He awoke to find Lena’s face floating over his.
“What time is it?”
A faint smile. “After noon.” She reached up and felt his forehead. “A good sleep. Erich, go get Dr. Rosen. Tell him he’s awake.”
There was a scampering in the corner, then a blur as the boy darted out of the room.
“How did you do it?” she said. “Can you talk?”
How? A bumpy ride in the jeep, getting off in a Ku’damm swarming with headlights and blaring horns, packs of rowdy GIs with girls dancing out of the clubs into the street, then a blank.
“Where’s Emil?” Jake said.
“Here. It’s all right. No, don’t get up. Rosen says-” She smoothed his forehead again. “Can I get you something?”
He shook his head. “You got out.”
Rosen came through the door with Erich by his side and sat down on the bed, taking a pinpoint light out of his bag and shining it into each of Jake’s eyes.
“How do you feel?”
“Peachy.”
He reached behind, checking the bandage on the back of Jake’s head. “The stitches are good. But you should see an American doctor. An injury to the head, there’s always a risk. Sit up. Any dizziness?” He felt below the bandage, freeing his other hand by passing the light to Erich, who put it carefully into the bag. “My new assistant,” Rosen said fondly. “An excellent medical man.”
Jake bent forward as Rosen prodded with his fingers.
“A little swelling, not bad. Still. The Americans have; an X ray? For the shoulder too.”
Jake glanced down and saw an ugly splotch of bruise, and moved the shoulder, testing. Not dislocated.
“You got this how?” Rosen said.
“I fell.”
Rosen looked at him, dubious. “A long fall.”
“About two stories.” He squinted at the bright afternoon light. “How long have I been out? Did you give me something;?”
“No. The body is a good doctor. Sometimes, when it’s too much, it shuts down to rest. Erich, would you check for fever?”
The boy reached up and rested his dry palm on Jake’s forehead, looking at him solemnly. “Normal,” he said finally, his voice as small as his hand.
“You see? An excellent medical man.”
“Yes, and now sleepy,” Lena said, her hands on his shoulders. “He stayed up all night, watching you. To make sure.”
“You mean you did,” Jake said, imagining him slumped next to her in the easy chair.
“Both. He likes you,” she said pointedly.
“Thank you,” Jake said to him.
The boy nodded gravely, pleased.
“So you’ll live,” Rosen said, gathering his bag. “A day in bed, please. In case.”
“You too,” Lena said, moving the boy. “Time to rest. Come, I have coffee for you,” she said to Rosen, busy, organizing them, so that they followed without protest. “And you,” she said to Jake. “I’ll be right back.”
But it was Emil who brought the coffee, closing the door behind him. Back in his own clothes again, a frayed shirt and thin cardigan.
He handed Jake the mug stiffly, averting his eyes, his movements shy and prickly at the same time.
“She’s putting the boy to sleep,” he said. “It’s a Jewish child?”
“It’s a child,” Jake said over the mug.
Emil raised his head, bristling a little, then took off his glasses and wiped them.
“You look different.”
“Four years. People change,” Jake said, raising his hand to touch his receding hair, then wincing in surprise.
“Broken?” Emil said, looking at the bruised shoulder.
“No.”
“It’s a terrible color. It hurts?”
“And you call yourself a scientist,” Jake said lightly. “Yes, it hurts.”
Emil nodded. “So I should thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for you. They would have taken her too.”
“And that’s why you changed the clothes,” he said skeptically. “So thank you.” He looked down, still wiping. “It’s awkward, to thank a man who-” He stopped, putting away the handkerchief. “How things turn out. You find your wife, then she’s not your wife. I have you to thank for this too.”
“Listen, Emil-”
“Don’t explain. Lena has told me. This is what happens now in Germany, I think. You hear it many times. A woman alone, the husband dead maybe. An old friend. Food. There’s no one to blame for this. Just to live-”
Was this what she’d told him, or simply what he wanted to believe?
“She’s not here for the rations,” Jake said.
Emil looked at him steadily, then turned away, moving over to sit on the arm of the chair, still toying with the glasses. “And now? What are you going to do?”
“About you? I don’t know yet.”
“You’re not sending me back to Kransberg?”
“Not until I know who took you out in the first place. They might try again.”
“So I’m a prisoner here?”
“It could be worse. You could be in Moscow.”
“With you? With Lena? I can’t stay here.”
“They’d grab you the minute you hit the streets.”
“Not if I’m with the Americans. You don’t trust your own people?”
“Not with you. You trusted them, look where it got you.”
“Yes, I trusted them. How could I know? He was-sympathetic. He was going to take me to her. To Berlin.”
“Where you could pick up some files while you were at it. Von Braun send you this time too?”
Emil looked at him, uncertain, then shook his head. “He thought they were destroyed.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I thought so. But my father-I couldn’t be sure, not with him. And of course I was right. He gave them to you.”
“No. He never gave me anything. I took them. He protected you right to the end. God knows why.”
Emil looked at the floor, embarrassed. “Well, no difference.”
“It is to him.”
Emil took this in for a moment, then let it go. “Anyway, you have them.”
“But Tully didn’t. Now why is that? You tell him about the files and then you don’t tell him where they are.”
The first hint of a smile, oddly superior. “I didn’t have to. He thought he knew. He said, I know where they are, all the files. Where the Americans have them. He was going to help, if you can imagine such a thing. He said only an American could get them. So I let him think that. He was going to get them for me,” he said, shaking his head.
“Out of the kindness of his heart?” Collecting twice.
“Of course for money. I said yes. I knew they weren’t there-I would never have to pay. And if he could take me out- So I was the clever one. Then he delivered me to the Russians.”
“Quite a pair. Why the hell did you tell him in the first place?”
