Outside, Jake avoided the Alex, where everyone had parked, and took one of the side streets instead, too numb to face Ron and the others swapping notes. Gunther had already disappeared somewhere in the rubble. A walk, anything to get away. But the courtroom followed him, a dead hand on his shoulder. What happens when it’s over. He looked around. No one in the street, not even the usual children climbing over bricks. The raids had done their worst here-not a wall standing, the air still thick with sour dust. Flies buzzed over a deep bomb crater, now a gray pond of sewage from a broken main. But poison had been seeping into Berlin for years. When had Hans Becker told Renate about her mother? While they were in bed? Always something worse, even when it was ordinary. A waitress collecting her check, knowing. What it was like, day after day. For the first time Jake wondered if Breimer might be right, if this wasteland was what they deserved, some biblical retribution to wipe out the poison once and for all. But here it still was, a giant hole filling with sludge.
“Uri.”
The Russian startled him, coming out of nowhere.
“ Uri,” the soldier said again, pointing to Jake’s arm.
“No watch.”
The Russian scowled. “ Ja, uri,” he said, pointing to the old Bulova on Jake’s wrist. He pulled a wad of bills from his pocket and held them out.
“No. Now piss off.”
A hard stare, menacing, so that suddenly Jake felt his blood jump, a spurt of fear. A deserted street. It could be this easy, capricious, like shooting at rats. Another incident. But the Russian was turning away, disgruntled, stuffing the notes back in his pocket.
As Jake watched him go, breathing again, the street felt even emptier. No market crowds here. If Gunther was right, if he’d been the target, they could pick him off easily now. Not even a witness. If they wanted him. He stood still for a moment, back in Potsdam. A shell game of a crime, knowing the killer but not the victim. Three of them. What if it had been him? He moved his hand to his hip, an involuntary reflex, wishing he had a gun. Not that it had done Liz any good. He stopped. But she hadn’t been wearing it that day, her cowgirl holster. Where was it? On the way back to Webster Groves? He tried to remember Ron in her room, folding clothes. No gun. Did it matter? But something unexplained.
He looked at the pond, unsettled. Follow the points. You play a shell game by elimination. Three of them in the market. Usually the one intended. But why would anyone want to kill Liz? Which left two. One of them now ready for visitors in Gelferstrasse. He turned and started back up the street, hand still on his hip. When he reached the jeep, another Russian, reading a newspaper, glanced up at him uneasily and moved away, as if he were in fact carrying a gun.
He found Breimer reading what seemed to be the same paper at Shaeffer’s billet, a villa across the street from the collapsed house. An army nurse was flicking through Life, half listening as Breimer read snatches out loud, apparently unable to stop talking even outside a sickroom door.
“Two thousand times more than the Townbuster. That was the biggest we had. Two thousand times.” He looked up as Jake walked in. “Ah, good. He’s been asking for you. Well, it’s a great day, isn’t it?
It won’t be long now.“ When Jake said nothing, confused, he handed him the paper. ”I see you haven’t heard,“ he said. ”And you call yourself a newspaperman. We’ll all be going home after this. Twenty thousands tons of TNT. Size of a fist. Hard to imagine.“
Jake took the paper. Stars and Stripes. U.S. reveals atom bomb used first time on japs. The other war, almost forgotten. A city he’d never heard of. Two square miles wiped out in one blast, the mess behind the Alex a warmup by comparison.
“It’s over now for sure,” Breimer said, but what Jake saw was the Russian’s face by the jeep, uneasy.
“How does it work?” he said, scanning the page. A chart of the other bombs, getting bigger toward the bottom.
“You’ll have to ask the eggheads that. All I know is, it did. They say you still can’t see through the smoke. Two days. No wonder old Harry was playing hardball with the Reds. You have to hand it to him-he sure kept this one close to the vest.”
Jaunty in a double-breasted suit on the Cecilienhof terrace, smiling for Liz’s camera. With an ace up his sleeve.
“Yes sir, a great day,” Breimer said, still excited. “When I think of all those boys-coming home. They’ll all be coming home now. In one piece too, thank the Lord.”
Jake looked at the fleshy face moving into another Kiwanis speech. But wasn’t it true? Who would wish a single Marine dead on a Honshu beach? On Okinawa, they’d had to drag the Japs out of caves with flamethrowers, one by one. Still, something new, worse than before. Breimer was starting in again.
“How’s the patient?” Jake said, interrupting.
“On the mend, on the mend,” Breimer said. “Thanks to Corporal Kelly here. Too pretty to be a nurse, if you ask me. But you should see her make them hop to. No monkey business with this one.”
“Not with a hypodermic in your hand, anyway,” she said dryly, but her plain face was smiling, flattered.
“Can I see him?”
“Joe would want to see him,” Breimer said to the nurse, clearly in charge. He put his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “That’s a hell of a thing you did, getting him out of there. We’re all grateful, I can tell you that.”
“We who?”
“We everybody,” Breimer said, dropping the hand. “Americans. That’s an important boy we’ve got in there, one of the best. You don’t want the Russkies getting their hands on him.”
“He’s not a favorite of theirs?”
Breimer took this as a joke and smiled. “Not exactly. Not Joe.” He lowered his voice. “Shame about the girl.”
“Yes.” Jake moved to the door. “She’s on duty when?” he said, nodding toward the nurse.
“Twice a day. Make sure everything’s all right. I come when I can, of course. Least I can do. Joe’s been a real help to me.”
“Can you get someone round the clock? Use some pull? There ought to be someone here.”
Breimer smiled. “Now don’t get all excited. He’s not that sick. Main trouble’s keeping him in bed. Wants to do things too soon.”
“The Russians took a shot at him once. They can do it again.” Jake spread his hand toward the front door, wide open to the street.
Breimer looked at him, troubled. “They said it was an accident.”
“They weren’t there. I was. I’d get somebody, just in case.”
“Maybe you’re a little jumpy. We’re not in the Russian zone here.”
“Congressman, the whole city’s a Russian zone. You want to take the chance?”
Breimer met his eyes, all business now. “Let me see what I can do.” Not even a quibble.
“Armed,” Jake said, then opened the door.
Shaeffer was propped up in bed, bare-chested, with a wad of gauze and adhesive tape covering one side. They’d given him a haircut in the hospital and now, with his ears sticking out, he seemed ten years younger, no longer a poster Aryan, smaller out of uniform, like a high school athlete without the shoulder pads. He was reading the newspaper too, but dropped it on the sheet when Jake came in.
“Well, finally. I was hoping you’d come. I wanted to thank-”
“Save it,” Jake said easily, casing the room. Ground floor, an open window facing the bed. The room had been a library; a few books were still leaning on their sides on the shelves, evidently not worth ransacking. “You should have stayed in the hospital.”
“Oh, I’m all right,” Shaeffer said, cheerful, taking it for medical concern. “You hang around there long enough, some sawbones wants to take a leg off. You know the army.”
“I mean it’s safer. Any rooms upstairs?” He walked over to the window and looked out.
“Safer?”
“I asked Breimer to get a guard out front.”
“What for?”
“You tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“Why the Russians took a potshot at you.”
“At me?”
“The congressman seemed to think they don’t like you very much.”
“Breimer? He sees Russians in his dreams.”
“Yeah, well, I saw them in Potsdam. Shooting-at you. Now suppose you tell me why they’d want to do that.” He pulled up a chair next to the bed.
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Jake said nothing, staring at him from the chair. Finally Shaeffer, restless, looked away.
“Got a smoke?” he said. “The nurse took mine. Says I’ll live longer.”
“Not the way you’re going,” Jake said, lighting the cigarette and handing it to him, still staring.
