Liz’s body was shipped home by military transport and Shaeffer’s lay in a hospital bed, mending, without visitors. MG filed an official complaint with the Russians, who promptly sent one back, and the incident floated between In trays, waiting for the Kommandatura to meet and quarrel. Jake retreated to the flat and tried to write a piece about Liz, then gave it up. In Stars and Stripes she had already become a kind of soldier on the front lines; why say anything else? It was the newsreel all over again, more real than real. If you watched it on the screen, what would you actually see? An accident in crossfire, not a girl stepping into someone else’s bullet. Only Jake had looked over her shoulder at the pointing gun.
When he went to Gelferstrasse, he was unnerved to hear footsteps next door, but it was only Ron, folding her clothes onto a pile near an open satchel.
“Give me a hand, will you?” he said, holding up some underwear. “It feels funny, going through this stuff.”
“Never seen panties before?”
“It feels funny, that’s all,” Ron said, strangely subdued, and Jake knew what he meant. As each piece of silk dropped into the satchel, he felt finally that Liz was really gone, now just a bundle of neatly folded effects.
“Why don’t you get the woman downstairs to do it?”
“A German? There wouldn’t be much left. You know what they’re like.”
Jake held up a pair of shoes, the ones Lena had danced in, and stood for a second looking at them.
“Take them if you want,” Ron said. Why not? A whole suitcase of things Lena could use, impossible to buy. He’d become a Berliner, scavenging the dead. He dropped the shoes in the satchel.
“They might mean something to somebody. Is there family?”
Ron shrugged. “What about these?” he said, pointing to a small collection of cosmetics. “Christ, women.”
A half tube of lipstick, some powder, a jar of cream-all ordinary, not worth sending back.
“Let downstairs have them.”
“The old lady?”
“She can trade them.”
“I’ll bet she’s got her eye on the cameras. They’re already making noises about the storage room in the basement-you know, where she set up a darkroom. They say they need the space.”
“I’ll clear it out,” Jake said, picking up a camera from the bed. The one she’d used in Potsdam, still flecked with blood. He twisted the knob to the end, then popped out the last roll. “You’d better clean this before you pack it,” he said, holding the camera out to Ron, who looked at it squeamishly. “Where’s it all going, anyway?”
“Home.”
“Not CID?”
“Why CID?” Ron said, surprised.
“Well, she was killed, wasn’t she?”
“She might have been hit by a bus, too. We don’t send them the bus. What are you talking about?”
Well, what? Jake looked at the lipstick, a folded blouse, none of it evidence, only what had flashed in his eyes, as unreliable as a newsreel. He walked over to the desk, stacked with photographs.
“Hell of a way to go, though,” Ron was saying, finishing the packing. “All through the war without a scratch, and then bam.”
Jake started flipping through the pictures. Churchill at the Chancellery. Ron at the airport in a blur of uniforms. Another of Joe.
“What about Shaeffer?”
“He lost some blood, but they stitched him up all right.”
“They said no visitors.”
“It was a lot of blood,” Ron said, looking at him. “Since when were you two so friendly? ”
“Just asking. What happens to these?” Jake said, holding up the pictures.
“Damned if I know. The news service, I guess, technically. Think there’s anything the family would want?”
“I doubt it. She’s not in any of them.” The other side of the camera, so that you left without a trace.
“Well, have a look. Just get them out of here-we’re going to need the room.” He snapped the satchel shut. “That’s that. Not a lot, is it?”
“She liked to travel light.”
“Yeah, except for her goddamn equipment,” he said, nodding at the packed case by the door. “Some girl, though.”
“Yes.”
Ron looked over at him. “You two ever-”
“Ever what?”
“You know. I always thought she had a soft spot for you.”
“No.” It might have been nice.
“Just old Shaeffer, huh? You saved the wrong one, if you ask me.”
“She was already dead.”
Ron shook his head. “Fucking Dodge City. Nobody’s safe out there.”
Jake thought of Gunther, reading westerns, going through his points. “So we fire the police,” he said.
“We’re the police,” Ron said, looking at him curiously. “Anyway, what difference would it make?” He turned to go. “You never know, do you? When your number’s up, that’s it.”
“That wasn’t it. Somebody shot her.”
“Well, sure,” Ron said, then turned back. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying somebody shot her. Not an accident.”
Ron peered at him. “Are you all right? There were only about a hundred witnesses, you know.”
“They’re wrong.”
“Everyone but you. Then who did it?”
“What?”
“Who did it? Somebody shoots, not an accident, it’s the first thing I’d want to know.”
Jake stared. “You’re right. Who was he?”
“Some Russian,” Ron said, at a loss.
“Nobody’s just some Russian. Who was he?” he said to himself, then gathered up the photographs to leave. “Thanks.”
“Where are you going?”
“To see a policeman. A real one.”
But it was Bernie who answered the door in Kreuzberg.
“You picked a fine time. Come on, as long as you’re here. We have to get him on his feet.”
Jake looked around the room-the same messy hodgepodge as before, everything smelling of fresh coffee. Gunther was bent over a mug, breathing in the steam, head nodding, the map of Berlin behind him.
“What’s up?”
“The trial. He’s in the witness box in an hour, so what does he do? Goes on a bender. I get here, he’s on the fucking floor.”
“What trial?”
“Your pal Renate. The greifer. Today’s the day. Here, help me get him up.”
“Herr Geismar,” Gunther said, looking up from the mug, eyes bleary.
“Drink the coffee,” Bernie snapped. “All these weeks and now he pulls this.” Gunther was rising unsteadily. “Think you can manage a shave, or should we do it for you?”
“I can shave myself,” Gunther said stiffly.
“What about clothes?” Bernie said. “You can’t go looking like that.” A dirty undershirt marked with stains.
Gunther nodded toward the closet, then turned to Jake. “So how goes your case? I thought you had given up.”
“No. I’ve got lots to tell you.”
“Good,” Bernie said. “Talk to him. Maybe that’ll wake him up.” He opened the closet and pulled out a dark suit. “This fit?”
“Of course.”
“It better. You’re going to make a good impression if I have to hold you up.”
