Rosa

by Jonathan Rabb

  “Pull over!” shouted Hoffner over the patter of the rain.

  The driver turned abruptly for the curb. Several horn squawks accompanied the maneuver. “I told you it would be bad.”

  Hoffner paid and hopped out. He placed the papers under his coat and darted over to the restaurant. It was not until he had removed his hat that Lina recognized him. She tried to hide her pleasure in a look of surprise, but her face was not yet sophisticated enough to carry it off. Hoffner shook out his hat as he approached. “I thought it might be you,” he said, deciding to play out the charade.

  “Herr Kriminal-Kommissar,” said Lina. “What a nice surprise.”

  “You look absolutely frozen, Frulein Lina. Let me buy you a coffee.”

  She hesitated before answering: “I can’t bring them inside unless I’m selling.” She glanced down at her basket of flowers, then back at Hoffner. “And the tea hour is my best time, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.”

  “Not in this weather, it isn’t,” he said, before she could find another excuse. He looked over and saw the lone waiter who had been stationed for the outside seating. The man was holding his tray across his chest and staring out at the rain. Heated lamps or not, no one would be stupid enough to sit out today. “Herr Ober,” said Hoffner, calling the man over. Hoffner reached into his pocket and pulled out his badge. Well trained, the man showed no reaction as Hoffner continued: “This young lady is going to leave her basket out here while we go inside for a coffee. You’ll be good enough to see that nothing happens to it, yes?”

  The man gave a swift nod. “Of course, mein Herr.”

  “Good.” Hoffner turned to Lina, and motioned her to the door. “Shall we, Frulein?”

  Schuckert’s was known for its sweets. The place smelled of raisins and honey, and everything was immaculately white: napkins, tablecloths, even the waiters’ coats. In a lovely old-world touch, the tea silverware was marvelously ornate and heavy, and seemed to overwhelm the small marble tables, each of which was surrounded by a quartet of straight-backed wrought-iron chairs. From the far corner, a violinist played something soothing. Hoffner thought it might have been Mozart, but he could have been wrong.

  A plump matre d’ was chatting up one of his customers when he saw Hoffner and Lina come through the door. The man gave an overly gracious bow to the table, and then headed over. It was clear that he recognized Lina; he was kind enough, though, not to mention it. He smiled and extended his hand to the room. “Mein Herr,” he said. “A table for two?”

  Hoffner knew that he and Lina were not Schuckert’s usual clientele. Grandmothers and granddaughters sat over hot chocolates and scones; elderly bankers shared a plate of figs—Schuckert’s had just the right sort of connections to keep its pantries full, no matter what the rest of Berlin might be suffering through; and young women, whose husbands would one day be eating those figs, sat with each other and their packages from KaDeWe or Tietz, or wherever else they had spent the day. One or two were tactless enough to stare at Lina as she passed by, but the rest took no notice. It had never occurred to Hoffner: people could think what they liked. But if Lina was bothered by their looks, she showed none of it. She walked past them with an air of seamless ease. Hoffner felt mildly foolish for having put her through it.

  They reached the table and sat. Hoffner helped her out of her coat, and she let the collar fall back across the chair. He noticed that the rain had gotten through to her dress. The wet fabric clung tightly to her thighs. They were long and wonderfully slim, and the cloth was nestling deep within the perfect triangle between them. Without acknowledging his stare, Lina aired out the skirt of her dress and then placed her napkin on her lap. Hoffner looked up to see her peering over at him with a knowing smile. He liked the feeling of having been caught. “Let’s find a waiter,” he said, and turned to the room.

  A man approached from the other direction; Hoffner failed to see him.

  “Et voil,” said Lina. Hoffner turned to see a waiter holding out two menus. Lina was not one to wait. She said ecstatically, “I’m going to have a hot chocolate.”

  Hoffner declined his menu, as well. “Coffee for me.”

  The man was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

  Lina leaned in closer and spoke in a soft, low whisper. “He’s asked me to the cinema twice. Must be strange to take my order, don’t you think?”

