The Good German (Bestselling Backlist)

by Joseph Kanon

  The church basement had been fitted out with a few cots and rows of mattresses scavenged from bomb sites. In one corner an old woodstove was heating soup. The room was bare—no crayoned drawings or cutouts, no piles of toys. As he watched Lena settle the children, he saw for the first time how exhausting the work must be, keeping them busy with imaginary games. Kurt still clung to her, burying his head whenever Jake caught his eye, but the others raced for the stove. “I’d better get the rest before the soup goes,” Jake said, relieved to have an excuse to get out.

  The return trip took longer. Fleischman insisted on bringing the cart and hanging it over the back with his body wedged against it for support, so that each bump in the road threatened to dislodge it with a crash. They seemed to move by inches, as slow as the train. At the church, it finally did fall, then needed a heave to turn it upright.

  “Thank you. It’s for the wood, you see. Otherwise, the stove—”

  Jake imagined him working his way through the rubble in his white collar, picking up splintered pieces of furniture.

  They had to carry the sleeping children in, dead weight, even the thinnest of them heavy. When he got to the basement doorway, a boy’s head against his chest, Lena looked up and smiled, the same unguarded welcome as at Frau Hinkel’s, but softer now, as if they’d already been to bed and were holding each other.

  The soup was watery cabbage thickened by a few chunks of potato, but the children finished all of it and sprawled on the mattresses, waiting for sleep. A line for the one toilet, some squabbling, refereed by an exhausted Fleischman. Lena washing faces with a damp cloth. An endless night. The girl with the mucus was crying, comforted by Frau Schaller stroking her hair.

  “What will happen to them?” Jake asked Fleischman.

  “The DP camp in Teltowerdamm. It’s not bad—there’s food, at least. But still, you know, a camp. We try to find places. Sometimes people are willing, for the extra rations. But of course it’s difficult. So many.”

  The few children still awake were given books, the old bedtime ritual, Lena and Frau Schaller reading to them in murmurs. Jake picked one up. A children’s picture book of Bible stories, left over from Sunday school. His German could manage that. He sat down with the chocolate eater and opened the book.

  “Moses,” the boy said, showing off.

  “Yes.”

  He read a little, but the boy seemed more interested in the picture, content just to sit next to him and gaze. Egypt, exactly the way it still was, everyone’s first imaginary landscape—the blue river, bullrushes, a boy on a donkey turning a waterwheel, date palms in a thin strip of green, then brown desert running to the top of the page. In the picture, women had come down to the water’s edge to rescue the floating wicker basket, excited, in a huddle, just the way they had pulled Tully out in Potsdam. Drifting toward shore.

  But Moses was supposed to be found, set into the current toward a better future. Tully had been flung in to disappear. How? Thrown from the bridge leading to town? Dragged in until the water took him? Dead weight, a grown man, much heavier than an emaciated child, a struggle for someone. Why bother at all? Why not just leave him where he’d fallen? What was another body in Berlin, where the rubble was still full of them?

  Jake looked at the picture again, the excited women. Because Tully wasn’t meant to be found. Jake tried to think what this meant. Not enough to get rid of him; he had to vanish. First simply AWOL, then missing, a deserter, then finally irretrievable, a file nobody would follow up. Nothing to investigate, permanently out of the way, every trace, even the dog tags, supposedly at the bottom of the Jungfernsee with him. But the riding boots had slipped off, not held by laces, and he’d floated, carried by the water and the wind until a Russian soldier had fished him out, like Pharaoh’s daughter. Where he wasn’t supposed to be found.

  He looked up to find Lena watching him, her face drawn, so tired her eyes seemed weak, almost brimming. The boy had fallen asleep against his shoulder.

  “We can go. Inge will stay with them.”

  Jake moved the boy gently onto the mattress and covered him.

  Pastor Fleischman thanked him as he walked them to the door, a formal courtesy. “About the climate? It’s hot there. So perhaps I should send the healthiest.” He sighed. “How can I select?”

