A Good German

by Joseph Kanon

  “No.” It might have been nice.

  “Just old Shaeffer, huh? You saved the wrong one, if you ask me.”

  “She was already dead.”

  Ron shook his head. “Fucking Dodge City. Nobody’s safe out there.”

  Jake thought of Gunther, reading westerns, going through his points. “So we fire the police,” he said.

  “We’re the police,” Ron said, looking at him curiously. “Anyway, what difference would it make?” He turned to go. “You never know, do you? When your number’s up, that’s it.”

  “That wasn’t it. Somebody shot her.”

  “Well, sure,” Ron said, then turned back. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying somebody shot her. Not an accident.”

  Ron peered at him. “Are you all right? There were only about a hundred witnesses, you know.”

  “They’re wrong.”

  “Everyone but you. Then who did it?”

  “What?”

  “Who did it? Somebody shoots, not an accident, it’s the first thing I’d want to know.”

  Jake stared. “You’re right. Who was he?”

  “Some Russian,” Ron said, at a loss.

  “Nobody’s just some Russian. Who was he?” he said to himself, then gathered up the photographs to leave. “Thanks.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To see a policeman. A real one.”

  But it was Bernie who answered the door in Kreuzberg.

  “You picked a fine time. Come on, as long as you’re here. We have to get him on his feet.”

  Jake looked around the room-the same messy hodgepodge as before, everything smelling of fresh coffee. Gunther was bent over a mug, breathing in the steam, head nodding, the map of Berlin behind him.

  “What’s up?”

  “The trial. He’s in the witness box in an hour, so what does he do? Goes on a bender. I get here, he’s on the fucking floor.”

  “What trial?”

  “Your pal Renate. The greifer. Today’s the day. Here, help me get him up.”

  “Herr Geismar,” Gunther said, looking up from the mug, eyes bleary.

  “Drink the coffee,” Bernie snapped. “All these weeks and now he pulls this.” Gunther was rising unsteadily. “Think you can manage a shave, or should we do it for you?”

  “I can shave myself,” Gunther said stiffly.

  “What about clothes?” Bernie said. “You can’t go looking like that.” A dirty undershirt marked with stains.

  Gunther nodded toward the closet, then turned to Jake. “So how goes your case? I thought you had given up.”

  “No. I’ve got lots to tell you.”

  “Good,” Bernie said. “Talk to him. Maybe that’ll wake him up.” He opened the closet and pulled out a dark suit. “This fit?”

  “Of course.”

  “It better. You’re going to make a good impression if I have to hold you up.”

  “It’s so important to you?” Gunther said, his voice distant.

  “She sent your wife to the ovens. Isn’t it important to you?”

  Gunther looked down and took another sip of coffee. “So what is it you want, Herr Geismar?”

  “I need you to talk to your Russian friends. Find out about somebody. There was a shooting in Potsdam.”

  “Always Potsdam,” Gunther said, a grunt.

  “A Russian shot a friend of mine. I want to know who he is. Was.” Gunther raised his eyes. “Somebody shot back.”

  “His name isn’t on the report?” Gunther said, a cop’s question.

  “Not just his name. Who he was.”

  “Ah, the who,” Gunther said, drinking more coffee. “So, another case.”

  The same case.

  “The same?” Bernie said, following the conversation from the closet. “They said it was an accident. A robbery. It was in the papers.”

  “It wasn’t a robbery,” Jake said. “I was there. It was a setup.” He looked at Gunther. “The shooting was the point. They just happened to get the wrong person.”

  “That was your friend.”

  Jake nodded. “The man they wanted took one in the shoulder.”

  “Not a sharpshooter, then,” Gunther said, using the western term.

  “It’s easy to miss in a crowd. You know what the market’s like. All hell broke loose. Shooting all over the place. Ask your friend Sikorsky.”

  Gunther looked up from his coffee. “He was in the market? In Potsdam?”

  Jake smiled. “Peddling cigarettes. Maybe he was buying a rug, I don’t know. He got out fast enough when the shooting started, just like everybody else.”

  “Then he didn’t see the first shots.”

  “I saw them.”

  “Go on,” Gunther said.

  “Talk while you shave,” Bernie said, nudging him toward the bathroom. “I’ll get more coffee.”

