The Good German (Bestselling Backlist) Page 6

  Jake headed for the door, then turned. “The soldier yesterday—he was British?”

  “No, American.”

  He stood for a second, puzzled. Not an official, then.

  “If he comes back, you will let me know?”

  She nodded, clutching the cigarettes, nervous again. “You’re sure there’s nothing wrong?”

  Jake shook his head. “Maybe just another old friend. He might know something.”

  “No,” she said, answering something else. “There was only you.”

  A hospital would have records, Jake thought, but when he got there he saw that a fire had swept through that stretch of Lützowstrasse, taking the Elisabeth and all its paper with it. Only a few walls were left, black and open to the sky, one of Ron’s decayed molars. A work brigade of women was clearing the site, handing pails of bricks along a line that snaked over the heaps of fallen beams and charred bedframes. The breeze that had come up during the night was now a steady hot wind, blowing ashes, so that the women had had to cover their mouths with kerchiefs, like bandits. Jake stood for a while watching, trying not to notice the heavy stench that hung in the street. How long before one didn’t smell it anymore?

  He wondered what she’d done here. Emil hadn’t wanted her to work, a traditional husband, so she’d left Columbia for idle afternoons at home. They’d had to take on Hannelore instead, a thick girl with inadequate English and, Jake assumed, a direct line to Nanny Wendt. But Lena still came to parties, until it became awkward to see foreigners and Emil asked her to stop, and then she only saw Jake. Had he ever suspected? Frau Dzuris didn’t seem to think so, but how could she know? There’d only been a few times in Pariserstrasse, when they couldn’t go to his place because Hal was there. Always careful, alert even to the flick of a curtain at a neighbor’s window. But Frau Dzuris had known somehow, maybe just from the look on their faces.

  Emil, surprisingly, had been at the Anhalter when they’d all come to see Jake off, a defiantly raucous party, Hal and the rest of the gang guzzling champagne while Emil looked uneasily at the platform guards. Lena had given him flowers, the respectable send-off for an old boss, never meeting his eye until one of the party became sick and in the confusion of hustling him to the men’s room they’d finally had a moment together.

  “Why did you bring him?” Jake said.

  “He was there when they called from the office. I couldn’t come alone. How would it look?” She paused, looking down. “He wanted to come. He likes you.”

  “Lena,” he said, reaching for her.

  “No. No scenes. I want him to see me drink champagne and wave, like the others. Then we’ll take a taxi home and that’s the end.”

  “I’ll come back,” he said, hurrying, hearing the loud bursts of English near the men’s room.

  “No, you won’t. Not now,” she said simply, nodding toward all the uniforms on the platform.

  “I’ll come back for you,” he said, looking at her until she raised her eyes again, her face softening, no longer public.

  She shook her head slowly, glancing to see if the others were still away, then put her hand up to his cheek and held it there for a moment, her eyes on him, as if she were trying to memorize his face. “No. But think of me sometimes,” she said.

  He stood there, just looking. “Lena,” he said, moving his face against her hand, but then she dropped it, a quick graze as she looked over his shoulder.

  “My god, it’s Renate,” she said, pulling away. “They called her too? She’s crazy—it’s not safe for her.” He heard the platform noises again, the private second gone. When he turned, he saw Renate’s knowing sharp eyes, which had taken in Lena’s hand, the way they noticed everything. His best tipster, off the books because you couldn’t hire Jews. But she just smiled, pretending not to have seen.

  “Hello, Joe, what do you know?” she said, American slang an endless joke.

  “Hey, it’s Renate!” The boys back on the platform, surrounding them, Berlin closing in again. He tried to catch Lena’s eye, but she avoided him, hanging back with Emil, helping Hal pour champagne into cups. More drinks and jokes, Renate brazenly cadging a cigarette from a passing policeman with a flirtatious thank-you. Just to prove she could do it, while Hal looked on, appalled. With the train whistle, there was a final round of hugs, crushing the flowers. Emil shook Jake’s hand, looking relieved that the party was coming to an end.

  “Any news on the visa?” Jake said to Renate, embracing her.

  She shook her head. “Soon,” she said, not meaning it. Bright eyes, a head full of dark curls. The train attendant was closing doors.

