The Butchers of Berlin

by Chris Petit

  ‘Think of it as an excursion.’

  They drove across town to the western edge. They were in Stoffel’s Opel again. The motor pool clerk had given them the nod, saying Stoffel was in the tank sweating a suspect and had been for the last twelve hours. Morgen watched Franz in the rear-view mirror, handcuffed in the back. Franz asked where they were going. Morgen said to relax, it was nice weather and spring was coming.

  ‘What do you think of this war?’ Morgen asked, as though making conversation.

  ‘Which? The one against us?’

  ‘A man with spirit, that’s what I like to see. At least you don’t have to go into the army and get your head blown off.’

  Franz grunted. ‘We’re all dead one way or another.’

  He gave a good impression of sangfroid. Schlegel wondered how long it would last.

  What was left of the afternoon sun blinded them as they passed down the Kurfürstendamm with its once-smart shops depleted and shabby. ‘Can you still get milkshakes at Kranzler’s?’ Morgen asked.

  They drove on into Koenigsallee, past smart houses and little lakes through the district known as the Gold Coast.

  ‘Where a lot of your people used to live,’ said Morgen.

  ‘My people weren’t rich,’ said Franz.

  Everything looked softened and reduced through the dirty windscreen. Schlegel sensed the purpose of the drive was to stretch the tension until it snapped.

  Morgen turned off the main road, drove for a few minutes and stopped on a long straight avenue by the railway tracks and big goods depot. Morgen suggested they stretch their legs. Franz looked reluctant.

  Morgen rested his backside against the warm bonnet and smoked. Past the avenue of trees a long line of covered wagons stood in a siding.

  Morgen said, ‘You should ask yourself what you know. Prove useful and you won’t find yourself on that platform.’

  Schlegel watched Franz swallow. Morgen appeared serene. He produced Sybil Todermann’s identity card and passed it to Franz.

  They had been students together, it turned out, Franz at the Jewish art school and Sybil at the equivalent of fashion and design. They had all hung out at the Café Quik.

  Morgen said, ‘I remember the Quik. Joachimstaler Strasse.’

  He asked where Franz had lived. Mitte, he replied.

  Morgen said, ‘I once availed myself of a tart in Münzstrasse before the war, when it was still a red-light area. Do you remember the Jewish baker that sold the onion pies with poppy seeds?

  ‘He was Polish. In Rochstrasse.’

  ‘With the fruit and veg market, and the model railway shop I once saw Goering coming out of. It was where he bought his train sets.’

  Schlegel would not have been surprised if he and Franz hadn’t attended the same parties during his Bohemian phase. Boys with long hair, drinking beer out of bottles, jazz records, girls in lipstick. He had been to a cellar bar once with a three-piece combo and the drummer openly smoked a reefer.

  Morgen showed him Abbas’s card next. Franz glanced at it and handed it back.

  ‘All I know is the rumour mill says he was someone’s agent, in exchange for his daughter going to a soft camp, and he may now be dead.’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘Not to speak to.’

  ‘Whose agent?’

  ‘It doesn’t do to learn their names.’

  ‘That’s all right. It’s not our investigation. What about Grigor?’

  Franz frowned and eventually said, ‘You mean the one I was at art school with? He was two years above me. He had his own crowd. I didn’t see him in years.’

  ‘He drove the hearse. You work at the hospital.’

  ‘We have nothing to do with them. The hospital has its own pathology department.’

  Franz had a stiff right hand that he frequently massaged. Morgen asked to see it. Two fingers had been broken and badly set.

  ‘No forging for you. Another one off the list.’

  Nor did Franz admit to knowing the strangled woman, in as much as they were able to describe her. He did remember that Grigor was a great one for dancing.

  Across the tracks a group of men in blue coats emerged from a hut and prepared the wagons, setting ramps and unlocking doors. Schlegel could just make out the stoker firing the boiler in the cab of the engine. The men seemed in good spirits, calling out, followed by bursts of laughter.

