by Chris Petit
No mention of the Müller–Goebbels merry-go-round. Or Fegelein. Or Morgen. Or old cases in Fegelein’s file involving stolen furs and the Warsaw black market, whose clients included the Führer’s mistress, about whom no one was supposed to know. Or the porky man in the bomb-plot newsreel who had once stood next to his stepfather for a photograph. Or his stepfather’s name being down on a list for a new government. Or his own recent visits to illegal jazz clubs and not reporting them. Or the list with his father’s name on. Or the dedicated copy of Mein Kampf. Or the young woman in a torn snapshot sitting next to the Führer. Or the mystery of his real father and what would no doubt turn out to be a catastrophic relationship with the Führer. Or his youthful indiscretions with Christoph or the fact of Christoph’s homosexuality or his own feelings for Gerda, whom he suspected was both right and all wrong for him. Or having been followed by two Japanese gentlemen in Budapest, one of whom had later tried to rob his hotel room – what had that been about?
Anyone join that lot up and they would have him strung up before his feet could touch the ground.
What had the Japanese gentlemen been to do with anything? Schlegel asked himself. He had edited them out of the Budapest episode, which he had surreptitiously been putting together in his head ever since in the likelihood of being questioned, desperately searching for Müller’s golden thread that made the lie come alive.
Schlegel had returned from Budapest with random tourist memories, like postcards or snapshots – a shiny chrome-plated bicycle leaning against a movie bulletin board behind a monument; old shop signs in faded Yiddish; a grimy buffet with a few mouldy pieces of cake and a miserable fruit stack of three apples and five plums. He tried to convince himself that if he could string some story around these pathetic, innocuous images he might yet come up with a blameless version to satisfy anyone he told it to. But he feared that everything would be seen to connect in the end and when he was shown the full picture it would be him standing in the middle and what the Americans called the fall guy.
*
Schlegel was aware of Dunkelwert’s entrance. She loitered, watching him. He looked at the mess he had typed and panicked, fearing that Müller was playing them off against each other, and Dunkelwert knew more than she was letting on in terms of what he was withholding from his report. She came over and asked in disbelief, ‘Is that your typing?’
‘No correction fluid left in the stationery cupboard,’ he said, ripping the sheet from the machine and throwing it away before she could start reading it.
‘Your report?’ she asked.
He said he needed more time. She told him he had until Sunday to produce a full one, putting heavy emphasis on ‘full’. ‘No excuses,’ she said.
Schlegel felt the room quieten as everyone watched. Just then his telephone rang. Dunkelwert snatched it before he could answer. She held out the receiver looking almost gleeful. ‘Huber. For you.’
With Dunkelwert showing no sign of going away, Schlegel didn’t know whether to take the call or tell Huber he would ring back. He accepted the receiver.
‘Yes, hello,’ said Huber and he was reminded how good her telephone voice was.
It occurred to him her real reason for calling was to check he was who he had said he was.
Dunkelwert watched, suspicious.
Huber said there existed a Munich Hotel and Restaurant Association. She had spoken to it about Herr Zehnter and the woman there remembered him because he had been on the association’s committee.
‘She told me he sadly passed soon after he was taken away.’
‘What, just died?’
‘Of heart failure.’
‘And the official reason for his arrest?’
‘Tax evasion, according to her, which was a shock because he had a reputation for being a scrupulous bookkeeper.’
Schlegel sensed there was more but he was too aware of Dunkelwert listening. He rang off and Dunkelwert asked, ‘Who is Huber?’
‘No one important,’ Schlegel said and made up a story about it being an old case in CID financial crime which he was being asked about.
‘Tax evasion.’
‘And heart failure,’ Dunkelwert added.
Schlegel sensed she had already heard too much.
He caught the glint of malice in her eye as he walked out, aware of her watching his departing back.
