The Good German (Bestselling Backlist) Read online

  “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 could not shake off.”

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

  “Well, you know, we were interested in Nordhausen. Such a puzzle. 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.”

  “So our friend’s just blowing smoke.”

  “Well, that’s what they do best. Don’t let him fool you. Just because he speaks English doesn’t mean he’s a friend.”

  “Who is he exactly?”

  “Vassily? General Sikorsky. He’s at the council. Does a little bit of everything, like all the comrades, but our counterintelligence boys know him, so I always thought he had a finger in that pie. Maybe even a kidnapping or two. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “So I should watch my back.”

  “You?” Muller smiled, amused. “Don’t worry. Even the Russians wouldn’t want a reporter.”

  Jake moved past the front parlor, where a group had begun singing, and down the hall toward the French doors in the back, open to let the smoke drift out. It was still light, the late light of a northern summer, and he looked at the muddy garden where grass and canvas chairs must have been, now trampled over and uprooted, like everything else in Berlin. There had been mud at Nordhausen too, so much that the trucks had slid in it, spattering the work party as they roared away with Aladdin’s treasures. No nacht und nebel, just gum-chewing T units, loading their convoys of steel prizes for the trip west. Where now? Somewhere over the Rhine, maybe even already in America, getting ready for the next war. If he asked now, he’d be told it had never happened. A disappearing trick. And he’d let that story go without a qualm, happy to oblige, because there was always another, until suddenly they were gone, all the big war stories, leaving nothing but rubble.

  “Hey, Jackson,” Liz said, standing hesitantly in the doorway, as if she were afraid to interrupt. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. Just arguing with myself.”

  “Who won?” she said, coming over.

  Jake smiled. “My better instincts.”

  “That must have been close.” She lit a cigarette, offering him one. “Catch any flak about today?”

  “Not much. Nobody seems to think it’s anything special. They wonder why I care.”

  “Why do you?”

  Jake shrugged. “It’s an old superstition. If a story falls in your lap, it’s bad luck to waste it.”

  “Old superstition.”

  “Sorry about the camera.”

  “No, I got it back. A nice Russian brought it to the press camp. Seemed to think I might go out with him, me being so grateful.”

  “They didn’t use to ask, I hear.” He looked over at her. “I wish I’d used it. In case I need to prove he was shot.”

  “They’re denying it?”

  “No, but they’re not shouting about it either. I don’t know why not. A soldier shot in the Russian zone—you’d think they’d be jumping up and down. They spend half the time here squawking at each other.” He jerked a thumb toward the party. “So why not this time?”

  Liz shook her head. “Nobody wants to raise a stink while the conference is on.”

  “No, I know the army. Something’s—off. Nobody just gets shot. What was he doing here? You met him. He say anything to you on the plane?”

  “No,” she said. “He was too busy trying to keep his stomach in one place.”

  “I was thinking about that too. Why fly if you hate it so much? What was important enough to get him on a plane?”

  “Oh, Jake, lots of people fly. Maybe he was ordered. He’s in the army, you know.”

  “Was. Then why didn’t somebody meet him, if he was ordered? Remember that, at the airport?”

  “Frankly, no.”

  “Where was he? Everybody else had a ride.” He took a breath. “There’s something.”

  Liz sighed. “Okay, have it your way, Sherlock. You going to need some pictures? A little strong for Collier’s.”

  Jake smiled. “Maybe. I have something else in mind too.” Liz raised her eyebrows. “Track down the old office staff, see what happened to them. Berlin stories. They’d use those pictures, if you’re interested.”

  “You’re on. Old friends,” she said. “Not just one?”

  “No,” he said, ignoring it. “Everybody I can find. I want to know what happened h
ere, not just in the bunker. This other thing—I don’t know, maybe you’re right, maybe there’s nothing.” He paused, thinking. “Except the money. There’s always a story in money.”

  Liz dropped her cigarette and rubbed it out. “Well, you keep arguing with yourself. Let me know how it comes out. Looks like I’m off,” she said, glancing through the door.

  “Again?”

  “Can I help it if I’m popular?” Before she could move away, a tall soldier, vaguely familiar, came to the door. “I’ll be with you in a sec,” she said to him, clearly not wanting him to come out. He lifted his beer bottle and turned back in to the house.

  “The lucky guy?”

  “Not yet. But he says he knows a good jazz club.”

