The Good German

by Joseph Kanon

  “Well, here’s a sorry sight.” Tommy Ottinger, from Mutual, extended his hand. “When did you blow in?”

  “Hey, Tommy.” Even balder than before, as if all his hair had migrated down to the trademark bushy mustache.

  “I didn’t know you were here. You back with Murrow?”

  Jake sat down, nodding hello across the table to the congressman, sitting between Ron, clearly on caretaking duty, and a middle-aged MG officer who looked exactly like Lewis Stone as Judge Hardy.

  “No broadcasting, Tommy. Just a hack.”

  “Yeah? Whose nickel?”

  “Collier’s.”

  “Oh,” Tommy said, drawling it, pretending to be impressed, “in depth. Good luck. You see the agenda? Reparations. You could nod off just thinking about it. So what do you know?”

  “Not much. I just got in. Took a ride through the city, that’s all.”

  “You see Truman? He went in this afternoon.”

  “No. I saw Churchill, though.”

  “I can’t use Churchill. They want Truman—how’s he doing? I mean, how the fuck do I know? He hasn’t done anything yet.”

  Jake grinned at him. “Make something up. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  The serving man placed the soup in front of him, looking surprised when Jake thanked him in German.

  “You know what he said today? In Berlin? ‘This is what happens when a man overreaches himself.’”

  Jake thought of the miles of debris, reduced to the lesson for the day. “Who’s your source? Jimmy Byrnes?”

  “Sounds just like Truman, don’t you think?”

  “It will, if you use it.”

  “Got to fill the air somehow. You remember.”

  “The old graveyard shift.” The 2 A.M. broadcasts, timed for the evening news back home.

  “Worse. They kept Berlin on Russian time, so it’s even later.” He took a drink, shaking his head. “The Russians—” He turned to Jake, suddenly earnest, as if he were confiding a secret. “They just went all to hell here. Raped everything that moved. Old women. Children. You wouldn’t believe the stories.”

  “No,” Jake said, thinking of the bayoneted chairs.

  “Now they want reparations,” Tommy said, rolling his deep radio voice. “I don’t know what they think’s left. They’ve already grabbed everything that wasn’t nailed down. Took it all apart and shipped it home. Everything—factories, pipes, toilets, for Christ’s sake. Of course, once they got it there they didn’t know how to put it back together, so I hear it’s all sitting on the trains, going to rust. Useless.”

  “There’s your story.”

  “They don’t want that either. Let’s not make fun of the Russians. We have to get along with them. You know. They’re touchy bastards.”

  “So what do they want?”

  “Truman. The poker game. Who’s a better player, him or Uncle Joe? Potsdam poker,” he said, trying it. “That’s not bad.”

  “And we’re holding the cards.”

  Tommy shrugged. “We want to go home and they want to stay. That’s a pretty good card.”

  The serving man, hovering in a frayed suit, replaced the soup with a gray stew. Salty, probably lamb.

  Tommy picked at it, then pushed it away and took another drink. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet. I thought I’d look up some people I used to know, see what happened to them.”

  “Hearts-and-flowers stuff.”

  Jake spread his hands, not wanting to be drawn in. “The poker game then, I guess.”

  “In other words, sit around with the rest of us and do what Ron here says,” he said, raising his voice. “Right?”

  “If you say so, Tommy,” Ron said, shooting him a wary look across the table.

  “Handouts. We can’t even get near the place. Stalin’s afraid somebody’s going to take a potshot at him. That it, Ron?”

  “I’d say he’s more afraid of being quoted out of context.”

  “Now, who’d do a thing like that? Would you do that, Jake?”

  “Never.”

  “I can’t say I blame him,” the congressman said, smiling. “I’ve had a little experience in that department myself.” His manner was looser now, a campaign geniality, and Jake wondered for a second if the stiffness on the plane had been nothing more than fear of flying, better hidden than the young soldier’s. His wide tie, a dizzying paisley, was like a flash of neon at the uniformed table.

  “You’re Alan Breimer, aren’t you?” Tommy said.

  “That’s right,” he said, nodding, pleased to be recognized.

