City of Shadows

by Ariana Franklin

  But she’d been rightly cautious; the queens especially became outrageous on exposure to the public, waving and shrieking abuse from the cab windows as they passed a couple of storm troopers sticking up bills on a hoarding.

  “Behave yourself,” he had to tell one of them, dragging her back in.

  “They’ve got to be stood up to, darling.”

  “But not antagonized.” Bad as the bloody Reds, he thought; couldn’t resist confrontation and lost public support by doing it.

  The flat had been restored as well as possible in the time available. The front door had been mended and provided with new locks. Chairs and the table had gone to the dump, and guests would have to sit on hastily bought cushions, but the place looked tidy. Busse’s men had wreaked no havoc on the bedrooms, bathroom, or kitchen, merely searched them. The message had been the damage to the living room. Frau Schinkel had heard nothing—she slept like the dead—and the flat below was empty.

  Esther had covered a table borrowed from Frau Schinkel with canapés and cocktails and hung her walls with photographic portraits she’d taken of Marlene, some in Dietrich mode—with top hat, tails, and fishnet stockings, seated provocatively on a stool—others in pensive mood. The queens wept.

  A blond young man touched Schmidt on the shoulder. “Inspector?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can we talk?” Walking stiffly, he led the way out onto the balcony that Esther’d had built outside the French windows, adding a fire escape that led down to the garden into which she’d transformed Frau Schinkel’s former backyard.

  The last time Schmidt had seen him, the youth had been hanging from the light fixture at the Pink Parasol. “How’s your back?” he asked him.

  “All right,” the boy said. The bad match of sallow skin and brilliantined, peroxided hair—almost pink in a November sunset—aged him.

  He had the hopeless eyes that Schmidt had seen in the faces of long-term prisoners, and he turned them away, putting his hands on the balustrade to look down at the garden.

  Ottmar Keysterling, Schmidt remembered. Age nineteen. YMCA, Sophienstrasse. Four convictions for soliciting. Waiter and part-time dancer at the Pink Parasol. Statement taken by Sergeant Hoffner while the boy was still in the hospital having his back stitched together. Said he didn’t know any of the storm troopers who’d attacked him, wouldn’t recognize any of them again.

  “I liked Marlene,” Ottmar said.

  Schmidt prompted him: “Did she happen to show you a photograph?”

  “No. I knew she was flashing one around, but I didn’t see it.”

  Schmidt rested his arms companionably on the balustrade and joined the boy in looking down. Esther had planted the little garden so that there would be color even in winter, and the bare boughs of a small willow showed russet against a whitewashed wall. He waited.

  The boy sighed. “But ...I think once upon a time ...I think I met the man who took Marlene away.”

  “Which one? There were two of them.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t know the other one. This was the big one.”

  Thank you, God.

  “He didn’t notice me,” Ottmar said. “They all came rushing in, yelling. It was some others roughed me up—one of them had a whip. But the one I’m telling you about, the big one, him and another one went straight for Marlene. He had a scarf around his face.. . .” He squintedsideways, either to see if Schmidt believed him or to make sure he un

  derstood.

  Schmidt nodded.

  “It was jumbled,” the boy said. “They were yelling and hurting me, and I couldn’t remember anything, like I told the other policeman, but now it keeps coming back.” He lifted his hand, opening and closing it to indicate illumination and darkness. “Must have been just a glimpse, but I keep seeing this face, his face, among all the others. I guess the scarf slipped off, or Marlene pulled it off him.” For the first time, Ottmar smiled. “She was a big girl. She put up a fight.”

  Schmidt nodded again. Keep going, keep going.

  “And I knew him,” Ottmar said simply.

  “His name?”

  “No. Well, it was at a party. In Munich. I was in Munich then—must be a year or more ago—and there was this party. Me and a friend... and some other friends, we were the entertainment, if you know what I mean. We’d been asked along by a man called Stratz. Wilhelm Stratz. Know him?”

  Schmidt shook his head. Munich, he thought. R.G.

