The Good German

by Joseph Kanon

  “Yes.”

  “We need a road. We can’t go faster like this.” The traffic circle at the Grosser Stern was now in sight, a bottleneck jammed with marchers. “If we can cut across—hold on.” Another swerve to the left, jolting the car away from the parade, deeper into the battered park. In the back Emil groaned.

  Jake knew that Gunther was taking them south, toward the American zone, but all the landmarks he had known were gone, the stretch ahead of them desolate, broken by stumps and twisted scraps of lampposts. Ron’s lunar landscape. The ground was even rougher, not as cleared as the border of the chausee, the earth thrown up here and there in mounds.

  “Not far,” Gunther said, rising out of his seat over a bump, even the solid Horch springs pounded flat, and for a moment, looking behind at the dust, the cars coming after them, Jake realized, an unexpected thought, that Gunther finally had his Wild West, stagecoach bucking across the badlands at a gallop. And then, eerily, the other Horch entered the Karl May dream too, firing at them from behind. A firecracker sound of shots, then a shattering pop at the back window.

  “My god, they’re shooting at us,” Emil yelled, his voice jagged with fear. “Stop. It’s madness. What are you doing? They’ll kill us.”

  “Keep flat,” Gunther said, hunching a little farther over the wheel.

  Jake crouched and peered back over the edge of the seat. Both vehicles firing now, an aimless volley of stray shots.

  “Come on, Gunther,” Jake said, a jockey to a horse.

  “It’s there, it’s there.” A clear space of asphalt in the distance. He steered right, as if he were heading back to the Grosser Stern, then sharply left, dodging a fallen limb not yet scavenged for firewood, confusing the two cars behind. More shots, one grazing the back fender.

  “Please stop,” Emil said, almost hysterical on the back floor. “You’ll kill us.”

  But they were there, crashing over a mound of broken pavement piled up at the edge of Hofjägerallee and landing with a loud thunk on the cleared avenue. Improbably, there was traffic—two convoy trucks, grinding toward them on their way to the traffic circle. Gunther shot out in front of them and wrenched the wheel left, tires squealing, so close there was an angry blast of horn.

  “Christ, Gunther,” Jake said, breathless.

  “Police driving,” he said, the car still shuddering from the skid.

  “Let’s not have a police death.”

  “No. That’s a bullet.”

  Jake looked back. The others weren’t as lucky, stuck at the side of the road until the trucks lumbered past. Gunther opened up the engine, speeding toward the bridge into Lützowplatz. If they could make it to the bridge, they’d be back in town, a maze of streets and pedestrians where at least the shooting would stop. But why had the Russians fired in the first place, risking Emil? A desperate logic—better dead than with the Americans? Which meant they thought they might lose after all.

  But not yet. The Horch behind them had picked up speed too on the smooth road. Now the route was straight—get past the diplomatic quarter at the bottom of the park, then over the Landwehrkanal. Gunther honked the horn. A group of civilians was trudging down the side of the road with a handcart. They scattered in both directions, away from the car but still on the road, so that Gunther had to slow down, pumping the brake and the horn at the same time. It was the chance the Russians were looking for, racing to close the gap between the cars. Another shot, the civilians darting in terror. Still coming. Jake swiveled to his open window and fired at the Horch behind, aiming low, a warning shot, two, to make them slow down. Not even a pause. And then, as Gunther slammed the horn again, the Russians’ car began to smoke—no, steam, a teakettle steam that poured out of the grille, then blew back over the hood. A lucky shot ripping into the radiator, or just the old motor finally giving up? What did it matter? The car kept hurtling toward them, driving into its own cloud, then began to slow. Not the brake, a running down.

  “Go,” Jake said, the road finally clear of civilians. Behind them, the Horch had stopped. One of the men jumped out and rested his arm on the door to take aim. A target gallery shot. Gunther pressed the accelerator. The car jumped forward again.

  This time Jake didn’t even hear the bullet, the splintering pop through the window lost under the noise of the engine and the shouts behind. A small thud into flesh, like a grunt, not even loud enough to notice, until the spurt of blood splashed onto the dashboard. Gunther fell forward, still clutching the wheel.

  “Gunther!”

