Dan Fesperman: The Arms Maker of Berlin

Nat wondered what was about to unfold. Fireworks, probably, once Viv realized he was working for the opposition. But memories awaited him, too, and plenty were good ones. The Wolfes’ summer home was comfy and rustic, the setting peaceful. To Nat it was tangible proof that even a lifetime of academia might not render you penniless at retirement, although he wasn’t the only one who had always wondered how Gordon was able to afford the surrounding twenty acres. Department gossip maintained that Viv’s family had carried the freight. Or maybe Gordon’s book contracts were better than advertised. Not the case with Nat’s, alas. Both his volumes were already out of print.

In past summers Gordon and he had often collaborated there, hashing out scholarly problems during hikes and fishing trips. The old man, in spite of his limp, could be quite the outdoorsman when the spirit moved him, stalking the trails in his leather bomber jacket.

The best part had always come when they arrived back at the house. Nat sank into the leather couch and breathed in the aroma of wood smoke and grilled trout. Then, after dinner, Viv served as moderator while Gordon and he talked shop. Until the drinks began piling up. Always the drinks.

Now those images were joined by the thought of the old boxes, looming like an oracle, awaiting only the right command before yielding their secrets. He wondered if he would be able to view them without Neil or someone else looking over his shoulder. Maybe they would even let him make copies. He had packed his camera and tripod just in case.

Nat slept again, and this time the sun woke him. They were almost there, working their way past towns with names evoking real estate scams and Indian war councils-Green Glen, Naugatuck Falls, Wopowog. Shuttered tourist cabins huddled in the woods by thawed lakes, awaiting summer.

“Your rental is parked at the house,” Neil said. “Here are the keys.”

When they reached the turn for the gravel road that led to Gordon’s driveway, Nat borrowed Neil’s cell phone to call ahead.

“Viv? Hope I didn’t wake you. I’m headed up the drive.”

“Thank God you’re here. They’ve got me surrounded. I’ll put some coffee on.”

So they hadn’t yet told her about his arrangement with the FBI. Poor Viv.

“Sounds great. Be right in.”

He snapped the phone shut and braced for the worst.

Berlin

Another dream of Liesl, his first in years.

As always, her image fled before Kurt Bauer could hold it, chased from his eyelids by the chill martial gray of a Prussian morning. A blink, a sigh, and she was gone. Throw open the lace curtains and perhaps he would see the last wisp of her spirit, racing across the dim rooftops of Charlottenburg. And if he ever caught up to her, how would she greet him? With a smile of gratitude? A glare of accusation? Love? Forgiveness?

Downstairs, a loud voice echoed in the foyer. A door rattled shut.

Now Kurt knew what had brought on the dream. Nearly sixty-four years ago he had been awakened by the very same noises on the day he learned Liesl was gone-slammed doors, shouting messengers. All that remained to complete the sequence was the tread of slippers as his father, Reinhard, plodded upstairs to break the news. The old man had relayed it with the clacking dispassion of a stock ticker, as if he were announcing a pay cut down at his factory.

Kurt’s father had just come in from the rain, having gone out to buy a newspaper, knowing that the weather would hold the bombers at bay. He had peeled off his wet woolen socks and laid them on the big tile furnace to dry. Their vapors had preceded him up the stairs, and to this day Kurt associated the smell of wet, baking wool with death. It turned his stomach like the stench of a rotting corpse. He insisted that his wife, Gerda, buy him only cotton socks, much to her puzzlement.

Like the vast city he lived in, Kurt lay down each night with a host of unwanted shadows-guilt, loss, regret, the pain of old wounds. Bleak visions poured from within like smoke from a brick chimney.

The guilt, he believed, was unwarranted. He attributed its staying power less to his own actions than to his homeland’s tormented psyche. Here they pushed atonement as if it were a commodity, force-feeding it via the leftist media like some miserable brand of muesli, until you couldn’t stomach another bite. At least today’s young people, for all their faults, were wising up to that con. Never let them make you pay for something you hadn’t bought.

The front door slammed again. Then silence, until he heard Gerda’s house slippers scraping down the hall toward the kitchen.

“Who was it?” he called out, his voice a rasp.

“Repairman.” Wearily, as if she had been up for hours, and maybe she had. “For the icebox. He’s gone to fetch a part.”

Yet another item to mend in the house of the man whose very name meant durability for millions of consumers worldwide. Not that Kurt Bauer was any stranger to irony. Try to be good and play by the rules, and what did it earn you? Heartbreak, then ruin. Admit to any imperfection and they held it against you for life. Stray beyond the lines aggressively enough, however, and not only did you get things done, you also earned accommodation, even respect.

But soon enough he would no longer have to worry about such things. At age eighty-one, Kurt Bauer had begun clearing the books, settling old accounts, and smoothing the path toward immortality, for himself and for his family’s esteemed name in the world of commerce. To his surprise, most of his unfinished business still had to do with the war, even though Kurt had been only nineteen the day Hitler finally did everyone a favor by blowing his brains out.

A desire for vengeance also figured into Kurt’s plans. After decades of being on the defensive about certain delicate matters, he was at last in position to strike back. Those who had tormented him the longest, and had taken away what he cherished most, would finally answer for their crimes.

Kurt would have said that love was the driving emotion behind his plans. But his brand of love was a case study in arrested development. Most people who reach his age have long ago discovered that love’s deepest pain comes from watching the suffering of others-our children as they stumble, our elders as they grow feeble, or our spouses as they succumb to pain and infirmity. But Kurt had no children, his parents died suddenly while he was bustling through his twenties, and his marriage had long ago devolved into a series of bloodless jousts, drained of empathy. He still viewed love through the eyes of a young man who has suffered a signature heartbreak. For him, the idea of emotional pain still boiled down to a single name: Liesl.

As he lay in bed he rubbed a scar on his chest as if it were a battle medal that had been pinned there by a head of state. It was a comet’s tail of wrinkled pink flesh, carved by hot shrapnel on the morning of Liesl’s death.

After his father delivered the news, the young Kurt had refused to believe it without seeing for himself. He jumped on a bicycle and raced through the streets to the prison just as the sky began clearing in the west to open the way for more bombers. The ride took a good half hour, and his lungs were heaving as he spied the first pile of fatal rubble through a breach in the outer wall. The place was still in chaos from the raid the night before-three prisoners had reportedly escaped-and Kurt walked through the opening as boldly as if he were a guard. Workers were already picking through the debris.

Nearby, a pair of legs poked barefoot from beneath a collapsed wall. It made him light-headed with agony and fear. He wondered if he could even bear to look at her face. Why hadn’t they yet dug her out? Was it Liesl? Did he have the courage to check?