  Jake looked back at the sleeping children, curled up in clumps under the blankets. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “He’s a good man,” Lena said in the jeep. “You know, the Nazis arrested him. He was in Oranienberg. And the parishioners got him out. It was unusual, to do that.”

  What it was like, day to day. A waitress collecting a check, a thousand cruelties, then the odd act of grace.

  “Did you know him before? I mean, was this your church?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I was wondering if anyone could trace you through him.”

  “Oh,” she said quietly.

  He glanced at her, her head nodding, not yet asleep but drowsy, as peaceful as one of the children. Not just bait but living with a man asking questions, vulnerable either way. There had to be another place, somewhere nobody knew. But who had flats? Generals’ girls and whores.

  “You passed the street,” she mumbled as he sped up Tauentzienstrasse toward the Memorial Church.

  “I have to make a stop. Just for a minute.”

  He double-parked in front of Ronny’s in a row of jeeps.

  “Here?” she said, puzzled.

  “I won’t be long.” He turned to one of the waiting drivers. “Do me a favor, will you, and keep an eye on the lady?”

  “Now I need a guard?” Lena said softly.

  “Watch her yourself,” the GI said, then took in Jake’s uniform patch and stood up. “Sir,” he said with a salute.

  There was the usual blare of music as he went through the door, a trumpet leading “Let Me Off Uptown,” loud even in the noisy room. The club seemed more crowded than before, but Danny still had his own corner table, Noël Coward hair slicked back, drumming his fingers to the music, a permanent piece of the furniture. Only one girl tonight, and next to him Gunther, staring into a glass.

  “Well, here’s a treat,” Danny said. “Come to cheer old Gunther up, have you?” He nudged Gunther, who barely managed an acknowledging glance before going back to his glass. “Bit down in the dumps, he is. Not the best advert for the girls. You remember Trude?” A hopeful smile from the blonde.

  “Got a second?” Jake said. “I need a favor.”

  Danny stood up. “Such as?”

  “Can you fix me up with a room? A flat, if you’ve got it.”

  “For yourself?”

  “A lady,” Jake said, leaning closer, not wanting to be overheard.

  “How long do you need?” Danny said, glancing at his watch.

  “No. A place to live.”

  “Oh, you don’t want to be getting mixed up in that. Get their hooks in and then what? You want to spread the wealth. Cheaper in the end.”

  “Can you do it?”

  Danny looked at him narrowly, ready for business. “It’ll cost you.”

  “That’s all right. But nobody’s to know.” He met Danny’s eyes. “She has a husband. Can you fix it with the landlord?”

  “Well, that’d be me, wouldn’t it?”

  “You own it?”

  “I told you, nothing like property. You see how it comes in handy. Mind, I’ll have to chuck somebody out—they won’t like that a bit. They’ll need a little something for relocation. That’d be extra.”

  “Done.”

  Danny glanced up, surprised not to have to bargain. “Right. Give me a day.”

  “And not with the other girls. I don’t want people coming and going.”

  “Respectable, like.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s your lookout. Smoke?” He opened a gold cigarette case, a prop from Private Lives. “Take my advice, don’t do it. You don’t want to settle in, makes it worse after. Me, I like a choice.”


  “I appreciate this,” Jake said, ignoring him. He took out some money. “Do you want something down?”

  Danny looked away, embarrassed again by actual cash. “You’re good for it, aren’t you? Friend of Gunther’s.” He turned and pulled out a chair. “Here, have a drink. Come on, Gunther, share and share alike. Pour out, pour out.”

  “That’s all right,” Jake said. “I’ve got somebody waiting.” He nodded at the bottle. “Looks like I’d have a lot of catching up to do. You been here all day?” he said to Gunther.

  “No,” Gunther said calmly, “working for you.” Looking at him steadily, so that Jake understood the trial that morning was to be put aside, something gone with the rest of the bottle. “I spoke to Willi.”

