Finally he reached the Berlin-Neukölln station, formerly Rixdorf station. As luck would have it the train had just left the station and he had to wait 19 minutes and 45 seconds for the next one. He was chilled to the bone. What if he got there late and she had already left…But no, he had started out way in advance. He hadn’t left home really, he had run away. He paced back and forth on the platform and concentrated on his dissertation topic. ‘Carl Schmitt as enabler of National Socialism.’ The democratically elected President of the Reich as ‘Defender of the Constitution.’ Had the authoritarian presidential regime prepared the way for the National Socialist dictatorship? What had Schmitt, inveighing against the fragmented multi party system of the Weimar Republic, proposed? The theory of friend versus enemy as the fundamental category of the political. Would that necessarily make the people see ‘One People, One Reich, One Führer’ as the solution? The answer was yes. Absolutely. But how was he going to turn this into a scholarly thesis, something substantial enough to be a dissertation? Bernhard Bacheran still had a long way before he became State Attorney and to reach his goal he needed to concentrate all his energy on it. What was it his father had constantly preached at him? “Young man, don’t fritter your energy away, don’t waste your time.” Was he going to fritter away his time with Miss. Leupahn…? What would he gain? What would he lose? “Wait and see.”
The train pulled up, he got on and found a seat by the window on the right, facing forward. The first stop was Köllnische Heide. After that the train entered the Eastern sector. They passed Baumschulenweg. Bacheran felt he was in another land. Even though most of his relatives were buried in Baumschulenweg cemetery on Kiefholzstrasse – from now on would this be a foreign country?
Yes it would. The German people had burdened themselves with so many crimes during the Third Reich and the war that this punishment was perfectly fitting: the land was divided and the former capital city too.
Schöneweide, Schöneweide freight station. The switching yard with all its smoking locomotives caught his attention. Adlershof. All of a sudden the train was going too fast. He almost went into a panic. Then he swore at himself. Here he was, a 24 year old man behaving so foolishly, as if this were his first rendez-vous with a girl.
Grünau. “Last station Grünau, all passengers must leave the train.” He stepped out onto the platform. It looked onto Adlergestell below, then the arterial road to Cottbus and the Spreewald. The forest in the distance. The deciduous trees were bare and the conifers themselves were not quite green but turning a bluish shade. An 86 streetcar from Köpenick came screeching around the bend and stopped right alongside the S-Bahn train. Without thinking Bacheran hurried over. But no, they intended to walk. Miss Leupahn had said she would wait for him inside the station below. Miss… he still had not been able to find out her first name. He did not dare ask Comissar Steffen and they didn’t have a complete directory of their Eastern colleagues’ addresses. So much for professional investigators… What could her first name be, what suited her? She was probably a year or two younger than he was: what name would her parents have given to a child born in the first decade after the First World War? If they were communists it could be Rosa. After Rosa Luxemburg. Who else had been a model figure: Käthe Kollwitz, Bertha von Suttner, Clara Zetkin, Anna Seghers, Hilde Coppi… “Käthe, I love you.” So old-fashined! He could never have said it: too funny. What other girls’ names had been fashionable around 1925, 1926? Mary – after the dancer Mary Wigmann; Susanne – after Susanne Lenglen the tennis player, Eleonora - after the actress Eleonora Duse, Josephine - after the dancer and singer Josephine Baker. And who were the most famous actresses of the time? Pola Negri, Asta Nielsen, Henny Porten, Lil Dagover…
All this was going through his head as he was walking down the very long and very steep stairs, almost like a ski jump. At the foot of the stairs he would turn right. He knew the station. Just a few meters down a narrow underpass and then the hall, bare and unwelcoming.
She was there. She was wearing a coat that looked so awful that in better times it would have been used on a scarecrow. An improbable cut, an indefinite color as if the material had been dyed in dirty rinse water, somewhere between a blue, a black, and a lavender or purple color. It had probably been cut from a Wehrmacht coat. But her face, her blond hair – how strikingly different! The face of a German goddess. Beautiful and strong. His dream. He went up to her in a trance…
“Good morning Miss. Leupahn.”
She hesitated at first then she took her right hand out of her coat pocket but she kept her red hand knit woolen glove and he was not able to touch a little bit of her skin, to get a taste of it. Was her skin soft and silky or hard and strong? Cold or warm? Was it moist from excitement or irritation? He would not find out.
Maybe in reality she was not a police woman, maybe she was an agent of the NKVD, the Soviet secret service and her mission was to bring him over to Moscow. Everything was possible these days.
“The class enemy is on time,” he said and greeted her.
“That’s nice…” She did not seem to think much of his remark and put him off with a smile that looked more like a blow than the beginning of a great romance. “So follow me discreetly.”
Bacheran tried very hard to make small talk and sound relaxed and witty like the actors in old films but their encounter soon became a working session – on the spot investigation in Grünau – and not at all a wildly romantic twosome. “First, let’s search for the body parts the perpetrator has hidden here in Grünau forest…”
“But he sticks to ruins.”
“And our reputation will be ruined if we don’t take him into custody very soon.” Bacheran was trying hard to be funny.