Outside, Schlegel stood on the pavement, momentarily overwhelmed. The only one he knew with access to the past was Christoph, who was in the occasionally shady business of appropriation. So he called Christoph, who sounded cautious, wanting to know what it was concerning.
‘The family matter we discussed.’ Schlegel was aware of how stilted he sounded but he knew enough not to volunteer more information over the telephone, with so many busy ears listening in. He suspected Christoph was wary too and wondered whether he was about to be given the brush-off when Christoph said he had twenty minutes if Schlegel came now.
*
‘Fredi Huber?’ asked Christoph. ‘What on earth do you want to know about him?’
‘His name came up,’
‘The man was notorious.’ Schlegel looked at Christoph, who continued, ‘For hounding the Führer. The newspaper he worked for even put a mock-up on the cover showing the Führer in wedding clothes with a Negress bride.’
In the old days they would have laughed at that.
‘Anything that says Fredi Huber knew your father?’ Christoph asked.
Schlegel said Huber’s name had come up by chance and he knew the man’s daughter, slightly.
‘I wouldn’t trust her,’ said Christoph.
‘Do you know her?’ asked Schlegel, surprised.
‘By reputation,’ said Christoph. ‘She hangs around the art scene and some think she’s reporting back, but they say that about everyone, so what do I know?’ He paused thoughtfully then said, ‘With regard to Fredi, I may be able to help you and you may be able to help me. The past is becoming quite collectible again. Old newspapers. Memorabilia. Rare items. Posters. Flyers. The more disposable it once was the more desirable now. Rare editions too, such as your father’s copy of the Führer book.’
‘Is Fredi Huber collectible?’
‘As an alternative voice, shall we say. A lot of respectable buyers are mad for the past.’
‘So Fredi Huber becomes collectable as an example of previous depravity?’
‘Exactly.’
‘What do you propose?’
‘There’s this man—’
‘It sounds like the start of a joke.’
‘You probably won’t thank me.’
The man in question was a dealer operating out of a falling-down house in Kreuzberg, stuffed full of rubbish he claimed was priceless.
‘Everyone knows him as Rösti, don’t ask me why. Ninety percent of what he offers is worthless. He’ll try and sell you a used piece of toilet paper, claiming Göring wiped his arse with it. Then once in a while he comes up with gold.’
Rarity had its own value, Christoph said. The fact of something being not available put a price on it. ‘Who said, “Yes to decency and morality in family and state! I consign to the flames the writings of Heinrich Mann, Ernst Glaeser, Erich Kästner”?’
‘Doctor Goebbels.’
‘Quite. Kästner has since made his peace with the authorities but his books were burned, so if I were to offer an original edition of Going to the Dogs, several collectors would be interested; and if such an edition was in mint condition and signed by Kästner, or a dedicated copy inscribed to someone famous, it would be worth a considerable amount.’
‘And Rösti?’
‘Strangely enough, he has had several such copies available over the last months. Top of the range. Signed and dedicated. Coincidentally the recipients have all gone away, so, for instance, Eric Pommer isn’t around to dispute the authenticity of his dedication.’
‘Pommer?’
Christoph sighed at Schlegel’s ignorance.
‘Produced a
lot of big early movies.’
‘Are the dedications forgeries?’
‘Either Rösti has come across a cache of books and is embellishing them, or the esteemed Kästner is selling off his own private copies suitably inscribed to make a bit on the side. The point is, several collectors have been assembling whole libraries from surviving copies of books that were burned. There’s no end to it. Foreign editions. English editions.’
‘You asked if I can help.’
‘For some time now, Rösti has been trying to interest me in a package. It includes a typed copy of one of the Führer’s earliest speeches. Probably authentic. Various Führer signatures and sketches, including napkin doodles. The actual pistol used to kill the traitor Ernst Röhm in 1934, with independent verification from the man whose gun it was. And all this a prelude to what Rösti calls the “hot stuff ”, which he will reveal only in person.’
‘Why would anyone be interested?’
