A Night of Long Knives (Hannah Vogel)

by Cantrell, Rebecca

  She shook her head.

  “I do not expect you to pay part of the fare.” I guessed at the reason behind her reluctance. “To return the favor of letting me hide last night.”

  She tottered two steps with the suitcase and stopped.

  I opened the taxi door and climbed into the front seat, leaving her and Manny to load themselves.

  “Extra passenger is extra fare,” said the driver sourly.

  “I will pay.”

  Claire, who fortunately had heard nothing, climbed into the back with Manny, luggage on the seat next to them.

  Where were they going? To a prearranged rendezvous point with Mouse? If so, the man who had killed him might be there, assuming that it was not the Nazis. But if the Nazis wanted her, they would have come to Café Sing-Sing and killed her already.

  “Holiday?” I gestured to the suitcases. We both knew it was no holiday. She was not the type of woman who had ever had a holiday.

  “Of a sort.”

  “Going to see your pony?” I asked Manny.

  He shook his head. “He didn’t come back with the money.”

  Claire elbowed him. My side twinged in sympathy. “Enough,” she said, and he fell silent.

  So Mouse had been due back at home. They were not going somewhere to meet him, somewhere that the killer might know about. My heart lightened. “Sometimes money makes people do crazy things.”

  “Don’t it now,” she said.

  “Are you two in trouble?” I hated to be so direct in questioning, but Anhalter Bahnhof lay only minutes away, and after that I might never see them again.

  Manny’s eyes filled with tears, but he looked out the window without speaking, hand on his ribs.

  “None of your affair,” Claire snapped.

  “I am in trouble too,” I said. “I know how it is.”

  “Do you now?” She looked at me levelly, beautiful blue eyes shuttered.

  “My man cleaned out the house.” I hated to keep lying. “Nothing there when I got home last night. Not even furniture. Or my son.”

  She grimaced. She knew how that was. “Mine took off. Had something that belonged to me too. Or at least half did.”

  “You going after him?” I hoped not.

  “I’m through with him. Either he double-crossed me, or someone double-crossed him. Either way I’m done with Berlin.”

  Manny shifted on the seat and shot her an angry look. Plainly he was not done with Berlin.

  “We’re going to stay with my folks. On their farm.”

  That was a safe place, if they went there.

  “You?” she asked.

  “I must find where he took our son. Then we will leave Berlin. Away from him.”

  She nodded. “Men’s more trouble than they are worth.” She tousled Manny’s greasy hair, the first sign of affection I had seen. “Except when they’re little.”

  He pulled his head away. Like Anton, too old for that. Claire and I exchanged wistful glances, both remembering smaller boys.

  The taxi stopped next to the russet-colored brick front entrance of Anhalter Bahnhof. Built in the 1870s, the station had the tallest hall in the world and was once known as the Gateway to the South. If she was staying in Germany, she was probably heading for Leipzig or Munich, but trains left Anhalter Bahnhof for as far away as Athens and Rome. I would not know where she went unless I watched her buy a ticket and climb onto a train.

  While they struggled with their suitcases, I dug out coins for the taxi driver. He snatched the fare from my fingers and pulled into the busy traffic.

  She let Manny run ahead. After he stepped up and through the middle archway, she turned to me. “I know you’re not who you say. I talked to the barman at the Sing-Sing. He said you were looking for a boy named Anton.”

  I nodded, glad to have a chance to tell the truth. “He is my son.”

  “Last night you lied.” A party of Orthodox Jews bustled past, marked by their black clothing and skullcaps. I hoped they boarded a train that would carry them far from Germany.

  “I had to search your apartment, to see if he was there.”

  She walked up and through the archway. “But you didn’t want to pay for him.” Her voice sounded bitter.

  “I went to the spot where I was supposed to pay, but . . .” My voice trailed off.

  “He weren’t there?” Her voice was hard to hear in the bustle of the station. The huge hall teemed with people.

