“I can’t sit around here. It just makes it worse. Anyway, I still need to file something.”

“We’re taking pictures, that’s all.”

“But I’d be there. See it, at least. Anything’s better than this,” he said, picking up the release. “Come on. I’ll buy you that drink later.”

“I’ve had better offers.”

“How do you know?”

She laughed and got up from the stool. “Meet me outside in five. If there’s any trouble, I don’t know you. Understood? I don’t know how you got in the jeep. Serve you right if they hauled you away.”

“You’re a pal.”

“Yeah.” She handed him a camera. “They’re brown, by the way, not blue. In case you haven’t noticed.”

Another photographer was at the wheel, so Jake crammed in the back with the equipment, watching Liz’s hair flying in the wind next to the aerial flag. They drove south toward Babelsberg, the old route to the film studios, and met the first Russian sentry on the Lange Brucke. He looked at the driver’s pass, pretending to understand English, and waved them through with a machine gun.

The entire town had been cordoned off, lines of Russian soldiers posted at regular intervals up to Wilhelmplatz, which seemed to have got the worst of the bomb damage. They swung behind the square and then out the designated route along the Neuer Garten, the large villas facing the park wall looking empty but intact, lucky survivors. After Berlin, it was a haven, somewhere out of the war. Jake almost expected to see the usual old ladies in hats walking their dogs on the formal paths. Instead there were more Russians with machine guns, stretched along the lakeshore as if they were expecting an amphibious assault.

The Cecilienhof was at the end of the park, a big heap of stockbroker Tudor with brick chimneys and leaded windows, an unexpected piece of Surrey on the edge of the Jungfernsee. There were guards posted at the park gates, more menacingly correct but no more thorough than the first set on the bridge, then a long gravel drive to the palace forecourt, where MPs and British soldiers mingled with their Russian hosts. They parked near a row of official black cars. Through the opening to the inner courtyard they could see hundreds of red geraniums planted in the shape of a huge Soviet star, an ostentatious display of property rights, but before Liz could photograph it a liaison officer directed them around the building to the lawn that fronted the lake. Here, on the terrace next to a small topiary garden, three wicker chairs had been set out for the picture session. A small army of photographers and newsreel cameramen were already in place, smoking and setting up tripods and shooting uneasy glances toward the patrolling guards.

“As long as you’re here, you might as well be useful,” Liz said, handing Jake two cameras while she loaded a third. One of the guards came by to inspect the cases.

“So where are they?”

“Probably having a last-minute comb,” Liz said.

He imagined Stalin in front of a mirror, smoothing back the sides of his hair for history.

Then there was nothing to do but wait. He studied the building for details-the double-height bay windows with their view of the lake, presumably the conference room, the chimneys of patterned brick too numerous to count. But there was no story in any of it, just architecture. The lawn had been mowed, the hedges trimmed, everything as tidy as a set shipped down the road from the soundstages in Babelsberg. A few miles away, the rubble women were dumping bodies in a cart. Here a breeze was blowing in from the lake, the waves flashing in the sun like tiny reflectors. The view was lovely. He wondered if Crown Prince Wilhelm used to walk across the lawn, towel in hand, for a morning dip, but the past seemed as unlikely as Stalin’s comb. No sailboats now, just the Russian sentries standing back from the water, hands resting on their guns.

Churchill was first. He came onto the terrace in his khaki uniform, holding a cigar and talking to a group of aides. Then Truman, jaunty in a gray double-breasted suit, trading jokes with Byrnes and Admiral Leahy. Finally Stalin, in a dazzling white tunic, his short frame dwarfed by a circle of guards. There were a few informal shots as they shook hands, then a flurry of taking seats, aides crowding around to settle them in. Churchill handed a soldier his cigar. Truman tugged at his jacket so it wouldn’t ride up as he sat. Had the places been decided beforehand? Truman was in the middle, his wire-rimmed glasses catching the light each time he turned his head from one to the other. Everyone smiling, casual, as if they were posing for a group shot at a class reunion. Truman crossed his legs, revealing a pair of ribbed silk socks. The cameras clicked.

