Rosa

by Jonathan Rabb

  The train took a sudden jolt, and Lina opened her eyes. She had been asleep for the last two hours. For a moment she seemed unsure where she was.

  “Another twenty minutes,” said Hoffner. She stared vacantly at him and then peered out the window as the first lights of Berlin began to appear. She placed her head on his shoulder and went back to sleep.

  The news from Munich had brought out a few units of the Guard Fusiliers Regiment, who now patrolled Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse station; the soldiers, however, were doing their best not to cause any alarm as they went about their task.

  Sascha stood by one of the station kiosks. He peered down at the evening edition of the Tageblatt and read with passing interest of the day’s events:

  Early reports of communist radicals storming the Bavarian Landtag building—followed by equally unreliable stories of a monarchist counterrevolution—had all finally sifted down to one Count Anton Arco-Valley, a young law student with nationalist political leanings who, according to authorities, had acted entirely on his own. Odder still were the rumors that Arco-Valley was of Jewish descent; no one knew what to make of that. Why shoot one of his own? Though rattled, the Social Democrats had reassured everyone that all was well—after all, Eisner had been planning to offer his resignation this very afternoon anyway—and had quickly installed an interim government without so much as a peep of resistance from the opposition.

  Smoke and shadows, thought Sascha as he read: some lunatic finds himself a pistol and the entire country has to hold its breath for a few hours. Shame they hadn’t shot him in the process.

  Sascha checked his watch for a third time. He then smoothed back his hair. He was wearing his school jacket, this time with the long pants, and had brought a small bouquet of flowers, which he held awkwardly in his hand. Kroll had been good enough to let him meet her on his own. It was meant to be a surprise. Sascha was hoping Geli would find it as marvelous as he did.

  Hoffner gently nudged Lina awake. Berlin was slowing all around them, the station just the other side of the river and strangely less formidable after dark. He retrieved their bags and headed out into the corridor. She was behind him, one of her hands playfully lodged in his coat pocket: they had left last night behind them. It would find them soon enough, but Hoffner was guessing that they could manage another few weeks convincing themselves that it wouldn’t. The train pulled in, and Lina stepped down to the platform. Ups and downs were a bit tougher on his ribs, and Hoffner winced as he joined her. For whatever reason—her sense of invincibility growing by the minute, he thought—she placed her hand on his cheek and kissed him. Bags in hand, Hoffner had no choice but to submit.

  Sascha moved down the platform, trying to pick her out among the stream of passengers. He felt a wonderful burning in his throat and chest, and found it almost impossible not to smile. He thought he saw her among a swarm of hats and gloves, but the girl there was not nearly pretty enough. He continued to move upstream until he caught sight of something familiar though oddly not: he stopped. It took him another moment to fully process what he was seeing. He felt a strange compression in his head, a numbness where the burning had been. He stood there, unable to turn away. Bodies jostled past him, a station announcement crackled above, but all he could do was to stare at his father and this girl and feel the cold rush of an untapped violence.

  Hoffner sensed it before he saw it. He opened his eyes and stared back through the flow of bodies. He must have tensed, because Lina instantly turned to follow his gaze.

  There was a dreamlike quality to the next few moments, Hoffner placing the bags on the platform, stepping past her, moving toward the boy. He could see himself doing all of it, but he felt none of it. Lina knew to stay where she was.

  Hoffner drew up and said, “Alexander.” The word carried no weight at all, the sound of his own voice almost foreign to him. Hoffner tried again, but all he could manage was a long breath out as Sascha stood unnervingly still. Finally Hoffner said, “This is . . .” His words petered out. Is what? he thought. There was no way to see it for anything other than what it was. Hoffner was again struck by his own impotence.

  “This is what you are, Father,” said Sascha with quiet hatred.

  Hoffner heard the certainty in the tone, the betrayal more wrenching given the last few weeks of goodwill between them. Hoffner’s crime had now stripped away any boundaries: Sascha could accuse without any thought of reprisal. The boy wanted to hear his hatred justified, and Hoffner had no reason to deny him that. “Yes,” said Hoffner. “I suppose it is.”