  “Let me guess,” Jake said, sitting down for a minute. “A Russian’s been paying him to watch the house.”

  “Yes.”

  “Find out about the one in the market? The sharpshooter?”

  “I inquired, yes.”

  “One of Sikorsky’s men?”

  “He must have been. Vassily said he didn’t know, and Vassily knows everyone. So.” He looked up. “How did you know?”

  “I talked to Shaeffer, the man who was shot. He and Sikorsky have been playing cat and mouse for a couple of weeks now. Sikorsky laid a trap and he walked right into it.”

  “But the mouse got away. So. You didn’t need my services after all. What else do you know?”

  “That Tully knew where Brandt was. He didn’t just let him go, he sent him there. It was a setup. Then he collects some Russian money. They do connect. That’s what he was selling—information about Brandt.”

  Gunther considered this for a moment, then picked up his drink. “Yes. It was the money that was confusing. So much. People are cheap in Berlin. You can sell them for less.”

  “Not this one. He’s important. Your friend Sikorsky would be interested, for instance.”

  “My friend,” he said, almost snorting. “A business acquaintance.” He smiled slightly at Jake’s expression. “Everybody does a little business.”

  “The Russians must have Emil. You thought so this morning.”

  A nod. “It’s the logic. And you think Vassily would tell me? On these matters, I’m afraid, a man of principle. If he knows.”

  “Then maybe he’ll tell you who drove Tully to Potsdam. I’ve been thinking about that. How did he get there?”

  “The general is not a chauffeur, Herr Geismar.”

  “Somebody met Tully at the airport. Somebody drove him to Potsdam and killed him. It had to be a Russian.”

  “The same man?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Would you spend all day with someone you intended to kill? What would you do with him all day? No, you would do it.” He made a chopping motion with the side of his hand.

  “He’s got you there, mate,” Danny said, surprising Jake, who’d forgotten he was at the table.

  “But the driver, anyway,” Jake said, annoyed at being interrupted, “he’d be Russian. Why not ask?”

  “Because you would learn nothing,” Gunther said, serious. “Nothing. And you would make yourself—conspicuous. Never be conspicuous with the Russians. Not a patient people. They strike.” He lifted a finger for emphasis. “Keep your head down until you know. Be a policeman, follow the numbers.”

  “This is where they lead.”

  Gunther shrugged. “The airport, yes, that’s interesting. The driver, what would that tell me? Unless it’s the same man—but how could that be?” He shook his head. “It’s the wrong question. Besides, you know, I have my interests to protect.”

  “Yeah. Everybody does a little business.”

  Gunther took a drink, looking down into the glass. “You forget, I’m a friend to the Soviet peoples.” The accented German of the prosecutor, bitter, the trial still there after all. “Who knows?” he said, almost airy now, playing with it. “Maybe soon an employee. The general admires my work. There are not so many opportunities.”

  “You’d work for him?” Jake said, thrown by this. “You’d work for the Russians?”

  “My friend, what difference does it make? When you leave, who will be here? We have to live. Calm yourself,” he said, waving his hand, “for now it’s not attractive. I’m working on a case.” He raised his glass, a reassuring toast.

  “You see?” Danny said. “That’s what he likes. Old Sherlock. It’s not the money with him.”

  “Then I’ll try to keep you interested,” Jake said, getting up. He looked down at Gunther, placidly draining his glass. “That’s quite a future you have in mind, you and Vassily. You know, he was in the market when Shaeffer got hit. I guess that would make him the greifer.”

  Gunther lowered the glass, drawn by the word. His face was slack, eyes lost and empty like one of the children on the platform. He looked at Jake for a moment, then grunted, slowly moving the glass aside, pushing it out of sight with everything else. “Be careful he doesn’t become yours,” he said, his voice composed, neutral.

  “But—” Jake said, then stopped.

  “But you have someone waiting,” Gunther said. “The other matter we discussed—the living arrangements?”

