Pale Horse Riding

by Chris Petit

  Morgen waited until the doctor was gone before venting his spleen.

  ‘Wirths sees himself as a martyr, a tortured soul placed in an impossible situation. He is not a natural intriguer but he is not without intrigue. He will take the principled stand, but he holds himself above it all, which makes him as dangerous as the rest.’

  Schlegel spent the late afternoon attending the recital in the gymnasium, featuring a Bach trio sonata. Morgen would not be persuaded and again Schlegel suspected him of making his own plans.

  They sat on canvas chairs, with a good turnout, the occasion a bit boring for its provincial nature. The commandant’s wife swept in, setting the tone, without her husband.

  Careworn prisoners took to the stage in formal dress. Schlegel was quite unprepared for the exquisiteness of the performance. What they created was something else. He was not musical but he saw how they played for themselves, became the embodiment of the music, thus rebuking the rapt audience, which stood at the end to applaud.

  They had played for the dead, against the living; Schlegel was sure of that.

  Back at the hotel bar, Morgen produced a folded piece of paper from his pocket and flipped it across, saying, ‘It was on the noticeboard.’

  A mimeographed sheet had been made up to look like a Wild West bandit poster, the image unmistakably of Morgen, and underneath in crude print it read: ‘WANTED: DEAD or ALIVE’, with a reward of $1000.

  Morgen sighed. ‘Childish but nasty.’

  The bar was starting to fill up. Schlegel spotted the odious Fegelein approaching, sleek in a quasi-uniform of cream double-breasted sharkskin jacket and trousers with a broad red stripe. He held his glass of beer like he was advertising it. He had a bruise on his cheek that he had tried to cover with a cosmetic. Seeing Schlegel stare, he said a horse had struck him with its head. Fegelein showed his teeth, ignoring Morgen, keeping up an easy patter about what a dull city Berlin had become outside of the enclaves in which he moved.

  Schlegel could not believe the man’s charm fooled anyone. The calculation was so transparent. He was congratulating himself on his insight when Fegelein dropped all pretence and subjected him to a reptilian stare.

  ‘Be aware that you and your friend here are figures in a puppet play, of no consequence.’

  Schlegel stared at the floor, thinking: Yes, that’s how I feel most of the time.

  Fegelein said Morgen didn’t understand how things worked, which was why he got into trouble, whereas he did, which was why he was ensconced and they weren’t.

  Morgen said evenly, ‘I could throw my drink over you except it would be a waste of good drink, regardless of your laundry bill. Say what you have to say.’

  Fegelein gave his best laugh.

  ‘Martin is keen that—’

  ‘Spare us the chumminess, drop the full name. Bormann is keen what?’

  ‘The commandant is hands off.’

  ‘As in what?’

  ‘Not to be investigated.’

  ‘Why should Bormann care about anything other than guarding his master?’

  ‘Just telling you what you need to know. Tread carefully.’

  Fegelein offered a casual salute like an old adversary bidding adieu.

  Morgen, speechless, looked angry and, Schlegel realised, he was scared. Chancellery involvement was a cause for great alarm. Nobody knew much about the penumbral Bormann, other than he controlled the inner sanctum. If Bormann had thrown his hat in the ring, their position was truly precarious.

  A crummy space was allocated them by the commandant’s office, little more than a broom cupboard in a windowless room on the back staircase of the administration block, large enough, just, for three small desks and an empty filing cabinet. Morgen wondered who the third desk was supposed to be for.

  He went off to the post office to ask about telephones and came back with the news that none was available and Horn wasn’t in; the tiny man didn’t know why. Any calls would have to be made from public booths downstairs by the switchboard.

  The best Schlegel could manage from the stationery office was a few sheets of paper, a couple of pencils, no sharpener, and a ruler between them. A request for a typewriter was greeted with general hilarity.

  Thus did the dead hand of officialdom replace initiative, rendering Tanner a phantom in the machine. Even permission to view her sleeping quarters had to be put in writing.

