by Joseph Kanon
“No, you don’t understand. I’ll send somebody for him. I can’t take him today.”
“What do you mean? She’s not dead, is she?”
“No.”
“Then he goes now. I’m going to my sister. You think I’m staying here, with the Russians? I’ll give her one more week, I said, and then- But anyway, here you are, so it’s all right. Come. I won’t be a minute. There’s not much. Get me clothing coupons, I told her, but did she? No, not her. She couldn’t come herself? She has to send an Ami? You can see how he’s frightened. Well, he never says much. Say hello, Erich. Ouf.” She waved her hand. “Well, he’s like that.”
The boy stared at him silently. Not fear, a numb curiosity, an animal waiting to see what would happen to him.
“But I can’t take him today.”
“Yes, today. I waited and waited. You can’t expect—” She began emptying a drawer, putting things in a string bag. “The war’s over, you know. What does she expect? Here. I told you, there’s not much.”
She handed him the bag, past arguing.
Jake pulled out his wallet again. “But I can’t-let me pay you something extra.”
“A gift? Well, that’s very nice,” she said, taking it. “So maybe she’s lucky now. You see, Erich, he’s all right. You’ll be fine. Come, give auntie a hug.”
She bent down, barely clasping him, an indifferent sendoff. How long had they been together? The boy stood, not moving. “Go on,” she said, giving him a little push. “Go to your mother.”
The boy jerked forward. Jake looked at her hand on the boy’s shoulder, stung, his heart dulled by every terrible thing he’d heard in Berlin and now moved finally by this, a single moment of casual cruelty. What had happened to everybody?
The boy took a step, looking down. Frau Metzger flicked through Jake’s bills, then shoved them in her apron pocket.
“That’s all you can say to him?” Jake said. “Just like that? He’s a child.”
“What do you know about it?” she said, eyes flashing. “I took care of him, didn’t I? While she had her good times. I earned every mark. And how long will you last, I wonder. Well, tell her not to come back when it’s over-the hotel is closed.” She had reached the door and held it open, then looked down at Erich with a twinge of embarrassment. “I did the best I could. You, you be a good boy, don’t forget. Don’t forget your auntie.”
And then they were in the hall, the door closing behind them, a soft click, maybe the only thing the boy wouldn’t forget, a click of the door. They stood motionless for a second, and then the boy lifted his hand, still not speaking, just waiting to be led away.
It was no better in the jeep. He sat quietly, passive, watching the streets go by, like the children from Silesia. Down the gentle slope of Schonhauserallee, then out past the pockmarked walls of the schloss to the Linden. Bicycles and soldiers. The plane wreckage in the Tiergarten. Registering everything without a word. He took Jake’s hand again on the walk from Savignyplatz.
“My god, who’s this?” Lena said.
“Another one for Fleischman. Erich.”
“But where did you—”
“He’s Renate’s child. You remember, from the office?”
“Renate? But I thought all the Jews—”
He stopped her. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you later. First let’s get him to the church.”
“First some food, I think,” she said, kneeling down. “Look how thin. You’re hungry? Don’t be afraid, it’s safe here. Do you like cheese?”
She led him over to the table and brought out a small block of rubbery PX cheese. The boy looked at it warily.
“It’s real,” Lena said. “That’s the color it is in America. Here, there’s still some bread. It’s all right-eat.”
He picked up the bread dutifully and took a nibble.
“So Erich, it’s a good name. I knew an Erich once. Dark hair, like yours.” She reached over and touched it. “It’s good, the bread? Here, try some more.” She broke off a piece and offered it to him by hand, gently, the way you would feed a stray. “See, I told you. Now some cheese.”
She fed him for a few minutes, until he began to eat on his own, taking in the food as quietly as the sights on the drive. She looked up at Jake. “Where is she?”
Jake shook his head, a not-in-front-of-the-child gesture. “He’s been living with a woman in Prenzlauer. I think he’s had a rough time. He doesn’t say much.”
