The Year's Best Science Fiction--Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “Yes. You speak English?”

  “But of course.” His accent was atrocious. “I learn to speak English in the cinema,” he explained. “Do you know the works of Alfred Hitchcock?”

  “His films are prohibited nowadays,” I said, kindly. He frowned. I was not in uniform and he did not know what I was until later. “Yes, yes,” he said. “His death was most regrettable. He was a great maker of movies. I’m sorry,” he said, “I have not introduced myself. Gunther Sloam.” He extended his hand and I shook it. “Name’s Everly,” I said. “I was in fact on my way back into town now. Can I give you a ride?”

  “That would be most kind,” he said. “I am here to see an old friend, you see. A woman. Yes, I have not seen her since the war.” He laughed, a little sadly I thought. “I am older, perhaps she is older too, no? But not in my memory, never.”

  “You’re a romantic,” I said.

  “I suppose,” he said, dubiously. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

  “There is not much call for romantics in London,” I said. My jeep was outside. “We English have become pragmatists, since the war ended.”

  He said nothing to that; perhaps he never even heard me. He sat beside me in the jeep as we went past the ruined buildings left over from the bombings, but I don’t think he saw them, either.

  “Where do you need to go?” I asked.

  “Soho.”

  “Are you sure? That is not a very good area.”

  “I think I can manage, Mr. Everly,” he said. He lit a cigarette and passed one to me.

  “Danke,” I said. Then in German, “And who is this mystery lady you’re visiting, if you don’t mind my prying?”

  He laughed, delighted. “Your German is flawless!” he said.

  “I studied in Berlin before the war.”

  “But that is wonderful,” he said.

  Then he spent fifteen minutes telling me all about Fräulein Ulla Blau; her film career; their passionate affair (“But we were both so young!”); his new screenplay (“a Western, in the Karl May tradition. You know how fond the Führer is of these things”); Berlin (“Have you been back? It’s a beautiful city now, beautiful. Say what you want about Speer but the man is a gifted architect”); and so on and so on.

  At one point I finally managed to interject. “And you know what your friend is doing these days?” I asked him.

  He frowned. Such a thought had not entered his head. “I assumed she was acting again,” he said. “But I hadn’t really thought … well, it is no matter. I shall find out soon enough.”

  We were driving through the Charing Cross Road by then. The few approved bookshops stood open, their wan light spilling on to the dark pavement outside. I remembered the book purges and burnings we have had after the invasion—after all, I led one such group myself. I did not like doing it, yet it was a necessity of the time. Gunther did not seem to pay much attention. His eyes slid over the grimy frontage of the shops. “Where are your famed picture palaces?” he said. “I have long desired to ensconce myself in the luxuries of the Regal or the Ritz.” His eyes shone with a childish enthusiasm.

  “I’m afraid most were destroyed in the Blitz,” I said, apologetically.

  He nodded. We were in Soho then, a squalid block of half-ruined buildings where the lowlifes of London made their abode. It was a hard place to police and patrol, filled with European émigrés of dubious loyalties. But it was useful, as such places inevitably are.

  Along Shaftesbury Avenue the few theatres were doing meagre trade. The big show that year was Servant of Two Masters, an Italian comedy adapted to the English stage. It was showing at the Apollo. Dean Street itself was a dark street that never quite slept. Business was conducted in the shadows and, behind the apartments on the second floors, red lights burned invitingly. I saw doubt enter Gunther’s eyes and I almost felt sorry for him. I had my own interest in his well-being or otherwise. My men were stationed unobtrusively in the street.

  “This is the place,” I said. I stopped the jeep and he stepped out and extended his hand. “Thank you, Everly,” he said. “You are a gentleman.”

  I could see he liked that word. The Germans are a peculiar people. Having won the war they were almost apologetic about it. I said, “If your visit does not go well, there is a transport leaving back to Berlin tomorrow night. I can ensure you have a seat on it.”

  His eyes changed; as though he were seeing me for the first time.

  “You never said what you do,” he said.

