Leaving Berlin

by Joseph Kanon

  Erich nodded. “Where are you going?”

  Alex turned to Irene. “Where are we going?”

  “The Möwe. Sasha said he’d meet me there. You don’t know it,” she said to Erich. “It’s just a place people go to. Sleep now and I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  He nodded, closing his eyes. “You know what Elsbeth said? Her flat is too small.”

  “It’s not her. It’s him.”

  “My own sister. Blood.”

  “Never mind, it’s better here. Alex is like family.”

  Erich smiled, eyes still closed. “Ha! What would papa say? An American in the family. A spy.”

  The hairs on Alex’s arms moved suddenly, as if some electric pulse were running along his skin. “Yes? Why a spy?”

  “All Americans are spies. That’s what they told us. Don’t talk to them. If you see one in the village, report it. They’re all spies. Imagine how stupid—to think we could recognize them. How? Wearing uniforms? In Aue?” His voice drifted off.

  “Yes, stupid,” Alex said, turning off the bedside lamp. “I’ll be back. Remember, no lights in the other room.”

  “So careful. So maybe Erich’s right,” Irene said, teasing, then looked at her watch. “Anyway, there should be a power cut soon. They like to turn it off during dinner, so you can’t see how bad the food is.” A Berlin joke, tart, a shrug of the shoulders.

  On the stairs the lights did go out, a quick flicker, then darkness, so that after they felt their way to the courtyard entrance they almost collided with a woman trying to get a flashlight to work.

  “Oh, Mister Meier,” she said. “You’re in the building too? I didn’t realize.” Then, backing up, “Roberta Kleinbard. We met at the Kulturbund.”

  “Yes, I remember. From New York. The architect.”

  “Well, Herb’s the architect. But I help with the drawings.”

  “You remember Frau Gerhardt?” Alex said, not sure if they had met. Both nodded.

  “We’re across the courtyard,” Roberta said. “Did you just move in?”

  “Yes, just.”

  “So they’re putting all the Americans in one place, I guess. Tom Lawson’s in the back courtyard. He was the first. Here we go,” she said as the flashlight finally went on. “Follow me.”

  They trailed the light, single file, out the entrance to the street.

  “Thank God I bought extra batteries. Hard to get now,” Roberta was saying, but Alex barely heard her, his mind still back in the courtyard. All the Americans. Is that how Roberta saw him? What Erich thought too. He felt he had just seen himself in a mirror, rubbing bathroom steam away, seen finally what all the others saw, Markus and Martin and Erich making spy jokes. Not a German anymore, someone who hadn’t been here, couldn’t know what it was now to be German. Exile was irreversible, where he lived.

  “You can still buy them in the British sector,” Roberta said. “But who knows for how long? They’re going to end the dual currency any day now, that’s what people say, and then what? Who has West marks unless you work over there?”

  “Can we drop you somewhere?” Irene said, pointing to the waiting car, sent by Sasha from Karlshorst.

  “Oh,” Roberta said, taking it in, impressed, then glancing at Alex. “If you’re going by the Kulturbund. But I can—”

  “No, no, it’s on the way. Please.”

  They got in, Irene giving the driver instructions. Roberta, who had assumed the car was Alex’s, now looked puzzled, a little wary.

  “Another party?” Alex said.

  “No, just dinner. With Henselmann. You know he’s in charge of the Friedrichshain project. New buildings all the way to Frankfurter Tor. Herb’s designing two.”

  “Frankfurter Tor,” Irene said. “That’s miles.”

  “A showcase street,” Roberta said, nodding. “Herb said they’re going to call it Stalinallee.”

  “What, Grosse Frankfurter Strasse?” Alex said, remembering his drive into the city, the endless blocks of piled rubble. “But it’s always been—”

  “Well, I know. But really, what difference does it make? And it’s the kind of gesture that might get the funding started. You know, once you start a construction project, it’s hard to stop it. But getting started— And Herb’s designs are ready to go. He was at the Bauhaus, you know. Years ago. So this is like a dream for him. Come for a drink sometime and see. So convenient, being just across the courtyard. Do you face the street?”

