The Fatherland Files

by volker Kutscher

  The hateful atmosphere so prevalent in those days could be inferred from an editorial. We must sow hatred, Rath read, in the same way that we have learned to hate Germany’s external enemies, so must we now punish its internal enemies with our hatred and scorn. Mediation is impossible; it is only through extremes that Germany can recapture what it was before the war.

  This chauvinistic crowing had its roots in the Empire, and was still fashionable in the Republic, at least in German National and Nazi circles. He had heard it again during the speeches this morning; the same crowing that had cost one brother his life and driven the other from his homeland.

  The secretary returned holding an enormous magnifying glass.

  ‘That should do it. Many thanks,’ Rath said, sitting at the visitor’s table with Cofalka’s folder. Even now the task was no easier. First he had to get used to the handwriting. Soon, however, he was on his way.

  No, Tokala will never live among humans again. Living among humans would signal death, just as it signalled death for his mother. The truth must speak without him. And it will, for Winchinchala will reveal it as she sees fit. She knows the world of humans and how to move within it, Tokala does not.

  Winchinchala must understand him. He cannot go back, never again. They will imprison him, no matter what he says, and being imprisoned is worse, even, than death. Tokala has no other choice but to carry on with his life, alone in his solitude and in his guilt.

  What happened at the little lake cannot be undone. Niyaha Luta, the woman with the red feathers in her dress, is dead, and nothing can bring her back to life. Tokala fled and returned too late; he will never forgive himself for that. If he knew how he could put things right, he would.

  He will never forget how she lay in the shallow water. The wicked man is gone, she is alone again, only her body remains, rocking gently with the waves, eyes looking up at the blue sky, seeing nothing now. Her dress is torn to shreds, between her legs streaks of blood ripple in the water.

  Tokala hears the clatter of a bicycle up in the forest, and crawls back inside his hiding place; he sees a man approach the shore, the same man Niyaha Luta had been expecting – when the wicked man came. He looks as if he has been fighting.

  And then he spies her in the water. He kneels as he reaches her; her corpse. It is as if someone has sapped the life from his knees. He lifts her head out of the water, gently, as if afraid he might hurt her.

  Tokala stays hidden, he doesn’t dare breathe.

  The man takes her head in his lap and strokes it, kneeling in the water as he silently mourns her death. His face has turned to stone.

  A bell rang as the door opened behind him. Rath looked up. Gustav Wengler entered with one of the men from the dignitaries’ table, a fat, moustachioed type suffering from shortness of breath. Wengler spoke animatedly, apparently no longer grieving for his dead brother. When he saw Rath, he blinked in surprise.

  ‘Inspector,’ he said, before the fat man could get a word out. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Rath shoved the papers back inside the folder. ‘I lent the inspector here a magnifying glass,’ the secretary said.

  ‘Then I’ll need it back,’ the editor growled.

  ‘Of course, I’m finished anyway. Many thanks.’ Rath handed the man his magnifying glass and turned towards Wengler. ‘Are you assisting with the article on the plebiscite anniversary?’

  ‘I don’t need any assistance,’ the editor protested. ‘But tomorrow’s edition will naturally include an interview with the chief of the Homeland Service.’

  ‘In that case, gentlemen,’ Rath moved towards the door, ‘keep up the good work.’

  ‘What have you got there?’ Wengler asked, gesturing towards the folder.

  ‘Just a few papers. Hard to read, very small handwriting.’ He opened the door and the bell rang once more.

  ‘Did Maria Cofalka give you those?’ Wengler asked.

  Goddamn it! The man had seen them together, or it had been one of his many informers. Best to brush it aside.

  ‘I don’t wish to take up any more of your time. Goodbye, gentlemen, madam.’ Rath tipped his hat and left the offices of the Treuburger Zeitung, folder wedged under his arm. In the street he turned around. Through the glass door Gustav Wengler eyed him with undisguised suspicion.

