Joseph Kanon - A Good German

Jake felt suddenly disoriented, his mental map redrawn like the city’s streets, no longer where they were supposed to be. When he turned right off Thielallee, he saw, confused, that he was literally lost. The side street didn’t connect back to Gelferstrasse as he’d thought it would. And your German isn’t the best either anymore, he thought to himself, smiling. But he had never known this part of town; the streets here had always gone this way. It was the other Berlin, the one he had known, where you now needed a compass to find your way, some needle pulled by gravity, strong enough to bend starlight. Contents — Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Almost all the other buildings in Elssholzstrasse had been knocked out, so the Control Council headquarters stood even larger now. A massive hulk of Prussian stone, its grim streetfront must have seemed an appropriate way station in the old court days, when the judges inside, party members all, had sentenced their victims to worse prisons. The main entrance, however, around the driveway into Kleist Park, presented a lighter face, tall windowed doors flanked by carved floating angels who looked down across what had been a formal lawn bordered with hedges toward two symmetrical colonnades at the other end, an unexpected piece of Paris. The whole place was noisy with activity-cars crunching on the gravel, a work party repairing the roof, banging tiles-like a country house getting ready for a big weekend party. Four bright new Allied flags had been hung over the entrance; 82nd Airborne guards in white spats and shiny helmets were posted at the doorway. Even the dusty grounds were being tidied up, raked by a detachment of German POWs, the letters stenciled on their backs, while a handful of bored GIs kept watch, standing around idly and taking the sun. Jake followed a group of husky Russian women in uniform through the chandeliered hall and up a grand marble staircase, an opera house entrance. He was met, surprisingly, by Muller himself.

“I thought you might like a look around,” Muller said, heading them down the corridor. “We’re still trying to get things in shape. Place took a fair amount of damage.”

“Maybe not enough, given what it was.”

“Well, we have to use what we can. Biggest place we could find. Over four hundred rooms, they say, although I don’t know who’s counting. Maybe they threw in a closet or two. Of course, only part of it’s usable. This is where the council will sit.” He opened the door to a large chamber, already converted to a meeting room with long tables arranged in a square. In each corner, near their respective flags, were desks with shorthand typewriters for recording secretaries. A stack of ashtrays and notepads sat on one table, waiting to be distributed.

“Nobody’s been here yet,” Muller said. “You’re the first, if that means anything to you.”

Jake looked around the empty room, feeling he was back at the Cecilienhof, counting chimneys. “No press section?”

“No press section. We don’t want to encourage speeches-hard to resist with the press around. Give them an audience, they can’t help themselves. We want working sessions.”

“Nice and private.”

“No.” He nodded to the recording desks. “There’ll be minutes. The council will meet once a quarter,” he continued. “The Coordinating Committee once a month, the subcommittees-well, all the time. There’s a lot to do.”

Jake fingered the stack of notepads. “All organized.” ‹›“On paper,” Muller said, leaning against the table, his back to the window, so that his silver hair developed a halo of light. “Actually, nobody knows how it’s going to work. Until we do it. We’re making it up as we go along. Nobody planned on this, running the country.” He noticed Jake’s raised eyebrows. “Not this way. They trained a few people, somewhere down in Virginia-to help the Germans with the transition,” he said, drawing out the word. “Transition. I don’t know what they expected. The last war, I suppose. Get a peace treaty, hand the country over to the good guys, and go home. But not this time. There wasn’t anybody to hand it over to. Twelve years. Even the mailmen were Nazis. And the country-you’ve seen it, it’s just shot to hell. Nobody expected them to fight to the end. Why would they? You don’t expect a whole country to commit suicide.“

“They had a little help from bomber command.”

Muller nodded. “I don’t say they didn’t ask for it. But now it’s flat and we’ve got it. No food, nothing running-Berlin HQ has got its hands full just fixing the water mains.” He took a breath and looked directly at Jake. “We’ve got twenty million people to feed in our zone alone. The ones who aren’t starving are stealing bicycles just to get around. We’ve got a winter coming with no coal. Epidemics, if we’re not lucky, which we probably won’t be. DPs—” He waved his hand as if, overwhelmed, he’d run out of words. “We didn’t sign on for any of this,” he said, his voice as tired as his eyes, “but we’ve got it anyway. So there’s a lot to do.” He glanced at the room. “Seen enough?”

Jake nodded. “Thanks for the look. And the speech,” he added easily. “You wouldn’t be trying to tell me something, by any chance.”

Muller smiled patiently, Judge Hardy again. “Maybe just a little. I’ve been regular army all my life-we’re used to protecting our flanks. People who write about MG, maybe they should have some idea what we’re up against. A little perspective. We’re not all-well, come on, I’ll give you what you came for.”

“How did you end up here, anyway?” Jake said, following him out into the long hall.

“Like everyone else-they don’t need us in the field now, so we’ve got to serve our time out somewhere. I didn’t volunteer, if that’s what you mean. Tactical units don’t have much use for MG, think we’re just office boys. I wasn’t any different. Nobody’s going to get a promotion for fixing sewer lines. But nobody’s getting promoted in the field now either-the war’s over, they tell me-and I have a while to go before they pension me off. So. We’re long on old farts here. The civilians, that’s something else. Most of the time it’s some lawyer who sat out the war in Omaha and now wants a commission so he can call himself captain-they won’t sign on for the lower ranks. They get it too, the rank. What the rest of us had to work years for. It rubs a little, if you let it.”

“But you don’t.”

“I did. But it’s like anything else-the work takes over. You serve your country,” he said flatly, without a hint of irony. “I didn’t ask for it, but you know what? I think we’re doing one helluva job here, given everything. Or does that sound like another speech to you?“

“No.” Jake smiled. “It sounds like they ought to promote you.” “They won’t,” Muller said evenly, then stopped and faced him. “You know, this is probably my last post. I wouldn’t want to see-any mess. If you’re going to start flinging mud around, I’d appreciate a little early warning.”

“I’m not—”

“I know, you’re just curious. So are we. A man’s been killed. And the truth is, we have no way of finding out what happened. We don’t have Scotland Yard here, just some MPs arresting drunks. So we may never know. But if there’s anything that might, well, be a problem for us, that we do need to know.”

“What makes you think there is?”

“I don’t. But that’s what you’re fishing for, isn’t it?” He started walking again. “Look, all I’m asking is you meet me halfway on this. I don’t have to release any information. If you hadn’t been there at Potsdam-but you were, and you knew him. So now I’ve got a situation. I can’t pretend it didn’t happen. But I don’t have to open this up to a lot of speculation either. I’m releasing it to you, not anybody else. If you do turn up something, okay, you’ve got yourself a story.”