  Hoffner felt the excitement in her breath, as if telling him had somehow made her more attractive: it had, of course. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. “Must be.” It was Kvatsch’s pack, a nice impressive brand. Hoffner lit one up. “Well, this was lucky,” he said.

  “Yes. It was.” She continued to stare at him.

  There was something thrilling in not knowing if he was being overmatched. Hoffner said, “I was meaning to send you a note about Hans, but I didn’t have your address.”

  “No. You wouldn’t have.”

  “Just in case you were wondering where he might have gotten to.”

  “Just in case.”

  Hoffner looked at the girl. He liked the way her eyes widened almost imperceptibly each time she spoke. He liked the slenderness of her shoulders, and the smallness of her breasts. Most of all, he liked how she continued to bait him. “He’s out of the country for a day or two,” he said. “On an investigation.”

  “How very exciting for him.”

  Hoffner took a drag on his cigarette; he was enjoying this more than she knew, or, perhaps, as much as she was permitting. He had yet to figure out which.

  “In Bruges,” she said. “Yes. Hans managed to get a note to my flat before he left. But thank you for thinking of me, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.”

  “Not at all, Frulein.” The drinks arrived.

  Lina spooned up a dollop of the cream with her little finger and slipped it into her mouth. There was nothing sexual in it; she was simply too impatient to reach for her spoon. Her eyes slowly closed. “Heaven,” she said with delight. The waiter was gone by the time she opened them, and she peered over at Hoffner. He marveled at how her smile gave nothing away. She slid the cup toward him. “Have some. Please.”

  Hoffner took his spoon and sampled the cream. He nodded. “Very nice.”

  She took her own spoon and, leaning toward the cup, delicately dug through for some of the chocolate. Hoffner watched as she deftly tried to bring the liquid up along the side of the cup so as not to disturb the cream. She seemed so intent on the task. It was then that he noticed the half-blackened nail on her right hand; she had bruised it somehow, most likely from a slamming door, or a fall on the ice. She had done nothing to hide it. Hoffner kept his eyes on the nail as she raised the spoon to her lips. She blew gently, then sipped it down. Wincing a moment at the heat, she quickly recovered and went in for a second spoonful.

  Hoffner said, “It’s best if you mix it with the cream. Less bitter.”

  Lina kept her eyes on the spoon and cup. “I like it this way,” she said. “At least at the start.” Hoffner took a sip of the coffee. It was the first good cup he had had in weeks. Lina looked over at him and said, “Would you like my address?”

  It was rare for Hoffner to be caught out like this, but here it was. He felt something sharp run through his chest. It moved up to his throat and made his mouth suddenly dry. He hadn’t felt it in years. It was anticipation. He slowly placed his coffee back on the table. Out of necessity, he said, “Is that such a good idea, Frulein?”

  She spoke with certainty: “You came to find me. Didn’t you?”

  When he had no choice but to answer, Hoffner said, “I’ve been wondering if you make enough to survive, selling flowers and matches.”

  For the first time, he saw the smallest slip in her otherwise perfect stare. Just as quickly, she recovered. “Have you?” She placed the spoon in the cup and began to fold the cream into the chocolate. “I do all right. I’ve started modeling. For an artist.”

  Hoffner watched as the liquid became silky brown. Lina was merciless
with even the smallest floating fleck of cream. She seemed to take a wicked pleasure in drowning each of them to oblivion.

  “How very exciting for you,” he said. He retrieved his cigarette, took a few puffs, and crushed it out. Digging the last of the butt into the ashtray, he said, “Yes.” He let go of the cigarette and looked at her. “I did.”

  Again, her cheeks flushed, although she was too good to let it take hold. She stopped mixing and placed the spoon to the side. “I’m glad.” Taking her cup in both hands, she brought it up to her lips. She was about to take a sip, when she stopped and peered over at him. “I wouldn’t want anything to change with me and Hans,” she said. “A chance to leave my basket behind. You understand that.” She took the sip.

  Hoffner suddenly remembered how young she really was. He doubted Lina realized it, but in that moment she had shown herself at her most vulnerable. She might just as well have said, “I’m not expecting anything, so don’t feel you have to give anything.” Or, perhaps, it was just what he had wanted to hear.