“I never had a head for drink. It was-a despair. How can I explain it? All those weeks, waiting, why didn’t they send us to America? Then we heard about the trials, how the Americans were looking for Nazis everywhere, and I thought, we’ll never get out, they won’t send us. And maybe I said something like that, that the Americans would call us Nazis, us, because in the war we had to do things, and how would it look now? There were files, everything we did. What files? SS, I said, they kept everything. I don’t know, I was a little drunk maybe, to say that much. And he said it was only the Jews who were doing that, hunting Nazis-the Americans wanted us. To continue our work. He understood how important that was.“ His voice firmer now, sure of something at last. ”And it’s right, you know. To stop now, for this-“
Jake put down the mug and reached for a cigarette. “And the next thing you knew, you were off to Berlin. Tell me how that worked.”
“It’s another debriefing?” Emil said, annoyed.
“You’ve got the time. Have a seat. Don’t leave anything out.”
Emil sank back onto the armrest, rubbing his temples as if he were trying to arrange his memory. But the story he had to tell was the one Jake already knew, without surprises. No other Americans, the secret of Tully’s partner still safe with Sikorsky. Only a few new details of the border crossing. The guards, apparently, had been courteous. “Even then, I didn’t know,” Emil said. “Not until Berlin. Then I knew it was finished for me.”
“But not for Tully,” Jake said, thinking aloud. “Now he had some other fish to fry, thanks to your little talk. Lots of possibilities there. Did the others at Kransberg know about this, by the way?”
“My group? Of course not. They wouldn’t-” He stopped, nervous.
“What? Be as understanding as Tully was? They’d have a mess on their hands, wouldn’t they? Explaining things.”
“I didn’t know he would have this idea. I thought the files were destroyed. I would never betray them. Never,” he said, louder, aroused. “You understand, we are a team. It’s how we work. Von Braun did everything to keep us together, everything. You can’t know what it was like. Once they even arrested him-a man like that. But together, all through the war. When you share that-no one else knows what it was like. What we had to do.”
“What you had to do. Christ, Emil. I read the file.”
“Yes, what we had to do. What do you think? I’m SS too? Me?”
“I don’t know. People change.”
Emil stood up. “I don’t have to answer to you. You, of all people.”
“You’ll have to answer to someone,” Jake said calmly. “You might as well start with me.”
“So it’s a trial now. Ha, in this whorehouse.”
“The girls weren’t at Nordhausen. You were.”
“Nordhausen. You read something in a file-”
“I was there. In the camps. I saw your workers.”
“My workers? You want us to answer for that? That was SS, not us. We had nothing to do with that.”
“Except to let it happen.”
“And what should we do? File a complaint? You don’t know what it was like.”
“Then tell me.”
“Tell you what? What is it you want to know? What?”
Jake looked at him, suddenly at a loss. The same glasses and soft eyes, now wide and defiant, besieged. What, finally?
“I guess, what happened to you,” he said quietly. “I used to know you.”
Emil’s face trembled, as if he’d been stung. “Yes, we used to know each other. It seems, both wrong. Lena’s friend.” He held Jake’s eyes for a second, then retreated to the chair, subdued. “What happened. You ask that? You were here. You know what it was like in Germany. Do you think I wanted that?”
“No.”
“No. But then what? Turn my back, like my father, until it was over? When was that? Maybe never. My life was then, not when it was over. All my training. You don’t wait until the politics are convenient. We were just at the beginning. How could we wait?”
“So you worked for them.”
“No, we survived them. Their stupid interference. The demands, always crazy. Reports. All of it. They took away Dornberger, our leader, and we survived that too. So the work would survive, even after the war. Do you understand what it means? To leave the earth? To make something new. But difficult, expensive. How else could we do it? They gave us the money, not enough, but enough to keep going, to survive them.”
“By building their weapons.”
“Yes, weapons. It was the war by then. Do you think I’m ashamed of that?” He looked down. “It’s my homeland. What I am. Lena too,” he said, glancing up. “The same blood. You do things in wartime-” He trailed off.
“I saw it, Emil,” Jake said. “That wasn’t war, not in Nordhausen. That was something else. You saw it.”
“They said it was the only way. There was a schedule. They needed the workers.”
“And killed them. To meet your schedule.”
“Ours, no. Their schedule. Impossible, crazy, like everything else. Was it crazy to mistreat the workers? Yes, everything was crazy. When I saw it, I couldn’t believe it, what they were doing. In Germany. But by then we were living in a madhouse. You become crazy yourself, living like that. How can it be, one sane person in the asylum? No, all crazy. All normal. They ask for estimates, crazy estimates, but you are crazy if you refuse. And they do terrible things to you, your family, so you become crazy too. We knew it was hopeless, all of us in the program. Even their numbers. Even numbers they made crazy. You don’t believe me? Listen to this. A little mathematical exercise,” he said, getting up to pace, the boy who could do numbers in his head.
“The original plan, you know, was for nine hundred rockets a month, thirty tons of explosives per day for England. This was 1943. Hitler wanted two thousand rockets per month, an impossible target, we could never come close. But that was the target, so we needed more workers, more workers for this crazy number. Never close. And if we had done it? That would mean sixty-six tons per day. Sixty-six. In 1944, the Allies were dropping three thousand tons a day on Germany. Sixty-six against three thousand, that is the mathematics they were working with. And to do this, forty thousand prisoners finally. More and more for this number. You want me to explain what happened? They were crazy. They made us crazy. I don’t know what else to tell you. How can I answer this?” He stopped pacing, turning his hands up in question.
“I wish somebody could. Everybody in Germany has an explanation. And no answer.”
“To what?”
“Eleven hundred calories a day. Another number.”
Emil looked away. “And you think I did that?”
“No, you just did the numbers.”