Christoph snorted. ‘It’s like the dance of the seven veils.’ He crooked his finger and gestured with a beckoning motion. ‘Come hither! That’s how he works, only to reveal a fat nothing. I can contact him to say you are coming. See what’s on offer. Don’t buy anything. Say you have to report back. Appear enthusiastic. Quiz him about the Röhm item and suggest that’s what interests me. He will play hard to get about the secret stuff but insist on a couple of examples as bona fides. As for yourself, tell him I am interested in anything concerning Fredi Huber. He is bound to have something. What is it you are after, exactly?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You always knew what you didn’t want.’ Christoph half smiled. ‘In that case offer Rösti something to get him on your side. If he doesn’t know about Anton Schlegel he will make it his business to find out.’
‘You mean show him the Mein Kampf.’
‘Bring it up at the end. Act a bit coy.’
‘He’ll ask why I am not offering it to you.’
‘Say you want a second opinion. Give me a time and I’ll tell Rösti you will be there.’
Christoph further instructed Schlegel on how to handle Rösti then held out his hand to shake. It was slightly moist. Schlegel realised Christoph was nervous. He found it odd shaking hands, as it had never been a habit between them. The gesture seemed cool and rather dismissive, undoing Schlegel’s impression of reconciliation, leaving him thrown again.
*
Christoph lived off Savignyplatz. Schlegel was in no hurry to return to work. He bought a newspaper from a kiosk and waited for a bus in Kantstrasse, gave up and sat on a bench in the small park and read the paper. The obituary section reminded him of the dead theatrical agent mentioned by Stoffel: the man was the subject of an insultingly terse entry, mentioning a life’s service to the entertainment industry. Whether his death was assisted or unaided was beside the point now as the obituary blamed ‘a short illness’. Contracted in the time it took him to fall, Schlegel thought grimly. He presumed it must be the same man Stoffel had told him about, as it seemed unlikely two such agents would die at once.
Schlegel walked to the Zoo Station telephone rank and looked up the agent in the book. He rang the number, curious to know if anyone would answer. A woman eventually did, her voice tremulous. He supposed her a secretary sitting in view of the window through which her employer had been defenestrated.
She sounded terrified when he said who he was, so much so that he wondered what she knew. He told her not to go anywhere, he would come straight over. He suspected he failed to reassure her by saying his enquiry was only a matter of routine. The trip would probably turn out to be a waste of time but it gave him an excuse to avoid the office.
The theatrical agency was on the fifth floor of a private block off Alte Jakob Strasse down towards Belle Alliance Platz. An elevator had an ‘out of order’ sign. The standard red sisal stair runner was the first mark of a typical, more well-to-do Berlin apartment, but the impression of shabbiness grew as Schlegel climbed. One of the back windows between floors had been blown out and boarded over. The push-button timer lights for the landing no longer worked after the third floor.
The woman took her time coming to the door.
For a moment everything was quiet. The noise of street traffic died. No birdsong. Only the quivering light coming through a high back window. Schlegel heard footsteps on parquet flooring.
He was confronted by a rail-thin woman of indeterminate age. The hair was dyed a garish chestnut, grown out to leave a grey run like a landing strip across the top of her head. Although it was still warm, she looked cold and as Schlegel stepped inside he felt the chill of something more than lack of sunlight. A corridor stretched ahead. Posters of films and theatrical productions lined the walls. The office was immediately to the left.
Her name was Frau Busl. Busl was the name of the agency too so Schlegel asked if she was the wife.
‘Widow,’ he corrected himself.
‘Sister,’ she said. ‘My brother never married.’
A theatrical man, thought Schlegel.
Whether Frau Busl shook or shivered he couldn’t tell, but she trembled slightly and held one hand clasped in front of the other to stop it shaking.
She appeared alarmed by Schlegel’s white hair.
His eyes were drawn to the window. Big enough to chuck someone out of without any trouble. The atmosphere in the room felt spooked.
