by Chris Petit
Sybil asked to talk in private for a couple of minutes.
‘Two minutes, no more.’
He took her through the kitchens, where huge vats of cooking vegetables smelled like dishrags, to a tiny larder where they had to stand too close.
She said she and Lore had been betrayed or the Gestapo had arrested the man Franz had sent them to. Fearing for Lore’s safety, she broke down and was not altogether comfortable when Franz took her in his arms. He said he would try to find out what had happened. Sybil said they still needed papers and were compromised because the Gestapo would have their identity photographs. She asked if there were any way he could smuggle her and Lore into the hospital, even for a few days. She had no idea how realistic their current arrangement was. She couldn’t see it lasting another week.
‘If Lore or you were ill we might.’
‘She suffers from night blindness,’ she said lamely.
He asked what if Lore were to break a leg. Sybil thought he must be joking.
‘You could pay to have it done. I could do it.’
Was he saying he wanted to break Lore’s leg because he had heard gossip about them and was jealous, or was it a sign of how tough everything had got? She regretted having to stand so close, did not want to be held. It felt like he was taking advantage. She stared at the floor, seeing herself on the edge of a strange new area of barter and transaction, in which people were both her friend and not.
She asked Franz if there was any chance of a lift back into town.
‘I can drop you near Hackescher Markt. Better still, come and dish out our stinking soup, then you can see if your mother is there.’
Sybil knew she was obliged to look, however much she told herself her mother had the necessary connections to ensure her own safety. But she couldn’t be sure. There had been no time to check anything. Her life had felt split since she’d run away from the shooting. Her flimsy belief that her mother had managed to escape now struck her as irresponsible and fanciful.
Franz found a pinafore and a white coat, and as an afterthought plonked a cook’s cap on Sybil’s head. He promised it was safe because no one asked food distributors for papers and inside there were no Germans.
Thinking of Lore, she hesitated.
Franz said, ‘In our situation it is hard not to see danger everywhere, but the Germans are actually remote. It’s why they don’t know what to do with the demonstration. Their fear rules. They themselves are lazy penpushers, worried about making a decision. We are dealing with dross not the elite. The best are away fighting.’
She sat in the cab of the lorry between Franz who drove and another man who kept his mouth shut. After a while she ignored their silence. She had never been driven before in a private vehicle. From her elevated position the streets looked shabby, frighteningly ordinary and remote. An S-Bahn train ran above them as they drove alongside. There was even blue sky.
The cowl running down the middle of the floor of the cab grew warm and vibrated through her shoes. She had to move her knee whenever Franz changed gear.
Even more unbelievable than her being there was what was going on outside their destination. A crowd spilled into the street, reducing the lorry to nudging its way through. Franz returned the many thumbs-up.
They went in the back where a single guard waved them through.
While they waited for a trolley Sybil looked up at the daunting building with its soot-blackened stone. She heard the rumble of the S-Bahn, even with the noise of the protesting crowd. According to Franz, the nearest station had been closed, to discourage people from turning up to the demonstration.
The S-Bahn ran directly from the attic where Lore had been hiding to where she was standing now, yet she could see no connection between the two points in her life. She forced herself to believe that Lore had stayed in the Bollenmüller behind her newspaper until the men left with their trophy catch, then strolled out as cool as you like. The man had seemed amused to let her go, after all.
Franz told her to stick with him. Their entrance into the building was entirely unquestioned, as he had promised. They took a service elevator. They wheeled the heavy trolley into a large assembly room where a long line of forlorn and famished men stood waiting, supervised by marshals. The whole process had to take place in silence. Someone muttered that the marshals were Jews like the rest of them.
The soup smelled like pigswill yet Sybil was so hungry that the prospect of dishing it out and not being able to help herself was torture.
She saw tables and benches and bowls, not nearly enough. This was the case. Most had to stand and dirty bowls were left for others to use. There were no utensils.
