Midnight Hunter

“What would be the point? I know you’re talking about him. What I don’t understand is why you dislike him so much. Yes, he’s moody and difficult, but he’s also clever and good-looking, and so sweet to you.”

And a Stasi officer! I want to shout. But it would be crossing a line with Lenore. She’s too faithful to the regime to understand how I feel about it, for all her seditious jokes about trade ministers.

Looking at me over the stack of papers she’s shuffling she asks, “Has he kissed you?”

I look away quickly. When I came out of his office yesterday she was at her desk and gave me a bland smile before turning back to her typing. Later in the afternoon she noticed my legs and said with a wink, “Ooh, silk. Who’s

a lucky secretary.” I flushed red to the roots of my hair but I quickly realized she was simply admiring the gift, not telling me she knew what had happened in his office.

Her eyes are wide and shining. “He has kissed you. Tell me! What was it like?”

Awful. Repulsive. Heavenly. I felt it right down to my toes and I never wanted him to stop. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t like the Oberstleutnant.”

Lenore aligns a piece of paper in her typewriter and begins to rap out the address from an envelope. “All right, put it this way: if it was from someone you liked, was it the sort of kiss that would make you think, I could fall in love with you?” Her fingers hover over the keys and she gives me a sharp look.

How is it that everyone but me can be happy compartmentalizing their feelings? This box for the kiss, this box for who it was from.

“Never mind,” Lenore says in a sing-song way, resuming typing. “I can see from your face that it was a very good kiss and all I can say is what a waste it is that you don’t like him. With connections like his you could have had a proper gold engagement ring.”

Volker comes back at three-thirty and disappears into his office, but less than an hour later he appears again, looking even more tired than he did this morning. Wordlessly he nods his head toward the elevator and I take this to mean he’s done for the day and we’re leaving.

“You go too, Fräulein Hoffman. Get some sunshine.”

Lenore beams at him and collects her things. It’s a lovely day outside, the first blue-sky day of the year. Volker doesn’t seem to be in the mood to enjoy the good weather, though, and we sit in silence in the back of his car. I’ve never known him to be so downcast. What happened to him between last night and this morning? Maybe he did leave the apartment at midnight and I just didn’t hear, and something happened?

Hans is changing lanes on Frankfurter Allee when a powder blue Trabant cuts in front of us. The driver either didn’t see the black car or thought he could out-pace a Mercedes-Benz travelling at forty-five miles an hour while the little two-stroke Trabi was still accelerating.

He can’t. Hans swears and slams on the brakes, making Volker look toward the front of the car and automatically reach for the grip above his door. It all happens too fast for me, though, and when we crash into the Trabant I’m thrown against the driver’s seat with barely time to get my arms up to shield my face. Pain explodes in my lower lip as it smacks against the lumpy bone on my wrist.

The engines cut out and it’s eerily silent.

“Evony. Evony, are you all right?” I feel Volker’s hands on me, gentle, as if he’s wary of broken bones. He turns me toward him.

“I’m all right,” I start to say, but I taste blood in my mouth and it hurts to speak. Something warm drips onto my blouse.

“Scheisse. Here.” He pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and holds it carefully over my mouth. “Have you broken any teeth? Let me see.” I wince as he tugs my lip down, his large fingers gentle. Now that the shock is passing my face really starts to throb.

Volker’s mouth twists, sympathetic. “Bitten on the inside and split on the outside. Bleeding a lot, but it looks like nothing’s broken.” He presses the handkerchief back over the cut. “Keep that there. Press firmly.”

Blood. I hate blood, and tasting it and seeing it on my shirt makes the world start to slide sideways. He takes my cold hand in his gloved ones and rubs his thumbs over my knuckles. “Liebling? Are you all right? Christus, don’t faint, look at me.”

I do, and his blue-gray eyes are steadying. I could see the accident happening, the car cutting in front of us and Hans slamming on the brakes, but I didn’t do anything. There’s a handle over my head, too, but I didn’t think to grab it. Idiot. You’re meant to be aware of your surroundings so you can try to escape. And you will not faint just because you cut your mouth.

Meanwhile, Hans and the other driver have got out of their cars and are gesticulating wildly at each other, the road and the vehicles. Volker’s expression of tender anxiety hardens. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I feel sorry for the Trabant driver, who pales as Volker bears down on him, six-feet-five of enraged Stasi officer. The man should have known better than to cut in front of an imported car. I can see the pistol glinting at Volker’s hip and from the way his gloved hand is clenching I think he’s sorely tempted to use it.

My mouth fills with blood again, and when I swallow a wave of nausea rolls up. I need fresh air. There’s a bench a few feet to the right and I get out of the car and walk unsteadily toward it.

A man’s voice says, “Evony?”

I freeze. I know that voice. It belongs to someone from another life. My former life as a factory girl and Heinrich Daumler’s daughter. I turn toward it, my head spinning, and see Ulrich. He’s got a week’s worth of ruddy beard on his face and his clothes are smeared with grease. I’ve never seen a more welcome sight in my life. “Ulrich, you’re alive!”

He looks startled by my face and the blood-soaked handkerchief but pulls me into an alcove. “You’re alive. Where’s Heinrich? What happened to you?”

I don’t want to talk about me, I want to talk about Dad. “You mean you don’t know either? I haven’t seen him since the bakery.” My voice cracks. If not even Ulrich knows where Dad is, that’s bad. But sudden hope fills me—I can get away from Volker while he’s distracted. Together Ulrich and I can find Dad somehow and get to the West, and these past few weeks can recede like a nightmare.

I clutch his arms. “Please, we need to go now before he notices I’m gone.”