The Lady from Zagreb

by Philip Kerr

  A few minutes later she came back wearing a dark blue floral dress. The brown cowboy boots were an eccentric, individual touch. I’d never seen a German woman wearing cowboy boots, least of all with bare legs. I liked her legs. They were long and brown and muscular and they were attached to her backside, which had seemed just right, for me. Her golden-blond hair was now gathered into a bunch. On her strong wrist was a gold Rolex and on her ring finger a sapphire as big as a five-pfennig piece. Her nails were nicely manicured and varnished with pink, like the perfectly formed petals of little geraniums. She sat down and stared at me with the most direct stare I’d ever received from a woman; when she looked at me it was like facing down a cat with blue eyes. The kind of cat that plays with a mouse until the mouse can’t stand the game for another minute, and then some more.

  “Josef said that you’re a famous detective.” Her voice was low and soft, like an eiderdown pillow. “I always thought they’d be men with waxed mustaches and pipes.”

  “Oh, I’ll smoke a pipe when I can get the tobacco. And you’re the famous one, Fräulein Dresner. Not me.”

  “But you are a detective.”

  I showed her my beer-token—my little brass warrant disc.

  “Tell me about yourself,” she said.

  “The important stuff?”

  “Of course.”

  I shrugged. “I’m forty-seven. I smoke too much. I drink too much. When I can.”

  “I’m afraid all I have out here is some lemonade.”

  “Lemonade will be fine, thanks.”

  She poured two glasses and handed one to me.

  “Why do you drink too much?”

  “I’ve got no wife and I’ve got no children. I work for the army right now because the police—the real police—they don’t want me anymore. You see, there’s no room in this country for people who want to know the truth, about anything. People like me, that is. I have one good suit and a pair of shoes that I have to stuff with newspaper in the winter. I have a bed with a broken leg. That’s in a tiny apartment in Fasanenstrasse. I hate the Nazis and I hate myself, but not always in that order. That’s why.” I smiled ruefully. “I’ll tell you a secret, fräulein. I don’t know why but I will. There are times when I think I’d like to be someone else.”

  She smiled to reveal a row of perfect teeth. Everything about this woman looked perfect. I was beginning to appreciate her.

  “That’s something I know a little about. Who? Who do you wish you were?”

  “It doesn’t really matter who. The important thing is what.”

  “What, then?”

  “Dead.”

  “That must be easy enough to fix in Germany.”

  “You would think so, wouldn’t you? But you see, there’s two kinds of dead. There’s ordinary dead and then there’s Nazi dead. The worst kind is Nazi dead. I don’t want to die until I’ve seen the last Nazi do it first.”

  “You don’t sound like a detective. You sound like a man who’s lost all his faith. Who’s full of doubt, about everything.”

  “That’s what makes me a good detective. That and a certain romantic charm I might have.”

  “You’re a romantic, then. You begin to interest me, Herr Gunther.”

  “Sure. I’m a regular hero with a sentimental yearning for old times. Almost eleven years ago, to be precise. You should see me walking around on the seashore. I can get quite sensitive about a lot of things. The dawn, a storm, the price of fish. But mostly I specialize in helping damsels in distress.”

  “You’re making fun of me now.”

  “No, I meant what I said. Especially the part about the damsels in distress. The minister of Truth told me you were in trouble and that you needed my help. So here I am.”

  “Did he, now? What else did he say about me?”

  “That he was in love with you. Of course, he could have been lying. It wouldn’t be the first time. That he’s been in love, I think. I imagine he always tells the truth, at least about that sort of thing. And now that I’ve met you, it’s easy to see anyone might feel that way.”

  “Did he also tell you I’m married?”

  “He left out that particular detail. But then men in love often do. I think it’s what the poets call a pathetic fallacy.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?”

  “Yes. I was a private detective for about five years. I did a lot of missing persons, husbands mostly. For one reason or another.”

  “Then you sound like the one man who might be able to help me.”

  “I bet you said exactly the same thing to—to Josef.”

  “He warned me that you were a tough guy.”

  “Only when I’m standing next to the doctor.”

  She smiled. “You know, I don’t think he’s a real doctor.”

  “I wouldn’t get undressed in front of him if that’s what you mean. But he’s a real doctor, all right. At least, he has a PhD from Heidelberg University on nineteenth-century literature. I guess that’s why they put him in charge of the book burning. There’s nothing like a university education to make you hate literature.”

  “What book burning?”

  I smiled. “Before your time, I guess. Suddenly I feel my age. Do you mind me asking how old you are, Fräulein Dresner?”

  “Twenty-six. And I don’t mind at all.”

