by Joseph Kanon
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Brecht never knew Thalberg. He was dead before Brecht got there. Years before.”
Seghers snorted. “Typical Bert. So your wife is here? I’d like to meet—”
Alex shook his head. “In America. She’s American.”
“Ah,” Seghers said, looking at him, shuffling through stories, reluctant to ask. “Maybe later. When things are easier here.”
“Yes, maybe later.” A harmless lie, closing things off.
He felt someone hovering at his side and turned. A young man with wire-rimmed glasses and dark, neatly combed hair.
“So you don’t recognize me.”
Alex stared, trying to imagine the face fifteen years ago. Serious, sharp-edged now, not a hint of the youthful fuzziness he must have had in old school pictures. “I’m sorry.”
“No? Well, who remembers the younger brother? There’s a clue.”
Another look.
“Never mind. I don’t blame you. I was ten years old. So things have changed.” He held out his hand. “Markus Engel.”
“Kurt’s brother?” His head in her lap.
“Ah, now the bell goes off. The little brother. Maybe you didn’t even notice back then. But of course I knew you. All of Kurt’s friends.” He turned his head. “Comrade Seghers. We haven’t met but I recognized you from your photographs.”
“If only I still looked like that,” she said pleasantly. “Well, I’ll leave you to talk old times.” She took Alex’s hand. “So glad you’re with us. I’ll have Martin arrange the tea.”
Markus watched her go. “A good Communist. There should be more like her.”
Alex looked at him, surprised. “Aren’t there?”
“I mean the exiles. So many years in the West, it changes people sometimes. But not her.” He half smiled at Alex. “Or you it seems. You came back.” He paused. “You didn’t bring your wife, I think? She’s staying in America?”
The third person to ask, but this time a hint of interrogation, something for the file. Alex looked up, alert. Not unkempt and eager like Kurt, controlled, a policeman’s calm eyes, watching.
“Yes,” Alex said.
“Let’s hope, not too long. It’s not good for families to be apart.” Innocuous but somehow pointed, fishing for a reaction. The leverage of family left behind, what Campbell had wanted to know too.
“I’m afraid for good. We’re separated.”
“Oh,” Markus said, not sure where to take this. “And still you come. So a matter of conviction. Admirable. But you know it’s a serious issue, this exposure to the West. Not for you,” he said hastily. “Not the writers. But the Russian soldiers, POWs—it confuses them. Comrade Stalin immediately saw the problem. How it’s necessary to re-educate them if they’ve been in the West.”
Alex looked at him, disconcerted. Re-educate. Kurt’s little brother.
“It’s a long time you’re away,” Markus said.
“So I’m hopelessly tainted.”
A delayed reaction, taking this in. “I see, a joke. I’m saying only that you weren’t here. You’re meeting lots of old friends tonight? Ones you can recognize?” he said, smiling.
“You’re the first.”
“And your old house? Lützowplatz, I remember, yes? It’s still standing?”
Alex looked at him, unable to speak. What did he know?
“Often people do that,” Markus said. “Go to see if it’s still there. An understandable curiosity.”
“Yes, you wonder. So I went this morning.” Something easily checked. Play it out.
“An early riser.”
“Not too early,” Alex said vaguely. “I slept in a little. A long drive yesterday. But what a memory you have. Lützowplatz.”
“Well, I was reminded of it. There was an incident there this morning.”
“Oh?”
“You didn’t see anything yourself?”
“No. What kind of incident?” Keeping his voice steady.
Markus stared at him, then waved his hand. “Traffic accident. Carelessness.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“I think so, yes. Imagine surviving the war and then a stupid accident. A man was seen running away. Maybe the cause, it’s hard to say.” Then, at Alex’s expression, “I thought you might have seen—”
“No. Nothing. Not the house either. It was gone. The whole thing.”
Markus held his eyes for a moment, then decided to move on. “It’s difficult, coming back. I was with the first group in ’45. The streets—I didn’t know where I was. I thought, what city is this? But then, little by little—”
Alex took a breath, half listening, his mind darting. Of course Markus could get times from the Adlon doorman. But they wouldn’t be precise enough to put him there, already on his way back when the traffic accident happened. Why call it that? Why bring it up at all? And then back off. He saw him suddenly as a young boy, maybe even the boy he’d actually been, poking a toad with a stick, toying with it. Toying with him now. Don’t react. Nobody knew. Nobody in this noisy room suspected anything.
“The first group?” he said, picking up the thread. “From the army?”
“No, I was in exile, like you. But east.”
“East.”
“Moscow. At the Hotel Lux.” A name he assumed Alex would recognize.
“A hotel? All during—”
Markus smiled a little. “Not the Adlon. They kept all the Germans there, the German Communists. The SED leadership now, all Hotel Lux graduates. They say it was our Heidelberg. Well, if they could see it. Not so nice as the real Heidelberg.”
“But when—? I don’t know where to start. What happened to everybody? Kurt?”
“He was killed in Spain. It was after that we left for Russia. My mother and me.”
“I’m sorry.”
Markus shrugged. “A long time ago. At least a hero’s death. One of the first, in the International Brigade.”
