by Joseph Kanon
“What did he look like?”
“You don’t believe me? You want proof? A photograph?”
“I didn’t mean that.” He took her arm. “I want it to be. I’m glad we—” He stopped, aware of the marker, and dropped his hand. “I was just curious. Did he look like me?”
“Your eyes. He had your eyes.”
“And Emil never—”
“He didn’t know your eyes so well.” She turned. “No, never. He looked like me. German. He was German, your child.”
“A son,” he said numbly, his mind flooded with it.
“You left. I thought for good. And here it was inside me, this piece of you. No one would know, just me. So. You remember at the station, when you went away? I knew then.”
“And you never said.”
“What could I say? ‘Stay’? No one needed to know, not even Emil. He was happy, you know. He always wanted a child, and it didn’t happen, and then there it was. You don’t look at the eyes-you see your own child. So he did that. He was the father of your child. He paid for him. He loved him. And then, when we lost him, it broke his heart. That’s what he was doing-while he did all those other things. The same man. Do you understand now? You want to let him ‘rot’? There is a debt here. You owe him this much, for your child.”
“Lena—”
“And me. What did I do? I lied to him about you. I lied to him about Peter. Now you want me to turn my back on him? I can’t do it. You know, when Peter died-American bombs-I thought, it’s a punishment. For all the lies. Oh, I know, don’t say it, it was crazy, I know. But not this. I have to put it right.”
“By telling him now?”
“No, never. It would kill him to know that. But to help him-it’s a chance to make it right. A debt.”
He took a step back. “Not mine.”
“Yes, yours too. That’s why I brought you here.” She pointed to the marker. “That’s you too. Here, in Berlin. One of us. His childyour child. You come in your uniform-so easy to judge when it’s not you. All these terrible people, look what they did. Walk away. Let’s go to bed-everything will be like before.” She turned to him. “Nothing’s like before. This is the way it is now-all mixed up. Nothing’s like before.”
He looked at her, disconcerted. “Maybe one thing. You must still love him, to do this.”
“Oh my god, love.” She moved forward and put her hands on his chest, almost pounding it. “Stubborn. Stubborn. If I didn’t love you, do you think I would have kept it? It would have been so easy to get rid of it. A mistake. These things happen. I couldn’t do it. I wanted to keep you. I looked at him, I could see you. So I made Emil his father. Love him? I used Emil to keep you.”
He said nothing, then took her hands off his chest. “And this would make it right.”
“No, not right. But it’s something.”
“He’ll go to prison.”
“It’s for certain? Who decides that?”
“It’s the law.”
“American law. For Germans.”
“I am an American.”
She looked up at him. “Then you decide,” she said, moving away to start back. “You decide.”
He stood for a moment, looking from the row of graves down to the marker, the part of him that was here now, then turned slowly and followed her down the hill. Contents — Previous Chapter / Next Chapter
III. Reparations
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The first part of Shaeffer’s plan was to get the location moved.
“They’ve got too many men at Burgstrasse.”
“You mean you can’t do it?”
“We can do it. It might get messy, that’s all. Then we’ve got an incident. Hell of a lot easier if you get him moved.” He scratched his bandage through his shirt, dressed now. “An apartment, maybe.”
“They’d have guards there too.”
“But not as many. Burgstrasse’s a trap. There’s only one entrance. To think he’s been there all along- How did you find out, by the way? You never said.”
“A tip. Don’t worry, he’s there. Somebody saw him.”
“Somebody who?” Schaeffer said, then looked at Jake’s face and let it go. “A tip. What did that cost you?”
One small boy. “Enough. Anyway, you wanted to know. Now all you have to do is get him out.”
“We’ll get him. But let’s do it right. I don’t like her at Burgstrasse. That’s cutting it close, even for us.”
“I still don’t see why you need her at all. You know where he is. Just go in and get him.”
Shaeffer shook his head. “We need the diversion, if we want to do it right.”
