Snow blanketed the nuked city and the icy sleet glowed with radioactivity. Sean sheltered in a dugout with attack survivors from the howling wind. No one spoke in the cold darkness, but someone was speaking a foreign language and he recognized the words as German.
Sean opened his eyes and sharp sunlight charred his retina. He sat up in bed and nearly swooned back into the pillow. This was no simple hangover.
Someone handed him a glass of water, then two tablets, which he hoped hoping they were painkillers.
"Thanks."
Petra sat on the edge of his bed. She wore the same clothing from last night.
"How are you feeling?"
"Like my brain is out of place."
In his youth he had been a brawler, but last night had once more taught him no one wins all their fights. Sean hoped that wouldn't need any more schooling on that subject.
"SS Tommy is famous for his knock-out punch."
"Now I know why."
"You were dreaming. A bad one."
I haven't had a good one for a long time." Sean had purchased Jung's DREAM INTEPRETATION to analyze these Armageddon reveries, but a quick scan of the material shed light on the source of these atomic destruction dreams, then again Jung had lived way before Hiroshima.
Her own sleep was plagued by the visitations of her beating, but she shared none of that horror with anyone, especially not a stranger. She stood up and went to the door.
"Are you leaving?"
"Just to get some food. I'm hungry, you must be too."
"I don't know for what."
I'll surprise you." Petra sensed his eyes on her and covered the distorted side of her face with her hand. "I will be back soon"
Ich bliebe hier." Sean said and added, "Thanks, Petra, for last night."
"Gar nichts. Kurt asked me to take care of you and we Germans are very good at following orders." She exited from the room and after the door shut, Sean rose to his feet, only to have the room spin like an LP at 78rpm. He held onto the bed, till the vertigo dissipated, then walked onto the terrace.
It was a lovely afternoon and the air was perfumed with the scent of cut grass, but something was not right, for the usual mumble of the cars on Mittelweg had been replaced by a padded marching of a ghost army. The street was filled by thousands of people, protesting the deployment of strategic nuclear missile on German soil. The Pershings were capable of reaching Berlin in seconds and Moscow within minutes. President Reagan was playing hardball with the USSR, betting the lives of millions of European to force Russia to abandon the Cold War.
The bells of St. Johannis tolled eleven times and Sean hoped his dreams were a harbinger of global destruction and then returned inside.
He returned off the TV and lay on the bed to smell the sheets.
There was no trace of Petra's scent. He had slept alone last night. s Nothing had changed between them, then again he had no reason or hope to think they ever would. He was only killing time here no matter how much he wanted his stay here to become something else.
Sean went into the bathroom and inspected his face in the mirror. By summer's end the thin scar would fade to a white line. He stripped for a shower. The doorbell rang. Thinking it was Petra, he went to the entrance with a towel wrapped around his waist. Sean opened the door and Kurt Oster entered the apartment, carrying a suit.
Ah, mein Freund. How was your night with Petra?"
"I was in a coma most of it. Petra played night nurse, that's all and nothing more. She's gone out to get food for breakfast." Sean tightened the knot holding up the towel and walked into the living room.
"Well, you never know where this might lead." Kurt clapped him on the shoulder, sending a shock up to Sean's head. He slouched into the wall. The German asked, "Still not 100%"
"More like 17%, which is better than last night." Sean straightened up with Kurt's help.
"You'll lived." The German inspected the scabbed cut on the American's forehead.
Yeah, I'm a lucky man," Sean commented caustically, for the big favors required a change in life. He sat on the sofa and studied his guest.
Kurt's eyes were the color of deviled ham and his skin was pale as ashes. He was amazingly alert and a sniffle convicted Kurt of cocaine use. It seemed like everyone in the Malchek was living on something other than what was good for them, but he was in no position to throw stones.
"I am very sorry about last night, but I warned you about those people."
"It's hard to ignore the pimps' trafficking in women."
"I didn't know you were such a saint."
"I'm not, but I've never been around pimps. It's not like they're poets."
