THREE
Berlin
ANOTHER DREAM of Liesl, his first in years.
As always, her image fled before Kurt Bauer could hold it, chased from his eyelids by the chill martial gray of a Prussian morning. A blink, a sigh, and she was gone. Throw open the lace curtains and perhaps he would see the last wisp of her spirit, racing across the dim rooftops of Charlottenburg. And if he ever caught up to her, how would she greet him? With a smile of gratitude? A glare of accusation? Love? Forgiveness?
Downstairs, a loud voice echoed in the foyer. A door rattled shut.
Now Kurt knew what had brought on the dream. Nearly sixty-four years ago he had been awakened by the very same noises on the day he learned Liesl was gone—slammed doors, shouting messengers. All that remained to complete the sequence was the tread of slippers as his father, Reinhard, plodded upstairs to break the news. The old man had relayed it with the clacking dispassion of a stock ticker, as if he were announcing a pay cut down at his factory.
Kurt’s father had just come in from the rain, having gone out to buy a newspaper, knowing that the weather would hold the bombers at bay. He had peeled off his wet woolen socks and laid them on the big tile furnace to dry. Their vapors had preceded him up the stairs, and to this day Kurt associated the smell of wet, baking wool with death. It turned his stomach like the stench of a rotting corpse. He insisted that his wife, Gerda, buy him only cotton socks, much to her puzzlement.
Like the vast city he lived in, Kurt lay down each night with a host of unwanted shadows—guilt, loss, regret, the pain of old wounds. Bleak visions poured from within like smoke from a brick chimney.
The guilt, he believed, was unwarranted. He attributed its staying power less to his own actions than to his homeland’s tormented psyche. Here they pushed atonement as if it were a commodity, force-feeding it via the leftist media like some miserable brand of muesli, until you couldn’t stomach another bite. At least today’s young people, for all their faults, were wising up to that con. Never let them make you pay for something you hadn’t bought.
The front door slammed again. Then silence, until he heard Gerda’s house slippers scraping down the hall toward the kitchen.
“Who was it?” he called out, his voice a rasp.
“Repairman.” Wearily, as if she had been up for hours, and maybe she had. “For the icebox. He’s gone to fetch a part.”
Yet another item to mend in the house of the man whose very name meant durability for millions of consumers worldwide. Not that Kurt Bauer was any stranger to irony. Try to be good and play by the rules, and what did it earn you? Heartbreak, then ruin. Admit to any imperfection and they held it against you for life. Stray beyond the lines aggressively enough, however, and not only did you get things done, you also earned accommodation, even respect.
But soon enough he would no longer have to worry about such things. At age eighty-one, Kurt Bauer had begun clearing the books, settling old accounts, and smoothing the path toward immortality, for himself and for his family’s esteemed name in the world of commerce. To his surprise, most of his unfinished business still had to do with the war, even though Kurt had been only nineteen the day Hitler finally did everyone a favor by blowing his brains out.
A desire for vengeance also figured into Kurt’s plans. After decades of being on the defensive about certain delicate matters, he was at last in position to strike back. Those who had tormented him the longest, and had taken away what he cherished most, would finally answer for their crimes.
Kurt would have said that love was the driving emotion behind his plans. But his brand of love was a case study in arrested development. Most people who reach his age have long ago discovered that love’s deepest pain comes from watching the suffering of others—our children as they stumble, our elders as they grow feeble, or our spouses as they succumb to pain and infirmity. But Kurt had no children, his parents died suddenly while he was bustling through his twenties, and his marriage had long ago devolved into a series of bloodless jousts, drained of empathy. He still viewed love through the eyes of a young man who has suffered a signature heartbreak. For him, the idea of emotional pain still boiled down to a single name: Liesl.
As he lay in bed he rubbed a scar on his chest as if it were a battle medal that had been pinned there by a head of state. It was a comet’s tail of wrinkled pink flesh, carved by hot shrapnel on the morning of Liesl’s death.
After his father delivered the news, the young Kurt had refused to believe it without seeing for himself. He jumped on a bicycle and raced through the streets to the prison just as the sky began clearing in the west to open the way for more bombers. The ride took a good half hour, and his lungs were heaving as he spied the first pile of fatal rubble through a breach in the outer wall. The place was still in chaos from the raid the night before—three prisoners had reportedly escaped—and Kurt walked through the opening as boldly as if he were a guard. Workers were already picking through the debris.
Nearby, a pair of legs poked barefoot from beneath a collapsed wall. It made him light-headed with agony and fear. He wondered if he could even bear to look at her face. Why hadn’t they yet dug her out? Was it Liesl? Did he have the courage to check?