“Look, I owe you something, I guess, but I don’t owe you a story. I can’t. The work’s classified.”
“I don’t have any notebooks out. This one’s for me, not the papers. You almost got me killed out there too. I figure I’m entitled to know why. Now, how about it?”
Shaeffer took another drag, following the smoke up with his eyes as if he were leaving the room with it. “You know FIAT?”
“No.”
“Field Information Agency Technical. Fancy way of saying we take care of the scientists. Debriefing. Detention centers. Whatever.”
“Like Kransberg,” Jake said.
Shaeffer nodded. “Like Kransberg.”
“And what’s the whatever?”
“Finding them in the first place. It’s possible we set up a team to cover Berlin. It’s possible the Russians don’t like that.”
“Why? They’ve been here since May. What’s left?”
Shaeffer smiled, expansive. “Plenty. The Russians were so busy shipping out the hardware, it took them a little while to realize they needed the guys who ran it. By that time a lot of them had disappeared-gone west, maybe into hiding. The Russians have a hard time recruiting. People aren’t falling over themselves to travel east.”
“Not when they can get a fat contract from American Dye,” Jake said, nodding to the door.
Shaeffer looked at him, then stubbed out the cigarette. “Don’t push me. He’s out of it, or we stop here. Understood?”
“I hear you.”
“Anyway, that’s not it. The Russians have been offering good salaries too. If you want to go to work in the fucking Urals.”
“Instead of beautiful Utica.”
Shaeffer looked again. “I mean it.”
Jake held up his hand. “Okay, they don’t go to Utica.”
“No, they don’t. Dayton, since you want to know. There’s a facility near Wright Field.” He stopped, aware that he’d given something for free, then shrugged. “The first group goes to Dayton. If we can get them over. Satisfied?”
“I don’t care one way or the other. What’s the holdup?”
“De-Nazification. Those guys-we’d be lucky to get Ike cleared. They want the good Germans. So find me one. You don’t think the Russians give a rat’s ass.”
Jake got up and walked toward the shelf. “But they do about youassuming your team exists.”
“Assuming.”
“Been doing anything you shouldn’t?”
“From their point of view? Winning. The Russians have been here two months and they’re still going through their wanted list. We’ve been here three weeks and we’re picking it clean. Once you start, one leads you to another. They’ve been waiting for us to come. Just holding on. Luftwaffe-the whole aeromedical staff. They even kept the research papers. KWI-still a lot of warm bodies over there if you can dig them out. It’s not hard-their friends help. They’re around, all right.” Out for a stroll, walking the dog.
“Engineers at Zeiss?” Jake said.
“That’s in the eastern zone. We don’t go into the eastern zone.”
“That’s not what the Russians say.”
“They like to make a stink. What I hear is, the engineers wanted to come.”
“They just needed a helping hand.”
Shaeffer’s eyes followed him to the bookshelf, then looked away.
“It’s possible their bombsight optics were years ahead of ours. Years ahead-worth a risk to get. It’s possible someone wanted to send the Russians a message. They have this habit of kidnapping people. Maybe we wanted to show them we could do it too. Make them think twice next time.”
“And did it?”
“More or less. Nobody’s gone missing lately, anyway.”
“Except Emil Brandt.”
“Yes, except Emil.”
“So now he’s on your list.”
“He’s on everybody’s list. He did all the calculations-he knows the whole program. I told you, we don’t want to lose this one. Not now, for sure.”
Jake raised his eyebrows. “Why not now?”
“The rocket team?” Schaeffer picked up the newspaper. “Can you imagine if the V-2s had carried one of these babies?”
“No, I can’t,” Jake said. London, gone.
“They’re everybody’s top pick,” Shaeffer said. “But we got them. And we’re going to keep them. All of them.”
“What if they don’t want to go?”
“They do. Even Brandt. He just wants to take his wife. Always the wife. We almost lost him once, after Nordhausen. We get the rockets, the blueprints, the team’s stashed away in Oberjoch. And he gives the slip and takes off for Berlin on some fucking wild goose chase. He was lucky to get out alive.”
“With his files,” Jake said casually, a shot.
Shaeffer waved his hand. “Admin. Not worth a damn thing. All the tech files were at Nordhausen. That was just an excuse to get his wife.”
“Admin? I thought they were SS files.”
“It was an SS program. They took it over. By that time they were taking over everything. For what it was worth.”
“They gave him a medal.”
“They gave everybody a medal. The scientists weren’t too thrilled about the SS taking over. Not the coziest guys you could think of. But what the hell, who gets to pick his boss? So they hand out some medals and it’s smiles again. They had a ton of them.” A floor in the Chancellery, heaped with Iron Crosses.
“Finally we get them to Kransberg,” Shaeffer was saying. “Keep them together, see? And he does it again. The others, we tell them the dependents’ll come later and they don’t like it much. But this one, no. He has to go shack up with her somewhere, have a little reunion. As if we don’t have enough to do. Go chasing her now. And we’re short-handed as it is. And now this.” He gestured to his wound.
“He’s not with his wife,” Jake said. “She doesn’t know where he is.”
Shaeffer looked at him, not saying anything for a moment. Then he took another cigarette from the pack on the bed, still buying time.
“Thanks for saving me the legwork,” he said calmly. “Want to tell me where she is?”
“No.”
“In our zone?”
Jake nodded. “She doesn’t know anything.”
“Well, that’s a relief, anyway.”
“What is?”
“Where she is. What do you think’s been keeping me up nights- what if the Russians get her first? That’d be an offer we couldn’t compete with. We’d lose him for sure.”
Bait. Jake looked out the window, feeling another jump of blood, as if the soldier behind the Alex had appeared again.
“She’d be better off with us, you know,” Shaeffer said, still calm.
“She’s all right where she is.”
But was she? The Russian had asked for her.
“Want to tell me how you found her?” Shaeffer said, watching him. “We tried everything. No fragebogen, no neighbors, nothing.”
“You might have tried his father. Why didn’t you, by the way?”
“His father?” Shaeffer said, surprised. “His father’s dead.”
“Where’d you get that idea?”
“Brandt told me so himself. I’m the one who debriefed him.”
“You never mentioned that.”
“You didn’t ask,” Shaeffer said, moving a checker into place.
“Well, he’s alive. I saw him. Why would Emil say that?”
Shaeffer shrugged. “Why didn’t you tell me where his wife was? People like to keep a little something back. Question of trust, maybe. He know anything?”
“No, he hasn’t seen him either. Nobody has. Nobody since Tully. But you’re not interested in him.”
Shaeffer looked down, smoothing out the sheet. “Look, let’s smoke a little pipe here. Since you’ve got your nose under the tent. I could use the help.”
“Doing what?”
“What you’ve been doing. We still have to find him. I’m out of commission. You’re not.”
“No thanks to you. Let’s start with Tully and see how we do.”
“They were friends at Kransberg. Well, friends. Brandt spoke English and Tully liked to listen. Late-night stuff. Brandt was the moody type. Depressed. How everything had gone wrong. You know, booze talk.”
“Tully told you this?”
“Well, it’s possible the rooms were bugged. So we could hear what the guests had to say.”
“Nice.”
“The Nazis put the taps in. We just took them over when we moved in.”
“Some difference.”
“I don’t think you understand how it is there. The scientists are bargaining. They want to make sure there’s work, some deal to get them out. So they don’t give everything all at once. A little at a time, to keep us interested. They check with von Braun before they tell us anything. I don’t blame them-they’re just looking out for number one. But we’ve got to know. Not just what’s on paper-what’s up here.” He tapped his temple.
