Joseph Kanon - A Good German

He heard the click of the door as Lena left the bathroom, and he walked over to the window, turning out the light behind him. Nothing. Wittenbergplatz was quiet. He looked up and down the street, eyes in two directions. Maybe Frau Hinkel was wrong about that too. But U-boats kept moving. His cards were lucky. Pariserstrasse was rubble, in a day this flat would be gone, but Lena was still here, brushing out her hair probably, sitting on the bed in her nightgown, waiting for him. He looked around in the dark. Just rooms.

In the bathroom he brushed his teeth, then washed off the day’s layer of grime, coming alive with the water. She’d be wearing the prewar silk, a sentimental choice for their last night here, straps hanging loose on her shoulders. Maybe already packing, ready to go somewhere new. But when he opened the door, he saw her lying on the bed in the dim lamplight, curled up like one of the children, eyes closed. A long day. He stood for a moment looking at her face, damp from the heat, but not the fever of those days when he’d kept watch. A few of her things had been folded in a neat pile. Life in a suitcase, the last thing she wanted, but she’d said it. He turned off the light, undressed, and slipped quietly onto his side of the bed, trying not to wake her, thinking of that first night, when they hadn’t made love either, just lay together. He turned on his side and she stirred.

“Jacob,” she said, only half awake. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. Go to sleep.”

“No, I wanted—”

“Ssh.” He smoothed her forehead, whispering. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow. We’ll go to the lakes.” Like a bedtime promise to a child.

“A boat,” she murmured vaguely, not really following, still drowsy. “All right.” A pause. “Thank you for everything,” she said, oddly polite.

“Any time,” he said, smiling at her words.

In the quiet he thought she had drifted off, but she moved closer, facing him, eyes now open. She put her hand on his cheek. “Do you know something? I’ve never loved you as much as I did tonight.”

“When was that, exactly?” he said softly. “So I can do it again.”

“Don’t joke,” she said, leaning her head into his. She stroked his cheek. “Never so much. When you read to him. I saw how it would have been. If nothing had happened.”

He saw her eyes in the basement again, not tired, brimming with something else, a sadness out of reach, hanging in the air between them like rubble dust.

“Sleep,” he said. He moved his hand up to close her eyes, but she took it in hers.

“Let me see it again,” she said, tracing. “Yes, there.” Satisfied, her eyes closing finally. Contents — Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Brian had been as good as his word. Jake’s name was listed at the Grunewald yacht club and the boat was his for a signature.

“He said you’d be by,” the British soldier said at the marina landing. “I’ll have Roger bring it round for you. Know how to handle a sail?” Jake nodded. “ ‘Course, she’s only a sunny. Nothing to it. Still, we like to ask. Some of the lads—” He jerked his head toward the terrace cafe, where soldiers sat drinking beer under a row of flapping Union Jacks, one table in kilts, still in parade dress. “Wait here, I won’t be a sec.”

Lena was standing with her face to the sun, oblivious to everything but the day. There was a breeze off the lake, fresh, not even a trace of the city’s smell.

The boat was a small single-masted sailboat scarcely big enough for two, with a toylike tiller and oars. It bobbed unsteadily when Jake stepped in, so that he planted his feet apart and held the dock piling before he reached for Lena’s hand, but she grinned at his concern, slipping off her shoes and leaping in, surefooted, her skirt blowing up in the breeze. Half the terrace seemed to be watching, heads tilted to catch her legs.

“Sit first,” she said to Jake, in control, then pushed the boat off.

“Watch the current,” the soldier said. “It’s not really a lake, you know. People forget.”

Lena nodded, stretching the sail out along the jib, an old hand. They began moving on the water.

“I didn’t know you were a sailor,” Jake said, watching her tie the sail rope.

“I’m from Hamburg. Everyone knows boats there.” She looked around, theatrically sniffing the air. “My father liked it. In the summer we used to go to the sea. Always, every summer. He would take me out with him because my brother was too small.”

“You have a brother?”

“He was killed. In the army,” she said, matter-of-fact.

“I didn’t know.”

“Yes, Peter. The same name.”

“Were there others?”

“No, just him and my parents. There’s no one left now from that life. Except Emil.” She shrugged and lifted her head again. “Pull to your left, we have to bring it around. My god, what a day. So hot.” Deliberately pushing them away from shore.

And in fact, the farther they went, the better it became, away from the war, the burned pockets of woods disappearing in the distance, only the standing pines visible. Not Berlin at all, little waves catching the sun in flashes, postcard blue. He looked across the water, shading his eyes from the glare. Not choked with bodies like the stagnant Landwehrkanal-all flushed to the North Sea with the current, except for what had settled to the bottom, bottles, scraps of shells, even riding boots. The surface, anyway, was bright and clear.

“A brother. I didn’t know. What else? I want to know everything about you.”

“So you can decide?” she said, smiling, determined to be cheerful. “Too late. You’ve already had the sample. It’s like Wertheim’s-no returns permitted, sales final.”

“Wertheim’s never said that.”

“No? Well, I do.” She flicked some water over the side at him.

“That’s all right. I don’t want to return anything.”

She sat back against the prow, hiking her skirt up to her thighs, stretching her white legs in the sun.

“You look beautiful today.”

“You think so? Then let’s not go back. We’ll live here, on the water.”

“Careful you don’t burn.”

“I don’t care. It’s healthy.”

The breeze had died down, the boat barely moving, as still as a beach. They lay on their backs like sunbathers, eyes closed, talking into the air.

“What will it be like, do you think?” she said, her voice lazy, like the quiet slap of water against the side of the boat.

“What?”

“Our life.”

“Why do women always ask that? What happens next.”

“So many have asked you that?”

“Every single one.”

“Maybe we have to plan. What do you tell them?”

“That I don’t know.”

She trailed her hand in the water. “So that’s your answer? ‘I don’t know’?”

“No. I know.”

She said nothing for a minute, then sat up. “I’m going to swim.”

“Not here you’re not.”

“Why not? It’s so hot.”

“You don’t know what’s in there.”

“You think I’m afraid of fish?” She stood, holding on to the mast to steady the boat.

“Not fish,” he said. Bodies. “It’s not clean. You could get sick.”

“Ouf,” she said, waving it off, then reached under to slip off her underpants. “You know, during the raids it was like that. Some nights you were afraid of everything. Then others, nothing. No reason, you just knew nothing would happen. And nothing did.”

She took off her dress, pulling it over her head, then standing with her arms still up, stretched out, everything white but the patch of hair between her legs, brazen. “Your face,” she said, laughing at him. “Don’t worry, I won’t swallow.”