Berlin: A Novel

by Pierre Frei

  A chain with a toggle to lock it in place,' said the inspector, thinking out loud. 'Using a chain like that, he could throttle her with one hand while he used the other to . . .' He stopped. Around eleven at night? Probably just before the last train left at 22.48. The platform was almost empty and half the lights weren't working. The murderer would have been waiting in the shadows. The chain would have stifled her screams. And when he'd finished with her he pushed the body down on the tracks, jumped after it, hauled the corpse out of sight into the bay under the edge of the platform, clambered up again and waited for the last train, cool as a cucumber. It could have been like that.'

  The doctor put the speculum in a dish. 'Nurse Dagmar undressed the body. She wasn't wearing any panties. Does anyone know anything about her?'

  'Sergeant Franke thinks he might have seen her before, but he can't remember where.'

  'I'm going to open up the body now. Want to stay and watch?'

  'No thanks. I can't promise not to keel over. One of our men will come and collect your autopsy report later.'

  Dr Mi bius looked at the beautiful corpse with pity. 'I wonder who this Karin Rembach was?' He picked up his scalpel.

  KARIN

  SUMMER SUNDAYS WERE the best thing about Weissroda. The entire village drowsed off after lunch, and you could make off down the path through the fields and walk through the tall rye. If you parted the blades very carefully as you went in, they closed behind you, forming an impenetrable curtain. The wind had made a little clearing in the middle of the rye field. You could undo your plaits there, shake your long hair loose over your shoulders, lie down and daydream, looking up at the sky, and sometimes your hand found its way between your legs, giving you a tingling feeling which was simply unbearable, and felt so nice that you couldn't stop.

  Seventeen-year-old Karin liked to be all alone, with no one telling her what she was to do, muck out the henhouse or feed the horse. She had been on the Werneisens' farm for two years now, ever since her mother, Anna Werneisen's sister, died of heart disease. She'd never been married to Karin's father. He was English, a steward on a cruise ship plying between London and Hamburg. When he was in Cuxhaven he spoke English to his daughter. Then he was posted to the Far East, and they never heard from him again. It wasn't that the Werneisens made Karin feel aware of her situation. But if she hadn't closed the pigsty door properly, or she neglected a job, one of them would say she was a city child and didn't belong here. She knew that she wasn't like them: she had a different accent, speaking the pure High German of the north, instead of the local dialect spoken here on the border of Thuringia, which seemed to have a constant undertone of malice. She was blonde, with long, slender limbs, and that too distinguished her from her sturdy relations.

  When she had daydreamed enough, she sat up and braided her plaits. She kept the ends in place with little leather straps that closed with snapfasteners, instead of the slides that the village girls wore. She rose, smoothed down her dress, and strolled slowly back along the path through the fields. There was a notice up outside the inn.

  THE BLOND-LACE LADY WITH NADJA HORN AND ERIK DE WINTER

  It was an advertisement for a theatrical company from Berlin touring the provinces in the summer break. Karin looked for the umpteenth time at the picture of the leading actress, a beautiful lady with blonde hair sprayed into place and a white fox fur stole, and the photo of her partner beside it. He was a good-looking man in tails, really dishy. She couldn't tear herself away.

  Hans Gi rke was waiting for her outside the blacksmith's forge. He had washed thoroughly, and only his black fingernails showed that he'd been working at the anvil. Hans was three years older than Karin, a stocky, redheaded lad with heavy arms and big hands.

  'I went to pick you up.'

  'So?' With pointed indifference, she glanced at the swastika flag flying above the forge. Gorke senior was a Party member.

  She was about to go on, but he grabbed her forearm in a firm grip. 'Where you been, then?'

  'That's none of your business.'

  'It is so, 'cause you're my girl.'

  'Don't you get any ideas.' She freed himself from his grasp by unbending his fingers one by one, and he let her. He could easily have held on.

  'How's about a trip to Eckartsberga next Sunday? There's a dance on at the Lion.'

  'I don't feel like dancing,' she snapped.

  'How's about a little walk now, then?'

  'I have to help with the milking.'