  “I can drive,” he said, a hoarse gargle. More blood leaping out, spattering the wheel.

  “My god. Pull over.”

  “Not far.” His voice fainter. The car began to veer left.

  Jake grabbed the wheel, steadying it, looking around. Only the jeep was chasing them now, the Horch stranded behind it. They were still moving fast, Gunther’s foot on the pedal heavy as dead weight. Jake threw himself closer, putting both hands on the wheel, trying to kick Gunther’s foot off the pedal. “The brake!” he shouted. Gunther had slumped forward again, a bulky, unmovable wall. Jake held on to the wheel, his hands now slippery with blood. “Move your leg!”

  But Gunther seemed not to have heard him, his eyes fixed on the blood still spilling out onto the wheel. He gave a faint nod, as if he were making sense of it, then a small twitch of his mouth, the way he used to smile.

  “A police death,” he mumbled, almost inaudible, his mouth seeping blood, then slumped even farther, gone, his body falling on the wheel, pressing against the horn, so that they were racing toward the bridge with the horn blaring, driven by a dead man.

  Jake tried to shove him aside, one hand still on the wheel, but only managed to push his upper body against the window. He’d have to dive underneath to move Gunther’s feet, get to the brake, but that would mean letting go.

  “Emil! Lean over, take the wheel.”

  “Maniacs!” Emil said, his voice shrill. “Stop the car.”

  “I can’t. Grab the wheel.”

  Emil started up from the floor, then heard another shot and fell back again. Jake looked through the shattered window. Shaeffer, blowing his horn now, signaling them to stop.

  “Grab the fucking wheel!” Jake yelled. Another truck appeared in the oncoming lane. Now there wasn’t even the option of spinning in circles, hands slipping around the bloody wheel, trying to keep a grip. The bridge ahead, then people. Get the brake. With one hand he pushed hard against Gunther’s leg, a cement weight, but moving, sliding back from the gas pedal, wedged now at the bottom. A little more and the car would slow. Only a matter of seconds before something gave.

  It was the tire. A stopping shot from Shaeffer, more effective than a horn blast. The Horch careened wildly, as if Jake’s hands had left the wheel. Heading straight for the truck. Jake wrenched the wheel back hard, swerving right, missing the truck, heading off the road in the other direction, but after that lost all control, plunging past some piles of rubble, bouncing furiously, the wheel meaningless. He shoved at Gunther’s leg again, dislodging it from the pedal. But the car was moving on its own now, a last surge of momentum that carried it away from the bridge, over the embankment, only choking to a stop in midair. Nothing beneath them, a giddy suspension. Not even a full second at the top of a roller coaster, an impossible floating through nothing. Then the car pitched down.

  Jake crouched lower, bracing himself against Gunther, so that he didn’t see the water as they plunged into the canal, just felt the shock of the crash, throwing him forward against the dash with a crunch, a sick snapping sound at his shoulder, his head bumping hard against the wheel, a sharp pain that blotted out everything but the last instinct, to take a deep gulp of air as the water rushed in to flood around him.

  He opened his eyes. Murky, almost viscous water, too cloudy to see far. Not a canal anymore, a sewer. Absurdly, he thought of infection. But there wasn’t time to think about anything. He lifted himself, shoulder throbbing in a spasm, and reached over the
seat with his good hand, grabbing Emil’s shirt and pulling at it. Emil was moving, not dead, squirming up off the floor. Jake yanked the shirt, lifting him over the seat and pushing him toward the window. Buoyant, floating weight, just a matter of steering him out, but the front was crowded, Gunther taking up precious space.

  Jake leaned back, twisting Emil’s body so that he could shove it head first, watching Emil’s feet flailing as he kicked his way out. Hurry. The canal wasn’t deep; enough time to get to the surface if his air held. He began to follow through the window, bumping his head again on the frame, pulling himself with one arm, the other useless. Halfway out, Emil’s shoe caught his shoulder, kicking, the pain so startling he thought he might black out and sink, the way rescuers were accidentally taken down by the thrashing of the people they were trying to save. His legs were now through the frame. He began to stroke up to the surface but the shoe struck him again, a strong kick, catching him now at the side of the head, a solid running pain to his shoulder. Don’t gasp. For Christ’s sake, Emil, move away. Then another kick, downward, not flailing this time, deliberate, intended to connect. Another. One more and he might be knocked out, bubbles rising to the surface, not a weapon in sight. No more air. He swam sideways with his good arm, only one effort left, and pushed up. Gentle Emil. What would you do to survive?

