by Ben Pastor
It was not a detail, and Bora was finding out only now. He turned towards Grimm, who was calling Kripo headquarters, and shrugged as if to say that he hadn’t known either.
While they waited for the police van, Glantz asked to ring his wife. Grimm was against it, but Bora said yes.
“He could take advantage of the call to destroy evidence, Colonel!” Grimm’s whispered objection irritated Bora even more.
“You had several days to search his house, and did not do so. What do you expect to find now? If there was any evidence, he disposed of it long ago.” Bora indicated the telephone with a nod. “Make your call,” he told Glantz, “but be quick about it.”
After the police van from Alexanderplatz had arrived, taken charge of the suspect and left (it had been impossible to keep neighbours and passers-by from snooping around), Bora returned with Grimm to the Sternuhr offices to finish the search. He came away with some documents and the sky-blue folder; the rest of the paperwork would go to the Criminal Police stacks, while Grimm held on to the keys to the office for the time being.
They left behind boxed material related to the stillborn encyclopaedia, already addressed and waiting to be returned to Niemeyer (labelled “As agreed, to be delivered and stored in the garden shed” – not much of a depository for such a brainchild). Glantz’s correspondence with the victim, however, was of some interest to Bora: sporadic in 1938, then more and more frequent, anxious and finally angry, it culminated in a storm of insults sent by registered post during the last three months. Niemeyer’s replies on fine hand-cut paper, also on file, ceased in the summer of 1943. Magnus Magnusson (as was the name on the elaborate letterhead) displayed his annoyance at the publisher’s doggedness. His last message consisted of a business card with his full name stamped on it, preceded by a solemn – and in Bora’s opinion non-existent – academic title: “Doctor Professor of Cosmology and Applied Cosmography”. Stapled to the umpteenth reminder sent by Glantz on 15 June 1944, it bore no date. The sole word on the business card, dashed in purple ink, was a less than esoteric “Arsehole”.
11:53 A.M.
Grimm loaded the Olympia with the Niemeyer paperwork and Bora’s scant luggage, as if he already knew of his transfer from the Adlon, which was probably the case. While driving the officer to the Leipziger Hof, his account of the last hours indicated other reasons for his grouchiness than the absence of useable fingerprints on the rifle. “There was a call to the police headquarters from the Propaganda Ministry last night, regarding Ida Rüdiger. I got hauled over the coals about it.” Grimm said it with a kind of pained surprise, as if this were the part he hadn’t expected – a lack of support from his superiors.
Bora noticed it. That means that Nebe usually backs his men up on controversial matters, and this time he chose not to. Why? For the same reason he contracted the case out to me? I don’t know enough about Nebe to say whether he would stand up to Josef Goebbels or his close collaborators. But why wasn’t I reprimanded? Goebbels loves to mortify the army.
“We knew that might happen, didn’t we.”
“Hell, the Propaganda Minister himself vouches for the woman’s alibi.”
Bora had no reason to grin, but couldn’t help it. “Frau Goebbels must be very pleased with Ida’s hairdressing skills.”
Grimm, mean-eyed, grunted through his short, upturned nose. “Also, I found out who it was that Ida Rüdiger paid to station themselves in Niemeyer’s neighbourhood and spy on him. Private surveillance, nothing official. The name was Gustav Kugler, a former Kripo colleague of mine.”
“‘Was’?”
“Shot to death in Moabit on 1 July. Occupational hazard, in that line of work.” They were now skirting the green area along Anhalter Strasse, in sight of the massive hotels around the train station. “He was wounded while on active service two years ago, and retired. For the past year he’d been making a living as a private investigator, no connection to us or other government agencies.”
The timeliness of Kugler’s death, given what he might have discovered about Niemeyer, deserved a comment on Grimm’s part that never came.
“Was anyone charged with his murder?” Bora asked, eyeing a young woman through the open window, who was kneeling on the pavement and retying her high-heeled sandal.
