Joseph Kanon - A Good German

“How are they doing?”

“Oh, fine, fine. Nobody fraternizes, so nobody gets the syph. Nobody loots. Nobody’s making a dime on the black market. Just handing out Hershey bars and keeping their noses clean. Any mother would be proud. According to Life.” He picked up his files to go.

Jake lit a cigarette and looked at him carefully through the smoke. A DA, not a boy playing Mendelssohn.

“What’s going to happen to Otto Klopfer?”

Bernie stopped. “Otto? Summary court. He’s not big enough for the Nuremberg team. Three to five, probably. Then he’ll be back driving a truck. But not for us.”

“But I thought you said—”

“We can’t prove the actual killing. No witnesses in the van. If he hadn’t sent the letter, we couldn’t prove anything. We’re sticklers for the law here. We don’t want to start an inquisition,“ he said, back in his dining room voice. ”We’d rather cut the Nazis a little slack.“

“Summary court-that’s you?”

Bernie shook his head. “We try to keep the foreign-born minorities out of court. In case they’re not-impartial. I’m just the hound. Right now I’m on the fragebogen” He touched the files. “Questionnaires,” he translated. “‘Were you a member of the party? BDM?’ Like that. They have to fill one out if they want a job, a ration card.”

“Don’t they lie?”

“Sure. But we have the party records, so we check. Wonderful people for keeping records.”

Jake stared at the bulky files, like a hundred message sticks in the rubble.

“Could you locate somebody with those?”

Bernie looked at him. “Maybe. If they’re in the American zone,” he said, a question.

“I don’t know.”

“The British files would take a while. The Russians—” He let it dangle, then said gently, “A relative?”

“Somebody I used to know.”

Bernie took out a pen and scribbled on a piece of paper. “I’ll see what I have,” he said, handing him an office number. “Come by tomorrow. I have a feeling my three o’clock will be canceled.” He left the piano, then turned back to Jake. “They’d have to be alive, you know.”

“Yes. Thanks.” He pocketed the address. “Can I buy you a drink?”

Bernie shook his head. “Have to get back to work.” He shifted the files under his arm, running late again.

“You can’t get them all,” Jake said, smiling a little.

Bernie’s face went hard. “No. Just one at a time. The way they did it. One at a time.” ‹›It took over an hour the next morning to find Frau Dzuris, in one of the crumbled streets not far from the British headquarters in Fehrbelliner Platz. Plaster had fallen off the front of the building, leaving patches of exposed brick, and the staircase smelled of mildew and slop buckets, the signs of a broken water line. He was shown to the second floor by a neighbor, who lingered in the hall in case there was trouble. Inside, the sounds of children, immediately silent after the knock on the door. When Frau Dzuris opened it, looking frightened, there was the faint odor of boiling potatoes. She recognized him, her hands fluttering to smooth her hair and drawing him in but the welcome was nervous, and Jake saw on the children’s faces that it was the uniform. Not sure what to do, she insisted on introducing everybody-a daughter-in-law, three children-and sat him at the table. In the other room, two mattresses had been pushed together.

“I saw your notice in Pariserstrasse,” he began in German.

“For my son. He doesn’t know we’re here. They took him to work in the east. A few weeks they said, and now look—”

“You were bombed out?”

“Oh, it was terrible. The British at night, the Amis in the day—” A quick glance, to see if she had offended him. “Why did they want to bomb everything? Did they think we were Hitler? The building was hit twice. The second time—”

The daughter-in-law offered him water and sat down. In the other room, the children watched through the door.

“Was Lena there?”

“No, at the hospital.”

“The hospital?”

“Not hurt. She worked there. The Elisabeth. You know the one, in Liitzowstrasse. I said it was God protecting her for her good works. You know, the others, in the basement, didn’t make it. Herr Bloch, his Greta, everybody. They killed them all.” Another glance. “Herr Bloch wouldn’t go to the public shelter. Not him. But I never trusted the cellar. It’s not deep enough, I said, and you see it wasn’t.” She had begun to wring her hands, and Jake saw the flesh of her upper arms hanging in folds, like strips of dough. “So many dead. Terrible, you can’t imagine, all night—”

“But Lena, she was all right?”

She nodded. “She came back. But of course we had to move.”

“Where did she go?”

“She had a friend from the hospital. After that, I don’t know. It was hit too, I heard. A hospital. They bombed even the sick.” She shook her head.

“But she didn’t leave an address?”

“With me? I was already gone. You know, there wasn’t time for addresses. You found whatever you could. Perhaps she had relatives, I don’t know. She never said. You can’t imagine what it was like. The noise. But do you know the strange thing? The telephones worked right to the end. That’s the thing I remember about Pariserstrasse. The bombs and everybody running and there was a telephone ringing. Even then.”

“And her husband?”

“Away somewhere. In the war.” She waved her hand. “They left the women for the Russians. Oh, that was terrible. Thank God I—” She glanced toward her daughter-in-law. “I was lucky.”

“But she must be somewhere,” Jake said.

“I don’t know. I told your friend.”

“What friend?”

“The soldier yesterday. I didn’t know what to think. Now I see. You didn’t want to come yourself, that explains it. You were always careful, I remember. In case Emil—” She leaned forward and put her hand on his arm, an unexpected confidante. “But you know, none of that matters anymore. So many years.”

“I didn’t send anybody here.”

She withdrew her hand. “No? Well, then, I don’t know.”

“Who was he?”

She shrugged. “He didn’t say. They don’t, you know. Just, how many are living here? Do you have milk cards for the children? Where did you work in the war? It’s worse than the Nazis. Maybe he was counting the dead. They do that, so you can’t use the name for the ration cards.”

“What did he say?”

“Did I know where she was living, had I seen Emil, that’s all. Like you.” She looked at him. “Is something wrong? We’re good people here. I have children to—”

“No, no. Nothing. I’m not here for the police. I just want to find Lena. We were friends.”

She smiled faintly. “Yes. I always thought so. Not a word from her,” she said, as if she still hoped for a chat over coffee. “So proper, always. Well, what does it matter now? I’m sorry I can’t help. Perhaps the hospital would know.”

He took out his notepad and wrote down the Gelferstrasse address. “If you do hear from her—”

“Of course. It’s not likely, you know. Many people left Berlin before the end. Many people. It was hard to find a place. Even like this. You see how we live now.”

Jake looked around the shabby room, then stood. “I didn’t know about the children. I would have brought some chocolate. Perhaps you can use these?” He offered her a pack of cigarettes.

She widened her eyes, then grabbed his hand and shook it with both of hers. “Thank you. You see,” she said to her daughter-in-law, “I always said it wasn’t the Amis. You can see how kind they are. It’s the British who wanted the bombing. That Churchill.” She turned back to Jake. “I remember you were always polite. I wish we were back in the American zone, not here with the British.”