Greg Iles - The Spandau Phoenix

why he'd come to Berlin. Hans often wondered that himself Three years

it had been now. He hardly thought of Munich anymore. He'd married

ilse after just five months here in Berlin. Christ, what a wedding it

had been. His mother-still furious at him for becoming a policeman-had

refused to attend, and Hauer had not been included in the plans. But

he'd shown up anyway, Hans remembered. Hans had spied his rigid,

uniformed figure outside the church, standing alone at the end of the

block. Hans had pretended not to notice, but Ilse had waved quite

deliberately to him as they climbed into the wedding car.

Angry again, Hans wolfed down another sausage and tried to concentrate

on the television. A silver-haired windbag of a Frankfurt banker was

dispensing financial advice to viewers saddled with the burden of

surplus cash. Hans snorted in disgust. At fifteen hundred

Deutschemarks per month, a Berlin policeman made barely enough money to

pay rent and buy groceries. Without Ilse's income, they would be

shivering in a cold-water flat in Kreuzberg. He wanted to switch

channels, but the old Siemens black-and-white had been built in the dark

ages before remote control. He stayed where he was.

He took another bite of sausage and stared blankly at the screen.

Beneath his stockinged feet, the wrinkled sheaf of papers waited, a

tantalizing mystery beckoning him to explore. Yet he had already hit a

dead end. The strange, staring eye hovered in his mind, taunting him.

After breakfast, he decided, he would take a shower and then have

another go at the papers.

He never made it off the bed. Exhaustion and the warm air overcame him

even before he finished the sausage. He slid down the duvet, the

unfinished plate balanced precariously on his lap, the Spandau papers

hidden just beneath his feet.

10.15 A.m. French Sector. West Berlin

Ilse hated these visits. No matter how many times she saw her

Gynakologe, she never got used to it. Ever. The astringent smell of

alcohol, the gleaming stainless steel, the cold table, palpating

fingers, the overly solicitous voice of the physician, who sometimes

peered directly into her eyes from between her upraised legs: all these

combined to produce a primal anxiety that solidified like ice in the

hollow of her chest. Ilse knew about the necessity of annual checkups,

but until she and Hans had begun trying to have a child, she'd skipped

more exams than she would care to admit.

All that had changed eighteen months ago. She had been up in the

stirrups so many times now that the stress of the ordeal had almost

diminished to that of a visit to the dentist-but not quite. Unlike many

German women, Ilse possessed an extreme sense of modesty about her body.

She suspected it was because she had never known her mother, but

whatever the reason, being forced to expose herself to a stranger,

albeit a doctor, for her required a considerable act of will. Only her

strong desire to have children allowed her to endure the interminable

series of examinations and therapies designed to enhance fertility.

"All done, Frau Apfel," Doctor Grauber said. He handed a slide to his

waiting nurse. Ilse heard that hard snap as he stripped off his

surgical gloves and raised the lid of the waste bin with his foot. It

crashed down, sending gooseflesh racing across her neck and shoulders.

"I'll see you in my office after you've dressed."

Ilse heard the door open and close. The nurse started to help her out

of the stirrups, but she quickly raised herself and reached for her

clothes.

Dr. Grauber's office was messy but well-appointed, full of books and

old medical instruments and framed degrees and the smell of cigars.

Ilse noticed none of this. She was here for one thing-an answer.

Was she pregnant or was she sick? The two possibilities wrestled in her

mind. Her instinct said pregnant. She and Hans had been trying for so

long now, and the other option was too unnatural to think about.

Her body was strong and supple, lean and hard. Like the flanks of a

lioness, Hans said once (as if he knew what a lioness felt like).

How could she be sick? She felt so well.

But she knew. Exterior health was no guarantee of immunity. Ilse had

seen two friends younger than she stricken with cancer. One had died,

the other had lost a breast. She wondered how Hans would react to

something like that. Disfigurement. He would never admit to revulsion,

of course, but it would matter. Hans loved her body-worshipped it,

really. Ever since their first night together, he had slowly encouraged

her until she felt comfortable before him naked.

Now she could turn gracefully about the room like a ballerina, or

sometimes just stand silently, still as alabaster.

"That was quick!" Dr. Grauber boomed, striding in and taking a seat

behind his chaotic desk.

Ilse pressed her back into the tufted leather sofa. She wanted to be

ready, no matter what the diagnosis. As she met the doctor's eyes, a

nurse stepped into the office.

She handed him a slip of paper and went out. Grauber glanced at it,

sighed, then looked up.

What he saw startled him. The poise and concentration with which Ilse

watched him made him forget the slip of paper in his hand. Her blue

eyes shone with frank and disarming curiosity, her skin with luminous

vitality. She wore little or no makeup-the luxury of youth, Grauber

thought-and her hair had that transparent blondness that makes the hands

tingle to touch it. But it wasn't all that, he decided.

Ilse Apfel was no film star. He knew a dozen women as striking as she.

It was something other than fine features, deeper than the glow of

youth. Not elegance, or earthiness, or even a hint of that intangible

scent Grauber called availability.

No, it was, quite simply, grace. Ilse possessed that rare beauty made

rarer still by apparent unconsciousness of itself.

When Grauber caught himself admiring her breasts-high and round, more

Gallic than Teutonic, he thought-he flushed and looked quickly back at

the slip of paper in his hand.

"Well," he coughed. "That's that."

Ilse waited expectantly, too anxious to ask for the verdict.

"Your urine indicates pregnancy," Grauber announced.

"I'd like to draw some blood, of course,'confirm the urine with a

beta-subunit test, but I'd say that's just a formality.

Would you like to bring Hans in? I know he'll be excited."

Ilse colored. "Hans didn't come this time."

Grauber raised his eyebrows in surprise. "That's a first.

He's got to be the most concerned husband I've ever met."

The smile faded. "Are you all right, Ilse? You look as though I'd just

given you three months to live."

Ilse felt wings beating within her chest. After all her anxiety, she

found it hard to accept fulfillment of her deepest hope. "I really

didn't expect this," she murmured. "I was afraid to hope for it. My

mother died when I was born, you know, and it's ... it's just very

important, to me to have a child of my own."

"Well, you've got one started," said Grauber. "Now our job is to see

that he-or she-arrives as ordered. I've got a copy of the standard

visiting schedule, and there's the matter of . . ."

Ilse heard nothing else. The doctor's news had lifted her spirit to a

plane where no mundane detail could intrude.

When the lab technician drew her blood, she felt no needle prick, and on

her way out of the office the receptionist had to call her name three