Leaving Berlin: A Novel

by Joseph Kanon

  Willy was watching him.

  “Why is this pay dirt?”

  “This one isn’t. But then I got the bright idea maybe the other one married too.”

  Alex looked up. “Irene?”

  “Now Frau—”

  “Engel,” Alex said flatly.

  “No, Gerhardt. Frau Engelbert Gerhardt. Enka to his friends. Funny thing is, he was supposed to be a little light in the loafers. Makeup artist, for chrissake.”

  “What?”

  “Out at Ufa. Pictures.”

  “So why—?”

  “Keep him out of trouble probably. They were putting them in camps. So, a happily married man. Goebbels didn’t care as long as things looked okay. And he could screw the actresses.” He raised his head. “Who’s Engel?”

  “An old boyfriend,” he said, seeing her cradling his head.

  Willy was peering at him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. She’s alive?”

  “And kicking. So we thought you’d like to see her.”

  Alex looked at him.

  “Be friends again. Closer than ever.”

  A small jump in his stomach, wary. “Why?”

  “It would be the most natural thing in the world. You were practically family.” Willy took out a cigarette.

  “Practically,” Alex said, waiting.

  “She’d want you to meet her new friends too, don’t you think?”

  “Just tell me.”

  Willy leaned forward, lighting the cigarette. “Gerhardt didn’t make it. Bombing raid. Which left her a widow. Technically, anyway.”

  “And?”

  “So now there’s a new friend. Not that anybody would blame her for that. Not easy, a woman on her own in Berlin.” He paused, taking a drag on the cigarette. “But a break for us.”

  “Why?”

  “Alexander Markovsky. Not so bad. A wife back in Moscow, but that doesn’t count for much. They all do, don’t they? Anyway, very fond of your cousin. How she feels about him I don’t know. You tell me. Let’s hope she’s crazy about him. We wouldn’t want her to walk out on him, now that you’re in the picture.” A faint smile. “That’s why I wanted to see you first, give you a heads-up. Forget Dymshits. You’ve got a real job.”

  Alex followed the trail of Willy’s smoke, not breathing, then looked back.

  “You want me to spy on her,” he said, forcing the word out. “Nobody said anything about this. I’m not—” His voice trailed off, as if it were walking away.

  Willy took a breath. “That’s not the way this works. You don’t get to pick.”

  “She’s—a friend.”

  “We’re not interested in her. We’re interested in him,” Willy said, explaining to a child. “He works for Maltsev. Major General Maltsev. State Security. That’s about as inside Karlshorst as we’re likely to get. We’ve never had a chance like this, somebody close to Maltsev. You want a ticket back, this is it.”

  A tightening around his chest, short of air.

  “When did Campbell know about this?”

  “I don’t know,” Willy said, surprised at the question. “You’d have to ask him.”

  “But he’s not here.”

  Willy looked at him. “Does it matter?”

  Alex turned, facing out. “And what do you think he tells her?” He paused. “In bed.”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe something. And it’s what he’s going to tell you. Without even knowing it. Just because you’re around. Anyway, it’s a little late for second thoughts, isn’t it?” He glanced at his watch. “I’d better get you to Lützowplatz. It’s been awhile. Even for a slow walker.”

  “I never said I’d do something like this.”

  “Who are you worried about? Markovsky? He’s a thug, just like the rest of them. Your friend? Ask yourself what she’s doing with him. There aren’t any good guys in this one.”

  “I thought we were the good guys.”

  “We are. You don’t want to forget that.” He tossed the cigarette out the window and put the car in gear. “Look, you have a problem, you’d better tell me now. You can go right back to the Adlon. Hang out with your new friends. If you want to live here. But I thought the deal was you wanted to get back to the States. Show us what a good citizen you are.”

  “By doing this.”

  “Well, this is what we have.” Willy turned back into the park. “So what’s the problem? Is there something I should know?”

  Alex shook his head. “It’s just—someone you know.”

  “How long since you’ve seen her? Irene.”

  “Fifteen years.”