  “No,” I agreed. “Goodbye, Mr. Sloam.”

  I left him there. I did not expect him to be so much trouble as he turned out to be.

  2

  Gunther stood outside 47 Dean Street for some time. Perhaps, already, he began to have second thoughts. On receipt of her letter, he had expected little more than a fond reunion with Ulla. Perhaps he saw himself as a sort of Teutonic white knight, riding to the rescue of a helpless maiden. He never really knew Ulla, or what she was capable of, though he didn’t realise it until it was too late.

  The address she had given him had been a theatre before the war. Now it was a sort of boardinghouse, with a handwritten sign on the door saying No Vacancies! in a barely-legible scrawl. The windows were dark. The front of house, once-grand, now looked dowdy and unkempt. Gunther looked about him and saw two shifty characters in the shadows across the road. They were smoking cigarettes and watching him. He gathered his courage and knocked loudly on the door.

  There was no reply. The whole house felt silent and empty. He knocked again, louder, until at last a window overhead opened and an old woman stuck her head out and began cursing him in a mixture of English and gutter German. Almost, he wanted to take out his pen and note down some of the more inventive swearing.

  “I’m looking for Ulla Blau!” He called up, when the old woman finally stopped, momentarily, for air.

  The old woman spat. The spit fell down heavily and landed at Gunther’s feet.

  “The whore’s not here,” the old woman said, and slammed the window shut.

  Now angry, Gunther began to hammer on the door again. The two observers watched him from across the street. They, too, had an interest in Fräuleine Blau’s whereabouts.

  At last the window opened again and the same old woman stuck her head out. “What?” she demanded, crossly.

  “I need to see her!”

  “I told you, she’s not here!”

  “Well, where is she?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know!” the old woman said, and slammed the window.

  Gunther stood in the street. He was tired now, and hungry, and he wanted a drink. He had hoped for a fond embrace, a night spent in a comfortable bed, with a bottle of good Rhine wine (which he had brought), and a willing companion to murmur sweet nothings into his ear. Instead he got this, and besides, the street smelled from uncollected garbage gathered every few paces on the broken sidewalk.

  “Open the damn door or I’ll break it down!” he said.

  Then he waited. Presently there was a shuffling noise and then the door opened a crack and the old woman stuck her head out. “What are you, Gestapo?” she said.

  “If I were the Gestapo,” Gunther said, reasonably, “you’d already be answering my questions.”

  The old woman cackled. She seemed to have no fear of this strange German on her doorstep. “Do you have a drink?” she said.

  Gunther brought out the bottle of wine and the old woman’s eyes widened appreciatively.

  “Come in, come in!” she said. “The night is cold and full of eyes.”

  Gunther followed her into the building.

  * * *

  The old woman’s apartment was surprisingly comfortable. A fire was burning in the fireplace and Gunther sat down wearily on a red velvet sofa which sagged underneath him. The walls were covered with old photographs and playbills. The old woman herself reminded him somewhat of an old, faded revue actress. She bustled about, fetching glasses. They were good crystal, and when
she saw his enquiring look she cackled again and said, “From Marks’s, the filthy Jews. Now that was a fire sale!”

  Gunther accepted the glass, his loathing for the old woman growing. He let her open the bottle, which she did deftly, then poured two glasses. The old woman drank hers rapidly and greedily, then refilled the glass. Her eyes acquired a brittle warmth.

  “You have come from Germany?” she said.

  “Berlin.”

  “Berlin! I have often wished to visit Berlin.”

  She spoke a bad but serviceable German.

  “It is a great city.”

  “Not like this place,” the old woman said. “London is a shithole.”

  Gunther silently agreed. He took a sip of his wine, mourning the loss of its planned usage. The wine brought back memories of warmer, happier times.

  “I am looking for—” he began, and the old woman said, “Yes, yes. Ulla Blau. I told you, she is not here.”

  And this time he was not yet duly concerned. “This is the address she’s given me.”

  “She was here,” the old woman said. “She hires a room from me, at 30 Reichsmarks a month. I do not ask questions, Mr. Sloam.”