"Some are bad and others are worse, but there will always be pimps in Hamburg," Kurt announced, as if this was written in stone.
"Yes, you're right, but that doesn't mean they have the run on the Malchek."
"I will do what I can to keep most of them out, but there will be those we can not refuse entrance."
"Like SS Tommy?"
"He is Cali's man."
"And we can't upset Cali?"
"Correct, does that create a problem?" Kurt hoped the American would say no, for it was a little too late to pull a Plan B out of his sleeve.
"For better or worse I am stuck with this arrangement."
"Good, I knew I could count on you." Kurt threw a Lufthansa ticket packet on the bed. "Remember I told you about picking up money in Geneva. After last night you deserve a trip."
"You want me to go down and pick up some money, right?" Sean recollected their conversation from the first night in the nightclub.
"You fly down, stay in a hotel. In the morning my accountant will drive you to and from the bank. You fly back to Hamburg and I pick you up on this end. One, two, three," explained Kurt.
If it's so easy, why don't you do it yourself? Sean was uncomfortable with being entrusted with so much by someone he knew for such a short time.
"If I were to be caught with the money, it might be trouble, but you can legally carry whatever amount of money between here and Switzerland," Kurt replied with the facility of a veteran liar.
"I checked the currency laws."
"And?"
"What you say is true, but New York taught me, if it sounds too good to be true than it usually is too good to be true."
"Switzerland is a land of cheese and chocolate. Nothing bad happens there. You will get a thousand marks a trip. All expenses paid, plus if you have to miss a night of work, you will get paid for that as well. Think of yourself as being a top-class courier."
"Like an extra in a James Bond movie."
There was something else to this trafficking with money. Something that involved getting people in trouble, but Sean's rapid calculation of the next four weeks' earnings from these trips translated into an accelerated departure date from Hamburg, so he said, "Okay, I'll do it."
"Good." Kurt pointed to the packet on the bed. "The ticket for the 16:45 flight is inside. You transfer in Frankfurt. The next flight gets you into Geneva around Eight O'clock."
"I'm flying to Geneva today?" Sean looked at the clock on the night table. His flight was leaving in less than four hours.
"The only direct flight to Geneva from Hamburg leaves at 6:10am. You think you can wake up that early?"
"I'm not really a morning person. Tonight's fine."
You will be staying at the Hotel Beau-Rivage. Very Old World. Tomorrow you go to this bank and speak with Herr Egard and him alone. He will take care of you." Kurt dropped the suit on the sofa, saying, "This should be the perfect disguise for your trip. You can buy a shirt and tie in Geneva. After your pick-up, my accountant will take you to the airport and I will meet you at this end."
"I bet you will."
"Then I see you tomorrow." Kurt started for the door, but Sean stopped him by saying, "Not so fast, Kurt."
"What?"
"My money. I get paid before not after."
"You don't trust me."
"First rule in New York. Trust no one, not even yourself."
"As you like." Kurt took out a wad of bills, all 500 Mark notes, from his jacket. He handed two to Sean and said, "One more thing do not tell anyone what you are doing. Not Petra, not anyone else. The best secret is the one you never tell. Guten Reisen."
The door shut behind Kurt.
Sean's main reason for having come to Germany had been to avoid the mess into which he'd got in New York and now he was on the verge of stepping into a very gray area of criminality. He should have had plenty of other choices, but couldn't think of any this morning.
Sean went into the bathroom and showered for several minutes, trying to make sense of everything that had happened over the last few days. There was no A to B to explain to anyone had they been interested in listening, so he simply washed off the nightclub's tobacco stench and razored level every pinprick of stubble to the pore. The very simplicity of cleanliness made him feel better, even if it was an illusion, showing him how easy it was to be happy in this world.
Upon exiting from the bathroom, he spotted flowers in a vase. The smell of eggs frying and coffee brewing filled his nostrils. . THE SEVEN SAMURAI played on the television. The suit had been hung in the closet. He nearly called out for Petra, but he knew where she would be.
