The Good German (47 page)

“The accent’s fine,” Jake said, still confused but meeting her gaze, “but I’m not sure I understand everything you’re saying.”

“Any change of expression from them?” she said.

“No.”

“So I stayed in Berlin,” she said in German. “And of course things got worse. The stars. The special benches in the park. You know all that. Then the Jews had to work in factories. I was in Siemenstadt. My mother too, an old woman. She could barely stand at the end of the day. Still, we were alive. Then the roundups started. Our names were there. I knew what it would mean—how could she live? So we went underground.”

“U-boats?”

“Yes, that’s how I knew, you see. How it was, what they would do. All their tricks. The shoes—no one else thought of that. So clever, they told me. But I knew. I had the same problem, so I knew they would go there. And of course they did.”

“But you didn’t stay underground.”

“No, they caught me.”

“How?”

She smiled to herself, a grimace. “A
greifer
. A boy I used to know. He always liked me. I wouldn’t go with him—a Jew. I never thought of myself as Jewish, you see. I was—what? German. To think of that now. An idiot. But there he was, in the café, and I knew he must be underground, too, by that time. I hadn’t spoken to anyone in days. Do you know what that’s like, not to talk? You get hungry for it, like food. And I knew he liked me and I thought maybe he would help me. Anyone who could help—”

“And did he?”

She shrugged. “To the Gestapo car. They took me in and beat me. Not so bad, not like some of the others, but enough. So I knew I wasn’t German anymore. And the next time would be worse. They wanted to know where my mother was. I didn’t tell them, but I knew I would the next time. And then he did help. He had friends there— friends, the devils he worked for. He said he could make a bargain for me. I could work with him and they’d keep us off the list, my mother too. If I went with him. After this? I said. And you know what he said to me? Tt’s never too late to make a bargain in this life. Only in the next.‘” She paused. “So I went with him. That was the bargain. He got me and I kept my life. The first time I was sent out, we went together. His pupil. But I was the one who spotted the woman that day. I knew the look, you see. And after the first time—well, what does it matter how many, it’s just the first one, over and over.” “What happened to him?”

“He was deported. When he was with me, it was all right for him. We were a team. But then they split us up, and on his own he was not so successful. I was the one, I had the eye. He had nothing to bargain anymore. So.” She squashed out the cigarette. “But you did,” Jake said, watching her.

“Well, I was better at it. And Becker liked me. I kept my looks. You see here?” She pointed to her left cheek, folded up near the edge of her eye. “Only this. When they beat me, my face was swollen, but it went down. Only this. And Becker liked that. It reminded him, maybe. I don’t know of what.” She looked away, finally distressed. “Oh my god, how can we talk this way? How can I describe what it was like? What difference does it make? Write anything you want. It can’t be worse. You think I’m making excuses. It was David, it was Becker. Yes, and it was me. I thought I could do this, that we could talk, but when I talk about it—look at your face—you see
her
. The one who killed her own. That’s what they want for the magazines.” “I’m just trying to understand it.”

“Understand it? You want to understand what happened in Germany? How can you understand a nightmare? How could I do it? How could they do it? You wake up, you still can’t explain it. You begin to think maybe it never happened at all. How could it? That’s why they have to get rid of me. No evidence, no
greifer
, it never happened.”

She was shaking her head and looking away, her eyes beginning to fill.

“Now look. I thought I was finished with that, no tears. Not like my mother. She cried enough for both. ‘How can you do this?’ Well, it was easy for her. I had to do the work, not her. Every time I looked at her, tears. You know when they stopped? When she got in the truck Absolutely dry. I thought, she’s relieved not to have to live this way anymore. To see me.”

Jake took a handkerchief from his back pocket and handed it to her. “She didn’t think that.”

Renate blew her nose, still shaking her head. “No, she did. But what could I do? Oh, stop,” she said to herself, wiping her face. “I didn’t want to do this, not in front of you. I wanted you to see the old Renate, so you would help.”

Jake put down the pen. “Renate,” he said quietly, “you know it won’t make any difference what I write. It’s a Soviet court. It doesn’t matter to them.”

“No, not that. I need your help. Please.” She reached for his hand again. “You’re the last chance. It’s finished for me. Then I saw you in the court and I thought, not yet, not yet, there’s one more chance. He’ll do it.”

“Do what?”

“Oh, look at this,” she said, wiping her eyes again. “I knew if I started—” She turned to the guards, and for an instant it occurred to Jake that she was playing, the tears part of some larger performance.

