The Good German

by Joseph Kanon

  It was only when the lush color changed to the grainy black-and-white of the newsreel that they were back in Berlin—literally so, Attlee arriving to take Churchill’s place, another photo session at the Cecilienhof, the new Three arranged on the terrace just as the old Three had been that first time, before the money started blowing across the lawn. Then the Allied football game, with Breimer at the microphone winning the peace and fists raised in the end zone as the British made their unlikely score. Jake smiled to himself. In the jumble of spliced film, at least, they had won the game. The clip switched to a collapsing house. “Another kind of touchdown, as an American newsman makes a daring rescue—”

  “My god, it’s you,” Lena said, gripping his arm.

  He watched himself on the porch, arm around the German woman as if they had just emerged from the wreck, and for an instant even he forgot what had really happened, the film’s chronology more convincing than memory.

  “You never told me,” she said.

  “It didn’t happen that way,” he whispered.

  “No? But you can see.”

  And what could he say? That he only appeared to be where he was? The film had made it real. He shifted in his seat, disturbed. What if nothing was what it seemed? A ball game, a newsreel hero. How we looked at things determined what they were. A dead body in Potsdam. A wad of money. One thing led to another, piece by piece, but what if you got the arrangement wrong? What if the house collapsed afterward?

  When the lights came on, she took his silence for modesty.

  “And you never said. So now you’re famous,” she said, smiling.

  He moved them into the swarm of British khaki in the aisle.

  “How did you get her out?” Lena said.

  “We walked. Lena, it never happened.”

  But from her expression he could see that it had, and he gave it up. They moved into the lobby with a crowd of British officers and their Hannelores.

  “Well, the man of the hour himself.” Brian Stanley, tugging at his sleeve. “A hero, no less. I am surprised.”

  Jake grinned. “Me too,” he said, and introduced Lena.

  “Fräulein,” Brian said, taking her hand. “And what do we think of him now? Very Boy’s Own, I must say. Come for a drink?”

  “Another time,” Jake said.

  “Oh, it’s like that. Enjoy the film? Apart from yourself, that is.”

  They passed through the door to the warm evening air.

  “Sure. Make you homesick?” Jake said.

  “Dear boy, that’s the England that never was. We’re the land of the common man now, haven’t you heard? Mr. Attlee insists. Of course, I’m common myself, so I don’t mind.”

  “It still looks pretty cushy on film,” Jake said.

  “Well, it would. Made before the war, you know. Couldn’t release it while the play was on and of course it ran forever, so they’re just now getting around to it. You see how young Rex looks.”

  “The things you know,” Jake said. Another trick of chronology.

  Brian lit a cigarette. “How are you getting on with your case? The chap in the boots.”

  “I’m not. I’ve been distracted.”

  Brian glanced at Lena. “Not by the conference, I gather. I never see you around at all. The thing is, you got me thinking a bit. About the luggage and all that. What occurred to me was, how did he get on the plane in the first place?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it was a scramble. You remember. Had to pull strings just to get on the damn thing.”

  “So what strings did he pull?” Jake said, finishing for him.

  “Something like that. There we were, packed in like sardines. The Honorable and everyone. And then one more. All very last-minute. No bags, as if he hadn’t expected to go. More like he’d been summoned, if you see what I mean.”

  But Jake had leaped ahead to something else—how had Emil managed it? No one just walked onto a plane, certainly not a German.

  “I don’t suppose they found any travel orders?” Brian was saying.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Of course, it may have been the old greased palm—I’ve done it myself. But if someone okayed it? I mean, if you’re so curious about him, it might be useful to know.”

  “Yes,” Jake said. Who had okayed Emil?

  “You never know with the army—they keep a record of everything except what’s useful. But there must have been some kind of manifest. Anyway, it’s just a thought.”

  “Keep thinking for a minute,” Jake said. “How would a German get here?”

  “How does anybody? Military transport—he’d have to hitch a ride. There isn’t any civilian transport. I supposed he could bicycle in, if he didn’t mind the Russians running him off the road. They do it for fun, I hear.”