“It’s so important to you?” Gunther said, his voice distant.
“She sent your wife to the ovens. Isn’t it important to you?”
Gunther looked down and took another sip of coffee. “So what is it you want, Herr Geismar?”
“I need you to talk to your Russian friends. Find out about somebody. There was a shooting in Potsdam.”
“Always Potsdam,” Gunther said, a grunt.
“A Russian shot a friend of mine. I want to know who he is. Was.” Gunther raised his eyes. “Somebody shot back.”
“His name isn’t on the report?” Gunther said, a cop’s question.
“Not just his name. Who he was.”
“Ah, the who,” Gunther said, drinking more coffee. “So, another case.”
The same case.
“The same?” Bernie said, following the conversation from the closet. “They said it was an accident. A robbery. It was in the papers.”
“It wasn’t a robbery,” Jake said. “I was there. It was a setup.” He looked at Gunther. “The shooting was the point. They just happened to get the wrong person.”
“That was your friend.”
Jake nodded. “The man they wanted took one in the shoulder.”
“Not a sharpshooter, then,” Gunther said, using the western term.
“It’s easy to miss in a crowd. You know what the market’s like. All hell broke loose. Shooting all over the place. Ask your friend Sikorsky.”
Gunther looked up from his coffee. “He was in the market? In Potsdam?”
Jake smiled. “Peddling cigarettes. Maybe he was buying a rug, I don’t know. He got out fast enough when the shooting started, just like everybody else.”
“Then he didn’t see the first shots.”
“I saw them.”
“Go on,” Gunther said.
“Talk while you shave,” Bernie said, nudging him toward the bathroom. “I’ll get more coffee.”
Gunther shuffled to the sink, obedient, and stood for a minute in front of the mirror looking at himself, then started to lather his face with a brush. Jake sat on the edge of the tub.
“Don’t be long,” Bernie said from the other room. “We have to go over your testimony one last time.”
“We’ve been over my testimony,” Gunther said to the mirror grimly, his grizzled face slowly disappearing under a film of soap.
“You don’t want to forget anything.”
“Don’t worry,” Gunther said, to himself now, leaning on the sink. “I won’t forget.”
He picked up a straight-edge razor, his hand shaking.
“Are you going to be all right?” Jake said quietly. “Do you want me to do that?”
“You think I might hurt myself? No.” He held up the razor, looking at it. “Do you know how many times I’ve thought how easy it would be? One cut, that’s all, and it’s over.” He shook his head. “I could never do it. I don’t know why. I tried. I put the razor here,” he said, touching his throat, “but I couldn’t cut. You think it would cut me now? An accident?” He turned sideways to look at Jake. “I don’t believe in accidents.” He faced the mirror again. “So tell me about our case.”
Jake shifted on the tub rim, disconcerted. Not the drink talking, the voice behind the drink, suddenly naked, not even aware of being exposed, like someone in a window taking off his clothes. What goes through your head when you feel a razor on your throat? But now it was there again, taking a calm, neat stroke upward through the soap, guided by a survivor’s steady hand.
Jake started to talk, his words following the rhythmic scraping, trying to match the logical path of the shave, down one cheek, curving around the corners of the mouth, but soon the story went off on its own, darting from one place to another, the way it had actually happened. There was a lot Gunther didn’t know. The serial-number dash. Kransberg. Frau Dzuris. Even young Willi, loitering in Professor Brandt’s street. At times Jake thought Gunther had stopped listening, stretching his skin to draw the razor closer without nicking, but then he would grunt and Jake knew he was registering the points, his mind clearing with each swipe of his soapy face.
Bernie came in with more coffee and stayed, leaning against the door and watching Gunther’s expression in the mirror, for once not interrupting. A Russian kneeling in front of a Horch, gun out. Meister Toll. Gunther rinsed the blade and splashed his face clean.
“Is this presentable enough for you?” he said to Bernie.
“Just like new. Here’s a shirt,” he said, handing it over.
“So what do you think?” Jake said.
“Everything’s mixed up,” Gunther said absently, wiping his face.
“I’ve confused you.”
“It’s more, I think, that you have confused yourself.”
Jake looked at him.
“Herr Geismar, you cannot do police work by intuition. Follow the points, like a bookkeeper. You have two problems, so you make two columns. Keep them separate, don’t leap from column to column.”
“But they connect.”
“Only at Kransberg. Who knows? Maybe the one coincidence. The obvious point, you know, is that Tully wasn’t looking for Herr Brandt. The others, yes. Not him.” He shook his head, slipping into the shirt. “No, put your numbers down in order, each in its own column. It is only when the same number comes up that you have a match, the connection.”
“Maybe they connect at Potsdam. That keeps coming up.”
“Yes, and why?” Gunther said, buttoning the shirt. “I’ve never understood about Potsdam. What was he doing there? And that day, a closed city.”
“You asked me to check on that,” Bernie said. “Passes into the American compound. Zero. No Tully.”
“But he was found there,” Jake said. “Russian sector, Russian money.”
“Yes, the money. It’s a useful point.” Gunther picked up the coffee cup again, drinking. “If he got Russian money, it must have been here. But not from an Ivan buying watches, I think. Who has so much? Have you heard anything from Alford?” No.
“Try again. The tie also?” he said to Bernie.
“You want to look your best for the judge,” Bernie said.
Jake sighed, stymied. “Danny won’t get us anywhere. We have to find Emil.“
Gunther turned to the mirror, slipping the tie underneath his collar. “Keep your columns separate. There isn’t yet the connection.”
“And I suppose the shooting in Potsdam wasn’t connected either.”
“No. There a number matches.”
“Shaeffer, you mean.”
“Herr Geismar, you have a gift for ignoring the obvious. A gift.” He leaned toward the mirror, knotting his tie. “There are three people standing in the market. Close. When you describe it, you see a gun pointing at the photographer. But I see her bending down. I see it pointing at you.”
For a second Jake just stared at Gunther, the sharp eyes no longer cloudy, now cleared by caffeine. “Me?” he said, little more than a surprised intake of air.