  59

  At last they had something to go on. Like all duty officers, Siegbert Wengler had left an emergency contact number with Traffic Police Headquarters. It had been updated four weeks ago, the only indication that his circumstances had changed. It wasn’t a Schöneberg number, but belonged, instead, to a butcher’s near Anhalter Bahnhof, in Kreuzberg.

  Gräf stowed whatever photos of Wengler he could find, commandeered a couple of forensic technicians and made his way over. After yesterday’s disaster, when it became clear that not even Wengler’s brother knew the dead man’s address, he had put in another call to Traffic Police. Whether the strike would gain Böhm’s approval was moot, but at least he could feel better about himself.

  Approval or not, the DCI had failed to provide any additional officers, leaving him to deal with Forensics alone again. For once Lange or Charly would have sufficed, but they were still occupied with the blackmail case from Haus Vaterland. Today they would pass it, along with the two suspects, onto Arthur Nebe and his colleagues in Robbery, who were responsible for extortion under threat of force. It seemed less and less likely that the case was connected with the dead men, but it was good that someone like Nebe, who had solved several homicides in the past, was involved. If there was a link, he’d be the one to find it.

  The butcher’s was in Kleinbeerenstrasse. Despite being close to the Philharmonic, as well as Wilhelmstrasse and the government buildings, the houses became more run-down the further one ventured from Möckernstrasse. Gräf left the ED men in the car and entered to find a red-cheeked woman gazing at him expectantly. The selection in the glass cabinet didn’t inspire much confidence, everything fatty and stringy, bone shards for boiling. Meat for people who couldn’t afford it.

  The woman looked disappointed when she realised he wasn’t intending to buy anything.

  ‘Herr Siegbert Wengler,’ he said, showing her a photo of the deceased without his shako, ‘left your telephone line as his contact number. Can you tell me where he lives?’

  ‘I’d have to ask my husband,’ she said, suspiciously. ‘Who wants to know?’ He placed his identification next to the photo. ‘I’m a colleague of Herr Wengler’s.’

  She studied his identification closely. ‘Are you really a police officer?’

  He took out his disc. ‘Any reason to be suspicious?’

  ‘Herr Wengler said at some point someone might come looking for him. In which case we should say nothing.’

  ‘He was afraid of someone,’ Gräf said, ‘and rightly so. He was murdered.’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘You can rest assured, my colleagues and I are trying to find out who was responsible. Now, will you please tell me where he lived.’

  More than that, the butcher’s wife had a key.

  Wengler’s apartment was located in the same block, albeit in the rear building. She led them across the yard and up two flights of stairs until they stood outside a wooden door. The nameplate was blank, and inside was messy. Judging by the newspapers on the floor, Siegbert Wengler had followed the horses. A pair of trousers and a shirt rested casually over the back of a chair. Without further ado the ED officers set about securing fingerprints.

  Gräf pulled on a pair of gloves to avoid the technicians’ wrath, before examining the desk by the window. The most interesting items were to be found in the enclosed drawer. Three death notices, one from Dortmund, one from Wittenberge, one from Berlin, confirmed Siegbert Wengler’s links to Lamkau, Wawerka and Simoneit.

  He handed the death notices to the ED officers and turned back to the drawer. Something had caught his eye. The plain, black notebook seemed familiar somehow. It wasn’t like those used by CID, but bi
gger and thicker, a real doorstopper. Soon he was staring at columns of figures.

  At that moment he knew where he had seen it before. They had confiscated it from Herbert Lamkau’s office about a week ago. He leafed through and found a pencil mark he’d made himself.

  ‘Over here,’ he said to one of the forensic technicians, who reluctantly obeyed. He handed him the notebook. ‘See if you can get any fingerprints. The more, the merrier.’

  60

  Rath realised he’d had too much to drink after all. Before returning to the celebrations, he’d tried to continue reading the letters in his hotel room but, without the aid of a magnifying glass, it proved impossible. No matter how hard he strained, he could decipher no more than two or three words per sentence.

  He wanted to speak with Maria Cofalka again, but found her neither at the festival site nor during the evening’s final act: a torchlit procession that included a farewell performance from the musical society and climaxed at the marketplace with the lighting of the great fire.

  If what he’d managed to read was true, then the librarian was right: Gustav Wengler’s tale of the wicked Pole who’d murdered an upstanding German girl was built on a lie.

  Outside the Kronprinzen he ran into Karl Rammoser, who was celebrating the evening’s final throes with his teaching colleagues. ‘Maria will be sleeping it off somewhere,’ he said. ‘She can’t take her drink.’ In contrast with the group of teachers, with whom Rath sat quaffing into the long, summer night. The rest of the town, on the other hand, seemed to be asleep as he finally started for home.

  Reaching the Salzburger Hof well past midnight he caught the owner’s daughter off guard with her SA man. The pair stood in an entranceway next to the hotel; Fabeck was talking insistently. Hella spotted the returning guest and smiled. Rath smiled back just as Fabeck turned around. Seeing Rath, Fabeck pulled Hella towards him and gave her a lingering kiss. Rath couldn’t help but grin: all the while Fabeck’s tongue was working in her mouth she gazed unashamedly in his direction. This Hella was no country cousin.

  As he stood in the bathroom brushing his teeth, he thought again of Artur Radlewski, the man who called himself Tokala. The man who had scalped his own father and fled into the woods; who had witnessed a murder and felt guilty for not having prevented it; and who was clearly far removed from the feeble-minded wood sprite everyone took him for.

  For a moment he was tempted to retrieve the letters from the drawer, but without the magnifying glass it was hopeless. Besides, he was far too tired, and too drunk. He undressed, lay down and fell asleep as soon as he hit the mattress, where the Masurian Indian haunted his dreams as a noble savage, appearing almost exactly as he’d pictured Winnetou as a child, an honourable Apache who roamed the Masurian forests until he reached a lake, in whose shallows a dead girl lay.

  Suddenly it was Rath who stood leaning over the lifeless beauty, recognising her face framed by the black hair floating on the surface, and scaring himself half to death. Charly, it was Charly!

  Startled out of sleep, he opened his eyes wide and stared into darkness, heart pounding wildly, breathing heavily as if he, himself, were about to drown. His hand searched for her. He needed a moment to work out where he was. There had been too many grisly stories in the last few days, but . . .what was that? It was pitch black in the room save for a strip of moonlight that had found its way through the crack between the heavy curtains, and nestled on the wall next to his bed.

  He felt for his Walther on the bedside table. Still unable to see anything in the darkness, he was no longer sure the noise was real. But he had sensed it. There was someone in his room. Locating the pistol, he fumbled it out of its holster and released the safety catch. ‘Is anyone there?’ he asked. No response. ‘Who’s there? Show yourself! I’m armed!’

  A white shadow flitted to his bed.

  ‘Sshh.’ A hissing noise, surprisingly loud, and a warm, slender finger on his lips. The strip of moonlight confirmed who it was. Her blonde hair was down, but still wavy from her untied braids. Hella let her finger linger on his lips and drew her face closer. Her big eyes sparkled, gazing at him inscrutably. He could make out her nightshirt and her breasts silhouetted inside.

  She pressed her mouth on his and her tongue blazed a trail through his lips. She smelled of toothpaste and raspberry juice. He realised he had kissed her back without meaning to, and pulled away. ‘Hella, this is . . .’

  Her finger returned to his lips. ‘Sshh,’ she whispered, and before he knew what was happening, she lay next to him in bed, snuggling closer as she slipped under the covers. She knew what to touch, and how to touch it.

  61

  When Rath awakened the next morning, Hella was gone. He had fallen asleep beside her, his night devoid of nightmares, but now her side was empty. It wasn’t even warm. At least she had taken her nightshirt.

  It was years since anything like this had happened. Even during those long months when Charly had been in Paris, he had lived like a monk, in spite of the numerous temptations a city like Berlin afforded a man in his early thirties. On one occasion a lustful grass widow had picked him up in Kakadu and they had kissed wildly in the taxi as they tentatively explored each other’s bodies. In her bedroom, with champagne standing ready in its cooler, he remembered Charly and essayed a last-minute about-turn, leaving the woman to bombard him with abuse as she contemplated another night of solitude.

