Joseph Kanon - A Good German

He turned to Renate. “We all did,” he said, his voice lower now. “But you-you could have looked away. Your friend. Just the once.”

At this she did look away, facing the stenographers, so that her words were almost lost.

“I needed one more,” she said, as if it answered everything. “One more.”

Another awkward silence in the room, broken finally by the judge.

“The witness is not on trial here,” he said. “Are you disputing what he saw?”

The defense shook his head, as eager as everyone else now to move on.

“Good. Then you’re finished,” the judge said to Gunther. “Step down.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “We will meet tomorrow.”

“But we have other witnesses,” the prosecutor said, anxious not to let his momentum stall.

“Then call them tomorrow. It’s enough for today. And next time stick to the facts.”

Which were what, Jake wondered. Another column of numbers.

When no one moved, the judge waved his hand at the room. “Adjourned, adjourned,” he said irritably, then rose, motioning for the other two to follow.

Jake heard the sound of chairs being moved, a low buzz, lawyers gathering papers. Gunther stayed in his chair, still looking straight ahead. The guards, surprised by the abrupt dismissal, nudged Renate away from her railing and began to lead her at gunpoint out of the room. Jake watched her pass in front of the bench, her eyes meeting his as she approached the prosecution table. She stopped.

“So it’s really you,” she said to him, her old voice. “You came back.”

The guards, not sure whether she was allowed to speak, looked around for instructions, but the judges had gone, the room emptying with them.

Jake nodded, not knowing what to say. It’s good to see you again? Collarbones sticking out.

“It wasn’t for myself,” she said to Jake, her eyes on him, waiting.

Jake looked down, unable to respond. Bernie was watching from the side, waiting too. But what could anyone say? A guard took her arm. In a minute she’d be gone. One word, something.

He fell back on the empty courtesy of a prison visit. “Can I get you anything?”

She looked at him for another moment, disappointed, then shook her head. More Russian, insistent now. The guards pushed her away from the table.

Jake stayed until the room was almost cleared, just a hum coming in from the hall. Gunther was still in his chair. When Bernie went over to get him, he looked up once, then brushed him aside, getting up stiffly, and walked toward Jake, one deliberate foot in front of the other.

“I’ll give you a lift,” Bernie said, but Gunther ignored him.

He stopped for a second at the table. “I’ll talk to Willi,” he said to Jake, then kept walking out of the room.

Bernie, disconcerted, went over and began putting files back in his briefcase.

“What about you?” he said.

Jake looked up. “I have the jeep.” He stood up to leave, then turned. “Still think all the stories end the same way?” he said.

Bernie shoved the last file in the case. “Marthe Behn’s did.” Contents — Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Outside, Jake avoided the Alex, where everyone had parked, and took one of the side streets instead, too numb to face Ron and the others swapping notes. Gunther had already disappeared somewhere in the rubble. A walk, anything to get away. But the courtroom followed him, a dead hand on his shoulder. What happens when it’s over. He looked around. No one in the street, not even the usual children climbing over bricks. The raids had done their worst here-not a wall standing, the air still thick with sour dust. Flies buzzed over a deep bomb crater, now a gray pond of sewage from a broken main. But poison had been seeping into Berlin for years. When had Hans Becker told Renate about her mother? While they were in bed? Always something worse, even when it was ordinary. A waitress collecting her check, knowing. What it was like, day after day. For the first time Jake wondered if Breimer might be right, if this wasteland was what they deserved, some biblical retribution to wipe out the poison once and for all. But here it still was, a giant hole filling with sludge.

“Uri.”

The Russian startled him, coming out of nowhere.

“ Uri,” the soldier said again, pointing to Jake’s arm.

“No watch.”

The Russian scowled. “ Ja, uri,” he said, pointing to the old Bulova on Jake’s wrist. He pulled a wad of bills from his pocket and held them out.

“No. Now piss off.”

A hard stare, menacing, so that suddenly Jake felt his blood jump, a spurt of fear. A deserted street. It could be this easy, capricious, like shooting at rats. Another incident. But the Russian was turning away, disgruntled, stuffing the notes back in his pocket.

As Jake watched him go, breathing again, the street felt even emptier. No market crowds here. If Gunther was right, if he’d been the target, they could pick him off easily now. Not even a witness. If they wanted him. He stood still for a moment, back in Potsdam. A shell game of a crime, knowing the killer but not the victim. Three of them. What if it had been him? He moved his hand to his hip, an involuntary reflex, wishing he had a gun. Not that it had done Liz any good. He stopped. But she hadn’t been wearing it that day, her cowgirl holster. Where was it? On the way back to Webster Groves? He tried to remember Ron in her room, folding clothes. No gun. Did it matter? But something unexplained.

He looked at the pond, unsettled. Follow the points. You play a shell game by elimination. Three of them in the market. Usually the one intended. But why would anyone want to kill Liz? Which left two. One of them now ready for visitors in Gelferstrasse. He turned and started back up the street, hand still on his hip. When he reached the jeep, another Russian, reading a newspaper, glanced up at him uneasily and moved away, as if he were in fact carrying a gun.

He found Breimer reading what seemed to be the same paper at Shaeffer’s billet, a villa across the street from the collapsed house. An army nurse was flicking through Life, half listening as Breimer read snatches out loud, apparently unable to stop talking even outside a sickroom door.

“Two thousand times more than the Townbuster. That was the biggest we had. Two thousand times.” He looked up as Jake walked in. “Ah, good. He’s been asking for you. Well, it’s a great day, isn’t it?

It won’t be long now.“ When Jake said nothing, confused, he handed him the paper. ”I see you haven’t heard,“ he said. ”And you call yourself a newspaperman. We’ll all be going home after this. Twenty thousands tons of TNT. Size of a fist. Hard to imagine.“

Jake took the paper. Stars and Stripes. U.S. reveals atom bomb used first time on japs. The other war, almost forgotten. A city he’d never heard of. Two square miles wiped out in one blast, the mess behind the Alex a warmup by comparison.

“It’s over now for sure,” Breimer said, but what Jake saw was the Russian’s face by the jeep, uneasy.

“How does it work?” he said, scanning the page. A chart of the other bombs, getting bigger toward the bottom.

“You’ll have to ask the eggheads that. All I know is, it did. They say you still can’t see through the smoke. Two days. No wonder old Harry was playing hardball with the Reds. You have to hand it to him-he sure kept this one close to the vest.”

Jaunty in a double-breasted suit on the Cecilienhof terrace, smiling for Liz’s camera. With an ace up his sleeve.

“Yes sir, a great day,” Breimer said, still excited. “When I think of all those boys-coming home. They’ll all be coming home now. In one piece too, thank the Lord.”