Joseph Kanon - A Good German

“No, I was looking for the institute,” Jake said in German.

“Closed,” the man said automatically, but now it was his turn to start, surprised to hear German.

“Yes. Do you know when it opens in the morning?”

“It doesn’t open. It’s closed. Kaput.” He dipped his head, reflex manners. “Forgive me. I thought-an American. I thought you were looking for the Kommandatura. Come, Schatzie.”

“The Berlin Kommandatura?” Jake said, coming down before he could move away. “That’s it?” He looked toward the brick building, now taking in the flags, the windows with lights burning. Thin square columns to give it an entrance. “What was it before?” The dog began sniffing at his leg, so Jake leaned over and patted her, a gesture that seemed to surprise the old man more than his speaking German.

“An insurance company,” the man answered. “Fire insurance. It was a joke, you know. The one building that didn’t burn.” He looked ‹›down at the dog, still sniffing Jake’s hand. “Don’t worry, she won’t trouble you. Not so much energy these days. It’s the food, you see. I have to share my ration with her, and it’s not enough.” Jake stood up, noticing now the man’s own skinny frame, a heartless illustration of the old saw that owners resembled their pets. But the scraps at Gelferstrasse were blocks away. Instead he took out a pack.

“Cigarette?”

The old man took it and bowed. “Thank you. You don’t mind if I save it for later?” he said, carefully tucking it into his pocket.

“Here. Save that one. Smoke this,” Jake said, suddenly wanting company.

The man looked at it, amazed at his windfall, then nodded and bent over to the lighter. “You are about to see something interesting- a cigarette in Berlin actually being smoked. It’s another joke. One sells to another, and another, but who smokes them?” He inhaled, then leaned his hand against Jake’s upper arm. “Forgive me. A little dizziness. Thank you. How is it that you speak German?” he said, making conversation, his tongue set loose by tobacco.

“I lived in Berlin before the war.”

“Ah. It’s not the best, you know, your German. You should study.” A voice from a classroom.

Jake laughed. “Yes,” he said, then nodded toward the man’s pocket. “How much will you get for it?”

“Five marks, maybe. It’s for her.” He looked down at the dog. “I’m not complaining. Things are as they are. But it’s difficult, to see her like this. How can you feed a dog, they say, when people are hungry? But what should I do? Let her die, an innocent? Who else is so innocent in Berlin? That’s what I say to them-when you’re innocent, I’ll feed you too. That shuts them up. They’re the worst, the golden pheasants.”

Jake looked at him, lost now, wondering if he’d found not a man in the street but a crank. “Golden pheasants?”

“The big party members. Now, of course, they know nothing. You brought this on us, I say to them, and you want to eat? I’d rather feed a dog. A dog.”

“So they’re still around.”

The old man smiled crookedly. “No, there are no Nazis in Berlin. Not one. Only Social Democrats. So many, all those years. How could the party have survived with so many against them? Well, it’s a question.” He took another drag and stared at the glowing tip. “All Social Democrats now. The bastards. They threw me out.” He looked toward the institute building. “Years of work. I’ll never make it up now, never. It’s all kaput.”

“You’re a Jew?”

He snorted. “If I were a Jew I’d be dead. They had to leave right away. The rest of us, they waited, hoping we would join, then it was an order-party member or out. So I was out. I really was a Social Democrat.” He smiled. “Of course, you may not believe me. But you can check the records. 1938.”

“You were at the institute?” Jake said, interested now.

“Since 1919,” he said proudly. “They had places, you see, after the influenza, so I was lucky. It counted for something then, just to be here. Well, those days. I remember when we got the measurements from the eclipse. For Einstein’s theory,” he said, a teacher explaining, catching Jake’s blank expression. “If light had mass, then gravity would bend the rays. Starlight. The eclipse made it possible to measure. Einstein said it would be 1.75 seconds of an arc, the angle. And do you know what it was? 1.63. So close. Can you imagine? In that one minute, everything changed. Everything. Newton was wrong. The whole world changed, right here in Berlin. Right here.” He extended his arm toward the building, his voice following it in some private reverie. “So, then what? Champagne, of course, but the talk. All night talking. We thought we could do anything-that was German science. Until the gangsters. Then down the drain—”

“I had a friend at the institute,” Jake said, breaking in before the old man could drift further. “I’m trying to locate him. That’s why- perhaps you knew him. Emil Brandt?”

“The mathematician? Yes, of course. Emil. You were his friend?”

“Yes,” Jake said. His friend. “I was hoping someone would know where he is. You don’t-?”

“No, no, it’s many years.”

“But do you know what happened to him?”

“That I couldn’t say. I left the institute, you see.”

“And he stayed,” Jake said slowly, piecing together dates. “But he wasn’t a Nazi.”

“My friend, anyone who was here after 1938—” He stopped, seeing Jake’s face, and looked away. “But perhaps he was a special case.” He dropped his cigarette. “Thank you again. I must say good evening now. The curfew.”

“I knew him,” Jake said. “He wasn’t like that.”

“Like what? Goering? Many people joined, not just the swine. People do what they have to do.”

“You didn’t.”

He shrugged. “And what did it matter? Emil was young. A fine mind, I remember that. Numbers he could see in his head, not just on paper. Who can say what’s right? To give up your work for politics? Maybe he loved science more. And in the end—” He paused, looking again at the building, then back at Jake. “You disturb yourself over this. I can see it. Let me tell you something, for the price of a cigarette. The eclipse? In 1919? The Freikorps were fighting in the streets then. I myself saw bodies, Spartakists, in the Landwehrkanal. Who remembers now? Old politics. Footnotes. But in that building we changed the world. So what’s important? A party card? I don’t judge your friend. We are not all criminals.”

“Just the golden pheasants.”

A mild smile, conceding the point. “Yes. Them I don’t forgive. I’m not yet a saint.”

“What does it mean, anyway? Golden pheasants?”

“Who knows? Bright feathers-the uniforms. The wives left in fur coats, before the Russians came. Maybe it was that they flew out of the bushes as soon as they heard the first shots. Ha,” he said, the joke for himself. “Maybe that’s why there are no Nazis in Berlin.” He stopped and looked again at Jake. “It was a formality, you know. Just a formality.” He tipped his hat. “Good night.” ‹›Jake stood for a minute in front of the gloomy institute, unsettled. Emil must have joined. There wouldn’t have been any exceptions. But why did it surprise him? Millions had. A formality. Except Jake hadn’t known. All that time, something unsaid. A pleasant man with gentle eyes, quiet at parties, diffident, who saw numbers in his head-someone Jake never thought about at all. Not a Nazi, one of the good Germans. Standing with his arm around Lena. Had she known? How could he not tell her? And how could she stay with him, knowing? But she had.

It was getting dark, so he started down Thielallee. A jeep had pulled up in front of the Kommandatura, dropping off two soldiers, who hurried up the stairs with briefcases. New politics, soon to be as old as the Freikorps. What was important? People do what they have to do. She had stayed. Jake had left. That simple. Except Emil wasn’t simple anymore, which changed things. Had she known, those afternoons when they drew the shades to keep Berlin outside?