  “Anton was not there. Mouse was.” I kept an eye on Manny’s messy head, not wanting him to get lost.

  “So you knew his name too?”

  “Almost a week ago he kidnapped the boy and me for Ernst Röhm.”

  “You got free?” She whistled and Manny stopped walking, as obedient as Frau Röhm’s dogs.

  “I did. And came here to find my son.”

  “What did Mouse do when he saw you?”

  “He was dying,” I said. “Someone shot him.”

  Her shoulders sagged. She bit her lower lip. “Best thing for him, I guess. For the boy too. He was a mean man.” She sniffed. “You could fry a sausage on his temper.”

  I could not mourn for Mouse either. Still too far away to hear, Manny settled himself on an empty cart. “I have told you the truth. Who do you think killed him? He said it was someone he trusted.”

  “Couldn’t have been a lot people. He didn’t trust no one. Not even me. Didn’t trust his own mother.”

  “Did he have a partner?”

  “Don’t think so. Not for this.”

  “What about Gregor Gerber?”

  “You do your homework, Maria, if that’s your name.”

  “Gerber?”

  “Him and Mouse had a fight. I don’t imagine Mouse’d of used him. He didn’t need a partner to deal with you and one little boy.”

  I cleared my throat. “Where could I find Gerber?”

  “Some flophouse. He don’t have no regular address.”

  That matched what Agnes had said. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t tell nobody where we went,” she said. “But if you do, it’s not where we’re going anyway. And we won’t leave until I see that you’re gone.”

  “I promise not to follow you,” I said. “One more thing. What was Mouse’s real name?”

  “Manfred. Manfred Brandt.”

  His real name and his nickname started with M. Lang could have made the connection. “Anyone else you can think of who might have wanted to kill him?”

  She turned away from me, voice barely audible. “Should have been me, years ago. But it weren’t.”

  She walked away lugging the heavy suitcases, limping on her bruised leg. Her head hung down, as if she had already given up. When she reached Manny, I turned, keeping my promise not to follow.

  I sat on a bench outside the station, under the huge shady tree, and thought of what to do next. My worry for Anton could not turn to panic. I must keep moving, keep busy.

  I assumed that Mouse killed the miller. But what if Anton had escaped from Mouse? What if he had shot Mouse? After all that Mouse had put him through, he would have been angry and frightened. Could he have shot him? I clenched my hands together to keep them from trembling. I must consider all possibilities. If Anton escaped, where, in all of Berlin, would he go?

  20

  I boarded the subway to Bettina’s apartment. If Anton had escaped, he might head there. Bettina was a childhood friend who had minded Anton a few times. Before we left Berlin three years ago, I made Anton memorize her address. And he forgot nothing. His life had been too dangerous to allow him that luxury.

  The apartment block looked the same, although fewer people were on the street, perhaps because of the heat. A respectable neighborhood of clean, classic buildings and broad, well-swept streets, it too had its dark side. It reminded me of Munich. I lifted the familiar polished brass knocker and rapped.

  “Come in.” Bettina opened the door and dragged me inside, glancing up and down the street. Then she pulled me into a quick
embrace. Her vanilla smell enveloped me. A threadbare blue dress hung loose over her frame. It was wonderful to see her again. I’d had no contact with her since I left, not wanting to endanger her.

  The house was as clean as always, but no baked goods scented the air.

  She held me at arm’s length, with a shocked expression. “Oh, Hannah! It’s wonderful to see you. Where’s Anton?”

  “I do not know.” My voice threatened to break.

  She pulled me down the hall hung with family photographs, lovingly dusted, toward her tiny and always-busy kitchen. “I haven’t done any baking today, but I can put on a kettle for tea.”

  “You have done no baking?” I was so surprised that I stopped walking. “You?”

  She laughed in an embarrassed way and tucked a strand of dark hair back into her bun. She wore the same light blue dress as last I saw her.

  “Is everything in order?” I asked, concerned.

