The Good German (62 page)

“Try newspaper work next time,” Brian said. “Easier all around.”

“Only the way you do it,” Jake said, touching his shoulder, then moving off.

They crossed with a few GIs who’d had enough and were taking advantage of another break in the line to drift away through the park.

“Who’s Teitel?” Emil said. “An American?”

“One of your new friends,” Jake said, still slightly out of breath. Just a little farther to the jeep.

“A friend like you? A jailer? My god, all this for Lena? She’s free to do as she likes.”

“So were you. Keep walking.”

“No, not free.” He stopped, making Jake turn. “To survive. You go along to survive. You think it’s different for you? What would you do to survive?”

“Right now, I’m getting us out of here. Come on, you can make your excuses in the jeep.”

“The war’s
over
,” Emil said, almost shrill, a pleading.

Jake looked at him. “Not all of it.”

Behind Emil, something moved on the landscape, a blur faster than the marchers and the idling crowd, coming closer through the park. Not on a road, where it should be, out of place, bumping over the torn-up ground.

“Christ,” Jake said. Coming toward them.

“What is it?”

A black Horch, the car at Potsdam. No, two, the second obscured in the dust churned up by the first.

“Get to the jeep. Now. Run.”

He pushed Emil, who staggered, then caught his arm, both of them dashing for the jeep. Of course he wouldn’t have come alone. The jeep wasn’t far, parked behind the crowd with a few others, but the Horch was close enough to hear now, the noise of the motor like a hand on his back. He pulled out his gun as he ran. To do what? But if it came to it, a shot in the air would draw attention, give them at least the protection of the crowd.

They were almost at the jeep when the Horch pulled ahead, blocking them with a squeal of brakes. A Russian in uniform jumped out and stood by the door with the motor still running.

“Herr Brandt,” he said to Emil.

“Get out of the way or I’ll shoot,” Jake said, pointing the gun upward.

The Russian glanced at him, almost a smirk, then nodded at the other car pulling up behind. Two men, civilian clothes. “By that time you will be dead. Put the gun down.” Sure of himself, not even waiting for Jake to lower his hand. “Herr Brandt, come with us, please.” He opened the back door.

“He’s not going anywhere.”

“Not with travel permits, no,” the Russian said blandly. “No need, you see. A different arrangement. Please.” He nodded to Emil.

“You’re in the British zone now,” Jake said.

“Make a protest,” the Russian said. He looked at the other car. “Shall I ask my men to assist?”

Emil turned to Jake. “Now see what you’ve made for us.”

The Russian blinked, confused by this dissension in the ranks, then opened his hand toward the back seat. “Please.”

“I said I’d shoot and I will,” Jake said.

The Russian waited, but the only movement was the opening of the passenger door. Gunther got out and walked toward them, gun drawn.

“Get in the car, Herr Brandt.”

For a moment, as Jake stared at the man with the pointed gun, his lungs seemed to deflate, his whole body going limp with disappointment. I want you to betray me. Emil shuffled reluctantly to the car. The Russian closed the rear door.
Snap
.

“A good German cop,” Jake said quietly, looking at Gunther.

“Now you,” Gunther said to Jake, waving his gun toward the car. “In the front.”

The Russian looked up, surprised. “No. Brandt only. Leave him.”

“Get in,” Gunther said.

Jake crossed over to the passenger side and stood by the open door. There was a high-pitched whistle. He looked over the roof of the car. Down the road, Shaeffer had stopped running, two fingers in his mouth, then lunged forward again. A soldier detached himself from the crowd, running behind him. The rest of the trap, closing up the rear.

“What are you doing?” the Russian said to Gunther.

“I will drive.”

“What do you mean?” he said, alarmed now.

Gunther swung his gun toward the Russian. “Over with the others.”

“Fascist swine,” the Russian shouted. He jerked his gun out, his hand stopping midway as Gunther’s bullet hit him, an explosion so sudden it seemed for a second he hadn’t fired at all. There was a rush of movement around them, like the startled flight of birds in a field. Spectators nearby ducked without looking, a reflex. On the reviewing stand a delayed reaction, aides shoving the generals down. Yells. The men in the other car jumped out and raced over to the fallen Russian, dazed. Jake saw Shaeffer stop, just a beat, then start running in a crouch. Everything at once, so that Gunther was already in the car before Jake realized it had started moving. He leaped in, holding on to the open door as he pulled his other leg inside. They spun left, back onto the broken ground of the park, bouncing violently, heading west toward the Victory Column, racing ahead of the parade at their side. Gunther swerved away from a shallow bomb crater and hit a deep rut instead, jolting the car, smashing Jake’s sore shoulder against the door.

