Leaving Berlin: A Novel

by Joseph Kanon

  “Oh, Bert. He thinks it’s like before. Well, maybe for him. When he was first here, we took a walk up Friedrichstrasse, where the theaters used to be. Gone. I thought, now you’ll see what it’s like. And you know what he says? You see those people looking at us? They know it’s me. So that’s how it is for him.” She paused. “Not for us.”

  “Tell me how you are,” he said, looking at her.

  “How I am,” she said, flustered. “I’m— I still have the flat. Marienstrasse, by the Charité. The upper floors were hit, but not mine. So. Sasha brings food.”

  “And lipstick.”

  She looked up at him. “He’s all right, you know. Don’t judge.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “No? Well, so maybe it’s me, I judge myself. You think it was so easy to survive here? The bombs every night. The shelters. Nothing to eat. My God, to have a bath. People on the street in dark glasses, wrapped in blankets—for the smoke, you know—I thought it’s some Ufa film, people from space. Except, no, it’s everybody, we’re living like this. And then after, it’s worse—” She stopped. “After a while that’s all you think about. Getting through it. The reckoning? That comes later.” She looked up. “So I go with him. Markus didn’t tell you? He likes to do that, I think. He blames me for Kurt. Why, I don’t know. Maybe I took a gun and went to Spain and shot him and that’s how it happened. And you? Do you still blame me for Kurt?”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “Yes,” she said and then for a minute neither of them said anything.

  “What about the others? Markus said Elsbeth was a Nazi. Elsbeth?”

  “Well, but that husband of hers. A madman. I think he still believes, a little anyway. So of course she does what he says. And now, since the children were—”

  “What?”

  “He didn’t tell you this? Both killed. A direct hit. She was away from the house and when she came back—the nanny, both boys, in the cellar, where they were supposed to go, but a direct hit. I think she went a little crazy then. You know, ‘If I had been there, they wouldn’t,’ things like that. And now they only have each other, she and Gustav, so whatever he says—”

  “Do you see her?”

  “Sometimes. When he’s out. Then I don’t have to listen to him. You ought to go. She’d be pleased.”

  “And Markus said Erich was—I’m sorry.”

  “But at least not dead. I’d know if he were dead. I’d feel it.” Putting a hand to her chest. “He’ll come back.”

  “Irene—”

  “No, it’s true. You can feel these things. People you know. You don’t believe it? That you can sense—?”

  “No.”

  “I knew something would happen to Enka.”

  “Your husband.”

  “I suppose you know all about that too? From Markus? Another black mark against me.”

  “He was killed?”

  She nodded. “His own fault. But I could feel it, that something would happen. We were in a big shelter in Gesundbrunnen. Why there, I can’t remember. Probably on a tram. They were always diverting the trams, you never knew where you’d end up. And then of course in a raid they’d have to stop. So, there. An old U-Bahn station. Small rooms, where they used to store equipment. Just phosphorus paint for light, a real cave. I knew Enka would hate it. And they had a candle, you know, to tell you when the oxygen was running out. So many people. They’d paint the number on the wall—how many could fit—but it was a joke. Sardines. Hot. And what could you do? Stop breathing to save the air? They put the candle up high, so you’d know when the oxygen was almost gone—the carbon dioxide fills the room from below, that was the idea anyway, but Enka just watched it burning and I knew he would panic. He was a coward about such things. Not everything, but a thing like that—” She stopped, aware that she was becoming lost in the story. “So he did. Panic. Sweating, trying to breathe, you know what that’s like. No one could stop him. At the door, he just pushed them aside. And you know it was a danger to everybody if the door was left open—blast—so they let him go. Of course he was wrong about the candle, there was still air in the room. Another half hour, maybe more. And I just sat there and I knew. I could feel when it happened.”

  “A bomb?”