  Krick, the finder of the body, didn’t answer his telephone. Groenke had not given, or withheld, the name Sybil was working under. No one in the motor pool was interested in talking about Tanner, beyond saying they thought she was on leave.

  Schlegel was struck by the partial nature of information. Broad knew Tanner was dead, and was willing to say so, yet her colleagues acted as though her absence was normal. Either this blanking was a coping strategy or they weren’t willing to discuss it with anyone asking questions.

  The labour office told him everyone was in a meeting.

  When he went back later and asked to speak to Ilse – the name of the works supervisor given him by Schulze – he was surprised to have her pointed out. It was the first cooperation he had encountered that day.

  The office consisted of three interconnecting rooms of ranked desks, many of which had been personalised with kitschy souvenirs.

  Schlegel used Schulze’s name to introduce himself.

  Ilse, suspicious at first, brightened. ‘We think of ourselves as sisters though we barely know each other.’

  She wore a print dress and sandals. Schlegel supposed her a civilian. From what he could see plenty were seconded to the garrison. A bead of sweat gathered attractively in the hollow of her throat. Her accent was unusual. The colour of her eyes was that of a troubled sea. She reminded him of someone.

  He said he didn’t have a name for the person he was looking for.

  Ilse asked him to describe her, frowned and said, ‘Follow me.’

  She led the way to a stack room with the air of someone who knew what she was about. As always with such people, Schlegel was a little intimidated. Schulze had the same effect on him. Ilse opened a drawer, flicked through it with rapid fingers and pulled out a card with a photograph.

  ‘Is that her?’

  It was.

  The photograph showed Sybil. But the name was different and she wasn’t listed as Jewish. Her category stated ‘social undesirable’.

  He was aware of Ilse looking at him.

  ‘Where have I seen you before?’

  Schlegel didn’t know.

  She said, ‘I definitely have.’

  ‘In Berlin?’ Schlegel ventured.

  She laughed. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

  Schlegel proffered the card. ‘Is it possible to take a mimeograph of this, so I can show my boss?’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  She sounded more curious than suspicious, indicated by a light touch on his sleeve.

  Schlegel noted her strange playfulness, an automatic flirting, weirdly attractive for being so mechanical. It made him conscious of the garrison’s high level of sexual tension, close to out of control. Now this woman, to whom he didn’t think he was in the slightest attracted, yet found he wanted rather badly.

  He asked about the commandant’s wife. Ilse recited in a calculated bored voice, ‘Frau Hoess is a good employer, she hires a lot of people, but she is changeable. Pet one week, out of favour the next. I am not telling tales here. Frau Hoess says the same of herself.’

  Schlegel couldn’t decide if she was waiting for him to make a pass. He remembered where he had seen her.

  Ilse continued in a strange singsong way, ‘Paperwork is the only thing that keeps a record of time here. For most of us, one day is the same as another.’

  ‘It must be a good job, working for the commandant’s wife.’

  The best, she said. Schlegel, incapable of tearing himself away, felt mildly deranged.

  ‘How does the job market work?’ he ploughed on. He supposed the conversation h
ad a logic.

  ‘Like anywhere, there are good jobs and bad jobs. Most are bad and those in them devote all their efforts to getting moved.’

  ‘What counts as good?’

  ‘Indoors and the chance to eat well. Staff kitchens, domestic appointments.’

  Schlegel pointed to the index card and asked, ‘How would she have got her job?’

  ‘The way of the gods is entirely mysterious.’

  ‘Where would she live, for instance?’

  ‘Block five, ground floor, room four. Size of a palace.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s my job to be on top of things.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I am only indiscreet with people I like.’ She gave him an exasperated look. ‘You don’t get a room like that without favours.’

  Schlegel felt as though he was being pleasantly kidnapped by this persistent woman. He supposed any novelty was a distraction. She would be bossy in bed; not necessarily a bad thing.

  ‘Favours?’ he repeated.

  ‘Sugar daddy.’