A siren sounded. More bombers were approaching, black insects against the sky. The flak guns began to pound. Everyone ran for cover except Kurt, because he had resolved to see her, come what may. He pulled away a splintered doorframe, tore aside a pile of bricks, then knelt coughing in the dust as he dug blunt fingers into a mound of shattered masonry.
That was when he saw the hand, poking from beneath a few bricks just to his right. A girl’s hand, covered in dust and grasping a sheaf of crumpled papers. Kurt snatched the papers, read them. They confirmed the worst possible news. This was Liesl, and these were her release documents, signed only moments before her death. She had been walking toward freedom when she was killed.
The papers fell from his hands, and he sobbed loudly just as a huge explosion emptied his lungs and threw him forward atop the bare legs. His face landed hard against something clammy and stiff. A toenail cut his cheek.
Kurt struggled to his knees, looking around wildly for assistance, for anyone who might help dig her body from this terrible grave. Glancing down, he saw the delicate feet that he had once playfully buried in the sand at the beaches of Wannsee, the slender calves he had stroked while the summer sun warmed their backs.
Hands grasped him roughly from either side, lifting him to his feet. Someone shouted an angry command, which he barely heard over the ringing in his ears.
“Get him out of here! Take him to the shelter. More planes are coming!”
Glancing at the sky, Kurt registered vaguely that the sun had come out. Oncoming bombers flashed silver, like a school of fish. They spewed wobbly lines of black dots, bombs headed for the ground. As someone yanked him away he saw that shrapnel had torn Liesl’s wrist, but there was hardly any blood. She was dead, a slab of spoiling meat.
A prisoner shouted from an upper window.
“Get out of the weather, you stupid fool!”
Laughter erupted from other cells, and then a second blast blew a searing chunk of metal across the yard and into Kurt. It raked his flesh just below the sternum, marking him forever as the war’s own, a stigmata of his martyrdom upon the altar of Liesl.
The old Kurt stroked the scar again as he lay in bed, feeling the puckered flesh beneath the coarse gray hairs on his sagging chest. Rescue workers had taken him for treatment even as he begged them to keep digging. Witnesses later told him Liesl had been thrown clear of the prison by one of the first bombs. Killed instantly, they said, right there on a walkway as guards led her toward the front gate.
But in the confusion of war no one was ever able to tell him where they took her body. A common grave, perhaps, because her family never came to claim her. Her parents and sister were killed that very day as well, by another bomb across town. And by the time the Red Army arrived more than a year later, the Bauers themselves had fled Berlin. They escaped south by southwest, traveling first by car, then by train, and finally by foot until they reached the Alps and the border of Switzerland, all the while cutting deals and making new plans for the future.
Ancient history, Kurt supposed. But sometimes, as with his dream moments earlier, the ache of longing from those distant days seemed brand-new, sharp enough to make him clutch his chest in pain.
Kurt swallowed a cry of agony. Then he pushed away the heavy blankets and forced himself out of bed. His bare feet were unsteady on the oak floor. Tendons flaring, he stepped stiffly toward the chilly tiles of the bathroom, then swayed a bit while he endured the interminable wait to make water. There was a burning sensation as the weak yellow stream plinked into the echoing bowl. He glanced at the mirror, the sink, the huge old tub, all of which had somehow survived not only the war but also his family’s long absence in Switzerland. The house remained grand, despite everything that history had thrown its way. Like Kurt, it was a miracle of survival but in constant need of repair. Roofers last week, plumbers before that. Now the refrigerator.
But outside the house, the Bauer name had quite a different connotation. Bauer factories were still among the most profitable in Europe, and in consumer circles it was received wisdom that anything bearing the Bauer name was built to last.
Not that Kurt had much to say about it anymore. Several years ago he had turned over daily operations to his nephew, Manfred. A sixth generation of Bauers now ruled, while a seventh waited in the wings. Not bad, considering that the Bauers had now endured socialism, Nazism, anarchy, monarchy, Weimar hyperinflation, the reichsmark, the deutschmark, the euro, two world wars, and then the Cold War.
Of course, it was always easier to survive upheaval when your business provided the chemical and metallurgical building blocks of destruction. Keep coming up with ways to make killing more efficient and you would always have friends in high places and, when necessary, in plenty of foreign lands.
Even that status hadn’t kept the Bauers from occasionally running afoul of various official snoops and regulators, though, especially in the years after Kurt led the family business into the nuclear marketplace. The sensitivity of that venue, plus the fickle nature of peacetime alliances, made for tricky relationships. A country that was a friend during the week you took an order might have been designated an enemy by the time you filled it. And who could say for sure where some middleman might next peddle your merchandise? Best not to ask, especially as long as export laws remained comfortably vague.