“All right, so they’re pals.”
“And Brandt waltzes out of there and Tully drives him and no one tells us. So that by the time we do hear about it, he’s Mr. Innocent and Brandt’s gone and still nobody’s making the right connection.”
“Which is?”
“They think it’s a fuckup. Brandt cons Tully into giving him a pass. Just a nice guy.”
“And you don’t think so?”
“I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny either. I checked. The guy’s an operator. You know he was selling releases to Germans?”
“I heard.”
“A real piece of work. Twice sometimes-that’s how it came out. But they couldn’t prove it. His word against theirs. A bunch of Germans squealing. Who’s got time to investigate that? But Brandt- that’s something else. I get interested. And here’s the thing-it was Tully’s idea, skipping out. So I figure he’s up to his old tricks.”
“Tully’sidea?”
“Nobody thinks to check the taps,” Shaeffer said. “We only make transcripts when the guests are talking science. The rest of the time, our guys are reading a comic or taking a leak or something. So I get the monitor for that night and ask him what they were talking about. Nothing, he says, personal stuff. Like what? Nothing, Tully just told him they’d found his wife. Nothing,” he said sarcastically.
“But they hadn’t.”
“No. But I didn’t know that then. What I knew was that Tully’d got himself a paying customer. The one thing Brandt wanted. So I figure they negotiate a little private business. Brandt never made any noises about leaving before. He doesn’t clear it with von Braun-he just goes. Tully even drives him out. So when I hear that, I blow some whistles to yank Tully in, but by that time he’s gone too.”
“To Berlin. Why?”
“Payday, probably. They didn’t have money at Kransberg. I figured Brandt got the cash from his wife.”
“But he never found her.”
“Then Tully had one pissed-off German on his hands.” “No,” Jake said, shaking his head, thinking. “They didn’t meet up again in Berlin. Why would Tully want to do that if he’d lied about the wife?”
“Well, I didn’t know he had. See? I told you we could use you.” He leaned back, turning it over. “But he came.”
“Anything in the taps about friends in Berlin? Tully know anybody here?”
Shaeffer glanced up at him. “He knew Emil Brandt.”
“You trying to say Emil killed him?”
“I’m trying to say I don’t care. I just want him back. Tully’s not important.”
“He was important enough to shoot.”
“Him? Maybe he just got in the way,” Shaeffer said irritably, adjusting his bandage.
“Maybe,” Jake said. Like a girl taking pictures. “Be useful to know.”
“Not anymore,” Shaeffer said, wincing now, distracted by the bandage. “All I know is, he was going to lead me to Brandt and he didn’t.” He looked up. “Glad to hear about the wife, though. That’s something. At least the bastard didn’t get paid.”
“No, he got paid.” Jake looked again out the window, another jolt. With Russian money.
“Yeah, I guess,” Shaeffer said, meaning the bullet. “What is it?” he said, following Jake’s stare.
“Nothing. Just thinking.” Move her. He picked up his cap. “I’d better go. You want the nurse for that?” He nodded at the bandage.
“Just thinking, huh?” Shaeffer said, studying him. Then his face hardened, back in the poster. “Don’t think too much. I want him back. I don’t care what he did.”
“If he did.”
“You just find him,” he said evenly, then smiled. “Christ, the wife. We could make a good team, the two of us.”
Jake shook his head. “People get shot around you.” He looked out the window again. “What if the Russians already have him?”
“Then I’d want to know that too. Where.”
“So you can organize another raiding party? The Russians wouldn’t like that.”
“So what?”
“You might not be so lucky next time. Liz won’t be there to take one for you.”
Shaeffer glared at him. “That’s a hell of a thing to say.”
“All right, skip it.”
He looked down. “I liked Liz. She was a good egg.” A kid in a soda fountain booth.
“All right,” Jake said again, an apology.
“You’ve got some fucking nerve. Anyway, what makes you so sure it was me? You can’t tell anything with the Russians. How did they even know I’d be there? Tell me that.”
“Why were you? Shopping in the Russian zone-not the smartest idea in your line of work.”
“That was Liz. She wanted a camera. I figured, why not? How would they know? How did they know? ”
“Maybe a greifer spotted you.”
“What’s that? A kraut word?”
“Sort of a lookout scout.” Jake started for the door, then turned. A greifer. “The name Sikorsky mean anything to you?”
“Vassily?”
“That’s right. He was in the market that day. Would he know you by sight?”
Shaeffer looked away, silent.
Jake nodded. “Make sure Breimer gets the guard.”
“Don’t worry, I can take care of myself.” He pulled a gun out from under the sheet and patted it.
Jake stood still for a second. Just a casual extension of his hand, like a fielder’s mitt. “You always keep one in bed? Or just lately?” He reached for the doorknob. “Better stay away from the window.”
Shaeffer aimed the gun there, target practice. “A Colt 1911 will stop anything at this range.”
Jake looked over at him. “A Colt 1911 stopped Tully too.”
Shaeffer turned, frowning, still holding the gun. “Says who?”
“The ballistics report.”
“So? It’s a standard-issue piece of equipment. There are only about a million of them around.”
“Not in German hands. Or do you think Tully gave him one with the pass?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That Emil didn’t do it. Not with one of those.”
Shaeffer glanced up, then smirked. “That’s right, I remember. You think I did. ‘Where were you and Breimer on the night of-’ whatever the fuck it was.”
“July sixteenth,” Jake said. “And where were you?”
Shaeffer lowered the gun. “Go fuck yourself.” He put it back under the covers. “You don’t listen. I’m the only one who wanted him alive. He was going to lead me to Brandt, remember?“ He stared at Jake for another second, then let it pass, shaking his head. ”You’ve got a funny way of making friends.“
“Are we? I’m still trying to figure that one.”
Another sharp look. “Just find him.” Shaeffer sank back against the pillows with a grunt, forcing a smile. “You’re all alike, you guys. Smart talk. Always something smart.” He looked up, his eyes steel again, Aryan gray. “Just don’t forget whose uniform you’ve got on. We’re on the same team over here. The same team.”
“Is that the same one Liz was on?”
“Yeah, well,” he said, looking down. “Things happen, don’t they? Wartime.”
“We’re not at war with the Russians.”
Shaeffer looked over at the newspaper with its black headline, then raised his head. “Says who?”
Afternoon light was streaming into the flat, but Hannelore was already putting on lipstick to go out.
“A little early, isn’t it?” Jake said, watching her lean into the mirror.
“It’s a tea party. It’s supposed to be early, A jause, no?”
“A Russian tea party?” he said, amused. A table of stolid commissars, with the Mad Hatter pouring out.
“No. My new friend, a Tommy. A real tea party, he said. You know, like before, with cups and everything.”
Spiked, followed by another party on the couch.
She blotted her lips. “You just missed Lena. She’s at Frau Hinkel’s. You should go too. You can’t imagine what she knows.”
“She went to a fortune-teller?”
“It’s not like that. Not a gypsy. She knows things, she really does.”
Jake looked out the window toward Wittenbergplatz, searching the street. Windows fronting the square, exposed, the wonderful light suddenly a liability. “Hannelore? Have you noticed anyone hanging around outside? A Russian?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, gathering her purse. “He went back. He’s not looking for me.”
“No, I meant-” he said, then stopped. Why would Hannelore notice anything?
“Come on, I’ll show you,” she said. “It’s behind KaDeWe.”
He locked the door behind them and followed her down the stairs. “Your friends,” he said. “Anyone know about another flat?”
She turned, stung. “You want me to leave? This is my flat, you know. Mine. Just because I’m kindhearted-”
“No, not for you. For Lena. Her own place. It’s an inconvenience for you like this.”
“Oh, I don’t mind really. I’m used to it. It’s cozy, you know? And you’re so good about the food. How would we eat? And where would she go? Nobody has a flat unless-”
“Unless what?”
“Unless she has a friend. You know, important.”
“Not like me,” he said, smiling.
“No. A general, maybe. Someone big. That’s who has flats. And the whores.” A world of difference in her mind.
A work party was clearing one edge of Wittenbergplatz, women in army trousers loading carts. In the hot sun, everything smelled of smoke.
“He’s from London,” Hannelore said as they crossed the street, her high heels wobbling on the torn pavement. “Would I like it there, do you think?”
“I did.”
“Well, but it’s all the same now.” She spread her hand to take in the ruined square. “All like this.”
“Not like this.”
“Yes, they said so on the radio. During the war. Everything was bombed.”
“No. Just a few parts.”
“Why would they lie about that?” she said, sure of herself, Goebbels’ audience. “There,” she said when they reached KaDeWe. “In the next street. There’s a sign with a hand. How do I look?”
“Like an English lady.”
“Yes?” She fluffed her hair, looking in the shard of plate glass, still there, then waved him off. “Oh you,” she said, laughing, and teetered away toward the west.
The sign was a crudely drawn palm with three lines sketched in-Past running along the top, Present through the middle, and a spur with Future snaking across the heel. How many wanted the upper part read now? Frau Hinkel was on the second floor, marked with a zodiac, and he opened the door to a crowd of women sitting quietly in chairs like patients in a doctor’s waiting room. Berlin had become a medieval city again, black markets to transmute watches into gold, witches to glimpse the future in a pack of cards. A few years ago they had measured the curve of light.
But what did it matter? There was Lena, a surprised smile spreading across her face as he entered. A woman happy to see you, he thought, like nothing else, even better than good fortune. “Jacob,” she said. The others looked up at him, frankly interested, then lowered their eyes, the familiar reaction to a uniform. The woman next to Lena moved, making a place. “How did you know I was here?”
“Hannelore.”
“I know it’s silly, but she kept after me,” she said, still smiling, leaning close in a whisper, away from the others. “What’s wrong? You look so-”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Just the day. I went to a trial.”
“What trial?”
But it was the smile he wanted, not another terrible story. Not Renate, not Gunther, not any of them. Blue skies. He glanced at his watch. “Let’s get out of here. Someone found me a boat. It’s still light-we could go for a sail.”
“A boat,” she said, delighted, then frowned. “Oh, but I can’t. We’re expecting some children at the nursery. I have to help Pastor Fleischman. Don’t be disappointed. Tomorrow, all right? Look how dusty you are,” she said, brushing his arm, proprietary. “What?”
“Just looking.”
She flushed, then busied herself again with his sleeve. “You should have a bath.”
“Hannelore’s just gone out,” he said, an invitation. “We’d have the flat to ourselves.”
“Ssh.” She glanced over at the others.
“You could take one with me.”
She stopped moving her hand and made a face, mischievous, darting her eyes to signal that they were being overheard.
He leaned closer, whispering. “I’ll tell you your fortune.”
A small laugh, tickled by his breath in her ear. “Yes?” she said, then grinned. “All right. I’ll come some other time. It’s such a wait here.”
But as they got up, a small boy, presumably a little Hinkel, darted behind the curtain into the other room, and before they could reach the door Frau Hinkel herself appeared, holding back the curtain and looking at Jake. “Come,” she said. “You.”
Jake looked at the line of customers, embarrassed, but no one said a word, resigned to ceding place to soldiers. Lena pulled him toward the curtain, eager.
The room, like Frau Hinkel, was plain and ordinary-no beads, no turbans and crystal balls, just a table with some chairs and a worn deck of cards.
“The cards can tell us what is and what might be, but not what will be. Do you understand?” she said as they sat, a seer’s insurance policy, but simply delivered, her voice soft and comforting. She held the deck out to Lena to shuffle.
“You go first,” Lena said, nervous, not touching the cards.
“I don’t-” Jake started, but Frau Hinkel had put them in his hands. An old deck, slick with use, the face cards looking like Hohenzollerns.
When she started laying them out in rows, he felt an unexpected prick of apprehension, as if, despite all reason, they might actually reveal something. He knew it was just theater, a fairway con, but he found himself wanting to hear good news whether it was real or not, a fortune cookie’s message of happy journeys and long life, cloudless. But didn’t everybody? He thought of the tired faces outside, all hoping for a lucky sign.
“You have lucky cards,” Frau Hinkel said, as if she had heard him. “You have been lucky in life.”
Absurdly, he felt relieved. But was anyone unlucky here for twenty-five marks?
“Yes, it’s good. Because you have been close to death.” A safe guess after years of war, he thought, beginning to enjoy the act. “But protected. Here, you see? By a woman, it seems.”
He glanced up at her, but she was laying out more cards, covering the first set, absorbed in them.
“A woman?” Lena said.
“Yes, I think so. But perhaps simply by this luck, I can’t tell. A symbol. Now it’s the opposite,” she said, staring at the fresh row. “Now you are the protector. A risk, some danger, but the luck is still there. A house.”
“The newsreel,” Lena said quietly.
“There, again. The protector, like a knight. A sword. Perhaps a rescue. You are a warrior?” she said easily, the archaic word natural to her.
“No.”
“Then a judge. The sword of a judge. Yes, that must be it. There is paper all around you. Lots of paper.”
“There, you see?” Lena said. “He’s a writer.”
Frau Hinkel pretended not to hear, busy with the cards. “But it’s difficult for you, the judge. You see here, the eyes face in two directions, not just one, so it’s difficult. But you will.” She laid out another set. “You have interesting cards. Contradictions. The paper keeps coming up. The luck. But also deception. That explains the eyes, looking both ways, because there is deception around you.” Speaking as if she were working it out for the first time, what must have been a routine. “And always a woman. Strong, at the center. The rest-it’s hard to say, but the woman is always there, you keep coming back to her. At the center. May I see your hand?”
She reached over and traced a line down his palm. “Yes, I thought so. My god, such a line. In a man. So deep. You see how straight. One, your whole life. You have a strong heart. The rest, contradictions, but not the heart.” She looked up at him. “You must be careful when you judge. The heart is so strong.” She turned to Lena, still holding his hand. “The woman who finds this one will be lucky. One love, no others.” Her voice sentimental, a professional after all. Lena smiled.
She laid out one more set. “Let’s see. Yes, the same. Death again, close. Still the luck, but take care. We have only what might be. And deception again.”
“Does it say who?”
“No, but you will see. The eyes face one way now. You will see it.
Jake shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. “Is there travel?” he said* leading them back to the fortune cookie.
“Oh yes, many trips.” Offhand, as if it were too obvious to bother about. “A trip on water soon.” Another safe guess for an American.
“Home?”
“No, short. Many trips. You will never be home,” she said softly, an abstraction. “Always somewhere else. But it’s not a sadness for you. The place is not important. You will always live here.” She tapped the heart line in his open palm. “So it’s a lucky life, yes?” she said, turning over the cards and handing them to Lena to shuffle.
“Then mine will be lucky too,” Lena said, cheerful.
Count on it, Jake wanted to say, just pay the twenty-five marks.
But when Frau Hinkel laid out Lena’s set, she looked at it for a moment, puzzled, then gathered up the cards again.
“What does it say?”
“I can’t tell. Sometimes when there are two of you it confuses the cards. Try again.” She handed the deck to Lena. “They need to have your touch only.”
Jake watched her shuffling, earnest, the way Hannelore must have listened to the radio.