“A man who finds a body, who investigates a murder. Do you mean this hasn’t occurred to you? Who else? A soldier, for raiding the Zeiss works? Perhaps. The lady? And it might be, you know-you’re quick to look away from her. The person shot is usually the one intended. But let’s say this time you’re right, a piece of luck. Luck for you.”
Stepping into his bullet, dead because he was lucky.
“I don’t believe it.”
“When did you first see the Horch? On the Avus, you said. Soon after you left Gelferstrasse.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. Try this point. Nobody started shooting until we met Shaeffer.”
“Away from the crowd. And if you had both been shot? An incident. No longer just you.”
“But why-”
“Because you are dangerous to someone, of course. A detective is.”
“I don’t believe it,” Jake said, his voice less sure than before.
Gunther picked up a hairbrush and ran it back over his temples. “Have it your way. But I suggest you move. If they know Gelferstrasse, they may know the other. I take it this is where the lady friend lives, the good Lena? It’s one thing to put yourself in danger-”
Jake cut him off. “Do you really believe this?”
Gunther shrugged. “A precaution.”
“Why should Lena be in any danger?”
“Why was a Russian looking for her? You didn’t find it interesting, that point? The Russian at Professor Brandt’s asks for her, not for the son.”
“To find the son,” Jake said, watching Gunther’s face.
“Then why not ask for him?”
“All right, why not? Another obvious point?”
Gunther shook his head. “More a possibility. But it suggests itself.” He looked up at Jake. “They already know where he is.”
Jake said nothing, waiting for more, but Gunther turned away, taking the coffee cup with him into the other room. “Is it time?” he said to Bernie.
“You sober? Hold out your hands.”
Gunther stretched one arm out-a mild trembling. “So I’m on trial now,” he said.
“We want a credible witness, not a drunk.”
“I’m a policeman. I’ve been in a courtroom before.”
“Not this kind.”
Jake had followed them, brooding. “That doesn’t make sense,” he said to Gunther.
“Not yet. As I say, a possibility.” He put down the cup. “But I would move her. I would hide her.”
Jake glanced at him, disturbed. “I still want to talk to Shaeffer,” he said. “He’s the one they shot. And he couldn’t wait to get out of there. Even wounded, it’s all he cared about.” He paused. “Anyway, where could we go? It’s not easy to move in Berlin.”
“No. Unless you have to. I moved Marthe fourteen times,” Gunther said, looking down at the floor. “Fourteen. I remember every time. You don’t forget. Guntzelstrasse. Blucherstrasse. Every time. Will they ask me about that?” he said to Bernie.
“No,” Bernie said, “just the last time.”
“With the greifer,” he said, nodding. “A coffee. We thought it was safe. She had papers. Safe.”
Jake looked at him, surprised. A U-boat trail, Gunther helping. “I thought you divorced her,” he said.
“She divorced me. It was better.” He looked up. “You think I abandoned her? Marthe? She was my wife. I did what I could. Flats. Papers. For a policeman, not so difficult. But not enough. The greifer saw her. By chance, just like that. So it was all for nothing. Every move.“ He stopped and turned to Bernie. ”Forgive me, I’m not myself.“
“You going to be sick?”
Gunther smiled weakly. “Not sick. A little-” His voice trailed off, suddenly frail. “Perhaps one drink. For the nerves.”
“Nothing doing,” Bernie said.
But Jake glanced at him, his body shrunken in the old suit, eyes uneasy, and walked over to the table and poured out a finger of brandy. Gunther drank it back in one gulp, like medicine, then stood for a second letting it work its way through him.
“Don’t worry,” he said to Bernie. “I won’t forget anything.”
“Let’s hope not.” He reached into his pockets and pulled out a mint. “Here, chew this. The Russians’U smell it on you a mile off.”
“The Russians?” Jake said.
“It’s a Russian trial. To show us they can do it too, not just string people up. Especially when we help catch them. Come on, we’ll be late.”
“Can I get in? I’d like to see this. See Renate.”
“The press slots were gone days ago. Everybody wants to see this one.”
Jake looked at him, feeling like Gunther asking for a drink.
“All right,” Bernie said. “We’ll put you on the prosecution team. You can keep an eye on our friend here. Which is getting to be a job.” He glanced at Gunther. “No more.”
Gunther handed the glass back to Jake. “Thank you.” And then, as a kind of return favor, “I’ll talk to Willi for you.”
“Willi?”
“It’s a type I know well. He’ll talk to me.”
“I mean, why him?” Jake said, intrigued to see Gunther still working, behind everything.
“To keep the figures neat. The little details. What’s the English? Dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”
“Still a cop.”
Gunther shrugged. “It pays to be neat. Not overlook anything.”
“What else did I overlook?”
“Not overlook-ignore, perhaps. Sometimes when it’s not pleasant, we don’t want to see.”
“Such as?” “The car.”
“The Horch again? What’s so important about the Horch?” “No, Herr Brandt’s car. That week-to drive into Berlin, how was it possible? The city was burning, at war. And yet he comes to get his wife. How was that allowed?” “It was an SS car.”
“Yes, his. You think the SS was offering lifts? While the city was falling? Either he was one of them or he was their prisoner. But they stop to collect the father, so not a prisoner. One of them. A mission for the SS-what kind? Even the SS didn’t send cars for relatives those last days.”
“His father said they were picking up files.” “And they risk coming to Berlin. What files, I wonder.” “That’s easy to find out,” Bernie said. “They surrendered in the west. There’ll be a record somewhere. One thing we’ve got plenty of is files.”
“More folders,” Gunther said, looking at the stack Bernie had brought with him for the trial. “For all the bad Germans. Let’s see what they say about Herr Brandt.”
“What makes you think he’s in them?” Jake said. “What do you save when a city’s on fire? You save yourself.” “He was trying to save his wife.”
“But he didn’t,” Gunther said, then looked away, somewhere else. “Of course, sometimes it’s not possible.” He picked up his jacket and put it on, ready to go. “That last week-you weren’t here. Fires. Russians in the streets. We thought it was the end of the world.” He looked back at Jake. “But it wasn’t. Now there’s this. The reckoning.”