In fact she did not seem to appreciate his play on words. “First we’ll follow the train tracks through the forest and then we’ll keep by the water’s edge all the way to Karolinenhof. There you can catch the 86 and get back.”
Bacheran felt she was disposing of him like a plaintiff in an administration. He had counted on them at least kissing before the end of the day. She was probably worried that he might want to do just that. Which was why she was giving him this cautious advice on how he might get back home. Why then had she agreed to meet him? Ah, women and their mysterious ways. Or maybe she was here on orders from the NKVD. And he had left the Western sector without letting anyone know. They could pack him off to Siberia and his disappearance would remain forever mysterious. Well…
She remained inflexible and stuck to business. “Have you found anything more about Hannes Seidelmann and his sister?”
“No. I did find out a little about you.” All of a sudden he had an idea. “A certain Rosa Leupahn has a lot to answer for as far as her love life is concerned.”
“That must be my cousin. But her name is Rosemarie not Rosa. Your secret services are not very accurate.”
0-1. She was not going to let him lead her down such a slippery slope. He gave up and decided to try a direct approach. “Haven’t you noticed how much I’d like to know your first name?”
“Why? I can’t see how that would contribute to our effort in trying to find out who killed Hermann Seidelmann.”
“Fine. Then I’ll call you the worst possible first name for a woman…”
“Like what, for example…?”
He was glad that she had not refused to play the game; he had to think. “Maybe… Amalaswintha.”
“Who is that supposed to be?”
“She was, if I remember correctly, the daughter of Theodoric, around 525 AD. In GDR terminology: ‘after the new era’.”
“A king’s daughter… How very fitting in today’s circumstances.”
He imitated East Berlin’s Radio announcer. “Today, Amalaswintha Leupahn, president of the Central Committee of the German Socialist Union party greeted Bernhard Bacheran, Assistant Treasurer of the Social Democratic party West Berlin in the Peoples’ hall in Berlin-Karolinenhof, for a frank exchange of ideas…”
She d
idn’t have to reply as an 86 rumbled close by on its way to Schmöckwitz. Bacheran had the feeling that at least the ice was broken even though he still did not know her first name. But afterwards they could find nothing to talk about. So they walked in silence side by side through the forest; they reached the boat house, turned into the Sports Promenade and walked past a row of ‘Objects’ towards Bammelecke. As time went by he began to lose hope. In less than an hour they would be in Karolinenhof – and he pictured himself being packed right off on the train.
Fight, you must fight, Bernhard! He told himself. Words were his only weapon. Tell her something about yourself. So he did. He started telling her that he used to come here, to Grünau beach as a child. He told her how he grew up. A well cared for child. His father a pastor, his mother a teacher. Drafted in early 1944, at nineteen. “Still, I survived and then I studied for my high school diploma and started working towards my law degree. First at the University at Unter den Linden and then at the Freie University in Dahlem. So now I want to be a State’s Attorney and I’m taking a walk with you. Now, what about you, may I ask?”
“Me? I’m also taking a walk.”
“Really?”
“Do you doubt it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He decided to be a bit more forward. “Well, when a young man and a young woman like us go for a walk, they don’t walk so wide apart.”
She didn’t miss a beat. “My clothes are warm enough.”
He joked: “Konsum’s and HO textiles make every citizen of the GDR happy.” Then he turned serious again. “And what is there to say about Amalaswintha Leupahn’s life?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Of course. Otherwise the CIA won’t pay me.”
“My father is an economist and an executive at New Germany. My mother is senior buyer at the tire factory close by in Schmöckwitz. I am a police officer and I have the Abitur and I want to study Criminology at Humboldt University.”
Bernhard thought this wasn’t much but still better than nothing. Why wasn’t she already at University? Was there some political problem… he had to find out. Which is why he burst out saying: “Are you a single mother, do you have to take care of a child?”
“Do I look like a single mother?”
“I don’t know: you would have to take your coat off.”
“Can’t you just imagine?”
“If you knew what I’m imagining right now you wouldn’t have come here.” He felt he was making some progress.
“Thank you for the timely advice.”
“Why timely?”
“In time for me to put you on the train in Karolinenhof.”
Bacheran knew he had to avoid that by any means. But how? He found the answer as they were coming to Richterhorn and walked down the bank to the river’s edge to admire the view. The Dahme was as wide as the Mississippi here but people weren’t sure whether it was a river, and maps always indicated ‘Dahme river or Long Lake.’ On the other side, the Müggelberg rose like a miniature Mittelgebirge, as Theodor Fontane wrote. A wooden tower stood prettily on the left peak.
The ice at the edge was thin and would barely support a man of his size weighing eighty kilos. It was just what he needed. “When the ass feels too good he walks on ice… And when I’m with you Amalaswintha, I feel so great I have to try… I can’t resist.” He jumped on to the ice. And he fell through as planned. Now he stood knee deep in the water. “Save me!” he cried. She reached out to him with both hands. He took hold of them and swung himself back up on to the riverbank and took the opportunity to collide with her and manage a kind of short lived embrace. “Oh! Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that.”