Emil was still for a moment, then came over to the bedside table and picked up the cup. “You’ve finished your coffee?” He stood near the bed, staring down at the cup. “So now I’m to blame. That makes it easy for you? To take my wife.”
“I’m not blaming you for anything,” Jake said, looking up into his glasses. “You do it.”
Emil nodded to himself. “Our new judges. You blame us, then you go home, so we can accuse each other. That’s what you want. So it s never over.”
“Except for you. You go to the States with the rest of your group and go on with your fine work. That’s the idea, isn’t it? You and von Braun and the rest of them. No questions there. All forgotten. No files.”
Emil peered over his glasses. “You’re so sure the Americans want these files?”
“Some of them do.”
“And the others at Kransberg? You would do this to them too? It’s not enough to accuse me?”
“This isn’t just about you.”
“No? I think so, yes. For Lena.”
“You’re wrong. About that, too.”
“You think it would make her happy? To send me to jail?”
Jake said nothing.
Emil raised his head, letting out a breath. “Then do it. I can’t stay here. They’re looking for me, she told me this. So send me. What difference where I’m a prisoner?”
“Don’t be too anxious to go. You’re a liability now, undelivered goods. He’ll have to do something.”
“Who?”
“Tully’s partner.”
“I told you, there was no one else.”
“Yes, there was.” Jake looked up, a new idea. “You talk to anyone else at Kransberg?”
“Americans? No. Just Tully,” Emil said absently, not interested.
“And Shaeffer. The debriefing,” Jake said, explaining. “Ever meet his friend Breimer? ”
“I don’t know the name. They were all the same to us.”
“Big man, government, not a soldier?”
“That one? Yes, he was there. To meet the group. He was interested in the program.”
“I’ll bet. He talk to you?”
“No, only von Braun. The Americans, they like a von,” he said, shrugging a little.
Jake sat back for a moment, thinking. But how could it be? Another column that wouldn’t add up.
Emil took his silence for an answer and moved toward the door, carrying the mug. “You’ll at least send word to Kransberg? My colleagues will worry-”
“They’ll keep. I want you missing a little while longer. A little bait.”
“Bait?”
“That’s right. Like Lena was for you. Now you can be the bait. We’ll see who bites.”
Emil turned at the door, blinking behind his glasses. “It’s no good, talking. The way you are now. What is it, some idea of justice? For whom, I wonder. Not for Lena. You think I ask for myself-for her too. Think what it means for her.”
“I see. For her.”
“Yes, for her. You think she wants this trouble for me?” He opened his hand, taking in not just the room but the files, the whole clouded future.
“No, she thinks she owes you something.”
“Maybe it’s you who owes something.”
Jake looked up at him. “Maybe,” he said. “But she doesn’t.”
Emil shook his head. “How things turn out. To think I left Kransberg for her. And now this-all our work. So you can prove something to her. Wave these files in my face. ‘You see what kind of man he is. Leave him.’”
“She has left you,” Jake said.
“For you,” Emil said, shaking his head at the implausibility of it, drawing his round shoulders back, upright, the way they must have looked in uniform. “But how different you are. Not the same man. I thought you would understand how it was here-leave me my work, that much. No, you want that too. Your pound of flesh. Make all of us Nazis. She won’t thank you for this. Does she even know, how different you are?”
Jake stared at him for a minute, the same man on the station platform, no longer blurry, as if the train had slowed so he could really see.
“But you’re not,” he said, suddenly weary, the dull ache in his shoulder spreading to his voice. “I just didn’t know you. Your father did. Some missing piece, he called it.”
“My father-”
“You never had anything in your head but numbers. Not her. She was your excuse. Even Tully bought it. Maybe you believe it yourself. The way you think Nordhausen just happened. All by itself. But that doesn’t make it true. Owes you something? You didn’t come to Berlin for her-you came to get the files again.”
“No.”
“Just like the first time. She thinks you risked your life to get her. It wasn’t for her. Von Braun sent you. It was his car, his assignment. To keep the work going. No embarrassing pieces of paper. You never even tried to get her, just save your own sorry skin.”
“You weren’t there,” Emil said angrily. “Get through that hell? How could I do that? I had the other men to think of. There was only one bridge left-”
“And you drove right out with them. I don’t blame you. But you don’t blame yourself either. Why not? You were in charge. It was your party. How long did it take you to get the files? That was your priority. Passengers? Well, if there was time. And then there wasn’t.”
“She was at the hospital,” Emil said, raising his voice. “Safe.”
“She was raped. She almost died. She tell you that?”
“No,” he said, looking down.
“But you got what you really came for. You left her and saved the team. And now you want to do it again, even make her help this time, because she thinks she owes you something. She’s lucky she got the phone call.”
“It’s a lie,” Emil said.
“Is it? Then why didn’t you tell von Braun you were leaving Kransberg with Tully? You couldn’t, could you? Not the real reason. He thought you’d already taken care of the files. But you had to be sure. That’s why you came. It’s always been about the files. Not her.”
Emil kept staring at the floor. “You’d do anything to turn her against me,” he said, his tone aggrieved, closed off. He looked up. “You’ve told her this?”
“You tell her,” Jake said steadily. “I wasn’t there, remember? You were. Tell her how it was.” He watched Emil stand there, shaking his head numbly in the sudden stillness, and sank back against the pillow. “Then maybe she’ll figure it out for herself.”
Brian turned up after dinner, bringing a newspaper and a bottle of NAAFI scotch.
“Well, safe and sound. That looks nasty,” he said, pointing to the shoulder. “You ought to see to that.” He opened the bottle and poured two drinks. “Quite a hidey-hole, I must say. I saw a lovely thing in the hall. Nothing under the wrapper, by the looks of it. I don’t suppose they give out samples. Cheers.“ He tossed back the shot. ”How’d you find it?“
“It’s British owned.”
