A Trace of Smoke (Hannah Vogel)

by Cantrell, Rebecca

  It did not help to know that Ernst had also had Lola, or that Wilhelm was only doing this to make a point to Ernst. Without me there as a witness, none of this would be happening. I swallowed a ball of nausea and headed back to the bar.

  8

  On the way back to the bar an excited female voice trilled in Dutch. Out of the corner of my eye I saw two couples. The women looked like women as they giggled and tried not to point at “women” at the other tables. The men looked dazed.

  “Thank you, Oliver.” I set my empty glass on the bar and climbed onto a bar stool. “Do you know about a rich soldier Ernst might have mentioned? Wilhelm thinks they’re away on a trip.”

  Oliver shook his bushy head and looked away. “Your brother mentions many men, including soldiers. But I never heard him mention a par tic u lar one.” He polished a glass and set it in the row behind him.

  “Oh.” Was this part of Oliver’s selective forgetfulness? Like last names, and dalliances? The perfect bartender.

  “Don’t worry. He’ll show up soon. He’s missed a show or two before you know.”

  “He has?” I asked, surprised. Ernst was responsible about his act.

  “When Rudolf left to see a sick relative to make sure he was still in the will, your brother disappeared for a week.” Oliver pulled six shot glasses down and expertly filled them. “And he wasn’t with Rudolf.”

  “Do you know where he went?” I leaned my elbows on the smooth teak bar.

  “Could have been anywhere.” He placed glasses on a round red tray. “Your brother never lacks for offers.”

  “Thank you for the information,” I said. In my experience, a source only gave this much information if they wanted something in return. What did Oliver want? “Was that Rudolf?”

  Oliver’s lips smiled, but his eyes were blank. “He was asking after your brother too.”

  “Did you tell him he’s not here?”

  “I told him to check backstage. Right now he’s probably listening to a long tirade from Winnie.” Oliver glanced back toward the stage door. A customer raised one hand with his fingers outstretched, and the thumb and forefinger of his other hand. Seven.

  “He seemed in a hurry.”

  “Winnie will slow him down.” Oliver took down another shot glass, filled it, and added it to the tray.

  I stood to go. It would be well to get out of the El Dorado before Rudolf noticed me.

  “Not sticking around for the show?” Oliver asked. “They’ve been using Francis instead of your brother. Quite an opportunity for an ambitious man. He’s a gifted dancer, and at the end of the act he’s wearing nothing but a fez and a loincloth.”

  “Who’s Francis?”

  “I need to deliver these.” He cut across the dance floor to a group of mustached men sharing a table in the corner. They looked so much like men that I suspected they were women.

  Oliver returned and dropped a few coins into an empty beer stein behind the bar. “You never heard of your brother’s archrival?” he continued. “Francis has been trying to get into Ernst’s act, and his pants, for over a year. Ernst’s vacation is the best thing to happen to him since he got here.”

  “Where is Francis?”

  Oliver pointed to a petite, curly-haired man sipping absinthe at the other end of the bar. His black hair and dark eyes and skin made him look exotic. He wore filmy harem pants, a black harem vest that seemed to cover pert breasts, a fez, and golden slippers with long curling toes. He looked too small to take down Ernst, but I walked over anyway. If he got close enough, he could have killed him.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” I asked.

  “Please,” he sneered, glaring up at me with bloodshot eyes. The smell of alcohol from his breath was overpowering. “I know you spent hours getting those hips right, but you’re still not my type.”

  “Hannah,” I said, sticking out my hand.

  “A real woman.” He ignored my hand. “As I suspected. A transvestite would never wear those shoes with that dress. They’re a train wreck. Your dress, by the way, is four years out of style.”

  “Give or take.” I gestured to Oliver to refill Francis’s glass, but Oliver shook his head.

  “I don’t take drinks from women.” Francis wagged his long, lacquered fingernail at me drunkenly. “It gives them the wrong idea.”

  “What idea is that?” I asked.

  “Do I know you?”