  Confirmation only made things worse. The truth brought Sascha to the edge. His breathing grew forced, as if he might strike his father.

  Hoffner tried to calm him. “Look, Sascha—”

  It was too late. Sascha glanced over at Lina. He felt shamed to be seen by her: she had no right to know him. Uncoiling his rage, Sascha looked back at his father and thrust the flowers into his chest. “Why don’t you give them to her?” he said. Hoffner tried to answer, but Sascha pushed past him and ran into the crowd. There was a moment when Hoffner thought to go after the boy, but he had no idea what he was supposed to do if and when he caught up with him. This was a consequence that, perhaps for the first time, he had no hope of meeting.

  Hoffner looked back for Lina. She was gone as well, along with her case, leaving his off by itself. Hoffner’s isolation had never felt so stark.

  He stood there for several minutes until a voice broke through. “Herr Hoffner?”

  Hoffner turned around and saw a pretty face with bright eyes peering up at him. He needed a moment to recall the girl. It was only then that he even considered why Sascha had been here. Coincidence and proximity, he thought: the cosmos was having a go of it tonight. He did his best with a kind smile. “Frulein Geli,” he said. “What a delight to see you again.”

  She smiled and said hopefully, “I thought I might have seen Alexander, mein Herr?”

  “Really?” said Hoffner, thinking as he spoke. “I don’t think so,” he said lightly. “He asked me to meet you, and to make sure you got these.” Hoffner handed her the bruised flowers.

  Her eyes lit up. “Oh, really! Will I be seeing him tonight, mein Herr?”

  Hoffner picked up her case and said, “Fathers never get the full details, Frulein. I’m simply to bring you to Herr Kroll’s, though I imagine they’re preparing something quite wonderful for you.”

  Hoffner had given her hope; it was the least he could do for the boy.

  Sascha ran until his lungs gave out. He steadied himself against a wall and hunched over. Only now did he think of Geli waiting for him on the platform, a double anguish to add to his rage. It was too late to go back for her now. He felt queasy and cursed his father: ruined even that, didn’t you? He spat with disgust just as a tram was pulling up across the road. Sascha glanced over and read the route heading: Kreuzberg. He took it as a sign.

  Inside, he drew stares from the other passengers as he paced at the back; he didn’t care: he needed to keep himself moving. At Friesen Strasse he leapt out and continued running past the porter and across the courtyard, up the four flights to the flat, only stopping for breath when he had shut the door behind him. He heard his mother in the kitchen, and moved down the hall toward her.

  “Nikolai?” she called. “Is that you?”

  She was washing something in the sink when he stepped into the room. He realized that his shirt was damp through. Sascha rubbed an arm across his mouth to wipe away the sweat, and Martha turned around.

  She looked pleased if a bit confused to see him. “Alexander?” she said. “I thought you were meeting Geli.” It took her a moment to recognize the state he was in. “What’s the matter?” she asked uneasily. Sascha was still catching his breath. He took off his coat and threw it on the chair. “You’re soaked through. What is it?”

  Sascha was working on impulse now: nothing mattered beyond the telling. He said, “Sit down, Mother,” as he moved back and forth across the floor. She
took a few steps toward him, but he put up a hand. “Please, Mother,” he said more insistently. “Just sit down.”

  She had never seen him like this; Martha did as he asked.

  Sascha continued to move as he spoke. “I saw Father,” he said. “At the station. Just now.”

  It was the way Sascha said it, the way his eyes darted about, that told Martha exactly what the boy had seen. She listened, but the details hardly mattered. There was of course the humiliation of hearing it all from her son, but she had long ago refused self-pity: pity of any kind placed the fault with her, and she had no interest in that; it had taken her years to understand it. Sascha’s initiation, however, had come less than an hour ago. What pain she felt was for the weight of his new-won burden.

  He stopped talking. Instinct told her to go to him, but she knew comfort would only compound his agitation. He needed her to share in his outrage, and she had none to give. With no other recourse, she stood and moved back to the sink. She began to fish through the water for the shirt she had been washing.

