A good German

“I don’t care what kind of deutsch it is,” she said, “as long as it’s deutsch.” She patted Jake’s knees. “You stick with me, Jackson,” she said, like Phil Harris on the radio. Then, “What was it like?” Well, what was it like? A vise slowly closing. In the beginning, the parties and the hot days on the lakes and the fascination of events. He had come to cover the Olympics in ‘36 and his mother knew somebody who knew the Dodds, so there were embassy cocktails and a special seat in their box at the stadium. Goebbels’ big party on the Pfaueninsel, the trees decked out in thousands of lights shaped like butterflies, officers swaggering along the footpaths, drunk on champagne and importance, throwing up in the bushes. The Dodds were appalled. He stayed. The Nazis supplied the headlines, and even a stringer could live on the rumors, watching the war come day by day. By the time he signed on with Columbia, the vise had shut, rumors now just little gasps for air. The city contracted around him, so that at the end it was a closed circle: the Foreign Press Club in Potsdamerplatz, up the gloomy Wilhelmstrasse to the ministry for the twice-daily briefings, on up to the Adlon, where Columbia kept a room for Shirer and they gathered at the raised bar, comparing notes and watching the SS lounging around the fountain below, their shiny boots on the rim while the bronze frog statues spouted jets of water toward the skylight. Then out the East-West Axis to the broadcasting station on Adolf Hitler Platz and the endless wrangling with Nanny Wendt, then a taxi home to the tapped telephone and the watchful eye of Herr Lechter, the blockleiter who lived in the apartment down the hall, snapped up from some hapless Jews. No air. But that had been at the end.

“It was like Chicago,” he said. Blunt and gritty and full of itself, a new city trying to be old. Clumsy Wilhelmine palaces that always looked like banks, but also jokes with an edge and the smell of spilled beer. Sharp midwestern air.

“Chicago? It won’t look like Chicago now.” This, surprisingly, from the bulky civilian in a business suit, introduced at the airport as a congressman from upstate New York.

“No, indeed,” Brian said, mischievous. “All banged about now. Still, what isn’t? Whole bloody country’s one big bomb site. Do you mind my asking? I’ve never known. What does one call a congressman? I mean, are you The Honorable?”

“Technically. That’s what it says on the envelopes, anyway. But we just use Congressman-or Mister.”

“Mister. Very democratic.”

“Yes, it is,” the congressman said, humorless.

“You with the conference or have you just come for a look-in?” Brian said, playing with him.

“I’m not attending the conference, no.”

“Just come to see the raj, then.”

“Meaning?”

“Oh, no offense. It’s very like, though, wouldn’t you say? Military Government. Pukkah sahibs, really.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well, neither do I, half the time,” Brian said pleasantly. “Just a little conceit of mine. Never mind. Here, have a drink,” he said, taking another, his forehead sweaty.

The congressman ignored him, turning instead to the young soldier wedged next to him, a last-minute arrival, no duffel, maybe a courier. He was wearing a pair of high riding boots, his hands gripping the bench like reins, face white under a sprinkling of freckles.

“First time in Berlin?” the congressman said.

The soldier nodded, holding his seat even tighter as the plane bounced.

“Got a name, son?” Making conversation.

“Lieutenant Tully,” he said, then gulped, covering his mouth.

“You all right?” Liz said to him.

The soldier took off his hat. His red hair was damp.

“Here, just in case,” she said, handing him a paper bag.

“How much longer?” he said, almost a moan, holding the bag to his chest with one hand.

The congressman looked at him and involuntarily moved his leg in the tight space, out of harm’s way, turning his body slightly so that he was forced to face Brian again.

“You’re from New York, you said?”

“Utica, New York.”

“Utica,” Brian said, making a show of trying to place it. “Breweries, yes?” Jake smiled. In fact, Brian knew the States well. “Fair number of Germans there, if I’m not mistaken.”

The congressman looked at him in distaste. “My district is one hundred percent American.”

But Brian was bored now. “I daresay,” he said, looking away.

“How did you get on this plane anyway? I understood it was for American press.”

“Well, there’s Allied feeling for you,” Brian said to Jake.

The plane dropped slightly, not much more than a dip in a road, but evidently enough for the soldier, who groaned.

“I’m going to be sick,” he said, barely opening the bag in time.

“Careful,” the congressman said, trapped.

“Just get it out,” Liz said to the soldier, a big-sister voice. “That’s it. You’ll be all right.”

“Sorry,” he said, half choking, clearly embarrassed, looking suddenly no older than a teenager.