A Good German Read online

  Word had already gotten around the press camp by the time Jake got back.

  “Just the man I’m looking for,” Tommy Ottinger said, looming over the typewriter Jake was using to peck out some notes. “First thing that’s happened all week and there you are, right on the spot. How, by the way? ”

  Jake smiled. “Just taking some pictures.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. Dead soldier washed up in the lake.”

  “Come on, I’ve got to go on tonight. You can take your own sweet time with Collier’s. Who was he?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Well, you might have checked his tags,” Tommy said, waiting.

  “I wish I’d thought of that.”

  Tommy stared at him.

  “Really,” Jake said.

  “Some reporter.”

  “What does Ron say?”

  “A John Doe. No tags.”

  Jake looked at him for a second, thinking. “So why did you ask me?”

  “ ‘Cause I don’t trust Ron. I trust you.”

  “Look, Tommy, here’s what I know. A stiff washes up. Dead about a day, I’d say. He had some money on him, which got the Russians all excited. The Big Three left in a hurry. I’ll give you my notes. Use whatever you want. Stalin’s face-it’s a nice touch.” He stopped, meeting Tommy’s stare. “He had tags. I just didn’t look. So why would Ron-?”

  Tommy smiled and took a chair. “Because that’s what Ron does. Covers ass. His own. The army’s. We don’t want to embarrass the army. Especially in front of the Russians.”

  “Why would they be embarrassed?”

  “They don’t know what they have yet. Except a soldier in Potsdam.”

  “And that’s embarrassing?”

  “It might be,” Tommy said, lighting a cigarette. “Potsdam’s the biggest black market center in Berlin.”

  “I thought the Reichstag.”

  “The Reichstag, Zoo Station. But Potsdam’s the biggest.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s in the Russian zone,” Tommy said simply, surprised at the question. “No MPs. The Russians don’t care. They are the black market. They’ll buy anything. The others-the MPs’ll make a sweep every once in a while, arrest a few Germans just to keep up appearances. Not that it matters. The Russians don’t even bother. Every day’s Saturday on Main Street in Potsdam.”

  Jake smiled. “So he wasn’t attending the conference.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “And Ron doesn’t want his mother to read about her boy in the papers.”

  “Not that way.” Tommy looked behind Jake. “Do you, Ron?”

  “I want to talk to you,” Ron said to Jake, visibly annoyed. “Where’d you get the pass?”

  “I didn’t. Nobody asked,” Jake said.

  “You know, we’ve got a waiting list for press credentials here. I could free up a slot any time I want.”

  “Relax. I didn’t see a thing. See?” He waved at the paper in the typewriter. “Geranium star. Lots of chimneys. Local color, that’s all. Unless you’ve got an ID for me?”

  Ron sighed. “Don’t push me on this, okay? The Russians find out there was press there, they’ll make a formal protest and I’ll have your ass out of here on the first truck.”

  Jake spread his hands. “I’ll never go to Potsdam again. Okay? Now have a beer and tell us where the body is.”

  “The Russians have it. We’re trying to get it released.”

  “Why the delay?”

  “There’s no delay. They’re fucking Russians.‘” He paused. “It’s probably the money. They’re trying to figure out how much they can keep.” He glanced at Jake. “How much did he have?”

  “No idea. A lot. Thousands. Double whatever they give you.”

  “I’m on tonight,” Tommy said. “You going to have an official statement?”

  “I don’t have an official anything,” Ron said. “As far as I know, somebody got drunk and fell in the lake. If you think that’s a story, be my guest.” Jake looked at him. No tags. No bullet. But Ron was rushing on. “We will have a release on the first session, though, in a couple of hours. If anybody cares.”

  “Warm greetings were exchanged by the Allies,” Tommy said. “Generalissimo Stalin made a statement expressing a wish for a lasting peace. An agenda for the conference was approved.”

  Ron grinned. “And to think you weren’t even there. No wonder you’re the best.”

  “And a soldier happened to fall in the lake.”

  “That’s what they tell me.” He turned to Jake. “Stay in town. I mean it.”

