by Chris Petit
He gave a cheery wave and moved briskly into the taxi. Schlegel could see enough to make out the silhouette of a woman. The car departed. She turned and looked through the back window. He recognised her from the identity card Morgen had showed him, and the photograph they had found in Metzler’s apron.
Driven away in a taxi of all things. The officer in charge got in and patted her knee, making her instinctively recoil. He noticed and she knew she would be punished for it later.
She was too numb to feel afraid. She dreaded the moment when Lore’s anxiety turned to certain knowledge that she wouldn’t be coming back. Reckless kissing in the dark, for their pleasure only: Sybil prayed the strength of that memory would be enough to block out the men surrounding her.
‘There’s a twist,’ said Gersten. ‘I have you in mind for something. You still have a choice, but this is different from what I can usually offer.’
Sybil had to remind herself to be scared. This was not what she was expecting. The consideration. The politeness. A sense of talking as equals. The lazy, even effeminate turn of the man’s wrist to indicate an unfortunate twist of fate. The possibility in a raised eyebrow of a different course being offered. The man was frightening for not being frightening.
Nor was the room the expected interrogation space.
The ride had lasted a couple of minutes. They could have walked it in five. Gersten told his man to pay.
It was the most feared address, once part of the stock exchange, where Room 23 was known as the gateway to the east.
The imposing entrance gate had dwarfed them and opened of its own accord. Sybil felt herself starting to shrink. Gersten smelled of 4711.
She was reminded of that when he placed a bottle of perfume between them.
‘Chanel Number Five. Consider it an introductory gift.’
She stared in disbelief.
He said the room had a view of the river by day.
Taxis. Armchairs. Perfume. Unbelievable luxuries. Riverside views. She was being seduced, not sexually, though she could not discount that.
‘Tell me about yourself,’ he said, as though she were applying for a regular job.
She stared at her scuffed shoes and thought there was no point in pretending. She had lost Lore.
‘We’re not animals,’ Gersten prompted. ‘We can be heartless when dealing with our enemies, but I am sure we can be friends.’
He offered a cigarette from a silver box. Sybil wanted to say she wouldn’t touch anything of his were it the last thing on earth.
She said instead, ‘I work for many influential women. I am a dress designer.’
‘Yes, it’s important work.’
He knew where she lived, and who her mother was.
It was warmer sitting there than anywhere she could remember. Gersten seemed fond of his hair, constantly running his fingers through it.
‘Where is your mother now?’
Sybil said she didn’t know.
‘I know.’
She feared the worst. It meant Gersten had her.
‘Is she safe?’
He stared back enigmatically before remarking matter-of-factly, ‘I know people who pull out nails with pliers, teeth too sometimes, but that’s not my style. One colleague doesn’t even bother with the pliers. He smashes teeth with a hammer. Not personally, of course. Thugs do that.’
Gersten let the remark hang.
‘Pretty girl,’ he murmured.
She couldn’t tell if he meant her or a previous victim.
He went on as if discussing nothing serious. She asked about her mother. He ignored her.
‘There’s this room and there are other rooms. It’s nice here. Let’s say, I offer you a choice where it’s possible to stay in the equivalent to this room.’
He explained what he could normally offer – ‘could’ thought Sybil, as he said it. People came and worked for him. In exchange for their freedom they took on the job of seeking out those that had gone underground.
She could always watch them slam her fingers in the door and call her a Jewish whore before doing whatever they liked. If she said yes? Or she could pretend to go along then disappear like others, out near the lakes perhaps.
‘I want you to look for one man. This is almost certainly the one you were due to meet next in the process of acquiring your new papers.’
He offered another cigarette, which she accepted without thinking and repressed a shiver when he said, ‘Let me match you.’
She leaned forward into the flame and hated herself, then, playing the game, thanked him and blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth. She couldn’t remember when she had last had a cigarette.
‘He’s dangerous. He’s a psychopath. He rapes and kills women. We need you to find him so we can put an end to his killing spree. What I ask is dangerous but it’s better than the train.’
He looked at her calmly. ‘Poland is death. We both know that.’
‘What’s to stop you sending me later?’ The cigarette was making her sick.
‘You’ll get your new papers. You don’t look Jewish. We are realists. Life remains negotiable for the lucky few.’
‘Am I lucky?’
‘Do a job for me and you’ll get a nice set of papers.’
‘And my girlfriend?’
Gersten looked surprised, deliberated and said, ‘I will throw her in too, if you are successful. She doesn’t look Jewish either.’
The idea seemed to strike him as funny.
It wasn’t as if she was being asked to betray anyone, she reasoned, and asked how she was supposed to track this man.
‘That’s your job. We don’t know what he looks like or his name but there must be those that do.’
‘Such as the man who was supposed to meet us.’
‘Regrettably, he is dead now.’
‘He was alive last Sunday.’
‘Not by the time he was supposed to meet you on Monday. The one we want was responsible.’
‘He rapes and kills women, you said.’
‘That too. He selects from among those whose papers he is forging. He may well have chosen you if your photograph had reached him.’