  “Shrapnel. Like a knife in the air.” She made a cutting motion with her hand. “So he bled out. Before the all clear. You don’t think you can feel these things? I do.” She paused. “Anyway, and if it’s not true? Then Erich’s dead? Is that better?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, let’s not talk about these things,” she said, putting her hand on his sleeve. “Tell me something from before. A story. You were always good at that. Let’s talk about those times. The way things were before.”

  And for a second he saw her then, eyes shining and eager, joking about Fritz, certain that life was on her side. Maybe the way he would always see her, having missed everything else.

  “Irene,” he said, at a loss.

  “I’m sorry, I have to leave.” Markovsky, suddenly there. What had he overheard? But what was there to overhear? “An emergency.”

  “What’s wrong?” Irene said.

  “Some trouble. A labor action. Down in Aue,” he said, in a hurry, distracted. “They should have called me earlier. They always leave things too late, and then it’s a mess. I have to go now. My apologies,” he said to Alex.

  “Tonight? In the dark? It can’t wait?”

  “No. I’ll send a car to take you home.”

  “No, no, don’t. It’s not far. Alex can take me home. He’s an old Berliner, he knows the way.”

  “A labor action?” Alex said. In a workers’ state, the contradiction its own bad joke.

  “Well, it’s always something, you know,” Markovsky said, brushing it off, no details. “One trouble or another. Maybe not so serious in the end. We’ll see.”

  “But it’s so far,” Irene said. “At night. Can’t you go in the—”

  “No,” Markovsky said, cutting her off. “I’m sorry. Oh, there’s Franz. My apologies again. Anyway, now you can talk about old times, eh?”

  “That’s just what we were doing,” Alex said.

  “Good, good,” Markovsky said, preoccupied. “The car is ready?” Then a quick kiss to Irene’s hand, public behavior. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” And then he was gone, rushing to put out a fire.

  “Where’s Aue?”

  “Near the Czech border. He goes there sometimes. I don’t know why. He doesn’t tell me things. Work things. Well, maybe I don’t ask either.”

  But you have to, Alex thought. How else can I do this? He looked away.

  “So shall we do that? Go somewhere and talk about old times?”

  “I can’t leave. I’m the guest of honor,” he said, palms out.

  “My famous friend,” she said softly, raising her hand to the side of his head, then brushing her fingers over his hair. “Gray. So soon.”

  “Just a little.” Feeling her fingers.

  “Like your father. Very distinguished. So what has your life been? Safe in America. You have a wife?”

  “I did. We’re separated.”

  “So. What was she like?”

  “She was like you.”

  Irene let her hand fall.

  “The same hair. She looked like you. A little. But she wasn’t.”

  “Don’t.”

  “What difference does it make now? It was probably true. My fault, not hers.”

  “And what do I say? To something like that.” She looked at him for a moment, unsettled. “Anyway, you don’t mean it.”

  “No?”

  “No. Just something to make me feel—I don’t know what. I can tell. I always know what you’re thinking. Remember? We wouldn’t have to talk. I’d know.” She glanced up. “I know you better than anybody.”

  He met her eyes, another minute, not saying anything, then she turned away.

  “So go talk to them. I’ll rescue Matthias from Brecht. It won’t be much l
onger. Nothing goes late anymore. During the war people wanted to get home before the first sirens, so everything was early. You get in the habit. Imagine, in Berlin, where we used to— Yes, I know, don’t look back. I don’t. It’s just seeing you, I think. You won’t leave without me?” The old voice, ironic, flirtatious.

  “I think it might have been true, though.”

  She stopped. “That you married me?” She looked down. “Well. But then look what happened. So maybe I wasn’t the best choice.”

  * * *

  The party went on for another hour, wine and vodka being poured even after the food had run out. Alex had to thank the Kulturbund officers, which prompted another toast. In the smoky room, warmed now by body heat and alcohol, it seemed everyone wanted to see him again—Fritsch at Babelsberg, gentle Aaron Stein at Aufbau, Brecht back at the Adlon bar. Willy would have been pleased. Except Willy was dead. Alex put the drink down, his head already slightly fuzzy, and looked around the room, sweating again. How long before they knew? Some slip, an unexpected witness. Nobody got away with murder. In broad daylight. Irene, over with Fritsch, glanced toward him, her private half smile. I always know what you’re thinking, she’d said, and for a moment Alex wanted to laugh, some perverse release. How about bodies crumpling over, Willy grabbing his sleeve, just do it, running through the streets, Markus checking times with the doorman? He lit a cigarette, steadying his hands. No one knew. All he had to do was be who they thought he was.