  Jake watched him walk off. “When did the Russians close off Potsdam?” he said to Tommy.

  “Over the weekend. Before the conference.” He looked at Jake. “What?”

  “He’d only been in the water a day.”

  “How do you know?” Tommy said, alert.

  Jake waved his hand. “I don’t, for sure. But he wasn’t that bloated.”

  “So?”

  “So how did he get into Potsdam? If it was closed off?” “What the hell. You did,” Tommy said, watching him. “Of course, you have an honest face.”

  The piano music was coming through the open windows, not Mendelssohn this time but Broadway, party songs. Inside, the house was filled with uniforms and smoke and the clink of glasses. Gelferstrasse was entertaining. Jake stood for a minute in the hall, watching. There was the usual hum of conversation, laced with Russian from a group standing near the spread of cold cuts, and the usual music, but it was a cocktail party without women, oddly dispirited, looking for someone to flirt with. Men stood in groups talking shop or sometimes not saying anything at all, lifting glasses from the trays passed by the old couple and tossing them back quickly, as if they knew already that nothing better was going to come along. The host seemed to be Colonel Muller, whose silver hair moved through the crowd as he introduced people, occasionally getting clamped on the shoulder by a friendly Russian, as awkward and unlikely in the role as Judge Hardy himself would have been. Jake headed for the stairs.

  “Geismar, come in,” Muller said, handing him a glass. “Sorry we had to requisition the dining room, but there’s plenty of grub. You’re welcome to whatever’s left.” In fact, the dining table, pushed against the wall, was still heaped with ham and salami and smoked fish, a banquet.

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “We’re having the Russians over,” Muller said, making them sound like a couple. “They like parties. They invite us to Karlshorst, then we invite them here. Back and forth. It greases the wheels.”

  “With vodka.”

  Muller smiled. “They don’t mind bourbon either.”

  “Let me take a rain check. I can’t speak a word of Russian.”

  “A few of them speak German. Anyway, in a while it won’t matter. It’s always a little awkward at first,” he said, looking toward the party, “but after they’ve had a few, they just say things in Russian and you nod and they laugh and we’re all good fellows.”

  “Allies and brothers.”

  “Actually, yes. It’s important to them, this stuff. They don’t like being left out. So we don’t.“ He took a drink. ”This isn’t what it looks like. It’s work.“

  Jake held up his glass. “And somebody’s got to do it.” ‹›Muller nodded. “That’s right, somebody does. Nobody told me I’d end up feeding drinks to Russians, but that’s what we do now, so I do it and I could use a new face to liven things up." He smiled. ‹›“Besides, you owe me a favor. Lieutenant Erlich says I’m supposed to chew you out, but I’m going to let it pass.“

  “You’re supposed to?”

  “You mean, who am I? I guess we didn’t meet. With the congressman giving speeches. I’m Colonel Muller. Fred,” he said, extending his hand. “I work for General Clay.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I look after some of the functional departments. Keep them in line when I have to. Lieutenant Erlich’s one of them.�
��

  Jake smiled. “Somebody’s got to do it.”

  Muller nodded again. “I’d take the Russians any day. They’re touchy, but they don’t write home. Your bunch is more trouble.”

  “So why are you going to let it pass?”

  “You getting out to Potsdam? Ordinarily I wouldn’t. But I don’t see that it’s done anybody any harm.” He paused. “I served with General Patton. He said to look out for you, you were a friend to the army.”

  “Everybody’s a friend to the army.”

  “You wouldn’t know it from the papers back home. They come over here, don’t know the first thing, just point fingers to get themselves noticed.”

  “Maybe I’m no different.”

  “Maybe not. But a man puts in time with the army, he’s more likely to see the whole thing, not try to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

  Jake looked over the rim of his glass. “I found a man’s body, and so far nobody’s even asked me about it. Is that the molehill you had in mind?”

  Muller stared back. “All right, I’m asking you. Is there anything we should know?”

  “I know he was shot. I know he was carrying a lot of cash. I may be a friend to the army, but you try to keep what I do know quiet and it’s like waving red meat at a dog. I get curious.”