  “It’s taken care of,” Jake said, deliberately not looking at Danny.

  “Good. Sometimes it’s enough, just moving.” He looked down. “Of course, not always.”

  Outside, the street was full of drivers, bored privates in khaki standing by while their officers danced. The GI on guard duty was talking to Lena, leaning casually against the jeep.

  “He says he knows Texas,” she said, smiling as Jake approached. “There are hills there, so that’s good.”

  It took Jake a second, preoccupied, to realize she was back with the children.

  “That’s right, lots of hills,” the soldier said in a cowpoke drawl. Any driver, maybe even him, pulled out of the pool to escort the visitor around.

  “They’ll like that,” she said as Jake started the motor. “Like home.” Rolling Silesian hills.

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Seeing a man about a place. We can have it tomorrow.” He swung into the street.

  “So soon.”

  “Why not? There’s not much to pack.”

  “Oh, it’s easy for you. That’s how you live. A gypsy,” she said, but smiling.

  “Well, I’m used to it,” he said. Tents and hotels and rented rooms.

  “No, you like it.”

  He glanced over at her. “Will you?”

  “Of course,” she said, a forced brightness. “We’ll be gypsies. One suitcase. You don’t think I can do it?”

  He smiled. “Well, maybe two cases.”

  There was no one in the street outside the flat, still safe, and no one inside either, Hannelore’s party, as expected, running late.

  “I have to wash,” she said. “I won’t be long. Look at the mess she’s left. Well, I won’t miss that.”

  “I’ll clean it up.”

  “No, in the morning. It’s so late. Am I standing up?”

  But when the bathroom door closed, he went over to the sink anyway, thinking of when she’d been sick, washing the dishes to fill the time, waiting for the doctor, tidying up as a kind of medicine. Only three weeks ago. There wasn’t much to do—cups, some scattered papers near the typewriter. Most of his clothes were at Gelferstrasse. Not even one suitcase. It would take only minutes to leave, another room. And yet it occurred to him that Frau Hinkel was wrong—he was home here, all the years before the war, then these last weeks when it seemed a kind of sanctuary, here longer than anywhere he’d ever been. His place. Nothing remarkable—the rumpled sofa where Hal used to pass out, the table where Lena had sat with coffee, sunlight pouring across her robe; his private piece of Berlin. But not a refuge anymore, a trap.

  He heard the click of the door as Lena left the bathroom, and he walked over to the window, turning out the light behind him. Nothing
. Wittenbergplatz was quiet. He looked up and down the street, eyes in two directions. Maybe Frau Hinkel was wrong about that too. But U-boats kept moving. His cards were lucky. Pariserstrasse was rubble, in a day this flat would be gone, but Lena was still here, brushing out her hair probably, sitting on the bed in her nightgown, waiting for him. He looked around in the dark. Just rooms.

  In the bathroom he brushed his teeth, then washed off the day’s layer of grime, coming alive with the water. She’d be wearing the prewar silk, a sentimental choice for their last night here, straps hanging loose on her shoulders. Maybe already packing, ready to go somewhere new. But when he opened the door, he saw her lying on the bed in the dim lamplight, curled up like one of the children, eyes closed. A long day. He stood for a moment looking at her face, damp from the heat, but not the fever of those days when he’d kept watch. A few of her things had been folded in a neat pile. Life in a suitcase, the last thing she wanted, but she’d said it. He turned off the light, undressed, and slipped quietly onto his side of the bed, trying not to wake her, thinking of that first night, when they hadn’t made love either, just lay together. He turned on his side and she stirred.

  “Jacob,” she said, only half awake. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right. Go to sleep.”

  “No, I wanted—”

  “Ssh.” He smoothed her forehead, whispering. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow. We’ll go to the lakes.” Like a bedtime promise to a child.

  “A boat,” she murmured vaguely, not really following, still drowsy. “All right.” A pause. “Thank you for everything,” she said, oddly polite.