  “I’m looking for my brother,” I said. “Ernst Vogel.”

  “When you find him,” he said, trying to push himself off the bar to a standing position. “Tell him to get back here.”

  “Why?”

  “Listen, Anna,” he said. “This glamour business is wearing me out.”

  He turned and lurched off toward the bathrooms. I was still trying to decide whether to go after him when Oliver came over. “He’ll sober up before he has to perform. He always does.”

  “He said my shoes were terrible,” I said. “But he liked my hips.”

  “You have very womanly hips,” Oliver said. “Most men in here would kill to have those hips.”

  I laughed. “Would Francis?”

  Oliver shook his head. “His hips aren’t bad either.”

  “Is he always so drunk?”

  Oliver polished the bar with a spotless white towel. “He’s always a little drunk, but not too much.”

  “He looked bad to me.”

  “He’s been drinking since the weekend.”

  “I wonder why,” I said aloud. Perhaps he had done something he regretted on Friday. He had the anger to do it.

  “I think his lover left him.” Oliver folded the towel neatly in half. He excused himself to attend two figures in tailored tuxedos who looked suspiciously feminine, but I did not care to guess. The game had lost its appeal.

  I glanced at the bathroom door. Francis was still in there. Would Ernst have trusted him enough to let him get close with a knife?

  Wilhelm came out of the dark room, tucking in his brown shirt. A large man in a well-pressed SA uniform marched up and grabbed his arm. The man was strong and square. His neck was thick, like a bull’s, and short, light blond hair covered his bullet-shaped head.

  Wilhelm struggled against him, his face flushed.

  The man casually drew his arm back and slapped Wilhelm across the face. I gasped.

  The man stepped close and spoke slow and quiet in his ear. Wilhelm hung his head like a whipped dog as the man growled at him, his close-shaven scalp flushed red with anger.

  Finally, Wilhelm nodded. The man gripped Wilhelm’s elbow and frog-marched him out the front door. Lola stepped out of the dark room, straightening the strap of his gown. He watched them go, his face expressionless.

  “Oliver,” I hissed when he returned. “Did you see that man hit Wilhelm?”

  Oliver avoided my eyes. “I did. That man is his father. He does not want Wilhelm in here. What father would?”

  Before I could reply, Francis stumbled out of the bathroom, looking pale but more coherent than when I’d talked to him. Ernst would not have thought him a threat, but Ernst never did take hatred into account.

  Rudolf slammed open the backstage door and hurried across the floor, knocking Francis over in his haste. He helped Francis up and brushed him off solicitously, bending his head to murmur something to him. At first I thought it was an apology, but Francis went white so I assumed it was something nasty instead. I turned my face toward the bar. When I peeked over my shoulder again a few minutes later, Rudolf’s gray coattails were slipping through the red curtains on the way to the coat check.

  What had he found out backstage that put him in such a hurry? Perhaps something about Ernst? I hurried after Rudolf, eager to see where he went. I tried to be patient while the coat-check boy pranced back to the coats.

  “It’s the brown one,” I said. “The only brown one.”

  I slid into my coat and turned up the collar. I pushed my hat down so that the brim covered my face and slunk toward the front door.
Not much of a disguise, but it was all I had. Hopefully, Rudolf would not be looking in my direction.

  Bright moonlight glinted off the water-glazed street. I took a deep breath, savoring the clean air. The street looked safe. A well-dressed couple climbed out of a Hanomag automobile. Halfway down the block a young man vomited in the gutter. Two women entered a building across the street. Nobody looked like a killer or rapist.

  Rudolf climbed into a taxi and slammed the door. I watched helplessly as it roared off. I’d lost him. How would I ever find out why he was so angry? I walked toward Nollendorfplatz to catch the subway home. I had only walked a few steps when El Dorado’s front door closed with a thud. I flattened myself against the wall and turned.

  Francis swayed on the steps, his curly hair outlined in the light. He walked past me without a glance in my direction. Why was he leaving the club? He had a show to do soon. I followed him. Of the men in the bar, Francis benefited most from Ernst’s death. Now he was the star.

  But what if the killer was a stranger? Ernst had left Wilhelm’s alive, if Wilhelm could be believed. That left my brother wandering around the streets at who knows what early hour, probably dressed in his party clothes. An easy mark for the bands of Nazis that swept through the streets, putting up posters and harassing anyone who did not look Aryan.

  If the Nazis killed him, I would never know. They moved in on victims, beat them to death, and disappeared. Witnesses rarely came forward. Even if they did, Nazi gangs would not do much time in jail. I thought about Four Years of Political Murder, a book published by the statistician Emil Gumbel in 1922. Gumbel’s analysis of court records showed how judges supported right-wing political violence. Gumbel pointed out that average prison sentences for left-wing murderers were fifteen years or execution, but right-wing murderers’ sentences averaged four months. And it had gotten worse since 1922.

  But Ernst was a great fighter and a quick runner. After he left home he’d signed up for boxing lessons. Father would turn over in his grave if he knew that Ernst practiced such a low-class sport, but Ernst could defend himself. If he’d been attacked by a band of Nazis, he would have bruises on his body. His face and body were unmarked in the photograph.

  Francis covered the few blocks to Wittenbergplatz in record time. He was more fit than he looked and walked with a self-assured grace. He was probably a wonderful dancer. I limped after him, wishing I’d worn more sensible shoes.

  Wittenbergplatz was deserted, except for prostitutes standing under the lampposts that illuminated the traffic circle around the subway station. A few lights shone in the tall apartment buildings, but most were dark. It was late, after all. Off to the west loomed the spires of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, barely visible in the darkness, but comforting nevertheless.

  Francis slowed and approached an emaciated woman. Even leaning against the lamppost she was taller than he. Her hair was black as pitch, and her eyes were heavily made-up. Her shiny boots were laced up to her knees. I could not make out the color of her boots from so far away, but I knew that they would signal her niche in the Berlin prostitute industry. There were guides that detailed the perversions indicated by boots and shoelaces, but I’d never read them.

  I ducked into a doorway, pressing my back against the cold surface uncomfortably. I must remain unseen. I did not want anyone to know I had been here. As a reporter, I had learned that it was always best to know more than the source thought you did.

  An automobile drove by, and I lost sight of them. How could I get close enough to hear what they were saying? The automobile stopped, and someone shouted to Francis and the woman. She laughed and shook her head, pointing at her arm as if she had a watch there.

  She stood upright next to the pole and folded her arms across her chest. She loomed over Francis. Undaunted, he waved his finger at her imperiously. I heard urgency in the tone of his voice, but could not make out a single word.

  She tucked her long hair behind her ears and shook her head. Her arms were ghostly pale in the streetlight, but they moved with confidence. She did not fear Francis.

  He reached out and caught her arm, his gold shoes flashing in the light. He drew back his other arm as if to strike her. She pushed him away with the palm of her hand, and he fell on his bottom, probably getting dirt on his expensive harem pants. She put one booted foot on his legs. What did Francis want her to do?

  He handed her a small packet. Money? She walked away from him without a backward glance, and Francis hailed a passing taxi that sped with a screeching of tires back the way we’d come.

  I could not follow him, so I followed the woman. She hurried down the sidewalk, eyes forward. When she turned right into a dark alley I hung back, afraid to follow. This street belonged to drug dealers, prostitutes, and their feuds at night. Buildings loomed on both sides, windows dark behind tiny square balconies.

  She emerged with a man more skeletal than she. Despite the evening chill, he wore only a thin, stained undershirt and tight-fitting pants. After he glanced furtively up and down the street, he held out a dirty hand. She gave him the packet she’d received from Francis, and he spent a few seconds fingering the contents, his lips moving. I guessed that the packet contained money, and he was counting it.

  He nodded and held out a fat envelope. She snatched it from his hand and sprinted toward the subway station. I hurried behind her, watching as she slipped through the door to the public toilets.

