Katherine Carlyle by Rupert Thomson Read Free Book Online Page B

illegal gambling den for SS officers.
    I glance around but nothing of the past remains. “Despite all that, there’s something — I don’t know — relaxing about it.”
    “Not if you work here.” The waitress smiles with her eyes. “Is this your first time?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you see the garden?”
    “No, not yet.”
    “It’s at the back. It’s very nice to sit out there, especially in the summer.”
    “I don’t think I’ll be here then.”
    “That’s a shame.” She looks at me, her eyes seeming to narrow a little, as before. “Maybe you should come back — when the weather’s warmer.”
    “I’d like to,” I say, “but it’s not so easy.”
    “Oh.” Glancing down, she smooths her apron over her hips. “Well, anyway. Enjoy your stay.”
    /
    “I’ve been thinking,” Klaus says as he approaches my table.
    It’s my fourth day in Berlin. The tree outside the café quivers in the wind, and a man hurries past, one hand pressed to the crown of his hat. Klaus is wearing a different overcoat, charcoal gray with black trim on the pockets and the collar, but his briefcase is the same, and judging by its ancient polished look I would guessit’s a family heirloom, since he doesn’t seem the type to go to flea markets. I ask him if he would like to join me.
    He sets his briefcase on the floor and sits down. All his actions are deliberate, precise. I’m beginning to be able to imagine his apartment. It will be ordered, spartan. Meticulously clean.
    “I’m glad you came.” He sounds faintly disgruntled, as if there’s an aspect of meeting me that he finds difficult.
    “I like it here,” I say. “The other place I like is Café Einstein.”
    “Ah yes. The Einstein is very well known. An institution, really. I haven’t been there for years.”
    “Perhaps if you live here …”
    “Yes, perhaps.”
    The waitress brings his coffee. He glances up and thanks her. She’s dressed more discreetly today, in a black ribbed sweater with a high neck.
    He turns back to me. “Where you’re staying, it’s not a good area.”
    “I know. You told me that yesterday.”
    He sighs.
    “There’s a nightclub,” I say.
    “And prostitutes. There are also prostitutes.”
    I remember the idling car and the woman in her shiny boots. I remember the laughter in the middle of the night. The creaking. The hot-pink blinds.
    “It’s not safe,” Klaus says. “For a woman.”
    As I watch him over the rim of my coffee cup, both my elbows propped on the table, something lifts inside me. I think I know where this is going.
    “The thing is, I have a big apartment —” He pauses, then plunges on. “You would have privacy.”
    “I think you might have missed a sentence out.”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “Are you offering me a place to stay?”
    “Oh, I see. Yes. That’s what I wanted to say.”
    “Do you live alone?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you have a girlfriend?”
    He hesitates.
    A voluptuous woman in a dark-green dress stands smoldering beside him, one hand on his shoulder.
Valentina
. The expression on her face is privileged, dismissive. In her eyes I’m just another girl who is on the make. I may have high cheekbones and good legs but my breasts are small. I’m not a threat to her. I’m too skinny.
    “No,” Klaus says at last. “No girlfriend.”
    I signal to the waitress that I want to pay. When I face Klaus again he looks fearful, almost panic-stricken. Perhaps he thinks he has failed to convince me, and that he has blown his chance. The woman in the dark-green dress is gone.
    “You can have your own room,” he says quickly. “For as long as you like.”
    “I can’t afford to pay much money.”
    “I didn’t ask for money.”
    “You don’t know me. I could be anyone.”
    “So could I.” He leans back in his chair. For the first time I feel a certain authority or confidence come off him. Once again I wonder what he does.
    I finish my coffee. The bill arrives.
    “I have an idea,” Klaus says.