He flicked Sybil’s photograph on to the table between them.
‘Undeniably pretty. We think he’s good-looking too. He makes his approach via his go-between.’
‘You said he no longer has a go-between.’
‘There’ll be another. You found the last. I am sure you can find the next. Think of it as a challenge.’
He scribbled out his cigarette in the ashtray.
‘Do well for me and everything will go swimmingly. I must say the elusiveness of this man is getting on my nerves so forgive me if I get tetchy from time to time.’
He stared at her levelly, inviting her to share in his game. Sybil found him very frightening and knew she must not let him see that.
‘Can I ask a question?’
‘Please.’
‘Why do you care if he is murdering Jewish women?’
It was not the right question.
Gersten answered sharply, ‘We don’t want him moving on to German women. Isn’t that obvious?’
He became amenable again and said he needed her signature on documents for a pass that would let her move freely around the city.
‘Everything by the book,’ he said lightly as he showed her where to sign. The old-fashioned pen required an inkwell. Sybil had a violent image of driving the pen into the man’s eye, then throwing herself out of the window.
‘As for your terms, I can pay the same as your previous job, plus per diems. Keep receipts. Avoid previous company. Tonight you stay here. Tomorrow you will be given a private room in the Grosse Hamburger Strasse centre, in your own wing and with your own exit. You will live a private existence away from the rest of the building, apart from your immediate colleagues and myself. You have your own staff room where you can eat. You personally are not subject to curfew or travel restrictions. I will use the photograph I have
of you for your pass card, which will show you work for us. You will report to me on a daily basis between nine and ten in the morning. I will be at the office which is in your quarters. If not they will know where I am.’
Her first thought on being told how few restrictions she had was Lore, and how they could still spend time together after all. Her spirits lifted.
‘You’re in this building tonight. You needn’t worry. It’s a room not a cell. But first come with me. I want to show you something.’
They walked down empty corridors past closed doors. The only sound was their footsteps. Sybil clung on to when she would next see Lore. Otherwise she was wandering in the forest, utterly forsaken. They went down two flights, through a series of doors, into a darker part of the building. Gersten led her into a room. She gasped in surprise. It was her mother seeming not to see her back. Then she understood. The space was divided by a two-way mirror.
‘She’s quite safe. She will be taken back tomorrow.’
Gersten stood with his hands in his trouser pockets, absentmindedly fiddling with himself. He answered Sybil’s next question for her.
‘From my side your mother was not difficult to find. Her seances or whatever you want to call them are hugely popular with important men who are insecure about the future.’
The sight of her in that glass cage nevertheless knocked the stuffing out of Sybil. She had been negligent in looking, however much she suspected her mother hadn’t been searching that hard in return. Whatever she had imagined, it was never that her mother would end up being played by Gersten as a pawn in his game. As he gauged her reaction, she knew he could apply as much leverage as he liked because she was, in the end, too dutiful and conforming to break the taboo of betraying her mother.
‘There she is, protected, as long as you don’t get ideas above your station. I will give you the address of where she is staying. Go and see her. You must have a lot to catch up on.’
‘Can I see her now?’
‘No. I don’t wish her to know of our arrangement. She thinks she is here because a prospective client wishes to broker an arrangement through a third party, i.e. myself. As I say, she has official protection, highly placed. She performs a fashionable service. She will be secure as long as you and I understand each other, and you tell her nothing of our arrangement. Do we understand each other?’
Her room that night was on the top floor. There were bars on the window but otherwise it was like a hotel, with soap in a dish, a new toothbrush, toothpaste, a metal-framed bed with a mattress, with proper sheets, blankets and a floral bedspread, two pillows, a rug on the floor, and a lavatory behind a screen, with the almost unheard-of luxury of real toilet paper.
Gersten unlocked the door, stood back to let her in, gave her the Chanel and, without another word, shut her in.
Sybil sat on the bed, unscrewed the top of the Chanel and wondered how her life had come to this.
35
Schlegel was surprised to find Otto Keleman sitting on his doorstep, smoking and drinking a bottle of brandy. He said he’d forgotten to leave it behind the bar. He had been with Schlegel’s Irish friend but as they lacked a common language there had been more drink than talk.
‘Lovely man, dirty fingernails. Bottoms up!’
Keleman giggled and slapped his backside. He looked a mess. Schlegel was surprised he knew where he lived.
‘Of course I know. I work for the fucking tax office.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘We need to talk.’
Keleman bowed with mock pomposity. Schlegel thought if he invited him up he would never get rid of him. He suggested the dancehall. What was so important that it couldn’t wait? He wanted an early night. Keleman lurched and stumbled and Schlegel saw how drunk he was.
They stood in the yard outside where Keleman was less afraid of being overheard. Inside a lugubrious waltz was being played badly. They had passed a one-armed dancer on the way through.
Keleman stood close enough to brush Schlegel’s lapel as he murmured, ‘Go easy, if I were you.’
‘What makes you say that?’
Keleman prodded him in the chest. ‘Leave it, all right?’
Keleman looked around melodramatically, as though eavesdroppers lurked.