  Gunther shuffled to the sink, obedient, and stood for a minute in front of the mirror looking at himself, then started to lather his face with a brush. Jake sat on the edge of the tub.

  “Don’t be long,” Bernie said from the other room. “We have to go over your testimony one last time.”

  “We’ve been over my testimony,” Gunther said to the mirror grimly, his grizzled face slowly disappearing under a film of soap.

  “You don’t want to forget anything.”

  “Don’t worry,” Gunther said, to himself now, leaning on the sink. “I won’t forget.”

  He picked up a straight-edge razor, his hand shaking.

  “Are you going to be all right?” Jake said quietly. “Do you want me to do that?”

  “You think I might hurt myself? No.” He held up the razor, looking at it. “Do you know how many times I’ve thought how easy it would be? One cut, that’s all, and it’s over.” He shook his head. “I could never do it. I don’t know why. I tried. I put the razor here,” he said, touching his throat, “but I couldn’t cut. You think it would cut me now? An accident?” He turned sideways to look at Jake. “I don’t believe in accidents.” He faced the mirror again. “So tell me about our case.”

  Jake shifted on the tub rim, disconcerted. Not the drink talking, the voice behind the drink, suddenly naked, not even aware of being exposed, like someone in a window taking off his clothes. What goes through your head when you feel a razor on your throat? But now it was there again, taking a calm, neat stroke upward through the soap, guided by a survivor’s steady hand.

  Jake started to talk, his words following the rhythmic scraping, trying to match the logical path of the shave, down one cheek, curving around the corners of the mouth, but soon the story went off on its own, darting from one place to another, the way it had actually happened. There was a lot Gunther didn’t know. The serial-number dash. Kransberg. Frau Dzuris. Even young Willi, loitering in Professor Brandt’s street. At times Jake thought Gunther had stopped listening, stretching his skin to draw the razor closer without nicking, but then he would grunt and Jake knew he was registering the points, his mind clearing with each swipe of his soapy face.

  Bernie came in with more coffee and stayed, leaning against the door and watching Gunther’s expression in the mirror, for once not interrupting. A Russian kneeling in front of a Horch, gun out. Meister Toll. Gunther rinsed the blade and splashed his face clean.

  “Is this presentable enough for you?” he said to Bernie.

  “Just like new. Here’s a shirt,” he said, handing it over.

  “So what do you think?” Jake said.

  “Everything’s mixed up,” Gunther said absently, wiping his face.

  “I’ve confused you.”

  “It’s more, I think, that you have confused yourself.”

  Jake looked at him.

  “Herr Geismar, you cannot do police work by intuition. Follow the points, like a bookkeeper. You have two problems, so you make two columns. Keep them separate, don’t leap from column to column.”

  “But they connect.”

  “Only at Krans
berg. Who knows? Maybe the one coincidence. The obvious point, you know, is that Tully wasn’t looking for Herr Brandt. The others, yes. Not him.” He shook his head, slipping into the shirt. “No, put your numbers down in order, each in its own column. It is only when the same number comes up that you have a match, the connection.”

  “Maybe they connect at Potsdam. That keeps coming up.”

  “Yes, and why?” Gunther said, buttoning the shirt. “I’ve never understood about Potsdam. What was he doing there? And that day, a closed city.”

  “You asked me to check on that,” Bernie said. “Passes into the American compound. Zero. No Tully.”

  “But he was found there,” Jake said. “Russian sector, Russian money.”

  “Yes, the money. It’s a useful point.” Gunther picked up the coffee cup again, drinking. “If he got Russian money, it must have been here. But not from an Ivan buying watches, I think. Who has so much? Have you heard anything from Alford?” No.

  “Try again. The tie also?” he said to Bernie.

  “You want to look your best for the judge,” Bernie said.

  Jake sighed, stymied. “Danny won’t get us anywhere. We have to find Emil.“

  Gunther turned to the mirror, slipping the tie underneath his collar. “Keep your columns separate. There isn’t yet the connection.”

  “And I suppose the shooting in Potsdam wasn’t connected either.”

  “No. There a number matches.”

  “Shaeffer, you mean.”