The queue shuffled past. The smell of rank, unwashed bodies combined with that of the unpalatable soup. A few tried to ask for news from outside and were shouted at by the marshals.
Sybil developed the habit of sticking her thumb in the bowl and ladling soup over it, just to get a taste between servings. She managed to pocket a piece of bread for later, and asked Franz if they got fed as part of the job.
If there was any left, he said. Her helpings became more meagre.
She saw no women. She supposed they were on another floor. She had thought they would take the soup to the prisoners, pushing the trolley, which would allow her to look properly. Perhaps women were served second.
What would Sybil say if she saw her mother? Worst would be to see her and be unable to talk.
Whenever the chanting started up outside, with the women shouting for their husbands to be returned, some men in the queue stood straighter, but most continued to look dejected, as though they considered the demonstration hopeless.
The marshals pushed off early, leaving her and Franz to feed the stragglers. Sybil’s arm ached from ladling.
There was no soup left by the time they were done. She asked Franz to give her ten minutes while he packed up. In the corridor a marshal asked where she thought she was going. Upstairs, she said briskly, because they were short-staffed.
There the real nature of conditions became apparent. Hundreds of silent people crammed into rooms. Franz had said over a thousand. Floors so crowded there was no space to lie down. Befouled air like a physical presence pervaded everything. The stink all over of shit and unclean bodies. Toilets without doors; more queues; a man holding his head in his hands, noisily emptying liquid bowels. All utterly demoralised and demeaning. Part of Sybil was angry that these people allowed themselves to be treated like that. She saw the dead eyes of those who had abandoned hope; with reason.
In the women’s rooms Sybil was reduced to holding her nose to stop from gagging. Many were menstruating and had no sanitary towels or the wherewithal to clean themselves.
Although Jews, these people were technically citizens, protected by law thanks to their marriages. And all this within yards of those going about their business, trams and buses, cafés and cinema shows; all dignity lost. Words failed her.
Out in the courtyard she went and crouched in a doorway, hoping no one could see, and wept dry, racking sobs as she devoured her crust of bread.
Franz found her, and seeing the state of her took her in his arms again, saying they must go. She said he smelled of tobacco. He said that for extra day shifts he was now paid in cigarettes because the money was running out. He asked if she would help tomorrow. He could pick her up nearby on Dircksenstrasse to save her the journey to the hospital. Sybil nodded. Everything was like it was down the wrong end of a telescope: her thoughts, Franz, the courtyard.
She was shakily relieved not to have found her mother under such conditions, however scant the consolation. The fate of those wretches awaited her too if she put a foot wrong. Ten minutes that had seemed like a lifetime left her swearing never to let anyone force her to become so degraded. She would kill herself first.
15
‘Which of you is Detective Schlegel?’
Schlegel looked up from his desk and saw a thin man of Slavic appearance in the open doorway of the offi
ce, with his hand up like he was pretending to knock.
‘You have a visitor when I expect you don’t have many,’ said Morgen, not looking up and doing what Schlegel couldn’t tell, apart from endless smoking.
The stranger wore rimless spectacles. His hair was like a black skullcap. He had on a fur-collared coat that Schlegel coveted. The riding boots were in good condition and highly shined.
‘Lazarenko.’
‘So not German?’ said Morgen, again not looking up.
‘Ukrainian. Working as a consultant and translator for the Gestapo. I will show you my card.’
The card was printed, with a Gothic typeface.
Morgen ignored it. ‘Be our guest.’
Schlegel saw he was going to have to be the polite one. He offered Lazarenko the only spare chair. The man smelled of cheap cologne and had one of those moustaches that failed to grow beyond a faint smudge.
Lazarenko crossed his legs and produced an envelope. From it he took a crumpled strip of paper, which he smoothed out before passing over. Schlegel wondered how he could afford his coat on a translator’s pay.
The paper strip was a wage slip from the big paint factory out in Treptower-Köpenick. The amount was pathetic. Schlegel understood why when he saw the payee was Russian. He was rather surprised forced labour was paid at all.