“That’s what she is, a diversion?”
“You said she agreed to do it.”
“I haven’t.”
“You’re here, aren’t you? Come on, stop wasting time. I’ve got things to work out. But first, see if you can get him moved.”
“Why would Sikorsky do that?”
Shaeffer shrugged. “The lady’s got delicate feelings. She won’t want to start her new life in a cell-gives a bad taste to it. Might make her think twice. I don’t know, figure something out. You’re the one with the smart mouth-use it on them for a change. Maybe you don’t like it, since you’re making the delivery. That still the way you want it?”
“I go with her or she doesn’t go.”
“Suit yourself. Just cover your own ass. I can’t worry about you too-just Brandt. Understand?”
“If anything happens to her—”
“I know, I know. You’ll hunt me down like a dog.” Shaeffer picked up his hat, eager to go. “Nothing’s going to happen if we do it right. Now, how about it? First have your little talk with Sikorsky. You’re in luck, too,” he said, glancing at his watch. “He’s in the zone. Control Council meets today, so you won’t even have to go out to Karlshorst. You can see him at the banquet. There’s always a banquet. Nobody’ll even know it’s a meeting-you just happened to run into him. With something to offer. How much are you going to ask, have you decided?”
“How much?”
“It plays better if you’re selling her. Just don’t go overboard-she’s not the husband. You want this to happen. The point is to set it up, not make a score.”
Jake looked away, disgusted. “Fuck you.”
“Try to get him moved,” Shaeffer said, ignoring him. “But either way, give me a day or two. I still have to lay my hands on some Russian uniforms.”
“What for?”
“Well, we can’t go in with American uniforms, can we? Might look a little conspicuous in the Russian zone.“
Cowboy stuff. Improbable. “I don’t like this. Any of it.”
“Let’s just get it done, okay?” Shaeffer said. “You can grouse later.
Right now you just sweet-talk the Russian and get the door open.
We’ll do the rest.“ He grinned at Jake. ”I told you we’d make a good team. Takes all kinds, doesn’t it?“
Guards had been posted at the driveway entrance to the Conrol Council building, but Muller’s name got him through. He swung around to the gravel forecourt facing the park, then had to find a place in the crowd of jeeps and official cars. The work party had done its job-the park had been cleaned up, everything neat and polished, like the white-scarved sentries. Officers with briefcases rushed through the heavy doors, late or just self-important, a blur of motion. Jake followed one group into the chandeliered hall without drawing a glance. The meeting room, off-limits to press, would be another matter, but Muller’s name had worked once and might work again, so he headed down the corridor to his office. His secretary, nails still bright red, was just on her way to lunch.
“He won’t be out for hours. The Russians don’t start till late, then they go on all afternoon. Want to leave a name? I remember you-the reporter, right? How did you get in here?”
“Could you take a message in?”
“Not if I want to keep my job. No press on meeting days. He’d kill me.”
> “Not him. One of the Russians. Sikorsky. He’s—”
“I know who he is. You want to see him? Why not ask the Russians?”
“I’d like to see him today,” he said, smiling. “You know what they’re like. If you could take in a note? It’s official business.”
“Whose official business?” she said dryly.
“One note?”
She sighed and handed him a piece of paper. “Make it quick. On my lunch hour, yet.” As if she were on her way to Schrafft’s.
“I appreciate it,” he said, writing. “Jeanie, right?”
“Corporal,” she said, but smiled back, pleased.
“By the way, you ever find that dispatcher?”
She put her hand on her hip. “Is that a line, or is it supposed to mean something?”
“Airport dispatcher in Frankfurt. Muller was going to find him for me. Ring a bell?”
He looked up at her face, still puzzled, then saw it clear.
“Oh, the transfer. Right,” she said. “We just got the paperwork. Was I supposed to let you know?”
“He was transferred? What name?”
“Who remembers? You know how much comes through here?” she said, cocking her head toward the filing cabinets. “Just another one going home. I only noticed because of Oakland.”
