by Philip Kerr
“I suppose the price of employing a proper detective is his knowing everything there is to know about you,” she said.
“Take my word for it. The price is a lot cheaper than that.”
About eight kilometers southwest of Halensee Station I stopped in front of the prettily situated Hubertus Restaurant.
“Why are we stopping?”
“An early lunch and a little information. When I said the Turk was living in the Grunewald, I neglected to mention that the forest covers almost eight thousand acres. If we’re ever going to find him, we’re going to have to pick up some local knowledge.”
The Hubertus was something out of a Lehar operetta: an ivy-clad, cozy villa with a garden where a crown prince and his young baroness might stop for a quick knuckle of veal on their way to some grand but doom-laden hunting lodge. Surrounded by a chorus of rather well-fed Berliners, we did our best to look like a leading man and his lady, and to hide our disappointment at our waiter’s ignorance of the local area.
After lunch we drove farther to the south and west, and asked at a village shop on the Reitmeister See, then at the post office in Krumme Lanke, and finally at a garage in Paulsborn, where the attendant told us he’d heard of some people living in tents along the left bank of the Schlachtensee, in a place that could best be reached by water. So then we drove to Beelitzhof and hired a motorboat to continue our search.
“I’ve had a lovely day,” she said as the boat cut through the chill Prussian blue waters. “Even if we don’t find what we’re looking for.”
And then we did.
We saw their smoke first, rising above the thick coniferous trees like a pillar of cloud. It was a small village of army-surplus tents, about six or seven of them. During the Great Depression, a large tent shantytown for the poor and unemployed had been built rather nearer home, in the Tiergarten.
I cut the engine and we approached carefully. A small, ragged group of men, several of them obviously Jewish, came out of their shelters. They were carrying clubs and slingshots. If I’d been alone, it’s possible I might have met with a more hostile reception, but, seeing Mrs. Charalambides, they appeared to relax a little. You don’t go looking for trouble wearing a set of pearls and a sable coat. I tied up the boat and helped her to step ashore.
“We’re looking for Solly Mayer,” she said, smiling pleasantly. “Do you know him?”
No one spoke.
“My married name is Noreen Charalambides,” she said. “But my maiden name is Eisner. I’m Jewish. I’m telling you that so you can be sure we’re not here to spy on you or to inform on you, or on Herr Mayer. I’m an American journalist and I’m in search of some information. We think Solly Mayer might be able to help us. So please don’t be afraid. We mean you no harm.”
“We’re not afraid of you,” said one of the men. He was tall and bearded. He wore a long black coat and a broad-brimmed black hat. Two long curls of hair were hanging off the sides of his forehead like lengths of seaweed. “We thought you might be Hitler Youth. There’s a troop of them camped around here somewhere and they’ve been attacking us. For fun.”
“That’s terrible,” said Mrs. Charalambides.
“Mostly we try to ignore it,” said the Jew with the earlocks. “There’s a limit to what the law allows us to do in the way of self-defense. But lately their attacks have been increasing in violence.”
“We just want to live in peace,” said another man.
I glanced around their encampment. Several rabbits hung off a pole next to a couple of fishing rods. A large kettle stood steaming on a metal grate laid over a fire. A line of washing was strung between two thread-bare tents. With winter fast approaching I didn’t give much for their survival chances. I felt cold and hungry just looking at them.
“I’m Solly Mayer.”
He was tallish, with a short neck, and, like the rest of them, heavily sunburned from months of living in the open air. But I ought to have picked him out immediately. Most boxers have their noses broken horizontally, but the Turk’s had been stitched vertically as well. It looked like a small pink upholstered cushion lying in the center of a wide expanse called his face. I could imagine a nose like that doing a lot of things. Ramming a Roman trireme. Breaking down a castle door. Finding a white truffle. But I couldn’t imagine anyone breathing through it.
Mrs. Charalambides told him about the article she was planning to write and about her hope that the Americans might still boycott the Berlin Olympiad.
“You mean they haven’t done that already?” said the tall man with the beard. “The Amis really mean to send a team?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Mrs. Charalambides.
“Surely Roosevelt can’t ignore what’s happening here,” said the tall man. “He’s a Democrat. And what about all those Jews in New York? Surely they won’t let him ignore it.”