  “Jacob.” Lena’s voice, then her face next to his, a formal kiss on each side, light, leaving only the smell of her skin.

  He looked at her, but there was nothing to say, not even her name, and the hands at his back were pushing him onto the train. He stood on the stairs as the train began to move, waving, hearing drunken auf wiedersehens, and when she took a step forward he thought for a second, wildly, that she would do it, run after the train and come with him, but it was only a step, a push from the crowd, so that the last thing he saw in Berlin was her standing still on the platform with Emil’s arm around her shoulder.

  The rubble women had stopped moving their pails, scrambling over the bricks to the middle of the building. One of them shouted down to the street, where another group picked up a stretcher from a cart and followed. Jake watched them lift a body out of the debris, turning their faces away from the smell, and swing it onto the stretcher as indifferently as if it were another load of bricks. The stretcher team plodded back, stumbling under the weight, then overturned it into a cart. A woman, her hair singed away. Where did they take the bodies? Some big potter’s field in the Brandenburg marshes? More likely a furnace to finish the burning. Renate would have died like that, her sharp eyes finally dulled. Unless she had somehow survived, become one of the living skeletons he’d seen in the camp, their eyes dull too, half alive. The crime so big that no one did it. But they’d kept records in the camps, the long roll calls. It was only here, under the bricks, that a numberless body could vanish without a trace.

  He ran over to the cart and looked down. A stocky, faceless body; not Lena, not anybody. He turned away. This was as pointless as Frau Dzuris. The living didn’t vanish. Emil had been at the KWI—they’d know something. Army records, if he’d been in the war. POW lists. All it took was time. She’d be somewhere, not on a cart. Maybe even waiting for him in one of Bernie’s questionnaires.

  Bernie, however, was out, called to an unexpected meeting, according to the message tacked on his office door, so Jake walked over to the press camp instead. Everyone was there, drinking beer and looking bored, the typing tables littered with Ron’s bland releases. Stalin had arrived. Churchill had called on Truman. The first plenary session would start at five. A reception had been arranged by the Russians.

  “Not much, is it, boyo?” Brian Stanley said, a full whiskey glass in his hand.

  “What are you doing here? Coming over to the other side?”

  “Better booze,” he said, sipping. “I had hoped for a little information, but as you can see—” He let one of the releases fall to the bar.

  “I saw you with Churchill. He say anything?”

  “’Course not. But at least he said it to me. Special to the Express. Very nice.”

  “But not so nice for the others.”

  Brian smiled. “Mad as hornets, they are. So I thought I’d poke around here for a bit. Stay out of harm’s way.” He took another sip. “There’s no story, you know. Can’t even get Eden. We ought to just pack it in, and instead there’s tomorrow to worry about. Want to see what our lot’s handing out?” He reached into his pocket and passed over another release.

  “Three thousand linen sheets, five hundred ashtrays—what’s this?”

  “Preparation for the conference. Last blowout of the war, by the size of it. Try getting a story out of that.”

  “Three thous
and rolls of toilet paper,” Jake said.

  “All from London. Now, where’ve they been hiding it, you wonder. Haven’t seen decent loo paper in years.” He took back the sheet, shaking his head. “Here’s the one, a hundred and fifty bottles of button polish. Broke, but still gleaming.”

  “You’re not going to print this?”

  He shrugged. “What about you? Anything?”

  “Not today. I went into town. They’re still digging up bodies.”

  Brian made a face. “I haven’t the stomach, I really haven’t.”

  “You’re getting soft. It never bothered you in Africa.”

  “Well, that was the war. I don’t know what this is.” He took a sip from his glass, brooding. “Lovely to be back in Cairo, wouldn’t it? Sit on the terrace and watch the boats. Just the thing after this.”

  Drifting feluccas, white triangles waiting for a hint of a breeze, a million miles away.

  “You’d be in London in a week.”

  “I don’t think so, you know,” Brian said seriously. “It’s the boats for me now.”

  “That’s the whiskey talking. When a man’s tired of London—” Jake quoted.

