Joseph Kanon - A Good German

“Yes, I know. Your mother.”

“No.” She looked at him, her eyes sharp and dry. “I have a child.”

Jake’s pen stopped. “A child?”

“Write it. Metzger. She doesn’t know about me. She thinks I work in a factory. I pay her. But the money runs out this month. She won’t keep him now.”

“Renate—”

“Please. His name is Erich. A German name-he’s a German child, you understand? I never had it done. You know, down there.” She pointed to her groin, suddenly shy.

“Circumcised.”

“Yes. He’s a German child. No one knows. Only you. Not the magazines either, promise me? Only you.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Take him. Prenzlauer’s in the east. She’ll give him up to the Russians. You must take him-there’s no one else. Jake, if you were ever fond of me at all—”

“Are you crazy?”

“Yes, crazy. Do you think after everything else I’ve done, I couldn’t ask this? Do you have children?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know. You can do anything for a child. Even this,” she said, spreading her hand to the room, the greifers life. “Even this. Was I right to do it? Ask God, I don’t know. But he’s alive. I saved him, with their money. They gave me pocket money, you know, for the cafes, for—” She stopped. “Every pfennig was for him. I thought, you’re paying to keep a Jew alive. At least one of us is going to live. That’s why I had to stay alive, not for me. But now—”

“Renate, I can’t take a child.”

“Yes, please. Please. There’s no one else. You were decent, always. Do this for him, if not the mother, what you think of her. Everything I did-one more day, one more day alive. How can I give up now? If you take him to America, they can hang me, at least I’ll know I got him out. Safe. Out of this place.” She grabbed his hand again. “He’d never know what his mother did. To live with that. He’d never know.” “Renate, how could I take a child to America?” “The west, then, anywhere but here. You could find a place for him-I trust you, I know you’d make it all right, decent people. Not some Russian camp.”

“What do I tell him?”

“That his mother died in the war. He’s so young, he won’t remember. Just some woman who used to come sometimes. You can tell him you used to know her when she was a girl, but she died in the war. She did,” she said, looking down. “It’s not a lie.”

Jake looked at the blotchy face, the sharp eyes finally dulled by a sadness so oppressive that he felt his own shoulders sinking. Always something worse. He nodded his head toward the side she thought was real.

“She didn’t,” he said.

Her face was confused for a second, then cleared, almost in a smile. “That’s only for today. So I could ask you. After this, there’s only her,” she said, putting her finger on the other side. “It’s over.”

“It doesn’t have to be. At least let me talk to the lawyers.”

“Oh, Jake, to say what? You were there, you saw them. What would mercy be-a Russian prison? Who survives that?”

“People do.”

“To come back as what? An old woman, back to Germany? And meanwhile, what happens to Erich? No, it’s over. If you want to help me, save my child. Ah, the water,” she said, fluttering a little as the guard came through the door with a glass and handed it to her. “Thank you,” she said in German, “it’s very kind.” As she drank, the guard looked at the other guard with an “anything happen?” expression, answered by a shrug.

“So you’ll help?” Renate said.

“Renate, you can’t ask me to do this. I’m sorry, but I don’t—”

“In English now,” she said, switching. “I’m not asking you, I’m begging you.”

“What about his father?”

“Dead. When we were underground. One night he didn’t come back, that’s all. So I knew. I had the baby myself.” She handed back the handkerchief. “You be the father.”

“Stop. I can’t do that.”

“He’ll die,” she said, her eyes fixed on his. “Now, when it’s over, after everything.”

Jake turned his head, taking in the guards, Stalin’s flat iconic gaze. “Look,” he said finally, “I know a church. They work with children, orphans, try to place them. I can talk to the pastor, he’s a good man, maybe there’s something he—”

“They find homes? In the west? With Christians?”

“Well, yes, they would be. I’ll ask. Maybe he knows a Jewish family.”

“No. A German boy. So he’ll be safe next time.”

“You want him to be German?” Jake said, amazed. The endless, twisted cord.

“I want him to live. Americans-how can you know? How people are here. But promise me, a home, not some camp.”

“I can’t promise that, Renate. I don’t know. I’ll talk to the pastor. I’ll do what I can. I’ll try.”

“But you’ll move him from Frau Metzger? Before she gives him up?

“Renate, I can’t promise—”

“Yes, promise me. Lie to me. My god, can’t you see I have to tell myself this? I have to think it’s going to be all right.”

“I won’t lie to you. I’ll do what I can. You’ll have to be satisfied with that.”

“Because I have nothing to bargain with, you mean. Finally, no more Jews.”

Jake looked away. Every week a new list, trading yourself, until there was no other way to live. He had become one of her bosses.

“What do they say about the trial?” he said, moving somewhere else.

“My lawyers?” she said, a trace of scorn. “To be clever, play the innocent-that I couldn’t help what I was doing. To be sorry.”

“Well?”

“It’s not enough to be sorry. It’s not enough for me. I can’t make it go away. I still see the faces, how they looked at me. I can’t make them go away.”

“One minute,” the guard shouted out in German.

Renate drew a cigarette from the pack. “One more,” she said in English, “for the road. That’s right, isn’t it? For the road?”

“Yes. I’ll come back.”

“No. They won’t allow that. Only this once. But I’m so glad to see you. Someone from that world. In Berlin again, I never thought—” She stopped, grabbing his hand. “Wait a minute. I can’t bargain with it, but maybe it’s something, if he’s still there. Promise me.”

“Renate, don’t do this.”

“You said they were looking for him, the Americans. So maybe it’s something for you. Lena’s husband-I know where he is. I saw him.”

Jake looked up, stunned. “Where?”

“Promise me,” she said steadily, still covering his hand. “One last bargain.”

He nodded. “Where?”

“Can I believe you?”

“Where?”

“As if I have a choice,” she said.

“Time,” the guard called.

“One minute.” She turned back to Jake, conspiratorial, talking quickly. “Burgstrasse, the old Gestapo building. Number Twenty-six. It was bombed, you know, but they still use part. They kept me there before here.”

“And you saw him there?”

“Out the window, across the courtyard. He didn’t see me. I thought, my god, that’s Emil, why do they have him here? Is he on trial too? Is he?”

“No. What was he doing?”

“Just looking down into the courtyard. Then the lights went out. That’s all. Is that something for you? Can you use that?”

“You’re sure it was him?”

“Of course. My eyes are good, you know, always.”

The guard approached the table.

“Give him some cigarettes,” she said in English, standing. “They’ll be nice to me.”

Jake got up and offered the pack.

“So it’s good?” she said. “One last job for you?”

Jake nodded. “Yes.”

“Then promise me.”