  Muller sighed. “Nobody’s trying to hide anything.” He looked away at the party, then back at Jake. “Nobody’s going to start anything either. There are almost two hundred reporters assigned to Berlin. They’re all looking for something to write about. So they go see the bunker, cash in some cigarettes over at Zoo Station. Next thing you know, everybody’s in the black market. Well, maybe everybody is, a little. What’s ordinary here isn’t ordinary at home.”

  “Is it ordinary to get shot?”

  “More than you’d think,” he said wearily. “The war’s not over here. Look at them,” he said, indicating the Russians. “Toasts. Their men are still all over, drunk half the time. Last week a jeepload of them start waving guns down in Hermannplatz-our zone-and before you could say boo, one of our MPs starts shooting and we’re back at the O.K. Corral. Three dead, one ours. So we protest to the Russians and they protest back and there are still three people dead. Ordinary.”

  He turned to face Jake, his eyes gentle. “Look, we’re not angels here. You know what an occupation army does? It occupies. They pull guard duty. They stand in front of buildings. They’ve got nothing but time. So they bitch and chase girls and make a little money selling their PX rations, which they’re not supposed to do but they figure they’re entitled, they won the war, and maybe they’re right. And sometimes they get into trouble. Sometimes they even get shot. It happens.” He paused. “But it doesn’t have to be an international incident. And it doesn’t have to make the army look bad. It’s what happens here.”

  “But they’ll file a report. It’s still not that ordinary, is it?”

  “And you want to see it.”

  “I’m curious, that’s all. I never found a body before.”

  Muller looked at him, appraising. “It might take a while. We don’t know who he is yet.”

  “I know who he is.”

  Muller raised his eyes. “I thought there weren’t any tags.”

  “I knew his face. We were on the plane together. Lieutenant Tully.”

  Muller said nothing, just stared, then slowly nodded his head. “Come to my office tomorrow. I’ll see what I can do. Elssholzstrasse.”

  “Which is where?”

  “Schoneberg. Behind Kleist Park. The drivers will know.”

  “The old Supreme Court?”

  “That’s right,” Muller said, surprised. “It was the best we could find. Not too much damage. Maybe God has a soft spot for judges. Even Nazi judges.”

  Take grinned. “By the way, did anyone ever tell you—”

  “I know, Judge Hardy. I suppose it could be worse. I don’t know, I haven’t seen the movies.” He glanced at Jake. “Tomorrow, then. That’s two favors you owe me. Now come and meet some Russians. Sounds like things are revving up.” He motioned toward the front room, where the piano had switched from Cole Porter to a thumping Russian song. “They’re the real story in Berlin, you know. They’ve been running things for two months-it’s their town. And look at it. Remind me to show you another report tomorrow. Infant mortality. Six out of ten babies are going to die here this month. Maybe more. Die. Of course, that’s politics. Scandal sells papers.”

  “I’m not looking for any scandal,” Jake said quietly.

  “No? You might find some, though,” Muller said, his voice weary again. “I don’t suppose your lieutenant was up to much good. But if you ask me, that’s not the real scandal. Six out often. Not just one soldier. Life’s eheap in Berlin. Try that story. I have all the facts you need for that one.” He stopped, catching himself, and finished off his drink. “Well. Let’s go promote some Allied cooperation.”

  “They seem to be doing all right,” Jake said, trying to be light. “It’s turning into a Russian party.”

  “It always does,” Muller said. “We just bring the food.”

  But language had divided the party into its own occupation zones. The Russians Jake met nodded formally, tried a few words in German, and retreated back into their steady drinking. The piano had returned to the American zone with “The Lady Is a Tramp,” but the Russian player hovered behind, ready to reclaim the keyboard for his side. Even the laughter, getting louder, came from isolated pockets, separated by untranslatable jokes. Only Liz, gliding in with a quick wink to Jake, seemed to bring the party together, suddenly drawing both sets of eager uniforms around her like Scarlett at the barbecue. Jake looked around the room, hoping to find Bernie and his armload of questionnaires, but got caught instead by a burly Russian covered with medals who knew English and, surprisingly, also knew Jake.

