Joseph Kanon - A Good German

“But you didn’t turn them over, either.”

“Then you told me he was living. I couldn’t. He’s my son, you understand. Still.”

He paused, causing Jake to look up. In his dressing gown he seemed frail, no longer held together by the formal suit, but the scrawny neck was erect, as if the old high collar were still in place. “Was it wrong? I don’t know, Herr Geismar. Maybe I kept them for you. Maybe they answer to you.” He turned away. “And now it’s done-you have them. So take them, please. I don’t want them in my house anymore. You’ll excuse me, I’m tired.”

“Wait. I need your help. My German isn’t good enough.”

“For that? Your German is adequate. The problem, maybe, is believing what you read. It’s just what it says. Simple German.” He made a small grimace. “The language of Schiller.”

“Not the abbreviations. They’re all technical. Here’s von Braun, requesting special workers. French, is that right?”

“Yes, French prisoners. The SS supplied the list from the campsengineering students, machinists. Von Braun made his selection from that. The construction workers, it didn’t matter, one shovel’s as good as another. But the precision work-“ He looked over to the word Jake was pointing at. ”Die cutter.“

“So he was there.”

“Of course he was there. They all went there, to inspect, to supervise. It was their factory, you understand, the scientists. They saw it, Herr Geismar. Not space, all those dreams. They saw this. You see the other letter, from Lechter, where he says the disciplinary measures are having an unfortunate effect? The workers don’t like to see men hanging-it slows production. Exact words. His solution? Hang them off-site. Yes, and Lechter complains that on the last visit some of his colleagues were taken to an area where cholera had broken out. Couldn’t this be prevented in the future? Visitors should be taken to safe areas only. To risk the health—” He stopped, clearing his throat. “Would you like some water?” he said, getting up, an obvious excuse to leave the table.

Jake turned another page, hearing the water run behind him. A memo requesting a transfer back to Peenemunde for a Dr. Jaeger, proof that he’d been there, a carbon for the files, evidence for Bernie. Just paper. Was anyone not compromised? Drinking brandy at Kransberg, waiting for visas. But how much had Tully known? He realized for the first time, a Gunther point, that no one had actually seen the files but Professor Brandt. Tully must have left the center as frustrated as Jake had been, all the way to Berlin for an incomplete story.

“Here’s Emil,” he said, turning to a page filled with figures.

“Yes,” Professor Brandt said over his shoulder, “the estimates. The estimates.” He shuffled back to his chair.

“But of what? What’s this?” Jake pointed to one of the sets of numbers.

“Calories,” Professor Brandt said quietly, not looking, clearly familiar with the paper.

“Eleven hundred,” Jake said, stuck on the math. “That’s calories?” He looked over at the old man. “Tell me.”

Professor Brandt took a sip of water. “Per day. At eleven hundred calories per day, how long would a man survive? Depending on the original body weight. You see the series on the left. If it fell-to nine hundred, say-the factors average out to sixty. Sixty days-two months. But of course it’s not exact. The variables are not in the numbers. In the

¦ men. Some more, some less. They die at their own speed. But it’s useful, the average. You can calculate how many calories it would take to extend it, say, for another month. But they never extended it. The work in the first month, before they weakened, was actually more productive than any extension. The table near the bottom demonstrates that. There was no point in keeping them alive unless they were specialists. The numbers prove it.“ He looked up. ”He was right. I checked the math. The second page shows how much to increase rations for skilled workers. I think, you know, that he was using this to persuade them to allow more food, but I can’t be sure. The others died to the formula. An average only, but accurate. He based them on actual numbers from the previous month. Not a difficult exercise.“

He interrupted himself for another sip, then continued, a teacher working through a long blackboard proof. “The others also. Simple. Time of assembly, units per twenty-four-hour period. You don’t have to look, I remember them all. Optimum number of workers per line. Sometimes they had too many. The assembly was complicated- better to have one skilled set of hands than three men who didn’t know what they were doing. He proves this somewhere. You would think, common sense, but evidently they liked to see this. In numbers. These were the kinds of problems they had him working on.”

Jake looked at the paper, not saying anything, letting Professor Brandt collect himself as he drank the last of the water.

“He must have done other work, not just this.”

“Yes, of course. It’s a great achievement, technically. You can see that. The mathematics involved, the engineering. Every German can be proud.” He shook his head. “Dreams of space. This is what they were worth. Eleven hundred calories a day.”

Jake flicked through the remaining pages, then closed the folder and stared at it. Not just Emil, most of the team.

“You’re surprised?” Professor Brandt said quietly. “Your old friend?”

Jake said nothing. Just numbers on paper. Finally he looked up at Professor Brandt, the simple, inadequate question. “What happened to everybody? ”

“You want to know that?” Professor Brandt said, nodding, then paused. “I don’t know. I asked too. Who were these children? Our children? And what’s my answer? I don’t know.“ He glanced away, toward the stuffed bookshelves. ”My whole life I thought it was something apart, science. Everything else is lies, but not that. So beautiful, numbers. Always true. If you understand them, they explain the world. I thought that.“ He looked back at Jake. ”I don’t know,“ he said, exhaling it, a gasp. ”Even the numbers they ruined. Now they don’t explain anything.“

He reached over and picked up the folder. “You said you were his friend. What will you do with this?”

“You’re his father. What would you do?”

Professor Brandt brought it closer to his chest, so that involuntarily Jake started to reach out his hand. A few pieces of paper, the only proof Bernie would ever have.

“Don’t be alarmed,” Professor Brandt said. “It’s just that-I want you to take it. If I see him again, I don’t want to say I gave it up. You took it.”

Jake gripped the file and pulled it firmly out of the old man’s hands. “Does it really make any difference?”

“I don’t know. But I can say it, I didn’t give them away, him and his friends. I can say that.”

“All right.” Jake hesitated. “It’s the right thing, you know.”

“Yes, the right thing,” Professor Brandt said faintly.

He drew himself up, erect, then moved away from the light, just a voice again.

“And you’ll tell Lena? That it wasn’t me?” He paused. “If she stops coming, you see, there’s no one.”

He didn’t have to tell her anything. She was asleep on the bed, clothed, the boy next to her. He closed the door and sank down on the lumpy couch to read through the file again, even more dismayed than before, time enough now to see the picture fill up with its grisly details, each one a kind of indictment. Valuable to Bernie, but to who else? Is that what Tully intended to sell? But why would Sikorsky want it? The simple answer was that he didn’t-he wanted the scientists, busily making their deals with Breimer, each page in the file a pointing finger that they thought had gone away. Valuable to them.