You couldn’t mold millions of people the way you could your own child.
It was for the best that Mama hadn’t been in charge of an entire country. Every little girl would have been forced to walk for thirty minutes each day with a book on her head, and every husband would have been lectured regularly on how to fold the morning newspaper just so.
Hours passed, and Devin sat next to her the whole way. He never seemed to sleep. She would nod off, then jerk up her head to find him alert and reading the latest editions of the New York and London newspapers. He was polite; he knew when to speak and when to be quiet, but he was there.
They changed planes in Frankfurt to Air France, one of the airlines with permission to fly into Berlin’s Tegel airport. By then Pagan was so tired and grumpy, the plane could have been a flying palace and she would have found something to complain about. Devin Black just kept reading, taking one of the German language journals from the stewardess with a smile. By the time they reached Berlin, fatigue had smudged dark circles under his eyes, but he seemed alert. Pagan decided he was either a robot or one of the aliens from Invaders from Mars.
Tegel airport had a dreary, military air, and men in French uniforms stamped their passports. A chauffeur was waiting in a large Mercedes-Benz. The sight of the car set off the usual jitters in Pagan, echoes of the accident, but as she had with the cab to LAX, she shoved them into a dark corner of her mind and made herself get in. As they left the airport with the rising sun at their backs, her nerves calmed and she could look around.
The car sped down a tree-lined road with the blue-gray River Spree on the left. The streets were busy with foot traffic, motorcycles, and cars, but Pagan couldn’t help noticing the number of armed men in uniform either walking or stationed on various street corners. A vivid reminder that West Berlin was a lone island surrounded on all sides by the hostile Communist East Germany.
“We’re in the French sector of the city at the moment,” Devin said. “But we’re staying in the American sector at the new Hilton. It’s very close to the Tiergarten, which has grown back nicely since the war—”
“It sounds lovely.” She interrupted him in a repressive tone. “Perhaps after I’ve gotten some rest far away from you, I’ll give a damn.”
“You can rest,” he said, his voice calm in a way that only irritated her more. “But I won’t be far away.”
She turned to look at him. “What does that mean?”
“It means I can’t trust you.” His voice was bland, but his face carried a warning.
“I never promised you anything—” she started to say.
“You signed a contract,” he said, voice getting sharper, “which includes a clause stating that you have a guardian, with all the authority of a parent. Deviate from my orders and you could go back to prison.”
“I’m not your child,” she said, just as sharp. “Or your slave, or your wife.”
“You’re my ward,” he said. “You’re on parole, and it’s very easy for me to make a call to the judge.”
She lapsed into fuming silence, her head abuzz with fatigue and fury. Maybe some of this was her fault. Fine. But why, when boys broke the rules, did they get called “rebels” and “hotheads,” while girls were “bad”? Pagan being a nice little girl hadn’t kept Mama from dying, so she’d done what she wanted after that. She saw no reason to change now.
There had to be a way out from this new Devin-bound prison, an escape. That’s what alcohol had always provided, and without that tool available to her, she had to find a new way to be free.
Devin had too much power over her. But he also had secrets—there was more to him than just some minor studio executive. If she could decrypt the riddle that was Devin Black, she might find her freedom that way.
They drove past a crowd of people lining up in front of a warehouse-like building. Thousands of men and women in neat summer clothes were carrying suitcases and shepherding children. Pagan remembered what she’d read about the mass exodus of people from East Berlin and craned her neck to see if these were indeed immigrants from East Berlin. No way was she going to ask Devin a question now. She glimpsed a sign: Réfugiés/Flüchtling.
“That’s the French sector processing center for refugees,” Devin said as if she’d asked him aloud. His voice was friendly as ever. “The city gets nearly two thousand a day. The other borders with East Germany are closed, so Berlin’s the last place of escape. For now.”
She didn’t reply as the car entered a wooded area. Up ahead loomed a column that glinted gold on top. She leaned forward to look up at it through the windshield and caught sight of a glittering winged statue with arms outstretched.
“The Victory Column,” Devin said, still in his best tourist guide voice. “But the Berliners call it Goldenelse—Golden Lizzy. The Prussians erected it last century to commemorate their victory over the Danish. But by the time it was done, they’d also defeated Austria and France in other wars, so it covers a lot of victories.”
Pagan said nothing as they circled the monument’s red granite base. A lot of wars had come and gone since then. The Germans sure wouldn’t be erecting a victory column to commemorate the last one.
The parkland gave way to newly constructed buildings, some still with scaffolding. “Still rebuilding,” Devin said. “From the war.”
Pagan stared. Sixteen years later they were still rebuilding?
It was one thing to read about World War II, another to see how people’s lives were still affected by it here. No wonder Berliners were fond of Golden Lizzy, their angel. They needed one.
Pagan could’ve used an angel, too, a few times in her life, but how could her tiny little troubles stack up against what Berlin—what all of Europe—had been through? Hollywood seemed like the center of the universe when you were there, making movies, attending award shows, reading about yourself in the paper. But Berlin was a reminder that in the big-budget epic of the history of the world, Pagan was nothing but an extra.
* * *
The Hilton was sleekly modern and sparkling behind its subdued but gracious facade. Pagan blearily followed the bellboy and her luggage up to her room. When Devin stopped at the door next to hers and let his bellman take his luggage inside, relief overtook her. So she would get time to herself after all. And if she needed to, she could walk quietly past his door and he’d be none the wiser.
The room turned out to be a suite. She gave the bellboy five dollars, apologizing in German that came out better than she expected that she didn’t have any German marks. He replied in perfect English that dollars were better anyway.
Then she was blessedly alone, wandering from the large living area with its low-slung sofa and large curtained windows looking onto the Tiergarten to a set of double doors that led to a room with a queen-size bed and adjoining bathroom.
She kicked off her shoes and began unzipping her dress. Lovely as it was, she couldn’t wait to get it off and crawl into the fluffy red-and-white bed, which, as usual, had way too many pillows. She unsnapped her garters, yanked off her stockings, and walked barefoot over the thick carpet to investigate another set of double doors. They opened up to reveal a second bedroom, complete with its own bed and bathroom.
She stood in that doorway,
