The Good German (31 page)

“There’s a little dash. A friend in the black market tipped me off. It’s the sort of thing they notice. Turns out the Treasury Department isn’t as dumb as you thought.”

“That makes me feel a whole lot better.” Muller straightened up. “I wish you did. All right, let’s go back in before I change my mind,” he said, leading Jake to the door. They stopped on the threshold, hit by

the blast of noise. A conga line was snaking through the room, legs flying out on the one-two-three-kick, nobody quite on the same beat. “The ladies and gentlemen of the press,” Muller said, shaking his head. “My god, I wish I was back in the army. Drink?”

“You have mine. I’m on my way home.”

“Where is that these days? I haven’t seen you at dinner lately. Keeping company somewhere?”

“Colonel. There are rules about that.”

“Mm. Strictly enforced,” he said wryly. “Like everything else.” He turned to go, then stopped. “Geismar? Don’t make me regret this. I can still kick your ass home.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jake said. “Just make the calls, please.”

He said goodbye to Tommy, now in a sloppy, bear-hugging mood. The conga line had broken up and with it the rest of the dancing, but the party showed no signs of slowing down. The drinking had reached the stage when jokes could turn into arguments without anyone noticing. Liz was taking some group shots, a line of reporters with their arms draped over each other’s shoulders and their faces fixed in bleary grins. A cheer went up when someone arrived with more ice. It was time to go. He was almost at the door when Liz caught up with him.

“Hey, Jackson. How’s your love life?” She was carrying her shoes in one hand and a camera case in the other, her eyes shiny with drink.

“Okay. How’s yours?”

“Away, since you ask.”

“No more tall Joe?”

“Keep your shirt on. He’s back tomorrow.” She made a face. “They always come back. How about a lift? I don’t think I can make it in these,” she said, holding up the shoes.

“Little unsteady on your feet?” Jake said, smiling.

“These? They gave out about an hour ago.”

“Come on.”

“Here,” she said, handing him the shoes. “Let me get my bag.”

He stood there, shoes dangling from his fingers, and watched her weave over to the table and struggle with a strap that kept missing her shoulder as she tried to fling it in place. Finally he went over and took the bag from her, sliding it onto his own shoulder.

“Well, aren’t vou nice? Stupid thing.”

“Come on, you could use some air. What have you got in here?”

She giggled. “Oh, I forgot. You. I’ve got you in there. Wait a minute,” she said, stopping him and fumbling with the zipper. “Fresh out of the darkroom. Well, fresh. I’ve been carrying these around for days.” She pulled out some glossies and shuffled to find the right one. “Here we are. Our man in Berlin. Not bad, considering.”

He looked at himself stepping into the right half of the picture, leaving the Document Center behind. Thinning over the temples, a surprised expression. “I’ve looked better,” he said. The same feeling he’d had seeing his reflection in KaDeWe’s window—someone else, no longer the young man in his passport photo.

“That’s what you think.”

Off to the left Joe stood posing, as tall and blond as a poster Aryan. One of the tech boys, according to Brian. Breimer’s friend. Jake dropped the picture on the pile, then stopped and pulled it back, looking again.

“Hey, Liz,” he said, staring at it, “what’s Joe’s last name again?”

“Shaeffer. Why?”

A German name.

He shook his head. “Nothing, maybe. Can I keep this?”

“Sure,” she said, pleased. “I’ve got a million more where that came from.”

Blond, like a German, Frau Dzuris had said. The right fit. But was it? In the picture, another camera trick, he and Jake were standing on the steps as if they’d been together all along. Nothing was what it seemed.

He glanced at his watch. Frau Dzuris would be getting ready for bed, disturbed by a knock on the door. But not asleep yet. He grabbed Liz’s arm and began tugging her across the floor.

“Where’s the fire?”

“Let’s go. I have to see somebody.”

“Oh,” she said, an exaggerated drawl. She reached over and took her shoes. “Not this time. Let her wear her own.”

Jake ignored her, hurrying them to the jeep.

“You know, it’s none of my business—” she began as she got in.

“Then don’t say it.”

“Touchy,” she said, but let it go, leaning back in her seat as they started down the road. “You know what you are? You’re a romantic.”

“Not the last time I looked.”

“You are, though,” she said, nodding her head, having a conversation with herself.

