The Einstein Girl

by Philip Sington

‘Alma –’

  ‘The Einstein girl. Why do they call her that? Is it a joke?’

  ‘A joke?’

  ‘Because she’s very stupid or something.’

  ‘She’s not stupid. It’s because they found her –’

  ‘What do you call her, by the way?’

  Kirsch reached for his glass. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Is it a secret?’

  ‘We made up a name, to be going on with.’

  ‘What name?’

  He didn’t want to say it. As if Alma was taking something that he didn’t want to give her. But then, she only had to ask Robert Eisner.

  ‘Mariya. She chose it. We don’t know what her real name is.’

  Alma was silent for a moment. Then she gave her fiancé a conciliatory smile and reached across the table. ‘I think it’s wonderful, the way you treat your patients, putting your heart and soul into it.’ She put her head on one side, a finger tracing the tendons of his right hand. ‘Only you must be careful not to go too far. There are limits to what they can expect from you. You mustn’t sacrifice yourself. It wouldn’t be fair.’

  Kirsch glanced at the sailing boat again. It had turned south towards Caputh, a brilliant white splinter in the distance. He pictured Mariya on board, the sunlight on her face, sailing towards some horizon that would forever be beyond him.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m not the self-sacrificing type.’

  * * *

  After lunch the weather closed in. They were caught in a shower running back to the station. The train to Berlin was crowded, the day-trippers evacuating all at once, their dripping waterproofs and umbrellas making puddles on the floor. Kirsch gave his seat to an elderly woman and stood out in the corridor, watching the glimmering waters of the Havel vanish among the trees. It was not until they were clear of the terminus that he and Alma spoke again.

  ‘Have you time for a coffee?’ he said.

  It was still too early for the dance halls to open, at least the more respectable ones that Alma was used to. But she was insistent: she wanted music and something to warm her up.

  ‘Take me to your favourite dive,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t have a favourite. Some are just more convenient than others.’

  ‘Then take me to your most convenient one.’

  ‘All right,’ he said.

  By day the Café Tanguero looked especially tatty: the way the pictures on the walls had faded to brown, the dust that clouded the glass, the paintwork peeling and nicotine stained. Business was slow: a couple smoking in the corner and an old man on his own, reading a newspaper. There was no music and no one was dancing. At this hour only the prostitutes were interested.

  They sat down at a table, Kirsch with his back to the dance floor. Alma ordered lemonade and a shot of kümmel. Kirsch stuck with beer.

  ‘You wanted a dive,’ he said.

  Alma looked flushed, tiny beads of sweat glistening beneath her hairline and in the hollow of her neck. ‘It isn’t quite what I expected, I must say.’

  ‘What did you expect?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know: something more … I just don’t see you fitting in here, Martin. It’s so dirty.’ She looked up at the cracked and yellowed ceiling. ‘It all looks like it needs a jolly good scrub.’

  Kirsch shrugged. He had always felt more comfortable in this dirty, ruined place than in the tidy world she inhabited. But how could he expect her to understand that?

  ‘We should have gone to a café,’ he said, ‘a proper one.’

  ‘Never mind.’ Alma took a mouthful of kümmel. It was the first time Kirsch had seen her drink spirits. She grimaced as it went down. ‘At least now I know where you go when I’m not around.’

  Customers were trickling in. Electric lights came on above the narrow stage at the back of the dance floor. The pianist struck up with an awkward rendition of ‘The Prettiest Legs in Berlin’. A couple of working girls came through the door. Carmen was one of them. She had one of her regular clients in tow, the visit post-coital to judge from the blank, sated expression on his face.

  Alma ordered another kümmel and downed it. ‘Let’s dance,’ she said.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You don’t want to dance here.’

  ‘Why not? It’s a dance hall, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s a dive with a dance floor. Not the same thing. No one really dances.’

  ‘Then what do you call that?’

  Carmen had dragged her customer onto the floor. Already they were glued together, the man a little the worse for drink, Carmen with her lacquered head buried in the nape of his neck.

