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Zoya reached their table and Grigori stood up. They were going in three different directions, so they said good-bye.
"I'll see you tonight," Zoya said to Volodya.
He kissed her. "I'll be there at seven."
"Bring your toothbrush," she said.
He walked away a happy man.
iv
A girl knows when her best friend has a se
cret. She may not know what the secret is, but she knows it is there, like an unidentifiable piece of furniture under a dust sheet. She realizes, from guarded and unforthcoming answers to innocent questions, that her friend is seeing someone she shouldn't; she just doesn't know the name, although she may guess that the forbidden lover is a married man, or a dark-skinned foreigner, or another woman. She admires that necklace, and knows from her friend's muted reaction that it has shameful associations, though it may not be until years later that she discovers it was stolen from a senile grandmother's jewel box.
So Carla thought when she reflected on Frieda.
Frieda had a secret, and it was connected with resistance to the Nazis. She might be deeply, criminally involved: perhaps she went through her brother Werner's briefcase every night, copied secret papers, and handed the copies to a Russian spy. More likely it was not so dramatic: she probably helped print and distribute those illegal posters and leaflets that criticized the government.
So Carla was going to tell Frieda about Joachim Koch. However, she did not immediately get a chance. Carla and Frieda were nurses in different departments of a large hospital, and had different rotas, so they did not necessarily meet every day.
Meanwhile, Joachim came to the house daily for lessons. He made no more indiscreet revelations, but Maud continued to flirt with him. "You do realize that I'm almost forty years old?" Carla heard her say one day, although she was in fact fifty-one. Joachim was completely infatuated. Maud was enjoying the power she still had to fascinate an attractive young man, albeit a very naive one. The thought crossed Carla's mind that her mother might be developing deeper feelings for this boy with a fair mustache who looked a bit like the young Walter, but that seemed ridiculous.
Joachim was desperate to please her, and soon brought news of her son. Erik was alive and well. "His unit is in the Ukraine," Joachim said. "That's all I can tell you."
"I wish he could get leave to come home," Maud said wistfully.
The young officer hesitated.
She said: "A mother worries so much. If I could just see him, even for only a day, it would be such a comfort to me."
"I might be able to arrange that."
Maud pretended to be astonished. "Really? You're that powerful?"
"I'm not sure. I could try."
"Thank you for even trying." She kissed his hand.
It was a week before Carla saw Frieda again. When she did, she told her all about Joachim Koch. She told the story as if simply retelling an interesting piece of news, but she felt sure Frieda would not regard it in that innocent light. "Just imagine," she said. "He told us the code name of the operation and the date of the attack!" She waited to see how Frieda would respond.
"He could be executed for that," Frieda said.
"If we knew someone who could get in touch with Moscow, we might turn the course of the war," Carla went on, as if still talking about the gravity of Joachim's crime.
"Perhaps," said Frieda.
That proved it. Frieda's normal reaction to such a story would include expressions of surprise, lively interest, and further questions. Today she offered nothing but neutral phrases and noncommittal grunts. Carla went home and told her mother that her intuition had been correct.
Next day at the hospital, Frieda appeared in Carla's ward looking frantic. "I have to talk to you urgently," she said.
Carla was changing a dressing for a young woman who had been badly burned in a munitions factory explosion. "Go to the cloakroom," she said. "I'll be there as soon as I can."
Five minutes later she found Frieda in the little room, smoking by an open window. "What is it?" she said.
Frieda put out the cigarette. "It's about your Lieutenant Koch."
"I thought so."
