Leaving Berlin: A Novel

by Joseph Kanon

  Markovsky alive and well in Moscow. Some mischievous game, our phantom versus your phantom? We know. Not in Wiesbaden. But then where was he? Still somewhere in Berlin, waiting for Irene. Alex’s eye stopped on two Russians, sitting in a box opposite, staring across. But they could be looking at anybody. If they knew who he was, what he was going to do, they wouldn’t just watch, wait for an excuse. What would be the charge? Counterrevolutionary activities, like Aaron? Worse? In the end, did it matter? They took you to Sachsenhausen because they could. The charges came later.

  “Herr Meier, what a nice surprise.” Herb Kleinbard, taking the seat behind him, out free, just as Markus had said. “It gives me the chance to thank you. For your help. Roberta told me—” He turned to her, bringing her into the conversation.

  “No, I made inquiries, that’s all,” Alex said, dismissing it, aware that Roberta seemed somehow embarrassed, awkward in his presence, as if she now regretted drawing him into their lives. “Everything is all right now, I hope?”

  “Yes. A bureaucratic mistake. But of course, a worry if one doesn’t know this,” he said, a nod to Roberta, explaining her.

  “Yes,” she said simply, still in a kind of retreat. “Alex was very kind. A good neighbor.” Glancing at him, then looking away, uncomfortable, eager to move on. What had she told Herb? How desperate she had been? How Alex had helped?

  “And neighbors tonight, I think,” Herb said. “You’re sitting there?”

  “Yes. And here’s Irene. Roberta, you remember Frau Gerhardt?”

  More awkwardness, Irene still a mystery to her, a woman with a car from Karlshorst.

  “Feeling better?” Alex said. “She hasn’t been well today. I think only Brecht could bring her out.”

  “A special occasion, yes,” Herb said. Then, to Alex, “Thank you again. You’re modest, but I know what it means. To help in such a situation. People don’t want to get involved, they don’t know it’s a mistake, they’re afraid. So I thank you.”

  Alex received this with a nod. “But it was Roberta, really. She wouldn’t give up, and now here you are.”

  “We should sit,” Roberta said. Not wanting to talk about it.

  “Did they treat you—? I mean, you’re all right?”

  “Yes. Such places, they’re not pleasant. Well, we know that. Not country clubs. But you know, you put it out of your mind. An evening like this, to see this in Berlin, you forget the bad times.”

  Alex looked at him. “I was there. I never forgot.”

  Herb met his eyes. “No, that’s right. You don’t forget.” No longer pretending, but still unsure what it meant, how he was going to live with it.

  “Oh, they’re starting,” Roberta said, taking her seat as the theater went dark.

  Irene leaned over to him as they sat down. “Now what?” she whispered. “They’re right behind us. People you know.”

  Alex said nothing, trying to make out the stage in the still black air, even the tinkle of voices disappearing, a void.

  “What can we do?” she said even fainter.

  “We go ahead. We have to. I’ll tell you when. Watch the play.”

  Suddenly, a flash of light, the stage flooded with it, stark, exposed, nothing shaded or softened. The Recruiting Officer and the Sergeant talking, a sharp tang in the language, Brecht’s German. An almost palpable pleasure went through the audience, street German, irreverent, theirs. Off he’s gone like a louse from a scratch. You know what the trouble with peace is? No organization. And Ruth, as usual, was right: the stage was the Tiergarten, the street outside, the harsh bareness of it, another wasteland. The Thirty Years’ War. No props or scenery needed. The eye filled it with rubble and scorched trees. A faint harmonica, the canteen wagon rolling onto the stage, Eilif and Swiss Cheese pulling like oxen, up on the seat Mother Courage with dumb Kattrin, Helene Weigel calling out a good day, the voice perfect, a whole character in a line, and then the first song and Dymshits was right too, Dessau’s music gave Weigel her range, coarse and defiant, almost bawdy, the unselfconscious irony hinting at the horrors to come. Alex looked around. A magic in the theater, that moment of breathing together, seeing the extraordinary. And now happening here, with the rubble outside, Germany still alive, capable of art, a future.