  “Yes,” Lena said. Brian looked at her, surprised that she’d been following the conversation.

  “Anyone particular in mind?” he said to Jake.

  “Just a friend of mine,” Jake said quickly, before Lena could interrupt. “He’s been due for over a week.”

  “Well, there’s nothing to that. Do you have any idea what it’s like out there?” He swept his hand in a broad gesture to the dark space beyond the city. “Chaos. Absolute bloody chaos. Seen the autobahns? Refugees going this way and that. Poles going home. And good luck to them. Sleep anywhere you can. He’s probably in a hayloft somewhere, rubbing his feet.”

  “A hayloft.”

  “Well, a bit of color. I shouldn’t worry; he’ll turn up.”

  “But if he flew—” Jake said, still thinking.

  “A German? Need to pull some big strings for that. Anyway, he’d be here, wouldn’t he?”

  Jake sighed. “Yes, he’d be here.” He looked at the thinning crowd as if Emil might suddenly appear, strolling down the Ku’damm.

  “Well, I’ve got a drink waiting. Fräulein.” He nodded at Lena. “Mind you stay out of falling houses,” he said, winking at Jake. “Once lucky. Lovely how we won the game, wasn’t it?”

  “Lovely,” Jake said, smiling.

  “There’s a thing, by the way. What’s he up to, the Honorable?”

  “Why would he be up to anything?”

  “He’s still here. Now your average poobah, they’re in and out. Not that I blame them. But there’s the Honorable, lingering, lingering. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

  Jake looked at him. “Does it?”

  “Me? No. Made Tommy Ottinger wonder, though. Says he’s really just a point man for American Dye.”

  “And?”

  “And Tommy’s going home. I hate to see a story go to waste. You might want to look into it—if you’ve got the time, that is.” Another quick glance at Lena.

  “Tommy’s giving away stories now?”

  “Well, you know Tommy. A few drinks and he’ll tell you anything. Strictly an American affair, of course, so no good to me. Anyway, there’s a tip. I have to say, I rather like the idea of catching the Honorable with his hand in the till.”

  “His hand in what till?”

  “Well, Tommy thought he might be up to some private reparations. Just a little something for American Dye. Which, to their way of thinking, is pretty good for the country too, so it’s patriotic looting, really. They talk their heads off at Potsdam about reparations and meanwhile they’re stripping the place clean.”

  “I thought it was the Russians doing the stripping.”

  “And not your clean-cut American boys. Football players one and all, if you believe the films. No, this is the game. The Russians don’t know what to take—just pack up the power plants and anything shiny and hope for the best. But the Allies—oh, we’re doing it too, God bless us—now, that’s something different. Experts, we’ve got. Tech units all over the country, just hauling off the good bits. Blueprints. Formulas. Research papers. Picking their brains, you might say. You were at Nordhausen. They got all the documents there—fourteen tons of paper, if you can believe it. And
of course you can’t, because nobody can get the story—you get near it and poof, off it goes. Classified. Ghosts. There’s a thought—maybe we should give Madame Arcati a go, she might get somewhere.”

  He stopped, his expression serious. “That’s what I’d look into, Jake. This is a real story, and no one’s got it—just a whiff once in a while. The Russians get fussed and bark at us—you kidnapped the engineers at Zeiss!—then of course they turn around and do the same thing. And on it goes. Until there’s nothing left to steal, I guess. Reparations. That’s the story I’d go after.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “I don’t have the legs for it. Not anymore. Needs someone young who doesn’t mind a bit of trouble.”

  “Why Breimer?” Jake said. “What makes you think he’s doing anything but making dumb speeches?”

  “Well, the man at the stadium, for one thing. Remember him? Thick as thieves. He’s with one of the tech units.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I asked,” Brian said, raising an eyebrow.

  Jake looked at him steadily, then grinned. “You don’t miss a thing, do you?”