“Really? That’s the stuff.”
“Anybody see you come here?”
“Well, what’s to that? At my age I’m expected to pay for it.” He glanced over. “No, no one. Jeep’s in the courtyard behind, by the way. I thought you might like it off the street. Tempting.”
“Thanks.”
“I take it that’s the husband,” he said, nodding toward the living room. “The one moping on the couch. What are the sleeping arrangements, or am I being prurient?”
“Thanks for that too. I owe you.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll collect. Your stunt, my exclusive. Fair?”
Jake smiled.
“You made the papers,” Brian said, handing it to him. “At least, I assume it’s you. No names. Not much sense either.”
Jake opened it up. PEACE headlined in bold across the top, with the picture of Marines raising the flag on I wo Jima. At the bottom right, in smaller type, wwm begins? who fired first? an account of the Chancellery shoot-out as confusing as the crossfire, with the implication that everyone had been drunk.
“You can’t imagine the hullabaloo. Well, maybe you can. Russians have been stamping their feet, cross as anything. Formal notes, want a special Council session, the lot. Say they won’t march in the victory parade-there’s a loss. Want to tell me what really happened?”
“Believe it or not, this is what happened. Except the Russians weren’t drunk.”
“That would be a first.”
“And I’m not in it,” Jake said, finishing the piece.
“Strictly speaking, boyo, you weren’t. You were with me.”
“Is that what you told them?”
“Had to. No end of questions otherwise. You’re the most popular man in Berlin these days. Absolutely belle of the ball-everybody wants to dance with you. If they knew where you were. Damned if I do. Came down to the dining room with a lady, offered me a lift-I might have been a little the worse for wear-dropped me on the
Ku’damm for a nightcap, and that’s the last I saw you. As for this,“ he said, pointing to the paper, ”what I hear is there was a civilian in the middle of it. Nobody knows who. German, would be my guess. Of course, the Russians aren’t saying, but they’re not supposed to be missing anybody in the first place.“
“But I spoke English.”
“Americans think everyone does. You tell them who you were?”
“No. And I spoke German to the Russians. Sikorsky wouldn’t have had time to-”
“You see? Believe me, nobody’s thinking about anything except covering their behinds. Damned silly, when you think of it, going to the bunker for a drink. Wanted to dance on Hitler’s grave, I suppose. Very unwise, all things considered. The point is, you were seen leaving the Adlon with me. Witnesses. And if I don’t know you, who would? That is the way you wanted it, isn’t it?”
Jake smiled at him. “You don’t miss a trick.”
“Not when the story’s mine. Exclusive, remember? It doesn’t do to share with your gang. So fair’s fair? What’s it all about?”
“It’s yours, I promise. Just wait a little.”
“Not even a taste? What in god’s name were you and the general wagging about? The late general, I should say. There’s a service tomorrow, by the way-all the Allies. That awful band of theirs, no doubt. I suppose you won’t be sending a wreath.”
“That’s right,” Jake said, not really listening. “You don’t know.”
“No, I don’t know,” he said, imitating Jake’s voice. “Until you tell me.”
“No, I mean nobody knows. What he said to me. Nobody knows. It could have been anything.”
“But what did he say?”
“Let me think for a minute. It’s important. I need to work this out.”
“You don’t mind, then?” Brian said, pouring another drink. “Always so gripping to watch someone think.”
“Anything. I mean, suppose he had told me?”
“Told you what?”
Jake was quiet for a minute, sipping his scotch.
“Hey, Brian,” he said finally, still brooding. “I want you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“Have a drink at the press camp. My treat.”
“And?”
“Talk loose. Have a few. You saw me and I’ve got hold of a story and wouldn’t cut you in on it so you’re annoyed.”
“So I would be. And the point is?”
“I want everybody to know that I’ve got something. It’s like the village post office there-it won’t take long to get around. Wait, even better. Got some paper?”
Brian took out a notebook and handed it to him, then watched as he wrote.
“Send this to Collier’s for me-here’s the cable address.”
Brian took it and read aloud. “‘Save space next issue big story scandal.’ And when you don’t send one? They won’t like that.”
“Well, I might. So will you. But chances are this won’t go out anyway. They censor the cables. Young Ron’ll take one look and start playing Chicken Little. He’ll be all over the place with it.”
“All over me, you mean.”
“Ask him what the fuss is all about-he’ll go shy on you. Then ask him who Tully was.”
“Someone you mentioned in passing when I saw you.”
“That’s right. I called it my Tully story.”
“And this is going to get you what, exactly?”
“The man who killed him. The other American.”
“The bird in the bush. You’re sure there is one.”
“Somebody tried to have me killed in Potsdam. It wasn’t Tully-he was already dead. Yes, I’m sure.”
“Steady. You don’t want any more excitement, not like this,” Brian said, indicating Jake’s shoulder. “Twice lucky. Third time-”
“Third time he comes to me. He’ll have to. Ever hear of a squeeze play?”
“And this will squeeze him out?” he said, holding the paper.
“Part of the way. The way it works is to get the Russians to do the rest. They think Emil’s loose. He is still loose. What if they had the chance to get him back? Sikorsky’s dead. Tully’s dead. Who else do they send to get him?”
“Especially if he can get you as well? I don’t like that. And how do you intend to manage this, may I ask?”
“Just go have the drink, okay? We’re almost there.”
“With loose talk. Which he’ll hear.”
“He’s heard everything else.”
“One of ours, then.”
“I don’t know. The only one I know it isn’t is you.”
“Very trusting of you.”
“No. It was an American bullet. You buy British,” Jake said, pointing to the bottle.
Brian folded the paper and pocketed it. “Speaking of which, you’ll want this back.” He brought a gun out of the pocket. “If you’re determined to keep asking for trouble.”
“Liz’s gun,” Jake said, taking it.