  Morgen said, ‘Are we clear about this? What’s going on over there and what’s going on between us?’

  Franz said nothing.

  ‘Information is all we need. Not much of a price. Or we just as easily stroll over the tracks and put you on the train. There’s always room for one more.’

  Tinny, soothing music started to play over the station loudspeakers.

  ‘Who chooses the music?’ asked Morgen.

  They got back in the car and drove a short distance into the forest beyond. Morgen said it was time for a walk. Schlegel couldn’t be sure if Morgen was aware of what he was implying.

  Franz sat there, his hands driven between his legs.

  ‘Out,’ said Morgen.

  They walked into the woods. Morgen kept his hand in his coat pocket. Franz looked pinched and worried. It was muddy underfoot. The sun had gone and the first chill was settling after the unexpected warmth of the day.

  Schlegel thought that for Franz they must resemble an absurd and sinister version of a classic double act: the beanpole who looked about sixteen with white hair and the shorter, rounder one who despite his clownish air was the deadlier.

  They passed through the trees and came to an open space with a little bench. Morgen suggested they sit. They must have appeared even more ridiculous, three men crowded on such a bench.

  Franz eventually asked, ‘Am I saving my skin here?’

  Morgen said, ‘Part of my job is to investigate the internal affairs of bodies that include the SS, Gestapo and criminal police.’

  Franz looked at them, calculating.

  Morgen went on. ‘We know with regard to Jewish matters there has been a history of financial wrongdoing on the part of the Gestapo, which led to suspensions at the end of last year.’

  Morgen lit yet another cigarette and addressed the glowing end. ‘Were any untoward activity to come to my attention I would be bound to investigate it.’

  ‘But if I open my mouth and word gets round.’

  ‘It won’t. I don’t divulge my sources.’

  Schlegel tried to imagine himself in Franz’s position. They were about the same age. Franz was involved in a dangerous trade: saying too little was as fatal as saying too much. Schlegel knew he would be hopeless.

  He said, ‘Todermann witnessed a shooting last week. Can you tell us anything about a man named Metzler?’

  ‘Ah, Metzler,’ Franz said, exhaling. It was like watching the air go out of a balloon.

  Metzler, Franz said, had turned up the previous spring claiming he might be able to arrange a deal to get some out.

  Franz professed no knowledge of the details, other than a general mistrust of Metzler, who seemed aware of his own questionable trustworthiness.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Morgen.

  ‘He was in a difficult position as he technically answered to the Gestapo but was recommending we cheat on them, at the same time as warning us we needed to ask ourselves if he was being sincere or setting a trap.’

  ‘What was supposed to pay for all this? Private equity?’

  They had arrived at a point of trade. Morgen made his understanding clear by offering Franz a cigarette.

  ‘I was at one meeting with Metzler, only one of two I attended, where he said it would cost a lot of money, but he thought the risk worth it. He was the one who suggested if there wasn’t the money we should think of ways of finding it.’

  Dangerous waters, thought Schlegel.

  ‘Why only two meetings?’ asked Morgen.

  ‘I had a feeling about Metzler, so I dropped out.’

  ‘Wh
at sort of feeling?’

  ‘He was too good. He made it look like he was playing for us but I worried it was a trick to sell out those who became involved.’

  ‘And what about them?’ Schlegel asked.

  ‘All moved on, which supports what I am saying.’

  Morgen interjected. ‘You are bound to say that even if they weren’t, to protect them.’

  ‘I am telling you what I know.’

  ‘Is any of what we have talked about still going on?’

  ‘If it ever started. People said Metzler was a bullshitter and the plan to make fake money was a Gestapo scam in the first place.’

  ‘Did anyone get out, as far as you know?’

  ‘No one ever said. The Austrians came and took over from the Gestapo, which ended anything that might have been going on.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Unlike the Gestapo, the Austrians didn’t take meetings.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Last October.’

  ‘Tell us how things changed.’