  “You traveled with General Patton,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “I read your dispatches.”

  “You did? How?”

  “It’s not forbidden, you know, to read our allies.” He nodded. “Sikorsky,” he said, introducing himself, his voice accented but amused and sure of itself, an officer’s gift of rank. “In this case, I confess, we were interested to know where you were. A very energetic soldier, General Patton. We thought he might even reach Russia.” His face, fleshy but not yet sagging with jowls, creased with good humor. “I read your description of Camp Dora. Before the general pulled back to your own zone.”

  “I don’t think he was thinking much about zones then. Just Germans.”

  “Of course, as you say,” Sikorsky said gracefully. “You saw Nordhausen then. I saw it too. A remarkable place.”

  “Yes, remarkable,” Jake said, the word absurdly inadequate. The underground rocket factory, two vast tunnels into the mountain crisscrossed with shafts, hollowed out by walking corpses in striped pajamas.

  “Ingenious. To put it there, safe from bombs. How was it possible, we wondered.”

  “With slave labor,” Jake said flatly.

  “Yes,” the Russian said, nodding solemnly. “But still remarkable. We called it Aladdin’s cave.” Whole production lines, some of the V-2s still waiting, assembled, machine shops and tunnels full of parts, dripping with moisture from the rock. Bodies scattered in dark corners, because no one had bothered to clear them away in the frantic last days. “Of course,” the Russian went on, “there were no treasures in the cave when we got there. What could have happened, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. The Germans must have moved it all somewhere.”

  “Hmm. But where? You didn’t see anything yourself?”

  Just the endless line of American trucks hauling their spoils west- crates of documents, tons of equipment, pieces of rockets on flatbeds. Seen, but not reported-the general’s request. When he became a friend to the army.

  “No. I saw the gantries where they hanged the prisoners. That was enough for me. And the camps.”

  “Yes, I remember. The hand you coul
d not shake off.”

  Jake looked at him, surprised. “You did read the piece.”

  “Well, you know, we were interested in Nordhausen. Such a nuzzle. So much, to vanish like that. What is the expression? A disappearing trick.”

  “Strange things happen in wartime.”

  “In peace too, I think. At our Zeiss works, for example-four people.” He waved his fingers. “Like that, into thin air. Another disappearing trick.”

  “Telling stories out of school, Vassily?” Muller said, joining them.

  “Mr. Geismar has not heard about our trouble at the Zeiss factory. I thought perhaps he would be interested.”

  “Now, Vassily, we’ll save that for the council meeting. You know, we can’t control what people do. Sometimes they vote with their feet.”

  “Sometimes they are given transportation,” the Russian replied quickly. “Under nacht und nebel.” Night and fog, the old nighttime arrests.

  “That was Himmler’s technique,” Muller said. “Not the American army’s.”

  “Still, one hears these stories. And people vanish.”

  “We hear them too,” Muller said carefully, “in the American zone. Berlin is full of rumors.”

  “But if they are true? ”

  “This one isn’t,” Muller said.

  “Ah,” the Russian said. “So it’s a mystery. Like Nordhausen,” he said to Jake, then lifted his empty glass in a mock toast and politely headed away for a refill.

  “What was that?” Jake said.

  “The Russians are accusing us of snatching some scientists from their zone.”

  “Which we wouldn’t do.”

  “Which we wouldn’t do,” Muller said. “They would, though, so they always suspect the worst. They’re still kidnapping people. Mostly political. Not as bad as in the beginning, but they still do it. We Protest. So they protest.”

  “Like having each other over for drinks.”

  Muller smiled. “In a way.”

  “And what’s Zeiss?”

  “Optical works. Bomb sights, precision lenses. The Germans were way ahead of us there.”

  “But not for long.”

  Muller shrugged. “You never stop, do you? I can’t help you with this one. A few engineers took off. That’s all the story I know, if it is a story. Personally, I wouldn’t blame anyone for trying to get out of the Russian zone.”