“Do what?” he said again.

“Please,” she said to the guard, “would you bring me some water?”

The guard on the right, the German speaker, nodded, said something in Russian to the other, and left the room.

“Write this down,” she said to Jake in English, her voice low, as if it were coming from the back of a sob. “Wortherstrasse, in Prenzlauer, the third building down from the square. On the left, toward Schönhauserallee. An old Berliner building, the second courtyard. Frau Metzger.”

“What is this, Renate?”

“Write it, please. There’s not much time. You remember in court I told you I didn’t do it for myself?”

“Yes, I know. Your mother.”

“No.” She looked at him, her eyes sharp and dry. “I have a child.”

Jake’s pen stopped. “A child?”

“Write it. Metzger. She doesn’t know about me. She thinks I work in a factory. I pay her. But the money runs out this month. She won’t keep him now.”

“Renate—”

“Please. His name is Erich. A German name—he’s a German child, you understand? I never had it done. You know, down there.” She pointed to her groin, suddenly shy.

“Circumcised.”

“Yes. He’s a German child. No one knows. Only you. Not the magazines either, promise me? Only you.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Take him. Prenzlauer’s in the east. She’ll give him up to the Russians. You must take him—there’s no one else. Jake, if you were ever fond of me at all—”

“Are you crazy?”

“Yes, crazy. Do you think after everything else I’ve done, I couldn’t ask this? Do you have children?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know. You can do anything for a child. Even this,” she said, spreading her hand to the room, the
greifers
life. “Even this. Was I right to do it? Ask God, I don’t know. But he’s alive. I saved him, with their money. They gave me pocket money, you know, for the cafés, for—” She stopped. “Every pfennig was for him. I thought, you’re paying to keep a Jew alive. At least one of us is going to live. That’s why I had to stay alive, not for me. But now—”

“Renate, I can’t take a child.”

“Yes, please. Please. There’s no one else. You were decent, always. Do this for him, if not the mother, what you think of her. Everything I did—one more day, one more day alive. How can I give up now? If you take him to America, they can hang me, at least I’ll know I got him out. Safe. Out of this place.” She grabbed his hand again. “He’d never know what his mother did. To live with that. He’d never know.” “Renate, how could I take a child to America?” “The west, then, anywhere but here. You could find a place for him—I trust you, I know you’d make it all right, decent people. Not some Russian camp.”

“What do I tell him?”

“That his mother died in the war. He’s so young, he won’t remember. Just some woman who used to come sometimes. You can tell him you used to know her when she was a girl, but she died in the war. She did,” she said, looking down. “It’s not a lie.”

Jake looked at the blotchy face, the sharp eyes finally dulled by a sadness so oppressive that he felt his own shoulders sinking. Always something worse. He nodded his head toward the side she thought was real.

“She didn’t,” he said.

Her face was confused for a second, then cleared, almost in a smile. “That’s only for today. So I could ask you. After this, there’s only her,” she said, putting her finger on the other side. “It’s over.”

“It doesn’t have to be. At least let me talk to the lawyers.”

“Oh, Jake, to say what? You were there, you saw them. What would mercy be—a Russian prison? Who survives that?”

“People do.”

“To come back as what? An old woman, back to Germany? And meanwhile, what happens to Erich? No, it’s over. If you want to help me, save my child. Ah, the water,” she said, fluttering a little as the guard came through the door with a glass and handed it to her. “Thank you,” she said in German, “it’s very kind.” As she drank, the guard looked at the other guard with an “anything happen?” expression, answered by a shrug.

“So you’ll help?” Renate said.

“Renate, you can’t ask me to do this. I’m sorry, but I don’t—”

“In English now,” she said, switching. “I’m not asking you, I’m begging you.”

“What about his father?”

“Dead. When we were underground. One night he didn’t come back, that’s all. So I knew. I had the baby myself.” She handed back the handkerchief. “You be the father.”

“Stop. I can’t do that.”

“He’ll die,” she said, her eyes fixed on his. “Now, when it’s over, after everything.”

Jake turned his head, taking in the guards, Stalin’s flat iconic gaze. “Look,” he said finally, “I know a church. They work with children, orphans, try to place them. I can talk to the pastor, he’s a good man, maybe there’s something he—”

“They find homes? In the west? With Christians?”

“Well, yes, they would be. I’ll ask. Maybe he knows a Jewish family.”

“No. A German boy. So he’ll be safe next time.”

“You want him to be German?” Jake said, amazed. The endless, twisted cord.

