Fatherland

where someone can go back and retrieve it. Then get out. Promise me."
    "I promise you."
    "There's a daily Swissair flight from Zürich to New York. It leaves at two."
    "At two. I know. You've told me twice."
    He took a step toward her, to hold her, but she fended him off. "I'm not saying good-bye. Not here. I'll see you tonight. I will see you ."
    There was a moment of anticlimax when the Opel refused to start. She pulled out the choke and tried again, and this time the engine fired. She backed out of the parking space, still refusing to look at him. He had a last glimpse of her profile—staring straight ahead, her knuckles clenching the wheel—and then she was gone, leaving a trail of blue-white vapor hanging in the chilly morning air.
    March sat alone in the empty room, on the edge of the bed, holding her pillow. He waited until an hour had passed before putting on his uniform. He stood in front of the dressing-table mirror, buttoning his black tunic. It would be the last time he wore it, one way or the other.
    "We'll change history."
    He donned his cap, adjusted it. Then he took his thirty sheets of paper, his notebook and Buhler's pocket diary, folded them together, wrapped them in the remaining sheet of brown paper and slipped them into his inside pocket.
    Was history changed so easily? He wondered. Certainly, it was his experience that secrets were an acid— once spilled, they could eat their way through anything: if a marriage, why not a presidency, why not a state? But talk of history—he shook his head at his own reflection— history was beyond him. Investigators turned suspicion into evidence. He had done that. History he would leave to her.
    He carried Luther's bag into the bathroom and shoveled into it all the rubbish that Charlie had left behind—the discarded bottles, the rubber gloves, the dish and spoon,
    the brushes. He did the same in the bedroom. It was strange how much she had filled these places, how empty they seemed without her. He looked at his watch. It was eight-thirty. She should be well clear of Berlin by now, perhaps as far south as Wittenberg.
    In the reception area, the manager hovered.
    "Good day, Herr Sturmbannführer. Is the interrogation finished?"
    "It is indeed, Herr Brecker. Thank you for your patriotic assistance."
    "A pleasure." Brecker gave a short bow. He was twisting his fat white hands together as if rubbing them with oil. "And if ever the Sturmbannführer feels the desire to do a little more interrogation . . ." His bushy eyebrows danced. "Perhaps I might even be able to supply him with a suspect or two?"
    March smiled. "Good day to you, Herr Brecker."
    "Good day to you , Herr Sturmbannführer."
    He sat in the front passenger seat of the Volkswagen and thought for a moment. Inside the spare tire would be the ideal place, but he had no time for that. The plastic door panels were securely fastened. He reached under the dashboard until his fingers encountered a smooth surface. It would serve his purpose. He tore off two lengths of cellophane tape and attached the package to the cold metal.
    Then he dropped the roll of tape into Luther's case and dumped the bag into one of the rubbish bins outside the kitchen. The brown leather looked too incongruous lying on the surface. He found a broken length of broom handle and dug a grave for it, burying it at last beneath the coffee dregs, the stinking fish heads, the lumps of grease and maggoty pork.

2

    Yellow signs bearing the single word Fernverkehr — long-distance traffic—pointed the way out of Berlin, toward the racetrack autobahn that girdled the city. March had the southbound carriageway almost to himself—the few cars and buses about this early on a Sunday morning were heading the other way. He passed the perimeter wire of the Tempelhof aerodrome, and abruptly he was into the suburbs, the wide road pushing through dreary streets of red brick shops and houses, lined by sickly trees with blackened trunks.
    To his left, a hospital; to his right, a disused church, shuttered and daubed with Party slogans. "Marienfelde," said the signs. "Bückow." "Lichtenrade."
    At a set of traffic lights he stopped. The road to the south lay open—to the Rhine, to Zürich, to America ... Behind him someone tooted. The lights had changed. He flicked the turn signal, swung off the main road, and was quickly lost in the gridiron streets of a housing estate.
    In the early fifties, in the glow of victory, the roads had been named for