“Well, it*s not so important, is it, to talk?” she said to the boy. “Sometimes I’m quiet too, when things are new. We’ll have something to eat, then maybe a little rest. You must be tired. All the way from Prenzlauer.”
The boy was nodding at her, reassured, Jake saw, by her German, familiar, without Jake’s accent.
“We should get him to Fleischman,” Jake said. “It’s getting late.”
“There’s plenty of time,” she said easily, then turned. “But if she’s alive- You’re taking him from his mother? To Fleischman?”
“I promised her I’d find a place. I’ll explain later,” he said, feeling the boy’s eyes on him.
Lena offered him another piece of cheese. “It’s good, yes? There’s more-take as much as you like. Then we’ll sleep, what do you say?” Her voice soft, lulling.
“Lena,” Jake said, “he can’t stay here. We can’t—”
“Yes, I know,” she said, not really hearing it. “But for one night. That basement. You can see how tired he is. It’s all strange for him. You know my name?” she said to the boy. “It’s Lena.” She yawned, an exaggerated gesture, raising her hand to her mouth. “Oh, I’m so tired too.”
“Lena,” Jake said. “You know what I mean.”
She looked at him. “Yes, I know. It’s just for tonight. What’s the matter with you? You can’t send him away like this. Look at his eyes. Men.”
But the eyes were still wide, not drooping, moving from one to the other as if he were making a decision. Finally he fixed them on Jake, got up, and came over to him, lifting his hand again. For a second, confused, Jake thought he was asking to leave, but then he spoke, surprisingly clear after the long silence.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” he said, holding out his hand.
Lena smiled, laughing softly to herself. “Well, you’re good for that,” she said as Jake led him, two men, to the toilet.
After that there was nothing to do but let her take charge, whatever he’d planned slipping away like a card move turned by an unexpected joker in the deck. From the table, he could see her settle the boy on the bed, running her hand over his forehead and talking softly, a low, steady stream of words. He lit a cigarette, restless, then glanced at his notebook. Renate being picked up in the cafe, an idle flirtation, the greifers greifer. The story Ron wanted him to share. He looked again into the bedroom, where Lena was still talking the boy to sleep, and, not knowing what else to do, started putting the notes in order to block out the story, wondering how to tell it without the one thing that had really mattered. But when he took a sheet of paper, it seemed to frame itself, opening with Marthe Behn, then dissolving to the first cafe and working its way back, one sinking twist after another, to the moment of the nod. Not an apologia; something more complicated, a crime story where everyone was guilty. He wrote in a rush, wanting to get it done, as if it would all go away once it was on paper, just words. The shoes, the mother, Hans Becker, trading favors. Still beyond belief. What had happened to everybody? A city where he used to drink beer under trees. How many had even looked up in the cafe when the men arrived? Not accomplices, people looking the other way. Except Renate, who still saw the faces.
He’d been writing for a while, lost in it, before he realized that the murmuring in the bedroom had stopped, the only sound in the flat the faint scratch of his pen. Lena was standing in the doorway watching him, a tired smile on her face.
“He’s asleep,” she said. “You’re working?”
“I wanted to get it done while it’s fresh
.”
“Sewing with a hot needle,” she said, a German expression. She sat down across from him, taking one of the cigarettes. “I don’t think he’s well. I want Rosen to look at him, just in case. I saw him again today- he’s always here, it seems.”
“He takes care of the girls.”
“Oh,” she said, a little flustered. “I didn’t realize. Still, a doctor—”
“Lena, we can’t keep him. You don’t want to get attached.”
“Yes, I know. But for one night—” She stopped, looking at him. “That’s the terrible part, isn’t it? Nobody’s attached to him. Nobody. I thought, standing over there, it’s a little like a family. You working like this, him sleeping.”
“We’re not his family,” he said, but gently.
“No,” she said, letting it go. “So tell me about Renate. What happened? He won’t hear now.”
“Here,” he said, moving the papers across the table. “It’s all there.”
He got up and went over to the brandy bottle and poured two glasses. He set hers down, but she ignored it, her eyes fixed on the page.