“Yes, now I see,” Frau Hinkel said, laying down the rows. “A mother’s cards. Very loving-so many hearts. It’s important to you, children. Yes, two of them.”
“Two?”
“Yes, two,” Frau Hinkel said, sure, not even looking up for confirmation.
Jake glanced at Lena, wanting to wink, but she had grown pale, disconcerted.
“Two of everything,” Frau Hinkel said. “Two men. Kings.” She looked up, intimate. “There was another?”
Lena nodded. Frau Hinkel took her hand just as she had Jake’s, getting a second opinion.
“Yes, there. Two. Two lines running there.”
“They cross each other,” Lena said.
“Yes,” Frau Hinkel said, then moved on, not explaining. “But only one in the end. One perhaps has died?” Another safe guess for anyone in the waiting room.
“No.”
“Ah. Then you have decided.” She turned the hand to its side. There are the children. You see, two.“
She went back to another row of cards.
“Much sorrow,” she said, shaking her head. “But happiness too. There is an illness. Have you been ill?”
“Yes.”
“But no longer. You see this card. It fights the illness.”
“The one with the sword?” Jake said.
Frau Hinkel smiled pleasantly. “No, this one. It usually means medicine.” She looked up. “I’m glad for you. So many these days-no medicine, even in the cards.”
Another row.
“You were in Berlin during the war?”
“Yes.”
Frau Hinkel nodded her head. “Destruction. I see this all the time now. Well, they don’t lie, the cards.” She placed down a black card, then quickly drew out another to cover it.
“What does that mean?” Lena said, alert.
Frau Hinkel looked at her. “In Berlin? It usually means a Russian. Excuse me,” she said, suddenly shy, a shorthand message. “But that is the past. See how they come now? More hearts. You have a kind nature. You must not look at the past. You see how it tries to come back-see this one-but never strong, not as strong as the hearts. You can bury it,” she said oddly. “You have the cards.” Laying them on, another row of red.
“And now? What will happen?”
“What might happen,” Frau Hinkel reminded her, fixed on the cards. “Still two. Decide on the man. If you have done that, then you will be at peace. You have had sorrow in your life. Now I see-” She stopped, scooping her cards together, and when she began again her voice had become airier, now truly the voice of a fortune cookie. Good health. Prosperity. Love given and received.
When Lena gave her the money, smiling, Frau Hinkel patted her hand in a kind of benediction. But as she opened the curtain for them, it was Jake’s arm she took, holding him back.
“A moment,” she said, waiting until Lena was in the other room. “I don’t like to say. What will be. It’s not my place.”
“What is it?”
“Her cards are not good. You cannot hide everything with hearts.
Some trouble. I tell you this because I see your cards mixed with hers. If you are the protector, protect her.“
For a second, flabbergasted, Jake didn’t know whether to laugh or be furious. Was this how she got them all to come back, time after time, some worrying trick? Thoughts that go bump in the night. A hausfrau with a waiting room full of anxious widows.
“Maybe she’ll meet a handsome stranger instead. I’ll bet you see a lot of those in the cards.”
She smiled weakly. “Yes, it’s true. I know what you think.” She glanced toward the other room. “Well, what’s the harm?” She turned to him again. “But who’s to say? Sometimes it’s right. Sometimes the cards surprise even me.”
“Fine. I’ll keep an eye out-looking both ways.”
“As you wish,” she said, dismissing him by turning her back.
“What did she want?” Lena said at the door.
“Nothing. Some American cigarettes.”
They started down the stairs, Lena quiet.
“Well, there goes fifty marks,” Jake said.
“But she knew things,” Lena said. “How did she know?”
“What things?”
“What did she mean-close to death, a woman?”
“Who knows? More mumbo-jumbo.”
“No, I saw you look at her. It meant something to you. Tell me.” She stopped at the doorway, away from the glare of the street.
“Remember the girl in Gelferstrasse? At the billet? She was killed the other day. An accident. I was standing next to her, so I thought she meant that. That’s all.”
“An accident?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I didn’t want to worry you. It was just an accident.”
“Frau Hinkel didn’t think so.”
“Well, what does she know?”
“She knew about the children,” Lena said, looking down.
“Two.”
“Yes, two. My Russian child. How could she know that?” She looked away, upset. “A mother’s cards. And I killed it. No hearts for that one.”
“Come on, Lena.” He put his hand to her chin and lifted it. “It’s all foolishness. You know that.”
“Yes, I know. It was just the child. I don’t like to think about that. To kill a child.”
“You didn’t. It’s not the same thing.”
“It feels the same. Sometimes I dream about it, you know? That it’s grown. A boy.”
“Stop,” Jake said, smoothing her hair.
She nodded into his hand. “I know. Only the future.” She raised her head, as if she were physically pushing the mood away, and took his hand in hers, tracing the palm with her finger. “And that’s me?”
“Yes.”
“Such a line. In a man,” she said, doing Frau Hinkel’s voice.
Jake smiled. “They have to get something right or people won’t come. Now, how about the bath?”
She turned his hand over to see his wristwatch. “Oh, but look. Now it’s late. I’m sorry.” She leaned up and kissed him, a peck. “I won’t be long. And what will you do?” she said as they started for the square.
“I’m going to find us a new place to stay.”
“Why? Hannelore’s not so bad.”
“I just think it’s a good idea.”
“Why?” She stopped. “There’s something else you’re not telling me.”
“I don’t want you to be bait anymore.”
“What about Emil?”
“Hannelore’s still there, if he comes.”
She looked up at him. “You mean you don’t think he’s coming. Tell me.”
“I think it’s possible the Russians have him.”
“No, I won’t believe that,” she said, so quickly that Jake looked over at her, disturbed. Two lines.
“I said it’s possible. The man who got him out of Kransberg had Russian money. I think he was selling information-where Emil was. I don’t want them getting to you.”
“Russians,” she said to herself. “They want me?”
“They want Emil. You’re his wife.”
“They think I would go with them? Never.”
“They don’t know that.” They started again across the square, where the women were still sorting bricks. “It’s just a precaution.” She looked up at their building, standing whole in the stretch of damage. “It’s not safe anymore? I always felt safe there. All during the war, I knew it would be all right.“
“It’s still safe. I just want something safer.”
“The protector,” Lena said wryly. “So she was right.”
“Come on, get in,” he said, swinging up into the jeep.
She glanced again at the building, then climbed in, waiting for him to start the motor. “Safe. At the hospital they wanted me to be a nun.
Wear the robes, you know? ‘Put this on, you’ll be safe,’ they said. But
I wasn’t.“
Pastor Fleischman had lost whatever flesh he’d had-rail thin, with an Adam’s apple jutting out over his white collar. He was waiting in front of Anhalter Station with a handcart, so that in his clerical suit he looked, oddly, like a porter.
“Lena. I was getting worried. See what I found.” He pointed to the cart. “Oh, but a car-” He looked eagerly at the jeep.
Lena turned to Jake, embarrassed. “You wouldn’t mind? I don’t like to ask-I know it’s not permitted. But they’re so tired after the train. It’s such a long way to walk. You’ll help?”
“No problem,” he said to the pastor, then extended his hand and introduced himself. “How many are you expecting?”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps twenty. It’s very kind.”
“We’ll have to take them in shifts, then,” Jake said, but the pastor merely nodded, unconcerned with details, as if the Lord would multiply the jeep, like the loaves and the fishes.