The courtroom had an improvised look to it, as if the Russians had set up a stage without knowing where the props went. Their de-Nazification program had run to group executions, not trials, but the greifer was a special case, so they’d taken over a room near the old police headquarters in the Alex, built a raised platform of raw wooden boards for the judges’ bench, and assigned the press haphazard rows of folding chairs that squeaked and scraped the floor as reporters leaned forward to hear. The prosecution attorneys and their Allied advisers were crammed together at one table, a lopsided stacking of cards against the defense lawyer and his one assistant, who sat by themselves at another. Along the wall, female Soviet soldiers made transcripts with steno machines, handing them to two civilian girls for translation.
The trial was in German, but the judges, three senior officers shuffling papers and trying not to look bored, evidently understood only a little, so the lawyers, also in uniform, occasionally switched to Russian, afraid to let their points drift away to the steno keys unheard. There was a heavy chair for witnesses, a Soviet flag, and not much else. It was the format of an inquisition, starker even than the rough-and-ready frontier courtrooms of Karl May, not a robe in sight. People were frisked at the door.
Renate stood behind a cagelike railing of new plywood next to the bench, facing the room, as if her expression during the testimony would be recorded as a kind of evidence. Behind her stood two soldiers with machine guns, gazing stolidly at her back. Bernie said she had changed, but she was recognizably the same-thinner, with the hollowed-out look you saw everywhere in Berlin, but still Renate. Only her dark hair was different, cropped close and turned a premature, indeterminate pale. She was dressed in a loose gray prison shift, belted, her collarbones sticking out, and the face he remembered as pretty and animated seemed rearranged-beaten, perhaps, or somehow disfigured by her life. But there were the eyes, sharp and knowing, glancing defiantly around the crowd as if she were even now looking for news items. The same way, Jake thought, she must have hunted for Jews.
She spotted him instantly, raising her eyebrows in surprise, then dropping them in bewilderment. A friend sitting at the table of her accusers. Did she think he was there to testify against her? What would he have said? A girl with a quick smile who liked to take chances, bold enough to cadge a cigarette from a Nazi on a train platform. A sharp eye, trained for snatching prey in the street. How could she have done it? But that was always the question-how could any of them have done it? He wanted suddenly to signal some absurd reassurance. I remember who you were. Not a monster, not then. How can I judge? But who could? Three Russian soldiers on a makeshift platform, whose fleshy faces seemed to ask no questions at all.
They were only minutes into the trial before Jake realized they hadn’t come to establish guilt, just the sentence. And was there any doubt? The Germans had kept records of her activity, more columns of numbers. As the prosecution read out its indictments, Jake watched her lower her head, as if she too were overwhelmed by the sweep of it, all the snatches, one by one, until finally there were enough to fill boxcars. So many. Had she known them all, or just guessed, smelling fear when it walked into one of her Cafes? Each number a face-to-face moment, real to her, not anonymous like a pilot opening the bomb bay.
The method was as Bernie had described-the sighting, the hurried call, the nod of her head to make the arrest, her colleagues bundling people into cars as she walked away. Why hadn’t she kept walking? Instead she’d gone back to the collection center, her room there its own kind of short leash, but still not a prison. Why not just keep walking away? Gunther had moved his wife fourteen times. But he had had papers and friends prepared to help. No U-boat could survive alone. Where, after all, would she have gone?
The Russian prosecutor then switched, oddly, to a detailed account of Renate’s own capture, the manhunt that finally ran her to ground in a basement in Wedding. For a moment Jake thought the Soviets were simply congratulating themselves for the press, now busily taking notes. Then he noticed Bernie in a lawyer’s huddle, heard Gunther mentioned by name as the hunter, and saw that it was something more-the old DA’s ploy, establishing your witness, the good guy in the neat jacket and tie. He needn’t have bothered. The story, with its breathless chase, seemed lost on the first judge, who shifted in his seat and lit a cigarette. The Russian next to him leaned over and whispered. The judge, annoyed, put it out and gazed at the window, where a standing fan was lazily moving the stuffy air. Apparently an unexpected western custom. Jake wondered how long it would take to call a recess.
He’d assumed from the buildup that Gunther would be the star witness. Who else was there? The records supplied the mechanics of the crime, but its victims were dead, no longer able to accuse. Gunther had actually seen her do it. And a DA always started with the police, to weight his case at the beginning. The first person called, however, was a Frau Gersh, a more theatrical choice, a frail woman who had to be helped to the witness chair on crutches. The prosecutor began, solicitously, with her feet.
“From frostbite. On the death march,” she said, halting but matter-of-fact. “They made us leave the camp so the Russians wouldn’t find out. We had to walk in the snow. If you fell, they shot you.”
“But you were fortunate.”
“No, I fell. They shot me. Here,” she said, pointing to her hip. “They thought I was dead, so they left me. But I couldn’t move. In the snow. So the feet.”
She spoke simply, her voice low, so that chairs creaked as people strained forward to hear. Then she looked over at Renate.
“The camp where she sent me,” she said, louder, spitting it out.
“I didn’t know,” Renate said, shaking her head. “I didn’t know.”
The judge glared at her, startled to hear her speak but unsure what to do about it. No one seemed to know what the rules were supposed to be, least of all the defense attorney, who could only silence her with a wave of his hand and nod at the judge, an uneasy apology.
“She did!” the woman said, forceful now. “She knew.”
“Frau Gersh,” the prosecutor said deliberately, as if the outburst hadn’t happened, “do you recognize the prisoner?”
“Of course. The greifer.”
“She was known to you personally?”
“No. But I know that face. She came for me, with the men.”
“That was the first time you saw her?”
“No. She talked to me at the shoe repair. I should have known, but I didn’t. Then, that same afternoon-”
“The shoe repair?” one of the judges said, confusing the past with the crutches now on display.
“One of her contacts,” the prosecutor said. “People in hiding wore out their shoes-from all the walking, to keep moving. So Fraulein Naumann made friends with the shoe men. ‘Who’s been in today? Any strangers?’ She found many this way. This particular shop-” He made a show of checking his notes. “In Schoneberg. Hauptstrasse. That’s correct?”