“I didn’t know.”
“She never told you? Irene? You were so close to them, the family. Always at the house.”
Alex shook his head. “We weren’t in touch. After I left.”
“No, she wouldn’t have time to write. That kind of woman.”
“What kind?”
“The kind she is. She would already have another man by then. Kurt just dead and—” His voice unexpectedly bitter, a grudge he’d nursed for years. “Not that the others in that family were any better. Nazis.”
“The von Bernuths? They weren’t Nazis. They hid Kurt. From the SA. I was there.”
“Oh, the famous night under the stairs? That was for Erich.”
“I went for the doctor,” Alex said slowly, making a point. “For your brother. He needed stitches, not Erich.”
“Yes, and then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“Erich. He follows Kurt like a puppy. So, meetings. Leaflets. Illegal then. But what is it for him, politics? A fast car. Maybe a woman he shouldn’t be seeing. It’s exciting and then he comes to his senses and leaves her. And where does he go? Into the Wehrmacht.”
“That doesn’t make him a Nazi.”
“Not drafted. The father arranged a commission. From his Nazi friends. You’re surprised? Nobody forced him. The sister, Elsbeth, she even goes to rallies with her Nazi husband. We have photographs of this. An official party member.”
“Doctors had to join, didn’t they?” Alex said absently, his mind still back on we. We who? Who would have photographs?
“They live over in the West now,” Markus said. “It’s easier for them there.” He looked at Alex. “You’re like Kurt a little bit. He was always taken in by them too. But in the end—” His voice tailed off.
“And Irene?” Alex said. “You think she was a Nazi? She was in love with him.”
“Whatever that means to her.”
Alex ignored this. “They never married?”
Markus shook his head. “He said it was a risk for her. If he was arrested.
And then he went to Spain. And that was the end of it.”
“But you expected her to—what? Wear black for the rest of her life? A young girl?”
“Maybe wait a little.”
“But she didn’t,” Alex said, curious, leading.
“A woman like that? Kurt thought she was—well, I don’t know what. Not somebody who works for Goebbels. Who marries—a sham marriage, to hide her affairs.”
“Worked for Goebbels how?”
“Everyone at Ufa worked for him, everyone in Kino. And what were they making? Propaganda. Our great National Socialist heroes. So how would Kurt have felt about that? A wonderful way to honor his memory—make films for the Nazis.”
“But what did she do?”
“Production assistant,” he said easily, familiar with her file. “Later, bigger jobs. So maybe she slept with someone. Then after, when there’s no more Goebbels, she goes to the Americans. The old Ufa crowd, back again, but now for the Americans.”
“Erich Pommer.”
“Yes, exactly, Pommer. But it’s not so easy getting a license to work. Even from old friends. Not after so many Horst Wessel films. So she changes sides again. Now DEFA. Soviet zone. Back to Babelsberg.”
“Then why hire her, if she’s so—what? Unreliable? It’s a Soviet studio.”
Markus hesitated, not expecting this, suddenly cautious, then raised his eyebrow, suggestive.
Alex looked away, just meeting his eyes a kind of complicity. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“What happened to everybody, you asked. So there’s an answer. People you knew—maybe they’re not the same.”
“None of us are,” Alex said, looking at him.
“No,” Markus said, meeting the look. “You, for instance, are now an honored guest of the Soviet Military Administration.” He waved his hand to the room. “A public figure. How you live, who you see. These things are noticed. You want to be with people of the future, not the past.”
“Are you telling me not to see them? The family?”
“I’m telling you who they are. It’s not like the old days. People like you—guests of the state—set an example.”
“Is this official or just some personal advice?”
“Official?”
“Hotel Lux graduate. Don’t you work for the Party?”
“Don’t you?” Markus said. “A very generous stipend.” He paused. “No. I’m not speaking officially.”
“Good. Then since it’s just between the two of us—” He looked up. “And even if it isn’t. Being a guest works two ways. You don’t have to keep me and I don’t have to stay. I travel on a Dutch passport. If the Party doesn’t like the example I’m setting, I’ll start packing. But Fritz von Bernuth saved my life. So if I want to see his family, I’ll see them.”
Markus’s face twitched. “Your famous temper,” he said finally, forcing a small arch smile. “Sometimes confused with political principle.”
Alex dug his nails into his palm. Don’t rise to it. Every answer reported.
“Not by me,” he said.
Another pause, as if Markus’s fingers were on a chess piece. Defuse it.
“I’m a little touchy about Fritz, that’s all. He was a good friend to my father.”
Markus nodded, accepting this.
“Now both dead,” Alex said. “And yours? I should have asked earlier. Your mother?”
A flash in Markus’s eyes that Alex couldn’t interpret, almost panic.
“I’m sorry,” Alex said quickly. “She’s dead?”
Another flash and then the eyes cleared, Markus in control again. “She’s in Russia.”
“Oh. She’s staying there?”
“For now,” Markus said, a twist to his mouth. “Like your wife.”
Alex sidestepped this. “It must have been difficult for you. During the war. To be a German in Moscow.”