“Liar.”
“What am I to do now?” He looked down at his legs. Everything was soaked, his boots were full of water. “I can’t possibly…”
“The streetcar stops right over there.”
“I’ll catch my death, if I don’t get dry soon… And it’ll be your fault.”
She shot back: “Do you really think I’m not aware of what you are trying to do!?”
“I don’t. But my motives are perfectly honorable. I swear.”
Still she hesitated. What could she do? She had to admit that she was beaten. “All right. Come with me to my house. And if my father doesn’t kill you first, he might even lend you a dry pair of pants and some shoes.”
“He can kill me but he mustn’t cut me up.”
“Enough. Let’s go. Run.”
And so they did and he had to admit that she was a far better runner than he was. Panting he tried to follow her. When they reached Karolinenhof she had at least a fifty meter lead. Which was not without consequence. When she reached her parents’ house on Lübbenauer Weg, she rang the bell. Her mother opened the door, saw her daughter and the man in hot pursuit – and immediately imagined the worst.
“Don’t be afraid Helga, we’ll help you. Paul, get the axe, Helga has been attacked!”
The misunderstanding was soon cleared. “Papa, put the axe away, this is one of my colleagues. We were working together. The dismembered corpse, remember. There was an anonymous phone call saying something was lying among the rushes here on Long Lake. And we’re still searching for the head and a missing arm. That’s when my colleague here fell through the ice. Let me introduce him: Bernhard Bacheran … from the State Attorney’s office.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Paul Leupahn was as stiff as senior accountants were supposed to be when clichés still made sense centuries ago. “Well, please come in young man, my wife will mix us a hot toddy promptly. Hannelore, prepare it. And Helga, get going!”
Only then did Bacheran realize that he finally knew her first name: Helga, not a bad name. Still, a stern, very Northern Germanic name of course since ‘Hel’ meant the sun in old German, but it was definitely not as awfull as Amalaswintha. And Helga Bacheran didn’t sound so bad. And how she had lied without so much as blushing! Saying that they had been out searching for the body parts together. Also, she had not made it clear to her parents that he was from the Western sector. Why hadn’t she?
Helga Leupahn brought him a battered old pair of training pants of her father’s and a pair of felt slippers, the ‘Round the castle’ brand and he retired to the bathroom. Toilet paper must be scarce: the Leupahns had cut up the Berliner Zeitung into small pieces. The topmost sheet happened to be part of an article dated December 7 and the title made Bacheran look up: West Berlin must not become a Little Chicago. Incident at Schöneberg station.’ / ‘Scharming young ladies for British officers. Charming spelled with an ‘s’… Bacheran read the text of the article: A soldier in the U.S. Army of occupation beats up the station manager and ends up sticking a knife in his face. ‘A cascade of blood flows.’ The Stumm Police stays put and looks on helplessly as the U.S. police incarcerate the victim. ‘After the American vehicles have left, more U.S. soldiers show up as if to add insult to injury and, for no apparent reason, shout obscenities at passing young women and do in the street what people normally do in a private place. – This is but one of the numerous complaints we have received in the last few days about the behavior of the Western Allied troops. This behavior fits the overall picture of American culture… It is more and more obvious that certain people want to turn Berlin into a little Chicago. Bacheran stopped reading and finished changing into his dry clothes. “So, now we can go to the Vienna opera ball together,” he said as he came in.
“Let us hope that this repulsive manifestation of the decadent bourgeoisie and nobility will never be brought back to life,” Paul Leupahn said.
Helga’s mother started setting down some things on the coffee table. “The hot toddy’s for you of course, Mr. Bacheran, you must warm your insides too. With real rhum. I work in the tire factory in Schmöckwitz and they have some contacts. Ah… you know young man, out here it’s really not so easy to get by. My husband Paul has still not been given a company car which is a real shame. He has to take the street
car or his bicycle everywhere…” Hannelore Leupahn spoke a lot and very fast, her voice was loud and strong like a street stall vendor. The people in her collective are probably all deaf, Bacheran thought. Or maybe her husband, after so many years of marriage, wouldn’t listen unless she yelled. The idea that these two might become his in-laws was disturbing.
They had barely sat down around the coffee table when Paul Leupahn started talking excitedly himself. “I’m absolutely sure the killer lives in the West and he’s put the body parts in our sector as a taunt to Socialism, to give the GDR a bad name. We do not harbor any illusions: we know that as long as Imperialism lives on war is possible. And what is playing itself out here is class warfare between the GDR and West Germany. But we are vigilant and on our guard against the Stumm Police and their men too. West Berlin is a fetid swamp that must be drained as soon as possible. It’s the swamp flower of Capitalism. And by nature it gives birth to profiteers, cutthroats and murders. A peace loving citizen of the GDR, Mr. Seidelmann from Saxony, comes to West Berlin to attend his dear departed mother’s funeral – and he is the victim of a gruesome murder and his body is dismembered. And then, as a taunt, his body his hidden somewhere in the Eastern sector, probably by the men of the Stumm Police themselves.”
Cold Angel: Murder in Berlin 1949 Page 10