The Butchers of Berlin

by Chris Petit

  Alwynd came back pulling a face.

  ‘They might. Not in the mood, I suspect. One’s a lesbian. The other isn’t really, but is completely under her spell.’

  Alwynd turned up the volume on the record player.

  ‘I was talking to one of my acquaintances at the Foreign Office who was saying that the leadership, for all its fear of decadence, is obsessed by it. Is that your view?’

  Schlegel said he had no access to the leadership other than what the mass media told them and that was very controlled.

  ‘I will show you what I mean,’ said Alwynd.

  They stared together at pale female nudes in suggestive and sinful congress with a succession of animals, especially muscular black pythons.

  ‘Black, no less!’ exclaimed Alwynd. ‘Hitler’s favourite, von Stuck. You’d get away with nothing like this in Ireland, however much you dressed it up in religious metaphor.’

  They were looking at a large art book of colour reproductions.

  ‘Here’s Paul Mathias Padua’s Leda and the Swan.’

  The image, both suggestive and specific, showed a naked young woman lying tilted upside down on a bed with her legs apart, waiting to receive a rampant swan.

  ‘It caused a scandal when Hitler chose it for display in a day of German art.’

  Schlegel hadn’t known.

  ‘It’s terrible art,’ said Alwynd. ‘Come and look at these.’

  He crossed to a chest of drawers and got out two sheets wrapped in tissue.

  ‘Banned here now. I got these in Vienna when you could pick them up for nothing.’ Alwynd unwrapped the pictures and showed Schlegel two stark, half-undressed female studies, with graphically displayed genitals. Schlegel stared at the parted vaginas, not at all sure what to make of the drawings. Their fluid, confident lines seemed to offer an unsettling combination of the cold and the forensic, amounting to a clinical curiosity that transcended voyeurism, but he didn’t really understand what he was looking at, not in terms of the subject, which couldn’t be more plain, but its interpretation. He decided they probably represented everything they had been taught to fear.

  They got a lot drunker. Alwynd said it was nice to be able to get stocious once in a while in agreeable company.

  ‘The Germans are such relentless drinkers. The Irish too but they are more relaxed, though they probably end up the drunker. I rather miss that. The relaxation I mean. Well, time to stagger off to bed.’

  Schlegel looked at his watch. Too late for a train, he said.

  Alwynd waved airily. ‘Help yourself to the sofa and in the morning we’ll have breakfast with the girls.’

  Schlegel thought about the drawings Alwynd had shown him. He supposed them passionate; he could not imagine anyone displaying herself like that for him. He slept briefly and woke up. The sofa was uncomfortable. He was about to get up and walk home when he saw Alwynd’s typewriter on the table.

  He put down a blanket to muffle the noise of the machine and started to type one-fingered:

  On the morning of Saturday, 27 February 1943, at approximately seven a.m., a Jewish male (Metzler, W.), aged 64 years, proceeded to shoot in the head and kill a German male (Schmeisser, J.), aged 47 years, warden of the former’s residence at Brandenburgischestrasse 43. The Jewish male Metzler then immediately shot and killed himself. As far as we can ascertain, he used his own pistol (Mauser C96), kept illegally since his time of military service. It is believed the incident was witnessed in part or whole by a passer-by who then fled. The witness, probably female (Todermann), remains unavailable for questioning. The Jewish male Metzler was due for deportation on the day of his death. It has not been possible to ascertain whether, or how, he knew of his impending arrest, or to talk to witnesses about the man’s character or mental constitution, and so forth.

  He drunkenly thought the tone caught the right balance of dull precision and dry facts. He decided to omit the military record. All he lacked was a motive for killing the warden. He was obliged now to talk to the widow. He would do that tomorrow. After that it would be done.

  He turned off the light and opened the blackout curtain and sat in the window and watched the street. The moon came out. There was still some movement, one or two cars, a few passers-by.

  He thought about the other deaths, the murder room, the flayed bodies and money stuffed in a dead man’s mouth. Instinct told him to file the Metzler report as quickly as possible. The enigmatic presence of Morgen told him he wasn’t dealing with something straightforward.

  He woke after dreaming of the same dusty roads as before, standing in an empty landscape, waiting for nothing. He had a dry mouth and a hangover, which felt like someone had shoved grit into the inside of his eyelids.

  When no one appeared he left. It was still early. He was too hungover for Alwynd’s breakfast.

  As he had time he decided to walk home via the tax office where two dossiers on Morgen were waiting at reception.

  On the way he heard a woman at a tram stop say, ‘It’s the idea of things falling from the sky that you can do nothing about that really gets to me.’

  He read Morgen’s file. The man’s age he had guessed right, nine years older than himself. He was listed as told: an investigative judge with prosecuting powers. The transfer to military action, and his serving rank in the Waffen-SS, was noted in pencil at the end of the report. In the margin someone had written in a different hand, ‘This one won’t be coming back,’ under which was written in ink, ‘Wrong!’ followed by details of his transfer to Financial Investigation, Criminal Police, Berlin.

  An early report noted expertise in international law, and a controversy over Morgen’s chosen subject for his thesis: pacifism. That was a surprise, though Schlegel supposed the result must not have been so subversive for it was passed for publication by the censor. More controversial was Morgen’s objection to Hitler becoming Chancellor, on the grounds that it invested too much power in the hands of one man. The report was vague on the outcome, other than to indicate a scandal which was prevented from coming to trial by the influence of powerful friends.

  ‘This man needs careful watching,’ concluded the first part of the report. ‘That said, lack of compromise and principled behaviour make him a valuable asset, if used correctly.’

  Schlegel could not decide whether this meant Morgen was considered a liability or a useful tool. Whichever, several accounts followed of superiors’ mounting exasperation at his intransigence. Despite a roving brief to investigate internal affairs in the new eastern territories, he was, as reported by Gersten and Lazarenko, accused of indiscretion and persisting after prosecution became unrealistic. The most damning assessment had him as tenacious and possibly stupid in his inability to obey orders.

  The report noted several cases closed for lack of conclusive evidence. Morgen’s downfall came after refusing to make a prosecution in a routine case of homicidal drunk driving, because he didn’t believe the evidence, followed by detention and six months’ combat.

  It was a considerable fall from grace followed by a dubious rehabilitation that made little sense, unless it involved an ulterior motive, such as everyone feared, insinuating him into the criminal police to expose internal corruption, which would not be difficult.

  On reflection the most disturbing assessment Schlegel found was a handwritten addition to the section covering his career in Lublin, which noted, ‘This officer makes a habit of getting himself beaten up.’

  Schlegel laughed before deciding he didn’t want to become a candidate for getting beaten up too. The few times it had happened he hadn’t liked it at all.

  The warden’s blood, still on the corridor wall, had gone almost black. The block felt like it had remained empty. Schlegel rang the bell by the hatch. The widow didn’t recognise him at first. As he followed her into the apartment he saw the backs of her slippers were trodden down. They slapped the floor as she walked; thick stockings still bunched around ankles displaying deltas of broken veins. The room smelled of i
nadequate personal hygiene. He wasn’t offered a seat. He said he needed to know why the old man shot her husband.

  ‘Spare me a rookie cop. How old are you anyway?’

  ‘Twenty-five.’

  ‘You should dye it.’

  She meant his hair. He wanted to say hers disqualified her from any pronouncement on the subject.

  ‘Ask that Todermann bitch, if you can find her. My trap’s shut on the matter.’

  She crossed her arms, obviously dying to tell. Schlegel threatened to drag her down to the station. She shuddered and said she couldn’t face those photographs of the drowned in the entrance hall. It was true. No one knew why they were there. Schlegel made a point of avoiding them too.

  In the end, he had to pretend he was going to hit her. She started to cry in an entirely false way, and Schlegel saw the whole thing had been about her being able to talk up the story to her friends afterwards.

  She huffed with indignation then did as she was told, now clearly wishing to shock.

  ‘That lump of lard used his authority the better to position his cock. “Oh, I will have to report you . . . unless you are extra nice.” ’ She made a masturbating gesture. ‘Didn’t like to sully himself. They did it to him, it didn’t count as a race thing. Tell that to the bishop!’

  Her husband and Sybil Todermann had such a relationship, of which Metzler was jealous.

  Schlegel supposed he had his motive.

  Would he put this in his report? It would only complicate and he didn’t fancy being assigned to two months investigating corruption among block wardens.

  The woman said the reason her husband didn’t fuck them was because he didn’t want to feel their tails.

  Schlegel let it pass and asked whether Sybil Todermann’s mother had been subjected to her husband’s attentions.

  ‘Are you kidding? That witch! I bet she cast a spell on that fool Metzler, stuck pins in her wax doll. There was that nuisance of a child that fell downstairs and broke its neck.’ She contorted her face. ‘Tell me that wasn’t her.’

  He said he had heard Todermann’s mother told fortunes. The remark provoked phlegmy laughter.

  ‘She could no more read the cards than I can, but that didn’t stop her – “beware of the tall dark stranger” – as if sucking up to a bunch of superstitious Party bosses was going to save her a one-way ticket.’

  The old man’s door was nailed shut, not very effectively, and the Gestapo seal applied. A couple of hard kicks and it gave way.

  If a gun had been safely hidden up the chimney, other things could be too.

  He took off his coat, jacket, waistcoat and shirt to save them getting filthy. It was freezing cold but better that than a fortune in cleaning bills. He spent a dirty fifteen minutes feeling around as far as he could reach. A loose brick came flying down, narrowly missing his head. He lay breathing hard, staring up into the black chimney. A second loose brick he managed to retrieve. He scrabbled around with his fingers trying to explore the hole but his reach wasn’t long enough. It occurred to him how tall the old man must have been. Schlegel found a wooden spoon in the kitchen and used that to poke around in the recess. Nothing. Perhaps someone else had got there first. Maybe Metzler hadn’t keep his secrets up the chimney. Where would he hide something? Under the floorboards? Schlegel inspected the trunk again. The green pullover was gone, confirming that anything hidden up the chimney would have been taken too.

  Schlegel tried to picture what he was looking for. Some sort of secret text that filled in the gaps and explained everything? He couldn’t see it. People weren’t that neat about loose ends.

  What he found was not what he had imagined. He stared at his discovery for the longest time, thinking. It wasn’t a lot but all the old temptations were there.

  23

  The bombed house was only about a five-minute walk from Alwynd’s apartment. Sybil passed it a couple of times before realising it had taken up residence in her head. It showed there was such a thing as retribution and their persecutors might not escape unscathed.

  It was easily entered in spite of the door being nailed closed and warning signs declaring the building unsafe. There was too much damage for it not to be accessible and after quickly checking no one was around she slipped inside.

  Later on, she came to think of what she found as her refuge. It was hard to reach because part of the stairs had come away and she had to find damaged floorboards to make a walkway across the drop. The first time she crossed she was frightened by the darkness that went all the way down to the basement. Fall and she would break her neck. She wobbled in the middle of the planks, thought about the moment of stepping off into space and hurried on.

  The ceiling had crashed in on most of the first floor but at the back behind the rubble lay a perfectly preserved space that had served as someone’s reading room, with a little open fireplace and an armchair and small table. A window overlooked the back, the garden now full of blasted masonry. The walls were lined with bookshelves, even the one with the door. It was silent and peaceful in a way she had never encountered before. She wanted nothing more than to come every day and work her way through the books until life became normal again. They were good books too. Classics. Books she had never got around to reading. Names she had never heard of. Poetry too. She promised to teach herself to read it. She imagined holding her own with Lore and Alwynd. At first she was happy to sit and indulge in the luxury of undisturbed thinking. She switched the table lamp on not daring to think it might work. It did. She started to read a story about a man named Biberkopf who haunted many of the places she knew. He had just got out of the prison in Moabit and his first meeting was with a strange rabbi. Biberkopf seemed quite mad, stir crazy perhaps, a persecuted ox of a man, but not in the way people were now, just another loser looking for a break. It seemed he had strangled his mistress.

  When she got home Lore was humming the hit tune ‘You Shall Be the Emperor of My Soul’.

  Over the next few days, Sybil searched the rest of the house as much as she was able. It must have been lodgings because upstairs there were different bathrooms and kitchens and a series of bedsits, all covered in dust. She even found some food, only carrots, just the right side of mouldy, which she took downstairs and pretended was a feast. She supposed her little library had belonged to the landlord. The layout there was different. It seemed more a man’s space than a woman’s but she couldn’t tell. What she thought had been the bedroom was too damaged to enter. She searched in vain for a pipe or a coat or a pair of shoes that might say. The carrots gave her as much pleasure as anything she could remember. She imagined she was a castaway. She couldn’t remember when she had last had a game of her own. When she was ready she would share the space with Lore, although superstition played a part in not showing her. Her growing fear was of their being taken together. Sybil had started to think her own arrest would be bearable so long as she could believe Lore was still free.

  She did the obvious thing and looked for valuables and identity papers. At first she found this rooting around distasteful, then decided she should extend her search to other places in the hope of finding a dead person’s papers. Why pay when you can get it for nothing? The observation struck her as so funny she laughed until she had a stitch, and then even more at the thought of herself laughing alone in this strange, damaged place. After that she went downstairs and quietly carried on reading the story of Biberkopf.

  24

  Schlegel was relieved to see Morgen wearing a civilian suit. Out of uniform he looked less threatening. The suit must have been in mothballs for years. Even with his cigarette smoke the room smelled strongly of camphor. Morgen described it as diabolical and he was not sure if he could live with it.

  ‘But perhaps not so inappropriate if Nebe thinks I am the devil in disguise. Isn’t that what you are all saying?’

  Schlegel denied it but was a terrible liar, and Morgen told him so.

  Schlegel stared at his desk top in embarrassment. Morgen seeme
d more amused than offended. He stubbed out his cigarette and said as though addressing a dim pupil, ‘Paranoia is the operating principle of our system, top to bottom. It’s not a rampant paranoia, more one of stealth. It’s an extension of the leadership principle, which works on initiative and interpretation rather than direct order and command. Are you with me so far?’

  Schlegel said he hadn’t thought of it like that. A case in point was Nebe, who for all his seniority seemed as worried as the next man.

  ‘Like the Carter Family says, “It takes a worried man to sing a worried song”.’

  Schlegel was astonished by the reference. He hadn’t thought of Morgen like that.

  ‘Yes, yes. Hot jazz boy!’ He laughed. ‘Not any more. One learns to move on from such dalliance. I was a fan of the method more than the product. Classical music never sounded good on gramophones and jazz did. It was the right music for that technology. Yes, the Carter Family. Recorded in 1930 for the Victor Talking Machine Company. The story of a man imprisoned for unknown reasons, therefore legitimate for us to discuss in terms of American paranoia.’

  Schlegel suspected he was being played with and waited for the pounce. His own paranoia extended to Morgen flicking through his file and cackling wickedly at all the references to ineffectiveness, backsliding and questionable decadence; the rest didn’t bear thinking about.

  Morgen carried on, apparently unaware of Schlegel’s discomfort. ‘From my modest observations of human behaviour, I would say this paranoia has two main outcomes. In spite of all the assertions of strength, the system is flawed, perhaps fatally, because the only legitimate responses are panic and inertia, masquerading as efficiency. I know we swept everything before us in the conquests of 1940 and ’41 but it was effortless. A perverse reading could hold that mass mobilisation was really concerted inertia because the machinery did all the work and the war machine is the perfect product of paranoia, wouldn’t you say?’