  “War Production Board,” Tommy said, a memory display. “We met when I covered the trust hearings in ’thirty-eight.”

  “Oh yes,” said Breimer, who clearly didn’t remember.

  “What brings you to Berlin?” Tommy said, so smoothly that Jake saw he was working, the line to Ron only a way of reeling Breimer in.

  “Just a little fact-finding for my committee.”

  “In Berlin?”

  “The congressman’s been looking at conditions all over the zone,” Ron said, stepping in. “Technically, that includes us too.”

  “Why not Berlin?” Breimer said to Tommy, curious.

  “Well, industrial capacity’s your field. Not much of that left here.”

  “Not much of that anywhere in our zone,” Breimer said, trying for a backroom heartiness. “You know what they say—the Russians got the food, the British got the factories, and we got the scenery. I suppose we have Yalta to thank for that too.” He looked at Tommy, expecting a response, then switched gears. “Anyway, I’m not here to see factories, just our MG officials. We’ve got General Clay tomorrow, right, lieutenant?”

  “Bright and early,” Ron said.

  “You’ll want to see Blaustein over in Economics,” Tommy said, as if he were helping to fill the schedule. “Remember him? He was the lawyer from Justice at the trust hearing.”

  “I remember Mr. Blaustein.”

  “On the other hand, you weren’t exactly best friends.”

  “He had his ideas, I had mine,” Breimer said easily. “What is he doing here?”

  “Same idea. Decartelization. One of the four Ds.”

  “Four Ds?” Jake said.

  “Military Government policy for Germany,” Ron said in his briefing voice. “Demilitarization, de-Nazification, decartelization, and democracy.”

  “And the least of these shall be decartelization. Isn’t that right, congressman?” Tommy said.

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  “American Dye and Chemical’s in your district. I seem to remember they held the North American Farben patents. I thought maybe you’d come over to see—”

  He waited for Breimer to take the bait, but the congressman just sighed. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. Same one Mr. Blaustein kept barking up.” He shook his head. “The more successful a business became, the more he wanted to tear it down. I never did understand that.” He looked straight at Tommy. “American Dye’s just one business in the district, just one.”

  “But the only one with a German partner.”

  “That was before the war, Mr.—? Who did you say you were with?”

  “Tom Ottinger. Mutual. Don’t worry, we’re off the record.”

  “We can be on the record for all I care. I’m not here for American Dye or anyone else. Just the American people.”

  Tommy grinned. “Now that makes me homesick. You forget people talk like that in Washington.”

  “I’m glad you find us so funny.” He turned to Ron. “Well, I can see I’m not winning any votes here,” he said, an unexpectedly graceful exit. Then, unable to resist, he turned back to Tommy. “You know, it’s easy to attack business. I’ve heard it all my life, usually from people who don’t know the first thing about it. Maybe we ought to keep in mind that those companies, the ones you want to break up, won the war for us.”

  “They almost won it here t
oo. Now they’re war criminals. I wonder where the boys at American Dye would be if things had gone the other way.”

  “That’s a hell of a thing for an American to say.”

  Tommy raised his glass. “But you’d defend to your death my right to say it.” He took in Breimer’s blank expression. “Oliver Wendell Holmes. Another troublemaker in the Justice Department.”

  “No, Voltaire,” the Judge Hardy lookalike said mildly, the first time he’d spoken. “If he said it. He was probably misquoted too.” A sly smile at Tommy.

  “Well, somebody said it,” Tommy said. “Anyway, it’s the right idea. Don’t you think?” he said to Breimer, his glass still raised.

  Breimer stared at him for a moment, a politician assessing a heckler, then lifted his glass with a forced smile. “I certainly do. To the Justice Department. And to the gentlemen of the press.”

  “Bless their little hearts,” Ron said.

  They drank, then Breimer turned back to Ron, placing his fleshy hand on a paper on the table. “But Clay’s a direct report to Ike,” he said, as if they had never been interrupted.

