“And you call yourself a scientist,” Jake said lightly. “Yes, it hurts.”
Emil nodded. “So I should thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for you. They would have taken her too.”
“And that’s why you changed the clothes,” he said skeptically. “So thank you.” He looked down, still wiping. “It’s awkward, to thank a man who-” He stopped, putting away the handkerchief. “How things turn out. You find your wife, then she’s not your wife. I have you to thank for this too.”
“Listen, Emil-”
“Don’t explain. Lena has told me. This is what happens now in Germany, I think. You hear it many times. A woman alone, the husband dead maybe. An old friend. Food. There’s no one to blame for this. Just to live-”
Was this what she’d told him, or simply what he wanted to believe?
“She’s not here for the rations,” Jake said.
Emil looked at him steadily, then turned away, moving over to sit on the arm of the chair, still toying with the glasses. “And now? What are you going to do?”
“About you? I don’t know yet.”
“You’re not sending me back to Kransberg?”
“Not until I know who took you out in the first place. They might try again.”
“So I’m a prisoner here?”
“It could be worse. You could be in Moscow.”
“With you? With Lena? I can’t stay here.”
“They’d grab you the minute you hit the streets.”
“Not if I’m with the Americans. You don’t trust your own people?”
“Not with you. You trusted them, look where it got you.”
“Yes, I trusted them. How could I know? He was-sympathetic. He was going to take me to her. To Berlin.”
“Where you could pick up some files while you were at it. Von Braun send you this time too?”
Emil looked at him, uncertain, then shook his head. “He thought they were destroyed.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I thought so. But my father-I couldn’t be sure, not with him. And of course I was right. He gave them to you.”
“No. He never gave me anything. I took them. He protected you right to the end. God knows why.”
Emil looked at the floor, embarrassed. “Well, no difference.”
“It is to him.”
Emil took this in for a moment, then let it go. “Anyway, you have them.”
“But Tully didn’t. Now why is that? You tell him about the files and then you don’t tell him where they are.”
The first hint of a smile, oddly superior. “I didn’t have to. He thought he knew. He said, I know where they are, all the files. Where the Americans have them. He was going to help, if you can imagine such a thing. He said only an American could get them. So I let him think that. He was going to get them for me,” he said, shaking his head.
“Out of the kindness of his heart?” Collecting twice.
“Of course for money. I said yes. I knew they weren’t there-I would never have to pay. And if he could take me out- So I was the clever one. Then he delivered me to the Russians.”
“Quite a pair. Why the hell did you tell him in the first place?”
“I never had a head for drink. It was-a despair. How can I explain it? All those weeks, waiting, why didn’t they send us to America? Then we heard about the trials, how the Americans were looking for Nazis everywhere, and I thought, we’ll never get out, they won’t send us. And maybe I said something like that, that the Americans would call us Nazis, us, because in the war we had to do things, and how would it look now? There were files, everything we did. What files? SS, I said, they kept everything. I don’t know, I was a little drunk maybe, to say that much. And he said it was only the Jews who were doing that, hunting Nazis-the Americans wanted us. To continue our work. He understood how important that was.“ His voice firmer now, sure of something at last. ”And it’s right, you know. To stop now, for this-“
Jake put down the mug and reached for a cigarette. “And the next thing you knew, you were off to Berlin. Tell me how that worked.”
“It’s another debriefing?” Emil said, annoyed.
“You’ve got the time. Have a seat. Don’t leave anything out.”
Emil sank back onto the armrest, rubbing his temples as if he were trying to arrange his memory. But the story he had to tell was the one Jake already knew, without surprises. No other Americans, the secret of Tully’s partner still safe with Sikorsky. Only a few new details of the border crossing. The guards, apparently, had been courteous. “Even then, I didn’t know,” Emil said. “Not until Berlin. Then I knew it was finished for me.”
“But not for Tully,” Jake said, thinking aloud. “Now he had some other fish to fry, thanks to your little talk. Lots of possibilities there. Did the others at Kransberg know about this, by the way?”
“My group? Of course not. They wouldn’t-” He stopped, nervous.
“What? Be as understanding as Tully was? They’d have a mess on their hands, wouldn’t they? Explaining things.”