“Yes, Hauptstrasse,” Frau Gersh said.
Jake looked at Renate. Clever, if that’s what you were after, collecting items from cobblers. All her news-gathering tricks, offered to murderers.
“So she talked to you there?”
“Yes, you know, the weather, the raids. Just to talk. I didn’t like it-I had to be careful-so I left.”
“And went home?”
“No, I had to be careful. I walked to Viktoria Park, then here and there. But when I got back, she was there. With the men. The others-good German people, helping me-were already gone. She sent them away too.”
“I must point out,” the defense lawyer said, “that at this time, 1944, it was against the law for German citizens to hide Jews. This was an illegal act.”
The judge looked at him, amazed. “We are not interested in German law,” he said finally. “Are you suggesting that Fraulein Naumann acted correctly? ”
“I’m suggesting that she acted legally.” He looked down. “At the time.”
“Go on,” the judge said to the prosecutor. “Finish it.”
“You were taken away then. On what charge?”
“Charge? I was a Jew.”
“How did Fraulein Naumann know this? You hadn’t told her?”
Frau Gersh shrugged. “She said she could always tell. I have papers, I said. No, she told them, she’s a Jew. And of course they listened to her. She worked for them.”
The prosecutor turned to Renate. “Did you say this?”
“She was a Jew.”
“You could tell. How?”
“The look she had.”
“What kind of look was that?”
Renate lowered her eyes. “A Jewish look.”
“May I ask the prisoner-such a skill-were you ever mistaken?”
Renate looked at him directly. “No, never. I always knew.”
Jake sat back, feeling sick. Proud of it. His old friend.
“Continue, Frau Gersh. You were taken where?”
“The Jewish Old Age Home. Grosse Hamburger Strasse.” A precise detail, coached.
“And what happened there?”
“We were held until they had enough to fill a truck. Then to the train. Then east,” she said, her voice dropping.
“To the camp,” the prosecutor finished.
“Yes, to the camp. To the gas. I was healthy, so I worked. The others-” She broke off, then looked again at Renate. “The others you sent were killed.”
“I didn’t send them. I didn’t know,” Renate said.
This time the judge held up his hand to silence her.
“You saw. You saw,” the woman shouted.
“Frau Gersh,” the prosecutor said, his calm voice a substitute for a gavel, “can you positively identify the prisoner as the woman who came to your house to arrest you?”
“Yes, positive.”
Bernie leaned over in another huddle.
“And did you see her again?”
Jake glanced at the prosecutor, wondering where he was heading.
“Yes, from the truck. She was watching us from her window. When they took us away. Watching.”
An echo of the story from Bernie. A shoe shop in Schoneberg, the American sector. So Bernie had found her, another gift to the Russians.
“The same woman. You’re positive.”
Now the woman was shaking, slipping out of control. “The same. The same.” She started to rise from the chair, staring at Renate. “A Jew. Killing your own. You watched them take us away.” The beginning of a sob, no longer in court. “Your own people. Animal! Eating your own, like an animal.”
“No!” Renate shouted back.
The judge slapped the desk with his palm and said something in Russian, presumably calling a recess, but the prosecutor hurried up to the bench and began whispering. The judge nodded, slightly taken aback, then said formally to the room, “We will stop for fifteen minutes, but first the photographers will be allowed in. The prisoner will remain standing.”
Jake followed the prosecutor’s signal to the back of the room, where Ron appeared from the press section, opening the door to let the photographers in. A small group filed down the center of the room. Flashing lights went off in Renate’s face, causing her to blink and turn, shaking her head as if they were flies. The judges sat erect, posing. A soldier helped Frau Gersh onto her crutches. For a second
Jake expected to see Liz, snapping history. Then the flashbulbs died out and the judge stood.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said, already lighting a cigarette.
In the corridor outside, the crowd of reporters had to press against the wall to let Frau Gersh pass on her crutches. Evidently there would be no cross-examination. Brian Stanley was standing off to one side, drinking from a pocket flask.
“Not up to Moscow standards, is it?” He offered Jake a drink. “Not the same without the confessions. That’s what they like-all that bloody hand-wringing. Of course, they’ve got a lot to confess, the Russians have.”
“It’s a farce,” Jake said, watching Frau Gersh leave.
“ ‘Course it is. Can’t expect the Old Bailey here.” He looked down at his bottle. “Still, not the nicest girl in Berlin, is she?”
“She used to be. Nice.”
Brian looked at him, confused, unaware of the connection.
“Yes, well,” he said, at a loss, then slowly shook his head. “Never mistaken. Brought out the best in everybody, didn’t it? By the way, I found you a boat.”
“A boat?”
“You asked about a boat, didn’t you? Anyway, they’ve got a few still. Over at the yacht club. Just mention my name.” He looked up. “You did ask.”
The afternoon he’d promised Lena, sailing on the lake, away from everything.
“Yes, sorry, I forgot. Thanks.”
“Mind you don’t sink it. They’ll make me pay.”
“Is that a drink?” Benson said, appearing with Ron.
“It was,” Brian said, handing him the flask.
“What are you doing here?” Benson said to Jake, then turned to Ron. “And you promised. Stars and Stripes exclusive.”
“Don’t look at me. How did you get in?” he said to Jake. “They said no more passes.”
“I’m helping the prosecution. She used to be a friend of mine.”
An embarrassed silence.
“Christ,” Ron said finally. “You always turn up one way or the other, don’t you?”
“Can you get me an interview?”
“I can request one. So far, nothing. She hasn’t been in a talking mood. I mean, what do you say after that? What can you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’ll say it to me.”
“You’d have to share,” Ron said, working. “Everybody wants this story.”
“Fine. Just get me in.” He looked at Benson. “That was a good piece on Liz. She would have liked it.”
“Thanks,” Benson said, a little uncomfortable with the compliment. “Hell of a thing. I hear the boyfriend’s all right, though. He got out this morning.”
Jake’s head snapped up. “What? Yesterday he couldn’t have visitors and today’s he out of there? How did that happen?”