“Are you crazy?” Emil shouted from the back, his hand on the top of his head where it had bumped the roof.

“Stay down,” Gunther said calmly, twisting the wheel to avoid a stump.

Jake looked back through the dust. The other Horch had started after them, jouncing over the same rough ground. Farther behind, a jeep, presumably Shaeffer, was tearing away from the crowd that had formed around the dead Russian. Through the open window, bizarrely, came trumpets and the steady thump of drums, the world of five minutes ago.

“I tried to delay them,” Gunther said. “The wrong time. I thought you would be gone, know something was wrong.”

“Why you?”

“You were expecting me. I would lead you to the car, for the permits. But he saw Brandt. Running. So. An impulsive people,” he said tersely, holding the wheel as they bounced over another hole in the pitted field.

“You were pretty impulsive yourself. Why you and not the American?”

“He couldn’t come.”

Jake glanced back. Gaining a little. “He did, though. In fact, he’s coming now.”

Gunther grunted, trying to work this out. “A test maybe, then. Can they trust a German?”

“They got their answer.” Jake looked over at him. “But I should have. I should have known.”

Gunther shrugged, focused on driving. “Who knows anyone in Berlin?” He jerked the wheel, skirting a Hohenzollern statue that had somehow survived, only the face chipped away by blast. “Are they still there?” he said, not trusting himself to look away to the rearview mirror. Jake turned.

“Yes.”

“We need a road. We can’t go faster like this.” The traffic circle at the Grosser Stern was now in sight, a bottleneck jammed with marchers. “If we can cut across—hold on.” Another swerve to the left, jolting the car away from the parade, deeper into the battered park. In the back Emil groaned.

Jake knew that Gunther was taking them south, toward the American zone, but all the landmarks he had known were gone, the stretch ahead of them desolate, broken by stumps and twisted scraps of lampposts. Ron’s lunar landscape. The ground was even rougher, not as cleared as the border of the chausee, the earth thrown up here and there in mounds.

“Not far,” Gunther said, rising out of his seat over a bump, even the solid Horch springs pounded flat, and for a moment, looking behind at the dust, the cars coming after them, Jake realized, an unexpected thought, that Gunther finally had his Wild West, stagecoach bucking across the badlands at a gallop. And then, eerily, the other Horch entered the Karl May dream too, firing at them from behind. A firecracker sound of shots, then a shattering pop at the back window.

“My god, they’re shooting at us,” Emil yelled, his voice jagged with fear. “Stop. It’s madness. What are you doing? They’ll kill us.”

“Keep flat,” Gunther said, hunching a little farther over the wheel.

Jake crouched and peered back over the edge of the seat. Both vehicles firing now, an aimless volley of stray shots.

“Come on, Gunther,” Jake said, a jockey to a horse.

“It’s there, it’s there.” A clear space of asphalt in the distance. He steered right, as if he were heading back to the Grosser Stern, then sharply left, dodging a fallen limb not yet scavenged for firewood, confusing the two cars behind. More shots, one grazing the back fender.

“Please stop,” Emil said, almost hysterical on the back floor. “You’ll kill us.”

But they were there, crashing over a mound of broken pavement piled up at the edge of Hofjagerallee and landing with a loud
thunk
on the cleared avenue. Improbably, there was traffic—two convoy trucks, grinding toward them on their way to the traffic circle. Gunther shot out in front of them and wrenched the wheel left, tires squealing, so close there was an angry blast of horn.

“Christ, Gunther,” Jake said, breathless.

“Police driving,” he said, the car still shuddering from the skid.

“Let’s not have a police death.”

“No. That’s a bullet.”

Jake looked back. The others weren’t as lucky, stuck at the side of the road until the trucks lumbered past. Gunther opened up the

engine, speeding toward the bridge into Liitzowplatz. If they could make it to the bridge, they’d be back in town, a maze of streets and pedestrians where at least the shooting would stop. But why had the

Russians fired in the first place, risking Emil? A desperate logic__

better dead than with the Americans? Which meant they thought they might lose after all.