  ‘Well, if you don’t want to dance, I shall ask someone else.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be a good idea.’

  Alma tossed back the rest of her kümmel and got to her feet. She pointed towards a mean-looking stranger at the bar. ‘He’ll do.’

  Kirsch caught her by the wrist. ‘All right, you win. Let’s dance.’

  Reluctantly he led her onto the floor. Everyone in the place was looking her up and down. It was obvious she did not belong. She was too smart, too young, too clean. The old man lowered his newspaper and stared, running his tongue around the front of his teeth.

  They were playing a slow waltz. Alma’s dancing stood out as much as she did. The Tanguero’s regular clientele slouched or stumbled their way around the floor, intent only on the feel of body against body. But Alma danced with the upright posture of a ballroom regular. When she stumbled on a broken board, a raucous laugh went up from the shadows.

  Kirsch saw her blush. ‘Maybe we should –’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  She held him tighter. They went on through several numbers until the sharp, scented sweat trickled down their faces. He had danced with her before, in the grand hotels around Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse, but never this close, with the curve of her breasts brushing against him. The music slowed and she was clinging to him, her body taut and hard like a weapon. He looked up, saw Carmen staring at them from her corner of the bar, a wide yellow grin on her face. In the Tanguero, dancing was almost always a preliminary – just as it was in the other places where he went to drink and watch.

  ‘We should go,’ he said at last. ‘Or you’ll miss your train.’

  ‘Fancy,’ she said, her head nestling against his lapel. He could smell the alcohol on her breath. ‘Where would I go then?’

  Kirsch tried to extract himself from her embrace. Alma was tipsy and strangely reckless.

  ‘Not to my place,’ he said. ‘Frau Schirmann is very strict about women callers. Besides, people might talk.’

  ‘They’re talking already,’ Alma said, waving a finger at him. ‘About you. Maybe it’s time I got in on the act.’

  ‘I’m not sure your father would agree.’

  Kirsch took her hand and led her off the dance floor. Thankfully the band were taking a break.

  ‘You worry too much about Daddy,’ Alma said. ‘Daddy does exactly what I tell him. Always.’

  Twenty-three

  The introduction of callisthenics into the weekly regime had been Dr Mehring’s idea, but from the start he had left the business of conducting the classes to other members of staff. The patients were led out into the grounds behind the building, arranged into three or four ranks and taken through the motions by two of the nurses. Provided it was not too windy, a large wind-up gramophone was deployed, playing a variety of uplifting numbers. The reedy strains echoed around the adjacent courtyard, so that from inside the clinic it sounded as if the orchestra were playing under water.

  On Monday morning it was the turn of the female patients. From a window in the refectory, Kirsch watched them file out of the back door. As he had hoped, Mariya was among them, wearing her old boots and Max’s grey overcoat. Kirsch pushed open the window, making as much noise as possible. Mariya heard him and looked up. So did several of the other women. Hesitantly, Kirsch waved. Mari
ya smiled, then looked away.

  The women took their places, standing an arm’s length apart. The gramophone was wound. A gust of wind blew Mariya’s hair across her cheek. Kirsch watched her push it back and curl it behind her ear. How long would he have to wait before she looked his way again? How long before he could smile at her, or wave or nod; anything to show her he was still thinking of her, that she was no longer alone? She was less than fifty feet away, but in that short distance he already felt a deprivation, a grievance – just as he had all that weekend: time wasted, love lost. He braced himself against the frame of the window. His impatience to hold her again, to crush her against him, made him giddy.

  Someone was standing next to him.

  ‘Good weekend?’

  It was Robert Eisner with a newspaper tucked under his arm.

  Kirsch straightened up. ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘How’s Alma doing?’

  I don’t know why you’re so mean about Robert. He’s done nothing to you.

  ‘Extremely well, under the circumstances.’

  Eisner nodded sympathetically. ‘Of course. Well. Biggest day of a girl’s life, isn’t it?’