‘That’s the thing,’ said Lazarenko. ‘It’s notification of wages. They don’t actually get the money.’
‘Who does?’
Morgen interrupted. ‘Their employer, the economic division of the SS, the WVHA, which leases its workforce to the factory.’
Lazarenko nodded.
‘Do they get anything?’ asked Schlegel, feeling behind.
‘A bit of cash each week from the firm’s float.’
‘Enough to live off?’
‘Everything is provided anyway. Food, accommodation, clothing. The rest is down to scavenging, which they are very good at.’
‘No love lost between you and them then,’ said Morgen.
Lazarenko agreed. Like many of his countrymen he was not a Bolshevik and happy to take sides against its tyranny.
Morgen said he’d had Ukrainians fighting alongside him.
Lazarenko asked where. Morgen didn’t care to answer and asked, ‘What is this about? You didn’t come here to discuss our entente cordiale.’
Lazarenko offered an unsteady smile. The obedient underdog, thought Schlegel, all manners, in perfect imitation of his masters. Lazarenko’s problem was the gestures were skewed. He held eye contact longer than was necessary, so it turned into presumptuous staring. The manners looked like a front. The secretive smile, to suggest superior knowledge, was a further irritation.
He offered the pay slip as a possible clue to the murder the day before. ‘It was found by local police when they searched the garden.’
‘Not well enough to find the dog,’ muttered Morgen. He asked to see the wage slip.
‘Is it likely? A Russian wandering around a smart suburb at night, miles from where he should be.’
‘They are allowed out unsupervised on Sundays.’
‘Even so. What’s it got to do with us?’
‘Inspector Stoffel asked me to address you because he is busy.’
‘Smart man.’ Morgen sighed. ‘And before Stoffel? Just so we know.’
‘Inspector Gersten. Local police brought it to his attention and he referred it to Inspector Stoffel because of the homicide.’
‘And does Inspector Gersten have any theories?’
‘He agrees with me that the Bolshevik-Jewish conspiracy might not be confined to the east and has managed to smuggle agents into Berlin.’
‘Is Gersten an expert?’ asked Morgen.
‘He seems to have considerable knowledge but accepts that I have first-hand experience, so can offer valuable advice.’
‘So you are Gersten’s consultant?’
‘I would like to think so.’
‘So who killed the man, according to this theory?’ asked Morgen.
‘Either a secret gang of Bolshevik Jews that has managed to disguise itself as part of the workforce, or it has teamed up with the last Jews in Berlin.’
‘And your grounds for thinking this?’
Lazarenko ventured that many Soviet commissars and party officials had escaped detection by murdering their rank and file and stealing their papers.
‘Their ruthlessness and cunning cannot be underestimated.’
He pulled a sad face and produced a wallet, taking from it a small photograph which he passed to Schlegel, who was not prepared for what he saw and quickly passed it to Morgen.
‘The bodies included my wife and children,’ said Lazarenko. ‘Thank God they weren’t desecrated. Many were.’ Lazarenko raised his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Senseless, senseless mutilation.’
Lazarenko explained how in the Soviet retreat of 1941 Bolsheviks had teamed up with Russian Jews to lay waste and carry out terrible reprisals among the local Ukrainian population. The photograph Morgen was holding showed the results of one such action: a distant view of low foreign houses, a dusty square, plane trees in leaf on a hot day, and a dark stack of corpses, their blood pooled on sandy ground.
Morgen handed the photograph back to Lazarenko and said the Russians were a formidable enemy. Sheer force of numbers made them fearless. And with a history of cruelty too.
Schlegel wondered about Lazarenko showing the photograph. It had sounded a wrong note. It was too shared a moment for a stranger, more a bid for sympathy or attention than sincere. But Morgen seemed convinced. He told Lazarenko his theory made as much sense as anyone’s.
‘But I am surprised they didn’t take the dog, given the skill for scavenging you refer to.’