“Nah. They fished him out of the canal under the railway bridge east of Bellevue station three days after he disappeared. What he knew, he carried with him to the grave: never was much of a note-taker. ‘It’s all in my head,’ he used to say, and the hole they fired into it would have let everything escape, even if he had survived.”
The girl’s leg, her slender ankle, had the sheen of butter; no wonder the calico skirt slid back over her knee, exposing her thigh. She saw the officer watch her and smiled in a mischievous way. Bora, usually more serious than that, gave her an amused military salute in reply. To Grimm he said, “Do you have any good news?”
“Other than it’s ten to one that Niemeyer’s killer is already in our hands? Well, I tracked down the queer, Kupinsky. His house is being watched, so we can bag him any time you want.”
Bora did some quick reckoning. He wanted to try Olbertz’s number again, hopefully before the physician left the office for lunch. “I need an hour to settle into my new room and grab a bite,” he said, “then we can go.” He pulled a slip of paper with letters and numerals written on it out of his breast pocket, and laid it face up on the seat between them. “Does this tell you anything, other than that it belongs to a Berlin licence plate?”
Grimm darted a look at it while rounding a corner. “No. Why?”
“Find out who drives it.”
“Any specific reason?”
“I’ll know once I know who drives it.”
At a walking distance from Kleist Park, the Leipziger Hof contrasted both with the courts of law and other government buildings on the green, and with the looming behemoth of the Pallasstrasse bunker’s tower, unbearable to the eye. The façade of the four-storey hotel, freshly painted, stood out against the otherwise faded block of houses. Its gilded sign and revolving door belonged to an earlier generation, and everything inside, from floors to light fixtures to furniture, spoke of the late 1920s. Bora’s room was already registered in his name. He supervised the transfer of the Niemeyer boxes to it, changed his sweaty shirt and ordered sandwiches with “cold cuts” (the wartime menu of the day). His mid-sized corner room had two windows that were advantageously placed away from the bunker; the large bed and a bathroom with a tub were definitely a plus, even though hot water – as a notice explained – would be available only on Saturdays. As in most respectable establishments, every room had a double door, ensuring privacy for the guest and enough space to hang suits to be cleaned, and set down trays after breakfast. The door that presumably led to an adjacent chamber was nailed shut, and its keyhole filled in. Bora quickly searched around for listening devices, found none, then asked the switchboard to ring Olbertz’s office. This time, a nurse took the call. The doctor was out, so Bora left her the hotel’s phone number, but not his name. Within minutes, the sandwiches arrived, with a bottle of mineral water; he speedily disposed of them, brushed his teeth and went downstairs to explore the building before Grimm’s return. Downstairs, judging by the presence of cards and letters in the pigeonholes behind the counter, there was no vacancy at the Hof. The wallpaper motif used throughout was of stylized pineapples in tones of olive green and pale yellow, with delicate crimson highlights. Woodwork painted white gave a southern, fresh air to wainscoting and doors. Below street level were a panelled restaurant (crowded at this hour) and a cosy bar, whose far wall featured a giant sepia photograph of old Leipzig – the Pauliner church and the Café Français. Although the service could not stand up to the Adlon’s, you could still be very comfortable here, especially if, like Bora, you had come from the front.
1:05 P.M.
Grimm’s lunch left a stain among the red zigzags of his tie, due to the tomato sauce from the Anhalt station “Eyetie e
atery”, as he told Bora self-consciously. Bora wouldn’t have noticed it otherwise. As for him, he had the gift of appearing fresh and well groomed, regardless of the weather or his mood, and relied on this to disguise how he felt.
Enquiring about the licence plate of the grey car now would make him sound overly anxious, something he had to avoid at all costs. He calmly got into the car and set the briefcase on his knees.
“Off to Kupinsky’s, then?”
“I thought you were interested in the licence plate.”
“Ah, yes. That, too. Any idea?”
Grimm didn’t look at him. His small eyes remained fixed on a spot between Bora and the dashboard, yet Bora was sure that he was weighing the casualness of his reaction against the concern he’d manifested by asking in the first place, so he chose to modify it slightly. “Well, I am curious. Whose is it?”