  “I’ll bet.” Jake looked through the door. “Ah,” he said, remembering. “The congressman’s driver. Liz.”

  “Don’t be a snob,” she said, slightly flustered. “Anyway, he’s not a driver. He’s an officer.”

  “And a gentleman.”

  “Are any of you? At least this one doesn’t talk with his mouth full.”

  Jake laughed. “That sounds like the real thing.”

  “No,” she said, looking straight at him. “That’s when somebody comes back for you. Four years later. But he’ll do.”

  He started to follow her inside, but a roar of laughter, like a blast of warm air, caught him at the door and turned him around. He wanted to be in his Berlin, sipping beer in some fading garden light, not in this odd pocket of Allied goodwill, glasses clinking like fencing swords. But that Berlin had been gone for years, packed away with the garden lanterns into cellars.

  He crossed the garden and opened the back gate. A footpath, not wide enough to be an alley, fed into the next street. All the houses were quiet—no dinner conversation coming through the windows, no radio—as if they were hunkered down, waiting for the party noise in Gelferstrasse to become a brawl, another raid that might pass over. In the silence you could hear your feet.

  He turned down one of the narrow roads that led to the institute grounds, where the streets were named for scientists, not generals and Hohenzollerns. Farradayweg. Emil had worked here, miles away from Pariserstrasse, in his own world. The district still had the leafy enclave feel of a university, but now windows were knocked out, the chemistry building half charred, a roof gone. At the far end of the street he could see lights in a modern brick building, but the institute itself was dark. Still, the main building was standing. Thielallee. A big folly of a building, spiked round turrets on each corner like Kaiser helmets. Pickelhaubes. He walked up the steps to look more closely. Maybe it was still operational, somewhere he could ask tomorrow.

  “Nein, nein!” Jake started. In the quiet, a voice as surprising as a shot. He turned. An old man walking a scrawny dog, wearing a jacket and a tweed hunter’s hat, as if he were expecting the summer evening to turn chilly. The dog made a noise, almost a growl, then leaned against the man’s leg, too listless to make the effort. The man wagged his finger at Jake, correcting him, then pointed to the brick building across the intersection. “Kommandatura,” he said loudly, pointing again. “Kommandatura,” each syllable pronounced slowly, instructions to a lost foreigner.

  “No, I was looking for the institute,” Jake said in German.

  “Closed,” the man said automatically, but now it was his turn to start, surprised to hear German.

  “Yes. Do you know when it opens in the morning?”

  “It doesn’t open. It’s closed. Kaput.” He dipped his head, reflex manners. “Forgive me. I thought—an American. I thought you were looking for the Kommandatura. Come, Schatzie.”

  “The Berlin Kommandatura?” Jake said, coming down before he could move away. “That’s it?” He looked toward the brick building, now taking in the flags, the windows with lights burning. Thin square columns to give it an entrance. “What was it before?” The dog began sniffing at his leg, so Jake leaned over and patted her, a gesture that seemed to surprise the old man more than his speaking German.

  “An insurance company,” the man answered. “Fire insurance. It was a joke, you know. The one building that didn’t burn.” He looked down at the dog, still sniffing Jake’s hand. “Don’t worry, she won’t trouble you. Not so much energy these days. It’s the food, you see. I have to share my ration with her, and it’s not enough.”

  Jake stood up, noticing now the man’s own skinny frame, a heartless illustration of the old saw that owners resembled their pets. But the scraps at Gelferstrasse were blocks away. Instead he took out a pack.

  “Cigarette?”

  The old man took it and bowed. “Thank you. You don’t mind if I save it for later?” he said, carefully tucking it into his pocket.

  “Here. Save that one. Smoke this,” Jake said, suddenly wanting company.

  The man looked at it, amazed at his windfall, then nodded and bent over to the lighter. “You are about to see something interesting—a cigarette in Berlin actually being smoked. It’s another joke. One sells to another, and another, but who smokes them?” He inhaled, then leaned his hand against Jake’s upper arm. “Forgive me. A little dizziness. Thank you. How is it that you speak German?” he said, making conversation, his tongue set loose by tobacco.

  “I lived in Berlin before the war.”

  “Ah. It’s not the best, you know, your German. You should study.” A voice from a classroom.

  Jake laughed. “Yes,” he said, then nodded toward the man’s pocket. “How much will you get for it?”

