Page 5 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

It was her husband, Hans.

Why was he here? Her first frightened thought was that he, too, was under interrogation. But a moment later she realized, from the way they were all standing, that he was not being treated as a suspect.

What, then? Her heart pounded with fear, but what was she afraid of?

Perhaps his job at the Ministry of Justice brought him here from time to time, she thought. Then she heard one of the other men say to him: "But, with all due respect, Lieutenant . . ." She did not hear the rest of the sentence. Lieutenant? Civil servants did not hold military ranks--unless they were in the police . . .

Then Hans saw Rebecca.

She watched the emotions cross his face: men were easy to read. At first he had the baffled frown of one who sees a familiar sight in an alien context, such as a turnip in a library. Then his eyes widened in shock as he accepted the reality of what he was seeing, and his mouth opened a fraction. But it was the next expression that struck her hardest: his cheeks darkened with shame and his eyes shifted away from her in an unmistakable look of guilt.

Rebecca was silent for a long moment, trying to take this in. Still not understanding what she was seeing, she said: "Good afternoon, Lieutenant Hoffmann."

Scholz looked puzzled and scared. "Do you know the lieutenant?"

"Quite well," she said, struggling to keep her composure as a dreadful suspicion began to dawn on her. "I'm beginning to wonder whether he has had me under surveillance for some time." But it was not possible--was it?

"Really?" said Scholz, stupidly.

Rebecca stared hard at Hans, watching for his reaction to her surmise, hoping he would laugh it off and immediately come out with the true, innocent explanation. His mouth was open, as if he were about to spea

k, but she could see that he was not intending to tell the truth: instead, she thought, he had the look of a man desperately trying to think of a story and failing to come up with something that would meet all the facts.

Scholz was on the brink of tears. "I didn't know!"

Still watching Hans, Rebecca said: "I am Hans's wife."

Hans's face changed again, and as guilt turned to anger his face became a mask of fury. He spoke at last, but not to Rebecca. "Shut your mouth, Scholz," he said.

Then she knew, and her world crashed around her.

Scholz was too astonished to heed Hans's warning. He said to Rebecca: "You're that Frau Hoffmann?"

Hans moved with the speed of rage. He lashed out with a meaty right fist and punched Scholz in the face. The young man staggered back, lips bleeding. "You fucking fool," Hans said. "You've just undone two years of painstaking undercover work."

Rebecca muttered to herself: "The funny phone calls, the sudden meetings, the ripped-up notes . . ." Hans did not have a lover.

It was worse than that.

She was in a daze, but she knew this was the moment to find out the truth, while everyone was off balance, before they began to tell lies and concoct cover stories. With an effort she stayed focused. She said coolly: "Did you marry me just to spy on me, Hans?"

He stared at her without answering.

Scholz turned and staggered away along the corridor. Hans said: "Go after him." The elevator came and Rebecca stepped in just as Hans called out: "Arrest the fool and throw him in a cell." He turned to speak to Rebecca, but the elevator doors closed and she pressed the button for the ground floor.

She could hardly see through her tears as she crossed the atrium. No one spoke to her: doubtless it was commonplace to see people weeping here. She found her way across the rain-swept car park to the bus stop.

Her marriage was a sham. She could hardly take it in. She had slept with Hans, loved him, and married him, and all the time he had been deceiving her. Infidelity might be considered a temporary lapse, but Hans had been false to her from the start. He must have begun dating her in order to spy on her.

No doubt he had never intended actually to marry her. Originally, he had probably intended no more than a flirtation as a way of getting inside the house. The deception had worked too well. It must have come as a shock to him when she proposed marriage. Maybe he had been forced to make a decision: refuse her, and abandon the surveillance, or marry her and continue it. His bosses might even have ordered him to accept her. How could she have been so completely deceived?

A bus pulled up and she jumped on. She walked with lowered gaze to a seat near the back and covered her face with her hands.

She thought about their courtship. When she had raised the issues that had got in the way of her previous relationships--her feminism, her anti-Communism, her closeness to Carla--he had given all the right answers. She had believed that he and she were like-minded, almost miraculously so. It had never occurred to her that he was putting on an act.

The bus crawled through the landscape of old rubble and new concrete toward the central district of Mitte. Rebecca tried to think about her future but she could not. All she could do was run over the past in her mind. She remembered their wedding day, the honeymoon, and their year of marriage, seeing it all now as a play in which Hans had been performing. He had stolen two years from her, and it made her so angry that she stopped crying.

She recalled the evening when she had proposed. They had been strolling in the People's Park at Friedrichshain, and they had stopped in front of the old Fairy Tale Fountain to look at the carved stone turtles. She had worn a navy blue dress, her best color. Hans had a new tweed jacket: he managed to find good clothes even though East Germany was a fashion desert. With his arm around her, Rebecca had felt safe, protected, cherished. She wanted one man, forever, and he was the man. "Let's get married, Hans," she had said with a smile, and he had kissed her and replied: "What a wonderful idea."

---