Joseph Kanon - A Good German

“Listen, Hannelore, for two cents I’d turn you in. They’ll make you a rubble lady. It’s hell on the nails.” He looked at her red fingertips. “Now get dressed and do it.”

“Hey, you can’t talk to her—”

“And I’ll have you up for fraternizing with a Nazi. And assaulting an officer. I can do it, too.”

Steve stared at him. “Tough guy,” he said finally.

“Please,” Jake said. “She’s sick, for Christ’s sake, you can see that.”

Steve glanced over at the bed, then nodded and began to put on his pants.

“I’m not a Nazi,” Hannelore said. “I was never a Nazi. Never.”

“Shut up and get dressed,” Steve said, throwing her the dress.

“You were always trouble for me,” she said to Jake, still disgruntled, pulling the dress over her head. “Always. And what made you so perfect? Sneaking around with her. I knew all the time. Everybody knew.”

“Here,” Jake said, handing Steve the money, “you take it. He’s a young guy. Slick hair.” He took a key from his pocket. “My jeep’s there, if you want to drive back.”

Steve shook his head. “She can walk.”

“What do you mean, she can walk? Where are you going?” Hannelore said, still arguing with him as they went out the door.

“You mustn’t be angry with her,” Lena said in the sudden quiet. “She’s had a hard time.”

Jake sat on the bed, looking at her, still trying to take her in. “You’ve been here. All the time,” he said, as if that were the remarkable thing. “I passed the other day—”

“I knew she had the flat. There was nowhere else. The bombs—”

He nodded. “Pariserstrasse, I know. I looked for you everywhere. I saw Frau Dzuris. Remember?”

She smiled. “Poppyseed cakes.”

“She’s not fat anymore.” He wiped her brow, letting his hand rest on the side of her face. “Have you been eating?”

“Yes. She’s good to me. She shares her ration. And of course she gets a little extra from the soldiers.”

“How long has that been going on?”

She shrugged. “We eat.”

“How long have you been sick?”

“A little while. I don’t know. The fever this week.”

“Do you want to sleep?”

“I can’t sleep. Not now. I want to hear—” But in fact she closed her eyes. “How did you find me?”

“I knew the dress.”

She smiled, her eyes still closed. “My good blue.”

“Lena,” he said, smoothing her hair. “My god.”

“Oh, I must look terrible. Do you even recognize me?”

He kissed her forehead. “What do you think?”

“That’s a nice lie.”

“You’ll look even better after the doctor fixes you up. You’ll see. I’ll bring some food tomorrow.”

She held her hand to his head, looking at him. “I thought I’d never see you again. Never.” She noticed his uniform. “Are you a soldier? Were you in the war?”

He turned slightly and pointed to his shoulder patch. “Correspondent.”

“Tell me—” She paused, blinking, as if caught by a sudden pain. “Where to begin? Tell me everything that happened to you. Did you go back to America?”

“No. Once, a visit. Then London, all over.”

“And nowhere.”

“I told you I’d come back. Didn’t you believe me?” He took her by the shoulders. “Everything’s going to be the same.”

She turned her head. “It’s not so easy, to be the same.”

“Yes, it is. You’ll see. We’re the same.”

Her eyes, already shiny with fever, grew moister, but she smiled. “Yes, you’re the same.”

He brushed the bare hairline above his temple. “Almost, anyway.” He looked down at her. “You’ll see. Just like before.”

She closed her eyes, and he busied himself wetting the handkerchief, disconcerted by his own words. Not like before.

“So you found Hannelore,” he said, trying to be conversational, then, “Where’s Emil?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her voice curiously detached. “Dead, maybe. It was terrible here, at the end.”

“He was in Berlin?”

“No, up north. For the army.”

“Oh,” he said, not trusting himself to say more. He stood up. “I’ll get some more water. Try getting a little sleep before the doctor gets here.”

“Like a nurse,” she said, closing her eyes.

“That’s right. I’m going to take care of you. Go to sleep. Don’t worry, I’ll be here.”

“It seems impossible. I just opened the door.” Her voice drifting.

He turned to leave, then stopped. “Lena? What makes you think he’s dead?”

“I would have heard.” She moved her hand up, covering her eyes. “Everyone’s dead. Why not him?”

“You’re not.”

“No, not yet,” she said wearily.

He glanced at her. “That’s the fever talking. I’ll be right back.”

He walked through the main room to the kitchen. Everything the same. In the bedroom, littered with Hannelore’s clothes and bottles of lotion, he could imagine being somewhere else, but here it was his flat, the couch against the wall, the little table by the window, not even rearranged, as if he’d simply gone away for the weekend. The kitchen shelves were bare-three potatoes and a few cans of C rations, a jar of ersatz coffee. No bread. How did they live? At least Hannelore had her dinner at Ronny’s. Surprisingly, the gas ring worked. A kettle to make coffee. No tea. The room itself felt hungry.

“It’s cold,” she said when he put a new wet cloth on her forehead.

“It’s good for the fever. Just keep it there.”

He sat for a minute looking at her. An old cotton wrapper dotted with patches of sweat, wrists thin enough to snap. Like one of the grim DPs he’d seen plodding across the Tiergarten. Where had Emil been?

“I went to the Elisabeth,” he said. “Frau Dzuris said you worked there.“

“With the children. There was no one to help, so—” She winced. “So I went there.”

“Did they get out? Before the raid?”

“Not bombs. Shells. The Russians. Then the fire.” She turned her head, eyes filling. “No one got out.”

He turned the cloth over, feeling helpless.

“Don’t think about it now.”

“No one got out.”

But she had, somehow. Another Berlin story.

“Tell me later,” he said softly. “Get some sleep.”

He smoothed her hair again, as if it would empty her head, and in a few minutes it seemed to work. The little gasps evened out and became almost soundless, so that only the faint movement of her chest showed she was breathing at all. Where was Hannelore?

He watched her sleep for a while, then got up and looked around the jumbled room. Clothes had been flung over the chair, a pair of shoes resting on top. Without thinking, he began putting things away, filling time. A messy room is the sign of a messy mind-his mother’s old saying, ingrained after all. He realized, absurdly, that he was tidying up for the doctor. As if it mattered.

He opened the closet door. He had left a few things with Hal, but they were gone, traded perhaps on one of the message boards. In their place, a fur coat was hanging next to some dresses. A little ragged, but still fur, the kind of thing he’d heard they collected to send to the troops on the eastern front. But Hannelore had kept hers. A present, no doubt, from a friend in the ministry. Or maybe just salvaged after one of the bombing raids, when the owner hadn’t got out.

He went into the living room. There wasn’t much to straighten here-the lumpy couch, a suitcase neatly set underneath, some stray cups that hadn’t been washed. Near the window table, something new-an empty birdcage, Hannelore’s one addition to the room. Otherwise, just as before. He washed the cups in cold water, then wiped off the sink counter, settling in. When there was nothing left to do, he stood by the window smoking, thinking about the hospital. What else had she seen? All the time he’d imagined her in the old flat getting dressed to go out, frowning at herself in the mirror, safe under some bell jar of memory. The last four years were only supposed to have happened to him.