  “Has she gone away, then?” Gunther said.

  “She is always coming and going, that one,” the old woman said.

  “Is she still acting? In the theatre, perhaps?”

  The old woman snorted a laugh, then wiped it away when she saw Gunther’s face. “Perhaps,” she said. “Yes, perhaps. What do I know?” She took a long shuddering sip of wine. “I am just an old woman,” she said.

  Doubts, at this point, were finally beginning to enter Gunther’s mind. “Well, what does she do, for money?”

  “I am sure I don’t know,” the old woman said, huffily. Her glass of wine was empty again and she refilled it with unsteady hands. “You should have seen this place before the war,” she said suddenly. “The theatres all alight and the public flowing on the pavements all excited and gay. The men handsome in their suits and the women pretty in their dresses. I saw Charlie Chaplin play the Hippodrome once.” Her eyes misted over. “I don’t blame you Germans,” she said. “I blame the Jews, but there are no more Jews to blame. Who can we blame now, Mr. Sloam?”

  “Can I see her room?” Gunther said.

  The old woman sighed. She was coming to the realisation that Gunther Sloam could be very single-minded.

  “I’m sure I can’t let you do that,” she said; but he saw the speculative glint in her eye.

  “I could perhaps rent it, for a while,” he offered. “I am a stranger in this town and the hour is getting late.”

  His hand, which he had dipped in his pocket, returned with a handful of notes. The woman’s eyes tracked the movement of the money.

  “When you put it like that…” she said.

  * * *

  Ulla Blau’s room was an almost perfect square. It had once been a dressing room of some sort, or perhaps, Gunther thought a little uncharitably, a supply closet. The old woman, whose name, he had learned, was Mrs. White, stood in the doorway watching him with her bright button eyes. She swayed, from time to time, and hummed a tune under her breath. It sounded a little like the Horst Wessel song.

  There was nothing of the personal in Ulla Blau’s room. There was a bed, perfectly made up; a wardrobe and a vanity mirror; a small gas ring and a kettle; and that was about it. Gunther’s imaginings of their reunion plunged further into doubt, for this was not the romantic abode he had perhaps envisioned. There were no clues as to Ulla’s employment or whereabouts. Beyond the wall the noise of hurried sexual congress could be clearly heard. He glanced at Mrs. White, who shrugged. Gunther began to have an idea of what the majority of the rooms were used for.

  Mrs. White moved aside to let him out. The corridor was long and dark and the communal bathroom was at one end of it. Gunther was, at this point, beginning to feel concern.

  “And you do not know where she is?” he demanded of Mrs. White.

  The old woman shrugged. She didn’t know, or didn’t care, or didn’t care to know. Gunther dug out Ulla’s note. If I am not there, she had written, ask for the dwarf.

  I shall interject, at this point, to say that this dwarf was a person of considerable interest to us. We were anxious to interview him with regards to some matters which had arisen. This dwarf went by the name of Jurgen, and was of a Swiss nationality. He had come to London six months previous and was, moreover, the scion of a wealthy Zurich banking family, with connections high up within the party.

  “Where can I find,” Gunther said, and then felt silly, “the dwarf?”

  He said it quite light-heartedly. But Mrs. White’s reaction was the opposite. Her face turned a crimson shade and her eyes rolled in her head like those of a grand dame in a Christmas pantomime.

  “Him? You ask me about him?”

  Gunther was not aware of the reputation the dwarf had in certain circles. Mrs. White’s reaction took him quite by surprise.

  “Where can I find him?” he said mildly.

  “Do not ask me that!”

  Good wine, missed plans and bad company do not mix well. Gunther at last lost his patience.

  “Listen to me, you silly old bat!” he said. He had done terrible things to survive on the Eastern Front. Now that man was before Mrs. White, and she cowered. Gunther jabbed an angry finger at the old woman’s face. “Tell me where this damned dwarf is or by God I’ll…”

  She must have told him; he must have left. My men lost him, by accident or design, shortly after; and so the first I knew of it was the next morning, when Sergeant Cole called me and woke me from a blissful sleep, to tell me they’d arrested Gunther Sloam for murder.

