The Good German (59 page)

“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.“

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IT WAS GUNTHER who chose the place.

“Not the station. It’s too exposed. And there’s Herr Brandt to consider. ”

“Emil? I’m not taking Emil.”

“You must. It’s Brandt he wants. He won’t show himself for you.” He got up with his coffee, cold sober, and walked to the map. “Imagine what he’s thinking. He can’t lose him again. If you’re alone, what has he accomplished, even if he kills you? Still no Brandt. No, he wants a simple pickup. You don’t suspect anything, so he surprises you, and he takes Brandt away. Or both of you. You for later. But the meeting must happen somewhere he can’t risk drawing attention. If he kills you there, he’ll lose everything. You need that protection.”

“I can take care of myself,” Jake said, touching the gun on his hip.

Gunther turned, the beginning of a smile on his face. “So it’s true. Americans say such things. I thought only in Karl May.” He glanced at the bookshelf. “But in real life, foolish, I think. In real life, you get protection.”

“Where? I still have to do it alone. There’s no one I can trust.”

“Do you trust me?” He caught Jake’s eye and, almost embarrassed, turned back to the map. “Then you won’t be alone.” “You’re going to cover me? I thought you—”

“Someone has to. In a police operation, always use a partner. Two set the trap. One, the cheese. The other, the spring.
Snap
.” He clicked his fingers. “He thinks he surprises you, but I surprise him. Otherwise—” He paused, thinking. “But we need protection.” “There’s nowhere in Berlin with that much protection.” “Except tomorrow,” Gunther said. “What occurred to me was to use the American army.” “What?”