  The lights dimmed twice, like the end of a theater intermission, and people finally began to leave. Glasses were tossed back, coats retrieved, the noise louder than before, shouting good-byes, and then they were all out in the street, where it had begun to snow, covering the ruined buildings in white lace, drifting down through the open roofs. There were a few official cars, leaving skid marks behind, but most of the guests were walking, their footprints crisscrossing the snow in all directions, like bird tracks.

  “I love it like this,” Irene said, lifting her face. “Everything clean. Well, until tomorrow. And listen.” They both held their heads still. Somebody laughing farther down Jägerstrasse, the end of a good-bye, then nothing but the steady hum of the planes heading to Tempelhof, even their drone muffled tonight. “So quiet.” She was tying a scarf over her head, a few flakes landing on her face. “You’ll ruin your shoes,” she said. “Should we get a car from Sasha? I can call.”

  “No.”

  “Oh, you don’t approve.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No.” She put her arm in his. “So, you know Marienstrasse?”

  “Behind Schiffbauerdamm.”

  “Yes, but it’s blocked that way. I’ll show you.”

  They walked up Friedrichstrasse, lighted only by the snow. At Unter den Linden it was even darker, a long empty stretch without traffic. The city felt like a house shut up for the season, the furniture covered in white sheets.

  “You remember Kranzler’s used to be here,” she said. Then, “Nobody approves. So it’s not just you. Maybe I should find an Ami. Would that be better?”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You think I don’t hear you? What you think?”

  “I wasn’t here. I don’t blame—”

  “Sasha was later. It wasn’t for that, to protect me. Nothing could protect you then. Not the women.”

  He turned to her, waiting.

  “You want to know what happened? I was like all the others. Afraid to move. I was in Babelsberg then. I thought it would be safer. And Enka’s friends disguised me—you know, the makeup department. They made me look like someone dying from syphilis.” She forced a small laugh. “If that’s what they look like.”

  “Did it work?”

  “No.”

  Alex said nothing, the only sound their soft footfalls in the snow.

  “They didn’t care. Mongols. Maybe they don’t have it there. Maybe they didn’t give a damn.” She paused. “You know, when it happens you think, well, now I know the worst. And I survived it. And then it happens again and that’s the worst. So you think, what if it doesn’t stop? Every night. They’re drunk, they come looking. If you hide, it’s worse. They get angry, sometimes they shoot. They shot my friend Marthe. She was screaming and it upset them.”

  “Irene—”

  “Yes, I know.” She shrugged. “It was a bad time. Nothing’s the same after. Even when it happens to everybody, you think it only happens to you.” She looked over at him. “Damaged goods.”

  “Are you all right? I mean—”

  “Yes. I only meant inside. You want to know everything? I got pregnant, of course. Imagine, a Mongol baby. You see how I can say these things? Before, I never would have told you. I don’t know why—ashamed maybe. And now—”

  “Did you have it?”

  “Are you crazy? A child of rape. Every time you look at it. And no food. Anything. No, I had it taken care of. They had clinics for that then, there were so many, but it wasn’t safe. Soviet army doctors, sometimes just some orderly, they didn’t care what happened to you. So I went to Gustav, Elsbeth’s husband. The Nazi. He didn’t want to do it. Imagine, all the people he killed and he didn’t want to kill this one. But he was in hiding then, waiting for the Amis. He wanted to give himself up to them, not the Russians. So I said I’d tell the Russians where he was and he did it. No anesthesia, nothing for the pain, but no Russian baby either. So that’s how the war was for me. Another story, just like the rest. You wanted to know.”