Two desks both placed sideways – one behind the door, the other down by the window. A couple of reading chairs. Reference books on shelves. Framed photographs on the wall. More posters. What looked like some awards. A chaise longue.
‘The casting couch,’ said Frau Busl. Schlegel hadn’t been expecting a sense of humour from such a mouse.
His image of Busl was of someone corpulent and jolly, conforming to what he thought a convivial, social man should look like. Instead the many photographs on the walls showed an inconspicuous, dapper little fellow, wearing large spectacles, who looked more like an accountant; if Gestapo Müller were ever looking for a stand-in then Busl was his man. As an agent, his social reach appeared considerable. Many photographs showed him with Dr Goebbels – perhaps Busl was a humorist because the doctor was invariably shown laughing his head off. Busl with Hermann Göring. Schlegel needed help with some of the famous faces he didn’t recognise. Frau Goebbels was a regular. Actors. Actresses. Child stars. Other agents. The whole show business panoply caught in the light of a flash gun.
Schlegel was saddened by the pointlessness of the parade, and all these photographs of Busl being silent witnesses to his demise.
On the evening of his death, Busl was supposed to have gone out to the theatre but at the last moment he announced he had a late appointment.
‘They say he jumped.’ Frau Busl snorted.
‘The newspaper said after an illness.’
‘That’s true. You don’t smoke sixty cigarettes a day and not get ill.’
So maybe Busl had a terminal diagnosis and decided to take the quick way out after all. Schlegel pictured Busl on the ledge alone, having a final cigarette, waiting for the moment, whereas a minute or two earlier he’d had him being dragged across the floor to be pitched headfirst out of the open window.
In such a murky world any interpretation could be shown to the right one.
Schlegel asked Frau Busl about their job.
Business was still good. Films were being made, plenty of radio and stage work, recitals, travelling repertory and entertainments for the troops. Frau Busl told him they handled everything from classical actors to radio announcers and variety acts.
‘The one with dancing dogs is very popular,’ she said.
Schlegel asked himself: Why chuck an agent out of the window? Because he knew too much, but how did that relate to the clinic, if at all?
Schlegel asked Frau Busl how long she and her brother had been working together.
More or less back to the beginning of the motion picture industry, she said. They had worked with all the directors
who had since left – the work which hadn’t deserved a mention in Busl’s obituary, Schlegel supposed. A lot had changed: the clamorous variety of the previous era against the strident flatness of everything now. Even Hollywood films had been available until the end of 1941, albeit horrendously dubbed, at least offering some alternative: cowboys, slapstick, gangsters.
It was more than just forgetting, Schlegel thought. Everything had grown corrosive and toxic.
Frau Busl didn’t have to say she was frightened it might be her turn next in such an abrupt world. The window seemed to have grown bigger, like a mechanical backdrop on a stage set. She looked at him and said, ‘I though at first you were the angel of death with your hair, come to throw me out of the window too. I don’t understand how for one past caring it is possible to be so frightened.’
Schlegel said, ‘In the chaos of the last days many things have gone on that we are trying to understand.’
He sounded suspiciously sincere, he thought.
‘He was homosexual,’ she said. ‘I sense you guessed that. You seem a sensitive man. In the theatrical profession there is always leeway. If they had packed them all off there would be no chorus line or male dancers at all.’
Schlegel wondered why he was being told, then understood. Information was like passing on a sickness or virus, in the hope that the infection would transmit. It was important too that he was authority, so she could say to anyone else that she had already talked to the Gestapo. She more or less admitted as much, asking how to contact him, in case.
In exchange for his number, Frau Busl, as though honouring her side of the bargain, reached up to a shelf and got down several directories. For casting, she said. She handed Schlegel one. It was in alphabetical order, with formal portraits of actors, sometimes with a note of whether they specialised in drama, comedy or variety. The comic ones tended to pull funny faces.
She showed him where several pages had been turned down.