Shadow and Light

by Jonathan Rabb

  It was hardly a surprise, then, to find her hanging nude above the sofa: these wall-sized photographs were all the rage now. Hoffner stared up at the daring Fräulein Volker, sitting with her back to the camera, her shoulders turned, her eyes gazing out through a wave of flaxen hair. She held a flimsy piece of cloth in her hands to cover the breasts, but the rest draped over her upper thighs with just enough of a droop to bring full attention to the pale swellings of her perfectly formed rump. O-shaped, thought Hoffner. Two lovely half-Os.

  He was inclined to take a closer look, when he heard something moving from one of the back rooms. He waited through several seconds of silence until it came again. It was the sound of a drawer being opened and closed. Luckily, Hoffner never felt uneasy in moments like these; he never let surprise create what wasn’t there. Instead, he quietly made his way down the corridor and stopped at the doorway to the bedroom.

  A woman—tall and slim—was leaning over one of the side tables, a stack of papers held in one hand. The other was sifting through the drawer’s contents. From the dark coloring of her hair, Hoffner knew this was not Ingrid Volker. The well-fitted green skirt and white blouse—neither German-made—were also not in keeping with the Fräulein’s sophistication: they showed a bit of taste. The woman turned to see Hoffner staring across at her.

  She stood there, not as if she had been caught out, which she had, but as if she had already accepted the challenge: any accusation now would seem foolish. The strength was less in her gaze or the way she stood—although both conveyed an unrelenting certainty—as in the easy grasp of her fingers. They were long and thin and perfectly delicate, and it was their indifference that gave them their power: she might just as well have been holding the stack out to him. Her face had that same quality, fine and pale and seemingly inviting, but perhaps just too inviting to take the risk. She would have called herself beautiful, and Hoffner would have agreed.

  “Coyle,” she said. “Helen Coyle.” Hoffner had her in her early thirties. “And you must be a policeman.”

  That was the third time today someone had stated the obvious. Maybe it was time for a new suit? “An American who can spot a German detective,” he said. “Impressive.” Hoffner saw the first crack in her otherwise flawless stare.

  “I thought my accent was better,” she said.

  “It is. Quite excellent. It’s the watch. Not the kind a European would wear.”

  She glanced down for a moment, then back. “You’re a very good policeman. You don’t wear one.”

  “No, I don’t.” Hoffner was no less affable. “How did you get in here, Fräulein?”

  “The door was open.”

  “That’s probably not the case.”

  “True. It probably wasn’t.” She reached over to the bed and picked up her coat. “Should we get a coffee—or a brandy? That would be more European, wouldn’t it?”

  “Fräulein Coyle—”

  “Helen. Leni, if you prefer.”

  The world was now filled with such familiarity. “Fräulein,” Hoffner said patiently, “I’m really going to need to know how you got inside this flat. Then we can move on to the why and the who. All right?”

  “So you don’t drink brandy?”

  Hoffner stifled the urge to smile. “I’ve a bottle back in my office at the Alex. I’d be more than happy to discuss it there.”

  “Subtle but to the point. A very, very good policeman.” She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her coat. “Rothmans. I know. English. But at least I’m getting closer to the Continent.” She tossed the coat onto the bed and tapped one out. “You have a light?” Hoffner obliged, and two spears of smoke streamed from her nose. “Thyssen,” she said casually. “But you probably knew that. He had a set of keys. At his flat. So that makes two doors that were left open.”

  She knew why he had come and showed no hesitation at throwing it back in his face. Hoffner had to applaud the bravura. “And you knew they were for this particular flat,” he said. “These keys you just happened to find lying about?”

  This time, the dip in her stare brought a playful smile to the eyes. “Are you going to pick up on every little detail from now on?”

  “There’ve been so few of them, Fräulein, you leave me little choice.” He nodded at the papers. “Anything of interest?”

