Joseph Kanon - A Good German

The words seemed to push Jake by the shoulders. He glared at the MP, then broke away without thinking and ran after her. The entry-way was littered with plaster. “ Frau!” he yelled. “Come. It’s not safe.” No one answered. He stopped, listening in the creaking house for an animal whimper, the terrified Helmut being rescued. Instead, a calm “One moment” came from the front room. She was standing in the middle, just looking around, holding a picture frame.

“You must come out,” he said gently, going over to her. “It’s not safe.”

She nodded. “Yes, I know. It’s all I have, you see,” she said, looking down at the picture. A boy in a Wehrmacht uniform.

He took her elbow. “Please,” he said, leading her away.

She began to walk with him, then stopped at an end table near the doorway and picked up a porcelain figurine, one of those pink-cheeked shepherdesses that gather dust in parlors. “For Elisabeth,” she said, as if she were apologizing for taking her own things.

The house, having held its breath for a few minutes, now exhaled again with a loud thump in the back. She started, and Jake took her by the shoulder to keep her going, so that his arm was around her when they came out on the stoop.

“Hold it.” The voice, oddly, of a policeman catching looters. But it was only Ron, next to the newsreel camera. For a brief moment, as they stood on the stoop, Jake realized that it was running and, worse, that what it had hoped to catch was his death. American journalist killed in Berlin-something finally worth filming.

“Anna!” the other woman shouted, hysterical. “Are you crazy? Are you crazy? ”

But Anna was undisturbed now, the picture clutched to her chest. She left Jake’s side, walked calmly down the steps, and handed the figurine to the other woman.

“Fucking Boy Scout,” the MP said to him.

“Ain’t he, though?” Tommy said. “Probably do the same for a cat.”

“Where is fucking Helmut anyway?” the MP said, disgusted.

“It’s her son,” Jake said. He turned to the truck. “Get a good picture?” he said to Ron. “Sorry it didn’t fall down for you.”

“Maybe next time.” Ron grinned. “Come on, hop up. Next stop, Allied games. The boys who fought together play together. Collier’s will love it.”

Jake looked up at him. The truth was, Collier’s would. The Allies in peace, conference table to playing field. Not Nazi cops and homeless Berliners. He could file this week, before the impatient telegrams started coming.

“The Russians too?”

“They’ve been invited.”

“Hey, buddy,” said the MP, subdued now. “Ask them if they’ve got someplace to go.”

Jake spoke with the women, standing now arm in arm, their backs to the soldiers.

“She has another sister in Hannover.”

“She’ll need a travel permit for that. Tell her we’ll get her to the DP camp down in Teltowerdamm. It’s not bad.”

But the word, once translated, jolted them, the clang of a cell door closing. “Not a camp!” the woman with the figurine shrieked. “Not a camp. You can’t make us.” She clutched Jake’s arm.

“What’s lager?” the MP said.

“Camp. They’re afraid. They think it’s a concentration camp.”

“Yeah, like the ones they used to run. Tell them it’s an American camp,” he said, certain this would be a comfort.

“They look to you like they ran anything?”

“What the hell. Krauts.”

Before Jake could answer, the side wall finally gave way, collapsing inward and taking the weakened body of the house with it in a roar. There was a crack of wood splintering and masonry smashing down, all the sounds of an explosion, so that when the dust rose in a cloud from the center it seemed the house had been bombed after all. One of the women gasped, holding her hand over her mouth. Everyone stood still, mesmerized. In the truck the cameras were running again, grateful for a little spectacle after the dud rescue. Some of the neighbors had run over and joined the crowd, standing away from the two women, as if their bad luck were catching. No one spoke. A part of the back wall buckled. Another crash, more dust, then a series of thuds, like aftershocks, as bits of the house detached themselves and slid into the center heap, until finally the noise stopped and they were looking through the standing facade at another one of Ron’s decayed teeth. The woman holding the figurine started to cry, but Anna simply stared at the wreck without expression, then turned.

“Okay, okay,” the MP said, waving his white stick, “let’s break it up. Show’s over.”

Jake looked at the house. Hundreds of thousands of them.

The truck driver started the engine, a signal to the others, and the soldiers began to climb on, shoving good-naturedly and joking.

“What about the women?” Jake said to the MP. “You can’t just leave them.”

“What are you, the Salvation Army?”

“Come on, Jake,” Tommy said. “There’s nothing you can do here.”

And in fact, what could he do? Take them home and ask them to tell him their troubles for Collier’s? The old couple from the billet had begun to lead them away. A night or two in the cramped basement, perhaps, living off the B rations from upstairs. Then a travel pass to Hannover and another basement. Or maybe not. Maybe just a tramp through the Tiergarten with the others, DPs because of a minute of falling plaster.

“You know, we didn’t start the fucking war,” the MP said, evidently reading his face.

“No. They did,” Jake said, confusing him, and followed Tommy into the truck.

They drove up into the British sector, past the radio tower where Jake had made the Columbia broadcasts, and out to the Olympic Stadium. The area around it was the usual mess, trees blasted into stumps, but the stadium, even scarred by shelling, looked just the way Jake remembered it. It had probably been the best of the Nazis’ monumental buildings, deceptively horizontal until you went through the gate and saw the long steps dropping down into the sunken amphitheater. He recognized the spot where he’d sat with the Dodds watching the games, his first job in Berlin. Miles of loudspeakers had been strung from the stadium out across the city to flash the news of each event to the center. Goebbels’ idea, a modern marvel to impress the visitors. It was the first time he’d seen Hitler, taking the salute in his emperor’s box. Fresh out of Chicago, years before Lena.

Today groups of soldiers were lying shirtless on the patchy grass, drinking beer and getting some sun before the game. The rows and rows of seats that had held thousands now had only a few hundred. but still a larger crowd than he’d expected, about the same as at a high school game back home. They were clustered at one end of the vast oval, where a football field had been chalked out in lime, British and Americans side by side, with a few French near the end, wearing hats with red pompoms. No Russians. On the sidelines a few soldiers sat in a circle playing cards, grumbling when they had to move for the news-reel camera crew. In the middle of the field, the players, in jerseys and shorts, were jumping up and down in warmup exercises. An occupying army with nothing to do but occupy.

“So the Russians didn’t show,” Jake said to Ron. “Who’s playing the French?”

“They’re here for the track events. That’s all the Russians are scheduled for too, so they’ll probably turn up. Want to interview some of the players?”

“I’ll just watch. Where’d the Brits learn to play?”

Ron shrugged. “They say rugby’s close. We’re mixing the teams, just in case. Keeps things fair.”

“You’re a born diplomat.”

“No. We’ve got the British reels to consider,” he said, pointing to another crew with tripods. “They don’t want to show their guys getting trounced, do they? Who’d watch that? Allied games, remember?”