The Good German (56 page)

“Who the fuck are you?” the GI called, spotting him. A man in civilian clothes.

Jake looked down at Sikorsky. His eyes were glazed but he was still alive, breathing hard, struggling for air, his front coated with blood. Jake knelt down next to him, holding the revolver. The other Russians still didn’t move, confused, as if Jake were another inexplicable phantom.

Sikorsky twisted his mouth in a sneer. “You.”

Jake shook his head. “Your own men. It was your own men.”

Sikorsky looked toward the street. “Shaeffer?”

“No. Nobody. The war’s over, that’s all. The war’s over.”

Sikorsky grunted.

Jake looked at the stomach wound, welling blood. Not long. “Tell me who he was working with. The other American.”

Sikorsky said nothing. Jake moved the revolver in front of his face. The Russian in the street stirred but made no move, still waiting. What would they do if he fired? Start killing each other again?

“Who?” Jake said. “Tell me. It can’t matter now.”

Sikorsky opened his mouth and spit at him, but weakly, without force, so that the strand of saliva fell back on his own lips.

Jake put the gun closer to his chin. “Who?”

Sikorsky glared at him, still sneering, then looked directly into the gun. “Finish it,” he said, closing his eyes.

The only one who could tell him, slipping away, the last thing that would go wrong. Jake looked at the closed eyes for another second, then took the gun away from Sikorsky’s face, drained.

“Finish it yourself. It took my friend about a minute to die. The one you killed. I hope it takes you two. One to think about her. I hope you see her face.”

Sikorsky opened his eyes wide, as if in fact he were looking at something.

“That’s right, like that. Scared.” Jake stood up. “Now take another for the kids in the boat. See them?” He stared for another second, Sikorsky’s eyes locked on his, even wider. “Steel,” he said, then walked down the stairs, not turning even when he heard the strangled gasp behind him. He handed the gun to the stunned Russian.

“Will somebody tell me what
the fuck
is going on here?” the GI said.

“Speak German?” Jake said to the Russian. “Get your men out of here.”

“Why did they shoot?”

“The Japs surrendered.” The Russian looked at him, dumbfounded. “These men are wounded,” Jake said, suddenly dizzy. “So are yours. We have to get them out. Move the car.”

“But what do I say? To explain?”

Jake looked down at a Russian in the street, spattered with blood. As stupid and pointless as it always was.

“I don’t know,” he said, then turned to the GI, feeling the back of his head. He brought his hand back down, bloody. “I’m hurt. I need a ride.”

“Jesus.” The GI turned to the Russian. “Move, you fuck.”

The Russians looked at them both, uncertain, then waved his hand at the driver to start the car.

In the party jeep, the men moved to make a place, one of them still holding a beer bottle.

“So the war’s over?” Jake said to the GI.

“It was.”

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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.