  Hoffner watched as she placed the cup on the table. He slowly reached over for her hand. It might have been an awkward movement, but the two came together too easily, and he ran his thumb gently over her palm. Just as easily, he let go. “Thank you for the lovely time, Frulein Lina.” He picked up the pack of cigarettes and placed them in his pocket.

  “Yes,” she said warmly. She then said, “Kremmener Strasse. Number five.”

  Hoffner waited a moment. He nodded and, somewhere, he thought he heard Victor Knig laughing. He found a few coins in his pocket and placed them on the table. He then took his hat and stood. “A pleasure, Frulein.”

  “As always, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.”

  Hoffner tipped his brow and headed for the door.

  Back at the Alex, the security desk was under frontal assault from a group of irate Hausfrauen when Hoffner walked in: something to do with a pickpocket, from what he could make out. Hoffner decided to avoid the commotion and instead started for the wire room, when the duty officer put up a hand and shouted over:

  “Kriminal-Kommissar.” Hoffner stopped. “Your Sascha’s been looking for you.”

  Hoffner was momentarily confused. Why would his son have come to the Alex? “Sascha’s been by?” he said. Hoffner immediately thought of Georgi.

  The man had no time for games. “Yes. Sascha. He’s asked for you twice.” Before Hoffner could answer, the women were once again on the attack.

  Only then did Hoffner realize which Sascha the man had been referring to: “Sascha the runner,” Hoffner said aloud to no one in particular. He shook his head. He needed to concentrate, no matter what might, or might not, be happening later tonight: Knig’s laughter seemed to be growing louder by the minute. Hoffner stepped through to the courtyard.

  Kripo Sascha was sitting on the ground, reading outside the wire room, when Hoffner pushed through and into the corridor. At once the boy stood. He took a folded sheet from inside the book and held it out to Hoffner.

  Hoffner took the note and said, “So, when did it come in?”

  “Just over an hour ago, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.” The boy spoke with great precision.

  “And no one else has seen it?”

  Sascha looked almost hurt by the question. “No, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar. No one.”

  “Good.” Hoffner crooked his head to the side so as to take a look at the book in the boy’s hand. The Count of Monte Cristo. Hoffner was liking this boy more and more. “Planning an escape,” Hoffner said with a smile.

  For the first time, Sascha let his shoulders drop. He smiled, and shook his head. “No, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.”

  Hoffner pulled a coin from his pocket and, taking Sascha’s hand, placed it in the boy’s open palm. “Our secret.” Before Sascha could say a word, Hoffner was nodding him down the corridor.

  Hoffner’s mood changed the moment he started reading:

  WOUTERS DEAD STOP HANGED HIMSELF TWO DAYS AGO STOP STRANGE BEHAVIOR AS OF FIVE MONTHS AGO STOP NO BATHING CUTTING HAIR STOP PUT IN ISOLATION THREE MONTHS AGO STOP AWAIT INSTRUCTIONS STOP

  Hoffner read the note several times to make sure he had missed nothing. “No bathing, cutting hair.” He stepped into the wire room.

  The man behind the desk was just finishing off a wire. “Yes, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar,” he said without looking up. “You’ve something for me to send?”

  “A reply,” said Hoffner; he handed the original to the man.

  The man examined it. “To Bruges?”

  “Yes.”

  The man took out a pen and paper. “Go ahead.”

  “Two words,” said Hoffner. “‘Shave him.’”

  THREE

  SIX

  Paul Wouters had been destined for Sint-Walburga as early as 1898. His mother, having no way to support or handle the already troubling three-year-old, had given him over to her dead husband’s mother, Anne, to raise. It was, perhaps, not the wisest choice given that the recently deceased Jacob Wouters had committed suicide after a short life in which he had been unable to reach beyond the traumas of his own childhood with Anne. That his bride decided to take her own life three weeks after Jacob’s death pretty well set the table for young Paul.

  Anne Wouters was a woman of uncommon cruelty. Whatever love she might have felt for her son, Jacob—and there really was none to speak of—had long since dried up by the time her grandson, Paul, was thrust into her life. By then, she had come to believe that the wretchedness of her existence granted her the right to compound that of the boy. Not that she was aware of her malevolence—the most accomplished never are—but she could never have denied the singular pleasure she took at seeing him, hour after hour, slouched over a bobbin and thread. To her mind, it was justice at its most pure.