  “Yes.”

  “They must think a lot of you,” Roberta said.

  “No, it’s probably what was available, that’s all.”

  Roberta looked at him, about to correct this, then decided to say nothing. Instead she turned to Irene.

  “Can I ask what you do?”

  “I’m at DEFA.”

  “Oh, an actress,” Roberta said, excited, looking around, as if the answer explained the car.

  “No, I work on the production staff.”

  “Still. Just to be there. I was always crazy about movies, from a kid on. Of course, here it’s harder. But my German’s getting better. My son laughs at me now. It’s so easy for them at that age.”

  “You’ve been here a long time?”

  “No, just long enough to get homesick once in a while. For friends, you know. My sister was coming to visit, but with this going on,” she said, jerking her head up to the airlift, “it’s impossible. But soon. I mean how long can they keep it up? Their coal allowance is lower than ours now, and that won’t get anyone through a really cold one.” She had been looking toward the front seat, still trying to work out the car. “Your driver. He’s a soldier? It’s an official car?”

  “A friend lends it to me. It’s so hard to get around at night. Almost as bad as during the blackout.” Which still didn’t explain why he lent it.

  “Yes, thank you for the lift,” Roberta said, looking at her, but reluctant to push it further. “The lap of luxury. Herb’ll be jealous. Here we are. Just at the corner. I must say, I don’t know what we’d do without the Kulturbund. Meals off ration.” She caught herself. “And of course the people—everyone is so interesting. There’s a real seriousness about the arts here. Not like—”

  Alex, on the street now, offered his hand to help her out.

  “Thank you again,” she said to Irene. “And your friend.” She got out, her hand still on Alex’s. “Thanks. Alex—can I call you Alex?—I wanted to ask you—” She lowered her head, her voice almost conspiratorial. “I mean we don’t know each other really, but to tell you the truth, I don’t know who else to ask.”

  Alex looked at her, waiting.

  “I just wondered if it was us, people who’d come from the States. For some reason.”

  “What?”

  “Have they asked you for your Party documents? They said they were calling them in for review and I was just wondering why. You know, whether it was everybody or just Herb—”

  “Party documents?”

  “Membership books, you know.”

  “But I’m not a member. Not yet.”

  “Really? I thought—well, never mind. It’s probably just some office thing. They love all that official paper, all the stamps. I just wondered is all.” Her voice trying to be light, but anxious, her eyes troubled. She raised her head. “You’re going to join, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said, remembering Dieter.

  “I mean, it makes everything so much easier here. And of course it’s—the Party. It’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Anyway, come for a drink and see Herb’s drawings. It’s really wonderful, what Berlin is going to look like.”

  4

  MARIENSTRASSE

  “DON’T WORRY, I’M WORTH the wait,” Irene said, offering her cheek to be kissed. “I brought Alex. You don’t mind. He wanted to see the Möwe. Look, there’s Brecht.”

  Across the room, Brecht took out his cigar stub and half waved it.

  “The more the merrier,” Sasha said. “You remember Ivan?” The other Russian stood a
nd bowed his head, military polite. “A real Ivan,” Sasha said to Alex. “Not an Ivan. His name. Sit, sit. He came with me to celebrate.”

  “Oh yes?” Irene said, sitting down. “What are you celebrating?” She glanced at the vodka bottle, half gone.

  “Tell her,” Ivan said. “He’s so modest. She’ll be proud of you.”

  “I’m already proud,” Irene said. “So now?”

  “A big promotion,” Ivan said. “Moscow!” He raised his glass, a toast they’d made before.

  “Moscow?” Irene said, paling a little.

  “In the director’s office.” Ivan slapped Sasha on the back. “Now what do you think of him?”

  “When?” Irene said to Sasha. “You never said.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “It’s all the good work,” Ivan said, clinking glasses with him. “Come, have a drink,” he said to Alex. He raised his hand to get the waiter. “You need a glass.”

  “Just beer for me,” Alex said to the waiter. “Irene?”

  She shook her head. “When?” she asked again.

  “I don’t know. Soon. Any day. Whenever the new man arrives. It’s a question of arranging transport.”