  “Not much,” he said, returning the smile. “Well, I’m off. You’ve got a tired young lady wanting to go home and here I am, blathering on. Fräulein.” He nodded to Lena again, then turned to Jake. “Think about it, will you? Be nice to see you back at work again.”

  Jake put his arm around Lena and headed them toward Olivaerplatz, away from the streetwalkers and cruising jeeps. There was moonlight, so that you could see the broken tops of buildings against the sky, spiky, like jagged pieces of gothic script.

  “Is it true what he says? About the scientists? They want to pick Emil’s brain too?”

  “That depends on what he knows,” he said, evasive, then nodded. “Yes.”

  “Now them. Everybody wants to find Emil.”

  “He must have flown,” Jake said, still thinking. “Nobody walks from Frankfurt. So either he hasn’t got here yet or he’s hiding somewhere.”

  “Why would he hide?”

  “A man’s dead. If they did meet—”

  “Still the policeman.”

  “Or he got a ride. He did before.”

  “When he came for me, you mean.”

  “With the SS. Some ride.”

  “He wasn’t SS.”

  “He came with them. His father told me.”

  “Oh, he’ll say anything. So bitter. To think, the only family I have now, a man like that. To send away a child.”

  “He’s not a child anymore.”

  “But SS. Emil?”

  “Why would he lie, Lena?” he said gently, turning to her. “It must be right.”

  She took this in, then turned away, literally not facing it. “Right. He’s always right.”

  “You like him, though. I could see.”

  “Well, I feel sorry. There’s nothing for him now, not even his work. He resigned when they fired the Jews. That’s when the fighting started, with Emil. So he was right, but now look.”

  “What did he teach?”

  “Mathematics. Like Emil. They said at the institute he was their Bach—passing the gift, you know? Just alike. The two Professor Brandts. Then one.”

  “Maybe Emil should have resigned too.”

  She walked for a minute, not answering. “It’s easy to say now. But then—who knew it would end? Sometimes it seemed the Nazis would be here forever. It was the world we lived in, can you understand that?”

  “I was here too.”

  “But not a German. There was always something else for you. But Emil? I don’t know—I can’t answer for him. So maybe his father’s right. But your friend, he wants to make him a criminal. He was never that. Not SS.”

  “They gave him a medal. It’s in his file. I saw it. Services to the state. You didn’t know?”

  She shook her head.

  “He never told you? But didn’t you talk? You were married. How could you not talk?”

  She stopped, looking across Olivaerplatz, empty and moonlit. “So you want to talk about Emil? Yes, why not? He’s here. Like in the film, the ghost who comes back. Always in the room. No, he never told me. Maybe he thought it was better. Services to the state. My god. For numbers.” She looked up. “I didn’t know. What can I say to you? How can you live with someone and not know him? You think it’s hard. It’s easy. At first you talk and then—” She trailed off, back in her head again. “I don’t know why. The work, I think. We didn’t talk about that—how could we? I didn’t understand it. But he lived for that. And then, after the war started, everything was secret. Secret. He wasn’t allowed. So you talk about daily things, little things, and then after a while not even that, you don’t have the habit anymore. There’s nothing left to talk about.”

  “There was a child.”

  She looked at him, uncomfortable. “Yes, there was a child. We talked about him. Maybe that’s why I didn’t notice. He was away so much. I had Peter. That’s how things were with us. Then, after Peter—even the talking stopped. What was there to say then?” She turned away. “I don’t blame him. How can I? He was a good father, a good husband. And me, was I a good wife? I tried that once. And all the time we were—” She faced him again. “It wasn’t him. Me. I stopped.”

  “Why did you marry him?”