  “Big shot, Stratz is,” the boy said in American. “Very big shot around Munich. Friend of Röhm’s.” He glanced at Schmidt as if trying to enlighten a yokel. “You must’ve heard of Röhm. Head of the SA?”

  Yes, Schmidt said, he’d heard of Ernst Röhm.

  “Yes, well, him and Stratz are like that.” The boy crossed his third finger over his forefinger. “Lives in a fucking huge schloss, Stratz does. Anyway, we all went. There was this big limo that came to get us. And he was there, a guest, like.”

  “The big man? The one who took Marlene?”

  “Yeah, him.” Ottmar’s voice had lost its energy, and he looked down at the garden again. “He’s not a nice person.”

  “And you can’t remember a name?”

  “They don’t have fucking introductions at that sort of party,” the boy said, “just fucking.” He frowned. “I think they called him Reinhardt. Yeah, that was it. Reinhardt. Any good to you?”

  Reinhardt: Ryszard. Yes. Ryszard Galczynski of Bagna Duze had become Reinhardt G-something of Munich.

  “Was he in uniform?” “Wasn’t that sort of party. He wasn’t in anything.” “And you’ll swear to this? I’m going to get him, Ottmar. Not just for

  Marlene. He’s killed before, and I’m going to bring him in, and when I

  do, I want you to identify him.” “He’s a Nazi, a big one, you could tell. They were all Nazis at that do.” “I’m still going to get him.” The boy sneered. “You and whose army?” “Just me.” The boy shrugged. “Won’t do any good. You don’t know ’em.” “Yes I do, and yes it will.” “Didn’t do Marlene any good.” “Which is why he’s got to be stopped. You see him again, you come

  and tell me. Run and tell me.” “Suppose so,” Ottmar said drearily. “All right.” Schmidt put out a hand to clap him on the back, remembered just in

  time, and put it over the boy’s for a moment. “You won’t be sorry.” “That’ll be a fucking change,” Ottmar said.

  WASHING UP the glasses when they’d all gone, Esther said, “Don’t get

  him killed, too.” “Who?” “That boy you were talking to on the balcony. Ottmar.” “Reinhardt. He says the bastard’s first name is Reinhardt. He’s Rein

  hardt G. Of course, he may not be in Munich anymore. He could be anywhere—in Berlin, in bloody Bremen, anywhere. How many SA are there now? Hundreds of thousands. How many with the initials R.G.? Oh, God, don’t let Department 1A find him before I do.”

  There were ways, he thought. Find someone to infiltrate the SA, maybe. Or get one of the burglars from Wrestlers to break into headquarters and steal its army list. Or blackmail someone on the staff.

  He’s not hearing me, Esther thought; he’s looking beyond me. The only face he wants to see is the one in the photograph. Everyone’s expendable. He’d tether himself like a goat if he thought it would attract the tiger.

  She was angry enough with him to bring up another complaint. “And what are you going to do about Anna?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “She’s tucked up nice and safe where she belongs.”

  “It should happen to you,” she said. “She can’t stay in an asylum forever. You’ll have to get her out.”

  “It has nothing to do with me.”

  “You’re so keen on the law,” she said. “But you’ll let a woman be caged up like an animal. There must be somewhere else she can go.”

  “I thought you wanted her safe,” he said.

  “I didn’t want her in Bedlam.”

  It was their first quarrel, and he won it. “It’s
up to the doctors now. She’ll be all right. You said yourself she’s as tough as old boots.”

  “I’m afraid for her.”

  “Well, stop it. I’ve told you and told you. He hasn’t gone after her in nine years, and he’s not going to now—he knows she’s no threat to him.”

  You know it, she thought. I just hope he does. But in one way he was right: the killer was part of a greater darkness. Cower from it and it would overwhelm them all.

  The November election results suggested they didn’t need to cower. The economic situation was improving, and the Nazis had lost seats— aggressive, grandiose electioneering had begun to fail in impact.