  In her bedroom, she took off the thin, flower-patterned dress with its white collar, and her sandals and white socks. She avoided looking in the wardrobe mirror, because she hated the sight of her blue, cotton jersey knickers with elasticated legs and high-necked undershirt. She sat down on the edge of the bed, put on the thick wool stockings lying ready for her, and slipped into the dirty white, cotton-drill overall that was too big for her and had too many buttons.

  Anna Werneisen was standing by the stove, cooking oatmeal for supper. The sight of the thick lumps on the surface nauseated Karin. 'Hans was here,' her aunt told her.

  'I know.' Karin put on the gumboots standing by the door.

  'You don't want to let that Hans get away. He's the lad for you. Plans to go to Kosen and join the cavalry as a farrier. That's as good as a sergeant when it comes to the pay. I heard it from old Riester, he served with the cavalry.' Anna Werneisen was a practical woman.

  'Hans has black fingernails and smells of soot.' Karin didn't wait to hear her aunt's reply, but went off to the cowshed, gumboots slapping on the ground. Her cousins Barbel and Gisela were already sitting with the cows. Karin put her stool down to the right of Liese's rear end and placed the bucket under it. She massaged the cow's udder, took hold of two teats and began milking: gentle pressure with thumb and forefinger, let the other three fingers follow one by one, almost as if you were playing the piano, a slight downward tug at the same time, and the milk came splashing down into the empty bucket with a dull, tinny note that rose in pitch as the bucket slowly filled. Liese turned her head, contentedly chewing the cud. The cousins were giggling together about their romp in the straw with two boys from Braunsroda.

  Karin carried the full bucket out and poured it into the milk churn through the strainer. Rosa was mooing impatiently. It was her turn next. Each of the three girls milked four cows twice a day. Father Werneisen fed the cows and mucked them out.

  After supper they sat around the People's Radio, a black Bakelite box with three knobs and a round, fabric-covered speaker, from which issued the voice of a journalist enthusiastically reporting from Vienna. The Fiihrer had brought Austria home into the Reich. And he ain't finished yet,' prophesied Werneisen darkly.

  Karin wasn't listening. She was leafing through a old issue of Die Dame magazine, looking at the glossy photos of beautiful, elegant people and dreaming of blonde Nadja Horn and Erik de Winter, that dishy man in evening dress.

  One Friday morning in July, a coach containing the theatrical company and a truck with its scenery drew up in the yard of the inn at Weissroda. Karin was mucking out the henhouse when Barbel burst in with the news. She dropped her pitchfork. This she had to see.

  Actors and stagehands got out of the coach, along with the director Theodor Alberti, a gentleman with a leonine mane of hair, a monocle and a Scotch terrier. Erik de Winter the film star got out too.

  Karin recognized him at once: dark, wavy hair, soft chin and velvety brown eyes. He was wearing pale flannels and a white tennis sweater, and had a clutch of newspapers under one arm. He laughed and waved: he always laughed and waved when there was an audience in the offing. News of the actors' arrival had not yet spread, so the audience was Karin. Unabashed, she waved back.

  Erik de Winter was moved by the sight of the girl's slender figure in an overall much too big for her. her regular features and expressive blue eyes. 'What a young beauty,' he said, helping his stage partner out of the bus.

  'You've never fallen for rustic charm before,' Nadja Horn te
ased him. She bore only the most remote resemblance to the groomed blonde lady in the white fox fur. Her black hair was tied up with a red scarf, and she wore widelegged trousers in the Dietrich style. 'But as usual, your taste is impeccable.' She walked over to the startled girl with long, energetic strides, and offered her hand. 'I'm Nadja Horn.'

  'But you're not blonde!' exclaimed Karin.

  'Oh, we actors are whatever the public wants us to be. Black-haired, redheaded, blonde, brunette. May I introduce you to my partner? Herr Erik de Winter - this is Fraulein ... what did you say your name was?'

  'Karin Rembach.' Karin wiped some chicken shit off her face.

  A long look from those velvety brown eyes. 'Very pleased to meet you, Fraulein Rembach.'

  'Oh, me too! I saw you in a movie. You played an airman.'