“Something of a rush at the Adlon, but I managed to pick it up. Just in case.”
“He killed her, you know. Sikorsky.”
“So that’s it?” Brian said. He got up to go. “It’s a fool’s game, getting even. It never turns out the way you expect.”
“It’s not about that.”
“Then it’s a lot to do for a story.”
“How about getting away with murder? Is that enough?”
“Dear boy, people get away with murder all the time. You’ve only to look around you. Especially here. Years of it.”
“Then let’s stop it.”
“Now I do feel old. Nothing like the young for putting things right. Well, I’ll leave you to it. And this lovely scotch. Second thought, perhaps I won’t,” he said, picking up the bottle. “Never know how many rounds I’ll have to buy before the old tongue loosens up properly. On my expenses, too.”
“Thanks, Brian.”
“Well, Africa together-it has to count for something. No point in telling you to be careful, I suppose. You never were. Still, Russians. I should have thought you’d have your hands full sorting out your menage.” He nodded to the next room.
“It’ll sort itself out.”
“The young,” Brian said, sighing. “Not in my experience.”
It took Jake ten minutes to dress, his stiff arms fumbling with the buttons, even tying his shoes a small agony.
“You’re going out?” Lena said, looking up from the table where she and Erich were leafing through a magazine rescued from one of the girls. Life, pictures from another world. Emil sat on the couch, his face vacant, lost in himself.
“I won’t be long,” Jake said, starting toward her to kiss her goodbye, then stopping, even the most ordinary gesture somehow awkward now. Instead he rubbed Erich’s head.
“Rosen said to rest,” Lena said.
“I’m all right,” Jake said, feeling Emil watching him so that, like an intruder, he wanted to hurry out, away from them. “Don’t wait up,” he said to Erich, but taking them all in. Only Erich moved, giving him a little wave.
The street was a relief, the comforting anonymity of the dark. A soldier in a jeep. He drove out toward Kreuzberg, not even noticing the ruins. Even Berlin could become normal, a question of what you were used to.
He found Gunther playing solitaire, a half-full bottle on the table beside him, methodically laying out rows of cards like his columns of obvious points.
“A surprise visit,” Gunther said, not sounding surprised at all, barely looking up from the cards.
“I thought I’d bring you up to date,” Jake said, sitting down.
Gunther grunted, continuing to lay out cards as Jake told him about the Adlon, not even pausing when bullets hit the Chancellery steps.
“So once again you’re lucky,” he said when Jake finished. “And we still don’t know.”
“That’s why I’ve come. I have an assignment for you.”
“Leave me alone,” he said, turning over a card. Then he looked up. “What?”
“I want you to go to a funeral tomorrow.”
“Sikorsky’s?”
“A friend. Naturally you’d want to go.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“And pay your respects to his successor. I assume his number two-they haven’t had time to bring anyone in yet. Maybe his boss. Either way, whoever’s Sikorsky now. It’s good business, for one thing.” He glanced at the stacks of black market boxes.
“And the other?”
“New business.”
“With me,” Gunther said, raising an eyebrow.
“You have to think of it from his point of view-what he knows or what he’s been told. They must have grilled the Russians at the Adlon. What he knows is that Sikorsky saw us there-Lena and me-and let us pay a visit. He knows Brandt escaped and Sikorsky was killed chasing him. He knows the Americans don’t have him-Tully’s partner would have told him. So where is he? The logical place?”
Gunther made a questioning sound, still playing.
“Where he’s always wanted to be-with his wife. Who came with me. And I’m a friend of yours. And you-you kept tabs on me for Sikorsky,” Jake said, slapping the words down in order, jack, ten, nine. “His source.”
Gunther stopped. “I told him nothing. Nothing important.”
“So he said. The point is, they know he got it from you. They know you know me. They might even think you know where I am. Which means-”
“An interesting situation, I agree,” Gunther said, turning a card slowly. “But I don’t know where you are. I have never wanted to know that, if you remember. To be in this position.”
“If they believe that. Maybe they don’t think you’re so high-minded. Maybe they just think you’re a rat.”
Gunther glanced up, then went back to his cards. “Are you trying to provoke me? Don’t bother.”
“I’m trying to show you how he’ll see things. When you talk to him tomorrow.”
“And what do you want me to say?”
“I want you to betray me.”
Gunther put down the cards, reached for his glass, and sat back, looking at Jake over the rim. “Go on.”
“It’s time to move up in the world. Cigarettes, watches, a little bar gossip-there’s no real money in that. But even a small-time crook gets a chance once in a while. Something big to sell. Sometimes it falls right into your lap.”
“I take it Herr Brandt is that opportunity.”
Jake nodded. “I came to you to get some travel permits. To get the happy couple out of town.”
“And I would have these?”
“They’re on the market. You’re in the market. They’ll think you could. But now you’ve got a situation. You want to keep your options open. Your friend Sikorsky is gone-why not make some new friends, and a bundle on the side? Hard to resist.”
“Very.”
“So you arrange to meet us, with the permits. If someone else shows up instead-”
“Where?” Gunther said, oddly precise.
“I don’t know yet,” Jake said, brushing it aside. “But in the American zone. That’s important. They need to send an American. If they’re Russians, I’ll smell a setup right away. It has to be an American, so I won’t suspect until it’s too late.”
“And they’ll send him, your American.”
“He’s the obvious person. He knows who I am. And he’ll want to come. I’ve put the word out that I’m on to something. He can’t take that chance. He’ll come.”
“And then he will have you.”
“I’ll have him. All you have to do is lead him to me.”
“Be your greifer,” Gunther said, his voice low.
“It can work.”
Gunther moved his eyes back to the cards and began to play again. “A pity you weren’t on the force, before the war. Sometimes the bold move-”
“It can work,” Jake said again.