  For the first time in minutes, Sascha stopped moving. He said, “Have you been listening to what I’ve been saying, Mother?” Martha heard the stifled rage. She nodded and brought the soap to the cloth. “And you have nothing to say?”

  She continued to stare down into the water. “I’m sorry you had to see it.”

  He stared at her incredulously. “I tell you what he’s done, and you go back to cleaning his shirts? Are you that pathetic?”

  She turned to him with what anger she had. “You want me to hate him as much as you do, but I can’t do that. I know what he is, Sascha, what he does, and why he does it, probably better than he does himself. And I am sorry for all of that, but I won’t let you ask me to be pitiable for him. I stay with him because I choose to stay with him no matter what he is. And not out of sacrifice or duty or fear. Hating him would only make me wretched, and that is something I will not do. Not even for you.”

  For Sascha, hers was a betrayal more devastating than his father’s. He had come to even the slate, to find in her a confirmation for his own feelings, but she was letting it all go. It was as if his father were laughing at him. Everything Sascha had wanted at the station now flew back. He stepped over and took her wrists and held them furiously. He didn’t see the shock in her eyes as he shouted, “Why do you say that? Why can’t you see what he is? Why?” She said nothing and he struck her across the face and she fell to the ground.

  Sascha stared at his mother in utter disbelief. His sense of shame was immediate. He went to reach for her, but he saw his brother standing by the door, petrified. Sascha’s head and hands began to shake. He had no idea what he was supposed to do. He raced past Georgi and out of the flat.

  It was twenty minutes later when Hoffner found them in the kitchen. Georgi was rocking on her lap. Before he could ask, Martha said, “He’s been home and gone. He left his coat.”

  Hoffner saw the bruise on her cheek. “What did he say?”

  She gazed up at him; there was no feeling for him in her eyes. “What do you think he said, Nicki?”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  Martha pulled Georgi closer into her; the boy was oblivious of the conversation. “I told him that we all make choices, some better, some worse. And we live with them.”

  Hoffner had never heard her speak like this. “You should have told him what he wanted to hear.”

  “And what was that?” she said coldly. She needed to hear it from him.

  Hoffner waited and then said, “That I’m a son of bitch, and that I deserve his hatred.”

  She continued to stare up at him. “You’ll have to do that on your own,” she said. She waited, then said, “You need to go, Nicki. Come back when you want, but not now.” She stood, lifting Georgi into her arms. She started to go but stopped herself. “He saw him do this,” she said. “That’s something else you’ll have to take care of on your own.” She walked past him and into the hall.

  Hoffner had nowhere else to go but the Alex. He tried to look over the files again, but his mind was incapable of focus; he found himself wandering the corridors of the third floor. A few lights were on, but it was after eleven and Fichte was long gone, not that finding Fichte was what he was after. Still, he moved toward the boy’s office.

  In typical fashion, Fichte had left the door open. Hoffner stepped inside, to find a desk, a chair, and a few books scattered about. He wondered how much time Fichte was actually spending down here these days. Hoffner turned on the light and saw a map of Berlin tacked onto the far wall. It was untouched.

  He was about to flip through one of the books when he heard something at the far end of the hall. Hoffner stepped out of the office and saw a light spilling from Groener’s office. As good a time as any, he thought. Or maybe he just needed the distraction. Hoffner flicked off Fichte’s light and made his way down the corridor. He made sure he was alone before knocking.

  Groener was at his desk when Hoffner pushed open the door to a look of surprise, then annoyance. “Yes?” Groener said coolly.

  Hoffner stepped inside. “Turns out we have a mutual friend, Herr Detective Sergeant.”

  Groener’s face winced as he shot up and passed Hoffner on his way to the door. Groener made a quick scan of the corridor and then shut the door. He took Hoffner by the arm and brought him closer to the desk. “You idiot.” Groener spoke in a hushed voice; whispering only seemed to intensify the stench. “Of course we have a mutual friend. You don’t leave the door open to talk about him, now do you? How much have you had to drink, anyway?”