Lazarenko looked uncomprehending. Schlegel explained. Lazarenko feared they were joking at his expense. His German was passable but Schlegel wondered how much he missed. Once it was clear they were serious, he expressed his relief with a fanning gesture.
Schlegel decided Lazarenko’s behaviour seemed to depend less on imitation than copying, without a full understanding of what was involved. He was reminded of the phonetic nonsense Francis Alwynd resorted to when drunk, in the belief that it passed for German. But Alwynd had enough sense of himself not to care.
Morgen told Lazarenko he needed him to come and speak Russian to an old woman, then they would go to the paint factory where he could translate for them. Schlegel thought Lazarenko looked grateful out of all proportion to what was on offer.
Morgen turned out to be an expert scrounger in his own right.
He protested he was not going anywhere without a car. Schlegel said they wouldn’t get one.
‘That’s because you don’t drive,’ said Morgen. Schlegel wondered how he knew.
The desk clerk in the motor pool couldn’t have cared less. He scratched his backside and refused. Morgen asked for a telephone. The clerk pointed to his. Morgen told the switchboard to connect him to SS headquarters in Prinz-Albrechtstrasse. He asked for an extension, gave his name and rank and said, ‘What authority do I have here?’
He paused to ask the desk clerk his details. The clerk, nervous at how things were going, reached into a drawer and produced a set of keys.
Morgen said into the receiver the problem was now solved.
The clerk contrived to look churlish and chastened. Morgen told him to fill in the paperwork. He nonchalantly raised his arm, obliging the clerk to stand and return the salute.
The car was the one Stoffel had taken, with the hole in the floor.
Lazarenko suddenly told them he wasn’t allowed to travel in police cars. Any more than we are, thought Schlegel. Stoffel would have a fit. Technically it was a pool but Stoffel always got the Opel.
Lazarenko droned on about how his job restricted him to public transport, for which he had a pass. He produced it, seeming to think they might doubt him.
Morgen said, ‘We can always arrest you and throw you in the back.
’
Lazarenko waved his hands and Morgen explained he wasn’t being serious, however much it looked like he wished he were. ‘Have it your way,’ he said, and told him which station to meet them at.
They drove in silence, Morgen humming and smoking. Schlegel was no closer to fathoming the man. They passed down a broad road in an affluent section with detached houses, discreetly screened behind trees.
Morgen slowed down to examine this strange, still world and said, ‘You have no idea how unbelievable this all looks.’
The business with the old woman took five minutes. Lazarenko spoke Russian and the woman confirmed that was what she had heard on the night.
Morgen said, ‘Interesting.’
The woman bestowed upon them an ecstatic look and said her dog had returned. Schlegel and Morgen looked at each other. Lazarenko put his foot in it by saying he thought the dog was dead. Morgen quickly said that they had been talking about another dog. He needn’t have bothered. The old girl was away in a world of her own.
‘He’s sleeping now,’ she said. ‘Otherwise I would invite you in to say hello.’
They left Lazarenko to his public transport and drove to Treptower-Köpenick. Morgen lit cigarette after cigarette, leaving Schlegel to wonder if the man drove while he smoked or smoked while he drove. When they passed a gang of sturdy, shoeless women working on a building site Morgen grunted, ‘Russians.’
Schlegel asked if he didn’t like them.
That wasn’t what he had said, he replied and asked, ‘Did you know you can tell a Jew by the way he walks?’
Schlegel answered carefully that he wasn’t that observant.
‘Someone said, the other day. Even from behind.’
The Russian whose pay slip it was appeared reeling drunk, so incoherent he could barely talk, and kept clutching his stomach in obvious discomfort.
Lazarenko explained that the man worked with chemicals in the vats, which accounted for his state.
They spoke in the yard beneath an austere gigantic box of brick and glass, constructed in the style of twenty years before. Its main feature was an enormously tall chimney that made Schlegel dizzy just to look at.