  3

  By the time I made it to HQ they’d worked Gunther over a little; mostly I think just to keep their hand in. I told them to straighten him up and bring him to my office, along with two cups of tea. When they brought him in, he had a black eye, a swollen lip, and a bad temper.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he said. “I am a citizen of the Reich, you can’t treat me like this!”

  “Please, Mr. Sloam, sit down. Cigarette?” I proffered the box. He hesitated then took one, and I lit him up. He took in all the smoke at once, and after that he was a little calmer.

  “Say, what is the meaning of this?” I think only then my face registered with him, and he started. “You’re that chap, Everly. I don’t understand.”

  He looked around him at the office. The framed photograph of the Führer stared back at him from the wall.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have introduced myself more fully. I am Kriminalinspektor Tom Everly, of Gestapo Department D.”

  He looked at me in silence. His lips moved. He looked around the room again. When he at last spoke he was more subdued.

  “Gestapo, eh?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “But you’re English!” he cried, turning on me accusingly.

  “Yes?”

  That stumped him. “When you said you studied in Berlin before the war…”

  “It is not me who has to justify himself to you,” I said.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Mr. Sloam, you have been arrested for murder.”

  “Murder!” His eyes were wild. “Listen, here!”

  “No, you listen,” I said. “We can do this the hard way. You’ve already had a little taste of that. Or we can do this the civilized way.”

  I waited and presently there was a knock on the door. Then Cole came in with the tea. He left it on my desk and departed. We’d had the routine down pat by then.

  “Milk? Sugar?” I said.

  Unexpectedly he smiled. “How very English,” he said. “Two sugars, please, and milk too, why not.” He sat down on the chair, hard. I passed him the tea and lit a fresh cigarette and watched him.

  “You’d better tell me what happened last night,” I said.

  He sighed. “I don’t know where to start,” he said, dejectedl
y.

  * * *

  Gunther left the house on Dean Street around eight o’clock in the evening. When he stood outside, the thought that came to his mind was that the house was, indisputably, one of ill-repute.

  What Ulla was doing in such a place he did not know. He could not believe that she prostituted herself, and could not understand how she came to live in such a squalid place. As I’d said to him before, he was a romantic—though that did not necessarily make him a fool.

  Mrs. White had given him an address nearby. Gunther walked, not hurrying, but at a steady pace. He was well aware of the two shadows which detached themselves from the wall across the road, and followed. He did not increase his speed nor slow down, but his path was such that in a short amount of time he was able to shake them off. Taking a turning he hid down a dark alleyway as the two men walked past. He could hear them argue in low voices as he slunk in the other direction.

  The night was thick with darkness. The buildings here were still half-ruined, destroyed in the Blitz, and served as hidey-holes for all kinds of illicit activities. Gunther watched himself, but wished he had a gun, a wish he was soon to fulfil. He smelled frying onions nearby and his stomach rumbled. He heard drunken laughter, soft footfalls, and a scream that was cut short. He saw four men sit by a lit lantern playing cards. He smelled cigar smoke. He heard someone muttering and moaning in a low, never ceasing voice.

  At last he made it to the Lyric. It is a Victorian pub, and had remained undamaged during the war. Gunther, the romantic, found it charming. Opposite the pub stood the Windmill Theatre. It was the one source of bright light, and advertised nude tableaux vivants, as well as the exclusive appearance of Tran und Helle, the popular comedians, visiting London for seven nights only.

  Gunther entered the pub. It was dark and dim inside, and the smell of beer, cigarette and cigar smoke hit him with their combined warmth. A small fire burned merrily in the fireplace. The atmosphere worked like a panacea on Gunther. He removed his coat and perched on the bar gratefully.

  “Help you, sir?”

  The bartender was bald and rotund and missing one eye, his left one. He turned a rag inside a beer stein, over and over and without much hope of making it clean.