  Berlin had never given the Nazis a majority anyway, and when, desperate to bring down the government, they had allied themselves with the Communists in a transport strike, they had scared off the middle-class voter. A low turnout and a national vote of 11.7 million compared to 13.7 million the previous July reduced the party’s representation in the Reichstag to 196 seats. It was still the largest group by far, but the combined seats of the other parties well outweighed them.

  Schmidt took Esther out dancing to celebrate at a party given by some of her arty friends, where champagne corks popped like rifle fire against deafening salvos of jazz.

  Howie Meyer joined them at their table. Esther was asked to dance, and the two men watched her—she was a good dancer.

  “I love her! I love that woman,” Howie shouted above the noise. “But she won’t leave you.” He was slightly drunk.

  So was Schmidt. “Best man won,” he shouted back. He liked Meyer, the only journalist that had attended the Peter Kurten trial whose reporting of it he’d been able to stomach.

  “You want to take her away, pal,” Howie said. “Get her out of the country. Before Hitler gets her.”

  “Howie, old friend, we’re celebrating the fact that he won’t. Hinden-burg’s said no. Won’t make him chancellor now.” Schmidt had no regard for his president, but the latest storm-trooper atrocity had awakened even that old fart to the Nazi threat.

  Meyer shook his finger under Schmidt’s nose. “Want to bet? Little Adolf ’ll be chancellor within the year, maybe quicker.”

  “No. Hindenburg’s found backbone from somewhere.”

  “Sure, Hindenburg’s said boo to his goose,” Meyer said. “Only Hitler ain’t no goose, and boo ain’t going to stop him. You analyzed the election results?”

  “No.”

  “I have. I’m Nazi watcher for my American readers, who, I may say, can’t get enough of it. Want another Scotch?”

  “Sounds as if I’d better.” He was sobering.

  Meyer lumbered back with the drinks, dodging the dancers. “See, it may have escaped your notice in the euphoria, but the Communists in the Reichstag are vetoing anything that’ll get this fucking country back on track. Reds? Reds don’t give a shit about stabilizing the situation. What they’re good at is yelling Marxist and Trotskyite slogans at the Nazis across the floor. You come to the public gallery sometime—just you come; it ain’t a parliament, it’s a zoo. Scares the hell out of me and scares the hell out of the voting public. And when people are scared, they want a leader.”

  “Not Hitler, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Why not?” Meyer suddenly stood up and put his forefinger across his upper lip. “ ‘We will silence the Bolsheviks. We will not rest until every German has a job. Jews who control the banks will threaten our farmers no longer. We will protect German family life; mothers will stay at home to bring up the country’s children without fear of crime or pornography. Foreigners will be denied citizenship.’ And that’s word for word, folks.” He bowed to the laughing, booing crowd on the dance floor who’d paused to listen to him. “Vesuvius is going up, my friends,” he shouted at them. “You’re dancing in Pompeii. Get out, get out. The lava’s coming.”

  He sat down. “He’ll be chancellor, pal. Depend on it.”

  “Fuck,” Schmidt said.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Meyer said, and he tossed back his drink.

  Schmidt waited until the stares attracted by Meyer’s performance had gone. “Do something for me, Howie, will you?” He outlined the case against his killer. “I think he’s in Berlin now, I think he’s an officer in the SA, and I think his initials are R.G. Reinhardt Something-beginning-with-G. This is his photograph.” He handed over copies Esther had made for him, the face of the killer circled on both of them.

  “Gloomy-looking bird,” Meyer said. “Want I should show this around my Nazi pals?”

  “Jesus, no.” Schmidt paused. “Have you got any?”

  “I use a long spoon,” Meyer assured him.

  “Well, don’t. Last person who did that got his throat slit and his balls cut off.”

  Meyer handed the photos back. “Did I mention I’m attached to my balls and all Nazis look alike to me?”

  “What I wondered was ...You know people at your embassy. They must keep a list of Nazi activists. What I need to know is—”

  “If American intelligence has come across the fucker?”

  “I want to bring him to trial, Howie. I don’t want the Nazis finding him first and getting rid of him because he’d give them bad press. I want justice, and I want it seen to be done.”