They waited on the crowded platform, open to the sky through a rib cage of twisted girders. Fleischman had brought another woman to help, and while she and Lena talked, Jake leaned back against a pillar, smoking and watching the crowd. People sitting around in clumps, dispirited, holding on to rucksacks and bags, the usual station clamor slowed to a kind of listless stupor. A pack of teenage boys, feral, looking for something to snatch. A Russian soldier wandering up and down, probably after a girl. Tired women. Everything ordinary, what passed for peace. He remembered his going-away party, the platform alive with champagne and crisp uniforms, Renate winking, getting away with something.
“How is it you speak German?” Fleischman asked, something polite to pass the time.
“I used to live in Berlin.”
“Ah. Do you know Texas?”
“Texas?”
“Well, forgive me. An American. Of course, it’s a large country. There’s a church, you see. Fredericksburg, Texas. A Lutheran church, so I think maybe German people once. They’ve offered to take some of the children. Of course, it’s a chance for them. A future. But to send them so far, after everything-I don’t know. How do I select?”
“How many do they want?”
“Five. They can take five.” He sighed. “Now we send our children. Well, God will take care of them.”
Just as he did here, Jake thought, looking at the scorched wall.
“They’re orphans?”
Fleischman nodded. “From the Sudeten. The parents were killed during the expulsion. Then Silesia. Now here. Tomorrow, who knows? Cowboys.”
“I’m sure they’re good people, if they offered.”
“Yes, yes, I know. It’s the selection. How do I select?”
He moved away, not expecting an answer, before Jake could say anything. Names in a hat. Outside, the light was fading. People were still milling aimlessly. The train was now an hour late.
“I’m sorry,” Lena said. “I didn’t know. Do you want to leave?”
“No, I’m fine. Here, sit. Get some rest.” He sank to the bottom of the pillar, pulling her down with him, her head against his shoulder.
“It’s boring for you.”
“No, gives me time to think.”
But what he thought about, his mind drifting in the half wakeful-ness of waiting, was the cards, eyes facing in two directions. Deception. Nonsense. He wished he had a crossword puzzle, where one clue led to another, rational. A man gets on a plane, one across. With no baggage but a piece of information, the one thing you didn’t have to carry. Worth money. Russian. So information to a Russian. In Potsdam. Where he’s dead by nightfall. How did he spend the rest of the day? Not looking for Emil. But neither was the Russian at Professor Brandt’s. A possibility, Gunther had said, they already know where he is. But then who wanted Tully dead? Not the paymaster, presumably, or why pay in the first place? Maybe he just got in the way. Whose?
His head dropped onto his chest, nudging his eyes open. For a second he wondered if he was really awake. The station had grown black, dotted with harsh little pools of light from a row of bare bulbs strung between the pillars, a dream landscape where things crept in the dark. Lena was still leaning against him, breathing softly, safe. He closed his eyes. You couldn’t solve a crossword without the key. No matter which way he worked it, the central piece was always Emil, who knew where the columns met. Without him, it was just tea leaves, the chance arrangement of cards. Sometimes they surprise even me. But people heard what they wanted to hear.
The shriek of the train whistle woke everybody. People scrambled to their feet, the dim rails growing brighter as the engine headlight inched its way toward the platform, as if the weight were too much for the engine to pull. People covered the roofs of the cars and hung along the sides, perched on running boards or just holding on to whatever piece of metal was available, like the trains he’d seen in Egypt, bursting with fellaheen. A few boxcars with feet dangling from the open sliding doors. Everyone worn and stiff, so that when they dropped onto the platform they moved slowly, awkward with cramps. A hiss, finally, of exhausted steam, and a clang of brakes. Now the platform crowd moved forward with their bundles, shoving to get on even before the train had emptied. In the confusion, Pastor Fleischman was running back and forth, trying to locate his charges. He waved Lena over. Frau Schaller, the other helper, was already lifting children off the train.
Their heads had been shaved for delousing, skeletal. Short pants, legs like sticks, slips of paper hanging on strings around their necks as makeshift IDs, faces dazed. As people pushed around them, they stood fixed, blinking. A few had dark blotches on their skin.
“Look at that. Have they been beaten?” Jake said.
“No, it’s the edema. From no food. Any sore will bruise.”
Pastor Fleischman began loading the smaller ones into the handcart while the others looked on blankly, huddled together. No luggage. A little girl with mucus crusted under her nose. Another story Collier’s would never run-who had really lost the war.
Jake leaned over to help with the loading, reaching for one of the younger boys, but the child reared back, screaming, “ Nein! Nein!” Some of the platform crowd turned in alarm. Lena stepped between them, bent down, and spoke softly to the boy. She looked back over her shoulder at Jake.
“It’s the uniform. He’s afraid of soldiers. Say something in German.”
“I only want to help,” Jake said to him. “But you can go with the lady if you like.”
The boy stared at him, then hid behind Lena.
“It’s like this sometimes,” she said, apologetic. “Any uniform.”
Jake turned to another child. “Are you afraid of me?”
“No. Kurt’s afraid. He’s young. See how he wet himself?” Then he pointed to Jake’s pocket. “Do you have chocolate?”
“Not today. I’m sorry. I’ll bring you some tomorrow.”
The boy looked down-too long away to imagine.
Frau Schaller had opened a bag and was handing out chunks of bread, which the children held to their chests as they ate. They began moving down the platform, Pastor Fleischman pulling the cart, the others straggling behind, Lena and Frau Schaller herding from the rear. The older children were looking around, eyes wide. Not the Berlin they’d heard about all their lives, Ku’damm lights and leafy boulevards. Instead, swarms of refugees and fire-blackened walls and, through the arches, dark mounds of brick. But the grown-ups were reacting in the same way, literally staggering through the doors. Now that they were here, where did they go? Jake thought of the weary DPs in the Tiergarten that first day, just moving.
They managed to squeeze the youngest group into the jeep, Lena holding the boy who’d wet himself. The nursery was in a church in Schoneberg, and before they were halfway there the children had begun to nod off, back in the rocking motion of the train. No sense of where they were, the streets a maze of moonlit ruins. What about the people who hadn’t been met? Jake remembered walking out of Tempelhof that day, as confused as the refugees tonight, getting lost in the streets on the way to Hallesches Tor. And he knew Berlin. But of course they had been met, Breimer bundled into his official car, Liz and Jake piling in with Ron, everyone taken care of. Except Tully. How was it possible? A hasty trip, as if he’d been summoned, Brian thought. Left to find his way through the debris, someone who didn’t know Berlin? He must have been met. Berlin sprawled. Potsdam was miles away. No taxis here, Ron had said. Certainly not to Potsdam. Someone in the crowd at Tempelhof. He thought of Liz’s picture of Ron, a fuzzy background of uniforms. Why couldn’t she have taken one of Tully, made everything easier? He must have been there somewhere, one of the blurs in the doorway. While Jake had been staring across the street at rubble, missing it. Take another look. Maybe it was there, the connection. No one just arrived in Berlin, except refugees from Silesia.
The church basement had been fitted out with a few cots and rows of mattresses scavenged from bomb sites. In one corner an old wood-stove was heating soup. The room was bare-no crayoned drawings or cutouts, no piles of toys. As he watched Lena settle the children, he saw for the first time how exhausting the work must be, keeping them busy with imaginary games. Kurt still clung to her, burying his head whenever Jake caught his eye, but the others raced for the stove. “I’d better get the rest before the soup goes,” Jake said, relieved to have an excuse to get out.
The return trip took longer. Fleischman insisted on bringing the cart and hanging it over the back with his body wedged against it for support, so that each bump in the road threatened to dislodge it with a crash. They seemed to move by inches, as slow as the train. At the church, it finally did fall, then needed a heave to turn it upright. “Thank you. It’s for the wood, you see. Otherwise, the stove-” Jake imagined him working his way through the rubble in his white collar, picking up splintered pieces of furniture.