  It was a fair question, thought Hoffner: one or two at a bar in Kreuzberg, another few in his office. He had hoped to be feeling more of their effect by now, but nothing, it seemed, was going to make tonight any easier. He said, “So how long have you known him?” He took a seat.

  Groener was back behind his desk. “Long enough.” He was still the sour little man even in the company of a fellow conspirator.

  Hoffner searched his pockets for a cigarette. “Who’s he protecting?” Groener needed more of an explanation. “The third prisoner,” said Hoffner. “At the Eden.” Hoffner found a stray and lit up. “The night Liebknecht and Luxemburg were killed.”

  Groener was still trying to follow. He said hesitantly, “I don’t know. He never told me about that.”

  Jogiches had been careful here: Groener was only a source, not a confidant. The interview continued: “The Ascomycete 4, the directors of Ganz-Neurath, Wouters’s replacement—you managed to track all that down by yourself, did you, Groener?” Groener nodded through each item on the list. “And you know where they’re keeping Luxemburg?” This time, Groener remained silent. “Well, we can’t have everything, can we?” Hoffner continued. “Still, more to you than meets the eye, isn’t there?” Hoffner tapped out his cigarette. “So, why was he having you get in touch with Kvatsch?”

  “Who?”

  “Kvatsch,” Hoffner repeated more clearly. “The reporter from the BZ. Why all the clandestine meetings?”

  It wasn’t the pronunciation that had confused Groener. He continued to stare across the desk before slowly shaking his head. “I know no Kvatsch.”

  Hoffner knew better. “You’ve been having lunch with him twice a week for the past—” Hoffner stopped; his mind began to sift through a thousand images. Idiot, he suddenly thought. Of course.

  Groener had never met Kvatsch. There had been no meetings, no list to compile.

  Little Franz had been the leak all along.

  Hoffner’s mind continued to race: the boy’s appearance at the Senefelderplatz site; all the wires back and forth to van Acker; the spate of articles detailing the case while he and Fichte had been freezing their asses off outside the Ochsenhof—Franz had had time to sort through the files without fear of being spotted; the tip-off to Tamshik to be in the pit rooms; and most recently the trumped-up note from K. At least there Franz had shown a little reluctance. Evidently Tamshik and Braun were pa
ying him more than a few pfennigs for his services.

  Hoffner stood and, ignoring Groener, headed for the door. The boy would be upstairs asleep, and Hoffner had questions that needed answering.

  He raced down the corridor and nearly collided with one of the interchangeable sergeants from the duty desk. Hoffner tried to sidestep the man, but the sergeant held his ground.

  “Herr Chief Inspector,” said the young man. Again Hoffner tried to get around him, and again the man held his ground: “I’ve been trying to find you for the last fifteen minutes. I tried your office—”

  “Yes,” Hoffner cut in angrily. “What is it that can’t wait, Herr Sergeant?”

  The man needed a moment to recover. “A body’s been found, Herr Chief Inspector. A woman. With the markings.”

  “What markings?”

  “From the Wouters case.”

  “The what?” Hoffner said in complete disbelief.

  “The markings. On the back.”

  Hoffner tried to clear his head. “You’re sure?” The man nodded. “Where?”

  “Kremmener Strasse.”

  Kremmener . . . An image of Lina flashed into Hoffner’s head and he began to run.

  The cab was still moving as Hoffner opened the door and jumped out. They had cordoned off the street, most of which was eerily quiet. He moved past the barricade and toward a pocket of bright white light that was pouring down from a series of high-wattage arc lamps: it made the milling bodies in the distance look almost ethereal. Hoffner had known which building it would be, the uneven steps, the barren flower boxes. Number 5. The screws in his stomach tightened at the confirmation.

  A group of Schutzis was keeping the small crowd at bay. Everyone had seen enough of Hoffner’s picture in the newspapers to let him through without so much as a glance at his badge. He stepped through the line and saw the lone sergeant who was standing by a single sheet-covered body that lay at the bottom of the stoop.