The Good German Read Online Free PDF Page B

’Forty-one. Did me a favor, I suppose. A few months later and I’d have been stuck.“ He waved his hand to take in the city. ”In all this.“
    “So only she got stuck.”
    He looked at her for a moment, then went back to adjusting the taps.
    “She stayed with her husband,” he said flatly.
    “I wouldn’t have,” she said, trying to be casual, a light apology. “Who was he? One of the master race?”
    He smiled to himself. “Not too masterful. He was a teacher, actually. A professor.”
    “Of what?”
    “Liz, what is all this?”
    “Just making conversation. I don’t often get you at a disadvantage. The only time a man will talk is when he has his pants off.”
    “Is that a fact.” He paused. “Mathematics, since you ask.”
    “Math?” she said, laughing slightly, genuinely surprised. “An egghead? Not very sexy.”
    “It must have been. She married him.”
    “And slept with you. Mathematics. I mean, a ski instructor or something I could understand—”
    “He did ski, as a matter of fact. That’s how they met.”
    “See,” she said, playing, “I knew it. Where was this?”
    He glanced at her, annoyed. Another woman’s magazine piece, the encounter on the slopes, as wistful as Eva Braun’s last glass of champagne.
    “I don’t know, Liz. Does it matter? I don’t know anything about their marriage. How would I? She stayed, that’s all. Maybe she thought they’d win the war.” The last thing she thought. Why say it? He turned off the taps, annoyed now with himself. “My bath’s ready.”
    “Were you in love with her?”
    “That’s not a reporter’s question.”
    She looked at him and nodded, then stood up. “That’s some answer.”
    “This towel is coming off in two seconds. You’re welcome to stay—”
    “Okay, okay, I’m going.” She smiled. “I like to leave a little something to the imagination.” She gathered up her things, slinging the holster belt on her shoulder, and went to the door.
    “Don’t forget the rain check,” he said.
    She turned to him. “By the way, a piece of advice? Next time you ask a girl for a drink, don’t tell her about the other one. Even if she asks.” She opened the door. “See you around the campus.”
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CHAPTER TWO
    DINNER WAS SURPRISINGLY formal, served by the gray-haired woman and a man Jake took to be her husband in a large corner room on the ground floor. A starched white tablecloth was set with china and wine goblets, and even the food—standard B rations of pea soup, stewed meat, and canned pears—seemed dressed up for the occasion, ladled out of a porcelain tureen with ceremony and garnished with a sprig of parsley, the first green Jake had seen in weeks. He imagined the woman snipping off pieces in the muddy garden, determined even now to keep a good table. The company, all men, was a mix of visiting journalists and MG officers, who sat at one end with their own whiskey bottles, like regulars in a western boardinghouse. Jake arrived just as the soup was being served.
    “Well, here’s a sorry sight.” Tommy Ottinger, from Mutual, extended his hand. “When did you blow in?”
    “Hey, Tommy.” Even balder than before, as if all his hair had migrated down to the trademark bushy mustache.
    “I didn’t know you were here. You back with Murrow?”
    Jake sat down, nodding hello across the table to the congressman, sitting between Ron, clearly on caretaking duty, and a middle-aged MG officer who looked exactly like Lewis Stone as Judge Hardy.
    “No broadcasting, Tommy. Just a hack.”
    “Yeah? Whose nickel?”
    “Collier’s.”
    “Oh,” Tommy said, drawling it, pretending to be impressed, “in depth . Good luck. You see the agenda? Reparations. You could nod off just thinking about it. So what do you know?”
    “Not much. I just got in. Took a ride through the city, that’s all.”
    “You see Truman? He went in this afternoon.”
    “No. I saw Churchill, though.”
    “I can’t use Churchill. They want