Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [205]
“We avoided that.”
Ernestine brewed some tea and felt uncomfortable with her uncle’s obvious cynicism.
“Ernestine, darling,” he said, “Colonel O’Sullivan has had to set aside some deep feelings to be seen with you.”
“Under it all, he is just a human being. He was bound to become lonely. We all become lonely, Uncle.”
“And you? I have never seen you look as radiant as when you came in just now.”
“I am sure the invitation was mainly for you to make a public show of friendship.”
“And you will see him again?”
“Perhaps.”
“You are a young woman in the bloom of life. How long has it been since you had a date? Isn’t it strange that the first time you have gone out in months, it should be with an American?”
For a time, Ernestine made dates with German boys she had known and colleagues at work. She saw in them something of Dietrich Rascher, her father, her brother. She was frightened of all of them.
“Certainly O’Sullivan is civilized to stifle certain emotions, but eventually his hatred will burst through.”
Ernestine wanted to defend Sean. Her uncle had worked with him in Rombaden under severe circumstances. Uncle never got to know him as a warm and gentle person. That image of the iron-willed dedicated Prussian faded when he spoke. Why was she defending him in her own mind? She knew she wanted to see him again.
“It is strange how enemies are irresistibly drawn to each other. But love between enemies is not love. It is a desire to destroy each other,” Ulrich said.
“You are making a lot over nothing.”
“If it is nothing, then promise you won’t see him again.”
“I did enjoy the evening so much, Uncle.”
“I don’t want you hurt, Ernestine ... I don’t want you hurt. “
Chapter Thirty-four
IGOR SHAVED. IN THE mirror he could see the image of Lotte in the doorway behind him putting on her negligee. She was pouting.
“Are you going out?”
“Yes.”
“This makes four nights in a row. What is so important?”
“I am a colonel. Nikolai Trepovitch is a general. He ordered me to a meeting. I go.”
“Why must you always hold your meetings in the middle of the night?”
“So we can sleep late in the morning.”
“But I can’t sleep when you are gone.”
“You are a delightful fraud. When I return I always find you dead to the world.”
“That is because I take pills.”
He doused his face, rinsed his razor, and put on a lotion that he had obtained from an American at the Air Safety Center.
Lotte had her arms around him, squeezed him. He lifted her up and carried her into the bedroom, deposited her, and tugged on his boots.
“When will you give me a baby?” she asked.
What a liar! Oh, maybe she did want a child in the same way a little girl wants to play with a doll. She was clever enough to please him with the thought. They had been discreet, never showing up together at public functions. That was tolerable to the command. But anything like having a German mistress bear his child would mean immediate banishment.
A month earlier, Igor had gone through particular hell. The party, for some reason, decided it would be of propaganda value to dispatch his wife, Olga, to a convention of the League of German Women Communists and an inspection of Russian Berlin. Igor was compelled to stand like an adoring clod at the airport with a bouquet of flowers and embrace her with emotion at the ramp for the photographers. She was as drab as he remembered her.
For a week Igor escorted her on a well-documented tour of the Soviet Sector with the story sent out to the Communist world of this son and daughter separated by their dedication to the greater cause.
Olga visited a site in Treptower Park which would become a great memorial cemetery to the Russians who died storming Berlin. She visited an orphanage and had words for the future comrades. She attended a church service as visible proof of the Soviet Union’s democratic attitude toward religion.
Olga addressed the convention of German Women Communists with venom against the imperialists trying to enslave them and pleading for German motherhood to protect