Junis and coasted down toward the Brandenburg Gate.
Margaret looked for her favorite monuments. There was the dome of the cathedral, fluorescent in its green copper cloak. Then she looked beyond it, off toward Alexanderplatz, but there, something wasn’t right. The TV tower was missing. Where had the TV tower gone?
“The TV tower—” Margaret cried. But she could hardly hear herself—the wind was rushing by her ears.
The giant bird flew to the south now, veering away from Unter den Linden and turning along Charlottenstrasse, and as they moved even farther to the south, the high-rises at the base of Hallesches Tor were missing too. They moved into Kreuzberg; Margaret looked in vain for the Memorial Library. It was gone. She wished the bird would fly even lower so she could see what was on the site instead. But the bird was holding her altitude now. The tracks of the U1 were clearly visible from this height, although there was a portion that seemed to be dented. The canal ran under it. And yet, where were the housing projects that should have risen up over at Kottbusser Tor? The city seemed so grey.
But Margaret saw now where they were going. Up ahead was moribund Tempelhof Airport. Margaret had never had a chance to fly into this airport before—there were almost no flights through it these days, and Margaret’s many pilgrimages to the Nazi-era building had been only by bicycle, just to look around. So her spirits lifted a bit—she was finally going to see the place from above, just as she had long wanted.
The bird began to circle the grassy landing strip, coasting lower with every revolution. Margaret had the sensation of being sucked down a drain. Their speed increased, or maybe it was an illusion. The earth was so near. Finally they landed lightly on the grass of the airfield.
As soon as her feet hit the earth, Margaret began to run away from the hawk-woman without a word of thanks or goodbye. But she tripped and fell into the grass, and the hawk-woman caught up with her without trouble, in half-human, half-bird form. She came upon Margaret, who was still lying on the grass, and loomed over her.
“Margaret, honey,” the bird said.
“What?”
“This has been lovely. But there is something fabulously important that I still need to talk to you about.”
“What is it?” Margaret shivered.
“You don’t have very much time.”
“What?”
“You don’t have much time until you have to come with me underground.”
“Underground?”
“I hope you’ll come at my invitation. We’d love to have you. But if you don’t come on your own, I’ll fetch you. I’ll carry you there, Margaret.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When it’s time, I’ll carry you.”
Margaret turned at these words. She didn’t pause. She ran toward the reception hall. It wasn’t until she got to the building that she dared turn around again. The thick grass of the airfield was a-flutter, waving in the breeze that must have come up only now. There was no trace of the massive bird. And there was no trace of the woman either.
But all was not mended. Turning back toward the terminal, she saw that the building was dark. Of course, the sun had burst through the clouds again, and maybe it was just a trick of the eye, the washing-out effect of the brightness, but as Margaret got closer to the building, it still seemed dark, and half was encased in scaffolding. Even more strange, the scaffolding was made of wood. The sign Margaret had so often seen from the Ringbahn, the famous lettering that should have impressed the eye from the sky, Flughafen Tempelhof, was also missing.
The place was deserted. The empty reception hall glowered at her, the windows dark. Margaret pulled back one section of a fence and entered. Shouldn’t there have been more security? Inside, too, everything was wrong. Half of the ceiling she knew so well was missing, and there were nothing but piles of bricks and dusty drop cloths all around, without any airline check-in counters or the usual blue and red logos to be seen. As she walked through the long hall to the other side, her footsteps clattered loudly on the marble floor.
She came out the other end. She was under a mess of wooden scaffolding. Two construction workers walked the boards above her.
Margaret stood very still. The workers had not noticed her, and she was glad of it. An odd thing: they seemed to be old men, seventy if a day. Margaret positioned herself where she could