  Alex sat still, letting the language roll over him. Weigel fighting with Eilif now, drawing papers out of the helmet, omens of death. He shook his head. Pay attention to the audience, not the play. Over the railing, somewhere below, Elsbeth was watching a mother lose her children. Markus and Mielke, down right in a privileged box. How many in the audience were their informants, diligently filing reports? Maybe even on the play. Did any of them trust Brecht really, always slipping something by in a line?

  He squinted, trying to see the faces, but the effect of the floodlit stage was to make the rest of the theater even darker. Unless you were in the first few rows, you were swallowed up in the shadows. These ring seats were even less visible. He could barely make out the audience, but they couldn’t see him at all. Unless they were sitting right behind him.

  Onstage Mother Courage had lost Eilif and now was opening the second scene selling a capon, a long screech of German that Weigel massaged like an aria, reaching for notes. No one was looking anywhere else. As good a time as intermission, when people get lost in the crowd.

  “Now,” he said faintly to Irene’s ear.

  She started, as absorbed in the play as the rest of the audience, then nodded and moved her hands to her stomach, waiting a bit, then bending over, a soft grunt, almost inaudible. Alex put his arm around her shoulders, helping her out of her seat and starting up the stairs to the exit.

  “We have to go,” he whispered to Roberta. “She’s not feeling well. Take our seats, they’re closer.” And not empty if anyone looked, one body as good as another in the dark. “Her time of the month. She’ll be all right tomorrow.”

  Roberta seemed to shrink from this, embarrassed again, and just nodded, turning her head back toward the stage.

  At the curtain covering the exit door Alex turned, trying to make out the Russians across. Had they noticed? He waited for a second to see if anyone had followed, some furtive movement, but all he could hear was Weigel arguing with the cook.

  They went down the hall, no ushers, Alex’s arm still around her shoulder. The stairs would be trickier, visible to the concession sellers in the lobby. But everyone, it seemed, wanted to see the play, even standing in the back. They slid out the exit door, away from the waiting cars out front. A stagehand having a cigarette, shivering.

  “Not feeling well,” Alex said, still whispering.

  The stagehand just looked at them, indifferent.

  They headed toward Luisenstrasse, the way to Irene’s flat, but then turned right at the corner instead, heading up to the Charité. If anyone was following, he’d have to turn too or risk losing them. They slowed, waiting a minute, but no one turned into the street. A car had come over the bridge and swept past without slowing. A man helping a woman get to the hospital, what you’d expect to see here.

  “Where did he leave the key?”

  “Under the fender,” Irene said. “It’s taped there.”

  “Hell of a risk. Anybody could—”

  “It’s DEFA’s car, he doesn’t care.”

  The car was in the faculty lot, just in from the street, the key still in place. Irene put her hand on the door, then looked up.

  “What if something—?”

  Alex shook his head. “Ready?”

  “If anything does, I’ll—”

  He looked up, waiting.

  “I’ll never forget you did this for him.”

  Alex opened his door. “We’d better stick to the main roads. At least they’ll be cleared. It’s easy to get lost if they’re not—”

  “Don’t worry. I know Berlin. That’s all I know, Berlin.”

  He headed north toward Invalidenpark, away from the theater and any cars that might recognize them, then swung east to connect w
ith Torstrasse.

  “You never told me where he is.”

  “Friedrichshain. By the park.”

  “So far.”

  “Not from me.”

  “No, from the radio. In Schöneberg, no?”

  “We’re not going to the radio. Not now, anyway.”

  “But I thought—”

  “That’s the choke point. The one place they don’t want him to go. They don’t want him to broadcast. So they’ll be waiting to stop him there. If they know.”

  “But it’s how he pays.”

  “He will. But not there.”

