The Pale House (26 page)

Reinhardt made his way back into the theater, back into the warmth of the crowd, but the heat was stifling—unbearable even—the words and laughter a buffet of noise he could not absorb, and could only suffer.

They said their good-byes on the edge of the woods where they overlooked the valley, where Reinhardt had sat and felt the new truths of who he was and what he needed to do settle over him. The front lines in this battle were still fluid, with Operation Schwarz merging and washing over the slopes of the mountains and the forests that cloaked them. The Partisans thought it would take at least two days of walking, of maneuvering, of twisting and sliding and backtracking through the forest, of laying low and burrowing into cover when needed, before Reinhardt and his escort would be able to make it to the point they had selected. They would leave him there to struggle down on his own, rejoin his lines, use the story they had concocted together, and hope for the best.

“It has been a strange road we've traveled, has it not, my friend?” Reinhardt looked across at
. The little man was desperately tired. It showed in his carriage, in the long lines drawn down the sides of his face.

“With stranger yet to come. Would it be strange to say, though, what I feel most is elation . . . ?”

smiled. “The elation of truths revealed. I can remember feeling so. But truths need to be put to the test.”

“And mine are still ahead of me. I know.” Reinhardt breathed deeply. The British liaison officer, Major Sanburne, and his men had left the day before, following a Partisan brigade farther south as it looked for a chink in the German lines. Sanburne had been skeptical of Reinhardt's decision to go back. It was too risky, too foolish a use of a valuable prisoner, the British officer all for bundling him into a sack and sending him down to the coast to be picked up by the navy, shipped off to Alexandria and put to work there. But Reinhardt was the Partisans' prisoner, and the Partisans seemed open to what Reinhardt was suggesting.

“You know I am not your agent,” Reinhardt said, again.

“I know it,” said
. “But others will not understand the finer points. They will see you as an asset to be used. The time will come when they will want you. That will mean betrayal. Of your men to us. And no matter the circumstances, betrayal is never a step taken lightly. But it will be either that or the risk that you are exposed back to the Germans.”

“And so the finer points of one's conscience run counter to the realities we live among,” mused Reinhardt. It felt like a trite piece of homespun philosophy, but it stemmed from his elation and a drive to do something different. Anything different.

“The first thing you'll have to do is hide that grin,” smiled
.

“Long faces are my speciality,” said Reinhardt.

The play ended, pulling him back and up to the here and now. The actors bowed, the audience applauding enthusiastically. People rose to their feet, turning this way and that with smiles on their faces. Reinhardt shrugged back into his coat and slipped into the crowd as it shuffled out. An elderly woman next to him said something brightly, and he smiled at her, not understanding what she had said, another chink in his mood appearing as he felt himself distinct from the crowd, remembering he was not one of them and never would be. He stepped into the foyer, keeping to the walls, and sliding his shoulders through the people who milled across the room, couples arm in arm, friends, all talking animatedly. He kept his eyes distant and on the door, what he hoped would pass for a polite smile on his face, and found a corner to stand in and wait. People passed, some looked at him, he heard the word
German
once, twice, and could not help the guilty flush that swept through him, like someone had clapped something hot to the back of his neck.

“There you are.”

He blinked, breathed, and saw
standing next to him, a quizzical smile on her face. Reinhardt nodded, a smile coming of its own accord. “So? You understood it?”

“Some of it. Enough.”

smiled at him. “I should introduce you to the playwright. He will be most amused.”

“Please. Do not,” said Reinhardt.
looked at him quizzically. “I would not wish to be the object of any attention. Not here. Not tonight. This was . . . not a time for . . . Not a time for outsiders,” he managed.
cocked her head at him, that quizzical set to her mouth moving to her eyes. “I enjoyed it. But I think . . .” He paused, and she turned to him, saying nothing. “I think I enjoyed being with you all more,” Reinhardt managed, after a moment. It felt weak, insufficient to the gift she had offered him, but Reinhardt's mind was still slung between
attic, and that last memory of
, and the happiness he had felt in himself.