  Brian looked at the glass. “That’s when we were on the way up. I don’t want to see us go down. Bit by bit. It’s finished there too. Just the Russians now. There’s your story. And you’re welcome to it. I haven’t got the stomach anymore. Awful people.”

  “And there’s us.”

  Brian sighed. “The lucky Americans. You don’t need to count the loo paper, do you? Just streams out. What will you do, I wonder.”

  “Go home.”

  “No, you’ll stay. You’ll want to put things right. That’s your particular bit of foolishness. You’ll want to put things right.”

  “Somebody has to.”

  “Do they? Well, then, I anoint you, why not?” He put his hand on Jake’s head. “Good luck and God bless. I’m for the boats.”

  “Don’t you guys ever work?” A voice coming up from behind.

  “Liz, my darling,” Brian said, instantly hearty. “The lady with the lens. Come have a drink. I hear Miss Bourke-White’s on her way.”

  “Up yours too.”

  Brian laughed. “Ooo.” He got up from his stool. “Here, darling, have a seat. I’d better push off. Go polish my buttons. Probably the last time we get to sit at the high table, so we like to look our best.”

  “What’s he talking about?” she said, watching him walk away.

  “He’s just being Brian. Here.” Jake took out a match to light her cigarette.

  “What have you been doing?” she said, inhaling. “Holding up the bar?”

  “No, I went into town.”

  “God, why?”

  “Look at the message boards.” Charred bodies.

  “Oh.” She glanced up at him. “Any luck?”

  He shook his head and handed her a release. “The Russians are giving a banquet tonight.”

  “I know. They’re also posing.” She looked at her watch. “In about an hour.”

  “In Potsdam? Take me with you.”

  “Can’t. They’d have my head. No press, remember?”

  “I’ll carry your camera.”

  “You’d never get through. Special pass,” she said, showing hers.

  “Yes, I would. Just bat your baby blues. The Russians can’t read anyway. Come on, Liz.”

  “She won’t be in Potsdam, Jake,” she said, looking at him.

  “I can’t sit around here. It just makes it worse. Anyway, I still need to file something.”

  “We’re taking pictures, that’s all.”

  “But I’d be there. See it, at least. Anything’s better than this,” he said, picking up the release. “Come on. I’ll buy you that drink later.”

  “I’ve had better offers.”

  “How do you know?”

  She laughed and got up from the stool. “Meet me outside in five. If there’s any trouble, I don’t know you. Understood? I don’t know how you got in the jeep. Serve you right if they hauled you away.”

  “You’re a pal.”

  “Yeah.” She handed him a camera. “They’re brown, by the way, not blue. In case you haven’t noticed.”

  Another photographer was at the wheel, so Jake crammed in the back with the equipment, watching Liz’s hair flying in the wind next to the aerial flag. They drove south toward Babelsberg, the old route to the film studios, and met the first Russian sentry on the Lange Brücke. He looked at the driver’s pass, pretending to understand English, and waved them through with a machine gun.

  The entire town had been cordoned off, lines of Russian soldiers posted at regular intervals up to Wilhelmplatz, which seemed to have got the worst of the bomb damage. They swung behind the square and then out the designated route along the Neuer Garten, the large villas facing the park wall looking empty but intact, lucky survivors. After Berlin, it was a haven, somewhere out of the war. Jake almost expected to see the usual old ladies in hats walking their dogs on the formal paths. Instead there were more Russians with machine guns, stretched along the lakeshore as if they were expecting an amphibious assault.

  The Cecilienhof was at the end of the park, a big heap of stockbroker Tudor with brick chimneys and leaded windows, an unexpected piece of Surrey on the edge of the Jungfernsee. There were guards posted at the park gates, more menacingly correct but no more thorough than the first set on the bridge, then a long gravel drive to the palace forecourt, where MPs and British soldiers mingled with their Russian hosts. They parked near a row of official black cars. Through the opening to the inner courtyard they could see hundreds of red geraniums planted in the shape of a huge Soviet star, an ostentatious display of property rights, but before Liz could photograph it a liaison officer directed them around the building to the lawn that fronted the lake. Here, on the terrace next to a small topiary garden, three wicker chairs had been set out for the picture session. A small army of photographers and newsreel cameramen were already in place, smoking and setting up tripods and shooting uneasy glances toward the patrolling guards.