  She thought a moment, then extended the stack to him as she spoke: “A few letters to and from Thyssen. Bills. Cards from the nightclubs they must have been to.” Hoffner began to glance through. “Each of them has a little note on the back—what she drank, what they danced to. Pretty soppy stuff. I would have killed myself, too.”

  Hoffner continued to read. “Then it’s lucky you weren’t involved with her, Fräulein.” He looked up. “So who are you involved with?”

  She seemed oddly naked without the papers and coat, only the cigarette at her chest to lend the pose a hint of modesty. Again she waited before answering. “Now that would require a brandy, don’t you think, Herr Detective?”

  ROLLO’S WAS A FEW BLOCKS north and deeper into the real Kreuzberg: with character, she said.

  Hoffner had been happy enough to leave the flat. No doubt Fräulein Coyle had found the most interesting papers; anything more significant would require a much closer look, and that was something he would need to go back for on his own.

  He ordered two brandies.

  It was a cramped little bar, a few tables in the back, where the light seemed to dim as the smell of vinegar potatoes grew more pungent. She had picked a spot somewhere in the middle, although they could have sat anywhere. Aside from the barman, the only other person in the place was a young woman dozing at the back, her head tilted against the wall, her mouth gaped open in sleep. The ringlets in her hair had begun to droop as well, joining her lips in a chorus of silent oohs. But it was the faded ruffles on the collar and cuffs that made it clear where she had spent the afternoon: business at the nearby hotels always slowed around five. The slab of cheese and bread, along with a half-glass of slivovitz, were all that stood between her and the long night ahead.

  “Throw some paint on that face,” said Coyle, “a long satin number on that figure, and I’d have her working for Sam Goldwyn in a week.”

  The American was not shy about talking. In fact, she had spent the better part of the walk over regaling him with tales of her past: Ziegfeld girl (always down front), promise of a small film role, Hollywood, too many wayward nights stretching into weeks, name after name after name (most of which Hoffner had never heard), a month drying out, two months (all right, a year), film role gone, a few well-heeled keepers (more meaningless names), a flat of her own, bootstraps, and finally the kindness of Sam Goldwyn himself. As far as Hoffner could make out, Leni—she was now insisting on Leni—was what her associates called a talent agent, in the pay of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and in Berlin trying to find Ingrid Volker. It was as simple as that, and that, of course, made it anything but simple.

  “She’s a prostitute,” said Hoffner.

  The brandies arrived. “Of course she is. What difference does that make?”

  “You don’t think much of your business, do you?”

  “What a ridiculous thing to say.” She pulled out a cigarette. “Give Sleeping Beauty over there another choice and she might just surprise you.”

  Hoffner lit hers. “The whore with the golden heart. I think I’ve seen that film.”

  “The cop without one. Less popular, but just as gripping.”

  Hoffner marveled at the way she let nothing slip by. There was a rawness to it that made her almost brittle. He lit his own, then took a drink. “Your German is quite excellent. I would say flawless.”

  “My mother was Austrian, although I think the town is somewhere in Hungary now. I can never follow any of that. She met my father in a Viennese brothel—and no, she was a nurse. The place caught fire. He was an artist—Paris, Prague, Vienna. Wherever young Americans were supposed to go to figure it all out. He’d convinced one of the girls to pose for him—”r />
  “I’m sure he had.”

  “Dad lost two fingers from the burns and never picked up a brush again. So he picked up my mother and took her back to Pennsylvania.”

  Hoffner knew he was not the first to hear this rendition of the story. Still, it had all the necessary elements: artists and nurses, Vienna and fingers. He tapped out a bit of ash, keeping his eyes on the cigarette. “And a few years later—you.”

  “So there is a heart in there somewhere?”

  “Unlikely.”

  “I’m sure Frau Hoffner would disagree.”

  Hoffner knew she wouldn’t have. He finished his drink and said, “Another?” Before Coyle could answer, he called over to the barman. “Two more.” He then looked across at her. “Someone at Ufa gave you the keys to Thyssen’s, Fräulein.”