  'Yes, it was Storming the Heavens.' He kept on looking at her. Are you coming to the show this evening? We'll leave you a complimentary ticket at the box office.'

  Nadja Horn was watching the encounter with amusement. This little country girl seemed to have made a great impression on him. 'Come and see us after the performance,' she suggested. 'Then you can tell us what you thought of the play. Herr de Winter and I would like that.'

  'I'll ask Aunt Anna if I may,' she promised, and then could have kicked herself.

  By now the yard had filled with curious onlookers. Half the village watched with bated breath as de Winter bent to kiss Karin's hand. Her heart was thudding, but she didn't let it show. 'See you this evening, then,' she said loud enough for everyone to hear, and ran back to the henhouse with a spring in her step.

  Later, in the kitchen, she asked her aunt's permission. 'Take them a few roses from the garden, and don't be back too late,' was Anna Werneisen's only comment. 'It won't hurt the child to meet someone new for a change.' she said later, justifying her decision to her husband.

  The play was a drawing-room comedy, with witty dialogue that went right over the heads of most of the audience. But Karin instinctively understood its subtle irony and double-entendres, and she loved the actors' elegant costumes. She wanted to be like them too.

  She felt ashamed of her thin summer dress with its little white collar when she went to see her new friends after the show. They had been given the two best rooms in the inn.

  'Oh, how sweet of you, my dear.' Nadja Horn came towards her with outstretched arms. She was wearing a flowing house dress. She had taken off her blonde wig, and was black-haired again. 'What lovely roses! Thank you so much. Did you like the play?'

  'Oh yes, specially the scene where Verena van Bergen pretends not to have seen Armand for ages, even though he's waiting for her just next door.' Karin picked up a long cigarette-holder from the table and posed, her hand held at a casual angle. 'My dear, whatever are you thinking of? I'm about as interested in Armand as I am in Dr Dupont's dachshund. Or was it a Dobermann?' She'd captured Nadja Horn's tone of voice.

  'Bravo!' Erik de Winter applauded. He had exchanged his evening dress for a silk dressing gown and a cravat, and looked captivating. A little champagne?' He poured some and handed Karin the glass.

  It tickled her nose. Karin couldn't help sneezing. She laughed, not at all embarrassed. 'I never drank anything like this before.' She took another sip, without sneezing this time.

  He raised his glass to her. 'I really like your village. Delightful people.' It sounded slightly patronizing.

  And he doesn't even know the name of this dump, thought Nadja, putting the roses in a jug, since there was no vase available.

  'It's not my village. I'm from Cuxhaven.'

  Nadja sipped from her own glass. 'So you're visiting your family and helping out on the farm a little?'

  'No, I've lived and worked here since Mutti died. But I'm soon going to Berlin.' She believed it as she said it. There was a determined set to her beautiful, full-lipped mouth.

  Nadja Horn was observing the girl attentively. She heard her educated German, registered her natural, self-confident bearing. This was no naive rustic, there was more to her than that. Erik had spotted it, and he was right. She rose to her feet. 'Come with me a moment, my dear. Erik darling, top up our glasses, would you?'

  Karin followed her into the next room, where Nadja opened the two halves of a large wardrobe trunk containing a dozen evening dresses. She chose one and tossed it to Karin. 'Try that on.' Karin had never undressed in front of a strange woman, and went into the bathroom, but her hostess followed. She took off her thin summer dress. 'Good heavens, how frightful!' cried Nadja, horrified at the sight of the blue jersey knickers. 'Wait a moment.' She disappeared and came back with a pair of diaphanous camiknickers and other delicious items. 'Come on, child, you want to look pretty,' she enticed her. Karin overcame her shyness and took off her dismal underclothes.

  Nadja saw a fully developed young woman with long, slim thighs and beautifully shaped breasts. 'Now, sit down in front of the mirror.' She undid Karin's plaits and brushed her hair until it fell to her shoulders in golden waves. Then she carefully pencilled in the line of the girl's eyebrows and added just a touch of lipstick. That regular young face with its perfect complexion needed nothing more.

