Echos

Before Corrine’s husband abandoned her in Berlin, he liked to say that her name reminded him of the word “corrupt.” But ending in a twist rather than a split. Her last name was the French word for “swimsuit” but he never mentioned that. This seemed strange now that he was gone, as many of his behaviors did. Kind of like how the best view of a city is when you’re leaving it.

They were in Germany on his business, which was diplomatic in nature and disclosure. It was not unusual for him to spend several days away at a time without telling her where he was going or why. When they’d first started seeing each other this seemed sexy; Corinne could imagine him tangled in some web of greater intrigue. Seven years in though it mostly involved making small talk with her fellow wives at black-tie dinners, where it seemed the less you knew about your spouse’s work the more important it must be. Corinne very rarely knew the least. His insistent mysteriousness had begun to grow stale.

Still, she’d been excited when he told her about his newest posting. Corinne had been nine years old when the Wall fell; she fondly remembered watching the footage on television with her parents, enamored of David Hasselhoff and his light-up leather jacket. “What a jackass,” her father grumbled, but Corinne was following the stars shooting across his shoulders. A decade later, in a college class, she watched a film about angels that guarded the city. She felt a little sorry when one of them decided to fall to earth for a woman, plunging the screen into color as he went. She found the grubby grayness of the first half much more romantic. Either way, it had to be better than Arlington.

And it was, though she’d been surprised, not entirely happily, to find Berlin a shinier and sprightlier place than she expected. It was a city for the young now, which she wasn’t exactly anymore, and she often felt while strolling amongst the cigarette-thin boys and girls with tangerine and pewter hair that she had missed her time here, that she would pass by a more youthful version of herself taking in the same sights with a clearer eye, and a sense of nostalgia for something she’d never known would overtake her. In the evenings, bags brimming with produce that would sit in the fridge until it furred over, she’d return to the flat, never knowing if it would be empty or not. When it was not, her husband was usually sitting at the kitchen table, sipping from a fresh espresso, the scar on his left eyebrow wrinkling, red pen cocked behind his ear so he could fact-check the paper. His brown eyes scanning the words, their green flecks lighting up when he found something. She always sensed that he wanted reassurance she’d had