Gunther nodded. “Except for one thing. I have no quarrel with the Russians. As you say, I want to keep my options open. If you succeed, where am I? With no options. The Russians will know I betrayed them. Get someone else.”
“There isn’t anyone else. They’ll believe you. It’s your case too.”
“No, yours. It was interesting to help you, a way to pass the time. Now it’s something else. I don’t make myself conspicuous. Not now.”
Jake looked at him. “That’s right. You never did.”
“That’s right,” Gunther said, refusing to be drawn.
Jake reached over and placed his hand on the cards, stopping the play.
“Move your hand.”
Jake held it there for another minute, staring at him.
“Leave me alone.”
“How long do you intend to stay dead? Years? That’s a lot of time to pass with your head down. You’re still a cop. We’re talking about murder.”
“No, survival.”
“Like this? You tried that once. A good German cop. So you kept your head down and people died. Now you want to stick it down a bottle. For what? A chance to snitch for the Russians? You’d be working for the same people. You think it’ll be any different?” He pushed his chair away, frustrated, and walked over to the wall map. Berlin as it used to be.
Gunther sat stonily for a second, then laid down another card, almost a reflex.
“And the Americans are so much better?”
“Maybe not by much,” Jake said, his eyes moving left, toward Dahlem. “But that’s who’s here. That’s the choice.” He turned from the map. “You have a choice.”
“To work for the Americans.”
“No, to be a cop again. A real one.”
Neither of them said anything for a minute, so when the door rattled with a sharp knock, it seemed even louder in the thick silence. Jake looked up, alarmed, expecting Russians, but it was Bernie, pushing through the door with folders under his arm just as he had that first night at Gelferstrasse, running into a plate. Now it was the sight of Jake that stopped him in mid-dash.
“Where have you been? People are looking for you, you know.”
“I heard.”
“Well, it’s good you’re here. Saves a trip,” he said, not explaining and moving toward the table. “ Wie gehts, Gunther?” He looked down at the cards. “Seven on the eight. Things a little blurry?” He picked up the bottle, gave it a quick glancing measurement, and put it aside.
“Clear enough.”
“I brought the Bensheim copies you asked for. I’ll need them back, though. We’re not supposed to-”
“According to Herr Geismar, unnecessary now.”
“What’s Bensheim?” Jake said.
“Where Tully was before Kransberg,” Bernie said.
“To cross the t ‘s,” Gunther said, opening one of the folders, then looking at Jake. “Not bold, methodical. So often there’s a pattern.
I thought, to whom was he selling these persilscheins? Which Germans? Perhaps someone I would recognize. An idea only.“
“So that’s what they look like,” Jake said, coming over and picking one up.
The usual buff-colored paper and ragged type wedged into boxes, ink scrawled across the bottom. The name on top was Bernhardt, no one he knew. A different page layout, yet still familiar, like all the occupation forms. He scanned down the sheet, then handed it back. Innocuous paper, but worth a reputation to Bernhardt.
“But as I say, no longer necessary,” Gunther said.
“Why’s that?” Bernie said.
“Gunther’s retiring from the case,” Jake said. “He wants to do his drinking elsewhere.”
“Still, you don’t mind if I look? Since you went to the trouble?” Gunther said, taking the folders.
“Be my guest,” Bernie said, pouring himself a drink. “Did I walk into the middle of something?”
“No, we’re done,” Jake said. “I’m off.”
“Don’t go. I have some news.” He tossed back the drink and swallowed it with a small shudder, a gesture so uncharacteristic that it drew Jake’s attention.
“I thought you didn’t drink.”
“Now I see why,” Bernie said, still grimacing. He put down the glass. “Renate’s dead.”
“The Russians-”
“No, she hanged herself.”
No one spoke, the room still as death.
“When?” Jake said involuntarily, a sound to fill the space.
“They found her this morning. I never expected-”
Jake turned away from them to the map, his eyes smarting, as if they had caught a cinder. “No,” he said, not an answer, just another sound.
“Nobody thought she’d-” Bernie stopped, then looked over at Jake. “She say anything to you when you talked to her?”
Jake shook his head. “If she did, I didn’t hear it.” His eyes moved over the map-the Alex and its impossible trial, Prenzlauer where she’d hidden the child, Anhalter Station, cadging a cigarette on the platform. You could trace a life on a map, like streets. The old Columbia office, delivering items with her sharp eye.
“So now it’s an end,” Gunther said, his voice neutral, emotionless.
“It didn’t start this way,” Jake said. “You didn’t know her. How she was. So-pretty,” he said inadequately, meaning alive. He turned to them. “She was pretty.”
“Everybody dies,” Gunther said flatly.
“I don’t know why I should mind,” Bernie said. “Everything she did. And a Jew. Still.” He paused. “I didn’t come here for this. To see another one die.”
“She was part of that,” Gunther said, still flat.
“So were a lot of people,” Jake said. “They just kept their heads down. Maybe they couldn’t help it either, the way it was.”
“Well, maybe she’s found her peace,” Bernie said. “A hell of a way to do it, though.”
“Is there another?” Gunther said.
“I guess that depends on what you can live with,” Bernie said, picking up his hat.
Gunther glanced up at this, then looked away.
“Anyway, I thought you’d want to know. You coming?” he said to Jake. “I still have things to do. Two days with these, okay, Gunther?” He touched the folders. “I have to send them back. You all right?”
Gunther didn’t answer, reaching instead for a folder and opening it, avoiding them by reading the page. Jake stood, waiting, but Gunther’s only response was to turn the page, like a policeman going through mug shots. They were at the door before Gunther raised his head.
“Herr Geismar?” he said, getting up slowly and walking over to the map, his back to them. He stood for a second, studying it. “Pick the place. Let me know before the funeral.”