“She told you this?” she said, reading.
“Yes.”
“My god.” A slow turn of the page.
When she finished, she pushed the papers back, then took a sip from the glass.
“You don’t mention the child.”
“She doesn’t want anybody to know. Especially the child.”
“But nobody will know why she did it.”
“Does it matter, what people think? The fact is, she did it.”
“For the child. You do anything for your child.”
“That’s what she said,” he said, slightly jarred. “Lena, this is what she wanted. She doesn’t want him to know.”
“Who he is.”
“That would be a hell of a thing to carry around with you, wouldn’t it? All this,” he said, touching the paper. “He’s better off this way. He’ll never have to know any of it.”
“Not to know your parents—” she said, brooding.
“Sometimes it can’t be helped.”
She looked up at him, then put her hands on the table to get up. “Yes, sometimes,” she said, turning away. “Do you want something to eat? I can fix—”
“No. Sit. I have some news.” He paused. “Renate saw Emil. She told me where he is.”
She stopped, halfway out of her chair. “You waited to tell me this?”
“There wasn’t time, with the boy.”
She sat down. “So it’s come. Where?”
“The Russians are holding him in a building in Burgstrasse.”
“Burgstrasse,” she said, trying to place it.
“In the east. It’s guarded. I went to see it.”
“And?”
“And it’s guarded. You don’t just walk in.”
“So what do we do?”
“We don’t do anything. We let Shaeffer’s team handle it-they’re experts at this.”
“Experts at what?”
“Kidnapping. That’s what it will mean. The Russians aren’t going to hand him over-they probably won’t even admit they have him. So Shaeffer needs to figure out a way. He wanted to use you. Kind of a decoy.”
She looked down at the table, taking this in, then picked up the glass and finished her brandy.
“Yes, all right,” she said.
“All right what?”
“I’ll do it.”
“No, you won’t. People go to the Russians, they don’t always come back. I’m not taking that risk. This is a military operation, Lena.”
“We can’t leave him there. He came for me-he risked his life. I owe him this much.”
“You don’t owe him this.”
“But Russians—”
“I told you, I’ll talk to Shaeffer. If anybody can get him, he can. He wants him. He’s been waiting for this.”
“And you don’t, is that it? You don’t want him?”
“It’s not that simple.”
She reached over. “You can’t leave him there. Not with the Russians. I won’t.”
“A few weeks ago you thought he was dead.”
“But he’s not. So now it’s this. You were the detective, looking everywhere. So you found him. I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“It was.”
“But not now?”
“Not if it’s dangerous for you.”
“I’m not afraid of that. I want it to be over. What kind of life do you think it will be for us, knowing he’s there? With them. I want it to be over. Not this prison-you don’t even want me to leave the flat. Talk to your friend. Tell him I want to do it. I want to get him out.”
“So you can leave him? He won’t thank you for that.”
She lowered her head. “No, he won’t thank me for that. But he’ll be free.”
“And that’s the only reason?”
She looked over at him, then reached across, touching his face with her finger. “What a little boy you are. After everything that’s happened, to be jealous. Emil’s my family-it’s different, not the way it is with you. Don’t you know that?”
“I thought I did.”
“Thought. And then, like that, a schoolboy again. You remember Frau Hinkel?”
“Yes, two lines.”
“She said I had to choose. But I did. Even before the war. I chose you. How silly you are, not to know that.”
“I still don’t want you taking chances with Shaeffer.”
“Maybe that’s my choice too. Mine.”
He met her stare, then looked away. “Let me talk to him. Maybe he doesn’t need you anyway, now that we know where Emil is.”
“Then what?”
“Then we wait. We don’t go into the east. We don’t go to Burgstrasse. They’ll move him for sure if they think we know. And we don’t volunteer. Understand?”
“But you’ll tell me if they do want—”
He nodded, cutting her off, then snatched her hand. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Well, do you know something? Neither do I,” she said, making light of it, then rubbed his hand. “Not now.” She tilted her head, alert. “Was that him? Let me check.” She slid her hand away and hurried to the bedroom.