“Car belongs to a retired general. His chauffeur drives it.”
Bora had expected any answer other than this. He was ready to scramble an acceptable response, in case it involved the Secret Police, or the Reich Security Service. Not this, a pat confirmation of the concierge’s story. “Yes, I thought so,” he replied, finding nothing better to say.
KOPFSTRASSE, NEUKÖLLN
Cemeteries dotted the working-class quarter between Tempelhof airport and the two long roads leading south-east, towards Zossen and the Schönefeld airstrip. My way out of Berlin, if I make it, Bora thought – and was surprised that he had thought it.
It was not a neighbourhood he knew. The aura of its riotous and impoverished past lingered, despite the dignified flats built for state workers at the turn of the century to improve its reputation. Dikta, however, had as an adolescent visited its notorious dance halls with her girlfriends, when on holiday from her expensive Swiss finishing school. Once, she and her best friend Luisa had avoided being arrested after a brawl by unhooking and re-hooking their silk stockings in front of the police, though she’d then quickly shown them her father’s diplomatic calling card. “Otherwise,” she’d told him, laughing, “they would have mistaken us for two cocottes!”
Once inside the building, Bora’s melancholy grew. He always felt a pang of sorrow at the front doors of state housing, flimsy like shutters, with glass panels whose vulnerability was lessened only by an etched pattern or thin drape. To this day, he believed that privilege can in part be measured by the impenetrable security of a front door. Grimm, who’d probably grown up in circumstances like this, was unimpressed, and hammered on it.
Bubi Kupinsky opened the door, and stumbled back into his ground floor room mumbling a generic but abject “At your service”, while Grimm slammed the door shut.
He bore little resemblance to the long-haired lad in the photo from his file. Aside from his lifestyle and the fact that he’d served time in prison, it was readily understandable why this 25-year-old was not in the army. At first, the way he limped made Bora think that he had a congenital defect (Goebbels’ club foot came to mind), but as Kupinsky himself said, it was “a souvenir from the street fights” in Neukölln. He wore canvas shoes without socks, and, unprompted, showed them the three missing toes on his left foot. Only the big and little toe remained, creating a grotesque and painful sight.
As for the rest, a military haircut that left his temples and neck closely shaved gave him a stern and sad look. Bora and his men had shorn themselves similarly, at the start of the Russian campaign, so that they wouldn’t have to waste any time on barbers during their fierce and unstoppable advance.
“Lieutenant Colonel – Inspector – I was not in hiding,” Kupinsky pointed out. “I can prove it – as soon as I heard from my old landlady on Jägerstrasse that I was wanted, I reported to the nearest police station.”
“The one at number 57?” Grimm intervened.
“No, further down, at 257. They didn’t know what to do with me there, so I dropped the matter. Maybe – who was to say? – it was all a bad joke.”
Bora took note of the surroundings. As he’d expected, the dreary room had two sources of light: the window onto the paved courtyard, and the fragile panel of coloured glass in the front door. The impression of vulnerability, prevalent in wartime, was particularly painful in the house of a man treated brutally ever since childhood. Grimm loathes him; if he could, he’d snap his neck like a rabbit’s. But I can imagine other scenarios, from the wretchedness of a political orphan to all that the SA Revoluzzer might have done to him when they had him in their hands.
He said, showing none of his compassion, “You should have anticipated that someone would seek you out, after someone was murdered in the house where you occasionally worked.”
“I thought of it. But it’s one thing to make yourself available, another to go to the Kripo of your own free will.” Kupinsky’s eyes, of an intense violet-blue, no doubt were his principal allure; they reminded Bora of the colour of the ink used by Niemeyer.
The young man, perhaps unused to being formally addressed, stiffly watched the officer. However, Bora used the formal “Sie” with everyone, stepfather and grandparents included, on principle: if he switched to the familiar form of address, it was for reasons of extraordinary friendship or intimacy.
