Page 352 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

He put his hand over hers. "It's okay to be nervous."

"I haven't done this often."

He smiled. "That's not a bad thing, you know, even if we are living in the age of free love."

"I slept with two boys at university. Then I married Hans, who turned out to be a police spy. Then I fell in love with Bernd and we escaped together. There, that's my entire love life."

"Let's talk about something else for a while," he said. "Are your parents still in the East?"

"Yes, they'll never get permission to leave. Once you make an enemy of someone like Hans Hoffmann--my first husband--he never forgets."

"You must miss them."

She could not express how much she missed her family. The Communists had blocked calls to the West the day they built the Wall, so she could not even speak to her parents on the phone. All she had was letters--opened and read by the Stasi, usually delayed, often censored, any enclosure of value stolen by the police. A few photos had got through, and Rebecca had them next to her bed: her father turning gray, her mother getting heavier, Lili growing into a beautiful woman.

Instead of trying to explain her grief she said: "Tell me about yourself. What happened to you in the war?"

"Nothing much, except that I starved, like most kids," he said. "The house next door was destroyed and everyone in it killed, but we were all right. My father is a surveyor: he spent much of the war assessing bomb damage and making buildings safe."

"Do you have brothers and sisters?"

"One of each. You?"

"My sister, Lili, is still in East Berlin. My brother, Walli, escaped soon after I did. He's a guitar player in a group called Plum Nellie."

"That Walli? He's your brother?"

"Yes. I was there when he was born, on the floor of our kitchen, which was the only warm room in the house. Quite an experience for a fourteen-year-old girl."

"So he escaped."

"And came to live with me, here in Hamburg. He joined the group when they were playing some grimy club on the Reeperbahn."

"And now he's a pop star. Do you see him?"

"Of course. Every time Plum Nellie play in West Germany."

"What a thrill!" Claus looked at her glass and saw that it was empty. "Would you like anoth

er Sekt?"

Rebecca felt a tightness in her chest. "No, thanks, I don't think so."

"Listen," he said. "Something I want you to understand. I'm desperate to make love to you, but I know you're torn. Just remember that you can change your mind at any moment. There's no such thing as the point of no return. If you feel uncomfortable, just say so. I won't be angry or insistent, I promise. I would hate to feel I'd pushed you into something you weren't ready for."

It was exactly the right thing for him to say. The tightness eased. Rebecca had been afraid of getting in too deep, realizing she had made the wrong decision, and feeling unable to back out. Claus's promise set her mind at rest. "Let's go," she said.

They got into their cars and Rebecca followed Claus. Driving along she felt a wild exhilaration. She was about to give herself to Claus. She pictured his face as she took off her blouse: she was wearing a new bra, black with lace trimming. She thought of how they would kiss--frantically before, lovingly after. She imagined his sigh as she took his penis in her mouth. She felt she had never wanted anything so badly, and she had to clamp her teeth together to prevent herself crying out.

Claus had a small apartment in a modern building. Going up in the elevator, Rebecca was assailed by doubts again. What if he didn't like what he saw when she took off her clothes? She was thirty-seven: she no longer had the firm breasts and perfect skin of her teenage years. What if he had a hidden dark side? He might produce handcuffs and a whip, then lock the door--

She told herself not to be silly. She had the normal woman's ability to know when she was with a weirdo, and Claus was delightfully normal. All the same, she felt apprehensive as he opened the apartment door and ushered her in.

It was a typical man's home, a bit bare of ornament, with utilitarian furniture except for a large television and an expensive record player. Rebecca said: "How long have you lived here?"

"A year."

As she had guessed, it was not the home he had shared with his late wife.

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