Fatherland

across her mind, and in her eyes they left their trails. Was it another woman? A crime? A secret? Had he fled the country? Gone for good? March felt sorry for her, and for a moment considered warning her of the Gestapo's case against her husband. But why add to her misery? She would know soon enough. He hoped the state would not confiscate the house.
    "Madam, I have intruded too long." He closed his notebook and stood up. She clutched his hand, peered up at him.
    "I'm never going to see him again, am I?"
    "Yes," he said.
    No , he thought.
    It was a relief to leave the dark and sickly room and escape into the fresh air. The Gestapo men were still sitting in the BMW. They watched him leave. He hesitated for a second, and then turned right, toward the Botanischer Garten railway station.
    Four security guards!
    He could begin to see it now. A meeting at Buhler's villa on Friday morning, attended by Buhler, Stuckart and Luther. A panicky meeting, old men in a sweat of fear— and with good reason. Perhaps they had each been given a separate task. At any rate, on Sunday, Luther had flown to Zürich. March was sure it was he who must have sent the chocolates from Zürich airport on Monday afternoon, perhaps just as he was about to board another aircraft. What were they? Not a present: a signal. Was their arrival meant to be taken as a sign that his task had been completed successfully? Or that he had failed?
    March checked over his shoulder. Yes, now he was being followed, he was almost certain. They would have had time to organize while he was in Luther's house. Which were their agents? The woman in the green coat? The student on his bicycle? Hopeless. The Gestapo were too good for him to spot. There would be three or four of them, at least. He lengthened his stride. He was nearing the station.
    Question: had Luther returned to Berlin from Zürich on Monday afternoon, or had he stayed out of the country? On balance, March inclined toward the view that he had returned. That call to Buhler's villa yesterday morning— "Buhler? Speak to me. Who is that?" —that had been Luther, he was sure. So: assume Luther posted the packages just before he boarded his flight, say around five o'clock. He would have landed in Berlin about seven that evening. And disappeared.
    The Botanischer Garten station was on the suburban electric line. March bought a one-Mark ticket and lingered around the barrier until the train approached. He boarded it and then, just as the doors sighed shut, jumped off and sprinted over the metal footbridge to the other platform. Two minutes later he got on the southbound train, only to leap out at Lichterfelde and recross the tracks. The station was deserted. He let the first northbound train go by, caught the second and settled into his seat. The only other occupant of the carriage was a pregnant woman. He gave her a smile; she looked away. Good.
    Luther. Luther. March lit a cigarette. Nearing seventy with a nervous heart and rheumy eyes. Too paranoid to trust even your wife. They came for you six months earlier, and by luck you escaped. Why did you make a run for it from Berlin airport? Did you come through customs and decide to call your confederates? In Stuckart's apartment, the telephone would have rung unanswered, next to the silent blood-washed bedroom. In Schwanenwerder, if Eisler's estimate of the time of death was accurate, Buhler must already have been surprised by his killers. Had they let the telephone ring? Or had one of them answered it while the others held Buhler down?
    Luther, Luther: something happened to make you run for your life—out into the freezing rain of that Monday night.
    He got out at Gotenland station. It was yet another piece of architectural fantasy come true—mosaic floors, polished stone, stained-glass windows thirty meters high. The regime closed churches and compensated by building railway termini to look like cathedrals.
    Gazing down from the overhead walkway on to the thousands of hurrying passengers, March almost gave in to despair. Myriad lives—each with its own secrets and plans and dreams, its individual luggage of guilt—crisscrossed beneath him, not one touching the other, separate and distinct. To think that he alone could possibly track down one old man among so many—for the first time, the idea struck him as fantastic, absurd.
    But Globus could do it. Already, March could see, the police patrols had been increased in strength. That must have happened in the