The Bridge of Sights

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

At the busy, dark street, he boarded an overcrowded tram marked tempelhof. Simple enough. Her directions had been specific and concise, with little possibility for deviation. Emil had one foot inside the car; the other hung out. His bare hands and face froze in the night breeze, and the strain of holding himself up was wrenching his guts. An old man packed inside looked down at Emil’s foot, then shrugged helplessly.

They went through all of Berlin, it seemed. In some areas there was solely rubble, while in others the only damage consisted of chipped facades. But most of the bits of Berlin he could see through the darkness were a mix of the two. Jagged walls rose into the air, surrounded by hills of broken stone and intact homes. Occasionally, men in suits rode bicycles alongside the tram, and their car stopped a few times to let convoys of American jeeps pass.

Finally, at the end of a long, bomb-riddled square, beside a gated subway stop, he saw the sign: an arrow beside the words air port tempelhof. Everyone got off with him.

The whine was continuous here, and deafening.

Workers collected at the high chain-link fence. A few American soldiers stood on either side of the gates and took a look at each man’s ration card and ID. Beyond them, the black wall of the airport rose. There were maybe a hundred men here, stuffed tight, and Emil was in the midst of them, their hard jackets scraping his chapped fingers, their stench filling his nose. He wondered if bathing was a luxury here. The old man from the tram noticed him, his white-furred chin shifting as he spoke: “So you held on, did you?”

Emil nodded and smiled.

The old man moved closer, eyes glimmering from the electric lights on poles along the fence. “Usually, I’m the afternoon, but they took me off. How do you get used to these hours?”

Emil shrugged and rubbed his arms for warmth.

The old man nodded with lips pressed tight, and looked around. They all moved up a few feet, then stopped.

Emil’s stomach began to act up again. His accent was a badge here.

They moved a few more feet. A plane roared off from the other side of the terminal, and another plane’s tires screeched against the runway. The electric lights lit the men from above, casting their faces in long shadow. The old man looked like death. “My daughter-in-law says they’re flying in their own prostitutes for the GIs. Direct from Paris.” He winked. “I hope we can unload some of that”

Some other men growled their agreement, and a short, wiry worker took off his cap. “ Madame, pourrais-je vous aider a descendre de cette echelle?” He held up a hand and squeezed, as though supporting a woman’s ass. The laughter rippled through the crowd, and the little man, pleased, put his cap back on.

They were almost at the front. Three American soldiers, looking very stern in the shadows of their caps, examined each ID closely, twisting it in the light, and then stared deeply into each face. Back to the photo, then the face, again.

Emil would not get through. He knew this as soon as he looked again at his ID card with Schlieger, Dado beneath the picture: dark hair, dark eyes, double chin. Even accounting for weight loss, this could never be him. What was Birgit thinking? What was he thinking, letting her talk him into this?

He put away the papers and turned around. The old man put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re almost there.”

Emil shook it off and didn’t look back, but said, “I forgot something.”

As soon as the words came out he went numb, but pressed on. There were eyes on him, white eyes against dirty cheeks. Their faces were slack in their momentary surprise, then, when he was nearly out of their mass, shoulders began bumping into his. “ Russian came whispered German voices, hot breath in his ear. White teeth flashed. He pushed forward, just breaking free. Warm spittle hit the side of his neck. He didn’t wipe it off. They were yelling at him, hoarse voices in the cold. He walked faster, the cane helping him gallop further into the darkness. He didn’t look back until he had crossed the street, and the screaming airplanes obscured their shouting. They raised fists, a cloud of hot words hovered above their heads, and occasionally one broke from the crowd a few paces and spat, but they did not follow. They remained beside the gate, waiting to work for their ration cards. The promise of food held them right where they were.

A cold, black drizzle fell as he hobbled along the outside of the fence. He was cold all the way through. His jacket was thin- worker materials, the Uzbek would say-and when a wind came along, his battered hat blew off, and he had to stumble after it. He reached the other side of the Tempelhof complex, where he could see the activity inside the parenthesis. There were some children up ahead watching a plane touch down-a black silhouette marked by lights and sparks behind the propellers. Trucks burdened with food and coal rolled across the wet runway. From the shadows tiny workers jogged toward a parked truck. A burst of voices shot out-hooting-and the children clung to the chain- links, shouting with pleasure. Little blond boys dressed as poor adults, or in family lederhosen. They trembled like eager puppies. The plane taxied, disappearing on the other side of the airport, and another immediately touched down. There were lights in the sky, more planes lining up for the descent. On the ground, figures loaded trucks with the feverish single-mindedness of the hungry. The children whistled. Emil stood at the fence beside them, hands in his pockets fingering the useless ID.

“What kind of plane is that?” he said, and they looked at him. The plane was empty now, moving to the line of those waiting to leave. Another one took off.

There were five of them, feverish with the excitement of big machines, and one with mud on his cheek blurted, “C-47.” He seemed very convinced of it.

Emil nodded at the fence. “And this one coming in?”

“I’ll bet it s a C-54,” said another boy.

“You can t tell,” said the first, wiping the mud away with the back of his hand. “You can’t see it.”

“I can see it as well as you,” came the bitter reply.

It was, in fact, a C-82-a rare bird, they all agreed. He asked how often they saw the planes up close, and the first boy proudly said, “Whenever we want.”

“Shut up” whispered another.

The first boy realized then what he had done. His confused silence endured as he wondered how to talk himself out of his slip, but he finally gave up. “Everyone does it.”

“Seen any C-4s?” Emil asked conversationally, as if he hadn’t understood the slip. “There were some around earlier.”

The rain had stopped, and the boys seemed to want to leave. They retreated a few steps, but one-the smallest, a dark-haired child with perfectly combed hair and immaculate lederhosen- asked if he had a cigarette.

Emil squatted and pulled out his pack. The others approached as he distributed them. When he offered them lights the first boy shook his head. “They’ll see us. Want to know how to see them up close?”

The littlest made some sound of discontent, but another gave an unimpressed sigh that shut him up. “ Baby

It was another fifty yards farther along the fence. In the darkness one of them tripped, but bounced upright again and ran to catch up. They had marked the spot with two sticks crossed on the ground. At first Emil didn’t see anything-it was a fence and two sticks, and on the other side the wet tarmac led toward the planes and, to the left, the Tempelhof building. But then the first boy, with a smile Emil could just make out, touched the fence, demonstrating that the chain links had been cut along a jagged vertical line, about three feet high. The boy bent and pushed through-there was the sound of his shirt tearing-and looked back, beaming. “Come on in!”

Emil came through next, painfully, holding the cane ahead of himself to open the way, and was followed by three boys. The last one, the baby, stood on the other side, watching, frowning. He had his cigarette behind his ear. He muttered something no one could hear.

The first boy crouched and rushed forward. Emil tried to follow his lead, bending and rushing forward, but his damaged body wouldn’t bend easily, and could not move that fast. “We should split up,” Emil told them. “That way if one of us is caught the others can get away.”

They liked the conspiracy in his voice, and were soon running far ahead and to the right, to where the planes were settling down. But Emil waited, then ran to the left. Behind him, he knew, the baby was standing on the other side of the fence, watching, muttering his worries.