“What I hear is he’s got friends in Congress,” Benson said, trying to make a joke. “Who the hell wants to stay in the infirmary? They kill more than they cure. Anyway, he’s sitting pretty. Got a nurse in his billet and everything. What’s it to you?”
Jake turned to Ron, still agitated. “Did you know about this?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I told you,” he said, grabbing Ron’s arm. “She took a bullet for him-somebody wants him dead. Are there guards? Who’s with him in the billet?”
“What do you mean, took a bullet?” Benson said, but Ron was moving Jake’s hand away, staring.
“The U.S. Army,” Ron said to Jake, “that’s who. Pull fucking guard duty yourself, if it makes you so nervous.”
“What’s wrong?” Benson said.
“Nothing,” Ron said. “Geismar’s been seeing things, that’s all. Maybe you ought to check into the infirmary yourself, have them give you a once-over. You’re not making a lot of sense these days.”
“There’s someone there all the time?”
“Uh-huh,” Ron said, still looking at him. “No Russians allowed. Ever.”
“So I can see him?”
“That’s up to you. He isn’t going anyplace. Why don’t you take him some flowers and see what it does for you? Christ, Geismar.” He glanced toward the crowd shuffling back into the courtroom. “There’s the bell. You coming, or do you want to run right over and play nurse?” he said, then looked at Jake seriously. “I don’t know what this is all about, but you don’t have to worry about him. He’s as safe as you are.“ He nodded at the Russians by the door. ”Maybe safer.“
“I didn’t know you and Shaeffer were friends,” Benson said, still curious.
“Geismar’s got friends stashed all over Berlin, haven’t you?” Ron said, beginning to move. “How do you know this one, by the way?” he said, jerking his thumb toward the court.
“She was a reporter,” Jake said. “Just like the rest of us. I trained her.”
Ron stopped and turned. “That must give you something to think about,” he said, then followed Benson through the door.
Bernie was standing at the end of the table with Gunther but came over as Jake took his seat. The judges were just returning, walking in single file.
“So,” he said to Jake. “How do you think it’s going so far?”
“Jesus, Bernie. Crutches.”
Bernie’s face grew tight. “The crutches are real. So was the gas.”
“Why not just take her out and shoot her?”
“Because we want it on the record-how they did it. People should know.”
Jake nodded. “So she’s what? A stand-in?”
“No, she’s the real thing. No different from Otto Klopfer. No different.” He took in Jake’s blank expression. “The guy who wanted the exhaust pipe fixed. Or maybe you forgot already. People do.” He looked back to the press section, a restless scraping of chairs. “Maybe they’ll listen this time.”
“They made her do it. You know that.”
“That’s what Otto says too. All of them. You believe it?”
Jake looked up. “Sometimes.”
“Which gets you where? Everybody’s got a sad story, and the end’s always the same. One thing I learned as a DA-you start feeling sorry for people, you never get a conviction. Don’t waste your sympathy. She’s guilty as hell.”
The prosecutor began by calling Gunther to the stand, but before he could take the chair the defense attorney jumped up, stirred finally to some activity.
“May I address the court? What is the purpose of these witnesses? This emotionalism. The nature of the prisoner’s work is not in ques tion here. She herself has described it for the court.“ He held up a transcript. ”Work, I would add, that she performed under the threat of her own death. She has also, let us remember, helped us identify her employers, given her full cooperation so that the Soviet people can bring the real fascists to justice. And what is her reward? This? We have here a matter for the Soviet people to decide, not the western press. I ask that we dispense with these theatrics and proceed with the serious business of this court.“
This was so clearly unexpected that for an instant the judges just sat expressionless. Then they turned to each other. What they asked, however, was that he repeat his statement in Russian, and Jake wondered again how much of the trial they really understood. Renate stood impassively as the pleas rolled out again in Russian. Her full cooperation. Beaten out of her? Or had she sat down willingly and filled sheets with names? A new assignment, catching the catchers. When the lawyer finished, the judge dismissed him with a scowl. “Sit down,” he said, then looked at Gunther. “Proceed.”
The lawyer lowered his head, a schoolboy reprimanded for speaking out of turn, and Jake saw that he had missed the point. The business of the court was the theater. What happens when it’s over, the summer after the war. Not clearing the rubble, not the shuffling DPs-peripheral stories. What happened was this season of denunciations, personal reprisals, all the impossible moral reparations. Tribunals, shaved heads, pointed fingers-auto da fes to purge the soul. Everyone, like Gunther, would have his reckoning.
They started his testimony carefully, a slow recitation of the years of police service, his voice a calm monotone, a return to order after Frau Gersh’s crying. Bernie knew his audience. You could soften them with crutches, but in the end they would respond to this, the sober reassurance of authority. The judges were listening politely, as if, ironically, they had finally recognized one of their own.
“And would it be fair to say that these years of training had made you a good observer?”
“I have a policeman’s eye, yes.”
“Describe for us, then, what you saw that day at the-” He broke off to check his notes. “Cafe Heil, Olivaerplatz.” Down the street from Lena’s flat, where the world had gone on around them. “The cafe was familiar to you?”
“No. That’s why I paid particular attention. To see if it was safe.”
“For your wife, you mean.”
“Yes, forMarthe.”
“She was in hiding.”
“At that time she had to walk during the day, so the landlady would think she was at work. Public places, where people wouldn’t take notice. Zoo Station, for instance. Tiergarten.”
“And you met her during these walks?”
“Twice a week. Tuesdays and Fridays,” Gunther said, precise. “To make sure she was all right, give her a meal. I had coupons.” Every week, for years, waiting for a tap on the shoulder.
“And this was where?”
“Usually Aschinger’s. By Friedrichstrasse Station. It was always crowded there.” The big cafeteria where Jake had often gone himself, grabbing a bite on his way to the broadcast. Jake saw them pretending to meet, jostled by the lunch crowd at the stand-up tables, eating blue-plate specials. “But it was important to change places. Her face would become familiar. So, that day, Olivaerplatz.”
“This was in 1944?”
“March seventh, 1944. One-thirty.”
“What is the importance of this?” the defense attorney said, standing.