  “That’s right,” Ron said quickly, before Tommy could jump in again. “The army’s here as support, but Military Government reports in to Ike. Technically, to the Allied Control Council. That’s Ike, Ismay, and Zhukov. We’re USGCC, U.S. Group, Control Council.”

  He was drawing boxes on the paper, an organization chart.

  “Control Council’s the final authority for the country, at least for the sign-off, but the real work’s here, in the Coordinating Committee. That’s Clay, as Ike’s deputy, and the other Allied deputies. Under Clay you’ve got your executive staff line, like Colonel Muller here,” he said, turning to Judge Hardy, who nodded.

  “Nice to put a face on a box,” Breimer said eagerly, but Ron was already moving down the sheet.

  “Then the functional offices—Political Affairs, Intelligence, Information Control, and so on.”

  Jake watched the lines and boxes spread across the bottom of the page, a kind of bureaucratic family tree.

  “The functional divisions down here are the ones that work with the Germans—Transport, Manpower, Legal, and so on.”

  Breimer was studying the chart with care, familiar with the world as a pyramid of boxes. “Where does Frankfurt come in?”

  “Well, that’s USFET, G-5, civil affairs.”

  “USFET. The army’s got more damned alphabet soup than the New Deal,” Breimer said, evidently his idea of a joke, because he looked up.

  Ron smiled obligingly.

  “In other words, overlap,” Breimer said.

  Ron smiled again. “That I couldn’t say.”

  “No, you don’t have to.” He shook his head. “If we ran a business this way, we’d never make any money.”

  “We’re not here to make money,” Muller said quietly.

  “No, to spend it,” Breimer said, but pleasantly. “From the looks of things, we’ve got a whole country on relief and the American taxpayer footing the bill. Some peace.”

  “We can’t let them starve.”

  “Nobody’s starving that I can see.”

  Muller turned to face him, his expression grave and kindly, Judge Hardy lecturing Andy. “The official ration is fifteen hundred calories a day. In practice, it’s closer to twelve hundred, sometimes lower. That’s only a little better than the camps. They’re starving.” His voice, as precise and rational as one of Ron’s boxes, stopped Breimer short. “Unless they work for us,” he went on calmly. “Then they get a hot meal every day and all the cigarette butts they can scrounge.” He paused. “They’re the ones you see.”

  Jake glanced over at the serving man, quietly removing plates, and noticed for the first time his thin neck bobbing in its oversized collar.

  “Nobody wants anybody to starve,” Breimer said. “I’m not a hard peace man. That’s that nut Morgenthau in Treasury.” He glanced over at Tommy. “One of your trust-busters, by the way. Wants to make ’em all farmers, take the whole damn thing apart. Dumbest thing I ever heard. Of course, those people have their own agenda.”

  “What people?” Tommy said, but Breimer ignored him, sweeping along.

  “I’m a realist. What we need to do is get this country back on its feet again, not put ’em on relief. Now, I’m not saying you people aren’t doing a fine job here.” This to Muller, who nodded dutifully. “I’ve been in Germany two weeks and I can tell you I’ve never been prouder to be an American. The things I’ve seen—But hell, look at this.” He pointed to the chart. “You can’t do much when you’re spread this thin on the ground. One group here, another in Frankfurt—”

  “I believe it’s General Clay’s intention to combine the organizations,” Ron said.

  “Good,” Breimer said, annoyed at being interrupted. “That’s a start. And here’s a whole other group just for Berlin.”

  “Well, you know, the city’s jointly administered, so there’s no way around that,” Ron said, still on his chart. “The Coordinating Committee set up the Kommandatura to deal with Berlin. That’s Howley—we see him tomorrow after Clay.”

  “Kommandatura,” Breimer said. “That the Russian name?”

  “More international than Russian, I think,” Ron said, evading. “Everyone agreed to it.”

  Breimer snorted. “The Russians. I’ll tell you one thing. We don’t get these people back on their feet, the Russians’ll come in, that’s for sure.”

  “Well, that’s one way to stop the drain on the American taxpayer,” Tommy said. “Let Ivan pick up the tab.”