  I wished again that I’d worn older shoes. The toilets at Wittenbergplatz were none too clean even during the day. I was reaching for the metal door handle when a large, hairy hand smashed me against the side of the building.

  “What’s it cost?” a voice slurred.

  I tried to talk, but the breath was knocked out of me. I shook my head and struggled in his hold. Once again, I needed to lie myself out of this. Or fight him if I got a chance.

  “Not.” I shoved myself away from the wall. “For sale.”

  “Too proud to do a cripple?” He leered at me. He had no right ear. It was a shame he was not really crippled. That would have given me an advantage.

  “Too ill to do anyone,” I said. “I have the clap.”

  “That don’t stop me.” His beery breath scalded my face as he thrust his groin against me.

  I ran through a list of actions I could try and picked the one that seemed most likely to get him to let his guard down. I smiled seductively and said, “A dollar for a blow job. American.”

  He stepped back a pace and reached for his back pocket, still holding my arm.

  I rammed my knee into his groin as hard as I could. He folded in half, releasing me as he dropped moaning to the ground.

  I sprinted toward the bright white U shining in the streetlights, thoughts of Francis’s prostitute forgotten. I raced down the stairs. I ran onto the nearest train. I ducked below the level of the windows until it pulled away.

  My back ached, and a bruise already encircled my arm where he grabbed me. But I knew how fortunate I was. If he’d been any less drunk or stupid, I would still be back there with him. I clenched my teeth together because they started to chatter. Glad to be alone in the car, I wrapped my arms around myself.

  When the train emerged from a tunnel, a movie poster of an outstretched arm with a red letter M in its palm flashed by my vision. It was the poster for the latest Fritz Lang film. A drama about a child murderer loose on the streets of Berlin, starring Peter Lorre as the killer who cannot stop himself from committing heinous crimes. I was on the Kurfürstendamm, passing the neoclassic façade of the Theater des Westens, and heading the wrong way.

  9

  I limped up the dark stairs to my apartment, nursing the blisters that my dress shoes raised on my heels. Mitzi yowled behind me, angry over the lateness of her dinner. It was after midnight. A time ridiculously late for me and ridiculously early for Ernst.

  I fumbled with the key, grateful for the tiny bulb in the hall.

  “Indian greetings,” said a tiny voice. “The
brave has a message.”

  I whirled, one arm raised defensively, legs wide apart, ready to fight or flee.

  A small blond boy stood in front of me holding an envelope. He was the size of a three-year-old, but looked older. Perhaps five. I glanced around for an adult, but saw no one else. What was he doing out by himself at this time of night?

  “For you, ma’am,” he said in a precise voice. His grimy fingers held a soot-streaked white envelope.

  “Why aren’t you home?” I took the envelope without thinking. “Who takes care of you?”

  “Sweetie,” he said, without a hint of sarcasm. “Sweetie Pie.”

  “I have the envelope now,” I said. “You can go home.”

  He did not move. Was he waiting for a reply to whatever was in the envelope?

  I slit the envelope with the point of my house key. It held two pieces of paper. I took out a note written on faded yellow paper with ink the dark green color of bile. I struggled to decipher the poor handwriting in the dim light. I read silently.

  My dearest Ernst,

  I am finished. You did not pay this week, not even in food. So Anton is yours. Keep him. You won’t find me to give him back. With love, Sweetie.

  I turned over the note. Nothing else.

  I pulled out the other piece of paper. A birth certificate. It stated that Anton Vogel had been born at Steglitz Hospital on June 10, 1925, which made him almost six years old now. His father’s name was Ernst Vogel. I read it twice to be certain. Had Ernst fathered a child at the age of fourteen? That was impossible. But perhaps he experimented more than I knew.

  I stared at the part of the form that listed the mother. What woman had Ernst dallied with at fourteen? I remembered a few girls, but he never seemed interested in them. I shook my head. No matter. I would find her and return this child to her. She was probably already worried that he was gone.