Jake sat watching her go, uneasy. Another bargain he shouldn’t have made. But nothing risky, whatever Shaeffer said. And then what? Three of them.
She came back into the room with her finger to her lips, half closing the door.
“He’s asleep, but restless. We’ll have to be quiet.”
“He’s going to stay in there?”
“We’ll move him later, when he’s really asleep.”
She came over to him and kissed his forehead, then began unbuttoning his shirt.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to see you. Not the uniform.”
“Lena, we have to talk about this.”
“No, we’ve already talked. It’s decided. Now we’re going to pretend-the children are asleep, but there’s the couch, if we’re quiet. Let’s see how quiet we can be.”
“You’re just trying to change the subject.”
“Ssh.” She kissed him. “Not a sound.”
He smiled at her. “Wait till you hear the couch.”
“Then we’ll go slowly. It’s nice slow.”
She was right. The quiet itself became exciting, each touch furtive, as if the creak of a spring would give them away. When he slipped inside her, he moved so slowly that it seemed something only they knew, a secret between them, betrayed by the gasp of breath in his ear. Then the gentle rocking, an endless, sweet tease, until finally it ended as it began, the same rhythm, so that not even the shuddering disturbed the room around them. She kept him in her afterward, stroking his back, and for a few minutes he felt no difference between making love and simply being there, the one drifting into the other.
But the couch was cramped and awkward, its lumps poking into the usual forgetting, the unconsciousness
of sex, and instead of drifting, his mind began to dart away. Had it been like this with them? Another couple using the couch so they wouldn’t wake their boy? Uncannily, as if he’d spoken, she reached up to touch his face.
“I chose you,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, kissing her, then withdrew and sat up next to her, restless. “Do you think he heard?”
She shook her head, dreamy. “Cover me. I just want to lie here for a minute. How can you get up?”
“I don’t know. Do you want a drink?” he said, going over to pour one.
“Look at you,” she said, watching him, then stirred, lifting herself up. “Jake? The boy-I noticed. I thought all the Jews-you know,” she said, nodding at his penis, as self-conscious as Renate had been, even lying there still wet with him.
“She didn’t have it done. She wanted him to be German.”
Lena sat up, troubled, holding the dress to cover herself. “She wanted that? Even after—”
He took a drink. “To protect him, Lena.”
“Yes,” she said dully, shaking her head. “My god, what it must have been like for her.”
He looked down at the story on the table with its missing piece. “You said it yourself-you do anything for your child.” He took the glass again, then stopped it halfway to his lips and put it down in a rush. “Of course.”
“Of course what?”
“Nothing,” he said, moving over to his clothes. “Something I just thought of.”
“Where are you going?” she said, watching him dress.
“I don’t know why I didn’t see it. A reporter’s supposed to know when something’s missing. You read the story and you can feel it’s not there.” He looked up, finally aware of her. “Just a hunch. I’ll be back.”
“At this hour?”
“Don’t wait up.” He bent over and kissed her forehead. “And don’t open the door.”
“But what—”
“Ssh, not now.” He held his finger to his lips. “You’ll wake Erich. I’ll be back.”
He raced out of the building, then up the side street where he’d stashed the jeep, fumbling in the dark with the ignition. There was only a glimmer of moon in the narrow streets off the square, but when he got up to the broad Charlottenburger Chausee there was an open field of light, pale white and unexpectedly beautiful. Now, when he had no time to look at it, the blunt, unlovely city had turned graceful, making him stop in surprise, its secret self, maybe there all the time, when everything else was dark. It occurred to him, fancifully, that it was finally lighting the way for him, like Hansel’s white pebbles, down the wide, empty street, then up Schloss Strasse, making good time, and still there when he needed it most, picking his way through the trail in the rubble, all easy going, so that he knew he must be right. Not even a shadow at young Willi’s lookout post, just the pointing, friendly light. When Professor Brandt opened the door, he no longer had any doubts at all.