‘Tell me what you know about Nöthling.’
‘Nothing apart from what you’ve told me.’
Keleman sniggered. ‘Refresh my memory.’
The man was being so tiresome.
‘Shopkeeper. Corrupt. You should go home. I’ll walk you if it’s not far.’
‘Ah ha!’ Keleman pointed wildly. ‘I know where you live but you don’t know where I live!’
His eyes widened and he quickly excused himself. Schlegel listened to him spew in the dark. He returned, swigging from his bottle. Schlegel caught a wave of alcohol and vomit.
‘Come on. You can clean yourself upstairs.’
Keleman had to stop several times on the way. Schlegel showed him the bathroom and listened to him piss noisily before retching again.
He emerged chastened, more like his normal self. He sat down in Schlegel’s only decent chair, arms dangling between his knees.
‘The big fish never get caught,’ he announced morosely. ‘Let’s really mix our metaphors. I predict a big shit storm coming.’
He rambled on, saying there was a series of wars going on in the upper leadership.
Schlegel said he’d heard as much.
‘Do you remember how they got the Chicago gangster, Al Capone?’
‘Tax evasion.’
‘Exactly! You couldn’t think of anything less fashionable in our office until six weeks ago. Now they could all go down. Give me a name.’
‘Goering.’
They laughed. Everyone knew about Hermann’s corruption.
‘Goebbels.’
Keleman made an equivocal gesture. Schlegel said he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Keleman agreed. ‘There’s nothing worse than finding yourself caught between the upper and lower jaws of bureaucracy when they are about to snap shut.’
‘Your meaning seems plain, but I still don’t see.’
Keleman sighed. ‘It’s very different from the Bolsheviks. Step out of line, you get shot. Even if you don’t step out of line you get shot. If you have your snout in the trough here the chances are you never get it taken away completely. It’s the underlings, you and me, my friend, who get shafted.’
‘In that case lose whatever it is you need to lose in the system.’
‘Not good enough. They nail us for losing it and they nail us for not losing it. Capiche?’
‘Us?’
‘It might be wise for me to keep a back channel open, so you are aware of what is going on.’
Keleman reached into his coat pocket and handed over several sheets of paper. It was a typed list of names and, next to each name, different figures running into the thousands.
‘What is this?’
‘Famous names, some very much so.’
‘I can see that. And the figures?’
‘Money probably. Lists it’s better to be ignorant of, unless you compiled it.’
‘How did you get it?’
‘A little birdie.’
‘Anonymous?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Why do I need to know?’
‘I am being quite selfish in that respect. Sorry. When they fish me out of the Landwehr Canal I would like someone else to be aware of why I was put there. Consider it a case of being forewarned. It’s financial. You’re financial.’
Swim in murky waters and you probably did end up in the canal, and what Keleman had showed him certainly did affect him.
Nebe’s name was on the list, with a figure of ‘2000’ next to it.
36
Schlegel watched the scene unfold through the two-way mirror. They were in the downstairs tank. Stoffel was on the other side of the mirror, jacket off, sweating, stubbled, bowler hat tilted back, cigar
on the go. The scene was being watched by a bunch of homicide cops that barely moved to let them in. Already the flask was being passed around.
‘Celebration,’ one said dourly, not offering.
Stoffel gave sly looks to his observing cronies, and at one point gave a thumbs up behind the suspect’s back. Stoffel wore garters on his sleeves and looked unintentionally comic, having removed the front stud of his stiff collar, which stuck out either side of his neck. A bright light shone in the face of the suspect, a sorry specimen with a pudding-basin haircut, a dullard’s look and a mouthful of crooked teeth.
‘Going well?’ Morgen asked the cop standing next to him, a grey little ghost of a man with a reputation for unstinting use of blackjack and knuckleduster.
The cop took his time.
‘A classic, if you ask me. Axel Lampe. Has one of those invisible jobs that allows him to move around, driving the family laundry van. Repeated cruelty to animals. Reported for beating a horse and molesting a woman. He was sterilised for that, but it didn’t stop him from carrying on raping and killing. He says he’s been at it since he was eighteen.’
‘How old is he now?’
‘Forty-six. Sometimes the animal fucked them when they were dead.’
‘How many is he admitting to killing?’
‘As many as eighty.’
‘Eighty! The man looks incapable of tying his own laces.’
‘Down the years. Think of it as once every four months.’
‘What’s he doing here now?’
‘Pulled up for a traffic offence, went crazy and attacked the cops. When they hauled him in he said he wanted to talk to homicide. They thought him a time-waster and didn’t bother until he tried to hang himself.’
‘Why does Stoffel want to see us?’
‘You’ll have to ask him.’
Stoffel took a break after twenty minutes, by when his method was clear. Carrot and stick: the cigarettes with which the suspect was plied; the strategically placed knuckleduster on the table, which Stoffel fingered occasionally. Lampe had the air of a clumsy innocent who would smash things without meaning to. Stoffel’s focus on his subject was total and flattering and the man basked in the attention while volunteering nothing, waiting for Stoffel to suggest the answer, then agreeing.