  “A lot happens in fifteen years. Especially here. You think you know her? Maybe not so much anymore.” He slowed the car. “Not someone sleeping with Markovsky.”

  Alex stared straight ahead. When he woke up, he’d be getting Peter ready for school.

  “Here’s the bridge. You should get out here. If anybody’s watching, they’ll be expecting you to walk over.”

  “Why would they be watching?”

  “It’s what they do.” He looked over at Alex. “You all right? You look— You know, we all get cold feet in the beginning. You’ll be okay. A chance like this.” A verbal pat on the shoulder, part of the team.

  Alex sat for another minute. The kitchen would be bright with sun, even that early.

  “What do I do? I mean, how do I contact her?”

  “She’ll be at your party. You’re a big deal. Everyone wants to meet you.”

  “With the boyfriend?”

  “Unless he’s out at Karlshorst.”

  “Doing whatever he does.”

  “At the moment, running interference between Moscow and the SED, the German Party. They have this idea that Moscow should stop robbing the zone blind with reparations. And send back the POWs.”

  “And he’s going to talk to me about all this?”

  Willy looked at him. “You’d be surprised what people will say. Once they trust you.” He nodded to the window. “You’d better go. See if your house is still there. Which side of the square was it?”

  Alex stared out the window. You think you know her? Maybe not so much anymore. It was easy to cross a line in Berlin, as easy as going from one sector to another. Finish your cereal, he’d be saying to Peter.

  “The east side,” he said finally.

  “We’re not expecting gold right away. It’s all valuable. Just keeping track. Where he goes when he’s away. When he’s coming back.”

  Alex opened the car door and turned. “The kind of thing you’d tell your mistress.”

  Willy met his look. “We’ll be in touch.”

  On the bridge, the one he’d crossed a thousand times coming home from the park, there was a stalled army truck with a Union Jack on its door, soldiers busy with wrenches. The British sector, where Elsbeth’s husband was practicing medicine again. First do no harm. He glanced down at the thick oily water of the Landwehrkanal. There had been bodies here after the war, floating for months. A lot happens in fifteen years. At the end of the bridge there was a car parked across the street, maybe waiting to see him come into the square. What they did in Berlin. It didn’t matter if they were really watching, as long as you thought they might be. Oranienburg with the peek hole in the door.

  Willy’s car came up from behind and passed him. Don’t look. You’ve walked here to see the house, the predictable motions of homecoming. But when he reached the square nothing was there, no sturdy door or hanging staircase, just an empty space where the house had been. For a second he felt light-headed, lost, as if he had ended up in the wrong street. He had expected at least some fragment of their lives, maybe the frame of the big window where his mother had kept the piano, the ground-floor corner where his father’s study had been. Then the evenings would come back, his mother’s music, her long conservatory fingers, hair pulled back in a tight bun so that not even a wisp would fall in her eyes, his father wreathed in cigarette smoke, head back, listening, the music rising and fall
ing. How he would always remember them, in a room filled with music. But that had all been erased, not even a headstone of rubble left. A vacant lot. And a parked car waiting for someone. He crossed the street, looking preoccupied, as if he hadn’t noticed it. Up ahead he could still see Willy’s car, driving slowly, probably keeping a rearview eye on him until he turned back. Two cars watching.

  He looked away from the parked car and started down Schillstrasse. The rubble had been cleared here, a standing wall without the usual heaps of brick in front. Behind him the sound of a motor, gears switching. Not the parked car, still motionless where it sat. Maybe the British truck. Then, suddenly, there was a screech of tires, a burst of speed, and another car shot into his line of vision then turned in toward the wall, cutting him off, brakes slamming, a man jumping out the back, grabbing his upper arm, the force of it shoving him against the wall. He felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, a pinpoint of focus, everything else a blur, too fast.