  “Yes.”

  “And how does it end? Well, how? All those people back there,” she said, tossing her head toward the Kulturbund. “What do they think it’s going to be like? A paradise.” She snorted. “They’re worse than the Russians. They believe in the Party. The Russians know better.” She turned to him suddenly. “You don’t believe in it either. Not like that. I know you. Why are you here?”

  “I had nowhere else to go,” he said.

  “So we’re a fine pair. They make parties for you and give you payoks and I’m—both of us kept by the Russians. How things turn out.”

  Up ahead he saw the lights of the elevated station, soldiers guarding the stairs. Still an occupied city.

  “Why are you?” he said. “With a Russian. After what happened.”

  “Sleeping with him, you mean. You can say it, we don’t have secrets from each other.”

  “No,” he said, looking away.

  “Well, why not? He didn’t rape me. And the Russians—they’re here. I live in the Russian sector. How can I move? Even to get a room in Berlin, it’s impossible now.” A sly look toward him. “Unless of course you’re a guest of the Party. But then you’re still in the East. So, a Russian.”

  “Do you care for him?”

  “Oh, care for him. What does it mean? He helps me. It’s useful to have a Russian friend. You saw how even Markus doesn’t make trouble for me.”

  “And when they leave?”

  “When is that? Maybe never. I used to think the Nazis would be forever too. It felt like it. You never see the end of things when you’re in them.”

  “No.”

  They were on the bridge now, collars up against the wind off the water.

  “How pretty it is, in the snow,” she said, stopping at the rail, looking down at the narrow Spree.

  In fact it was the same raw landscape they’d just walked through, piles of bricks and scaffolding and empty lots, but the few lights were flashing now on the water, a lantern effect, soft through the scrim of snow, and you could see the city you wanted to see.

  “Remember all the cafés?” She pointed to the terrace along Schiffbauerdamm. “At night. And the boats.” Seeing it through her own lens, sun umbrellas and waiters with trays, not the cold black water and rusting girders. “Oh, it’s so good to see you,” she said, reaching up to brush some snow off his coat, her hand on his chest. “I never thought— And now you’re here. Just the same.”

  “No, not the—” The rest swallowed by an S
-Bahn train squealing into the overhead station.

  “Well, the same to me. I know, everything’s different. But it feels the same. Nobody knew me like you did. The way it was with us. Just a look.”

  “What about Kurt?”

  “Well, Kurt. Now you’re going to be angry again. So that’s the same anyway. Jealous,” she said, turning, putting her arm in his again to walk. “It’s getting cold here. You want to talk about Kurt? After all this time? It was something different, that’s all.”

  “Different how?”

  “It was like being in love with a pilot. Or a—I don’t know, skier, something like that. The way a little girl is in love. With her own idea, not the person.”

  “And what was your idea?”

  “Oh, the revolutionary, the fighter. Someone to save the world, while everyone else sits around and watches it go to hell. Maybe someone I wanted to be myself. When all I could do was argue with my father, stupid things like that. But he was really going to fight. So, very romantic. And then a week later, he’s dead, so what was the point? We were—how old? Now you can see what foolishness it was, but then—”

  “Then you were in love with him.”

  “Shall I tell you something? I never knew what he was thinking.”

  Alex stopped, looking at her.

  “Never. So it was different. You know, it’s different with different people. Enka—we never made love but I loved him. So what was that? Kurt. Well, Kurt. I’m not sorry—except that it made you so angry. Why did it? All right, I know. You thought I loved him instead. It was never instead. But it ruined everything between us. I used to think about that sometimes. What if it had never happened? But you would have gone anyway. The way things were after Oranienburg. I kept wanting to tell you, it wasn’t instead. It was—just something else.”

  Alex said nothing. They had turned off Friedrichstrasse.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “It doesn’t work that way for me, that’s all.”

  “And do you know what? If it were Kurt here, not you, I could never say these things. He never knew me. Not like you did.”

  Alex looked away. “Well, he was busy saving the world.”