"Where is this Berlin already?" said Tatiana.

Penny replied, "You're in it."

Tatiana looked around at the long rows of houses. "This is not Berlin."

"Yes, it is. What were you expecting?"

"Big buildings. The Reichstag. The Brandenburg game."

"What do you think firebombing means?" Martin said loftily. "There is no more Reichstag. There are no more big buildings." They drove on to the center of town.

Tatiana pointed. "I see the Brandenburg gate is still standing."

Martin fell quiet.

Berlin.

Post-war Berlin.

Tatiana didn't know what she was expecting, but having lived through a bombed Leningrad, she had braced herself for the worst, and was still surprised by the destruction she found. Berlin wasn't a city, it was a ruin of biblical devastation. Most buildings in inner Berlin were lying in rubble, and the residents lived in the shadow of those ruins, as their children played amid the broken concrete, as they hung their washing out to dry from one mangled steel post to another. They built tents around the places where they used to live, and made fires in pits in the ground, and ate what they could and lived how they could. That was the American sector.

The Tiergarten Park that had made Berlin famous was now the stomping ground for thousands of displaced Berliners, the River Spree was polluted with cement ash, glass, sulfur, sodium nitrate-the debris of firebombing that left nearly three quarters of the central city razed to the pavement.

Penny was right. Berlin was not cramped like New York into a cigarette pack of an island, was not even like Leningrad, a neat ink blot stopped by the gulf. Berlin sprawled in all directions, broken buildings jutting out for miles.

No wonder the sectors were so hard to contain, Tatiana thought. There isn't one way in and one way out, there are hundreds of ways in. Tatiana wondered how the Soviets were keeping all the Germans from escaping into the American, French and English sectors.

Martin explained. "I told you, because all the Germans are in jail."

"All the Germans?"

"The rest are dead."

They met with the American military governor in Berlin, an ageing brigadier general by the name of Mark Bishop originally from Washington Heights in Manhattan, who fed them, was very interested in news from back home, and let Tatiana telegraph a wire to Vikki and Anthony ("AM WELL AND SAFE. MISS YOU. LOVE YOU.") and one to Sam Gulotta ("IN BERLIN. ANY NEWS? ANY HELP?") and put them up in a hostel for the night. The building was badly damaged but inhabitable. The inside walls had partly collapsed and the windows were all blown out. But many medical and military personnel used the building to sleep in, and so did Tatiana, Penny, and Martin. Tatiana and Penny shared a room. It was June, it was breezy and cool and there was the constant noise of awake men coming from the outside. Tatiana slept lightly with her hand heavily on the pistol.

Alexander of the broken hearted! Alexander of the innocent, the eloquent, the invincible, the invisible, the inordinate, Alexander of the warrior, the combatant, the commander, Alexander of the water and the fire and the sky, Alexander of my soul-good Lord, deliver me to you, to my soldier man of the tanks and the trenches, of the smoke and the sorrow, to Alexander of all my bliss and my longing, to you wherever you may be-I am searching for you. Please O God be on this earth, Alexander of my heart.

The next morning, there was a telegram from Sam waiting for her at Bishop's administrative offices. "YOU ARE MAD. JOHN RAVENSTOCK CONSULATE. HE WILL HELP."

Vikki also telegraphed: "COME HOME. WE HAVE NO BREAD."

Mark Bishop himself, eager to get the Red Cross inside the Soviet zone of occupation, took the three of them through the Brandenburg gate to meet with the lieutenant-general of the Berlin garrison who was also the military commander of Berlin.

"He doesn't speak English. Do any of you speak Russian, or do I have to get an interpreter?" asked Bishop.

Martin volunteered Tatiana. "She speaks Russian."

She would have to talk to him about volunteering her for things.

"Tania, you don't mind translating, do you?" said Penny.

"Not at all. I do my best," Tatiana replied, and then took Penny a side. "Penny," she whispered, "don't call me Tania, all right? We're in Soviet territory. Don't call me by my Russian name. Call me Nurse Barrington."

"I didn't even think, I'm sorry," Penny said and smiled. "All that lovin' must be going to my brain."

"Did you take your penicillin shot today? Yesterday you forgot."

"I took it. I'm nearly all better. Thank God for penicillin, huh?"

Tatiana smiled wanly, cringed slightly.

The buildings on the boulevard Unter den Linden in the district of Mitte that had been commandeered to quarter the Soviet army were as decrepit as the hostel Tatiana had slept in. Tatiana was stunned most of all not by the destruction, but by the absolute and foreboding lack of reconstruction, a year after the war. New York, which was not even bombed, was building feverishly as if it were gearing up for the next century. Yet the eastern section of Berlin was stagnant and ruined and sad.

