Why did things have to turn out this way?"

"I don't know."

"You could leave your husband, you know. Get a divorce. Women do it sometimes." Divorce. My mind whirls. I have heard about divorce, read about it in books, but I never thought of it as something people actually did. Paul continues. "I would care for your daughter. Love her as if she were my own."

She is yours. My eyes fill with tears and in that moment, I know I have to tell him. "Paul, there's something that I-" My words are cut off by a banging sound coming from the front room.

Paul leaps up, pulling on his pants. "Someone's here." Our eyes meet uneasily. Jan is not supposed to be back so soon. Has someone else found us? Paul reaches for his gun. I pull the top of my dress closed as the door flies open and Jan rushes into the room. I cringe, knowing how ridiculous we must look, half dressed, playing cards scattered across the floor.

"Jan, we were just..." Paul begins.

But if Jan notices anything strange, she gives no indication. "Get dressed quickly," she instructs, crossing the room toward us. "We have to leave."

"I thought the flight wasn't until morning," I say.

Jan shakes her head. "It is nearly morning." Paul and I exchange surprised glances. How much time has pa.s.sed? "Anyway, the flight is out of the question now." She holds up a newspaper. Printed across the front page under the headline are unmistakable sketches of Jan, myself and Paul.

CHAPTER 23.

"I told you we should have killed that police officer," Jan says to Paul, her voice recriminating. I take the paper from her and scan the article.

"What does it say?" Paul asks, looking over my shoulder.

Jan answers before I can. "That two foreigners liberated the notorious criminal Jan Marcelitis," she reads, her voice wry. "And murdered an unarmed police officer in cold blood."

"Unarmed, that's bullsh-" Seeing my warning expression, he does not finish the sentence.

"How could this have possibly made it to the paper so soon?" I ask.

Jan shrugs. "Someone must have come in shortly after we left and rescued that officer. I doubt he could have escaped on his own. The police brought the description to the paper right away, demanded they print it. Does it matter? Going through the airport, with Immigration and Customs, is out of the question now."

"Maybe we hole up here for a while?" Paul asks. He sounds almost hopeful, I note with surprise. But I understand. Even with everything that is happening, the urgent need to escape, part of me wants to stay in the cellar and be with Paul.

Jan shakes her head. "Impossible. The wine cellar is a good hiding place, but it's not undetectable. I won't put Herr Meierhof in danger by keeping you here any longer."

I refold the newspaper, my heart sinking. "So what are we going to do?"

"I've come up with one other possibility. There's a freighter ship, the SS Bremen, leaving for Britain later today from a port city north of here. If we can get you into the hull, you can stow away."

"How long will the trip take?"

"Considerably longer than if you had been on that flight. A day, maybe two. But I think it's our only option. I've arranged for a truck to take you to the port. Come on."

Jan starts for the door. As Paul b.u.t.tons his jacket, I race after her. "Jan, wait. I want to explain. Earlier, I told you that Pa-I mean, Michael and I weren't together, that I am married to someone-"

Jan raises her hand. "You don't owe me any explanations."

"But I want to explain." I hesitate. Jan has trusted us with so much; I cannot bear for her to think I have been less than honest. But I am not sure how to explain what I do not quite understand myself. "You see, Michael and I were together years ago. We were engaged, but then something happened and I thought that he was dead. I married someone else, but then a few days ago I found out that Michael is alive. So we..." I falter, realizing how improbable my explanation must sound. "Anyway, it's complicated. But I didn't want you to think I had lied to you."

"Life is complicated," Jan replies. "It is also unpredictable and short. You two obviously care for each other. But remember, there's always a price to be paid for our choices."

She stops speaking as Paul approaches. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing," I reply quickly.

"Nothing," Jan echoes. "Let's go." We follow her back into the main wine cellar, but instead of walking toward the ladder, she goes to another bookshelf. Paul and I exchange puzzled expressions as she walks to one of the wine racks and begins pushing against it with her shoulder. "This one is heavier. I need you to help me," she says to Paul. He goes to where she stands and pushes in the same direction. Slowly, the rack begins to move to the left, revealing a small wooden door. Jan opens it. "This way, quickly."

