But the OSS office in Bern had resources. When the Peace was signed, he’d radioed, and they’d easily gotten Edouard’s address and phone number for him.
So he phoned from the airport. Berta answered, and sounding delighted, invited him to supper. He suggested instead that they all eat at a restaurant, at his expense, but she insisted. “I am actually quite a good cook,” she said. “And while many things are hard to get here, I have learned to do nicely.”
Lotta would be home at about 4:30, she said, and Edouard by 6:00. If he could be there at 6:30 …
A taxi delivered him at the curb at 6:34, and putting down the two suitcases he carried, he rang their bell. It was Berta’s voice that answered, and Edouard who came down to meet him. Edouard’s eyebrows rose at the suitcases.
Macurdy gestured. “A few presents,” he said, “mostly for Lotta.”
They went upstairs together, neither of them making even small talk. They’d have to get used to each other again, Macurdy decided.
The apartment was on the third floor, at the end of a hallway smelling faintly of varnish and cleaning compound. At first it was Berta who carried the conversation. Lotta had grown and changed in 12 months, but was still shy. By the time they’d finished the custard Berta had made for dessert, Macurdy and Edouard had loosened up and warmed up. Then Lotta, though still less than talkative, brought out almost every possession she had, for Macurdy to see and admire.
Which led him to open one of the suitcases he’d brought, the larger, with things for her. Anna Von Lutzow had helped him shop. Mostly they were dolls and stuffed animals, but there was also a bright orange rain cape and a gold-plated fountain pen. It earned him a hard hug and a kiss on the cheek from Lotta, and moist eyes from Edouard and Berta.
For Berta he’d bought a white nylon blouse-Anna had helped him-and a purse with several compartments; for Edouard a heavy sweater of Scottish wool, and a camera. For the two of them together he’d brought a liter of good cognac, and the suitcases, which they were to keep.
Afterward they sat in the living room and sampled the cognac while they talked. They told him about their new life-neither wanted to return to Germany, despite the end of the war, though “someday we shall visit”-and he told them a bit about his life before the war, leaving out the years in Yuulith, of course, and his first two marriages.
“You seem too young for all that,” Edouard said. “I would have guessed your age at, oh, twenty-five perhaps. Although already in Germany I had decided you were older.” He cocked an eyebrow. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-one.” He’d been tempted to say forty-one, his actual age, but that would require difficult explanations. It occurred to Macurdy that with the secrets he had, close friendships of long duration would be few.
“Remarkable,” Edouard said. “Don’t you think so, Berta?”
“Yes, remarkable, but somehow I am not surprised.” She laughed. “After the things we have seen you do, Herr Macurdy–Curtis– we are not so easily surprised as we might have been.”
He didn’t stay late. At nine they sent Lotta off to bed. She hugged and kissed Macurdy again before she left. Shortly afterward he phoned for a cab. Before he and Edouard went downstairs to wait, Berta too hugged him, and kissed his cheek.
“We will write to you,” she said, “and you must write to us. Because you are Lotta’s uncle Curds, which makes you our brother.” She paused. “You were a soldier, but also you were a human being. We have talked of you often. You have our highest respect and admiration.”
“Thank you,” Macurdy said, feeling awkward. “I am honored. You both have my respect and admiration, and not only because of what you are doing for Lotta.”
While he and Edouard waited in the foyer for the cab, they found little to say again. Then the cab arrived, and before Macurdy left, the two men shook hands, a long process, as if there was more to say but they didn’t know what.