  “You sweet, old-fashioned thing, you,” Howie said, taking the photographs. “Did I tell you I’m in love with your woman?”

  “Yep. And I’m taking her home.”

  ESTHER, BUSY IN her darkroom at 29c, heard a knock on the downstairs door and knew that Frau Schinkel, who’d gone out shopping, couldn’t answer it. She stood for some minutes, adjusting the wet prints hanging on the line. It was too early for Schmidt to come back from work, and she was expecting nobody else to call.

  Damn it, she thought. I’ve got to stop this. I will not be afraid. He won’t make me afraid. She went downstairs and nearly called out, “Who’s there?” through the door, and then didn’t.

  She jerked the door open. “Yes?”

  A small face glared out at her above one of the loveliest mink coats she’d ever seen. “You take a long time,” the person said crossly. “They let me out. I tell them I am not mad, and now they believe, but there’s reporters and reporters all the time, so I got to stay with you. Nowhere else to go.”

  Esther started to laugh, and Anna Anderson pushed past her. “Left my suitcase in the cab,” she said. “You have to fetch it—too heavy for me.”

  22

  “DOES SHE HAVE to stay here?” Schmidt wanted to know.

  “Yes,” Esther said.

  “Well, does she have to be so untidy?” He wasn’t a tidy man himself, but Anna took disarray to championship levels. It wasn’t that the woman intruded; she spent most of her time in her room and was virtually monosyllabic—to Schmidt at any rate—when she didn’t. And usually she’d been fed by the time he got back, so that he and Esther could eat alone. She was just there. Or had been there—he’d arrive home to find Esther clearing up the mess Anna had left behind like a Hansel and Gretel trail of bread crumbs leading into the chaotic forest she was creating out of Marlene’s room.

  “She really must be royalty,” he said.

  “That’s what Natalya used to say. Natalya tried putting peas under her mattress to see if they made her uncomfortable, like the Hans Christian Andersen princess.”

  “And did they?”

  “She didn’t notice them.”

  He was, he realized, taking up the position Natalya had occupied when the three women shared the flat, and with much the same resentment; it irritated him to see Esther, who was busy, waiting on someone who was not.

  He looked toward the door of the silent bedroom. “What does she do in there?”

  “Nothing much.”

  It was a nothingness that intruded as if the woman inside were pounding a drum kit.

  “Look,” Esther said, “she’s got nowhere else to go, and the press doesn’t know she’s here, so nobody can bother her. I don’t mind, and I don’t se
e why you should.”

  Apart from the fact that he was paying half the bills, he didn’t see why he should either, but he did.

  “And she’s company when you’re away,” Esther said.

  He was away a lot now. His new multiple-murder section—now generally known as Department MM—entailed his traveling around the country, giving lectures, setting up training courses, advising. Whether there were more multiple killers on the loose than there ever had been or whether he was being alerted by the various police forces dealing with them, he wasn’t sure. The former, he thought—political violence was unleashing individual savagery.

  A national rage made them almost coincidental. He would be taken to police morgues to look on the slashed, often dismembered, victim of a murderer and find that lying on a neighboring cart was a body riddled with bullet holes sustained in a riot. A killer in custody slavered the same loathing for mankind that he heard over the radio in the voice of a politician. In the Reichstag, deputies fought like rats in a cage.

  Only at 29c did the air remain unpoisoned. Perhaps, he thought, it was why he minded the presence of Anna, as if her breath took away some of the freshness he found in it.

  Esther had abandoned the Latin poets for Goethe. “ ‘Know you the land where the lemon-trees bloom? / In the dark foliage the golden oranges glow; / a soft wind hovers from the sky, the myrtle is still / and the laurel stands tall—do you know it well? / There, there, I would go, O my beloved, with thee!’ ”

  “Would you?” he asked.

  She snapped the book shut. “No. It’d give me hay fever.”

  Howie Meyer kept urging him to take her out of the country. “Don’t wait till Hitler’s ax falls—and, believe me, it’s poised over the head of every Jew in the country. Take her now.”

  “She won’t go.”

  “She won’t go without you, you mean.”