So affairs had become cumbersome at times, and even dangerous. Other nations filed complaints. Investigators came calling, wanting a peek at the Bauer books. Kurt had offered testimony when pressed, but kept his Rolodex well hidden, memorizing certain key contacts when necessary. And when that didn’t work, he had resorted to baser tactics. Amazing how much it could cost to make a few paragraphs disappear from some UN report on proliferation issues.
Under those kinds of circumstances, who would ever blame an old arms maker from Berlin for deciding that there was still some tidying up left to do with regard to his standing in the world?
So, on a morning already freighted by memory and regret, Kurt cleared his throat and picked up the bedside phone. He paused to make sure Gerda was safely out of earshot, then punched in the number for an apartment across town in Kreuzberg, temporary home to a foreign fellow who, as a precaution of cover, was living well below his means among Turks and Arabs.
Kurt used a CryptoPhone for these transactions, a state-of-the-art machine. Made in Germany, of course. Three thousand euros, but worth it. Its scrambling and encryption technology meant every conversation was secure. But he played it careful, all the same. You didn’t make it this far by trusting just anybody.
A man answered in German. The voice and accent were familiar.
Kurt, being the only regular caller to the number, didn’t bother to say hello.
“Any news?”
“Yes. The American is in jail.”
“Encouraging. So are you about to make the acquisition?”
“Nothing certain. But I feel strongly that it will be soon.”
“Any sign of the girl?”
“I am told she is nearby.”
“Tell your man to take care with her, even if she is a pest. Girls always get caught in the middle of these things, and it never ends well. At this point you need concern yourself only with him.”
“Are you ready to arrange delivery?”
“Only when you have something to deliver.”
“As I said, I expect it to be soon.”
“As soon as you are proven correct, I will act. But not a moment sooner. Phone immediately when it is done.”
“Of course.”
Kurt hung up and glanced toward the window, past the lace, where a weak sun was trying to burn through low clouds. To his mind, his present position was enviable. Three important people now awaited his latest pronouncement—one in Washington, one in Tehran, and one in that godforsaken little outpost in the hills of New York. None were his employees, although a few of his own recent hires were already on the march as well. But for the moment all three seemed quite willing to dance to his tune. He just needed to make sure things stayed that way.
His legs ached, so he climbed stiffly back into bed and sagged against the pillow. Liesl was always on his mind after these phone calls, even when he hadn’t just dreamed of her, and this morning she seemed closer than ever.
He wondered if she might still be out there, flitting between the chimneys, daring him to take a look, her eyes lit by the fires of her old causes. Nobility and rightness had always been on her side, and so had Kurt. If he slid back beneath the covers instead of going downstairs, would she favor him with another visit? Probably not. She never came at his bidding.
But he had other ways of seeking her out. Concentrate hard enough and he could place himself back in the organ loft of that medieval church in Dahlem, on the frigid afternoon just before Christmas, in 1942. He was there now, treading a creaky stair while voices murmured nervously in the old wooden pews below. Seditious talk that had thrilled even as it terrified. No one had yet seen him, and he hesitated. It would have been so easy to just wait them out and then turn for home, not yet a name on their dangerous list. Maybe his father was right about these people. Sure, the government was insane, and without a doubt the leader had flipped his mustache. But this was treason, all the same. Betrayal.
Then, peeking through the slats of the stairway, he spotted Liesl sitting in the back, her valiant face in profile, as inspiring as sunlight through the leaves of an enchanted beech. And at that moment he was sure the risks were worth it, or at least that she was worth it. So he continued down the steps, no longer taking care to be silent, until a face or two in the back looked up and saw him, and nodded at his arrival.
A short while later she stood and made her speech while all of them watched in admiration. Even Bonhoeffer, the pious old meddler whose martyrdom had made history, had been impressed with Liesl. You could see it in his eyes whenever he spoke to her, his instant recognition that she possessed a grace and wisdom well beyond her years.
Climbing aboard this memory, Kurt drifted deeper into his subconscious, and within seconds he, too, might as well have been out there on the clouds in a place no one could reach, not even his smug little associate in Kreuzberg.
In his mind’s eye he now watched himself at age seventeen, leaning forward in the straight-backed pew while Liesl spoke. The seat was uncomfortable, built centuries earlier, and the old Kurt no longer felt the downy softness of his pillow. Instead, a knot formed in his back, the pew creaked, and he heard Liesl’s voice very clearly. As he listened, the sound transported him even further back through time, another entire year, to that charmed night when he stood beneath a grand chandelier, a glass of champagne in hand, and first saw her, standing on the opposite side of the room. A starched collar chafed at his neck, but he didn’t mind, because the girl whose name he didn’t yet know had just opened her mouth in joy and surprise, and the sight took his breath away.
The young Kurt smiled. The old Kurt did the same. Then both Kurts listened, enraptured, as her laughter filled the room.