Lena was in the big chair, legs tucked beneath her, wreathed in smoke rising from the ashtray perched on the wide arm, the room shadowy with a faint glow from the scarf-draped lamp. She looked as if she’d been sitting for hours, coiled into herself, too fixed now to move even when he walked over and touched her hair. “Where’s Emil?”
“Bed,” she said. “Not so loud, you’ll wake Erich.” She nodded at the couch, where the boy lay curled up under a sheet. Brian’s sleeping arrangements answered, in shifts.
“What about you?”
“You want me to share the bed?” she said, unexpectedly short, lighting a new cigarette from the stub of the other. “Maybe I should go to Hannelore. To live this way-” She looked up. “He says you won’t let him leave. He wants to go to Kransberg.”
“He will. I just need him for one more day.” He brought one of the table chairs over and sat next to her so they could talk in murmurs. “One more day. Then it’ll be over.”
She tapped the cigarette in the tray, moving the ash around. “He thinks you took advantage of me.”
“Well, I did,” he said, trying to break her mood.
“But he forgives me,” she said. “He wants to forgive me.”
“What did you tell him?”
“It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t listen. I was weak, but he forgives me-that’s how it is for him. So you see, I’m forgiven. All that time, before the war, when I thought- And in the end, so easy.”
“Does he know that? Before the war?”
“No. If he thought that Peter- You didn’t tell him, did you? You must leave him that.”
“No, I didn’t tell him.”
“We must leave him that,” she said, brooding again. “What a mess we’ve made for ourselves. And now he forgives me.”
“Let him. It’s easier for him this way. Nobody’s fault.”
“No, yours. It’s you he doesn’t forgive. He thinks you want to ruin him. That’s the word he uses. And poison me against him. Anything crazy he can think of. So that’s the thanks you get for saving him.” She leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes, blowing smoke up into the air. “He wants me to go to America.”
“With him?”
“They can take the wives. It’s a chance for me-to leave all this.”
“If they go.”
“We can start over. That’s his idea. Start over. So that’s what you saved him for. Maybe you’re sorry now.”
“No. It was in my cards, remember?”
She smiled, her eyes still closed. “The rescuer. And now here we are, all your strays. What are you going to do with us?”
“Put you to bed, for a start. You’re talking in your sleep. Come on, we’ll move Erich, he won’t mind.”
“No, leave him. I’m too tired to sleep.” She turned and looked at the boy. “I sent one of the girls to see Fleischman. He asks, can we keep him a little longer? The camps are so crowded. You don’t mind? He’s no trouble. And you know, Emil doesn’t like to talk in front of him, so it’s good that way. It gives me some peace.”
“What about Texas?”
“They want babies only. Before they become too German, maybe,” she said, more dispirited than angry. She rubbed out the cigarette. “All your strays. You take us in, then you’re responsible. You know, he thinks you’re going to take him to his mother. What do I say to that? After prison, maybe?”
“Not even then,” Jake said quietly. “She killed herself last night.”
“Oh.” A wounded sound, like a faint yelp. “Oh, she did that?” She glanced again at the couch, then down into her lap, her eyes filling. Jake reached for her, but she waved him away, covering her eyes with her hand. “So stupid. I didn’t even know her. Someone from the office. Don’t look. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You’re tired, that’s all.”
“But to do that. Oh, how much longer like this? Boiling water, just to drink. The children, living like animals. Now another one dead. And this is the peace. It was better during the war.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Jake said softly, pulling out a handkerchief and handing it to her.
“No,” she said, blowing her nose. “I’m just feeling sorry for myself. Boiling water, my god. What does that matter?” Another sniffle, then she wiped her face, the shaking subsiding. She leaned back, drawing a breath. “You know, after the Russians there were many-like her. I never cried then. You saw the bodies in the street. Who knew how they died? My friend Annelise? I found her. Poison. Like Eva Braun. Her mouth was burned from it. And what had she done? Hide until some Russian got her. Maybe more than one. There was blood there.” She pointed to her lap. “You didn’t cry then, there were so many. So why now? Maybe I thought it was over, that time.” She gave her face another wipe, then handed back the handkerchief. “What are you going to tell him?”
“Nothing. His mother died in the war, that’s all.”
“In the war,” she said vaguely, looking at the sleeping boy. “How can you leave a child alone?”
“She didn’t. She left him to me.”
Lena turned to him. “You can’t send him to the DPs.”
“I know,” he said, touching her hand. “I’ll think of something. Just give me a little time.”
“While you arrange things,” she said, leaning back again. “All our lives. Emil’s too?”
“Emil can arrange his own life. I’m not worried about Emil.”
“No, I am,” she said slowly. “He’s still something to me. I don’t know what, not my husband, but something. Maybe it’s because I don’t love him, isn’t that strange? To worry about someone you don’t love anymore? He even looks different. It happens that way, I think- people look different when they don’t love each other anymore.”
“Is that what he said?”
“No, I told you, he forgives me. It’s easy, isn’t it, when you don’t love somebody?” she said, her voice drifting, back in an earlier thought. “Maybe he never did. Only the work. Even when he talks about you, it’s that. Not me. I thought he’d be jealous, I was ready for that, but no, it’s how he can’t go back if you use those files. The others won’t work with him, not after that. Those stupid files. If only his father-” She stopped, looking away and drawing herself up. “You know what he talks to me about? Space. I’m trying to feed a child on food you steal for us and he talks to me about rocket ships. His father was right-he lives in his head, not here. I don’t know, maybe after Peter died there wasn’t anything else for him.” She turned to him. “But to take that away now-I don’t want to do that.”
“What do you want?”
“What do I want?” she said to herself. “I want it to be over, for all of us. Let him go to America. They want him there, he says.”
“They don’t know what they’re getting yet.”