  “Just because I’m not baking?” She laughed a shell of her usual laugh. “Things have changed in the past few years, Hannah. We didn’t all go jaunting off to Switzerland, or wherever you’ve been.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “You could have written. Once in three years.”

  “I was afraid to involve you in my problems.”

  She gave me an irritated look, then sat me at her kitchen table. She bustled about putting on a gleaming copper teakettle that she had from her mother. My gaze roved around her little kitchen, surfaces polished till they shone, copper pans reflecting morning sun. Still cozy.

  “How are things, Bettina?”

  She turned to face me, her usually busy hands folded. “Not good. Fritz joined the Party, as I suppose you know. All the policemen are supposed to.”

  I nodded.

  “And now there are all these party events we must attend. My oldest son wants to join the Hitler Youth. They’re all encouraged to. I’ve said that we can’t spare him weekends, but that’s obviously a lie, so I had to buy a garden plot outside the city to keep him busy on weekends, although we can’t afford it. But we do need the extra vegetables.”

  The kettle shrieked, and she turned. Neither of us said a word as she filled the teapot and tossed in a handful of leaves.

  She turned back, pot in hand, and tears in her eyes. “There’s no escaping the Nazis now, Hannah. They’ve taken over everything. You must mind every word you say, even in front of your own children. You hear tales of little children informing on their parents for anti-Nazi sentiments. And I can’t be pro-Nazi, I don’t have it in me. So I must prattle on about nothing, even at home.”

  I stared, aghast. Bettina and Fritz had always been model, loving parents. How had things reached a point where they could not trust their own children? How had the Nazis managed to drive a wedge between parents and children in just a year? That was how they had won: terrifying the old, and separating out the children, like wolves. Would Anton have informed on me had we stayed? I shook my head. No, he would not have. I was sure of him, enough to trust him with my life.

  She sat the teapot on the small well-scrubbed table with a clunk and dropped into a chair. “But you didn’t come here to listen to my troubles. If I know you, you have enough of your own.”

  “I do, but I would rather hear about yours. You should leave Germany.”

  She shook her head. “Fritz would never find work anywhere. And it would be almost impossible to sell the apartment. And the children’s friends are here. Where would we go?”

  “America?”

  “I’m too old to learn another language, even if they’d take us.”

  “Austria?” We both knew there was no hope of legally emigrating to Switzerland.

  “It’s little better there than here, from what I can tell.” She poured tea. “I keep hoping that Hitler will disappear.”

  I sipped my tea. Orange pekoe—her favorite. “You should leave.”

  “And who would take care of Mother?” She tucked in another wayward strand of hair. “She’s too ill to move. It’s not so simple for me. We can’t all drop our responsibilities and head for the hills.”

  “I did not—” I stopped myself. Why argue? She had enough troubles, but it hurt to think that she had such a low opinion of me. “I am sorry it is so difficult.”

  She picked up her teacup. “Tell me your troubles.” She put down her cup again without taking a sip. “They must be more interesting than mine.”

  “I am looking for Anton. I do not know who has him, but he might come here if he escaped.”

  A few years ago she would have peppered me with questions, but today she merely said, “I’d take him in, of course, at least for a while. How can I reach you?”

  “You cannot.”

  Her eyebrows raised in the middle, as they always did when she was conflicted. She probably wanted to invite me to stay, but worried about what the neighbors might think, whom the children might tell. My best childhood friend feared my mere presence in her kitchen. I wondered if she was more afraid of the Nazis, or angry at me for leaving.

  “I had to leave, Bettina.”

  “I know that,” she answered, but her eyes were hard. “Lucky for you that you did. Those of us who didn’t have to leave stayed.”

  I touched her arm. “I am sorry it turned out like this.”

  She gave me a wry smile. “I don’t blame you for the Nazis, Hannah.”

  “But—”

  “You’d better run along before someone knows you were here.”

  I drew my hand back. “Do you have a telephone?”