  'Now stand up.' A cool, fragrant mist of perfume from Nadja's atomizer surrounded her naked body, making her nipples erect. Nadja helped her with the suspender belt and silk stockings. The long dress rustled as Karin drew it over her shoulders and hips. A few hooks and eyes completed the operation. Everything fitted, including the high-heeled silver pumps. Enchanted, Nadja clapped her hands.

  'You took your time,' Erik de Winter complained in good-humoured tones. Then he said no more, so overwhelmed was he by the blonde young woman in the close-fitting black evening dress, high-necked in front and plunging right down to her waist at the back. Incredulous, Karin realized that she had bowled him right over.

  Armand, where's that champagne? I'm dying of thirst,' she said, mimicking Nadja's lines from the second act, and she perched on the arm of a chair just like her model, ensuring that the slit in her skirt fell open all the way to her knee.

  Erik regained his composure. Only if you'll dance with me, my love,' he quoted from his own lines, and wound up the gramophone.

  Karin had seen him and Nadja dancing on stage. Now she just melted into his arms and they drifted over the creaking floorboards. She smelled his astringent eau-de-Cologne and felt the silk of his dressing gown. He felt her young body next to his and stopped thinking at all.

  There was a knock. Theodor Alberti put his leonine head round the door. 'Come in, Theo. A glass of champagne?' Nadja asked the director in honeyed tones.

  The monocle flashed. He looked Karin up and down with pleasure. 'So whom have we here, then? A charming new colleague, by any chance?'

  Nadja Horn looked at her protegee. 'Maybe.'

  Karin danced home over the cobblestones of the village street in an exuberant mood. Aunt Anna had left the door in the farmyard gate open. As she reached for the doorknob, a hand shot out of the dark and grabbed her arm. 'So you don't mind dancing with that actor fellow,' growled Hans Gorke. She could smell the alcohol on his breath. 'You wait, he'll get what's coming to him.' He let her go and moved away, his footsteps heavy.

  By the time she was in her bedroom she had forgotten this encounter. She took off her thin summer dress. Nadja Horn had made her a present of the undies. She went to bed in those delicate wisps of nothing, thought of Erik de Winter, and fell happily asleep.

  The second and final performance was on Saturday. Gorke had put his son under house arrest when Theodor Alberti told him of the young man's threats to a member of his company, and held out the prospect of'measures that could be taken by the Reich Chamber of Culture. And then, my dear fellow, you'd be kicked out of the Party,' Alberti had said, exaggerating wildly.

  So Erik de Winter remained unscathed, and the final performance was another great success. Erik didn't get to see Karin again. On Theo's orders,' Nadja told him. 'It's better this way, believe me. For now, anyway.' H
e thought he detected the hint of a promise in her voice.

  On Sunday morning Nadja Horn called on the Werneisens. She was invited into the parlour and asked to sit on the sofa. The Werneisens sat opposite her, waiting to see what she wanted.

  The actress came straight to the point. 'I'd like to take your niece to Berlin. Not at once, but next spring. She can stay at my place and keep house for me, and the job will leave her enough time for drama school. The Stage Employees' Co-Operative will send you my character reference.'

  'Drama school? That's the idea, is it?' Werneisen repeated, suspicion in his voice.

  'Karin doesn't belong in the cowshed, you know that as well as I do. She has talent, and it must be trained.' Acting on intuition, Nadja Horn turned to Anna Werneisen. 'Do please give her this chance.'

  The farmer's wife was listening attentively. 'It's not that we want to put obstacles in Karin's way. But what about the expense?' she said.

  'She'll have free board and lodging with me. That just leaves the question of the drama school fees.'

  She has a little money of her own that her mother left her. But it's really supposed to be for her trousseau.'

  And you want us to cough that up?' Werneisen narrowed his eyes. 'I dare say you think we're stupid peasants, but we're not that stupid.'

  A notary of your own choice would hold the money in trust, and make payments on Karin's behalf, having checked their validity. I assure you, Herr Werneisen, that I am not so stupid as to take responsibility for a young girl's money.'

  The farmer looked at her in astonishment. 'Well, you're a one! Do we let our Karin go, Mother?' Anna Werneisen nodded. And so it was decided.