  Breimer glowered at him. “That’s not all he’ll pick up. Well, have your fun, have your fun,” he said, sitting back. “I suppose I’m making speeches again and ruining the party. My wife’s always telling me I don’t know when to stop.” He gave a calculated smile, meant to disarm. “It’s just, you know, I hate to see waste. That’s one thing you learn in business.” He glanced again at Tommy. “To be a realist.” He shook his head. “Four Ds. We ought to be putting these people to work, not giving them handouts and breaking up their companies and wasting our time looking for Nazis under every bed.”

  A plate crashed, like a punctuation mark, and everyone turned to the door. The old man, distraught, was looking at the floor, held at the elbow by the short, wiry American who had just bumped into him. For a second no one moved, suspended in a stopped piece of film, then the reel caught again and they tumbled forward into a kind of slapstick, the gray-haired woman rushing out, hands to her cheeks, the old man moaning, the American apologizing in German. When he bent down to help with the pieces, the files under his arm slid onto the floor in a heap of papers and broken crockery. More excited German, a fuss too elaborate, Jake thought, to be about a plate—the fear, perhaps, of losing a job with its one hot meal a day. Finally the woman shooed both men away from the china and, with a bow, pulled back a chair for the late arrival.

  “Sorry, gentlemen,” he said to the quiet room, busy stacking files on the table. He had a terrier’s sharp nose and nervous energy, his face covered with a dark five-o’clock shadow he hadn’t had time to shave. Even the air around him seemed to be running late, his tie loosened from its open collar by the same hurried gust.

  “Congressman, your three o’clock tomorrow,” Ron said wryly. “Captain Teitel, Public Safety Division. Bernie, Congressman Breimer.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Teitel said quickly, extending his hand and almost colliding again with a plate of stew the serving man had brought. Jake watched, amused, as the old man hesitated behind him, waiting for a safe opening.

  “Public Safety,” Breimer said. “That’s police?”

  “Among other things. I’m de-Nazification—the guy wasting our time looking under the beds,” Teitel said.

  “Ah,” Breimer said, unsure how to proceed. Then he stood.

  “No, don’t get up.”

  Breimer smiled, pointing to the tall soldier standing at the door. “My ride.”

  But B
ernie wasn’t ready to let go. “Frankfurt tells me you have a problem with the program,” he said, lowering his head as if preparing to ram.

  Breimer looked down at him, ready for another heckler, but Tommy had wearied him. “No problem,” he said, mollifying. “Just a few questions. I’m sure you’re all doing a fine job.”

  “We’d be doing a better one if we had more staff.”

  Breimer smiled. “That seems to be the general complaint here. Everybody I meet wants another secretary.”

  “I don’t mean secretaries. Trained investigators.”

  The old man now slid the plate between them onto the table and backed away, as if sensing that they were squaring off.

  “Well, we’ll talk about that tomorrow,” Breimer said, preparing to go. “I’m here to learn. Afraid I can’t do anything about personnel, though—that’s up to MG.”

  “I thought you were writing some kind of report.”

  Breimer held up a wait-a-second finger to his driver. “No. Just making sure we’re keeping our priorities straight.”

  “This is a priority.”

  Breimer smiled again, back on familiar ground. “Well, that’s what every department says. But you know, we can’t do everything.” He indicated the organization chart. “Sometimes I think we let our good intentions run away with us.” He put his hand on Bernie’s shoulder, an uncle giving advice. “We can’t put a whole country on trial.”

  “No, just the guilty ones,” Bernie said, looking at him steadily.

  Breimer dropped his hand, the easy get-away lost. “That’s right, just the guilty ones.” He looked back at Bernie. “We don’t want to start some kind of inquisition over here. The American people don’t want that.”

  “Really? What do we want?” Bernie said, using the pronoun as a jab.

  Breimer stepped back. “I think we all want the same thing,” he said evenly. “To get this country going again. That’s the important thing now. You can’t do that by locking everybody up. The worst cases, yes. Get the big boys and put them on trial—I’m all for it. But then we’ve got to move on, not chase all the small fry.” He paused, avuncular again. “We don’t want people to think a minority is using this program to get revenge.” He shook his head. “We don’t want that.”