“Oakland?”
“Where he was from. Me too. I thought, well, at least one of us is going home. Who is he?”
“Friend of a friend. I said I’d look him up and then I forgot his name.”
“Well, he’s on his way now, so what’s the diff? Wait a minute, maybe it’s still in pending.” She opened a file drawer, a quick riffle through. “No, it’s filed,” she said, closing it, another dead end. “Oh well. Does it matter?”
“Not anymore.” A transport ship somewhere in the Atlantic. “I’ll ask Muller-maybe he remembers.”
“Him? Half the time he doesn’t know what comes in. It’s just paper to him. The army. And they said it would be a great way to meet people.”
“Did you?” Jake said, smiling.
“Hundreds. You writing a book there or what? It is my lunch hour.”
She led him down the corridor to the old court chamber, breezing past the guards by holding up the note. Through the open door Jake could see the four meeting tables pushed together to form a square, smoke rising from the ashtrays like steam escaping from vents. Muller was sitting next to General Clay, sharp-featured and grim, whose face had the tight forbearance of someone listening to a sermon. The Russian speaking seemed to be hectoring everyone, even those at his own table, who sat stonily, heads down, as if they too were waiting for the translation. Jake watched Jeanie walk over to the Russian side of the room, surprising Muller, then followed the pantomime of gestures as she leaned over to hand Sikorsky the note-a quick glance up, a finger pointing to the corridor, a nod, a careful sliding back of his chair as the Russian delegate droned on.
“Mr. Geismar,” he said in the hall, his eyebrows raised, intrigued.
“I’m sorry to interrupt.”
“No matter. Coal deliveries.” He nodded his head toward the closed door, then looked at Jake expectantly. “You wanted something?”
“A meeting.”
“A meeting. This is not perhaps the best time—”
“You pick. We need to talk. I have something for you.”
“And what is that?”
“Emil Brandt’s wife.”
Sikorsky said nothing, his hard eyes moving over Jake’s face.
“You surprise me,” he said finally.
“I don’t see why. You made a deal for Emil. Now you can make one for her.”
“You’re mistaken,” he said evenly. “Emil Brandt is in the west.”
“Is he? Try Burgstrasse. He’d probably appreciate hearing from you. Especially if you told him his wife was coming to visit. That ought to cheer him up.”
Sikorsky turned away, marking time by lighting a cigarette. “You know, it sometimes happens that people come to us. For political reasons. The Soviet future. They see things as we do. That would not, I take it, be the case with her?”
“That’s up to her. Maybe you can talk her into it-tell her how much everybody likes it on the collective farm. Maybe Emil can. He’s her husband.”
“And who exactly are you?”
“I’m an old friend of the family. Think of it as a kind of coal delivery. ”
“From such an unexpected source. May I ask what prompts you to make this offer? Not, I think, Allied cooperation.”
“Not quite. I said a deal.”
“Ah.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not as expensive as Tully.”
“You’re talking in riddles, Mr. Geismar.”
“No, I’m trying to solve one. I’ll deliver the wife, you deliver some information. Not so expensive, just some information.”
“Information,” Sikorsky repeated, noncommittal.
“Little things that have been on my mind. Why you met Tully at the airport. Where you took him. What you were doing in the Potsdam market. A few questions like that.”
“A press interview.”
“No, private. Just me and you. A good friend of mine got killed that day in Potsdam. Nice girl, no harm to anybody. I want to know why. It’s worth it to me.”
“Sometimes-it’s regrettable-there are accidents.”
“Sometimes. Tully wasn’t. I want to know who killed him. That’s my price.”
“And for that you would deliver Frau Brandt? For this family reunion.”
“I said I’d deliver her. I didn’t say you could keep her. There are conditions.”
“More negotiations,” Sikorsky said, glancing behind him at the door. “In my experience, these are never satisfactory. We don’t get what we want, you don’t get what you want. A tiresome process.”
