Frau Pappan, whose bony, frown-prone face never quite fit her Stevie Nicks–inspired wardrobe, shook everyone’s hands when they came in. The children weren’t to be part of the conversation—they were waiting in the anteroom—and Milo and Tina were introduced to Mustafa and Tazeen Abi, whose accents Milo found soothing until Mustafa began to shout at them.
“Halifa came home in tears! This is not why we left Lebanon, to have our child bullied by an American princess!”
“Who’s bullying who?” Tina demanded. “Maybe Halifa has a problem with Americans—a problem she learned from her parents?”
“Now, please,” Frau Pappan cut in, trying her best to sound gentle. “We’re here to solve problems, not create new ones.”
Unlike her husband’s, Tazeen Abi’s eyes remained on Milo and Tina throughout the meeting. She said little, but her gaze felt like a lengthy, accusing lecture. Milo tried to appear nonchalant, because nonchalance seemed like the right play here, and when his phone began vibrating in his pocket he crossed his legs and tried to ignore it. Trying—that’s what he spent the conference doing, though never quite successfully.
He also hadn’t caught up on his sleep yet. When he’d returned her call in Berlin, Tina had informed him that she’d moved the meeting to seven o’clock, so he’d taken a taxi home and sat with Alexandra in the living room to get a rundown of intelligence that had trickled in during his absence, and then listened to her complaints about Kristin and Noah. “I don’t know how you work with them.”
“They get the job done.”
They discussed the patrons’ discontent, Leticia’s refusal to join the Library (which Alexandra, like Alan, considered good news), and Oskar Leintz’s reticence. “He knows who Egorov was hiding, I’m sure of it. But he’s not going to tell me.”
“Then we let it go,” Alexandra said.
She was right. There were too many other things to keep track of to halt Library business for one little mystery. “I’d just really like to know what the Russians are up to.”
Over dinner, Tina explained what their strategy would be at the conference: Milo would have to take the lead, because she was sure that if she did she would let her anger take over. Sullenly, Stephanie picked at her chicken and sent Nexus messages to school friends, likely complaining about her parents. “What do you think?” Milo finally asked her, and she shrugged.
“Whatever.”
“No—I mean really. What do you think?”
Stephanie sighed. “You guys are doing this to make yourselves feel good. Fine. Do what you like.”
And then he was here, faced with a couple who had probably also worked out a strategy that, like theirs, had immediately fallen apart.
“Your daughter,” Mustafa said, “called Halifa an anti-Semite. Perhaps you do not realize how cutting those words are.”
“It was a judgment call,” Tina replied.
“I believe,” Milo said, “your daughter called ours a cunt. That, in America, is pretty cutting as well.”
Tazeen finally spoke up. “She certainly did not say that.”
“What we have,” Frau Pappan said, “is a she-said-she-said conflict. Neither can be proven beyond doubt. In essence, they nullify each other.”
Tina turned on her suddenly. “This isn’t math. We’re discussing two young women, not formulas.”
“Yes,” Mustafa said, his temper rising again. “What are you talking about?”
And that was how it happened. In her effort to mollify two pairs of outraged parents, Frau Pappan had succeeded in becoming the focus of everyone’s rage. That, in its own way, solved the problem, uniting the parents against her, and when Mustafa shook his head and stood, saying, “This is no help,” Tina stood as well.
“You’re right,” she said.
With an apologetic look at Frau Pappan, Milo stood, followed by Tazeen. By then, Mustafa had opened the door, allowing them all a view directly into the anteroom. All four parents froze. On the bench, Halifa and Stephanie sat close to each other, their phones out, sending Nexus emojis, laughing together.
“You were useless,” Tina said as she drove them home through the darkness.
“Well, it worked out anyway,” he said, then yawned into the back of his hand. He glanced into the rearview, where he could see Stephanie focused on her phone, typing. “What do you think, Little Miss?”
She shrugged.
“Who are you on with?”
“Halifa.”
Milo and Tina looked at each other but said nothing. Then Milo’s phone hummed again in his pocket. He took it out and saw a Berlin number—the same number that had called during the conference. “Hello.”
“Weaver,” said a familiar male voice, thick with ostdeutscher contempt.
Milo sighed. “Lovely to hear from you, Oskar.”
“Are you back home safely?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“But not at home.”
“How do you know?”
“Are you heading home?”
“What’s this about, Oskar?”
At that point, Tina turned onto their leafy street, and he saw exactly what it was about. Parked across the street from their apartment building, just outside the ring of streetlamp illumination, was a black BMW with Berlin plates. Oskar Leintz leaned against it, phone to his ear, saying, “Let’s have a talk.”