“Sit down,” the judge said, waving his hand.
The big roundups had started in ‘42. Two years of fading into crowds.
“Your memory is excellent, Herr Behn,” the prosecutor said. “Please tell us the rest.”
Gunther glanced toward Bernie, who nodded.
“I arrived first, as always, to make sure.”
“The prisoner was there?”
“In the back. With coffee, a newspaper-ordinary. Then Marthe came. She asked me if the chair was free. A pretense, you see, so we would not seem to be together. I noticed the prisoner looking at us, and I thought perhaps we should go, but she went back to her paper, nothing wrong, so we ordered the coffee. Another look. I thought, you know, she was looking at me, perhaps she was someone I had arrested-this happened sometimes-but no, just a busybody. Then she went to the toilet. There is a phone there-I checked later-so that was when she called her friends.“
“And did she come back?”
“Yes, she finished her coffee. Then she paid the bill and walked right past us to the door. That’s when they came for Marthe. Two of them, in those leather coats. Who else had leather coats in ‘forty-four? So I knew.”
“Excuse me, Herr Behn. You know for a fact the prisoner called them? How is that?”
Gunther looked down. “Because Marthe talked to her. A foolish slip, after being so careful. But what difference did it make in the end?”
“She talked to her?”
“She knew her. From school. Schoolgirls. ‘Renate, is it really you?’ she said. Just like that, so surprised to see her. Marthe must have thought she was in hiding too. Another U-boat. ‘So many years,’ Marthe said, ‘and just the same.’ Foolish.”
“And did Fraulein Naumann recognize her?”
“Oh yes, she knew. ‘You’re mistaken,’ she said, and of course that was right. Marthe shouldn’t have said anything. It was dangerous to be recognized. They tortured the U-boats sometimes, to find the others, to get names. But she knew.” He stopped, his eyes moving away, then began to talk more quickly, wanting it over. “She tried to leave then, of course, but they came, the coats, so she couldn’t get out. And that’s when I saw. They looked at her, one of them. First around the room, searching, then at her. To tell them. She could have said, she’s gone, she just left. She could have saved her. Her old school friend. But no. ‘That’s the one,’ she says. ‘She’s a Jew.’ So they grabbed Marthe. ‘Renate,’ she said, that’s all, the name, but the greifer wouldn’t look at her.”
“And you?” the lawyer said in the quiet room. “What did you do?”
“Of course people were looking then. ‘What is this?’ I said. ‘There’s some mistake.’ And they said to her, the greifer, ‘Him too?’ And she had no idea who I was, you see. So they were ready to take me too, but then Marthe saved me. ‘He’s nobody,’ she said. ‘We were just sharing the table.’ Nobody. And she moved away with them so they wouldn’t even think about it. Quietly, you know. No commotion. Not even another look to give me away.”
Jake sat up, his mind darting. Of course. If you didn’t know your victim, someone had to point him out. Mistakes could be made. A crowded cafe. A crowded market square. But nobody had been there to save Liz.
“Herr Behn, I’m sorry to ask again. So there’s no confusion-you state positively that you saw and heard the accused identify your wife for deportation. A woman known to her. There is no doubt?”
“No doubt. I saw it.” He looked at Renate. “She sent her to her death.”
“No,” Renate said quietly. “They said a labor camp.”
“To her death,” Gunther said, then looked back to the prosecutor. “And she went with them in the car, the same car. All the greifers together.”
“I didn’t want to,” Renate said, a stray detail.
“Thank you, Herr Behn,” the lawyer said, dismissing him.
“And then-do you know what?” Gunther said.
Bernie raised his head, surprised, something outside the script.
“What?” the lawyer said uncertainly.
“You want to know what it was like? Those days? The waitress came over. ‘Are you paying for both?’ she said. ‘You ordered two coffees.’” He stopped. “So I paid.” The end of the column, his final point.
“Thank you, Herr Behn,” the lawyer said again.
The defense attorney rose. “A question. Herr Behn, were you a member of the National Socialist Party? ”
“Yes.”
“Let it be entered that the witness is an admitted fascist.”
“All policemen were required to join the party,” the prosecutor said. “This is irrelevant.”
“I suggest that this testimony is biased,” the defense attorney said. “A Nazi official. Who enforced the criminal laws of the fascist regime. Who testifies for personal reasons.”
“This is absurd,” the prosecutor said. “The testimony is the truth. Ask her.” He pointed to Renate. Now both lawyers were standing, what formal procedures there had been slipping away in a crossfire that darted from lawyer to witness to accused. “Were you at the Cafe Heil? Did you report Marthe Behn? Did you identify her? Answer.”
“Yes,” Renate said.
“Not a stranger. A woman you knew,” the prosecutor said, his voice rising.
“I had to.” She looked down. “You don’t understand. I needed one more that week. The quota. There were not so many left then. I needed one more.”
Jake felt his stomach move. A number to fill the truck.
“To save yourself.”
“Not for myself,” she said, shaking her head. “Not for myself.”
“Fraulein Naumann,” the defense said, formal again. “Please tell the court who was also being held in custody in Grosse Hamburger Strasse.”
“My mother.”
“Under what conditions?”
“She was kept there so that I would come back in the evening, when my work was finished,” she said, resigned now, aware that it wouldn’t matter. But she had lifted her head and was looking at Jake, the way a public speaker pinpoints a face in an audience, talking only to him, a private explanation, the interview they probably would never have. “They knew I wouldn’t leave her. We were taken together. First to work at Siemenstadt. Slaves. Then, when the deportations started, they told me they would keep her name off the list if I worked for them. So many every week. I couldn’t send her east.”
“So you sent other Jews,” the prosecutor said.
“But then there were not so many left,” she said, still to Jake.
“To-what did you call them? — labor camps.”
“Yes, labor camps. But she was an old woman. I knew the conditions were hard. To survive that-”
“But that’s not all you did, is it?” the prosecutor said, pressing now. “Your superior”-he glanced at a paper-“Hans Becker. We have testimony that you were intimate with him. Were you intimate with him?”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes on Jake. “That too.”
“And did he keep your mother off the list? For your good efforts?”