  There was more traffic than he expected, Soviet trucks sputtering diesel and a few prewar cars, so it took a while to reach Prenzlauer Allee. He turned up, then drove between the cemeteries and across Greifswalder Strasse.

  “I think we’re all right,” he said. “You see anything?”

  “How would I know? They all look alike to me.”

  “You’d notice if it’s the same one.”

  To be safe, he detoured in a short loop, then came down Am Friedrichshain from the east.

  “Press number five,” he said, idling the car at the green door.

  But Erich was already there, waiting.

  “Oh, so pale,” Irene said, a mother hen’s fluttering, as he got in the back. “You still have the fever?”

  “It’s better,” Erich said. “Let’s go.”

  “Duck a little,” Alex said, “so no one sees your head.”

  “They’re following you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I have a message for you. He said to tell you the refrigerator is still working.”

  Alex smiled.

  “Who said?” Irene asked.

  “No one.” Alex looked at her. “No one.”

  She said nothing, turning to the side window. “But he helps Erich,” she said finally. “How do you arrange these things?” Not really a question. She raised her voice, to the back. “You have your coat? It’s cold.”

  “Yes, I’m warm enough. Don’t worry.”

  “Enka’s,” she said vaguely. “I kept it. I didn’t want to sell it. For those prices. He always had good things, Enka.”

  “It’s lucky for me you kept it,” Erich said.

  “Yes,” Irene said, “At least we have the coats on our backs. Imagine if father knew this. Leaving Berlin with nothing. Just the coats on our backs. And a purse,” she said, raising it.

  “How’s your voice?” Alex said to Erich. “Still hoarse?”

  “Not so much. I’ve been thinking what to say. What will he ask, do you think?”

  “He won’t. I will.”

  “You?” Irene said.

  “Well, not on the air. I can’t use my voice. They’d pick it up right away. I’ve written some questions out. You just answer, then say whatever you want.”

  “But we’re not on the radio?”

  “You will be. Make a tape recording, they can play it anytime. Don’t worry, you’ll sound as if you’re there in the studio.”

  They were crossing the Spree now, into Spittelmarkt, and turning up to the center.

  “We’re going to the house?” Erich said, suddenly excited, head up.

  “It’s not there anymore, Erich,” Irene said gently, to a child. “It was bombed.”

  “But it’s just up here. Let me see. I want to see it.”

  “There isn’t time,” Alex said.

  “But it would be the last time. I can’t come back.”

  Irene turned to Alex. “We have one minute? We can spare that? If he wants to see.”

  “Stay in the car. One minute.”

  He turned into Kleine Jägerstrasse, stopping the car by the mound of rubble where he’d had his morning cigarette. The street was deserted. In the moonlight you could see the jagged outline of the remaining walls, still, lifeless.

  “Oh,” Erich said. “Look. Only the door.”

  “I told you. It’s gone,” Irene said.

  “So many years. And then gone. I thought it would always be like that, the way we lived here.”

  “So sentimental,” Irene said. “It was an ugly house.”

  “Not to me. Not to Mama. She loved it. And to be like this—who was it, the British or the Amis?”

  “I don’t know. Does it matter? By that time it wasn’t ours anyway. Papa sold it. To the Nazis. Well, who else was here to buy it? So it’s not von Bernuth for a long time. You miss it? What do you miss? Your own childhood, that’s all. The house—” She waved, letting the house slip away.

  “Still,” Erich said.

  “It wasn’t the same after Mama died,” Irene said, partly to herself now. “He let it go. Like everything else. I think he never liked it here anyway. He liked the farm. Where he could bully his Poles.”

  “He never bullied—”

  “Ouf,” Irene said. “More stories. Anyway, they have it now, the farm, so in the end—” She trailed off, then turned to Erich. “And we have our coats. So that’s something. Maybe this time we won’t be so careless.”

  “Who was careless?”

  “Well, maybe not you, so young. Look at Papa, one card game and another piece of furniture’s gone. Look at me.” She stopped, gazing out the window at the house. “You know, when you put us in the book,” she said to Alex. “The girl wasn’t me.”