“I was to take care of Herr Magnusson’s animals on the morning of 4 July, because he was expecting the gas workers. But there was a delay on public transport, so I arrived late. When I got there, it must have been past eight thirty – I spotted the fire service and the policemen, see, and kept well away. Then I asked the maid of the people who live on the corner, the lunatic asylum doctor —”
“Wirth?”
“That’s the name, yes. She told me what had happened. The way she stared at me! See, a fellow doesn’t have a dirty conscience, to … so I sneaked away, thinking that if the police wanted me, they could find me for sure.”
“Right,” Grimm interrupted, “as if Berlin were a one-horse town. Now you’ve come up for air because you’ve been out of work for days, and if you want to eat you must get a move on. The other profession we’ve taught you to keep away from.”
Despite the hot day, the ground-floor lodging was dank; a star-shaped spider of cracks branched out from a hole in the plaster where there had once been a nail in the wall. Bora lowered his eyes in order to detach himself from the room. Much as he tried not to, the details of what surrounded him threatened to distract him. As usual, it wasn’t so much the objects (like sounds and odours, he always noticed those anyway), but the more subtle and insignificant details that stuck, forming a whole that would stay with him. It was the way a shaft of daylight filtered through the half-shuttered window, bright and unbending; the shadow of a flock of dust in a corner and the veil of dust under a chair … He caught the absolute, and odd, centrality of these, as if a universe widened ceaselessly from this or that apparently insignificant point. Around each one, constellations of ideas wheeled; seconds were enough for him to elaborate an impression that for ever anchored him to this shabby interior, to the city punished by enemies all around it, and to the as yet obscure motive that had brought him here.
Grimm had just finished talking, and it was up to Bora now. Resting the notebook on his knee, he turned to Kupinsky. “Tell me about your job at Lebanonzederpfad.”
6 p.m., at the Leipziger Hof. Dismissed Grimm early with the excuse of having to sort through the papers in my new lodgings. I can reproduce nearly verbatim what Kupinsky told us today, and not just because I took notes. He is a good observer, and if he didn’t have the bad habit of trying to play coy (with males like Grimm and myself!) by wetting his lips and batting his eyelashes, he’d be undistinguishable from any other individual I interrogated.
He hadn’t been in touch with Niemeyer for years, since the rise of the Weimar Prophet from the days of cheap advertising leaflets. Yet it was leaflets that brought them back together. Notwithstanding his limp, Berthold Kupinsky has for some time made a living distributing handbills (Grimm is convinced he’s still selling himself, but that doesn’t interest us
now). Last summer, shortly after the air raid that damaged the post office and other buildings in Dahlem, Kupinsky happened to be in the neighbourhood, publicizing some attic-cleaning company or other. Niemeyer was sunning himself in the front yard. He recognized the young man from his characteristic gait, invited him into the house and, after a short exchange (Kupinsky was clever enough to understand that it was to Magnusson the Northman and not to Mandelbaum the Jew that he was speaking), offered him a position paid by the hour, tending to the animals and doing a bit of gardening. “I jumped into it head first,” he said. By the following autumn he was doing odd jobs for the entire neighbourhood, because “home owners prefer a lame German to hale foreign workers”. Kupinsky was overjoyed: he was being trusted, received decent wages, even replenished his wardrobe thanks to his employer’s hand-me-downs (which, incidentally, allows me to calculate that Niemeyer was of middle height and not overly thin). The sole fly in Kupinsky’s ointment was Ida Rüdiger. The Party hairdresser despised him. She strove to surround herself with refined domestic help, untainted by a shady past like his. Before breaking up with her lover, she tried everything to make trouble for the Neukölln jack of all trades. Kupinsky gave examples: “She poured I don’t know what on the rose bushes to make them dry up,” and “She purposely left the windows open when the parrots were out of their cages.” Kupinsky witnessed the furious arguments between Niemeyer and his girlfriend from the garden, and feared that his working days there were numbered.