  She wrote a number with the stub of a wooden pencil. “We hardly use it, because Fritz thinks that the Nazis are listening in.”

  I memorized the number and handed her back the slip of paper. I would carry nothing to link me to someone else, least of all her. “I will call and ask if you have finished my dress. If Anton is here, say yes. Then meet me at noon by the bison at the zoo. If he is not here, say that you are having trouble finding time to work on the dress.”

  “You’re good at this kind of thing.” She crumpled the paper in her palm.

  “I have always had to come up with codes. My sources have been hiding from police longer than the Nazis have been in power.”

  She leaned forward. Her doe-brown eyes were serious. “Get out as fast as you can, Hannah.”

  “If I do, would you join me?” She inhaled sharply, but I forged ahead. “Or send the children?”

  She stared into her teacup. “I might. At least the boys. Hitler wants war and it’s only a matter of time before he’ll send my babies to be cut down.”

  I did not stay to finish my tea, anxious to be gone before her daughter Sophia or the boys spotted me. If she could not trust her own children, neither could I. I had always trusted Anton with my life, and he had trusted me with his. It seemed simple and matter of fact, but it was nothing to take for granted. Even if I let him down, he would know I did everything possible. But that was not enough. I had to find him.

  Agnes would not be at work for hours. Someone had to know about Mouse and his murder. I remembered the lights tearing across the field at Britz Mill. The police.

  Terrified but determined, I rode the subway to the Berlin Alexanderplatz police station, now filled with Nazis. Dangerous, but I saw no way around it. The only way to find Anton was to discover who had killed Mouse, assuming the murderer had kidnapped him. Perhaps the police had uncovered something. Whether or not they would divulge that to me was another question.

  The imposing police building covered a city block. At each corner a squat tower stuck up, like the castle in a child’s playset. At one time, it was the largest building in Berlin, complete with stables. I sniffed the air. The stables were still there, or at least the smell was. My shoes carried me through the building to the Hall of the Unnamed Dead, a route that for years I followed every week. I tried to ignore the black-framed photographs hanging there—death scenes used to identify those who died in Berlin with no one to claim them.
From one such photograph I had learned of my brother’s murder. I was grateful that his had long since been removed. Mouse’s picture would not be hung yet. And perhaps the police would recognize him, although I had found no identification when I searched his pockets.

  At the end of the hall was Fritz Waldheim’s old office. I had not thought to ask Bettina if he still worked in that part of the building. I could not imagine him anywhere else. He had been my source at the police station for almost a decade before I had fled with Anton. He, Bettina, and I had been friends since I was in my teens. Once I knew his routine as well as I knew my own. But now I did not. Did he still eat his lunch late? If so, I might catch him almost alone there. But so much else had changed in the intervening years, I knew better than to take it for granted.

  Hoping that no one recognized me, I pushed open the frosted glass door a crack. I peeped through. If Fritz was not there, I did not want to enter. The room was different from the bustling place I visited so often as crime reporter Peter Weill. The rhythm of typing had changed—the quick staccato sound now slower, unfocused.

  I checked each man. It looked like a lot of them ate lunch late these days. In the corner Fritz hunched over a typewriter, pecking at the keys. His eyes widened in surprise when he recognized me, but otherwise he gave no sign that he knew me.

  I walked to the counter where I once read so many police files and ran my fingertips over the smooth wood, familiar with each curve in the grain.

  Fritz jerked his head toward the door.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Is this the passport office?”

  “Wrong hall.” A clean-shaven young man came to the counter and gave overly complicated directions to the passport office. I thanked him and left.

  Minutes later, Fritz joined me in the hall.

  “Hannah!” he said. “It’s been so long.”

  When he enveloped me in a bear hug, the familiar stink of his cigar made me cough. My eyes watered.

  “Careful. Fragile goods here.”

  He laughed and let go. “You must stop by the house. Bettina would love to see you.”

  He walked down the hall, past the death photographs. I kept pace.