Jake turned when he heard the shout. Sharp, in Russian. Now what? A soldier at the lake’s edge was calling out, pointing at something in the water. Surprisingly, he waded in, wetting his boots, shouting again for help. On the terrace, some of the aides glanced toward the water, then turned back to the photographers, frowning at the interruption. Jake watched, fascinated, as the Russian soldiers began pulling a body to the shore. Another floater, like one of the bodies in the Landwehrkanal. But this one in uniform, indefinable at this distance. Still, more interesting than chimneys. He started down the lawn.

No one stopped him. The other guards had left their posts and were running toward the body, confused, looking toward the palace for instructions. The first soldier, wet now to the knees, was pulling the body up on the mud. He dropped the lifeless arm, then grabbed the belt for better leverage and yanked, a final heave to the grass. Suddenly the belt gave way, and Jake saw that it was a kind of pouch, ripped now and spilling open, the wind from the lake catching bits of paper and blowing them over the grass. Jake stopped. Not paper, money, bills whirling up then floating in the air like hundreds of little kites. The sky, a surreal moment, filled with money.

The Russians stood still for a second, amazed, then lunged for the bills, grabbing them out of the air. Another gust sent them higher so the guards now had to leap up, no longer soldiers but astonished children snatching candy. Everyone on the terrace stood to watch. A few of the Russian officers ran down to restore order, brushing past bills scattering across the lawn. They shouted to the guards, but no one listened, yelling instead to each other as they chased the flying paper, stamping the ground to hold down the bills, and stuffing them into their pockets. So much money, blowing like confetti. Jake picked one up. Occupation marks. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them. So much money.

Now the photographers began to break ranks and head for the lake too, until the Russian officers turned on them, holding them back with pointed guns. But Jake was already there. He went over to the body. An American uniform, the torn money belt lying in the mud, some of the notes drifting back into the water. But what was he doing here? Floating in the Russian zone to the most heavily guarded lawn in Berlin. Jake knelt down to the body. A face sickly white and puffy from the water, the tag chain at his neck hanging to the side. He reached for the tags, then stopped, thrown. No need. Not just any soldier. The shock of a corpse you knew. The boy on the flight from Frankfurt, white-knuckled, clasping the bench in fear, his fingers outstretched now, shriveled.

It was then, stupefied, that Jake noticed the bullet hole, the dark matted fabric where the blood had been. Behind him men were still shouting in Russian, but suddenly he was back in one of those Chicago rooms, everything disrupted. The eyes were open. Only one riding boot, the other pulled away by the water. How long had he been dead? He felt the jaw, clenched tight. But there was no coroner to turn to, nobody dusting for prints. He felt the blunt tip of a gun in his back.

“ Snell,” the Russian commanded, evidently his one word of German.

Jake looked up. Another soldier, pointing a gun, was waving him away. As he stood, the other grabbed the camera, saying something in Russian. The first soldier poked the gun again until Jake raised his hands and turned around. On the terrace the Big Three were being hustled into the house, only Stalin still rooted to the spot, assessing, an anxious look like the one from the Chancellery steps. A sharp crack of rifle fire startled the air. A few birds bolted up out of the reeds. The men on the terrace froze, then hurried quickly into the building.

Jake looked toward the sound of the shot. A Russian officer, firing into the air to stop the riot. In the silence that followed, the guards stood still, watching the rest of the money blow toward the Neuer Garten, sheepish now, afraid of what would follow, their perfectly arranged afternoon turned squalid, an embarrassment. The officers ordered them into line and took back the notes. Jake’s Russian pointed again to the house. Lieutenant Tully, who was afraid of flying. Four Russians were picking him up, flinging the money belt onto his chest as if it were evidence. But of what? So much money.

“Can I have my camera back?” Jake said, but the Russian yelled at him and pushed him forward with the gun, back to the photographers. The lawn was swarming with aides now, directing everyone back to the cars like tour leaders. Apologies for the disruption, as if Tully were a drunk who’d spoiled the party. The Russian guards watched, sullen, their one piece of luck blown away.

“Sorry,” Jake said to Liz. “They took the camera.”

Вы читаете A Good German
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

1

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату