by Chris Petit
‘I don’t have to spell out your situation. Papers and so forth.’
Sybil presumed he was offering his services, but couldn’t be sure.
He asked if she would be interested in modelling work.
Seeing which way the conversation was going, she asked what kind.
‘It pays well. We sell to soldiers.’
‘Do you have any samples?’
Schmidt cleared his throat and stood up.
He showed her a photograph of a woman stepping out of a bathtub and several more lying naked on a rug. The poses were suggestive rather than blatant. The woman wasn’t glamorous or beautiful.
Sybil supposed if she agreed the papers would be more forthcoming. She might even be able to trade the cost of one against the other. It didn’t seem much of a price.
‘Does Lore know?’
‘I never knew how to raise the matter. I have known her a long time, since she was almost a child.’
‘Who takes the photographs?’
‘I do. But in your case it might be easier perhaps if she considered taking some of you.’
She and Lore laughed about it later, moving from saying they were not that desperate, to agreeing it would be deliciously subversive to have hundreds of soldiers unwittingly beating themselves off over a racial inferior.
‘Of course, I knew,’ said Lore. ‘Everyone knows about Schmidt’s mucky pictures. I’m sorry. I hoped Schmidt would raise the matter with you because I knew he wouldn’t with me and would have been too embarrassed had I asked. If the money’s that good we should both do them.’
They were laughing so hard that Alwynd came to see what was going on. Sybil wasn’t sure Lore was doing the right thing telling him, but Alwynd laughed along with them and asked in apparent innocence if he could watch.
19
‘Otto Keleman sends his regards,’ Schlegel said to his mother.
‘Who?’
‘Never mind.’
He looked at Morgen. It was not a lunch or location he could have predicted.
His mother had shown no surprise when he turned up with Morgen. Her first question was whether Morgen’s uniform was tailored. Unfortunately not, he said. He had been sent off wearing only a summer one in the middle of winter, so had made do with what he could find.
‘It still has the bullet hole.’
It was the type of remark guaranteed to endear him to Schlegel’s mother. If Schlegel had said it she would not have found it the remotest bit funny.
That morning no one had done any work. The canteen was full with staff comparing damage. The rest of the time was spent on the telephone checking on friends and relatives. As it became clear that no one had been lost the mood became relaxed.
Morgen was sitting in the office with his tie undone. A pall of smoke hung above him in perfect imitation of the sky outside. He seemed strangely energised but mentioned nothing of the bombing. He seemed to have adopted a new habit of alternating his cigarette between different sides of his mouth with each drag. Schlegel wondered if that was his own particular nervous reaction. Everyone seemed to be behaving out of character. The forever sour secretary Frau Pelz could be heard gossiping away outside. Morgen, however, did not call anyone, perhaps because he had no one. Schlegel wondered if there was a Frau Morgen.
Even Stoffel stopped by, mainly to look askance at Morgen and raise his eyebrows behind his back.
Stoffel asked Schlegel if there was any joy with the Jewish butchers. Joy was not the word he would have used. He came up with a vague and complicated excuse that went on long enough for Stoffel to interrupt.
‘Let me paraphrase. The holding centres are still in the process of compiling their own registers.’
Schlegel blew out his cheeks in a show of frustration. He could see Stoffel suspected he was being given the runaround. To make matters worse, Frau Pelz shouted from outside saying his mother was on the telephone and she was putting her through.
Schlegel knew Stoffel could hear the bloody woman’s crystal tones as she put on an excruciating display of self-serving concern.
‘Of course, my heart is torn,’ she said, with British bombs being dropped on her, who was English.
This led to Stoffel announcing as Schlegel replaced the receiver, ‘I didn’t know your mother was English. Do we have a spy in our midst?’
He smirked to make it clear he meant Morgen. Schlegel was still cringing from them having overheard his mother’s offer to buy him lunch. ‘No one’s going to be working today. I’m paying. Let’s say the Esplanade.’