Jan goes through first, crouching to fit inside the low doorway. I follow, wondering if the s.p.a.ce is large enough to hold all of us. On the other side, I gasp. We are in a tunnel of some sort. Here the ceiling is high, the walls well carved out of stone.

"These are the Nussen tunnels," Jan says, not looking back. "The first ones were created in medieval times, and they were expanded by independence fighters during the Prussian war, who used them to avoid foreign troops. They connect to points all over the city. Come."

"Were they used during the war?" I ask. "The recent one, I mean."

"They were used by what little resistance managed to survive in Berlin. Fortunately the tunnels are a well-guarded secret and the n.a.z.is either never discovered them or didn't understand their true value. Berlin would have been a much harder city to take if the Allies had to fight the war down here."

Jan does not speak further but leads us through the tunnel. My ankle begins to throb as I struggle to keep up with her swift strides. "Are you okay?" Paul, noticing my limp, asks in a low voice behind me. I nod. Ahead, another tunnel intersects with ours. Jan turns right into it without warning. The new pa.s.sageway slopes upward, causing us to climb as we walk. Ahead I can sense cool dawn air. A few minutes later we reach the end of the tunnel. Above us is a hole, revealing the star-filled sky.

"Wait a second," Jan says, reaching into her pocket. She hands me a small metal object. "I believe that's what you came here for."

I hold up the cipher. It is a cylinder, no bigger than my thumb. "Thank you." I tuck the cylinder into my pocket.

"And these are yours," Paul says, pulling the papers he took from Jan's apartment out of his pocket and handing them to her. "We took them for safekeeping in case the police came back to your apartment." I had nearly forgotten about the papers. I realize now that Paul held them back deliberately as insurance until Jan gave us the cipher.

"Thanks." Jan tucks the papers into her pocket. "I guess I'll have to work with you now that you've seen my operational notes." Before either of us can answer, she locks her hands and lowers them to her knees as if to give me a boost out of the tunnel. "Here."

Paul steps forward. "Let me." Before I can react, he puts his strong, warm hands around my waist and lifts me over his head. My head swims as I remember his earlier touch. I raise my head through the hole, then use my arms to pull myself up and outside to the ground. Standing up and brushing the dirt from my dress, I discover that we have reached a park.

Jan climbs out of the hole. "All clear?"

I nod, then point to a truck that is parked several hundred meters away. "Except for that."

"That's ours," Jan replies as Paul appears beside us. "Let's go." We hurry across the gra.s.sy field to the truck. Jan waves to the driver, then leads us around to the back carriage, which is covered by a tarp. "In there. Stay away from the edge, out of sight."

"You're not going with us?" Paul asks.

Jan shakes her head. "The driver, Milo, is a good man and can be trusted. He'll get you past security into the harbor and as close as he can to the ship. After that it's up to you."

"What about you? Where will you go?" Paul asks.

"South." She touches her pocket. "To make use of the information you've given me."

"You're going to Prague?" I ask. Jan nods. "Is that safe now?"

"It will be fine," Jan replies. "They'll never expect me to come back so soon."

"Jan, there's one thing. Marek Andek's wife, Emma, is a good friend of mine. She's still in Prague with the children."

"I'll look in on her," Jan promises. "Andek gave up everything for us. I'll make sure his wife is safe, that she has whatever she needs."

"Thank you."

"No, thank you. I know what it has taken for you to bring me this information, what both of you have risked. I won't let it go to waste." She shakes Paul's hand firmly, then reaches over and kisses me on the cheek. As she pulls back, she lingers for a second, her lips close to my ear. "Don't let him go again," she whispers before straightening. I am too stunned to reply. "Now, get out of here."

Paul turns to me. "You ready?" I nod, and he helps me onto the back of the truck and climbs in himself, pulling the tarp closed. I drop to the wooden floor. As Paul follows me, the truck begins to move, sending him flying toward me. He reaches out to break his fall.

I look out the back of the truck, hoping to catch one last glimpse of the famous Jan Marcelitis. But she has already disappeared into the darkness. "She's pretty remarkable, isn't she?"

"You're pretty remarkable yourself," Paul replies.

"Me? I'm just a diplomat's wife." I look away, remembering his earlier words.