"Commander Bishop, why is it so quiet here? Why isn't Berlin rebuilding?"

"We are rebuilding. Slowly."

"Not that I can see."

"Nurse Barrington, the tragedy that is Berlin I cannot explain in the five minutes before we meet the Soviet garrison commander. The Soviets don't want to pay for the rebuilding. They want the Germans to pay for the rebuilding."

"All right," said Tatiana, "Berlin is a German city. They should."

"Ah. But first the Soviets want to rebuild the Soviet Union. It's only right."

"It is."

"So there is no money for eastern Berlin. Or brains. They're sending all the engineers and all the money to the Soviet Union."

"Why don't the western Allies help?"

"If only it were that simple. The very last thing the Soviets want is our help in their occupied zone. They hate us being in Berlin. They wish we weren't here. They're going to try to force us out, you'll see. They accept nothing from us. You'll see how impossible it will be to convince the garrison commander to enter the concentration camps even for humanitarian reasons."

"They just don't want us to see how badly they're treating German men," said Tatiana.

"Maybe. But they want us out. I'm not looking forward to this meeting."

The stairs inside the building were marble. It was broken and chipped marble, but it was marble nonetheless. The lieutenant general was waiting for the four of them in his quarters.

They went in. He turned around and smiled. Tatiana gasped out loud.

It was Mikhail Stepanov.

Penny and Martin turned around to look at her. She stepped behind Martin to collect herself. Would he recognize her with her black hair and no freckles and all that makeup? After making the introductions, the governor said, "Nurse Barrington, will you come forward and translate for us, please."

There was nowhere to go. Tatiana stepped forward. She did not smile and Stepanov did not smile at her. He stood completely still and his eyes barely blinked. The only movement his body made in acknowledgement of her was his hand gripping the edge of his desk.

"Hello, General Stepanov," she said in Russian.

"Hello, Nurse Barrington," he said.

Her lips were shaking as she translated for the military governor. The Red Cross was offering to help disperse much needed medical help to the thousands of Germans held by the Soviets in eastern Germany. Could they have permission to administer the aid?

"I think they will need quite a lot of aid," said Stepanov. He still stood straight, but he looked older. He looked tired. There was a worn-out expression in his eyes that said he had seen too much and was finished with nearly all of it. "The camps are not run very well, I'm afraid. The Germans were taken prisoner as part of the reparations effort to help rebuild Soviet Russia, but we're finding that many of them have simply lost their will to work."

"Let us help them," said Tatiana.

Stepanov invited them to sit down. They sat. Tatiana fell into her chair. Thank God she didn't have to stand anymore. "There is a real problem, unfortunately," Stepanov said, "and I don't know if your little parcels are going to do the trick here. There is a growing hatred toward the German prisoners in Berlin and the surrounding areas, a lack of the military discipline essential for running the camps properly, no training for our prison guards, no experience. This all provokes an endless cycle of crime-escape, resistance to the guards and violence. The political costs are quite harsh. Many German workers, who would otherwise work for us and help us, are refusing. In their rebellion, the workers are fleeing to the western zones. It's a problem that we're going to need to address, and soon, and I fear that the Red Cross might simply inflame an already unstable situation."

When Tatiana translated Stepanov's words, Martin said, "The lieutenant general is absolutely right. We have no business here. We don't know what we're playing with."

But Tatiana did not translate that into Russian. Instead she said, "The International Red Cross is a neutral body. We do not take sides."

"You would if you saw these camps." Stepanov shook his head. "I have been trying to get something done about the inequitable distribution of food, the unsanitary conditions, the arbitrary and unfair enforcement of rules. Four months ago I ordered the squalid conditions of the camps to be corrected, to no avail. The army contingent responsible for the Russian camps refuses to punish abuses in its own ranks, leading only to more hostilities."

"The Russian camps?" said Tatiana. "You mean the German camps?"

Stepanov blinked. "Russians in there, too, Nurse Barrington," he said, staring at her. "Or at least there were four months ago."

Tatiana began to tremble.

"What army contingent is responsible for the camps? Maybe I-we-should go talk to them."

"You'd have to go to Moscow and speak to a Lavrenti Beria," said Stepanov. He smiled grimly. "Though I wouldn't recommend it-rumors say that having coffee with Beria can be a life-ending experience."

Tatiana clasped her hands between her legs. She did not trust her body to remain impassive. So the NKVD governed the concentration camps in Germany!

"What did he say, Ta-Nurse Barrington?" Penny asked. "You're forgetting to translate."

Martin said, "Our minds are already made up. This is a waste of our resources."