It was a top hotel. Stoffel grunted before leaving, as though dismissing him as a mummy’s boy.
‘Missing butchers,’ he said pointedly. ‘The pathologist says the flayed corpse is beyond identification. No fingerprints to speak of and the head so smashed in to make a nonsense of any dental records. I could have told him that just from looking.’
‘A head?’
‘The local police found it under the wagon behind the wheels. No sign of the rest. Buon appetito.’
His mother had one of the best tables overlooking the Esplanade’s courtyard garden. On impulse he had offered to take Morgen, thinking that if anyone could prise anything out of the man it would be her, who was fearless in her questioning. Her second question was, ‘Where are your people from?’
Frankfurt, she was told. And what did they do, she asked. Worked for the railway, he said. Schlegel was impressed his mother showed not a flicker of disappointment. She probably knew several families who owned railways. Did he think state ownership was a good thing? Morgen looked like he couldn’t care less.
There was trouble over the order. His mother made out she was vegetarian when Schlegel knew she was not. Dining in public she invariably insisted on some form of eggs Benedict, which after negotiation and regretful discussion about shortages, became reduced to poached eggs. That day there were no eggs and the only vegetarian plate was cabbage.
‘Three chicken, then,’ she sighed. ‘Just this once, and breast only.’ She turned to Morgen. ‘It’s all propaganda anyway, this business of certain people not eating meat and refraining from the hard stuff. I hear our leader retains a fondness for bratwurst and is known to take a beer now and then. Hard to know who to believe these days, don’t you agree, certainly not that sawn-off megaphone Goebbels. You don’t look the sort of fellow to report defeatist talk. I’m the last person to give up, but when you look at some of our glorious leaders you begin to wonder. Not exactly the greatest human specimens. Have you seen Lammers? He looks like he has two glass eyes. Heydrich was a blond beast, no longer with us, and most of them are foreign. I am allowed to say that, being one myself. I expect the food was ghastly in Russia,’ she said, turning again to Morgen.
Schlegel was impressed she had worked out that much.
She had her own imperious tick list of subjects. The bombing. ‘Utterly awful. We were spared damage, thank God.’ Shortages. Morale. The rudeness of waiters, shop assistants and domestic staff. ‘Such a liverish lot. They make Parisians seem sweet by comparison and they’re bad enough. They’re all being called up now so it serves them right. What’s wrong with plain old-fashioned good manners?’
She turned to Schlegel and said he wasn’t adding much to the conversation.
‘Monologue,’ he corrected, then before she could complain added that he was entertained enough as it was.
He was surprised she hadn’t picked up anything of the impending Nöthling scandal. She knew the man slightly as he aspired to mix socially with his clients, and dismissed him as common and pushy, in keeping with those he served.
‘I can’t say it surprises. They’ve all been living off the most enormous gravy train and so brazen it would put Nero to shame.’
On the other hand she knew the Horcher’s story, saying it was more amusing than the version passed on by Keleman.
‘Oh, him!’ she said, reminded. ‘The moon-faced one with the smudgy glasses. Very good at buttering up. I expect it gets him in
to more knickers than you would think. Anyway, Horcher’s, in one corner you have that runt Goebbels, who is thin and stingy, and in the other Goering, who is a fat glutton. From what I understand it’s a question of interpretation, now things aren’t going so well. Not much of a show of support for our troops if the guzzlers are stuffing their faces at home. You will see, by the way, I am not drinking.’ She turned to Morgen. ‘I expect you would cheerfully machine-gun the place, given half a chance.’
He still might, Morgen said, which made her laugh.
Schlegel was surprised at her understanding of what was going on at the top, who was in and who was out and what alliances were forming. Goebbels, having taken delight in putting one over on Goering by closing down his favourite restaurant, which included sending a gang of provocateurs to smash the windows when Goering tried to keep it open, had been forced to make a huge U-turn.
