He laughed and offered her his arm. ‘Just be grateful you weren’t there when I told her I was going with you to Berlin. She was incensed. It was like watching a rather square volcano explode.’ He grinned so broadly Karen stopped in her tracks and stared at him.
‘You’re not, I mean… with Mrs Hubbard… are you?’
His shout of laughter turned heads. ‘No. I can assure you, I am not. But…’
‘What?’
‘If there was someone else, would you mind?’
Karen stared at this man who kept revealing new depths every time she thought that she knew him.
‘Was? Or is?’
He blushed. ‘Is. It’s early days. But if it develops, I’d like you to meet her.’
‘Of course.’
Karen handed over their boarding passes and tried not to grin too widely. She was about to ask more when her father shook his head.
‘Okay. I won’t pry, I promise. Not yet anyway.’
A stewardess handed them both glasses of champagne; Karen noticed Andrew’s hand was shaking when he reached for it.
‘Are you nervous about the flight? Tell me you’re not feeling ill.’
He turned away and looked out of the window before he answered.
‘No. It’s neither of those. If you must know, I’m a little on edge at the thought of meeting Michael again.’
Karen’s shoulders relaxed. ‘That’s understandable. It has been a long time, almost fifty years. That still surprises me, you know, how young you all were when it happened. I suppose it won’t be easy digging it all up again.’
His face when he turned to her was so bleak Karen flinched.
‘No, Karen, it won’t be easy – not easy at all. You’re learning not to blame me for Liese dying. What if Michael has only just begun?’
‘It’s me. I’m here.’
‘At last! I haven’t been able to concentrate all day, waiting for you to call.’
And there it was, the joyful reaction she had hoped for.
‘Father is exhausted from the journey and his first sight of Berlin after so many years. He’s gone to bed.’
There was a pause and then a laugh that gurgled from the telephone wire to her toes. Karen could hardly concentrate on what he was saying for picturing his brown eyes.
‘So what are you proposing, Karen Cartwright, to do with your night?’
To spend it with you. To be Markus and Karen again.
It was all that she wanted. Given the warmth in his voice and his delight when he answered her call, she wasn’t sure why she couldn’t quite say it. The hours they had spent on her last trip, wandering through Berlin on holiday from their lives, had been perfect, more romantic than any date deliberately planned to be that way.
She must have paused too long. His voice suddenly dropped and grew serious.
‘Are you still there? I want to see you, Karen, tonight. Just you; away from everything that is coming. Can I do that?’
Give him the room number – don’t waste any more time.
That, too, was what she wanted, but saying it into a telephone seemed too quick a step. She needed to see his face, that was all. To put the two of them back into place.
‘We passed a bar on the way here. On the corner of Kluckstraβe and Lützowufer, near the canal. I could meet you there? I could head there now and wait for you.’
He arrived so fast, he must have broken every speed limit. The bar was little more than a cellar, as dark and sparsely populated as the one they had gone into in the East. When Markus saw the two shots of vodka and the jug of red wine Karen had ordered, he grinned.
‘No crying tonight, I promise.’
He clicked his glass to the one she raised.
‘I don’t care if you do. With everything you’ve learned, you’ve got good reason.’
He didn’t take his eyes off her as they drank.
‘Do you want to talk about your mother, or her letter? We’ve covered so little of it and nothing of what you feel.’
Karen shook her head. He was still watching her. She had to take the plunge. If his page was different to hers, she wanted to know. Before tomorrow, when her father met him and wondered. Before she risked her heart any more than she had.
‘Not tonight. I don’t want this to be about anything but us tonight, Markus. If there is an us.’
She had poured the wine out, but neither of them had touched it.
If he tells me I’ve made a mistake and his concern for me is nothing more than friendship, I’m going back on the next plane and Markus can manage the rest on his own.
The silence continued a fraction too long for her shivering nerves and then Markus got up and held out his hand.
‘There will always be an us.’
She didn’t mean to do it, but his face was so serious and his tone so dramatic, she couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing, and fell in love when he joined in.
‘This is your fault – it’s the effect you have on me. That sounded so good in my head and now I’ve turned into some cliché of a brooding Hollywood hero.’
He pulled her up. She was in his arms, kissing him. They were outside, kissing each other in the street like teenagers until the cold reminded them that there was a hotel room waiting.
‘There will be an us now, I swear it.’
This time, he said it as they fell onto the bed, breath quickening, clothes already half lost. Karen didn’t laugh. She held his face close to hers and repeated the same promise. And then he kissed her through to her soul and there was no going back at all.
When she woke after the few hours of sleep they had finally succumbed to and he was still lying there, she wanted to cheer. Then she glanced at her watch and she panicked.
‘You have to go. Before my father comes and catches you. I’m serious – it’s gone seven. He’ll be up and ready for breakfast, and I’m too old to get raised eyebrows for this.’
She had to throw the duvet over him he laughed so loud.
‘Seriously, Markus, this is not how I want the two of you to meet. My father is nervous about this afternoon. No, it’s more than that: he’s afraid – he used that actual word – about seeing Michael again.’ She stopped. Part of her wanted to find softer words, but this was Markus, a man who believed life should be open and direct, and he wouldn’t thank her for trying. ‘He thinks your father might blame him for my mother’s death.’
Markus looked up from tying his shoes.
‘I can’t guarantee that he won’t. He hasn’t said much since you told us it would be both of you coming, although him holding his thoughts tight is hardly a surprise. And he’s on edge too, although he blames the fuss over reunification. To be honest, I don’t quite know how to handle their meeting. If it goes wrong, then the rest of the plan falls apart. I thought I should tell them what I found out about the guard as soon as the greetings are over. What do you think?’
Karen nodded. ‘That could work. I haven’t shared any of it with Father yet.’
‘Okay, good. If we treat them like they are still both in this together, maybe they’ll act that way. Who knows, Father might see parallels between him and Andrew finally reuniting and Germany’s political situation and decide to deliver a lecture not a judgement. Your father’s on his own if he does.’ Markus reached for his jacket. ‘And he has agreed to come here rather than meet at his flat, to the “dreaded West”, as he called it, which hopefully he won’t do so loudly today and ruin the party. That could be a sign of good intent.’