  “Five marks, maybe. It’s for her.” He looked down at the dog. “I’m not complaining. Things are as they are. But it’s difficult, to see her like this. How can you feed a dog, they say, when people are hungry? But what should I do? Let her die, an innocent? Who else is so innocent in Berlin? That’s what I say to them—when you’re innocent, I’ll feed you too. That shuts them up. They’re the worst, the golden pheasants.”

  Jake looked at him, lost now, wondering if he’d found not a man in the street but a crank. “Golden pheasants?”

  “The big party members. Now, of course, they know nothing. You brought this on us, I say to them, and you want to eat? I’d rather feed a dog. A dog.”

  “So they’re still around.”

  The old man smiled crookedly. “No, there are no Nazis in Berlin. Not one. Only Social Democrats. So many, all those years. How could the party have survived with so many against them? Well, it’s a question.” He took another drag and stared at the glowing tip. “All Social Democrats now. The bastards. They threw me out.” He looked toward the institute building. “Years of work. I’ll never make it up now, never. It’s all kaput.”

  “You’re a Jew?”

  He snorted. “If I were a Jew I’d be dead. They had to leave right away. The rest of us, they waited, hoping we would join, then it was an order—party member or out. So I was out. I really was a Social Democrat.” He smiled. “Of course, you may not believe me. But you can check the records. 1938.”

  “You were at the institute?” Jake said, interested now.

  “Since 1919,” he said proudly. “They had places, you see, after the influenza, so I was lucky. It counted for something then, just to be here. Well, those days. I remember when we got the measurements from the eclipse. For Einstein’s theory,” he said, a teacher explaining, catching Jake’s blank expression. “If light had mass, then gravity would bend the rays. Starlight. The eclipse made it possible to measure. Einstein said it would be 1.75 seconds of an arc, the angle. And do you know what it was? 1.63. So close. Can you imagine? In that one minute, everything changed. Everything. Newton was wrong. The whole world changed, right here in Berlin. Right here.” He extended his arm toward the building, his voice following it in some private reverie. “So, then what? Champagne, of course, but the talk. All night talking. We thought we could do anything—that was German science. Until the gangsters. Then down the drain—”

  “I had a friend at the institute,” Jake said, breaking in befor
e the old man could drift further. “I’m trying to locate him. That’s why—perhaps you knew him. Emil Brandt?”

  “The mathematician? Yes, of course. Emil. You were his friend?”

  “Yes,” Jake said. His friend. “I was hoping someone would know where he is. You don’t—?”

  “No, no, it’s many years.”

  “But do you know what happened to him?”

  “That I couldn’t say. I left the institute, you see.”

  “And he stayed,” Jake said slowly, piecing together dates. “But he wasn’t a Nazi.”

  “My friend, anyone who was here after 1938—” He stopped, seeing Jake’s face, and looked away. “But perhaps he was a special case.” He dropped his cigarette. “Thank you again. I must say good evening now. The curfew.”

  “I knew him,” Jake said. “He wasn’t like that.”

  “Like what? Goering? Many people joined, not just the swine. People do what they have to do.”

  “You didn’t.”

  He shrugged. “And what did it matter? Emil was young. A fine mind, I remember that. Numbers he could see in his head, not just on paper. Who can say what’s right? To give up your work for politics? Maybe he loved science more. And in the end—” He paused, looking again at the building, then back at Jake. “You disturb yourself over this. I can see it. Let me tell you something, for the price of a cigarette. The eclipse? In 1919? The Freikorps were fighting in the streets then. I myself saw bodies, Spartakists, in the Landwehrkanal. Who remembers now? Old politics. Footnotes. But in that building we changed the world. So what’s important? A party card? I don’t judge your friend. We are not all criminals.”

  “Just the golden pheasants.”

  A mild smile, conceding the point. “Yes. Them I don’t forgive. I’m not yet a saint.”

  “What does it mean, anyway? Golden pheasants?”

  “Who knows? Bright feathers—the uniforms. The wives left in fur coats, before the Russians came. Maybe it was that they flew out of the bushes as soon as they heard the first shots. Ha,” he said, the joke for himself. “Maybe that’s why there are no Nazis in Berlin.” He stopped and looked again at Jake. “It was a formality, you know. Just a formality.” He tipped his hat. “Good night.”