  She laughed and licked her lips. Schlegel seemed to have stepped into an emotional quagmire. A woman he was inexplicably lusting after was telling him the woman he loved had been shacked up with some man for her own protection. He was jealous.

  ‘Does the man have a name?’

  ‘No one is saying and wise not to ask.’

  She mimeographed a copy of Sybil’s card. Schlegel watched her muscles tauten as she worked the machine.

  ‘Is it true there is a shrink here?’ he asked.

  ‘You bet. Do you need one?’ She laughed. ‘A lot of messed-up heads. No, I am joking. The garrison has a full complement of medical therapists, from chiropractors to analysts and orthopaedic surgeons.’

  Schlegel suspected her wisecracks disguised loneliness. Perhaps she struggled. He laughed at himself. He was being pompous. Her parting remark seemed to say as much.

  ‘We are going to have to teach you about innuendo. It’s what the place runs on.’

  He said, ‘You look different with your clothes on.’

  The naked sunbather who had smiled at him at the hillside resort.

  She said, ‘I wondered when you would remember.’

  Sybil’s image had smeared where the machine’s ink had clogged. Copying seemed to have stripped it of any meaning. Schlegel could decipher nothing, apart from her being another person with a new identity. He thought back to her moment of horror upon seeing him. At first he supposed her fright was of a woman desperate not to be recognised, but wondered now if it hadn’t been shame at the extent of her compromise.

  He folded the sheet carefully, thinking to treat it like a talisman.

  He had a choice, he thought, and decided on close to the truth.

  He boldly marched up to the commandant’s house, rang the bell and asked to speak to the commandant’s wife.

  She emerged a moment later into the hall from the kitchen, with floury hands and wearing an apron.

  Assuming a deferential manner, he asked if it might be possible to have a word with her seamstress. He knew the woman from Berlin where she had done couture work for his mother.

  He could see Frau Hoess was curious about his mother’s social standing. Only the higher echelons could afford such work. He was saying he had a message from his mother for the seamstress when she cut him short.

  ‘I am a great believer in coincidence. What a shame. She no longer works here.’

  ‘But I saw her—’

  ‘Gone. Transferred out.’

  Schlegel felt panic’s claw.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I am sure I have no idea.’

  ‘But she was here,’ Schlegel repeated helplessly.

  ‘I didn’t know then she was in violation of her terms of employment. When it was brought to my attention, I had no choice.’ She looked momentarily exasperated. ‘What a pity. I wish I had known about her and your mother.’

  The news was crushing.

  Frau Hoess had no idea of the woman’s whereabouts or destination, other than she was due to be shipped out or was gone already. He would have to take that up with the relevant departments.

  Schlegel left, walking as stiffly as an automaton.

  The relevant departments had no record of any recent transfer or firing from the commandant’s household. He was snidely informed by one objectionable clerical lackey that paperwork didn’t update itself.

  He looked around in desperation for Ilse, who wasn’t at her desk.

  He went to the transport office and requested to see its prisoner transfer sheets. Put it in writing, he was told.

  Morgen was as surprised as he was by the speed of Sybil’s transfer. He agreed that the commandant and his wife must have fallen out over her, but was he the sugar daddy?

  It was late afternoon before Schlegel found Ilse at her desk again. He was relieved to see her, the only friendly face of the day. Her skin glowed so that he wanted to touch it. He complimented her on her appearance, which was unlike him. Perhaps flirting was an obligatory extension of camaraderie. Perhaps it was to do with trying not to look over his shoulder.

  Ilse knew nothing of the dismissal. She seemed taken aback, saying, ‘If anyone was safe you would have thought . . .’

  Normally with any case of firing from the commandant’s household she would have been called upon to handle it. The agency temp who had been filling in for her knew nothing of the matter either.

  ‘Do prisoners have contracts of employment?’ Schlegel asked, feeling naïve.

  ‘It’s a polite way of saying there are rules and if you break them you lose your job.’

  ‘What happens to the offender?’