  “You’ll be sorry to go,” she said, looking at him.

  “Sorry? To go to Moscow?” he said, answering something else, as if he’d already left her. “After Berlin?” He laughed, then stopped, finally aware of her look. “Of course I will miss you.”

  “Maybe not so much.”

  “Every day,” he said grandly, raising a glass to her.

  “You won’t be lonely,” Ivan said to Irene. “I can see to that.”

  “No, I won’t be lonely,” Irene said to Sasha. “It’s a surprise, that’s all. Moscow. It’s a big job?” Her voice tight, eyes troubled, sorting through all the implications.

  Sasha nodded.

  “So. Your wife will be pleased.”

  Sasha poured another glass for Ivan, avoiding this.

  “And here I thought you and Alex would get to know each other,” she said. “Become friends.”

  “We are friends,” Sasha said, smiling. “One night. It’s like that in wartime.”

  “To Moscow,” Alex said, raising his beer glass to Sasha.

  He drank, feeling the beer work its way down to his stomach, clenching again, his one chance of buying his way home about to disappear. They wouldn’t care anymore what people said at the Kulturbund, now that they’d almost had Markovsky, the promise of indiscretions on Irene’s pillow. Maltsev’s assistant, the best keyhole at Karlshorst, leaving town.

  “Don’t worry,” Sasha said, leaning toward Irene. “You’ll be all right at DEFA. The payoks, I can arrange to keep you on that list. Is there anything you need?” When she shook her head, “We always knew this would happen, no? Someday.”

  “But maybe not so soon.”

  “You’re sorry to see me go?” he said, a little surprised, teasing.

  “Of course.”

  “Well, a woman like you. You’ll have no trouble finding someone else.” Said lightly, intended to flatter, but Irene turned red, as if she’d been slapped, a public embarrassment.

  “At your service,” Ivan said, moving his arm to his chest in a bow.

  “Anyway, I’m not going tonight,” Sasha said, a wink in his voice, touching Irene’s hand.

  “No,” she said, looking down, away from Alex.

  “That’s right,” Ivan said, louder. “Tonight we celebrate.”

  “Yes,” Irene said. “I’ll have a drink now.” She picked up a glass. “To Moscow.”

  “Moscow,” Ivan echoed.

  “You see?” Sasha said. “Not so sorry after all. How long before you forget me? A week?”

  “No. I have a good memory,” she said, then smiled, a party mood. “Maybe a month.”

  “Me, never,” Sasha said, suddenly sentimental, drunk now. “I’ll never forget Berlin. It was a good time here.”

  “For you maybe,” Irene said. “Not so much for us.”

  “You think it was bad here?” Ivan said. “You should see what the Fascists did in Russia.”

  “Well, that’s in the past now,” Irene said easily.

  Alex glanced at her, thinking of Erich. Things she would never know.

  She raised her glass again. “To Moscow.”

  “To Berlin,” Sasha said, clinking his glass to hers. “Someday I’d like to come back, see what it’s like then.”

  “Like Moscow,” Irene said, fingering her glass.

  “No. Something new. I don’t know what, but new. All of this gone.” He waved his arm, as if clearing the rubble outside. “You know what I saw today? They leveled the Chancellery. The whole building. And I asked one of the men, what happens to the stone? Marble some of it, nice. And he said the best goes to the Soviet memorial in Treptow and the rest to a U-Bahn station. Like what happened in Rome—you take the good stone and build something else, a new city right on top of the old one. It’s interesting to think about Berlin that way, no? One city on top of the other.”

  “And what happens to the people in the old one?” Irene said.

  “I thought you were in Aue,” Alex said, breaking in. “There was some trouble, you said.”

  “Trouble, no. An overreaction. Some workers left the job. This happens all the time. And you know they are always found. No need to sound the alarms. Bah. And there I am, on those roads at night because some fool panicked.”

  “They just walked away?”

  “A truck, apparently.”

  “And they can’t do that?”

  “At the end of their contract, yes,” Sasha said, slurring a little. “A man has to live up to his contract. Anyway, these were POWs. For them it’s not a question of choice.”

