He started to follow her inside, but a roar of laughter, like a blast of warm air, caught him at the door and turned him around. He wanted to be in his Berlin, sipping beer in some fading garden light, not in this odd pocket of Allied goodwill, glasses clinking like fencing swords. But that Berlin had been gone for years, packed away with the garden lanterns into cellars. ‹›He crossed the garden and opened the back gate. A footpath, not wide enough to be an alley, fed into the next street. All the houses were quiet-no dinner conversation coming through the windows, no radio-as if they were hunkered down, waiting for the party noise in Gelferstrasse to become a brawl, another raid that might pass over. In the silence you could hear your feet.
He turned down one of the narrow roads that led to the institute grounds, where the streets were named for scientists, not generals and Hohenzollerns. Farradayweg. Emil had worked here, miles away from Pariserstrasse, in his own world. The district still had the leafy enclave feel of a university, but now windows were knocked out, the chemistry building half charred, a roof gone. At the far end of the street he could see lights in a modern brick building, but the institute itself was dark. Still, the main building was standing. Thielallee. A big folly of a build-ing, spiked round turrets on each corner like Kaiser helmets. Pickel-haubes. He walked up the steps to look more closely. Maybe it was still operational, somewhere he could ask tomorrow.
“ Nein, nein!” Jake started. In the quiet, a voice as surprising as a shot. He turned. An old man walking a scrawny dog, wearing a jacket and a tweed hunter’s hat, as if he were expecting the summer evening to turn chilly. The dog made a noise, almost a growl, then leaned against the man’s leg, too listless to make the effort. The man wagged his finger at Jake, correcting him, then pointed to the brick building across the, intersection. “Kommandatura,” he said loudly, pointing again. “Kommandatura,” each syllable pronounced slowly, instructions to a lost foreigner.
“No, I was looking for the institute,” Jake said in German.
“Closed,” the man said automatically, but now it was his turn to start, surprised to hear German.
“Yes. Do you know when it opens in the morning?”
“It doesn’t open. It’s closed. Kaput.” He dipped his head, reflex manners. “Forgive me. I thought-an American. I thought you were looking for the Kommandatura. Come, Schatzie.”
“The Berlin Kommandatura?” Jake said, coming down before he could move away. “That’s it?” He looked toward the brick building, now taking in the flags, the windows with lights burning. Thin square columns to give it an entrance. “What was it before?” The dog began sniffing at his leg, so Jake leaned over and patted her, a gesture that seemed to surprise the old man more than his speaking German.
“An insurance company,” the man answered. “Fire insurance. It was a joke, you know. The one building that didn’t burn.” He looked ‹›down at the dog, still sniffing Jake’s hand. “Don’t worry, she won’t trouble you. Not so much energy these days. It’s the food, you see. I have to share my ration with her, and it’s not enough.” Jake stood up, noticing now the man’s own skinny frame, a heartless illustration of the old saw that owners resembled their pets. But the scraps at Gelferstrasse were blocks away. Instead he took out a pack.
“Cigarette?”
The old man took it and bowed. “Thank you. You don’t mind if I save it for later?” he said, carefully tucking it into his pocket.
“Here. Save that one. Smoke this,” Jake said, suddenly wanting company.
The man looked at it, amazed at his windfall, then nodded and bent over to the lighter. “You are about to see something interesting- a cigarette in Berlin actually being smoked. It’s another joke. One sells to another, and another, but who smokes them?” He inhaled, then leaned his hand against Jake’s upper arm. “Forgive me. A little dizziness. Thank you. How is it that you speak German?” he said, making conversation, his tongue set loose by tobacco.
“I lived in Berlin before the war.”
“Ah. It’s not the best, you know, your German. You should study.” A voice from a classroom.
Jake laughed. “Yes,” he said, then nodded toward the man’s pocket. “How much will you get for it?”
“Five marks, maybe. It’s for her.” He looked down at the dog. “I’m not complaining. Things are as they are. But it’s difficult, to see her like this. How can you feed a dog, they say, when people are hungry? But what should I do? Let her die, an innocent? Who else is so innocent in Berlin? That’s what I say to them-when you’re innocent, I’ll feed you too. That shuts them up. They’re the worst, the golden pheasants.”
Jake looked at him, lost now, wondering if he’d found not a man in the street but a crank. “Golden pheasants?”
“The big party members. Now, of course, they know nothing. You brought this on us, I say to them, and you want to eat? I’d rather feed a dog. A dog.”
“So they’re still around.”
