Excerpt from The Berlin Exchange by Joseph Kanon, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

And then, abruptly, "Do you want to leave?"

"Leave?" he said, surprised. "I'm staying here."

"Georg won't mind." Another smile, conspiratorial. "He'll be impressed." She touched his arm. "I just have to get my coat." Moving away, everything decided. Around him people were talking and smoking, unaware that anything was happening.

The car turned right on Chausseestrasse.

"You're all right?" Kurt said.

Martin nodded.

"He's right, you know. The guard. They have orders not to shoot, during an exchange. Such a tense moment. You can imagine what would happen if— They must have known about it, those two. The time of the exchange. How?" He leaned over. "That's where Brecht used to live," he said, pointing. "Another one who joined us in the East. And was very happy here." Still apologizing for what had happened at the checkpoint.

Martin looked out the window, then up, following the line of the buildings. The contrast with the West had become a magazine cliché—the shiny cars reflecting the lights of the Kurfürstendamm, the gray shabby streets of the East—and it was true that the buildings were dingier on this side, neglected, but it was still the same city, the same architecture. They passed Torstrasse. She'd lived near here, an old tenement building in Albrechtstrasse, because it was close to the theaters and she wanted to be an actress, was an actress, except it was all foolishness in the theater, nothing serious, you had to scrape by with walk-on bits out at the UFA studios. When you could get them. And the building was all right, your own bathroom, not a shared toilet down the hall.

He remembered that the stair lights had a timer. You had to hurry if you lived at the top, and that was how they'd first kissed, the light clicking off, pushed against the wall, slightly out of breath from the climb, opening his mouth to her. The taste of cigarettes and the smell of her perfume, the same brand for years and he'd never known which, just the smell of her. They pressed against each other on the stairs, and then she clutched his coat and pulled him up with her, and when they were inside, the back of the door was like the stairway again, pushing against it, but now they were taking their clothes off as they kissed, moving toward the bed. No drinks, no conversation, working up to something. They were already there, so excited he thought it would happen too soon, and then in, panting now, not caring who heard. And when they came, her eyes were on him again, taking him in, seeing him.

After, they lay still for a few minutes, and then he rolled off, slightly embarrassed, afraid he'd given himself away, who he really was. She reached over and took out a cigarette, something he imagined she would do every time, the way he'd first seen her, smoking.

"Would you like to know my name?" she said, drawing in smoke, amused. "You never asked."

He smiled. "I guess I didn't," he said, only half there, lazy with sex.

"Well, I didn't ask either. I wanted to see first. If we fit."

"What?"

"If we fit. You know, like this," she said, waving her hand between them.

He sat up halfway, propped on his elbow. In the light coming in from the street he saw the gleam on her skin, the dark patch farther down, and then the red tip of her cigarette. He ran his hand over her, a physical contact to make sure she was really there.

"Why?"

She hesitated for a moment, drawing on her cigarette. "You want to know? All right. We should never lie to each other, don't you agree?"

He nodded, not sure where this was going.

"So we'll know what's true, between us. The others? That's something else. But between us, the truth."

He hitched himself up a little higher. "Which is?"

"You're an American. I thought, he can get me out of Germany."

"Out?"

"What's going to happen here? A war. Things will get worse and worse. And now it's not so easy to go. But an American. And then you looked at me like that."

Excerpted from The Berlin Exchange by Joseph Kanon. Copyright © 2022 by Joseph Kanon. Excerpted by permission of Scribner. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.