  “Get in.” A low growl, yanking him now toward the open car door and all he could think was, broad daylight, you do this in broad daylight. But only one. Shouldn’t there be two to pin him, two to make the snatch? The other was waiting behind the wheel. Easy pickings, a writer. If they knew who he was. Not just a man Willy had dropped off. A little drive through the park. Which made him the enemy now, just talking to Willy, and he realized suddenly, as the man was pushing his head down to force him into the car, that this would mean Oranienburg. Or a new Oranienburg. With no one to bribe him out this time. People disappear. Maybe for good, the car a kind of coffin. But only one of them.

  Alex pushed back hard, swiveling, flinging the man against the car, and pulled his arm free.

  “Scheisse!” Lunging for Alex again, pushing him against the standing wall.

  Another screech of tires, Willy’s car backing down the street toward them, a fishtail swerving. No other cars to dodge, coming fast.

  The man had grabbed Alex again, a stronger grip this time, still sure of himself, one man. Not even thinking, jerking to some electrical charge running through him, Alex smashed his knee into the man’s groin. A surprised gasp, then a grunt, the man bending over, still trying to hold onto Alex’s sleeve. But this was the split second, the one chance, and Alex yanked himself free, starting to run. He heard a car door open, the driver spilling out in alarm. Two of them.

  “Halt! Scheisse!”

  And then a swirl of sounds, the kicked man howling and pulling himself up to lunge again, the driver’s footsteps running back to block Alex that way, the scream of brakes as Willy’s car stopped, another door slamming and then a loud crack, jarring, that made all the other sounds go away. For a second everything stopped, the shot still echoing in the air. Then Alex heard the driver inhale, a rasp, and fall to the street, a thump as his body hit. The first man turned, pulling a gun out of his pocket and fired at Willy, who ducked. A moan from the other side of the car, the driver clutching his stomach. Willy jumped up and fired again, hitting the first man, then crouching back down. But not fast enough, the man’s return bullet catching him in the chest, his eyes widening in disbelief. The shot was deafening, loud enough to rip the air, to bring British soldiers running across the bridge, but the square was still empty, as if the sounds hadn’t reached them yet, hadn’t left the inside of Alex’s head, where they drowned out his own ragged breathing. I could die. I could die here.

  Willy slumped against his car and fired again, this one higher, hitting the first man in the throat. He teetered for an instant, blood gushing, then fell across the hood of the car and slid to the ground, leaving a streak of blood down the side, his overcoat matted with it. His body went still, legs twisted at some unnatural angle. In the sudden quiet Alex heard the car engine, still idling, waiting for him to be bundled in the back, taken somewhere for questioning. Watch your back. He gulped some air, sidestepping the body, and started running toward Willy.

  “Are you all right?” Still panting.

  Willy was on the ground, his head propped against the car’s tire. He winced, an answer. “It fucking hurts,” he said, his breathing labored now. “I always wondered.”

  Alex looked into the square again. Still nobody, the parked car empty, not the one he should have been worried about.

  “I never saw them,” Willy said flatly. “That’s how good they are.”

  They heard a groan from the other car, the driver trying to move. Willy looked at Alex, his eyes darting with alarm.

  “Take the gun. No witnesses.”

  “Are you crazy—?”

  Willy grabbed his wrist, clutching it. “No witnesses. He’s seen you.” He looked at Alex’s face, then squinted from the pain and opened his eyes again, an act of will. “Nobody knows. You’re still protected.” He squeezed his wrist again. “Take the gun. Quick, before—”

  “I can’t,” Alex said, almost a whisper. “I never—”

  “They’ll kill you. That’s what this is. Do it. In the head. Don’t think, just do it. Then run like hell.”

  “What about you?”

  Willy twisted his mouth, then looked again at Alex. “Do it, for chrissake. Take the gun.”

  Alex looked at it, still clutched in Willy’s hand, and started prying his fingers off. There was the sound of a motor in the distance. How far? He took the gun and walked over to the other car. A faint moaning, the driver opening his eyes at the sound of footsteps. A startled look, what prey must feel like at the end. The driver tried to raise his hand, his gun weaving. Do it. Don’t think. Alex fired. A roar of sound, then a splat as the driver’s head ripped open, the insides oozing, then stopping. No witnesses. Alex stared at the man for a second, feeling his stomach heave. But there was nothing to bring up, just the taste of bile, too early for food.