  “Herr Geismar, you have a gift for ignoring the obvious. A gift.” He leaned toward the mirror, knotting his tie. “There are three people standing in the market. Close. When you describe it, you see a gun pointing at the photographer. But I see her bending down. I see it pointing at you.”

  For a second Jake just stared at Gunther, the sharp eyes no longer cloudy, now cleared by caffeine. “Me?” he said, little more than a surprised intake of air.

  “A man who finds a body, who investigates a murder. Do you mean this hasn’t occurred to you? Who else? A soldier, for raiding the Zeiss works? Perhaps. The lady? And it might be, you know-you’re quick to look away from her. The person shot is usually the one intended. But let’s say this time you’re right, a piece of luck. Luck for you.”

  Stepping into his bullet, dead because he was lucky.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “When did you first see the Horch? On the Avus, you said. Soon after you left Gelferstrasse.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. Try this point. Nobody started shooting until we met Shaeffer.”

  “Away from the crowd. And if you had both been shot? An incident. No longer just you.”

  “But why—”

  “Because you are dangerous to someone, of course. A detective is.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Jake said, his voice less sure than before.

  Gunther picked up a hairbrush and ran it back over his temples. “Have it your way. But I suggest you move. If they know Gelferstrasse, they may know the other. I take it this is where the lady friend lives, the good Lena? It’s one thing to put yourself in danger—”

  Jake cut him off. “Do you really believe this?”

  Gunther shrugged. “A precaution.”

  “Why should Lena be in any danger?”

  “Why was a Russian looking for her? You didn’t find it interesting, that point? The Russian at Professor Brandt’s asks for her, not for the son.”

  “To find the son,” Jake said, watching Gunther’s face.

  “Then why not ask for him?”

  “All right, why not? Another obvious point?”

  Gunther shook his head. “More a possibility. But it suggests itself.” He looked up at Jake. “They already know where he is.”

  Jake said nothing, waiting for more, but Gunther turned away, taking the coffee cup with him into the other room. “Is it time?” he said to Bernie.

  “You sober? Hold out your hands.”

  Gunther stretched one arm out-a mild trembling. “So I’m on trial now,” he said.

  “We want a credible witness, not a drunk.”

  “I’m a policeman. I’ve been in a courtroom before.”

  “Not this kind.”

  Jake had followed them, brooding. “That doesn’t make sense,” he said to Gunther.

  “Not yet. As I say, a possibility.” He put down the cup. “But I would move her. I would hide her.”

  Jake glanced at him, disturbed. “I still want to talk to Shaeffer,” he said. “He’s the one they shot. And he couldn’t wait to get out of there. Even wounded, it’s all he cared about.” He paused. “Anyway, where could we go? It’s not easy to move in Berlin.”

  “No. Unless you have to. I moved Marthe fourteen times,” Gunther said, looking down at the floor. “Fourteen. I remember every time. You don’t forget. Guntzelstrasse. Blucherstrasse. Every time. Will they ask me about that?” he said to Bernie.

  “No,” Bernie said, “just the last time.”

  “With the greifer,” he said, nodding. “A coffee. We thought it was safe. She had papers. Safe.”

  Jake looked at him, surprised. A U-boat trail, Gunther helping. “I thought you divorced her,” he said.

  “She divorced me. It was better.” He looked up. “You think I abandoned her? Marthe? She was my wife. I did what I could. Flats. Papers. For a policeman, not so difficult. But not enough. The greifer saw her. By chance, just like that. So it was all for nothing. Every move.“ He stopped and turned to Bernie. ”Forgive me, I’m not myself.“

  “You going to be sick?”

  Gunther smiled weakly. “Not sick. A little—” His voice trailed off, suddenly frail. “Perhaps one drink. For the nerves.”

  “Nothing doing,” Bernie said.

  But Jake glanced at him, his body shrunken in the old suit, eyes uneasy, and walked over to the table and poured out a finger of brandy. Gunther drank it back in one gulp, like medicine, then stood for a second letting it work its way through him.

  “Don’t worry,” he said to Bernie. “I won’t forget anything.”

  “Let’s hope not.” He reached into his pockets and pulled out a mint. “Here, chew this. The Russians’U smell it on you a mile off.”

  “The Russians?” Jake said.

  “It’s a Russian trial. To show us they can do it too, not just string people up. Especially when we help catch them. Come on, we’ll be late.”