  For a moment no one said anything, as if Sasha had committed some impropriety, broken a delicate vase.

  “POWs,” Irene said finally. “Germans, you mean. Do you know who they are? The runaways.” The word somehow making it a lesser violation.

  Sasha shrugged. “Somebody must. They have lists. So they find them. But meanwhile it makes trouble for everybody—the morale, you know? And what can one do? The work has to be done. For the uranium.”

  “Sasha,” Ivan said, putting his finger to his lips.

  “I read about that,” Alex said quickly. “The mines in the Erzgebirge.”

  “Yes, that’s right. The Erzgebirge. It’s not a secret,” Sasha said, looking at Ivan.

  “Well, half a secret,” Alex said. “The area’s cordoned off. That’s what they say anyway.”

  Sasha nodded, a little bleary. “We had to do it. The Americans were offering people jobs, more money. They send agents to the villages, to recruit the best workers. It’s a distraction, something like this. When there are quotas to fill.”

  “And who fills them?” Ivan said. “Every time? Who gets Moscow?”

  “It’s high grade?” Alex said as they drank again. “Good enough to make a bomb?” Trying it.

  “Of course we’ll make a bomb,” Sasha said, answering a different question. “They think we won’t catch up, but we will. What should we do? Let them destroy us? No. There’s nothing more important than this,” he said, leaning forward, confiding. “That’s why I was promoted. I gave them what they wanted. Every quota. High grade? So we have to make it higher. But we’ll do it. Some worker doesn’t like it—what, the work is too hard? Some Fascist who tried to destroy us? We should be soft with him?”

  Irene looked up, watching him.

  “People complain? So complain. Nothing is more important than this. Our future. Our safety—” He stopped, aware that his voice was getting louder. “Nothing,” he said quietly. “What’s a few workers when this is at stake?”

  “But we’re a society of workers,” Alex said, just to see how he would respond.

  For a second, a delayed reaction, Sasha just blinked, then slammed his hand on the table. “Fine. Then let them work. Not shirk. For that, no excuse.”

 
; “You have to admit,” Ivan said drunkenly, “a worker should work.”

  Sasha started to laugh. “But they don’t. You have to make them. Sometimes a carrot, sometimes a stick.”

  “A stick,” Ivan said, nodding.

  “I’ll be right back,” Irene said, standing up abruptly. “The ladies’.”

  “She’s upset,” Ivan said, watching her make her way through the crowded tables. “She’s upset you’re leaving.” A playful punch to Sasha’s arm. “Don’t you see that? Such an oaf not to see that. Talking about workers. Talk about her. That’s what they like.”

  “I know what they like,” Sasha said.

  “To women,” Ivan said, clinking his glass against Alex’s. “You’re married?”

  “Divorced.”

  “Yes? You were seeing other women?” The only logical explanation.

  “I came home—here. She stayed in America.”

  “That’s right, Irene said you went over there. And now back. Maybe you want to offer my workers jobs too? Did they send you here to do that?”

  Ivan thought this was funny. “That’s it, take Sasha’s workers. Now that he’s going to Moscow.”

  “Don’t worry, they’re safe. I wouldn’t know who to ask. I’ve never been in a mine.”

  “They don’t want the miners,” Ivan said. “They’re nothing. Muzhiks. They want the scientists.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about that either.” He turned his hands up, empty.

  “You think Sasha knows? Numbers for the quotas, that’s all. What more do you have to know? Remember at Leuna?” he said to Sasha. “The heavy water? Sasha doesn’t know, he thinks it means it’s heavier to carry. You should have seen the look on their faces. The big boss, and he doesn’t know what it means. So they try to explain and who knows what they’re talking about? Remember? Protons, neutrons—Greek.”

  “Oh, and you knew. A scientific expert. You understand everything.”

  “No, it was Greek to me too,” Ivan said good-naturedly. “Deuterium,” he said slowly, a careful pronunciation. “So what does it mean? Who knows? It goes right over your head.”

  “Make sure it stays there,” Sasha said, a stern look. “Then it doesn’t go to the tongue.”