James Frey - Project Berlin

Then something crunches under my foot. Curious, I bend down to see what it is. It’s a candy. A toffee, wrapped in cellophane. I think back to the gift that Sauer gave the girl. It can’t be a coincidence. Candy is heavily rationed, and it’s unlikely someone would just drop one by accident.

I start walking and find another about 20 feet farther on, then another. Now I’m certain that they weren’t dropped by accident. Someone has left me a trail to follow.

It’s not easy searching for them in the snow, and I’d look crazy shining my flashlight around, but the light from the streetlamps helps. I see a sparkle and find another candy. I pick it up and add it to the growing lump in my coat pocket. Approximately every 20 feet, I find another one, although sometimes there are gaps where either the candy has been kicked away or perhaps picked up by somebody else.

The trail of toffees leads down the street and around a corner, where it comes to an end. Then I notice a child, a little boy of about four or five. He and his mother are standing together. He’s holding something in his hand. As I watch, he unwraps it and puts it into his mouth.

“What is that?” his mother asks.

The boy shrugs. “Candy?” he says doubtfully.

His mother, clearly alarmed, snatches the wrapper from his hand and looks at it. “Where did you get this?”

The boy points. “A man gave it to me,” he said. “As he was getting on that streetcar.”

I turn my head just in time to see a streetcar rounding a corner at the end of the street, tethered to the electric line above it. I run to the boy and his mother. “Where does that streetcar go?”

The woman puts her arm around the boy and draws him closer to her. “To the Soviet sector.”

I thank her and take off after the streetcar. It’s not going very fast, but it’s difficult to keep pace running on the slippery pavement. Also, if the mystery girl is keeping an eye out for me, I don’t want her to see me running behind the streetcar like a madman. I still don’t know if she’s caught up with Sauer and Lottie, or if she’s trying to follow them too. Until I can figure out which of them—or any of them—is on the streetcar, I need to be careful.

Fortunately, the streetcar makes frequent stops to let people on and off, which gives me a chance both to rest and to try to get a glimpse inside. Unfortunately, the cold has made the windows frosty, and I can’t see through them. And if the girl is with Sauer and Lottie, I don’t want to get on and risk a confrontation in front of so many people. So I watch to see if Sauer or either woman gets off, but they don’t. I can only hope that I’m right about them being on it.

Once again I wonder who the girl is. Twice now I’ve had the chance to kill her, and twice I haven’t. I can’t explain why, except that, for reasons I don’t entirely understand, I want to know who she is. And it’s not just that she’s undeniably beautiful. It’s more than that. There’s something about her that at the same time feels both very familiar and completely foreign. For one thing, she also could have killed me but didn’t. And I know she has no problem killing. She took down the two MGB agents without blinking. No ordinary soldier would do that—or even be able to. You have to be a certain kind of person to kill so easily, or at least to make it look so easy.

Someone like a Player, I think.

Maybe my line isn’t the only one that’s after Sauer. Maybe the girl is Playing too.

She’s the right age. Also, she’s a, well, she. Most militaries don’t train women to fight. They’re mainly nurses or some other kind of noncombat personnel. Yet she fights like a soldier—a highly trained soldier. She had to learn it somewhere, and despite her remark about street fighting, there’s no way she got this good from a couple of brawls on a playground.

If she is Playing, then the question is: for which line? She said she was Greek, so if she wasn’t lying, she’s a Minoan. If another line wants Sauer badly enough to kill for him, then what he knows has to have some bearing on Endgame. I don’t believe for one second the girl’s story about him being an art historian. Something bigger is happening here. Once again, I question why my own council hasn’t told me what it is.

I think again of how she reminds me of Wonder Woman. The Amazon princess. What was her real name? Diana Prince. Maybe that’s what I should call her. Diana. Diana was also the goddess of the hunt, so it fits there too. We’re both hunters, after the same quarry. Has she already caught them? I still don’t know.

The streetcar stops, and again the doors open. I peer through the open door as people get out, and just for a second I see a face looking back at me. It’s Sauer. Our eyes meet, and a look of panic appears on Sauer’s face. His eyes dart away, then back to me, and for a moment I think he’s about to run off the streetcar. Then the doors close.

What did the look mean? Was he afraid because he saw me? Or was it because Diana was with him, making sure he didn’t get away? I don’t know. But now at least I know that he’s on the streetcar, and it renews my desire to follow it wherever it goes.

When the streetcar crosses from the American sector to the Soviet sector, I worry for a moment that I might be stopped. Although people are still free to move around the city, an American soldier walking into Soviet territory could be suspicious. But it’s Christmas Eve, and lots of people are going back and forth to visit friends and family, so I risk it. As I walk past the big sign announcing YOU ARE LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR, I barely get a glance from the grim-faced Red Army soldiers standing around cradling their rifles in their arms.

Even though it’s the same city, the Soviet sector of Berlin feels different. There’s a tenseness here, as if the residents and even the buildings are holding their breaths. The people walking around seem to be in a hurry to get wherever it is they’re going. Instead of looking at one another, they look at the ground. Even the snowfall seems heavier here, the cold more biting. I pull up the collar of my coat and glance over my shoulder, more on guard than usual.

The streetcar makes less frequent stops as it moves deeper into Soviet-controlled territory. Thanks to the snow and the outdated and unreliable overhead wires that power the streetcar, it moves slowly enough that I can keep up with it without having to do an all-out run. Then it stops at the corner of a street lined with nondescript apartment buildings, and half a dozen people get off. Three of them detach from the group and walk away, and as they pass through the glow of a streetlight I see that one of them is wearing a red scarf. Sauer. And the other two are Lottie and Diana.

The trio walks quickly. Diana stays one pace behind the other two. I wonder if they’ve come willingly or if she’s got a gun to their backs. If she’s a Player too, Sauer is the one she wants, so perhaps she’s told him she’ll kill Lottie if he doesn’t play along. As my father always says, love is the greatest danger of all. It’s why he’s warned me not to fall in love until I’m no longer a Player. When you have something you’re afraid of losing, it gives your enemies a weapon to use against you.

Three blocks later, the group walks into a building that looks like all the other ones on the street. Five stories tall. Surprisingly undamaged. They disappear through a door, and I wait outside across the street. I keep my eyes on the windows, scanning the floors in an orderly manner from top to bottom, then back up. As I’m scanning for the fourth time, a light goes on. I note which apartment it is. Fourth floor, third from the left.

“Bingo,” I say aloud. “Got you.”