  Before Kirsch could close the window Eisner placed his hand on the sill and surveyed the scene outside. ‘Can’t be easy either: you up here and her down there.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Down there. In Oranienburg. With all the wedding preparations to sort out.’ He turned. ‘Why? What did you think I meant?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Kirsch hoped he was not blushing. ‘Anyway, the Siegels have everything under control.’

  Down in the grounds, the gramophone was playing a nautical number. The nurses were standing to attention, moving up and down on the balls of their feet in time to the music. The female patients joined in, some on the beat, some off it, some tottering around to a rhythm all their own.

  ‘What about Patient E? Any progress?’

  ‘Hard to say.’

  ‘I heard something about an identification.’

  Kirsch pushed his hands into his coat pockets. He hadn’t expected the news to travel so fast. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Friday. I don’t want to make a song and dance about it. The press, you know.’

  Eisner stepped closer. Kirsch caught a whiff of cologne. ‘So who is she?’

  Kirsch gave him the name. Mariya’s landlord had recognised her photograph and telephoned the clinic, he said. She was a recent arrival from Switzerland and had been staying at a ladies’ rooming house off Wörtherstrasse. To date, these were the only details.

  ‘Have you told the police?’

  ‘I suppose I shall have to. Not that it’ll help them much. She still doesn’t remember what happened to her.’

  The nurses raised their arms above their heads and began waving them from side to side. The patients followed. Even in her bulky overcoat and boots, Mariya managed to be graceful. Kirsch watched her outstretched fingers reaching gamely for the sky, no hint of self-consciousness.

  ‘So why is she in Berlin? This landlord of hers must have some idea.’

  ‘For work probably.’

  ‘Work? Well, there’s not a lot of that right now. Anyway, have you seen her hands? They’re not the hands of a housemaid.’

  Kirsch closed the window. ‘I expect she was looking for something clerical.’

  He turned to go, but Eisner tapped him on the arm with the newspaper. ‘I’ve an idea how we could find out. Take a look.’

  He passed Kirsch the newspaper. On page four a small headline read: AMERICANS DISCOVER TRUTH SERUM. The piece underneath was only two paragraphs long. Chemists at a pharmaceutical company in Chicago had been conducting experiments on a new class of sedatives, synthesised from barbituric acid. They had stumbled on some unexpected properties: patients rendered semi-conscious by injections of these new compounds were apparently unable to tell lies under questioning. More extensive research was planned.

  Kirsch handed the paper back. ‘You aren’t serious.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s just a newspaper story.’

  Eisner shook his head. ‘I’ve done some checking. They used a short-acting barbiturate, a kind they’ve been using for years as an anaesthetic.’

  ‘Mariya isn’t lying. She has amnesia.’

  ‘How can you be sure? Besides, this drug might work on that too. Think of it: a direct route to the subconscious. No higher brain functions muddying the water. We could be looking at a major breakthrough.’

  ‘You’re worse than Mehring.’

  ‘We’ll take it slowly, of course. Start with small doses.’

  Kirsch walked away.

  ‘I know where we can get some,’ Eisner called after him. ‘Sodium pentobarbital. I have a contact. We could make history.’

  Kirsch stopped by the door. ‘Why don’t you ask Dr Bonhoeffer what he thinks? Maybe he’ll agree to your experiment. Then the only obstacle you’ll have to negotiate is my dead body.’

  Later that day Kirsch found a letter from Dr Bonhoeffer waiting in his pigeon-hole. The stark tone did not surprise him; the substance did. Dr Mehring, the letter said, had re-examined the events surrounding Nurse Ritter’s injury and retracted his complaint in full. Nurse Honig’s allegations of assault had likewise been withdrawn. As for Nurse Ritter herself, she had resigned in favour of a new position at the public hospital in Friedrichshain and had expressed no desire to take matters further. There was therefore no justification in continuing to ask for Kirsch’s resignation. He was at liberty to consider the matter closed.

  Kirsch went to see Bonhoeffer at once, to ask for clarification. The director did not provide any. Dr Mehring, it seemed, had simply changed his mind. ‘Perhaps he has finally come around to the view that you were acting in the patient’s best interests, as you saw them,’ was the only explanation he was prepared to offer.