“By that time I could speak Russian, so not so difficult,” he said, suddenly thoughtful. “But of course people were suspicious. The Wehrmacht did terrible things, and some people thought, well, maybe it’s something in the blood. Not the Party, of course. To them we were Communists only. Even then they were planning for after the war. A new Germany. So we were well treated.” He paused. “We were the future.” Said plainly, without his usual edge, maybe what he really believed.
“You’re sure of that?” A voice next to them, waiting for an opening, stepping closer now. “Markus.” A formal hello, with a bow, the awkward body of a tall man.
“Well, Ernst,” Markus said, surprised. “In the east? What are you doing here?” Trying to keep his voice genial, but displeased. “You have joined the Kulturbund now?”
“A guest only.”
“Yes? Whose?”
“I’ll let you find that out,” the man said, as if he were proposing a game. He turned to Alex, dipping his head and handing him a business card. “Ernst Ferber, RIAS.”
Alex looked at the card. Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor. Then, underneath, Radio in the American Sector.
“The initials work in both languages,” he said.
“Yes, it’s convenient.”
“Propaganda is the same word in both too,” Markus said.
“As you say,” Ernst said.
“You want to interview him? RIAS? A man who left America?”
“No, I wanted to be sure he’s really here. The news can be so unreliable these days. And of course to pay my respects.” This to Alex, with another dip of his head. “The Last Fence. An important book for us. You must know that.”
“Thank you.”
“He is not giving interviews to RIAS,” Markus said.
“Not now, no. I don’t expect that. Perhaps later. Meanwhile, you can listen to the music. Everybody does. Even in Karlshorst, I hear. The Russians listen to us.”
“Nonsense. What do you mean, perhaps later?”
“Well, he’s here now. Under your protection,” he said to Markus. “Let’s see for how long. A man who writes The Last Fence.”
“I’ve come to stay,” Alex said quickly, before Markus could answer for him.
“I know why you’re here,” Ferber said, looking at him, and for a second Alex stopped breathing, not sure if something else was being said. RIAS a natural cover. “A strange time in America. Some excesses, maybe.” He turned to Markus. “You know how that can be.” Then, back to Alex, “But as I say, you may change your mind, and that would be an interesting story for us. Meanwhile you are welcome to visit anytime.” He nodded to the card. “Come have coffee, see the station. If you can travel. He’s allowed?”
“Everyone’s allowed to travel in Berlin,” Markus said, annoyed. “Look at you. In the Russian sector. Who stops you?”
“Good,” Ferber said to Alex, aware he was needling Markus by ignoring him. “Then I hope you will come. I knew your father a little. At the university. It would be a pleasure to talk. Maybe you could explain it, why you— Well, we’ll save it for the coffee.” He shook hands, a good-bye. “Markus, I’ll do a favor for you. No need to turn the Kulturbund upside down. No one brought me. I just came. Not very gracious, I know, an uninvited guest, but I drank very little, so it’s not too bad. So now maybe you’ll tell me something. The men in Lützowplatz this morning. You’ve made an identification yet? Not the American, the Germans. All Karlshorst will say is ‘Not yet identified.’ Of course, records are not so complete since—”
“The accident, you mean?” Alex said, assuming a puzzled expression, waiting for Markus’s response.
“An accident with guns?” Ferber said, raising an eyebrow. “Well, a Berlin accident. So, ‘Not yet’?”
“Not yet.” Markus paused. “Lützowplatz. The British sector. Why ask Karlshorst? What makes you think they’re from the East?”
Ferber looked at him. “Just a guess. Well, thank you for your hospitality.”
“What did he mean, with guns?” Alex said when he left.
“I don’t know,” Markus said, shrugging th
is off. “Some joke of his. He’s a great one for making jokes. Coming here like that. Be careful of him.”
“Him too?”
“I say these things only to help you. You’re new to Berlin—not the old one, this one. If you broadcast for him, it would be a provocation.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going on the radio. Anywhere. Just the men’s room. Would you excuse me for a moment?” Anxious to be out of it. How much longer? He looked around.
“Let me show you,” Martin said, suddenly there, or perhaps there all along.
“I can find—”
“Please,” Martin said, beginning to escort him, a bobbing motion, dragging his bad foot.
“You really don’t have to—”
They were already out of the room, just under the portrait of Goethe.
“Herr Meier, a word?” Martin said, his voice lower, almost conspiratorial. “Herr Engel, he’s an old friend?”
“Not really. I knew his brother. He was a child—”
“You know he’s state security?”
“Markus?” Alex said, pretending to be surprised. And then, curious, “A German?”
“They have a special department for Germans. Now under the police. But when the Russians leave—”
“Thanks for letting me know. I don’t think I said anything—”
“It’s not a question of that. You’re free to say what you like,” he said simply. “It’s not Gestapo here anymore.”
“Then why the red flag?”
Martin licked his lips, hesitating. “The Kulturbund. It’s a very free atmosphere, as you see. Sometimes the police misinterpret.” He looked up. “You don’t want to say anything that might—”
“No, I don’t want to do that.” He looked around the old club. “Do the walls have ears too?”
“What?” Martin said, confused by the idiom.