Tatiana turned to him. "We have plenty of resources, Dr. Flanagan. We have the whole United States of America as our resource. The commander is saying that camps desperately need our help. What, are we going to back out now when we discover to our dismay that they need help even more than we thought they did when we came here?"

"Nurse Barrington makes a good point, Dr. Flanagan," said Penny, keeping a serious face.

"The point is to help those who have a way of saving themselves," Martin declared.

"You know what? Let's help first, then we let them sort out if they can help themselves." She turned back to Stepanov. Quietly she said, "Sir, how did you get here?"

"What are you asking him?" said Bishop.

"They transferred me after the fall of Berlin," Stepanov replied. "I was doing too good a job in Leningrad. That'll teach me. They thought I could do the same here. But this isn't Leningrad. Leningrad doesn't have any of these problems. Different problems, with food and housing and clothing and fuel, yes, but Berlin has all that plus a clash of countries, of people, of economies, of justice, of reparations, of punishment. The morass I'm afraid is sinking me." He fell quiet. "I don't think I'm going to last much longer here."

Tatiana took his hand. The military governor, Martin, and Penny all gaped at her.

"He who brought your son back," she breathed out. "Where is he?"

Stepanov shook his head, his eyes on the hand that held his.

"Where?"

He raised his eyes. "Sachsenhausen. Special Camp Number 7."

Tatiana squeezed him, and released him. "Thank you, Lieutenant General."

"What did the general say about Sachsenhausen?" Martin said. "You're forgetting to translate. Maybe we should get an interpreter."

"He was telling me where I'm needed most," Tatiana said, with an effort getting up out of her chair and standing on her unsteady legs. Her mouth was dry. "We would appreciate directions to the camps, sir. Maybe a relief map of the area, just in case? Will you please telegraph them to let them know we're coming? We will telegraph Hamburg for more Red Cross convoys to come to Berlin. We will get enough kits and food into your camps, we promise. It won't correct all the ills, but it will be something, it will be better."

They all shook hands. Stepanov nodded to Tatiana. "Go soon," he said. "The Russian prisoners are doing very poorly. They've been getting transferred to the Kolyma camps over the last several months. You may already be too late for them."

As they were leaving, Tatiana turned around one last time to glance at Stepanov, who was once again standing stiffly beside his desk. He raised his hand. "You're not safe," he said. "You're on the class enemies number one list. I'm not safe. And he is not safe most of all."

"What did he say?" asked Martin as they left.

"Nothing."

"Oh, it's ridiculous! Governor." He turned to Bishop. "Nurse Barrington is obviously keeping important information from us."

"Dr. Flanagan," said Bishop, "you obviously don't speak another language. Whenever you translate, you translate only the salient points."

"I have certainly done that," said Tatiana. When they got outside, she had to sit down on a hunk of mortar that was lying near what used to be an esthetically pleasing fountain.

Bishop came over and perched next to her. "He said the word vrag to you as we were leaving. I know that means enemy. What was he saying?"

Tatiana had to take a number of breaths before she could find her composed voice. Quietly she said, "He told us the Soviet army regards us-the Americans-as the enemy. Nothing we can do about that. I didn't want to say that out loud. The doctor"-she nodded in Martin's direction-"is weak-stomached as it is."

The governor smiled. "Understood." He patted her arm, looking at her with approval. "Not like you?" They walked back to Penny and Martin.

"Governor," said Martin, "do you think we should go to Sachsenhausen?"

"I don't see how it can be avoided, Doctor. That's what you came here for. Your nurse here got him to agree to let us into the camps. How did you do it, Nurse Barrington? That's a huge breakthrough for the Red Cross efforts. I will telegraph Hamburg immediately, ask them to send another forty thousand kits."

"Wait, Tania," said Penny, "I want you to explain how you took hold of a Soviet general's hand, got him to let us into the work camps, and not have him call the secret police on you?"

"I am a nurse," said Tatiana. "I touch them all."

"You shouldn't be getting so friendly with the Soviets," said Martin censoriously. "Remember we're neutral."

"Neutral does not imply indifferent, Martin," said Tatiana. "Neutral does not mean unhelpful, uncomforting. Neutral means we do not take sides."

"Not in your professional life," said the governor. "But Nurse Barrington, the Soviets are barbarous. Do you know that they closed off Berlin for eight days after the German surrender? Closed it off to our armies. For eight days! No one could get in. What do you think they were doing here?"

"I don't want to guess," she said.

"Raping young women like you. Killing men like Dr. Flanagan. Pillaging every house still standing. Burning Berlin."

"Yes. Have you seen what the Germans did to Russia?"