  It ought to have been a lesson, but now, no sooner than he was engaged to marry, this!

  Idiot. She couldn’t have been older than eighteen or nineteen at most.

  But by God, she was exciting.

  Is that all you can think of?

  He padded into the bathroom and took a shower. The water was so cold he cried out, but he didn’t care about the other residents. Afterwards he felt better, lucid enough to put her out of mind; this girl about whom he knew only that he wasn’t her first man. At least, he thought, he had one over the idiot brownshirt.

  He looked at his watch; time to go. Emerging from the bathroom he felt ravenous, but remembered who would be on waitress duty, and resolved to give the ample Salzburger Hof breakfast a miss.

  Stealing downstairs he found Hermann Rickert, hotel owner and father of Hella, at reception. He issued a brief greeting, wrestling with the image of the man reaching behind for his shotgun – but Rickert was polite as ever, and he emerged onto the street unscathed. Outside, it smelled as if half the town had burned down with the remains of yesterday’s fire still smouldering.

  He strolled to a café next to the newspaper offices, where that morning’s edition hung in a wooden holder by the hall stand. He drank a coffee and ate a ham roll as he skimmed its contents. A special feature was devoted to the celebrations, with a second page recalling the events of twelve years ago. The results of the plebiscite, he read, had been projected onto the wall outside the offices of the Oletzkoer Zeitung, as it was then.

  Each new result that went Germany’s way was greeted with cheers and rejoicing, the tide of enthusiasm reaching its peak when, shortly before midnight, the overall outcome was announced. Only two votes for Poland, the rest for Germany. Minutes later a torchlit procession was underway, and a fire ignited in the marketplace.

  The birth of the Treuburg legend. Now he knew the significance of last night: it was a commemorative burning.

  Gustav Wengler would be delighted. Not only was his speech praised, it was captured in three separate photographs, with advertisements for Mathée Luisenbrand and Treuburger Bärenfang appearing on either side of the double spread. There was no sign of an interview, however. Wengler’s quotes were carried almost verbatim from the speech. No doubt he had placed his manuscript at the editor’s disposal.

  Rath left his money on the table and set off. He bought a foldable pocket magnifying glass from Dytfeld’s bookshop, and headed back across the marketplace. He still had an hour.

  His hotel room was just as he’d left it. He took a deep breath, relieved not to find Hella Ricker
t making up his bed. After hanging out the Do Not Disturb sign, he locked the door, sat at the desk and flipped open the magnifying glass. Opening the drawer to retrieve the folder he realised it was gone. He looked in the second drawer. Nothing.

  Perhaps he had taken it out yesterday after all? He tried to recall, but his memory was blank. Why, oh why, had he drunk so much? Imagine being constantly led astray by a village school teacher.

  Led astray . . .

  That bitch!

  When he came downstairs Hermann Rickert was still at reception, though there was no sign of his daughter. The sight of Rickert dampened his ardour. Had he seen Hella there alone, he’d have put her across his knee!

  ‘Is there something I can do for you, Inspector?’ the hotelier asked politely.

  He cleared his throat and leaned over the counter. ‘Listen . . .a black folder hasn’t been handed in since yesterday evening, has it?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Rickert gave an apologetic shrug.

  ‘It should be in my room somewhere.’

  ‘We have a safe for valuable items . . .’

  ‘It isn’t valuable, just a plain black folder with papers inside.’

  ‘If the papers are of value . . .you should have entrusted them to me.’

  ‘No, there’s nothing of value, at least material value, but it could be evidence!’

  ‘Like I said, we have a safe. You ought to have . . .’

  ‘Where’s your daughter?’

  ‘What are you trying to say? My daughter’s no thief!’ Hermann Rickert was indignant. ‘Besides she hasn’t been in your room today.’

  Rath resolved to keep his counsel. ‘Tell her to keep her eyes peeled for a black folder when she does her rounds. Perhaps it slipped behind a cupboard. Please inform me immediately if you find it.’