  “That’s because you’re twenty-six. In ten years’ time you’ll start to think differently. Anyway, back in 1933, when you’d have been sixteen, I guess, the good doctor helped organize an action against the un-German spirit. That’s what they called it, anyway. They burned a whole load of books right here in Berlin, on Opernplatz. Books written by Jews and more or less anyone who was opposed to the Nazis, but mostly people who could just write. People like Heinrich Mann.”

  She looked horrified. “I wasn’t living in Germany at the time so I had no idea. They really did that? They burned books?”

  “Sure. And it wasn’t because it was the end of Lent or because the public libraries were looking to make some space, or even because of the tough winter we were having. This was in May. They put on quite a show. Lit up the whole city. I had to draw my curtains early that night.”

  Dalia shook her head. “You say the strangest things. I wonder how Josef even knows someone like you, Herr Gunther.”

  “I’ve asked myself the very same question.”

  “I mean, wearing that uniform you look like a Nazi. But you make it quite clear, to me at least, that you disapprove of them.”

  “Obviously I didn’t make myself clear enough. It’s a lot more than disapproval. I hate them.”

  “You know, I think you did, only I’ve learned to be one of the wise monkeys when I hear that kind of subversive talk. After all, if you’re a good citizen you’re supposed to do something about it, aren’t you? Call the Gestapo, or something.”

  “Be my guest.”

  “But then you wouldn’t be able to help me. And then where would I be? Still in distress.”

  “I wouldn’t get your hopes up, Fräulein Dresner. Not yet. After all, you haven’t told me what the problem is. I have a habit of disappointing people.”

  “Maybe I’d better tell you all about it.”

  “Maybe you should and then we’ll know if I can help you.”

  I waited for a moment but she said nothing, as if she wasn’t yet quite ready to talk. That happens a lot. Generally you just have to wait until they’re good and ready to open up.

  “Josef said he was certain that you could,” she said uncertainly.

  “Josef is the minister of Propaganda. Not the minister for Pragmatism. It’s up to me to decide if I’m going to stick my neck out for you. It’s my neck, after all.”

  “I’m not asking you to stick your neck out for me.”

  “Josef was.”

  “I don
’t see how.”

  I told her about Kaltenbrunner and Müller and how they were keen to find some scandal about the little doctor that would embarrass him in front of the leader.

  “That’s what I mean by sticking my neck out. Those people have a tendency to play rough.”

  “I’ve done nothing for which either one of us need feel embarrassed,” she insisted.

  “I’m sure it’s none of my business if you have.”

  “I haven’t slept with him, if that’s what you mean,” she said indignantly, and then shuddered.

  “He does have a reputation as a ladies’ man.”

  “And I’m supposed to be a saint, after that awful film I was in about Hypatia. But it doesn’t mean I am any more than he is a ladies’ man, as you put it, or the devil.”

  I let that one go.

  “I wonder that you can even think such a thing. He’s not my type at all. And as I said, I’m married.”

  “And that usually prevents this kind of thing from happening.”

  She relaxed a little and smiled again. “What, you don’t believe people can be happily married?”

  “Sure I do. It’s just that history shows how, from time to time, people decide they want to be happily married to someone else.”

  “You’re such a cynic,” she laughed. “I like that.”

  “I think maybe that’s the real reason the doctor seems to like me.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “Only, he seems to like you more.”

  “You can’t blame me for that.”

  “Speaking as a cop, I couldn’t blame you for anything. Not even if you were alone in a locked room with a body on the floor and the murder weapon in your bloodstained hand.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I told you. I’m a romantic. The worst kind.”

  “An incurable case?”

  “Terminal.”

  Dalia Dresner lit a cigarette and crossed her legs. She watched me watching them for a while and then smiled. “You’re a strange man.”

  “I imagine you make a lot of men feel that way.”

  “Oh, I’m used to that. No, what I mean is that you almost make me feel like a normal person. That’s a rare thing for me, Herr Gunther. For anyone in the movie business. I don’t have many friends. How could I? Just look at this mausoleum of a house. The king of Siam would feel just a little overawed by this place. When they meet me, most Fritzes go all tongue-tied and bashful and fall over their own feet in an effort to light my cigarette or find me a chair. But you’re something else. For one thing, you know just what to say to keep me interested. And for another, you know how to make me laugh. Any man can open a door for me, or pay me a handsome compliment. But there are very few men who know how to make me feel comfortable in their company. I like that about you. Maybe it’s because you’re a little older than most of the men I know.”

  “All right. No need to spoil it. I’m a regular Dietrich of Verona. So maybe now you’re feeling comfortable enough to tell me what it is that stops you from going to work in the morning.”

  “Yes, I think I’m ready now.”