‘The trouble is, none of them can get close to Adolf any more. The ghastly Bormann guards his kennel like nobody’s business. Goebbels can’t get near him and dear Albert, who was Adolf ’s greatest pet for ever so long, can’t either.’
‘Why not?’ asked Morgen, looking properly interested for the first time.
‘Because the so-called gang of three is pulling the strings. We all know Keitel is a fat zero, so it comes down to Lammers, who controls the purse, and Bormann. Of course Goebbels wants Foreign Minister but he’s not going to get it, and to make out he’s not as much out in the cold as he is he forms an alliance with Speer and his Ministry of Armaments to give substance to all that hot air he talks about total war. Now, the trouble is Albert needs Goering back on board. Hermann, as fond of him as we all are, is lost in a world of his own – the rouge, the mascara, the morphine, the lipstick and Chinese dressing gowns – but he still holds considerable powers that Speer wants to use to work around Bormann and all those other shits in the Chancellery.’
She looked at Morgen and said, ‘I hope you’re not taking notes. This is straight from the horse’s mouth and utterly confidential depending on whom I am talking to.’
Morgen smiled charmingly. ‘So Speer told Goebbels he had to go and eat humble pie with Goering?’
‘Which was why he was in Bavaria when the bombs were falling. He made a big show afterwards, being seen to be seen, and the Horcher’s punchline is quite delicious.’
Goebbels had done a deal with Goering to let Horcher’s reopen as a private Luftwaffe dining room.
For the first time Schlegel saw Morgen laugh properly, at the excellence of the intrigue.
‘Enough to make the Borgias’ eyes roll.’
Plus ça change, agreed his mother. ‘If they put half the effort into winning the war that they invest in their scheming they would have had it won years ago. Their big mistake was England. There for the taking. I could have told them, if only they had asked. Now what is it exactly you do in the black order?’
‘I was a serving officer in the Wiking division for six months.’
‘Active duty?’
‘Very. We were wiped out three times over. Only eighteen of us from the original company survived.’
‘How many in a company?’
‘About two hundred.’
‘Eighteen out of two hundred!’ She laid a consoling hand on Morgen’s arm. ‘I am so sorry, and there’s me telling silly stories.’
‘Not at all. Anyway, I am back now.’
‘And working with my son. How come?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘You must have some.’
‘No, honestly. I haven’t a clue. I expect I have been sent here to stay out of trouble.’
‘You don’t look like a troublemaker.’
She had no time to pursue the point, having seen the time and remembered her hairdresser. Schlegel thought it unusual to see his mother so puzzled about anyone.
‘What did you do before?’ she asked, settling the bill.
‘I was a judge.’
‘My heavens! What kind of judge?’
‘A prosecuting one, Internal Affairs.’
‘Really?’ she said, without missing a beat. ‘What’s to investigate? I would have thought you were all such good boys. Code of honour and so forth.’ She thought for a moment and said, ‘I expect you’re like Jesuits, God’s storm troopers.’
Before Morgen could answer a waiter interrupted to say Schlegel was wanted on the telephone. He thought it must be a mistake. Nobody knew where he was.
But it was Stoffel.
‘Just to spoil your lunch,’ he said.
20
Half an hour later they were standing in Treptower Park, not far from the Russian paint factory whose chimney stuck up like a peremptory finger. A body had been found partly hidden in bushes.
On the journey Morgen had resorted to his usual taciturn silence, deflecting Schlegel’s questions. The only thing he expressed interest in was the previous flayed body and what was called the murder room.
‘Pigs throwing themselves over a cliff, you say?’ And of the drawing scratched on the wall, ‘Gadarene Swine. New Testament. Demonic possession.’
A devil expelled from a man took hold of the pigs.
Morgen’s uniform drew looks. People avoided the SS. The cultivated image was sinister and mysterious, and it fostered the myth of being the bright, cruel flame at the heart of everything.
Schlegel wondered how esoteric Morgen was, given that the black order was the new Freemasonry, within which it was said existed an occult clique.