  ‘A lot of Gestapo faces disappeared. The Austrians increased security massively but suspended deportations, which led people to hope they would not be sent away.’

  ‘How did the Gestapo take this?’

  ‘As you would expect when outsiders come in and take over.’

  ‘Was there any specific reaction?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Franz exclaimed without thinking. He corrected himself and explained how in the week before the Austrians came the Gestapo conducted a big clearout at the Jewish Association. Several hundred were fired and deported.

  Schlegel took that to mean they had got rid of those that knew too much.

  They arrived at the crucial area. Franz sat looking like he might say more. Morgen persuaded him, with a second cigarette.

  Franz took his time composing himself, the cool customer again.

  ‘Would you be able to give us a name?’ asked Morgen.

  ‘Gersten.’

  Metzler’s sack lay neglected on the floor in the office until Frau Pelz asked if it could be thrown out.

  ‘I suppose we should look,’ said Morgen. It was an unedifying prospect. The contents smelled awful. The newspapers turned out to be just random, from what they could tell, rather than collected for a reason. The boots were boots, the gloves were gloves and the hat was a hat.

  The stiff and grubby waterproof apron was the only item of interest. It had a large pocket across the front. Morgen felt inside. There was something.

  ‘A photograph.’

  It was regular snapshot size with a crinkled border.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Morgen. ‘Friend Franz again.’

  Schlegel looked at the picture, taken in a café with a group of youngsters sitting around a table. Students. There was a time when Schlegel could have found himself sitting among such a group: vaguely rebellious, quietly dissident, stylish but scruffy; he too had aspired to that look in his younger years.

  Franz was at the front of the picture, wearing dark glasses and with his collar turned up.

  Opposite was Sybil with shorter hair, looking dreamy and unconcerned in contrast to Franz’s scowl.

  She and Franz were the most stylish of the crowd.

  ‘It was taken in the Café Quik,’ said Morgen. ‘I recognise it. But why does Metzler have it?’

  ‘Metzler’s notebook hints that he had a crush on Sybil, but it also suggests Franz knew Metzler better than he made out.’

  Morgen turned the apron over. It was made of a stiff material that was awkward to handle.

  ‘Sybil was a seamstress, am I right?’

  He went out of the room. Schlegel heard him talking to Frau Pelz. He returned with scissors and snipped at the hem of the apron until the backing came away.

  ‘See,’ said Morgen.

  Sewn into the apron were more banknotes, all fifty marks, all fake.

  34

  When Sybil went to wait for Franz he didn’t come. He had said he thought it would be the last or second-last day serving at Rosenstrasse. They had been releasing prisoners in batches and now there were only a few hundred left. Apart from wondering where he had got to, she was relieved. Franz seemed altogether callous about what had happened, and continued to manipulate, claiming he was desperately short-handed, with the dangled carrot of a possible job at the hospital. Sybil suspected he was getting ready to renew his demands.

  The S-Bahn was open again, a sign the crisis had passed. Knowing she was unlikely to witness anything like it again, she returned to the crowd.

  Given what Franz had told them, they were within their rights to request a formal interview with Gersten.

  ‘Let’s surprise him. I want to see his face when we tell him,’ said Morgen.

  According to his office he was down at Rosenstrasse, supervising the last of the releases.

  The crowd was still gathered. People talked openly, in defiance of the inevitable clampdown. A story was circulating about how when the releases were announced a Gestapo man had presented himself to the crowd with a clenched fist of solidarity, as though between them they had achieved something.

  Morgen asked the crowd if the Gestapo man had long hair. As he sounded chatty he was taken for one of them. Yes, came back the answer.

  The arrests were now being officially referred to as an error and a violation. Morgen, yawning, made a joke about how awkward it must be to eat humble pie while climbing down at the same time.

  The atmosphere grew stranger and more carnival-like, full of cautious celebration and foreboding.

  Morgen announced he was fading fast and needed to sleep. Gersten could wait or Schlegel take care of it.

  ‘They don’t warn you about the crashing tiredness.’

  Sybil watched the tall white-haired young man and the shorter one who constantly smoked, and she couldn’t decide if they were dangerous.

  The women’s persistence had won the day. Their struggle made her more optimistic about her and Lore’s chances.

  She told herself: We will learn to live on the run; we will lie, cheat and steal, do whatever it takes to survive. I will not let the way Franz used me happen again.

  Start with what you know, she told herself. She would find or make uniforms for herself and Lore. A nurse’s would be too obvious because they might get asked to help.

  They would keep moving. There were lofts, basements, empty trams, parks, houseboats, even brothels, a whole city of hidden courtyards and secret spaces. The Jewish Cemetery in Weissensee had remained open. Tomorrow she would go there with Lore to check for buildings that could be used as refuge. Lore could carry on working for Alwynd, but continuing to stay there was out of the question.

  She and Lore had discussed damaged apartments and fresh corpses, both offering a potential crop of the right stamps and cards and papers. It would be no test of her nerve to explore these abandoned blocks. She would scavenge. She would not flinch from touching dead flesh. She would do all this for Lore and Lore in return would make her special. They would become vixens by day and she a creature of the night.

  Lore had asked what of those bombed out of their homes who had lost everything. The authorities would have to make provision. If they went and said their papers had been destroyed there would be no way to prove them wrong. There was bound now to be a certificate for such people.

  It was a windless night. As darkness started to fall candles were lit. A waning moon hung in a clear sky, turning faces ghostly in the dark.

  After Morgen had gone, Schlegel looked in vain for the young woman with the frozen tears.

  Part of him wanted to shout out that this truce would be forgotten and everything would continue to be relentless.

  He thought he spotted Gersten and his henchman.

  There was no reason to go home. He could always go to his mother’s and sleep in his childhood bed, with the guarantee of a hot bath and a decent meal. She was forever telling him in her provocative way it made no sense to live in that ghastly ho
le when he could be comfortable with her. ‘Safer too when the bombs come.’

  It was her way of saying he was a hopeless case. She had once deigned to inspect his apartment and pronounced it a slum, saying she knew of rooms belonging to White Russians living in Woyrschstrasse. ‘Impeccably connected. Stunning daughter.’ Schlegel had met her; a princess, no less, achingly beautiful. The last he’d heard she worked for the Foreign Ministry’s Office of Information. At more formal parties he still occasionally saw her, drawing a clear circle around her by conversing in French, Russian or English. Schlegel had been briefly admitted, until stumbling before company much cleverer and more politically daring, and, here was the warning, dangerously careless in their dismissal of the regime for its lack of class, which they by contrast had in spades. Schlegel’s mother was frowned on as a fellow traveller because she didn’t hang out with the diplomatic crowd, which was the accepted way of social agnostics and passive resisters.

  A male voice asked gently if she was Fräulein Todermann.

  Sybil thought of Lot’s wife turned to a pillar of salt. She tried to run. Others were waiting.

  The man strolled over. She couldn’t see his face.

  ‘You slipped past me last time.’

  The crowd started to melt away, as though her taking was an abrupt signal that normal service was resumed. No one looked at her or the men around her.

  A hand took her shoulder and gripped it until she winced. The man addressing her appeared in excellent spirits, like he had run into an old friend he was delighted to see. He produced a chapstick and greased his lips.

  Schlegel derived satisfaction from surprising Gersten, making him spin round. He had an impression of two other men folding a third party into the back of a car, which, incongruously, was a regular taxi.

  Gersten had his chapstick in his hand.

  ‘Split lips,’ he said with a nonchalant grin.

  ‘Morgen needs to talk to you. Officially.’

  ‘Bad timing. You just spoiled the pleasure of arrest.’

  Gersten recomposed himself to assume an air of amused tolerance.

  ‘Oh, all right. I’m intrigued. My place, noon tomorrow.’