Читаем A good German полностью

They turned up the Wilhelmstrasse. Goering’s new Air Ministry, or its shell, had survived, but the rest of the street, the long line of pompous government buildings, lay in sooty heaps, their bricks spilling into the street like running sores. Where it had all started.

There was a crowd near the Chancellery, an unexpected popping of flashbulbs. Scattered applause.

“Look, it’s Churchill,” Liz said, grabbing her camera. “Pull over.”

“Guess they all want the tour,” Ron said, pretending to be bored but staring nevertheless at the stairs, starstruck.

Jake got out. Just where Hitler had stood smiling. Now it was Churchill, in a light summer uniform, cigar clenched in his teeth, surrounded by reporters. Brian next to him. How did he get here so fast? But Brian’s corklike ability to bob up everywhere was legendary. Churchill was stopping on the stairs, disconcerted by the applause. He raised his fingers in a V sign, a reflex, then dropped them, confused, aware suddenly of where he was. Jake glanced at the crowd. It was British soldiers who were applauding. The Germans stood silently, then moved away, embarrassed perhaps by their own curiosity, like people at an accident. Churchill frowned and hurried to the car.

“Let’s take a look,” Jake said.

“You out of your mind? And leave a jeep full of cameras?” Churchill’s car was pulling away, the crowd following. Ron lit a cigarette and sat back.

“Go ahead. I’ll hold the fort. Bring me a souvenir, if there’s anything left.”

There were Russian guards at the entrance, squat Mongols armed with rifles, but they seemed to be no more than a show of force, since people went in and out at will and there was, in any case, nothing to guard. Jake led Liz past the entrance hall with its gaping roof, then down the long reception gallery. Soldiers roamed through the building, sifting through the wreckage for medals, something to carry away. The huge chandeliers lay in the middle of the floor, one of them still suspended a few feet above the litter. Nothing had been cleared away. It was somehow more shocking than the bomb damage outside, the visible fury of the final assault, a destructive madness. Furniture smashed to pieces, its upholstery ripped open by bayonets; paintings slashed. Drawers looted and then flung aside. In Hitler’s office, the giant marble desktop was overturned, its edges chipped away for keepsake fragments. Papers everywhere, stamped with muddy boot marks. All the disturbing evidence of a rampage. The Mongolian horde. He imagined the guards outside shouting as they raced through the halls, ripping and grabbing.

“What do you think these are?” Liz said, holding up a fistful of cards, blank pieces of stationery edged in gold, the Nazi eagle and swastika engraved at the top.

“Invitations.” He fingered one. The Fiihrer requests your presence. Tea. Boxes of them. Enough to last a thousand years.

“Just like Mrs. Astor,” Liz said, stuffing a few in her pocket. “That’s something, isn’t it?”

“Let’s go,” he said, unsettled by the mess.

“Just let me get a few shots,” she said, taking a picture of the room.

Two GIs, hearing English, came over to her and handed her a camera.

“Hey, how about it? Do you mind?”

Liz smiled. “Sure. Over there by the desk?”

“Can you get the swastika in?”

A massive ornamental swastika, lying face down on the floor. They each planted a leg on it, one slinging his arm over the other’s shoulders, and grinned at the camera. Kids.

“One more,” Liz said. “The light’s bad.” She clicked, then looked at their camera. “Where’d you get this, anyway? Haven’t seen one of these since the war.”

“You kidding? They’re practically giving them away. Try over by the Reichstag. Couple of bottles of Canadian Club should do it. You just got in, huh?”

“Just.”

“How about I buy you a drink? I could show you around.”

“Now, what would your mother say?”

“Hey.”

“Easy,” she said, then nodded toward Jake. “Besides, he gets mean.”

The GI glanced at Jake, then winked at her. “Maybe next time then, babe. Thanks for the picture.”

“There’s one for the books,” she said to Jake as the GIs moved away. “I never thought I’d get picked up in Hitler’s office.”

Jake looked at her, surprised. He had never thought of her being picked up at all. Now he saw that, scrubbed of combat dirt and bluff, she was attractive. “Babe,” he said, amused.

“Where’s the bunker?” ‹›“There, I guess.” He pointed through the window to the back courtyard, where a group of Russian soldiers stood guard. A small concrete blockhouse, a scarred, empty patch of ground. The two GIs were being turned away but offered cigarettes around until the guards stepped aside to let them take a picture. Jake thought of Egypt, the valley of bunkers where the pharaohs had gone to ground, in love with death. But even they hadn’t taken their city with them.

“They say he married her at the end,” Liz said.

While the Russians ran wild overhead, the very last hour.

“Let’s hope it meant something to her.”