  The motor again. He glanced toward the bridge. The British truck. Don’t think. Run. He raced over to Willy. Eyes closed. Alex felt his neck for a pulse but there was nothing, the skin already cool or was that his imagination? The morning was cold. You could see your breath, coming now in quick puffs. The sound of the truck again. Oddly, the other car engine was still running and for one crazy second Alex fought the impulse to turn it off. Disappear. Now. No one here but the dead. No witnesses.

  He darted behind Willy’s car and then followed the standing wall until there was a break and he could slip behind. Not as neat as the square here, piles of rubble. But what did it matter? Run. In a few seconds they’d be here. He listened to the sound of his shoes crunching on the dust and mortar and he realized he had never run so fast, that he was somehow trying to outrun the sound of his own running, make it disappear. An old woman was stopped at the next corner and turned, terrified, and he saw what she must be seeing, a man running too fast, still waving a gun in his hand, his shoes slipping on loose bricks as if he were splashing through puddles, and he knew he should stop, slow down, but he couldn’t. He kept running, away from the British soldiers who must now be swarming over the cars in Lützowplatz. Running from the old woman, who must have seen his face. Running away from all of it, all the lines he never thought he would cross, sprinting over them.

  It was only when he reached the Budapester Strasse bridge, where there were a few cars, that he put the gun in his coat pocket and slowed to a walk. He felt the sweat on his face. Sweating in the early morning cold. Slow down. Breathe. No witnesses. On the bridge, after a quick glance around, he tossed the gun over, a plop in the water, and then started to walk again, forcing himself not to run, draw attention. A man’s startled eyes as you aimed a gun. His head opening. That’s what this is.

  By the time he reached the Adlon, he was breathing normally again, a guest just back from a long walk. A new doorman, the day shift, said good morning, and for an anxious moment Alex wondered if anything showed in his face. How do you look after you’ve killed a man? But the doorman simply waved him through. No one knew. Upstairs, he lay on the bed and kept replaying Lützowplatz in his mind. Willy’s grimace. They move you up faster here. His panic, running,
and now this strange troubled relief afterward. Nothing in his face. Getting away with something. And now what? A protected source, one contact. But someone knew enough to follow Willy. They knew he was here, even if they didn’t know who he was. Three bodies in the square, two guns, an impossible arithmetic. They’d be looking. Whoever they were.

  When he finally did close his eyes it was not so much sleep as sheer animal exhaustion, the body shutting down for repair, a void, like the space where his house had been. Irene with a Russian. Frau Gerhardt. Someone he didn’t know, even if he’d known every part of her. It would be easier that way, someone he didn’t know. You want a ticket back, this is it. When he heard the knocking on the door he was at the von Bernuth house, the SA pounding, Kurt bleeding, Irene meeting his eyes. But it was only Martin coming to collect him. His eyes were still scratchy, tired. No hot water, an astringent splash of cold. They’d be waiting at the Kulturbund, maybe one of them open for a little business. Not understanding what it would mean until he was in it, over his head.

  2

  KULTURBUND

  THE RECEPTION HAD BEEN called for four, the early hour, Martin explained, because of the difficulties getting home in the dark. “The West refuses to sell us coal, so naturally there are shortages.” “And we refuse to sell them food.” “Because they refuse to sell us coal.” The kind of airless, circular argument Alex remembered from meetings in Brentwood, before he stopped going.

  Even at this hour, though, the sky was already dusky, filled with clouds promising snow. They picked their way along a path cleared through the rubble toward the light of the club windows. The Kulturbund was on Jägerstrasse, just off Friedrichstrasse, and suddenly familiar.

  “Well,” Alex said. “The old Club von Berlin.” Where Fritz had often spent the afternoons, napping after a brandy.

  “I don’t know,” Martin said, slightly stiff. “Now the Kulturbund.” The only thing it had ever been to him.