  Fifteen

  My real name is Dragica Djurkovic and I was born in what rather romantically used to be called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. That was a bit of a mouthful, even for Serbs and Croats, so, in 1929 we started calling ourselves the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which was probably a death knell for the poor king. My father was a former Roman Catholic priest from a little Serbian town called Banja Luka. After the war he lost his faith and left the Church and married my mother, who was an actress and a German-speaking Croat. I went to school in a place called Novi Sad. But he and my mother didn’t get along and she went back to her hometown of Zagreb, where I went to school, while my father, regretting his decision to abandon his faith and leave the Church, went to live at a Franciscan monastery back in his hometown of Banja Luka. Politics in Yugoslavia were always fractious to say the least. King Alexander was assassinated in Marseilles, during a state visit to France, by a Macedonian, in October 1934.”

  I nodded. I remembered seeing the newsreel of his assassination. Everyone did. It was probably the first time anything like that had ever been seen in German cinemas. The king had been shot in his limousine, just like Archduke Ferdinand. Which just goes to show: when you’re a king or an archduke, it pays to rent a car with a hardtop.

  “Following the assassination of King Alexander, my mother decided the writing was on the wall for Yugoslavia, and soon after that we left the country for good to live with her brother in Zurich, where I enrolled at the Girls’ High School. I passed my Matura exam with top marks and won a place at the polytechnic to study mathematics, which I think is where my real talents lie. I’ve always been more interested in science and maths than anything. In another life I think I should have liked to have been an inventor. Maybe I still will be when people get tired of seeing my face up on the screen. However, because of my mother I was always being pushed toward the theater, and I started acting as a hobby, only to discover that people thought I was actually good at it. I played Cordelia in King Lear at Zurich’s famous Theater am Neumarkt; and, in 1936, I was Lena in Büchner’s Leonce and Lena, which is when I was discovered, as they say in cinema, by Carl Froelich, who’s a big noise at UFA studios and second only in importance to Josef himself. Carl arranged for me to have a screen test in Berlin, as a result of which I was offered a seven-year contract. At his suggestion I changed my name to Dalia Dresner—because it sounded more German—and had all sorts of acting and deportment lessons and was generally groomed for stardom, although frankly I was more interested in going to the polytechnic and completing my education. I don’t know whether you are aware of it, but Albert Einstein was a student at Zurich Polytechnic; and he was always a bit of a hero of mine. Anyway, there’s nothing complicated or clever about acting. It’s a job. A dog could do it. In fact dogs often do. One of the biggest stars in Hollywood used to be a German shepherd called Rin Tin Tin.

  “Of course, my mother wanted the contract with UFA more than I did, and so we both moved to Berlin, in 1937. My mother generally got what she wanted. She was always a rather overbearing figure in my life, and when you met her it was easy to see why she’d driven my father back into the arms of the priesthood. Which is probably why I married my own husband, Stefan. He’s a Swiss-Serbian lawyer who lives and works in Zurich. He’s much older than me, but he loves me very dearly and helped me to break the hold my mother had over me. When I’m not working, I live there, with him. But mostly I’m here in Babelsberg, making three or four indifferent pictures a year.”

  She shook her head. “If I’m as frank about this as you were earlier, Herr Gunther, indifferent is putting it mildly. Let’s face it, anything directed by Veit Harlan is not going to be without controversy, to say the least. I only narrowly avoided being cast as Dorothea in Jud Süss. Fortunately Harlan gave that part to his wife. But The Saint That Never Was had its anti-Semitic side. It wasn’t the Jews who stoned Hypatia but Christians. At least that’s what the history books say, although it’s perfectly possible that many of those Christians were Jews first.”

  She paused.

  “Anyway, my mother died recently.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. She was a difficult woman. But even so, I did miss her. And suddenly feeling very alone, in spite of my husband, I realized that I simply had to try to get in contact with my father again. When you’ve lost one parent, the one that survives, no matter how distant he or she has become, starts to look more important. Of course, since I left Yugoslavia the political situation has deteriorated badly, and to cut a long story short, my country was invaded by German, Italian, and Hungarian forces in April of 1941. The Independent State of Croatia was established as a Nazi state, ruled by a fascist militia known as the Ustaše. On the other side are two factions: the commun
ist-led Yugoslav partisans and the royalist Chetniks. The partisans are probably the largest resistance army in occupied Western Europe. And it’s probably no exaggeration to say that outside of Croatia, and away from the influence of the Axis powers, Yugoslavia is now in total chaos. All of which probably explains why I’ve been unable to make contact with my father. I’ve sent several letters, without reply. I’ve met with the foreign minister, von Ribbentrop, to see if he can help. I’ve even been to see Cardinal Frings in Cologne, in secret, to see if he could help.”

  “Why in secret?”

  “Because Josef would not approve. In fact he’d be furious. He’s very much against the Roman Catholic clergy in Germany. Or anywhere else, for that matter. But the cardinal couldn’t help, either. Frankly, I’d go back to Yugoslavia and look for my father myself but Josef simply won’t hear of it. He says it’s much too dangerous.”