  She shrugged, making a wry smile. “I wanted to be married. To have my own house. In those days, you know, it wasn’t so easy. If you were a nice girl, you lived at home. When I came to Berlin, I had to live with Frau Willentz—she knew my parents—and it was worse, she was always waiting at the door when I came in. You know, at that age—” She paused. “It seems so silly now. I wanted my own dishes. Dishes. And, you know, I was fond of Emil. He was nice, came from a good family. His father was a professor—even my parents couldn’t object to that. Everybody wanted it. So I got my dishes. They had flowers—poppies. Then, one raid and they were gone. Just like—”

  She looked at the crumbled buildings, then picked up the thread again. “Now I wonder why I wanted them. All that life. I don’t know—who knows why we do what we do? Why did I go with you?”

  “Because I asked.”

  “Yes, you asked,” she said, still looking at the buildings. “I knew, even that first time. At the Press Club, that party. I remember thinking, nobody ever looked at me this way. As if you knew a secret about me.”

  “What secret?”

  “That I would say yes. That I was like that. Not a good wife.”

  “Don’t,” Jake said.

  “So I couldn’t be faithful to him,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard. “But I don’t want to hurt him. Isn’t it enough to leave him? Now we have to be policemen too? Waiting here, like spiders, to trap him.”

  “Nobody’s trying to trap him. According to Bernie, they want to offer him a job.”

  “Picking his brain. And then what? Oh, let’s go now. Leave Berlin.”

  “Lena, I can’t get you out of Germany. You know that. You’d have to be—”

  “Your wife,” she finished, a resigned nod. “And I’m not.”

  “Not yet,” he said, touching her. “It’ll be different this time.” He smiled at her. “We’ll get new dishes. Stores in New York are full of them.”

  “No, you only want that once. Now it’s something else.”

  “What?”

  She turned her head, not answering, then leaned against him. “Let’s just love each other. It’s enough now,” she said. “Just that.” She started walking again, pulling his hand lightly with hers. “Look where we are.”

  They had turned without noticing into the end of Pariserstrasse, the heaps of rubble like pockets of shadow along the moonlit street. The washbasin was still perched on the mound of bricks where Lena’s building had been, its porcelain dull in the faint light, but Frau Dzuris’ notice had fallen over, the ink now streaked by rain.

  “We should put up a new one,” he said. “In case.”

  “Why? He knows I’
m not here. He knew it was bombed.”

  Jake looked at her. “But the American who went to Frau Dzuris didn’t know that. He came here first.”

  “So?”

  “So he hasn’t talked to Emil. Where did you go after?”

  “A friend from the hospital. Her flat. Sometimes we just stayed at work. The cellars were safe there.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She died. In the fire.”

  “There must be someone. Think. Where would he go?”

  She shook her head. “His father. He would go there. Like always.”

  Jake sighed. “Then he’s not in Berlin.” He went over and righted the notice stick, wedging it in the bricks. “Well, we should do it for her, so her friends can find her.”

  “Friends,” Lena said, almost snorting. “All the other Nazis.”

  “Frau Dzuris?”

  “Of course. During the war she always had the pin, you know, the swastika. Right here.” She touched her chest. “She loved the speeches. Better than the theater, she used to say. She’d turn the radio up loud so everyone in the building would hear too. If they complained, she’d say, ‘Don’t you want to hear the Führer? I’ll report you.’ Always the busybody.” She looked away from the rubble. “Well, that’s finished too. At least no more speeches. You didn’t know?”

  “No,” he said, disconcerted. A lover of poppyseed cakes.

  A truck roared into the street, catching Lena in its headlights.

  “Look out.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the bricks.

  “Frau! Frau!” Guttural shouts, followed by laughs. In the open back of the truck, a group of Russian soldiers, holding bottles. “Komme!” one of them shouted as the truck slowed.

  Jake could feel her freeze beside him, her entire body rigid. He stepped into the street so that his uniform was visible in the light.

  “Get lost,” he said, jerking his fingers at the truck.

  “Amerikanski,” one of them shouted back, but the uniform had its effect. The men who had started to get off the back stopped, one of them now raising a bottle to toast Lena, someone else’s property. A joke in Russian went around the truck. The men saluted Jake and laughed.

  “Beat it,” he said, hoping his tone of voice would be the translation.