Joseph Kanon - A Good German

“Come on, Lena. It’s not safe.”

“Oh, safe.” She tossed the dress aside. “You see, a gypsy,” she said, flinging her arms out. She glanced back. “Hold the boat,” she said, still pragmatic. “You don’t want it to swamp.” And then with a light bounce she was over, slicing into the water, her splash spraying the boat as it rocked in her wake.

He leaned over the side, watching her glide beneath the surface, long arms pushing back the water in smooth arcs, hair streaming behind her toward the round curve of her hips, a free streak of white flesh, so graceful that for a second he wondered if he had made her up, just an idea of a woman. But she bobbed up, spitting water and laughing, real.

“You look like a mermaid,” he said.

“With fins,” she said, rolling on her back in a fluid movement to point her toes upward, then slapping the water with them. “It’s wonderful, like silk. Come.”

“I’ll watch.”

She plunged down in a backward dive, making a circle underwater, performing. When she came back up she floated again, eyes closed to the sun, her skin glistening in the light. He looked across the water. They had drifted closer to the Grunewald shore, and he could make out the beach where they’d stood that day when the rain had caught them. Closed into herself, not even wanting to kiss, then shivering on the drive through the woods. Dancing to the records, wanting to come back to life. He thought of her moving down the stairs in Liz’s shoes, tentative. Now splashing like a porpoise in the bright sun, somebody else, a girl who would jump off a boat. Lucky cards.

She swam over and held the side of the boat.

“Had enough?” he said.

“In a minute. It’s so cool. When do we have to go back?”

“Whenever. I don’t want to move till it’s dark.”

“Like thieves. Where is it?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I have to tell Professor Brandt. He won’t know where I am.”

“I don’t want him to. They’re watching his house.”

“For Emil?”

“For you.”

“Oh,” she said, then ducked her head in the water, still holding on to the side.

“I’ll have somebody check on him, don’t worry.”

“It’s just that he’s alone. There’s no one.”

“Not Emil, that’s for sure. He said he was dead.”

“Dead? Why would he say that?”

Jake shrugged. “Dead to him, maybe. I don’t know. That’s what he said when they questioned him at Kransberg.”

“So they wouldn’t bother him. Arrest him. The Gestapo did thattook the families.”

“The Allies aren’t the Gestapo.”

She looked up at him. “Well, it’s different for you. When you think that way—” She turned back to the water. “Did he say I was dead too?”

“No, he wanted to find you. That was the trouble. That’s how everything started.”

“Then why not let him? And finish it? I don’t want to hide.”

“He’s not the only one looking now.”

She glanced up, a flicker of concern, then turned her face to the sun and pushed away from the boat.

“Lena—”

“I can’t hear you,” she said, swimming away in long strokes. He watched her head toward the club, just a speck in the distance, then turn over and float back toward the boat, lying suspended in the still water. Tully would have done the same, except it had been windy that night, enough to stir the waves, pushing the body along.

Getting back in the boat took longer than diving out, an awkward pull up, one leg flung over the side to prevent it from tipping. She shook herself, squeezing out her hair, then lay back again to dry in the sun.

After that they were content to drift in the gentle rocking motion, like Moses in his basket. The boat had turned again, facing down toward the Pfaueninsel, where Goebbels had given his Olympics party. No lights now, half the trees gone, the dreary look of a cemetery island. Bodies must have landed here with the other debris, bobbing sluggishly, like Tully’s at the Cecilienhof, floating in circles until he’d ended up where he wasn’t supposed to be found.

Jake felt a few drops on his face. Not rain, Lena sprinkling him awake.

“We’d better start back. There’s not much wind-it’ll take time. She was sitting up, having slipped on the dress while he was drifting.

“Let the current do it,” he said lazily, his eyes still closed. “It’ll take us right past the club.”

“No, it’s the wrong way.”

He waved his fingers. “Simple geography. North of the Alps, the rivers flow north. South, south. We don’t have to do a thing.”

“In Berlin you do. The Havel flows south, then it curves up. Look at any map.”

But the maps just showed a string of blue, off in the left-hand corner.

“Look where we are already,” Lena said, “if you don’t believe me.”

He raised his head and looked over the side of the boat. The club was off in the distance; still no wind.

“You see? If you don’t turn around, we’ll end up in Potsdam.”

He sat upright, almost knocking his head against the mast. “What did you say?”

“We’ll end up in Potsdam,” she repeated, puzzled. “That’s where the river goes.”

He looked around at the bright water, turning his head in a swivel, scanning the shore.

“But that’s it. He wasn’t put in there. He never went there.”

“What?”

“He just ended up there. He didn’t go there. The where was wrong.” Turning his head again, scanning, as if the rest of it would come now in a rush, one piece unlocking all the others. But there was only the long Grunewald shore. So where did he go?

“What are you talking about?”

“Tully. He never went to Potsdam. Somewhere else. Do you have a map?”

“Nobody has maps except the army,” she said, still puzzled, watching his face.

“Gunther has one. Come on, let’s go back,” he said, eager, pushing the tiller to make a circle. “The current. Why didn’t I think of it before? Moses. Christ, it was right there. Thank you.” He blew her a kiss.

A nod, but no smile, her face frowning, as if the day had turned cloudy.

“Who’s Gunther?”

“A policeman. Friend of mine. He didn’t think of it either, and he’s supposed to know Berlin.”

“Maybe not the water,” she said, looking down at it.

“But you did,” he said, smiling.

“So now we’re all policemen,” she said, then turned her face back up to the sun. “Well, not yet. Look how still it is. We can’t go back yet.”

But the idea seemed to produce its own momentum, refusing to wait, and in a few minutes brought a slight, steady breeze that blew them back to the club in no time.

Gunther was at home in Kreuzberg, sober and shaved. Even the room was tidied up.

“A new leaf?” Jake said, but Gunther ignored him, his eyes fixed on Lena.

“And this must be Lena,” he said, taking her hand. “Now I see why Herr Brandt was so anxious to come to Berlin.”

“But not to Potsdam. He never went there. Tully, I mean. Here, come look,” Jake said, walking over to the map.

“American manners,” Gunther said to Lena. “Some coffee, perhaps? It’s fresh-made.”

“Thank you,” she said, both of them walking through a formal ritual.

“He lives on coffee,” Jake said.

“I’m German. Sugar?” He poured out a cup and indicated his reading chair for her.

“The Havel flows south,” Jake said. “The body floated to Potsdam. We were on the water today. It flows this way.” He moved his hand down the map. “That’s how he got there.”

Gunther stood for a moment, taking this in, then walked over to the map, staring at the left-hand corner. “So, no Russian driver.”

“No Russian driver. It solves the where.”