  As he broke the surface, he barely got a gulp of air before the hand caught his throat and started to push his head back under. A squeal of tires and shouts from the bank. The hand came away. Jake pulled his head up, sputtering.

  “Emil.”

  Emil had turned to look at the bank, once a solid wall, now bombed in places to slopes of rubble. Shaeffer and his man were picking their way down, their attention on the awkward footing, away from the water. A minute, maybe. Emil looked back at Jake, still gasping, his shoulder now an agony.

  “It’s over,” Jake said.

  “No.” Barely a whisper, his eyes on Jake. Not like Shaeffer’s, a hunter’s, but something more desperate. What would you do? Emil reached for him and caught his throat again, and as Jake’s head went under, he saw, with a sinking feeling worse than drowning, that he was losing the wrong war—not Shaeffer’s, the one he hadn’t even known he was fighting. A kick to the stomach now, forcing out air, as the hand gripped his hair, holding him under. Losing. Another kick. He’d die, the kick marks no more suspicious than crash bruises. Emil getting away with it again.

  He yanked his head down, pulling Emil with him, scratching at his fingers. No good punching through water. He’d have to claw the fingers off. Another kick, below his stomach, but the hand was letting go, afraid perhaps of being dragged under with his victim. Do what he expects. Die. Jake sank lower. Emil couldn’t see through the thick water. Would he follow? Let him think it had worked. He felt a final kick, the shoulder again, and for a moment he was no longer pretending, sinking deeper, without the strength to pull himself back up, the dizziness before a blackout. His feet hit the roof of the car. Below, he could see Gunther’s head lolling out of the car window, floating like kelp. The way he’d look. Bastards. He dropped, bending his knees, no breath left at all, then pushed away with a last heave, away from Emil, toward the bank.

  “Here he is!” Shaeffer shouted as his head bobbed up. He sucked in air, choking, spitting the water that came with it.

  The other soldier had waded in to get Emil, who gazed at Jake in shock, then dropped his head, looking down at his hand, where the scratches were welling with blood.

  “You all right?” Shaeffer was saying. “Why the hell didn’t you stop?”

  Jake kept gasping, drifting toward the bank. Nowhere else to go now. Then he felt Shaeffer’s hand on his collar, dragging him onto the bank, struggling, then gripping his belt and yanking, like Tully being fished out of the Jungfernsee. He fell back against the broken concrete, looking up at Shaeffer. A splash, the sound of water dripping as Emil came out a few yards away.

  He closed his eyes, fighting a wave of nausea from the pain, then opened them again to Shaeffer. “You going to finish me off here?”

  Shaeffer looked at him, confused. “Don’t be an asshole. Here, let me give you a hand,” he said, reaching for him.

  But he grabbed the wrong arm. As Shaeffer pulled him up, Jake’s shoulder went hot with pain and he couldn’t stop the scream, the last thing he heard before everything finally, almost a relief, did go black.

  CHAPTER 20

  They set his shoulder at the officers’ infirmary near Onkel Tom’s Hütte, or at least he was told they did, a day later, when he lay with a morphine hangover under the pink chenille spread at Gelferstrasse. People had drifted in and out, Ron to check, the old woman from downstairs playing nurse, none of them quite real, just figures in a haze, like his arm, white with gauze and adhesive, hanging in a sling, not his at all, someone else’s. Who were they all? When the old woman came back, recognizable now, the billet’s owner, he realized, embarrassed, that he didn’t even know her name. Then the stranger with her, an American uniform, gave him a shot, and they disappeared too. What he saw instead was Gunther’s face, floating in the water. No more points. And later, awake, the face still in his mind, he knew the haze was not just the drugs but a deeper exhaustion, a giving up, because he had done everything wrong.

  He was sitting by the window, looking down on the garden where the old woman had snipped parsley, when Lena finally came.