  “Can I get in? I’d like to see this. See Renate.”

  “The press slots were gone days ago. Everybody wants to see this one.”

  Jake looked at him, feeling like Gunther asking for a drink.

  “All right,” Bernie said. “We’ll put you on the prosecution team. You can keep an eye on our friend here. Which is getting to be a job.” He glanced at Gunther. “No more.”

  Gunther handed the glass back to Jake. “Thank you.” And then, as a kind of return favor, “I’ll talk to Willi for you.”

  “Willi?”

  “It’s a type I know well. He’ll talk to me.”

  “I mean, why him?” Jake said, intrigued to see Gunther still working, behind everything.

  “To keep the figures neat. The little details. What’s the English? Dot the i’s and cross the t’s.”

  “Still a cop.”

  Gunther shrugged. “It pays to be neat. Not overlook anything.”

  “What else did I overlook?”

  “Not overlook-ignore, perhaps. Sometimes when it’s not pleasant, we don’t want to see.”

  “Such as?” “The car.”

  “The Horch again? What’s so important about the Horch?” “No, Herr Brandt’s car. That week-to drive into Berlin, how was it possible? The city was burning, at war. And yet he comes to get his wife. How was that allowed?” “It was an SS car.”

  “Yes, his. You think the SS was offering lifts? While the city was falling? Either he was one of them or he was their prisoner. But they stop to collect the father, so not a prisoner. One of t
hem. A mission for the SS-what kind? Even the SS didn’t send cars for relatives those last days.”

  “His father said they were picking up files.” “And they risk coming to Berlin. What files, I wonder.” “That’s easy to find out,” Bernie said. “They surrendered in the west. There’ll be a record somewhere. One thing we’ve got plenty of is files.”

  “More folders,” Gunther said, looking at the stack Bernie had brought with him for the trial. “For all the bad Germans. Let’s see what they say about Herr Brandt.”

  “What makes you think he’s in them?” Jake said. “What do you save when a city’s on fire? You save yourself.” “He was trying to save his wife.”

  “But he didn’t,” Gunther said, then looked away, somewhere else. “Of course, sometimes it’s not possible.” He picked up his jacket and put it on, ready to go. “That last week-you weren’t here. Fires. Russians in the streets. We thought it was the end of the world.” He looked back at Jake. “But it wasn’t. Now there’s this. The reckoning.”

  The courtroom had an improvised look to it, as if the Russians had set up a stage without knowing where the props went. Their de-Nazification program had run to group executions, not trials, but the greifer was a special case, so they’d taken over a room near the old police headquarters in the Alex, built a raised platform of raw wooden boards for the judges’ bench, and assigned the press haphazard rows of folding chairs that squeaked and scraped the floor as reporters leaned forward to hear. The prosecution attorneys and their Allied advisers were crammed together at one table, a lopsided stacking of cards against the defense lawyer and his one assistant, who sat by themselves at another. Along the wall, female Soviet soldiers made transcripts with steno machines, handing them to two civilian girls for translation.

  The trial was in German, but the judges, three senior officers shuffling papers and trying not to look bored, evidently understood only a little, so the lawyers, also in uniform, occasionally switched to Russian, afraid to let their points drift away to the steno keys unheard. There was a heavy chair for witnesses, a Soviet flag, and not much else. It was the format of an inquisition, starker even than the rough-and-ready frontier courtrooms of Karl May, not a robe in sight. People were frisked at the door.

  Renate stood behind a cagelike railing of new plywood next to the bench, facing the room, as if her expression during the testimony would be recorded as a kind of evidence. Behind her stood two soldiers with machine guns, gazing stolidly at her back. Bernie said she had changed, but she was recognizably the same-thinner, with the hollowed-out look you saw everywhere in Berlin, but still Renate. Only her dark hair was different, cropped close and turned a premature, indeterminate pale. She was dressed in a loose gray prison shift, belted, her collarbones sticking out, and the face he remembered as pretty and animated seemed rearranged-beaten, perhaps, or somehow disfigured by her life. But there were the eyes, sharp and knowing, glancing defiantly around the crowd as if she were even now looking for news items. The same way, Jake thought, she must have hunted for Jews.