  “As long as you’re here, you might as well be useful,” Liz said, handing Jake two cameras while she loaded a third. One of the guards came by to inspect the cases.

  “So where are they?”

  “Probably having a last-minute comb,” Liz said.

  He imagined Stalin in front of a mirror, smoothing back the sides of his hair for history.

  Then there was nothing to do but wait. He studied the building for details—the double-height bay windows with their view of the lake, presumably the conference room, the chimneys of patterned brick too numerous to count. But there was no story in any of it, just architecture. The lawn had been mowed, the hedges trimmed, everything as tidy as a set shipped down the road from the soundstages in Babelsberg. A few miles away, the rubble women were dumping bodies in a cart. Here a breeze was blowing in from the lake, the waves flashing in the sun like tiny reflectors. The view was lovely. He wondered if Crown Prince Wilhelm used to walk across the lawn, towel in hand, for a morning dip, but the past seemed as unlikely as Stalin’s comb. No sailboats now, just the Russian sentries standing back from the water, hands resting on their guns.

  Churchill was first. He came onto the terrace in his khaki uniform, holding a cigar and talking to a group of aides. Then Truman, jaunty in a gray double-breasted suit, trading jokes with Byrnes and Admiral Leahy. Finally Stalin, in a dazzling white tunic, his short frame dwarfed by a circle of guards. There were a few informal shots as they shook hands, then a flurry of taking seats, aides crowding around to settle them in. Churchill handed a soldier his cigar. Truman tugged at his jacket so it wouldn’t ride up as he sat. Had the places been decided beforehand? Truman was in the middle, his wire-rimmed glasses catching the light each time he turned his head from one to the other. Everyone smiling, casual, as if they were posing for a group shot at a class reunion. Truman crossed his legs, revealing a pair of ribbed silk socks. The cameras
clicked.

  Jake turned when he heard the shout. Sharp, in Russian. Now what? A soldier at the lake’s edge was calling out, pointing at something in the water. Surprisingly, he waded in, wetting his boots, shouting again for help. On the terrace, some of the aides glanced toward the water, then turned back to the photographers, frowning at the interruption. Jake watched, fascinated, as the Russian soldiers began pulling a body to the shore. Another floater, like one of the bodies in the Landwehrkanal. But this one in uniform, indefinable at this distance. Still, more interesting than chimneys. He started down the lawn.

  No one stopped him. The other guards had left their posts and were running toward the body, confused, looking toward the palace for instructions. The first soldier, wet now to the knees, was pulling the body up on the mud. He dropped the lifeless arm, then grabbed the belt for better leverage and yanked, a final heave to the grass. Suddenly the belt gave way, and Jake saw that it was a kind of pouch, ripped now and spilling open, the wind from the lake catching bits of paper and blowing them over the grass. Jake stopped. Not paper, money, bills whirling up then floating in the air like hundreds of little kites. The sky, a surreal moment, filled with money.

  The Russians stood still for a second, amazed, then lunged for the bills, grabbing them out of the air. Another gust sent them higher so the guards now had to leap up, no longer soldiers but astonished children snatching candy. Everyone on the terrace stood to watch. A few of the Russian officers ran down to restore order, brushing past bills scattering across the lawn. They shouted to the guards, but no one listened, yelling instead to each other as they chased the flying paper, stamping the ground to hold down the bills, and stuffing them into their pockets. So much money, blowing like confetti. Jake picked one up. Occupation marks. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them. So much money.

  Now the photographers began to break ranks and head for the lake too, until the Russian officers turned on them, holding them back with pointed guns. But Jake was already there. He went over to the body. An American uniform, the torn money belt lying in the mud, some of the notes drifting back into the water. But what was he doing here? Floating in the Russian zone to the most heavily guarded lawn in Berlin. Jake knelt down to the body. A face sickly white and puffy from the water, the tag chain at his neck hanging to the side. He reached for the tags, then stopped, thrown. No need. Not just any soldier. The shock of a corpse you knew. The boy on the flight from Frankfurt, white-knuckled, clasping the bench in fear, his fingers outstretched now, shriveled.