  It was the first time this afternoon that anything had caught her by surprise. In fact, Hoffner wondered if it might have been the first time altogether. The barman drew up and waited while she tossed back what was left in her glass. She then placed it on the table and watched as the man spilled out two more before heading back to the bar.

  “If we had a napkin,” she said, “we could squeeze out another half-glass between us.”

  Hoffner took a last pull on his cigarette. “I need to know who it was at Ufa, Fräulein.”

  “Leni, please.”

  He crushed the stub into the ashtray and said nothing.

  For a moment she looked as if she might be calculating odds. When she finally spoke, her tone was flat and distant. “You’ve met Joachim Ritter?” Hoffner nodded. “Goldwyn’s very interested in Fräulein Volker. One of his directors saw her in a cabaret, thinks he can be her Stiller.” When Hoffner began to ask, she explained, “Mauritz Stiller. Discovered Garbo. They say she was a pudgy little thing. Now look at her. At least this Volker girl is meant to be skinny. Goldwyn wants to steal her before the Germans discover her. Or at least before Ufa does. He’ll pay a great deal for her contract.”

  “And Ufa is happy to sell off a potential star?”

  “For what Goldwyn is offering? She’d have to be the biggest box-office draw Ufa has ever seen—and she’d have to do it for the next ten years. Ritter’s too smart not to take the money up front and let the Americans see if she’s worth it. So, given what’s on the table, Ritter thought I should have as much access to her as I could.”

  “And he knew Thyssen would have the keys to her place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Meaning Ritter had no trouble sending you to a dead man’s flat to find those keys?”

  Her stare was now impenetrable. “I was improvising.”

  “You’ve a reputation, then, for tracking down missing girls, no matter where it takes you?”

  “Girls, boys. Whatever’s in demand.”

  Hoffner now realized he had underestimated her. There was a hollowness there, one that gave her an almost cruel precision. What he had yet to determine was how effortless that precision might be. “You’ll want to do a little less improvising, Fräulein.”

  “But this would seem the best time for it, don’t you think, Detective?”

  “In Los Angeles, perhaps. Not here.”

  A faint light of mockery played in her eyes. “Am I being told to stay away?” Before he could answer, she said, “Hoffner.” She was studying him, the cigarette just out of lips’ reach. “That’s very German. It’s the Nikolai that’s not right.”

  He still had half a glass; he could afford the time. At least that was the reason he gave himself for answering. “Really?”

  “Of course. Douglas Fairbanks makes you swoon. Doug Fairbanks sells you ladies’ shoes.”

  “So you’d want a Nicki—”

  “That’s horrible.”

  Martha had thought otherwise. “Nick, then.”

  “Too much. I’d go in a completely different direction. Unless you’re directing. Then the Russian thing works just fine.”

  “And Fräulein Volker?” Clearly, this was where she wanted him to go: no reason not to follow.

  “Same problem,” she said. “It fights against itself. Ingrid Volker. Swedish, German—which is it?”

  “Maybe that’s what makes it interesting?”

  “No. It’s the wrong kind of interesting.” There was nothing aggressive in the tone, just the truth. “Why try and make sense of it? Berlin, Los Angeles. That’s never the point. It’s always about the studio. If you don’t understand that, you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.”

  This morning’s escapade had made that clearer than Hoffner wanted to admit. He took his billfold out and, along with a few marks, pulled his card. “In case Berlin proves to be more than it seems.” He placed the card by her glass, then set the bills by his own.

  “A free pass, Herr Detective?” She was looking directly at him. “I’m touched.” She took the card and, reading, feigned surprise. “Only your office number and address?” She slid it back toward him. “I don’t trust police stations. You’ll have to do better than that if you want my help.”

  He really had underestimated her. He pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote his information on the back of the card.

  “ ‘Göhrener Strasse,’ ” she read. “That’s a bit dicey, isn’t it?”