“You’ll get her.”
“What makes you think I’m interested in Frau Brandt?”
“You’ve been looking for her. You had a man watching Emil’s father in case she showed up.”
“With you,” he said pointedly.
“And if I know Emil, he’s been mooning over her. Hard to debrief a man who wants to see his wife. Awkward.”
“You think that’s the case.”
“He did the same thing to us when we had him. Won’t go anywhere without her. Otherwise, you’d have shipped him east weeks ago.”
“If we had him.”
“Are you interested or not?”
Behind them the door opened, a summoning burst of Russian. Sikorsky turned and nodded to an aide.
“The British are responding. Now it’s grain. Our grain. Everybody, it seems, wants something.”
“Even you,” Jake said.
Sikorsky looked at him, then dropped his cigarette on the marble floor and ground it out with his boot, an unnervingly crude gesture, a peasant under the shellac of manners.
“Come to the Adlon. Around eight. We’ll talk. Privately,” he said, pointing to Jeanie’s pen, still in Jake’s hand. “Without notes. Perhaps something can be arranged.”
“I thought you’d say that.”
“Yes? Then let me surprise you. A riddle for you this time. I can’t meet your price. I want to know who killed Lieutenant Tully too.” He smiled at Jake’s expression, as if he had just won the round. “So, at eight.”
Jake backtracked down the hall, nervously turning Jeanie’s pen over in his hand. None of it would work, not Shaeffer with his borrowed Soviet cap, not even this meeting, another negotiation in which the pieces never moved. I can’t meet your price. Then why had he agreed? A sly Slavic smile, squashing a cigarette as easily as a bug.
The office door was closed but not locked, the desk just as Jeanie had left it, tidied up for lunch. He put the pen back in its holder, then looked over at the files. Where did she eat lunch? A mess somewhere in the basement? He pulled open the drawer where the pending folder had been to find a thick wad of carbons, the rest a row of alphabetical t
abs. Frankfurt to Oakland. Even without the name to help, it must be here somewhere. And then what? A message through channels, a cable to Hal Reidy to track him down? Weeks either way. Whoever he was sailed nameless on the Atlantic, another t uncrossed. Jake slid the drawer shut.
He put his hand on the next cabinet, where Jeanie had filed the police report weeks ago, and, curious, flicked the drawer open to see if it was still there. Tully had a thin folder to himself. The CID report, all of it, with ballistics; an official condolence letter to the mother; a shipping receipt for the coffin and special effects; nothing else, as if he really had been swallowed up in the Havel, out of sight. He looked at the report again, but it was the same one he’d seen, service record, previous assignments, promotions. Why is Sikorsky still interested in you? he wondered, flipping the pages and getting the usual blank reply.
He opened the drawer below, rummaging now. Something cross-referenced, perhaps, like the files at the Document Center. Kom-mandatura minutes, food supply estimates, all the real business of the occupation, drawers of it. He worked his way back up to the transfer file and opened it again, automatically reaching for the T’s, idly thumbing through and then stopping, surprised, when the name leaped out at him. Maybe another Patrick Tully, luckier. But the serial number was the same.
He took the sheet out. Traveling orders, Bremen to Boston, a July 21 sail date. Home to Natick at the end of that week. A new wrinkle, but what kind? Why come to Berlin? Not to fly on to Bremen, with no luggage. The obvious answer was payday, to collect the traveling money for the trip home. Then why go to the Document Center? Jake stared at the flimsy. There hadn’t been any orders in his effects. Was it possible that Tully hadn’t known? Still up to business as usual while his ticket home floated through the paper channels that crisscrossed Germany?
“Find what you’re looking for?”
He turned to see Jeanie standing in the door with a sandwich and a Coke.
“You’ve got a nerve.”
“Sorry. It’s just that I did remember his name, after you left. So I thought I’d get the address. I didn’t think you’d mind—”
“Next time you want something, ask. Now how about getting out of here before I find out what you’re really up to.”