“I want him to live. Americans—how can you know? How people are here. But promise me, a home, not some camp.”

“I can’t promise that, Renate. I don’t know. I’ll talk to the pastor. I’ll do what I can. I’ll try.”

“But you’ll move him from Frau Metzger? Before she gives him

up?

“Renate, I can’t promise—”

“Yes, promise me. Lie to me. My god, can’t you see I have to tell myself this? I have to think it’s going to be all right.”

“I won’t lie to you. I’ll do what I can. You’ll have to be satisfied with that.”

“Because I have nothing to bargain with, you mean. Finally, no more Jews.”

Jake looked away. Every week a new list, trading yourself, until there was no other way to live. He had become one of her bosses.

“What do they say about the trial?” he said, moving somewhere else.

“My lawyers?” she said, a trace of scorn. “To be clever, play the innocent—that I couldn’t help what I was doing. To be sorry.”

“Well?”

“It’s not enough to be sorry. It’s not enough for me. I can’t make it go away. I still see the faces, how they looked at me. I can’t make them go away.”

“One minute,” the guard shouted out in German.

Renate drew a cigarette from the pack. “One more,” she said in English, “for the road. That’s right, isn’t it? For the road?”

“Yes. I’ll come back.”

“No. They won’t allow that. Only this once. But I’m so glad to see you. Someone from that world. In Berlin again, I never thought—” She stopped, grabbing his hand. “Wait a minute. I can’t bargain with it, but maybe it’s something, if he’s still there. Promise me.”

“Renate, don’t do this.”

“You said they were looking for him, the Americans. So maybe it’s something for you. Lena’s husband—I know where he is. I saw him.”

Jake looked up, stunned. “Where?”

“Promise me,” she said steadily, still covering his hand. “One last bargain.”

He nodded. “Where?”

“Can I believe you?”

“Where?”

“As if I have a choice,” she said.

“Time,” the guard called.

“One minute.” She turned back to Jake, conspiratorial, talking quickly. “Burgstrasse, the old Gestapo building. Number Twenty-six. It was bombed, you know, but they still use part. They kept me there before here.”

“And you saw him there?”

“Out the window, across the courtyard. He didn’t see me. I thought, my god, that’s Emil, why do they have him here? Is he on trial too? Is he?”

“No. What was he doing?”

“Just looking down into the courtyard. Then the lights went out. That’s all. Is that something for you? Can you use that?”

“You’re sure it was him?”

“Of course. My eyes are good, you know, always.”

The guard approached the table.

“Give him some cigarettes,” she said in English, standing. “They’ll be nice to me.”

Jake got up and offered the pack.

“So it’s good?” she said. “One last job for you?”

Jake nodded. “Yes.”

“Then promise me.”

“All right.”

She smiled, then her face twitched, the skin falling slack, as if she were about to weep again, finally drained of all composure. “Then it’s over.”

Before he could react, she moved around the table to Jake and, while the guard stuffed cigarettes into his pocket, put her arms around him, almost falling into him. He stood awkwardly, catching her, not really embracing her, feeling her bones sticking through the smock, brittle enough to snap. She hugged him once, then turned her mouth up to his ear, hidden from the guard. “Thank you. He’s my life.”

She stepped back and let the guard take her arm, but put her other hand on Jake’s chest, pulling at the cloth. “But never tell him. Please.”

When the guard tugged her arm, she went with him, looking over her shoulder at Jake, trying to smile, but the walk was clumsy, a halfhearted, forced shuffle, not even a trace of the lively steps he remembered on the platform.

Burgstrasse was only a few blocks west of the Alex, but he drove, feeling safer in the jeep. There’d be no point in stopping, but he had to see if it was there at all, not some lie, a last attempt to keep playing the angles. The street was across the open sewer of the Spree from the smashed-in cathedral, but part of Number 26 was still standing, just as she’d said, flying a red flag. He passed it slowly, pretending to be lost. Thick walls, stripped now of plaster, a heavy entrance door blocked by guards with Asiatic faces—the familiar Russian hierarchy, Mongols at the bottom. Behind it all, somewhere, Emil looking out a window. But how could Shaeffer get in? A raid in the middle of Berlin, bullets zinging over Lena’s head? Impossible without some trick. But that was his specialty; let him plan it. At least now they knew. Renate’s last catch, her part of the bargain. He stopped near the end of the street to check his wallet—enough money for Frau Metzger until he could get Fleischman to come. One final payment, off the books.