They had to carry the sleeping children in, dead weight, even the thinnest of them heavy. When he got to the basement doorway, a boy’s head against his chest, Lena looked up and smiled, the same unguarded welcome as at Frau Hinkel’s, but softer now, as if they’d already been to bed and were holding each other.
The soup was watery cabbage thickened by a few chunks of potato, but the children finished all of it and sprawled on the mattresses, waiting for sleep. A line for the one toilet, some squabbling, refereed by an exhausted Fleischman. Lena washing faces with a damp cloth. An endless night. The girl with the mucus was crying, comforted by Frau Schaller stroking her hair.
“What will happen to them?” Jake asked Fleischman.
“The DP camp in Teltowerdamm. It’s not bad-there’s food, at least. But still, you know, a camp. We try to find places. Sometimes people are willing, for the extra rations. But of course it’s difficult. So many.”
The few children still awake were given books, the old bedtime ritual, Lena and Frau Schaller reading to them in murmurs. Jake picked one up. A children’s picture book of Bible stories, left over from Sunday school. His German could manage that. He sat down with the chocolate eater and opened the book.
“Moses,” the boy said, showing off.
“Yes.”
He read a little, but the boy seemed more interested in the picture, content just to sit next to him and gaze. Egypt, exactly the way it still was, everyone’s first imaginary landscape-the blue river, bullrushes, a boy on a donkey turning a waterwheel, date palms in a thin strip of green, then brown desert running to the top of the page. In the picture, women had come down to the water’s edge to rescue the floating wicker basket, excited, in a huddle, just the way they had pulled Tully out in Potsdam. Drifting toward shore.
But Moses was supposed to be found, set into the current toward a better future. Tully had been flung in to disappear. How? Thrown from the bridge leading to town? Dragged in until the water took him? Dead weight, a grown man, much heavier than an emaciated child, a struggle for someone. Why bother at all? Why not just leave him where he’d fallen? What was another body in Berlin, where the rubble was still full of them?
Jake looked at the picture again, the excited women. Because Tully wasn’t meant to be found. Jake tried to think what this meant. Not enough to get rid of him; he had to vanish. First simply AWOL, then missing, a deserter, then finally irretrievable, a file nobody would follow up. Nothing to investigate, permanently out of the way, every trace, even the dog tags, supposedly at the bottom of the Jungfernsee with him. But the riding boots had slipped off, not held by laces, and he’d floated, carried by the water and the wind until a Russian soldier had fished him out, like Pharaoh’s daughter. Where he wasn’t supposed to be found.
He looked up to find Lena watching him, her face drawn, so tired her eyes seemed weak, almost brimming. The boy had fallen asleep against his shoulder.
“We can go. Inge will stay with them.”
Jake moved the boy gently onto the mattress and covered him.
Pastor Fleischman thanked him as he walked them to the door, a formal courtesy. “About the climate? It’s hot there. So perhaps I should send the healthiest.” He sighed. “How can I select?”
Jake looked back at the sleeping children, curled up in clumps under the blankets. “I don’t know,” he said.
“He’s a good man,” Lena said in the jeep. “You know, the Nazis arrested him. He was in Oranienberg. And the parishioners got him out. It was unusual, to do that.”
What it was like, day to day. A waitress collecting a check, a thousand cruelties, then the odd act of grace.
“Did you know him before? I mean, was this your church?”
“No. Why?”
“I was wondering if anyone could trace you through him.”
“Oh,” she said quietly.
He glanced at her, her head nodding, not yet asleep but drowsy, as peaceful as one of the children. Not just bait but living with a man asking questions, vulnerable either way. There had to be another place, somewhere nobody knew. But who had flats? Generals’ girls and whores.
“You passed the street,” she mumbled as he sped up Tauentzienstrasse toward the Memorial Church.
“I have to make a stop. Just for a minute.”
He double-parked in front of Ronny’s in a row of jeeps.
“Here?” she said, puzzled.
“I won’t be long.” He turned to one of the waiting drivers. “Do me a favor, will you, and keep an eye on the lady?”
“Now I need a guard?” Lena said softly.
“Watch her yourself,” the GI said, then took in Jake’s uniform patch and stood up. “Sir,” he said with a salute.
There was the usual blare of music as he went through the door, a trumpet leading “Let Me Off Uptown,” loud even in the noisy room.
The club seemed more crowded than before, but Danny still had his own corner table, Noel Coward hair slicked back, drumming his fingers to the music, a permanent piece of the furniture. Only one girl tonight, and next to him Gunther, staring into a glass.
“Well, here’s a treat,” Danny said. “Come to cheer old Gunther up, have you?” He nudged Gunther, who barely managed an acknowledging glance before going back to his glass. “Bit down in the dumps, he is. Not the best advert for the girls. You remember Trude?” A hopeful smile from the blonde.
“Got a second?” Jake said. “I need a favor.”
Danny stood up. “Such as?”
“Can you fix me up with a room? A flat, if you’ve got it.”
“For yourself?”
“A lady,” Jake said, leaning closer, not wanting to be overheard.
“How long do you need?” Danny said, glancing at his watch.
“No. A place to live.”
“Oh, you don’t want to be getting mixed up in that. Get their hooks in and then what? You want to spread the wealth. Cheaper in the end.”
“Can you doit?”
Danny looked at him narrowly, ready for business. “It’ll cost you.”
“That’s all right. But nobody’s to know.” He met Danny’s eyes. “She has a husband. Can you fix it with the landlord?”
“Well, that’d be me, wouldn’t it?”
“You own it?”
“I told you, nothing like property. You see how it comes in handy. Mind, I’ll have to chuck somebody out-they won’t like that a bit. They’ll need a little something for relocation. That’d be extra.”
“Done.”
Danny glanced up, surprised not to have to bargain. “Right. Give me a day.”
“And not with the other girls. I don’t want people coming and going.”
“Respectable, like.”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s your lookout. Smoke?” He opened a gold cigarette case, a prop from Private Lives. “Take my advice, don’t do it. You don t want to settle in, makes it worse after. Me, I like a choice.”
“I appreciate this,” Jake said, ignoring him. He took out some money. “Do you want something down?”
Danny looked away, embarrassed again by actual cash. “You’re good for it, aren’t you? Friend of Gunther’s.” He turned and pulled out a chair. “Here, have a drink. Come on, Gunther, share and share alike. Pour out, pour out.”
“That’s all right,” Jake said. “I’ve got somebody waiting.” He nodded at the bottle. “Looks like I’d have a lot of catching up to do. You been here all day?” he said to Gunther.
“No,” Gunther said calmly, “working for you.” Looking at him steadily, so that Jake understood the trial that morning was to be put aside, something gone with the rest of the bottle. “I spoke to Willi.”
“Let me guess,” Jake said, sitting down for a minute. “A Russian’s been paying him to watch the house.”
“Yes.”
“Find out about the one in the market? The sharpshooter?”
“I inquired, yes.”
“One of Sikorsky’s men?”
“He must have been. Vassily said he didn’t know, and Vassily knows everyone. So.” He looked up. “How did you know?”
“I talked to Shaeffer, the man who was shot. He and Sikorsky have been playing cat and mouse for a couple of weeks now. Sikorsky laid a trap and he walked right into it.”
“But the mouse got away. So. You didn’t need my services after all. What else do you know? ”
“That Tully knew where Brandt was. He didn’t just let him go, he sent him there. It was a setup. Then he collects some Russian money. They do connect. That’s what he was selling-information about Brandt.”