  “No, I—”

  “You thought it was, maybe, but it wasn’t. A story. Now I think you want to put me in another story. And I’m not her either.”

  Alex stared at her. “What do you—?”

  But she cut him off, turning to Erich again. “But you’ll be safe, that’s all that matters. So take a look and now it’s gone, poof. Bricks. That time, too. Gone.”

  “Okay?” Alex said, putting the car in gear, anxious to start again.

  “Never mind,” Irene said, a stage cheerfulness. “We’ll start over.” She nodded to Erich. “Maybe for once a von Bernuth who amounts to something.”

  Erich smiled. “Do you remember what you used to say to me?”

  “What I—?”

  “Remember who you are. You used to say that. Remember who you are.”

  “Well, in those days.”

  “Always proud of that, who we were. So you don’t change.”

  Irene said nothing and turned back to face the street.

  “Look, the French Church. The dome’s gone,” Erich said, still having his last look at the city. Alex thought of the day he’d left for good, Berlin draped in swastikas, everything intact. “What happened to St. Hedwig’s? Is it all right?”

  “No, bombed too,” Irene said. “Where are we going?” This to Alex, who was looking in the rearview mirror. Nobody.

  “The Kulturbund.”

  The club was quiet, the few people there already in the dining room. Up the stairs, past Goethe. Martin’s office was dark, but unlocked, the tape recorder still on the side table. A portable mike had been attached to it, a makeshift studio, ready to send the word to Dresden and points east. Alex looked through the supply cabinet for a spool of tape and started threading it.

  “Are we supposed to be here? What if someone—?”

  “He’s at the theater. Let’s just hope he doesn’t count these,” he said, tapping the spool. “Here, give me a voice check. Directly into the mike, don’t turn your head. Your normal voice. Irene, close the door. Ready?”

  Erich nodded, looking at the paper Alex had given him.

  “Just introduce yourself, who you are, and take it from there. Use the questions if you need them. To keep things going. It’s really what you want to say. What it was like for you there. Here we go,” he said, switching on the recorder.

  For a second, Erich said nothing, watching the spools turn, the machine a fascination in itself. Alex pointed to the mike.

  “My name is Erich von Bernuth.” Alex made a lowering motion with his hand. Erich nodded. “I’m from Berlin. All my life, until I joined the army in 1940. I was not a Nazi, but Germany was at war, so I though
t it was the right thing to do. The army. My family had always been in the army.” Alex raised his hand, steering him back. “Now I don’t know, what was the right thing. I saw terrible—But I was a soldier, so you do what a soldier does.” Now a circling motion with Alex’s hand, move on. “But I want to tell you about what happened after. What is happening to other German soldiers. So many years later. I was captured, taken prisoner, at Stalingrad. We were sent to a camp, I don’t know where, we were never told. Many died, of course, in the transport. The wounded.” He stopped, waiting for Alex to nod. “The conditions in the camp were very hard. So more died. Typhus, other diseases. The work. But this was war, you don’t expect— Maybe they thought we deserved this treatment, for everything they had lost in the war, their own men. Then the war ends. Those of us who had survived, we thought, now it’s over, they’ll send us home. Such conditions in wartime, it’s one thing, but now— Of course you know they didn’t. Your sons and husbands are still there. Slaves. Or they are back in Germany. Slaves here. I was one of these. I was sent to the Erzgebirge, to work in the uranium mines. Maybe some of you have heard of this. Have heard rumors. But now you hear the truth. I was a prisoner there and I escaped. This is what it was like, this is what I want to tell you.”

  Alex was nodding, clear sailing now. Erich had found his voice, unaffected, sure of itself, the quiet authority of a survivor. It would be a good radio voice, personal, artless. The barracks. The radioactive slime. The sick, sent back to work. The despair of knowing you would never be released, would be worked to death. The voice picked up speed, a steady rumble through the little office, unprompted now. Everything he had come to say.