But not yet. The Horch behind them had picked up speed too on the smooth road. Now the route was straight—get past the diplomatic quarter at the bottom of the park, then over the Landwehrkanal. Gunther honked the horn. A group of civilians was trudging down the side of the road with a handcart. They scattered in both directions, away from the car but still on the road, so that Gunther had to slow down, pumping the brake and the horn at the same time. It was the chance the Russians were looking for, racing to close the gap between the cars. Another shot, the civilians darting in terror. Still coming. Jake swiveled to his open window and fired at the Horch behind, aiming low, a warning shot, two, to make them slow down. Not even a pause. And then, as Gunther slammed the horn again, the Russians’ car began to smoke—no, steam, a teakettle steam that poured out of the grille, then blew back over the hood. A lucky shot ripping into the radiator, or just the old motor finally giving up? What did it matter? The car kept hurtling toward them, driving into its own cloud, then began to slow. Not the brake, a running down.

“Go,” Jake said, the road finally clear of civilians. Behind them, the Horch had stopped. One of the men jumped out and rested his arm on the door to take aim. A target gallery shot. Gunther pressed the accelerator. The car jumped forward again.

This time Jake didn’t even hear the bullet, the splintering pop through the window lost under the noise of the engine and the shouts behind. A small thud into flesh, like a grunt, not even loud enough to notice, until the spurt of blood splashed onto the dashboard. Gunther fell forward, still clutching the wheel.

“Gunther!”

“I can drive,” he said, a hoarse gargle. More blood leaping out, spattering the wheel.

“My god. Pullover.”

“Not far.” His voice fainter. The car began to veer left.

Jake grabbed the wheel, steadying it, looking around. Only the jeep was chasing them now, the Horch stranded behind it. They were still moving fast, Gunther’s foot on the pedal heavy as dead weight. Jake threw himself closer, putting both hands on the wheel, trying to kick Gunther’s foot off the pedal. “The brake!” he shouted. Gunther had slumped forward again, a bulky, unmovable wall. Jake held on to the wheel, his hands now slippery with blood. “Move your leg!”

But Gunther seemed not to have heard him, his eyes fixed on the blood still spilling out onto the wheel. He gave a faint nod, as if he were making sense of it, then a small twitch of his mouth, the way he used to smile.

“A police death,” he mumbled, almost inaudible, his mouth seeping blood, then slumped even farther, gone, his body falling on the wheel, pressing against the horn, so that they were racing toward the bridge with the horn blaring, driven by a dead man.

Jake tried to shove him aside, one hand still on the wheel, but only managed to push his upper body against the window. He’d have to dive underneath to move Gunther’s feet, get to the brake, but that would mean letting go.

“Emil! Lean over, take the wheel.”

“Maniacs!” Emil said, his voice shrill. “Stop the car.”

“I can’t. Grab the wheel.”

Emil started up from the floor, then heard another shot and fell back again. Jake looked through the shattered window. Shaeffer, blowing his horn now, signaling them to stop.

“Grab the fucking wheel!” Jake yelled. Another truck appeared in the oncoming lane. Now there wasn’t even the option of spinning in circles, hands slipping around the bloody wheel, trying to keep a grip. The bridge ahead, then people. Get the brake. With one hand he pushed hard against Gunther’s leg, a cement weight, but moving, sliding back from the gas pedal, wedged now at the bottom. A little more and the car would slow. Only a matter of seconds before something gave.

It was the tire. A stopping shot from Shaeffer, more effective than a horn blast. The Horch careened wildly, as if Jake’s hands had left the wheel. Heading straight for the truck. Jake wrenched the wheel back hard, swerving right, missing the truck, heading off the road in the other direction, but after that lost all control, plunging past some piles of rubble, bouncing furiously, the wheel meaningless. He shoved at Gunther’s leg again, dislodging it from the pedal. But the car was moving on its own now, a last surge of momentum that carried it away from the bridge, over the embankment, only choking to a stop in midair. Nothing beneath them, a giddy suspension. Not even a full second at the top of a roller coaster, an impossible floating through nothing. Then the car pitched down.