  ‘A hearing, followed by a custodial sentence, served in one of the garrison’s penal colonies, after which the offender is reintroduced back into the labour market. In this case maybe after four to six weeks.’

  ‘And if she was being transferred?’

  ‘It would take several days to sort the paperwork. That’s the transport office and they’re not helpful.’

  ‘So she will still be here?’

  ‘She should be.’

  ‘Where would she be now?’

  ‘As an employee of the commandant she should be in the custody of the commandant’s office.’

  ‘Not the punishment block?’

  ‘The commandant’s office has cells for its own offenders.’

  Schlegel asked Ilse if she could check. He supposed he could just as easily fix to see Sybil in her cell.

  ‘Here’s the odd thing,’ Ilse said, putting down the receiver afterwards.

  Apart from Frau Hoess saying, there was no record of Sybil’s dismissal or of her being held.

  Their next visitor was a surprise.

  ‘Schulze,’ she said.

  Schlegel feared he was blushing.

  ‘How can we forget?’ said Morgen, affable and uncharacteristically flirtatious. ‘What brings you to our grim abode?’

  ‘I have been sent to work with you.’

  She didn’t look happy about it.

  ‘Why, when you have been sent on a course to Berlin?’

  ‘The department isn’t ready for me yet. I have been asked to be with you until you find your feet.’

  ‘Asked by whom?’

  ‘My boss is angry with me for going off and doing the course.’

  She shrugged to say she didn’t know if that was the real reason.

  ‘Are you being promoted?’

  ‘Not if I am being sent here.’

  ‘And what do you see your duties consisting of?’ asked Morgen.

  ‘General hand-holding, I suppose, but I won’t serve you tea and biscuits, not that there are any.’

  ‘We don’t have a kettle. We could do with a telephone too.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky. You will be bottom of everyone’s list.’

  ‘What else will your duties consist of?’

  ‘Reporting on you, p
robably, though no one has asked me to yet.’

  She seemed diverted by the prospect.

  Morgen said, ‘As you know the ropes, perhaps you can tell us what is and isn’t possible. Telephone?’

  She pulled a doubtful face.

  ‘Kettle?’

  ‘One pack of cigarettes.’

  ‘Typewriter?’

  Schulze made an equivocal gesture. ‘Typewriter not impossible but forget the ribbon. Carbon paper the same. Correction fluid possible, but no point without a typewriter.’

  Morgen looked approving. ‘And then we were three.’

  Schlegel thought on behalf of Schulze: Not by choice.

  The next day Morgen had a typewriter and pointed to it happily. Schulze explained it was hers and she had requisitioned it from herself, in triplicate. The ribbons she had been hoarding. Schlegel saw the filing cabinet now had a lock.

  ‘An electric kettle too,’ said Morgen. ‘A woman of untold ingenuity. Who cares if she is spying on us.’

  ‘But nothing to put in the boiling water.’

  ‘Don’t be hard on yourself,’ said Morgen, in a rare good mood.

  Schulze said the reluctance of anyone to give them a telephone showed how popular they were.

  ‘Now, thanks to you, I am not popular either.’

  The most frustrating aspect of the Tanner case remained its existential nature. Presented with a body, what were they investigating, really? Most criminal cases were straightforward: crime committed, telephone calls made, evidence gathered, leads followed and, with luck, a solution reached. Yet Schlegel had the repeated feeling that even if they did find out who killed Tanner they would not necessarily solve the case.

  Morgen continued to fret about Kammler. He had said neither who he was nor what he represented and was more sinister for revealing nothing of his hand.

  ‘It is a maze and there will be a way out.’

  Schlegel thought Morgen sounded more convinced when he said, ‘If we report the truth they will merely shoot the messengers.’

  They fell into that state of distraction which was the presiding feature of garrison life – drunken nights and hungover days the polar points by which it steered its course. What chance had they with Tanner or Bock, let alone determining Sybil’s whereabouts, when enquiry and investigation were so alien to the nature of the place?