Within the kitchenette Petra was preparing a classic German Fruhstuck. If they were lovers, this would be the time to kiss her, instead he said, "I think I died and went to heaven."
"I thought you almost died last night."
"Not even close."
"You are tougher than you look."
"I have a thick skull."
"Lucky for you."
Petra emptied scrambled eggs onto two plates crowded with wurst, then motioned for him to back away, as she picked up a heavily laden tray.
"We will eat on the terrace."
Sean followed her outside to the terrace on which she had set up a small table and two chairs on the terrace. The air was softer than a caress. After Petra lowered an awning, she asked, "Is that better?"
"Very much so. What did I do to deserve this treatment?"
"After your evening I thought I could prove not all Germans are bad." She poured coffee into their two cups and passed him the sugar and milk.
"People are people to me, until they prove differently. Just because I fought one person doesn't mean all Germans are bad. I mean, how many Americans have you met."
"Soldiers, businessmen at the Eroscenter, and you."
"Then you can't have such a high opinion of my countrymen."
"You are right. I do not think much of Americans or any men."
"People being good or bad isn’t a matter of sex or nationality.”
"You really believe that?"
Yes, but that doesn't keep me from feeling like the only person in this town or any other." Sean saw her eyes moisten around the edges. He was getting too close to her heart and his own as well.
"I have felt the same way too," Petra admitted against her wishes, wondering whether this man had bucked the impossible odds of there being someone for her. She didn't dare hope for such a gift that hope, but found herself fingering with a shank of hair at the back of her neck like a nervous schoolgirl, as he said, "Plato or one of the Greek philosophers said that there was a finite number of souls. I think it was a round number, say 25,000. After that everyone was soulless and could be used as slaves."
"There are billions of people of Earth. Not all of them are slaves."
"That’s because the devil and God have emptied people from Hell and Heaven."
"What are you talking about?"
"It's a crazy idea, but God and the devil got tired of watching everyone all the time and wanted someone to take over. So had the Vatican approached the credit card companies and banks. They agreed to take over the duties of the after-life and had their agents offer people in heaven and hell a once in eternity chance to go back to earth. Everyone in hell agreed quickly, though the people in heaven were a much harder sell. This theory explains why there is so much evil in the world and so many people."
"You are mad."
"I didn't say I believed in this."
"Dank Himmel. Now eat before the eggs get cold," Petra ordered and watched, as the American ate with his knife and fork like a European unlike the rest of his compatriots who ate with a one-hand technique like they had their left arm amputated at birth.
She warned herself that he was no different from any man and that he was a 'mark'. Her caring for a man was a mortal sin, but she found herself saying, "You should eat slower."
"Eating fast comes from living in a big family," he explained and then told her about his life to give her a picture of who he had been, was, and might be. No German, male or female, would have been so open. Time seemed to have stopped or he wanted it to keep repeating the moment, but she rose from the table and he asked, "Where are you going?"
"I have someplace to go." She had to get out of here before she did something stupid.
"Lukas?" Sean immediately regretted his query.
Petra wheeled on him and said, "You are not my pimp?"
"I never said I was."
The barb had hit its mark hard, then again she was unaccustomed to being gentle with men.
Petra had no intentions of even saying good-bye, but before she could reach the door, Sean spun her around and kissed her. The seconds became an eternity, as her heart beat with his. She told herself this was not supposed to be happening and pushed him away.
"Never do that." She slapped him in the face.
"Sorry.” Sean stepped away from the door and Petra glared at him, saying, "Sorry is not enough. That will cost you."
"Whatever the price, I'm willing to pay it."
"Don't be so sure of that."
The door slammed shut, leaving him alone and dizzy from her open palm.
He could do without any more head rattling in the near future and sat on the bed. All in all today was working out to be a better day than yesterday and there was no telling about tomorrow or the days to follow.
He was more dead than alive for the first time in months and he sensed that there was more to come, especially on a sunny day.
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