Free The Innocent by Ian McEwan

wireless music, laughter and, higher up, a man calling with a plaintive stress on the second syllable, “Papa? Papa? Papa?” He was an intruder. The elaborate dishonesty of his mission began tooppress him. He took the envelope from his pocket, ready to post it through the door and descend as quickly as he could. Her apartment was at the very top. Its ceiling was lower than the rest, and this too made him anxious to leave. Her door was a freshly painted green, unlike the others. He pushed the envelope through, and then he did an inexplicable thing, quite out of character.
    His upbringing had instilled a simple faith in the inviolability of property. He never took a short cut if it involved trespass, he never borrowed without first asking permission, and he never stole from shops like some of his friends at school. He was an overscrupulous observer of other people’s privacy. Whenever he came across lovers kissing in a private place, he always felt it proper to avert his eyes, even though he longed to go closer and watch. So it made no sense now that without pausing to reflect, and without even a cursory knock on the door, he took hold of the handle and turned it. Perhaps he expected it to be locked, and perhaps therefore this was one of those meaningless little actions with which daily life is filled. The door yielded to him and swung open wide, and there she was, standing right before him.

Six
    T he apartments at the rear of the old Berlin buildings were traditionally the cheapest and most cramped. They had once housed the servants, whose masters lived in the grander quarters at the front, facing the road. Those at the rear had windows facing onto the courtyard, or across a narrow space to the next building. It was a mystery, then, which Leonard never bothered to penetrate, how late-afternoon winter sunshine was able to spill out from the open bathroom door across the floor between them, a reddish-gold slanting pillar of light that picked out motes turning in the air.It could have been light reflected from an adjacent window; it did not matter. At the time it seemed an auspicious sign. Just in front of the wedge of sunlight lay the envelope. Beyond it, perfectly still, stood Maria. She wore a thick tartan skirt and a red cashmere sweater, American made, a present from the devoted treasurer which she had neither the selflessness nor the hardness of heart to return.
    They stared at each other across the light, and neither of them spoke. Leonard was trying to formulate a greeting in the form of an apology. But how to explain away something so willed as the opening of a door? Confusing his responses was his joy in having her beauty confirmed. He had been right to be so disturbed. For her part, during the seconds before she recognized him, Maria had been immobilized by fear. This sudden apparition stirred ten-year-old memories of soldiers, usually in pairs, pushing open doors unannounced. Leonard misjudged her expression as the understandable hostility of a householder for an intruder. And he misread the quick faint smile of recognition and relief as forgiveness.
    Testing his luck, he advanced a couple of steps and put out his hand. “Leonard Marnham,” he said. “You remember. The Resi?”
    Even though she no longer felt she was in danger, Maria took a step backward and crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you want?”
    It worked in Leonard’s favor that he was so put out by such a direct question. He blushed, fumbled, and then for an answer picked up the envelope and handed it to her. She opened it, spread out the single sheet, and before reading glanced over the top to make sure he was coming no closer. The flash of the whites of those serious eyes! Leonard stood helpless. He remembered his father reading his mediocre end-of-term reports in his presence. Just as he had imagined, she read the note over twice.
    “What does it mean, this ‘pop up’? Just to open my door, is this a pop up?” He was about to offer