Gunther considered this for a moment, then picked up his drink. “Yes. It was the money that was confusing. So much. People are cheap in Berlin. You can sell them for less.”
“Not this one. He’s important. Your friend Sikorsky would be interested, for instance.”
“My friend,” he said, almost snorting. “A business acquaintance.” He smiled slightly at Jake’s expression. “Everybody does a little business.”
“The Russians must have Emil. You thought so this morning.”
A nod. “It’s the logic. And you think Vassily would tell me? On these matters, I’m afraid, a man of principle. If he knows.”
“Then maybe he’ll tell you who drove Tully to Potsdam. I’ve been thinking about that. How did he get there?”
“The general is not a chauffeur, Herr Geismar.”
“Somebody met Tully at the airport. Somebody drove him to Potsdam and killed him. It had to be a Russian.”
“The same man?”
“What do you mean?”
“Would you spend all day with someone you intended to kill? What would you do with him all day? No, you would do it.” He made a chopping motion with the side of his hand.
“He’s got you there, mate,” Danny said, surprising Jake, who’d forgotten he was at the table.
“But the driver, anyway,” Jake said, annoyed at being interrupted, “he’d be Russian. Why not ask?”
“Because you would learn nothing,” Gunther said, serious. “Nothing. And you would make yourself-conspicuous. Never be conspicuous with the Russians. Not a patient people. They strike.” He lifted a finger for emphasis. “Keep your head down until you know. Be a policeman, follow the numbers.”
“This is where they lead.”
Gunther shrugged. “The airport, yes, that’s interesting. The driver, what would that tell me? Unless it’s the same man-but how could that be?” He shook his head. “It’s the wrong question. Besides, you know, I have my interests to protect.”
“Yeah. Everybody does a little business.”
Gunther took a drink, looking down into the glass. “You forget, I’m a friend to the Soviet peoples.” The accented German of the prosecutor, bitter, the trial still there after all. “Who knows?” he said, almost airy now, playing with it. “Maybe soon an employee. The general admires my work. There are not so many opportunities.”
“You’d work for him?” Jake said, thrown by this. “You’d work for the Russians?”
“My friend, what difference does it make? When you leave, who will be here? We have to live. Calm yourself,” he said, waving his hand, “for now it’s not attractive. I’m working on a case.” He raised his glass, a reassuring toast.
“You see?” Danny said. “That’s what he likes. Old Sherlock. It’s not the money with him.”
“Then I’ll try to keep you interested,” Jake said, getting up. He looked down at Gunther, placidly draining his glass. “That’s quite a future you have in mind, you and Vassily. You know, he was in the market when Shaeffer got hit. I guess that would make him the greifer.”
Gunther lowered the glass, drawn by the word. His face was slack, eyes lost and empty like one of the children on the platform. He looked at Jake for a moment, then grunted, slowly moving the glass aside, pushing it out of sight with everything else. “Be careful he doesn’t become yours,” he said, his voice composed, neutral.
“But-” Jake said, then stopped.
“But you have someone waiting,” Gunther said. “The other matter we discussed-the living arrangements?”
“It’s taken care of,” Jake said, deliberately not looking at Danny.
“Good. Sometimes it’s enough, just moving.” He looked down. “Of course, not always.”
Outside, the street was full of drivers, bored privates in khaki standing by while their officers danced. The GI on guard duty was talking to Lena, leaning casually against the jeep.
“He says he knows Texas,” she said, smiling as Jake approached. “There are hills there, so that’s good.”
It took Jake a second, preoccupied, to realize she was back with the children.
“That’s right, lots of hills,” the soldier said in a cowpoke drawl. Any driver, maybe even him, pulled out of the pool to escort the visitor around.
“They’ll like that,” she said as Jake started the motor. “Like home.” Rolling Silesian hills.
“Let’s hope so.”
“What were you doing?”
“Seeing a man about a place. We can have it tomorrow.” He swung into the street.
“So soon.”
“Why not? There’s not much to pack.”
“Oh, it’s easy for you. That’s how you live. A gypsy,” she said, but smiling.
“Well, I’m used to it,” he said. Tents and hotels and rented rooms.
“No, you like it.”
He glanced over at her. “Will you?”
“Of course,” she said, a forced brightness. “We’ll be gypsies. One suitcase. You don’t think I can do it?”
He smiled. “Well, maybe two cases.”
There was no one in the street outside the flat, still safe, and no one inside either, Hannelore’s party, as expected, running late.
“I have to wash,” she said. “I won’t be long. Look at the mess she’s left. Well, I won’t miss that.”
“I’ll clean it up.”
“No, in the morning. It’s so late. Am I standing up?”
But when the bathroom door closed, he went over to the sink anyway, thinking of when she’d been sick, washing the dishes to fill the time, waiting for the doctor, tidying up as a kind of medicine. Only three weeks ago. There wasn’t much to do-cups, some scattered papers near the typewriter. Most of his clothes were at Gelferstrasse. Not even one suitcase. It would take only minutes to leave, another room. And yet it occurred to him that Frau Hinkel was wrong-he was home here, all the years before the war, then these last weeks when it seemed a kind of sanctuary, here longer than anywhere he’d ever been. His place. Nothing remarkable-the rumpled sofa where Hal used to pass out, the table where Lena had sat with coffee, sunlight pouring across her robe; his private piece of Berlin. But not a refuge anymore, a trap.
He heard the click of the door as Lena left the bathroom, and he walked over to the window, turning out the light behind him. Nothing. Wittenbergplatz was quiet. He looked up and down the street, eyes in two directions. Maybe Frau Hinkel was wrong about that too. But U-boats kept moving. His cards were lucky. Pariserstrasse was rubble, in a day this flat would be gone, but Lena was still here, brushing out her hair probably, sitting on the bed in her nightgown, waiting for him. He looked around in the dark. Just rooms.
In the bathroom he brushed his teeth, then washed off the day’s layer of grime, coming alive with the water. She’d be wearing the prewar silk, a sentimental choice for their last night here, straps hanging loose on her shoulders. Maybe already packing, ready to go somewhere new. But when he opened the door, he saw her lying on the bed in the dim lamplight, curled up like one of the children, eyes closed. A long day. He stood for a moment looking at her face, damp from the heat, but not the fever of those days when he’d kept watch. A few of her things had been folded in a neat pile. Life in a suitcase, the last thing she wanted, but she’d said it. He turned off the light, undressed, and slipped quietly onto his side of the bed, trying not to wake her, thinking of that first night, when they hadn’t made love either, just lay together. He turned on his side and she stirred.
“Jacob,” she said, only half awake. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. Go to sleep.”
“No, I wanted-”
“Ssh.” He smoothed her forehead, whispering. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow. We’ll go to the lakes.” Like a bedtime promise to a child.
“A boat,” she murmured vaguely, not really following, still drowsy. “All right.” A pause. “Thank you for everything,” she said, oddly polite.
“Any time,” he said, smiling at her words.
In the quiet he thought she had drifted off, but she moved closer, facing him, eyes now open. She put her hand on his cheek. “Do you know something? I’ve never loved you as much as I did tonight.”
“When was that, exactly?” he said softly. “So I can do it again.”
“Don’t joke,” she said, leaning her head into his. She stroked his cheek. “Never so much. When you read to him. I saw how it would have been. If nothing had happened.”
He saw her eyes in the basement again, not tired, brimming with something else, a sadness out of reach, hanging in the air between them like rubble dust.
“Sleep,” he said. He moved his hand up to close her eyes, but she took it in hers.
“Let me see it again,” she said, tracing. “Yes, there.” Satisfied, her eyes closing finally. Contents — Previous Chapter / Next Chapter