Schlegel looked out of the window as the train crossed the river and the flat expanse of Treptower Park came into view. He made out the cluster of official vehicles, and a line of police and their dogs moving forward in a slow search. The dome of smoke still hung over the city.
The park was bleak and windswept, with bronchial trees and intersecting paths with no one on them. The snowdrops here had understandably resisted putting in an appearance. Flower-beds had been dug over and left. There had been no planting in public spaces for a couple of years now.
The line of searchers moved forward in the distance. A pathetic-looking tent had been put round the body. Stoffel, pulling grimly on a cigar, his nose blue, dismissed the photographer, a different one from the slaughterhouse, and said they were still waiting for a doctor, which was a waste of time because what they had was nothing but dead.
‘As bad as last time,’ he said, with a grimace. ‘Save it for the battlefield.’
‘Man or woman?’ asked Morgen.
‘Hardly matters. Woman, probably.’
‘Why are we here?’ asked Morgen.
‘I don’t need you,’ said Stoffel. ‘It’s him.’
Schlegel guessed he was about to inherit Stoffel’s latest problem. He now had another flayed body, after writing off the previous one on the grounds that it wouldn’t happen again.
Stoffel prodded his lapel and stood so close Schlegel could smell meat on his breath.
‘This means the one or ones doing the murders must have avoided arrest.’
‘Are you saying same killer both times?’
Stoffel famously had a sixth sense for such things.
‘You can put your tongue in my mouth if it isn’t. Get me the names of any Jewish butchers not arrested.’
Schlegel wanted to say bureaucracy didn’t work like that. Without saying so, Stoffel made it plain he didn’t care. He was concerned only with avoiding a personal reprimand, and was giving the problem to Schlegel.
Stoffel moved on to chew the fat with the generally shifty bunch from the local station, about how this case was like a nastier version of the one where some Kike kid had dismembered a female and disposed of the bits. Legs in the stairwell of a block in the same street that Schlegel lived in, arms in a yard elsewhere, torso in a restaurant bin.
‘The head we never found because the kid baked it in his oven. Nor were her breasts and internal organs. And what did the kid perform his surgery with? A penknife!’
Stoffel gave a shrill ba
rk, a signal for the rest to join in.
Stoffel stared back at Schlegel, inviting him to laugh. Schlegel smiled with difficulty, feeling useless.
Stoffel pointed at the body tent. ‘At least your man here uses the proper tools. Clean cuts. Surgical precision.’
The light started to fade. Feet and hands grew numb. They all slapped themselves to keep warm and passed a flask around. Morgen was standing smoking on his own. The moment seemed right for Schlegel to pass on what Morgen had said about being Internal Affairs.
Stoffel’s exaggerated double take put Schlegel in an unexpectedly good mood. He wondered what Stoffel’s misdemeanours were for him to look so worried.
A car approached across the grass. Three men got out. One was the useless doctor from before. Schlegel was surprised that the second man was Gersten and even more when he recognised the smart whipcord coat of his companion.
Stoffel jerked his head in Morgen’s direction and said, ‘Get ready for the cold wind of retribution,’ and went off to sort out the doctor.
Schlegel’s good mood survived being taken aside by Gersten to tell him Lazarenko might be able to help with this latest body.
‘Tell Stoffel. It’s his case.’
Gersten said, ‘We would rather speak to you and your friend.’ He meant Morgen. ‘Confidentially.’
Schlegel supposed Lazarenko was Gersten’s lapdog. Entourages were popular. He decided Lazarenko probably had more influence than he had credited. The Gestapo wouldn’t have many Russian speakers.
Gersten beckoned Morgen over. Schlegel saw Stoffel watching. Gersten was keen they give Lazarenko another chance.
‘Intelligence we’re picking up from the Russian community says these killings have a Bolshevik angle. We’re only trying to help. Stop panic in the ranks.’
Community, thought Schlegel; was that what they called it?
Morgen said, ‘It has nothing to do with us, other than Stoffel being too idle to do the work himself.’