“At first. Then he sent her to Theresienstadt. He said it was easier there.” She paused. “He ran out of names.”
“Tell the court what happened to her there,” the defense said.
“She died.”
“But you continued your work after that,” the prosecutor said. “You still came back every night, didn’t you?”
“By then, where could I go? The Jews knew about me-I couldn’t hide with them. There was no one.”
“Except Hans Becker. You continued your relations with him.”
“Yes.”
“Even after he deported your mother.”
“Yes.”
“And you still say you were protecting her?”
“Does it matter to you what I say?” she said wearily.
“When it’s the truth, yes.”
“The truth? The truth is that he forced me. Over and over. He liked that. I kept my mother alive. I kept myself alive. I did what I had to do. I thought, there’s nothing worse than this, but it will end, the Russians will come. Not much longer. Then you came and hunted me down like a dog. Becker’s girlfriend, they called me. Girlfriend, when he did that to me. What is my crime? That I’m still alive?”
“Fraulein, that’s not the crime here.”
“No, the punishment,” she said to Jake. “Still alive.”
“Yes,” Gunther said unexpectedly from the witness chair, but not looking anywhere, so that no one was sure what he meant.
The Russian prosecutor cleared his throat. “I’m sure we’re all enlightened to hear that the Nazis are to blame for everything, Fraulein. A pity, perhaps, that you did their work so well.”
“I did what I had to do,” she said, still staring, until finally Jake had to look away. What did she expect him to say? I forgive you?
“Are you finished with the witness?” the judge said, restless.
“One more question,” the defense said. “Herr Behn, you’re a large man. Strong. You did not struggle with the men in the cafe?”
“With Gestapo? No.”
“No, you saved yourself.” A pointed look at Renate. “Or, to be exact, your wife saved you. I believe that’s what you said.”
“Yes, she saved me. It was too late for her, once they knew.”
“And after this you remained on the police force?”
“Yes.”
“Enforcing the laws of the government that had arrested your wife.”
“The racial laws were not our responsibility.”
“I see. Some of the laws, then. Not all. But you made arrests?”
“Of criminals, yes.”
“And they were sent where?” To prison.
“So late in the war? Most were sent to ‘labor camps,’ weren’t they?”
Gunther said nothing.
“Tell us, how did you decide which laws to enforce for the National Socialists?”
“Decide? It wasn’t for me to decide. I was a policeman. I had no choice.”
“I see. So only Fraulein Naumann had this choice.”
“I object,” the prosecutor said. “This is nonsense. The situations were not at all similar. What is the defense trying to suggest?”
“That this testimony is compromised from start to finish. This is a personal grievance, not Soviet justice. You hold this woman accountable for the crimes of the Nazis? She had no choice. Listen to your own witness. No one had a choice.”
The only possible defense left. Everyone was guilty; no one was guilty.
“She had a choice,” Gunther said, his voice thick.
The defense nodded, pleased with himself, finally where he wanted to be.
“Did you?”
“Don’t answer,” the prosecutor said quickly.
But Gunther raised his head, unflinching-a moment he’d expected, even if Bernie hadn’t, the other reckoning. Not to be put off, even by a bottle to blot himself out. He gazed straight ahead, eyes stone.
“Yes, I had a choice. And I worked for them too,” he said, his voice as firm and steady as the hand on the razor. “Her murderers. Even after that.”
The room, suddenly embarrassed, was silent. Not the answer any of them had wanted, a little death, pulled out of him like Liz’s gasp. One cut.
He turned to Renate. “We all did,” he said, his voice lower now. “But you-you could have looked away. Your friend. Just the once.”
At this she did look away, facing the stenographers, so that her words were almost lost.
“I needed one more,” she said, as if it answered everything. “One more.”
Another awkward silence in the room, broken finally by the judge.
“The witness is not on trial here,” he said. “Are you disputing what he saw?”
The defense shook his head, as eager as everyone else now to move on.
“Good. Then you’re finished,” the judge said to Gunther. “Step down.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “We will meet tomorrow.”
“But we have other witnesses,” the prosecutor said, anxious not to let his momentum stall.
“Then call them tomorrow. It’s enough for today. And next time stick to the facts.”
Which were what, Jake wondered. Another column of numbers.
When no one moved, the judge waved his hand at the room. “Adjourned, adjourned,” he said irritably, then rose, motioning for the other two to follow.
Jake heard the sound of chairs being moved, a low buzz, lawyers gathering papers. Gunther stayed in his chair, still looking straight ahead. The guards, surprised by the abrupt dismissal, nudged Renate away from her railing and began to lead her at gunpoint out of the room. Jake watched her pass in front of the bench, her eyes meeting his as she approached the prosecution table. She stopped.
“So it’s really you,” she said to him, her old voice. “You came back.”
The guards, not sure whether she was allowed to speak, looked around for instructions, but the judges had gone, the room emptying with them.
Jake nodded, not knowing what to say. It’s good to see you again? Collarbones sticking out.
“It wasn’t for myself,” she said to Jake, her eyes on him, waiting.
Jake looked down, unable to respond. Bernie was watching from the side, waiting too. But what could anyone say? A guard took her arm. In a minute she’d be gone. One word, something.
He fell back on the empty courtesy of a prison visit. “Can I get you anything?”
She looked at him for another moment, disappointed, then shook her head. More Russian, insistent now. The guards pushed her away from the table.
Jake stayed until the room was almost cleared, just a hum coming in from the hall. Gunther was still in his chair. When Bernie went over to get him, he looked up once, then brushed him aside, getting up stiffly, and walked toward Jake, one deliberate foot in front of the other.
“I’ll give you a lift,” Bernie said, but Gunther ignored him.
He stopped for a second at the table. “I’ll talk to Willi,” he said to Jake, then kept walking out of the room.
Bernie, disconcerted, went over and began putting files back in his briefcase.
“What about you?” he said.
Jake looked up. “I have the jeep.” He stood up to leave, then turned. “Still think all the stories end the same way?” he said.
Bernie shoved the last file in the case. “Marthe Behn’s did.” Contents — Previous Chapter / Next Chapter