She lowered her head. “Then don’t tell them. Leave him that too.”
Jake sat back, disturbed. “Did he ask you to say this?”
“No. He doesn’t ask for himself. It’s the others-it’s like a family for him.”
“I’ll bet.”
She took out another cigarette, shaking her head. “You don’t listen either. Both my men. They already know. Maybe he’s right a little, that it’s personal with you.”
“Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know-no. But you know what will happen. They think everybody was a Nazi.”
“Maybe he’ll talk them out of it. He’s already convinced himself.”
“But not you.”
“No, not me.”
“He’s not a criminal,” she said flatly.
“Isn’t he?”
“And who decides? The ones who win.”
“Listen to me, Lena,” Jake said, covering the matches with his hand so that she was forced to look at him. “Nobody expected this. They don’t even know where to begin. They’re just soldiers. It’s got mixed up with the war, but it wasn’t the war. It was a crime. Not the war, a crime. It didn’t just happen.”
“I know what happened. I’ve heard it, over and over. You want him to answer for that?”
“What if nobody answers for it?”
“So Emil answers? He’s the guilty one?”
“He was part of it. All of them were-his ‘family.’ How guilty does that make them? I don’t know. All I know is we can’t ignore it-we can’t be guilty of that too.”
“Numbers, that’s all he did.”
“You didn’t see the camp.”
“I know what you saw.”
“And what I didn’t see? At first I didn’t even notice, you don’t take things in, it’s so- I didn’t notice.”
“What?”
“There were no children. None. The children couldn’t work, so they were the first to go. They were killed right away. That one.” He pointed to Erich. “That child. They would have killed him. That’s what the numbers were. Erich.”
She looked at the couch, then put down the cigarette without lighting it, folding her arms across her chest, drawing in again.
“Lena-” he started.
“All right,” she said, moving her legs out from underneath and getting up, finished with it.
She went over to the couch and bent down, rearranging the sheet on the boy, a gentle tucking-in motion, then stood watching him sleep.
“I’m like all the others now, aren’t I?” she said finally, keeping her voice low. “Frau Dzuris. Nobody suffered but her. I’m no different. I sit here feeling sorry for my own troubles.” She turned to him. “When they made us see the films, you know what I did? I turned my head.”
Jake looked up. His own first reaction, a bony hand pulling him back to make him see.
“And after, people were quiet, and then it began. ‘How could the Russians make us look at that? They’re no better. Think of the bombing, how we suffered.’ Anything to put it out of their minds. I was no different. I didn’t want to look either. And then it’s on your couch.”
Jake said nothing, watching her move toward the easy chair, running her hand along the back.
“You expect too much from us,” she said. “To live with this. All murderers.”
“I never said-”
“No, just some of us. Which ones? You want me to look at my husband. ‘Was it you?’ Frau Dzuris’ son? My brother, maybe. ‘Were you one of them?’ How can I ask? Maybe he was. So I’m like the others. I know and I don’t know.”
“Except, this once, you do.”
She looked down. “He’s still something to me.”
Jake stood and went over to the table, rifled through his papers, and pulled out a file. “Read it again,” he said, holding it out to her. “Then tell me how much. I’m going for a walk.”
“Don’t leave.” Her eyes moved down to the folder. “See how he comes between us.”
“Then don’t put him there.”
“You expect too much,” she said again. “We owe him something.”
“And paid it off at the Adlon. We owe him something,” he said, nodding his head at the couch.
She sank onto the broad arm of the chair. “Yes, and how do you pay? What are you going to arrange for him? Imagine his life in Germany. Renate’s child.”
“No one will know.”
“Someone will. You can’t save him from that.” She had slumped forward, staring at her bare feet.
“You want to keep him,” he said.
She shook her head. “A German mother? And one day he looks at me-‘Were you one of them?’ No, he should have a Jewish home. She paid for that.”
“Then we’ll find one.”
“Just like that. You think there are so many left?”
“I’ll talk to Bernie. Maybe he knows someone.”
“An answer for everything,” she said, breathing out in a half-sigh. She got up and began to pace, caged, arms folded across her chest. “Everything’s so easy for you.”
“You’re not. Not tonight. What is it, Lena?” he said, watching her back as she crossed the room, as if he could follow her mood, slippery as mercury.
“I don’t know.” She took another step, then stopped, facing the bedroom door. “And I’m the one who wanted him here. Anything but the Russians, that’s all I could think. And now he’s here-now what? I’m angry at him. Then angry at you. I listen to you and I think, he’s right-and I don’t want you to be right. Maybe it’s personal with me too. So it’s a fine mess.” She paused. “I don’t want you to be right about him.”
“I can’t make the files go away,” Jake said quietly.
“I know,” she said, rubbing her sleeve. “I know. But don’t let it be you. Let someone else-”
She bit her lower lip.
“Is that what you want?”
She looked up at the ceiling, head back, reading the plaster for an answer.
“Me? What do I want? I was thinking before, how it would be if none of it had ever happened.” She lowered her head, looking past him, her voice slowly drifting again. “What I want? Shall I tell you? I want to stay in Berlin. It’s my home, even like this. Work with Fleischman, maybe-he needs me, someone to help. Then after, I’ll come home and cook. Did you know I could? My mother said it’s something a man will always appreciate.” She raised her eyes to his, taking him in now. “So we’ll eat dinner and be together. And once in a while we’ll go out, get dressed up and go out together. And we’ll be at a party, it’ll be nice, and I’ll turn around and you’ll be looking at me, the way you did at the Press Club. And nobody will know, just me. That’s all. Millions of people live like that. A normal life. Can you arrange that?“
He reached out his hand, but she ignored it, still wrapped up in herself.
“Not in Berlin, I think. Not even an American can arrange that now.“ Contents — Previous Chapter / Next Chapter