  “I’ve been so worried. They wouldn’t let me go to the hospital.” Military only. What if he had died?

  “You look nice,” he said as she kissed his forehead. Hair pinned up, the dress he had bought in the market.

  “Well, for Gelferstrasse,” she said, a look between them, blushing a little, pleased that he’d noticed. “And look, here’s Erich. They say it’s not so bad, the shoulder only. And ribs. Do the drugs make you sleepy? My god, this room.” She went over to the bed, busy, and straightened the spread. “There,” she said, and for an instant he saw her as a younger version of the old woman, a Berliner, going on. “See what Erich brought. It was his idea.”

  The boy handed over half a Hershey bar, eyes on the sling.

  Jake took the bar, the haze lifting a little, unexpectedly touched. “So much,” he said. “I’ll save it for later, okay?”

  Erich nodded. “Can I feel?” he said, pointing to the arm.

  “Sure.”

  He ran his hand over the tape, working out the mechanics of the sling, interested.

  “You have a light touch,” Jake said. “You’ll make a good doctor.”

  The boy shook his head. “Alles ist kaput.”

  “Someday,” Jake said, still hazy, then looked at Lena again, trying to focus, clear his head. What, in fact, were they doing here? Was Shaeffer keeping him here? Had they told Lena? He turned to her. Get it over with. “They got Emil.”

  “Yes, he came to the flat. With the American. Such a scene, you can’t imagine.”

  “To the flat?” Jake said. “Why?” Nothing clear.

  “He was looking for something,” Erich said.

  The files, even now. “Did he find it?”

  “No,” Lena said, looking away.

  “He was angry,” the boy said.

  “Well, now he’s happy,” Lena said to him quickly. “So never mind. He’s going away, so he’s lucky too.” She looked at Jake. “He said you saved his life.”

  “No. That’s not what happened.”

  “Yes. The American said so too. Oh, you’re always so modest. It’s like the newsreel.”

  “That didn’t happen either.”

  “Ouf,” she said, brushing this away. “Well, now it’s over. Do you want something? Can you eat?” Busy again, picking up a shirt from the floor.

  “I didn’t save him. He tried to kill me.”

  Lena stopped, still half bent over, the shirt in hand. “Such talk. It’s the drugs.”

  “No, that’s what happened,” he said, trying to keep his voice level and clear. “He tried to kill me.”
/>   She turned slowly. “Why?”

  “The files, I guess. Maybe because he thought he could. No one would know.”

  “It’s not true,” she said quietly.

  “No? Ask him how he got the scratches on his hand.”

  For a moment, silence, broken finally by someone clearing his throat.

  “Well, suppose we put all that behind us now, shall we?” Shaeffer came through the door, Ron trailing behind him.

  Lena turned to him. “So it’s true?”

  “Anybody in a car crash gets a few scratches, you know. Look at you,” he said to Jake.

  “You saw it,” Jake said.

  “Confusing situation like that? A lot of splashing, that’s what I saw.”

  “So it is true,” Lena said, sinking onto the bed.

  “Sometimes the truth’s a little overrated,” Shaeffer said. “Doesn’t always fit.”

  “Where have you got him?” Jake said.

  “Don’t worry, he’s safe. No thanks to you. Hell of a place to pick to go swimming. God knows what’s in there. Doc says we’d better get some sulfa drugs into him before we take him to Kransberg. Might spread.”

  “You’re taking him to Kransberg?”

  “Where’d you think I was taking him—to the Russians?” Said genially, without guile, his smile pushing the rest of Jake’s haze away. Not Shaeffer after all. Someone else.

  “Tell me the truth,” Lena said. “Did Emil do that?”

  Shaeffer hesitated. “He might have got a little agitated is all. Now let’s forget about all that. We’ll get Geismar fixed up here and everybody’ll be just fine.”

  “Yes, fine,” Lena said, distracted.

  “We have a few things to go over,” Ron said.

  Lena looked at the boy, who’d been following their conversation like a tennis match.

  “Erich, do you know what’s downstairs? A gramophone. American records. You go listen and I’ll be down soon.”

  “Take him down and get him set up,” Shaeffer said to Ron, giving orders now. “Your kid?” he said to Lena.