“What’s Joe doing in Berlin?” Jake said.

But the drink had taken her elsewhere. She laughed. “You’re right.
He’s
not. Anyway, what do you care?” She turned to him. “It’s not serious, you know. With him. He’s just—around.”

“Doing what?”

She waved her hand. “He’s just around.”

She put her head back against the seat, cushioning it, as if it were too much trouble to hold it upright on the bumpy road. For a second Jake wondered if she was going to pass out, but she said idly, “I’m glad you like the picture. It’s a fast shutter. Zeiss. No blurs.”

The blur instead seemed to be in her speech. They had circled the old Luftwaffe building and were heading into Gelferstrasse, almost there. In front of the billet, he idled the motor and reached for the shoulder bag.

“Can you manage?” he said, fitting the strap in place.

“Still in a hurry, huh? I thought you lived here.”

“Not tonight.”

“Okay, Jackson,” she said softly. “I’ll take a hike.” And then, surprising him, she leaned over and kissed him on the mouth, a full kiss.

“What was that for?” Jake said when she broke away.

“I wanted to see what it was like.”

“You’ve had too much to drink.”

“Yeah, well,” she said, embarrassed, gathering her bag and getting out. “My timing isn’t the best, either.” She turned to the jeep. “Funny how that works. It might have been nice, though, don’t you think?”

“It might have been.”

“A gentleman,” she said, hitching up the bag. “I’ll bet you’re the type who’ll pretend to forget about it in the morning, too.”

But in fact it stayed with him all the way to Wilmersdorf, the unexpected mystery of people, who they really were. He’d been right about Frau Dzuris, ready for bed and clutching her wrapper, frightened by the knock. And he’d been right about the picture. “Yes, you see, like a German,” Frau Dzuris said. “That’s the one. You know him? He’s a friend?” But in the dim light of the doorway, his eyes never went to the photo, caught instead by the empty space on the cloth over her left breast, where a pin once would have been.

The next day it was Liz who didn’t remember. She was on her way to Potsdam with one of Ron’s tour groups, thinned out by hangovers, and seemed surprised that he mentioned Joe at all.

“What do you want to see him for?”

“He has some information for me.”

“Uh-huh. What kind of information?”

“Missing persons.”

“You going to tell me what you’re talking about?”

“You going to tell me where he is?”

She shrugged, giving up. “He’s meeting me, as a matter of fact. In Potsdam.”

“Why Potsdam?”

“He’s getting me a camera.”

Jake pointed to the one she was carrying, with the prized fast shutter. “He get you that too?”

“What’s it to you?” She smiled, palms up. “He’s a generous guy.”

Jake grinned. “Yeah, with requisitioned cameras. He say where he got it?”

“Ask him yourself. You coming or not?” She pointed to Ron’s car, an old Mercedes. Two reporters were dozing in the back, legs spread out, waiting for the trip to start.

“Too crowded. I’ll follow.”

“Better stick with me. Look what happened the last time we went.”

So in the end she rode with him. They followed Ron’s car until they reached the Avus, then lost it when it jerked into autobahn speed, weaving in and out of the stream of cars heading out of Berlin. The traffic surprised him. In the bright sunshine it seemed everyone was going to Potsdam—trucks and jeeps and cars like Ron’s, snatched from garages for new owners. Behind them an old black Horch filled with Russians barely kept up, but the others were racing on the open highway, prewar driving, with the trees of the Grunewald rushing past.

When they got into town, the bomb damage he’d missed before leaped to the eye. The Stadtschloss, a roofless ruin, had taken the worst of it, and only sections of the long colonnade were left facing the market square. The Nikolaikirche opposite had lost its dome, the four corner towers looking more than ever like odd minarets. Only the Palladian Rathaus seemed likely to survive, with Atlas still perched on top of its round tower, holding up a gilded ball of the world, a kind of bad joke—the British bombers had spared the kitsch.