  Before he was five, Paul was taught the art of lace-making; it was the only skill Anne knew, and would have made for an ideal living, filled with camaraderie and pride, had Anne not given birth to Jacob out of wedlock. At the time, there had been rumors of rape—even Anne had let herself believe them for a while—but the truth was that she had simply been foolish. And so went her life: her sin kept her forever from the inner circles; her skill kept her alive. For, whatever else she might have been, Anne Wouters was, without question, a virtuoso with lace. Everyone in Bruges knew it, and it was why the most intricate patterns always found their way to her tiny attic room at the Meckel Godshuizen, one of the more decrepit almshouses in town. At night, and on the sly, women—unable to match her artistry at the mills—would bring their pieces to her and pay her a tenth of what she deserved, all the while telling her that she was damned lucky to be getting any work at all. She would keep her eyes lowered, her head bowed, as they described the meshes they themselves could never achieve, and her teeth would grow sharp from the silent grinding.

  When Paul was old enough to handle the pins himself, she put him to work, and for fifteen hours a day they sat in silence, manipulating the thread. He was unusually small, and though his fingers were nimble, they were often overmatched by the tools. Each missed stroke earned him a deep scraping of those tiny hands with a sharp bristle: there were mornings when the blood would still be tacky on his knuckles as he got back to work. Worse was when she fell short of her quota; then she would tie him to a chair and beat him with a strop. She liked the upper back. It was where the bone was closest to the skin.

  Paul’s future life could easily have been attributed to the torture of his eight years with Anne. His choice that one night, when he had grown just tall enough to wrest the bristle from her hand and strike it repeatedly into her throat until her neck snapped and the blood spilled out in a pulsating streamlet, would have seemed the reasonable response to an unbearable situation were it not for the fact that Paul Wouters was not a victim of his circumstances. No doctor was needed to explain his horrifying condition. No, the real reason for his behavior was that Paul had been psychotic from his very inception: he had simply needed time to grow into it. Some are born evil,
and Paul Wouters was one of the lucky few whose madness was no by-product of his setting. His father, Jacob, had learned to embrace his self-loathing; his mother had eventually succumbed to her self-pity; even his grandmother Anne could look to the world’s viciousness for her own. But Paul needed none of that. He felt no vindication, no joy in his killing. He killed because he could.

  He was not, however, the man now lying naked on a slab at Sint-Walburga. In all fairness to the attendants, they had shaved part of the body yesterday afternoon: the top bit of his skull, so that the doctors could cut through and retrieve the brain. The doctors had been certain that the cause of Wouters’s mania would appear to them in the guise of some malformed lobe or conduit. The brain, however—now in a jar of formaldehyde on the shelf—had proved to be in perfect condition. The chief neurologist’s only response had been to utter the words “How very odd,” over and over again.

  Yesterday’s disappointment, however, paled in comparison with this evening’s shock. Van Acker stared in disbelief as the thick locks of hair fell to the floor and revealed a face not at all similar to that of Paul Wouters. The shape and coloring of the narrow little body, on the other hand, were close enough to the contours van Acker remembered.

  “You’re sure?” said Fichte, keeping his handkerchief over his nose as the attendants continued to scissor through the hair.

  Van Acker shot him a frustrated, if tired, glance. “Yes, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar. I’m sure.”

  Wisely, Fichte chose not to answer.

  Van Acker turned to the gathering of officials who had accompanied the two policemen to the asylum’s laboratory; he knew he was dealing with idiots. He spoke in French: “You mean to tell me that none of you saw an iota of difference in the man’s appearance, his attitude, his behavior?” Fichte might not have understood a word, but he knew that van Acker was taking his frustrations out on the people who could least help him. Worse, the doctors actually seemed to be pleased to have discovered that they had been dealing with the wrong brain: still hope for the lobe theory, after all. “That seems almost impossible to me,” van Acker continued. “Who were the morons who were supposed to be looking after him?”