Page 456 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

Lili put water on to boil and took a cake out of the cupboard. Carla said: "Karolin, whatever has come over Odo?"

She looked down. "He is . . ." She obviously found this difficult to say. Averting her eyes, she said quietly: "Odo tells me he has realized that he is homosexual."

Alice gave a little scream.

Carla said: "What a terrible shock!"

Lili had a sudden flash of memory. Five years ago, when they had all met up in Hungary, and Walli had met Odo for the first time, she had seen a startled reaction pass over Walli's face, brief but vivid. Had Walli intuited the truth about Odo in that moment?

Lili herself had always suspected that Odo's love for Karolin was not a grand passion but more of a Christian mission. If a man should ever propose to Lili, she did not want him to do it out of the kindness of his heart. He should desire her so much he could hardly keep his hands off her: that was a good reason for a proposal of marriage.

Karolin looked up. Now that the awful truth was out, she was able to meet Carla's eye. "It's not a shock, really," she said quietly. "I sort of knew."

"How?"

"When we were first married, there was a young man called Paul, very good-looking. He was invited for supper a couple of times a week, and Bible study in the vestry, and on Saturday afternoons they would go for long invigorating walks in Treptower Park. Perhaps they never did anything--Odo is not a deceiving man. But, when he made love to me, somehow I felt sure he was thinking about Paul."

"What happened? How did it end?"

Lili cut the cake into slices while she listened. She put the slices on a plate. No one ate any.

Karolin said: "I never knew the full story. Paul stopped coming to the house and to church. Odo never explained why. Perhaps they both pulled back from physical love."

Carla said: "Being a pastor, Odo must have suffered a terrible conflict."

"I know. I'm so sorry for him, when I'm not feeling angry."

"Poor Odo."

"But Paul was only the first of half a dozen boys, all very similar, terribly good-looking and sincere Christians."

"And now?"

"Now Odo has found real love. He is abjectly apologetic to me, but he has made up his mind to face what he truly is. He's moving in with a man called Eugen Freud."

"What will he do?"

"He wants to be a teacher in a theological college. He says it's his real vocation."

Lili poured boiling water on the ground coffee in the jug. Now that Odo and Karolin had split up, she wondered how Walli would feel. Of course he could not be reunited with Karolin and Alice because of the accursed Berlin Wall. But would he want to? He had not settled permanently with another woman. It seemed to Lili that Karolin really was the love of his life.

But all that was academic. The Communists had decreed that they could not be together.

Carla said: "If Odo has resigned as pastor, you'll have to leave your house."

"Yes. I'm homeless."

"Don't be silly. You'll always have a home here."

"I knew you'd say that," said Karolin, and she burst into tears.

The doorbell rang.

"I'll go," said Lili.

There were two men on the doorstep. One wore a chauffeur's uniform and held an umbrella over the other man, who was Hans Hoffmann.

"May I come in?" said Hans, but he walked into the hall without waiting for an answer. He was holding a package about a foot square.

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