The Alten Markt, however, was lively. A rickety tram was running in front of the obelisk, and the huge open square was crammed— hundreds, perhaps a thousand people milling between stacks of goods, bargaining openly, as noisy as the medieval market that had given the space its name. It reminded him, improbably, of the
souk
in Cairo, a dense theater of exchange, hawkers grabbing buyers by the sleeve, the air full of languages, but drained of color, no open melons and pyramids of spices, just scuffed pairs of shoes and chipped Hummel knickknacks and secondhand clothes, closets stripped for sale. But at least there was none of the furtiveness of the Tiergarten market, one eye keeping watch for raiding MPs. The Russians were buying, not guarding, eager to be back in business after the hiatus of the conference. No one whispered. Two soldiers walked by with wall clocks balanced on their heads. None of this would have been here when Tully came. Jake imagined instead a meeting in some quiet corner. Maybe even in the Neuer Garten, just steps from the water. Selling what?

They left the jeep near the empty space in the colonnade where the Fortuna Portal had been and wandered into the crowd, Liz snapping pictures. Ron’s car was nowhere in sight, probably still headed for Truman’s villa, but Jake noticed, amused, that the Horch had had to squeeze in behind the jeep, the only place in Berlin with a parking problem.

“Where are you meeting him?” Jake said.

“He said by the colonnade. We’re early. Look at this—do you think it’s real Meissen?”

She picked up the soup tureen, gilt-edged handles and pink apple blossoms, the kind of thing you could have found by the dozen in Karstadt’s before the war. But the German woman selling it, gaunt and sagging, had come to life.

“Meissen, ja. Natürlich.”

“What are you going to do with that?” Jake said. “Make soup?”

“It’s pretty.”

“Lucky Strike,” the woman said in accented English. “Camel.”

Liz handed it back and motioned to the woman to pose. As the camera clicked, the woman smiled nervously, holding out her dish, still hoping for a sale, and Jake turned uneasily, feeling ashamed, as if they were stealing something, the way primitive people feared a camera took souls.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he said as they moved off, the woman shouting after them in disappointment.

“Local color,” Liz said, unconcerned. “Why do they all wear pants?”

“They’re old uniforms. The men aren’t allowed, so the women wear them.”

“They aren’t,” she said, pointing to two girls in summer dresses talking to French soldiers, whose red berets flashed like bird feathers in all the khaki and gray.

“They’re selling something else.”

“Really?” Liz said, curious. “Right out in the open?”

But they posed too, arms around the soldiers’ waists, less self-conscious than the woman with porcelain.

They had made a half-circle to the obelisk, past the cigarette dealers and watch salesmen and piles of PX cans. On the steps of the Nikolai a man had spread out carpets, a surreal touch of Samarkand. Nearby a one-armed veteran was offering a box of now useless hand tools. A woman with two children at her side held out a pair of baby shoes.

They found Shaeffer near the north end of the colonnade, looking at cameras.

“You remember Jake,” Liz said breezily. “He’s been looking for you.”

“Oh yes?”

“Find anything?” she said, taking the camera from him and putting it to her eye.

“Just an old Leica. Not worth it.” He turned to Jake. “You looking for a camera?”

“Not unless it’s got a Zeiss lens,” Jake said, nodding at Liz’s case. “You pick that one up at the plant?”

“The plant’s in the Soviet zone, last I heard,” Shaeffer said, looking at him carefully.

“I heard one of our tech units paid it a visit.”

“Is that a fact?”

“I thought they might have picked up some souvenirs.”

“Now why would they do that? You can get anything you want right here.” Shaeffer spread his hand toward the square.

“So you haven’t been there?”

“What is this, twenty questions?”

“Don’t race your motor,” Liz said to him, handing back the Leica. “Jake’s always asking questions. It’s what he does.”

“Yeah? Well, go ask them somewhere else. You ready?” he said to Liz.

“Hey, the babe with the camera.” Two American soldiers, running over to them. “Remember us? Hitler’s office?”

“Like it was yesterday,” Liz said. “How you boys doing?”

“We got our orders,” one of the soldiers said. “End of the week.”

“Just my luck,” Liz said, grinning. “Want a shot for the road?” She held up the camera.

“Hey, great. Get the obelisk in, can you?”

Jake followed the camera’s eye to the GIs, the market swirling behind them. He wondered for a second how they’d explain it at home, Russians holding wristwatches to their ears to check the ticking, tired German ladies with tureens. At the church, two Russians were holding up a carpet, a general with medals hovering off to one side. As a tram pulled in, dividing the crowd, the Russian turned his face toward the colonnade. Sikorsky, holding a carton of cigarettes. Jake smiled to himself. Even the brass came to market day for a little something on the side. Or was it payday for informants?