  “You know Berlin?”

  “Not really.” She placed the card in her purse. “I’m at the Adlon. Room 427.” She stood. “Just in case Berlin proves to be more than it seems.”

  She was already heading for the girl at the back before Hoffner could answer. He watched as she scribbled a note on a napkin, then placed it under the girl’s glass, all the while making sure not to wake her. Hoffner was still sitting when she came back to retrieve her things. He stood and helped her into her coat.

  “Two weeks,” she said. “You won’t even recognize her.” She let his hands rest for just too long on her shoulders before turning to him. “Happy hunting, Detective.”

  She was through the door just as the girl began coughing herself awake.

  THE SIGHT OF THE CYRILLIC SCRIPT—cut deep into the stone—meant that there was no turning back. Hoffner had made the promise to himself years ago: retreat was always possible from the gravel foreyard; it was even advisable when wending his way through the small, unkempt garden where the building’s four unwashed floors remained far enough removed to seem almost impartial. But not now. The place held him in its grasp.

  He rang the bell and continued to stare up at the lettering. Remarkable how the shape could make even the words “Château Russe” seem unforgiving.

  A wraith of an attendant opened the door and recognized him at once, her disapproval marred only by her resignation. “You’ve half an hour,” she said in Russian. “The doors lock at seven. Not a minute later.” She pulled back the door and waited for him to pass.

  Durable and cold was how the place always presented itself, walls of scarred wood climbing to an imagined ceiling: the sound of his own footfalls only added to the empty desperation. Mother Russia was calling her own home with a futility each of them evidently craved.

  He stepped into a large hall, tables and chairs scattered about under the glow of lamps outmanned by the shadows. Three large chandeliers hung from the ceiling, but they, too, were pitifully overwhelmed. Each had lost several bulbs to neglect, leaving a pattern of lights that seemed to be sending out some kind of coded plea of contrition. There were moments of life here and there—a game of cards, chess—but most of the occupants sat silently by themselves. One man had clearly been the recipient of recent guests. He slouched courageously in a tunic and cap, a few medals pinned at his chest. Even so, the eyes stared out vacantly. If he had seen kindness, he had forgotten it. More likely, he had learned not to expect it.

  In all the years Hoffner had been coming, he had never once met any of these others, no gentle “Good evening, Colonel” as he passed by. Their isolation was complete, a place where death stood as a bright beacon to those who had grown too sensitive to the light. They
remained alive only because they refused to look forward.

  Her chair was off by the far wall and empty, which meant Hoffner had a nice climb ahead of him. He was still catching his breath as he stepped through the doorway to Dormitory 3, the two rows of beds jutting out from the wall, barracks-style. All but two were empty, hers about halfway down. Had this been a German institution, each bed would have come with a chair at its side, a neat little dresser with room for some well-tended treasures on top—pictures, comb, brush, a favorite glass or vase—but this was not German. She had insisted on a kind of comfort that came only from memory, no matter how distant or revised. Cossacks and rifles and burning villages were conveniently erased. She belonged with Russians, with Jews. He had found her the only place in Berlin to accommodate both.

  He spoke in Russian. “Hello, Mama.”

  She was propped up on a pillow in a pose of sitting sleep. She opened her eyes. She, too, had long given up on kindness.

  “Is it Thursday?”

  He knew she knew otherwise. “Monday. I always come Mondays.”

  “True, but you don’t come, so it might as well be Thursday.”

  Hoffner saw a chair a few beds down. He stepped over and placed it just out of arm’s reach of her bed. Sitting, he pulled a small bag of chocolates from his pocket. “Hirschorn’s,” he said as he leaned forward to place it on her stomach. “The ones with the nuts.”

  “How many have you had?”

  “None.”

  “So you don’t like them?”

  This, in some form or other, was always the opening act: chocolates, flowers, a book. It never mattered which. Hoffner reached over again, tore off the string, and took a piece. He put it in his mouth. “Delicious.”