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In between air raid sirens, translating unencrypted German documents in a tiny, freezing office in London, Brian remembers Berlin. His memories are scattered, flashes of color and sound: Sally's nail polish, jazz on the record player, Fritz stumbling through the pluperfect, the deadly slide of Maximilian's sheets. Everything is overlaid with black and red, newspaper headlines plastered across the familiar faces and a rising drumbeat in the background.
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Sally Bowles was delirious and devastating, charming and tempestuous. Brian fell in love with her eccentricities immediately, toothpaste-flavored prairie oyster still blistering his tongue. Eventually he fell in love with Sally, too.
Sally fucked like she danced, like she sang, all power and passion and soaring notes. She wasn't tentative, like Kate had been, or stiff, like Margaret. She didn't seem to mind, as Anna had, that he didn't know what he was doing. Instead, she put his hands on her body where she needed them and raked her nails down his back.
"Let me," Sally said, "darling," and Brian let her have whatever she wanted.
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He gets exactly one telegram from Sally, ten precise words on the 10th of January, 1932: Dear Brian. New Lodger Very Ugly. Hope England Great. Love. He writes back, paying the extra for additional words, but it doesn't matter because Sally is burning her bridges.
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Maximilian von Heune was as insidious as Nazi propaganda. He was everywhere, with smiles and promises, sweaters and cigarette cases. He pushed his way into their lives with the ease of accomplished seduction.
By the time Max had Brian exactly where he wanted him - face down and naked in Max's divinely decadent bed - Brian had forgotten what his defenses were there for in the first place.
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In October of 1934 he sees Fritz in London.
"Berlin is different, now," Fritz says, sipping cautiously at his gin and tonic. "But we are - okay. Natalia's father is protective of Natalia and the baby, and Natalia is protective of me." He drags a battered photograph of his son out of his jacket pocket, beaming with paternal pride.
"Don't you miss being a gigolo?" Brian asks, and Fritz laughs.
"Mostly, no. The money flows." Fritz is in London on business for the Landauers. "And there is Natalia."
Brian does not ask about Sally, but eventually Fritz sets his glass on the table and pauses for just a little too long. "Sally I have not heard from, not since the Nazis shut down the cabaret because of the communists."
"I see." Brian looks away.
"I am sorry, Brian."
"Fritz - " Brian begins, but he doesn't know where to start, and when he says good-bye he doesn't say, "be careful." Fritz promises to write, but then it is 1935 and 1939 and 1941 and there is never any word.
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Max's fingers were smooth and dry on his skin, settling him against the silky slide of the sheets.
"Tell me," he said, not quite a question.
"Hmmm?"
"Did you do this, in England?"
Brian was suddenly awake, no longer lulled by the soft pillows and softer bed. "What do you mean?" He rolled over beneath Max until he could see his face.
Max raised a delicate, Austrian eyebrow. They were both naked, hard, sprawled out in Max's bed with their hands all over each other and their clothes on the floor. Maybe Max meant the sex.
"I didn't think it was a uniquely German vice," Brian said, too lightly.
"No, perhaps not." Max's fingers moved across his hip, sharp and sure. "But there is - Sally."
Brian lifted his hips, impatient under Max's hands. "I don't want to talk about Sally."
Max smiled, "No? She is always so eager to talk about you."
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Brian reads the news religiously, noting body counts and political movements. He rails at America and hates Germany and wonders why no one anticipated Hitler back in 1931. He wants answers to unanswerable questions about hatred and fear, but all he can think about is willful blindness and Max.
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"Why aren't you worried about the Nazis?" Brian asked Max over lunch. The restaurant was too expensive, but Brian had given up on persuading Max that he could not be won with gold and gifts. It was, after all, manifestly untrue.
"Germany can control them, Brian." Max said patiently, clearly tired of the subject. "They will do no lasting harm."
Brian set his fork down sharply on the china plate. "They already have. Don't you see how bad it could get?"
Max sipped his wine. "And what of it? Germany will take care of her own."
"And the rest of us?" Brian was getting angry. "What about us?"
Max shrugged languidly. "You are English and American. Why would Germany want to hurt you?"
"Would you?"
Max smiled, suddenly predatory, "Only if you asked."
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There are times when he wants them both, desperately. The three of them, basking and naked in a tent in Africa, in Sally's star-spangled room, on Max's floor that night in the country, too drunk for caution or questions. He wants Sally under him and Max behind him, Max's hands and Sally's mouth. He wants them together, always, nothing but sex and fire and passion.
There are times, in 1939, when Germany is bombing England and America denies the war, that Brian wonders what in the world they thought they were doing fucking each other. There are other times when he thinks that sex could solve the world war, but those are the nights he regrets in the morning.
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In the end, after Max had walked away, smug and satisfied and content in the pleasure of destruction, after he left Brian and Sally to pick up the fractured pieces he'd made of their relationship, Brian hated himself for loving the baby because it belonged to all three of them.
It wasn't enough, but it came close.
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On VE Day, he goes to the train station and buys a ticket to Berlin.
"Why Berlin, Sir?" The station agent is grinning and cheerful like everyone else in England and America, celebrating victory and alliance and the triumph of good over evil.
"I was there before the war." It isn't an answer, but the station agent smiles like she understands.
Nothing he is looking for is left in Berlin, so many years and wars later, but he hums to himself anyway as he walks home through the dancing crowds.