  Twenty-four

  Colonel Schad’s surgery was just off the Bismarck Strasse, with its busy tramlines and avenues of trees, but the immediate area was not as genteel as Kirsch had expected. Schad practised on the first floor of a sooty apartment building whose yellow stucco had come away in places, revealing naked brickwork underneath. A corner of the building was under scaffolding. He employed the services of a receptionist, but otherwise worked alone.

  ‘I’d planned on having a partner,’ he said, as he showed Kirsch around. ‘A fellow I trained with years ago. But it didn’t work out.’

  Schad had aged a good deal since their last meeting. Unlike most men in their fifties, he had lost weight rather than gaining it, his plump, martial face becoming drawn and almost gaunt. His moustache had gone, and his hair was shorter and whiter than it had ever been in the army.

  ‘You’ve enough clients, I hope,’ Kirsch enquired.

  ‘Mainly old ladies so far, and children with respiratory problems. I’m afraid the Berlin air isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’

  Schad showed Kirsch into his consulting room, which was large but sparsely furnished. Books took up most of one wall, anatomical charts another. To make patients feel at home, a quartet of water-colours were arranged symmetrically opposite the window: rustic scenes involving meadows, farmyard animals and barns in good repair.

  Over cups of bitter coffee they discussed professional matters: Schad’s years at the hospital in Essen, Kirsch’s work in psychiatry, and various aspects of living in the capital. The one thing they did not talk about was the war. Kirsch tried to broach the subject – it felt unnatural to say nothing – but when the moment came, he could not think of what to say. He sensed that for his old commanding officer it was the same. Perhaps a certain bleak commonality could be found in that silence.

  Eventually Schad looked at his pocket watch. ‘There’s a tolerable restaurant opposite the Schiller Theatre,’ he said. ‘I’d be honoured if you’d accept an invitation to lunch. I’ve a patient in about fifteen minutes, but I shouldn’t be very long with
her. Frau von Hassell. A chronic malingerer, like most of them.’

  ‘My own visit isn’t entirely social, Colonel. I wanted –’

  ‘Please, no military formalities. I’m not a colonel any more.’

  ‘I wanted to consult you as a patient.’

  Schad regarded Kirsch steadily. Then he nodded. He had guessed the nature of the problem at once, Kirsch realised. The circumstances made it all too clear.

  ‘You can count on my discretion,’ Schad said.

  He pulled down a thick paper blind while Kirsch undressed. The examination took only a few minutes. The wound on his arm had begun to heal, the dead flesh hardening into a glutinous pellet beneath his skin. But the marks on his chest and flanks were darker than before. Here and there the flesh was raised, tiny dark red spots showing through the flesh as if he were bleeding beneath his skin.

  ‘You’re concerned these indicate the onset of the tertiary stage?’ Schad said, stepping behind him.

  Kirsch kept his gaze on the wall. ‘Should I be?’

  ‘Not in my experience. Granulomas return in many forms and in many places on the body, but not like this. Curious how your back is unaffected.’ He ran his fingers over Kirsch’s ribs. ‘These marks, are they sore?’

  ‘Sometimes, a little. In the morning mostly. They feel like bruises.’

  ‘Perhaps they are bruises.’

  ‘How could that be?’

  Schad rubbed his chin. ‘Just a thought. You can get dressed now.’

  He went and sat down behind his desk while Kirsch pulled on his clothes. Kirsch knew he should feel relieved, but something was not right: not least the suggestion that the marks on his body were self-inflicted. He sensed the colonel watching him closely as he fumbled with his cuffs.

  ‘So.’ Schad rested his chin on the points of his fingers. ‘What else have you noticed?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Symptoms. Possible symptoms.’

  Kirsch had taken his tie off too quickly, pulling the knot into a tight ball. He struggled now to loosen it. His fingernails were too short to catch on the fabric.

  ‘Nothing much. Lack of sleep. Bad dreams sometimes. Nothing remarkable.’