“I kind of think that’s exactly what he wants to do at the moment,” she said. “You see, among his opponents, his administration already has a reputation of being too friendly with American Jews. He probably imagines that it’s better for him politically to have no position on the matter of whether or not the American team comes here in thirty-six. My newspaper would like to change that position. And so would I.”
“And you think,” said the Turk, “that writing an article about some dead Jewish boxer might help?”
“Yes. It think it might.”
I handed the Turk the photograph of “Fritz.” He settled a pair of glasses on what was laughingly called the bridge of his nose and, holding the photo at arm’s length, stared at it critically.
“What did this fellow weigh?” he asked me.
“When they fished him out of the canal, about ninety kilos.”
“So maybe he was about nine or ten kilos lighter when he was in training,” said the Turk. “A middleweight. Or maybe a light heavyweight.” He looked again and then smacked the picture with the back of his hand. “I dunno. After they’ve been in the ring for a while, a lot of these pugs start to look the same. What makes you think he was Jewish? To me he looks like a goy.”
“He was circumcised,” I said. “Oh, and by the way, he was a southpaw, too.”
“I see.” The Turk nodded. “Well, maybe, just maybe, it could be that this is a fellow by the name of Erich Seelig. A few years ago he was a light heavyweight champion, from Bromberg. If it is him, this is the Jew who beat some pretty good fighters like Rere de Vos, Walter Eggert, and Gypsy Trollmann.”
“Gypsy Trollmann?”
“Yeah. You know him?”
“I’ve heard of him, of course,” I said. “Who hasn’t? Whatever happened to that guy?”
“He’s the doorman at the Cockatoo, last I heard.”
“And Seelig? What’s his story?”
“We don’t get the newspapers here, friend. Everything I know is months old. But what I heard was that some SA thugs turned up at his last fight. A title defense against Helmut Hartkopp, in Hamburg. They put the frighteners on him. Because he was Jewish. After that he disappears. Maybe he leaves the country. Maybe he stays and ends up in the canal. Who knows? Berlin is a long way from Hamburg. But not as far as Bromberg. That’s in the Polish corridor, I think.”
“Erich Seelig, you say.”
“Maybe. I never had to look at no corpse before. Unless it was in the ring, of course. How’d you find me, anyway?”
“Fellow named Buckow at the T-gym. He said to say hello.”
“Bucky? Yeah, he’s all right, is Bucky.”
I took out my wallet and thumbed a leaf at him, but he wouldn’t take it, so I gave him all but one of my cigarettes, and Mrs. Charalambides did the same.
We were about to get back in the boat when something flew through the air and struck the man wearing the big hat. He dropped to one knee with one bloody hand pressed to his cheek.
“It’s those little bastards again,” spat the Turk.
In the distance, about thirty meters away, I saw a collection of khaki-clad youths
now occupying a clearing in the forest. A stone flew through the air, narrowly missing Mrs. Charalambides.
“Yiddos,” they chanted in a singsong sort of way. “Yidd-os!”
“I’ve had enough of this,” said the Turk. “I’m going to sort those little bastards out.”
“No,” I said. “Don’t. You’ll only land yourself in trouble. Let me handle it.”
“What can you do?” said Mrs. Charalambides.
“We’ll see. Give me your room key.”
“My room key? What for?”
“Just do it.”
She opened an ostrich-leather bag and handed over the key. It was attached to a big brass oval fob. I threaded the key off the fob and handed it back. Then I turned and walked toward our attackers.
“Be careful,” she said.
Another stone sailed over my head.
“Yidd-os! Yidd-os! Yidd-os!”
“That’s enough,” I shouted at them. “The next boy who throws a stone will be under arrest.”
There were maybe twenty of them, aged between ten and sixteen. All blond, with young, hard faces and heads full of the nonsense they heard from Nazis like Richard Bömer. Germany’s future was in their hands. And so were several large stones. When I was about ten meters away I flashed the key fob in the palm of my hand hoping that, from a distance, it might pass for a policeman’s warrant disc. I heard one of them gasp, “He’s a copper,” and I smiled, realizing my trick had worked. They were just a bunch of kids, after all.
“That’s right, I’m a policeman,” I said, still holding the disc out. “Criminal Commissar Adlon, from the Westend Praesidium. And you can all count yourselves lucky that none of these other police officers you attacked are more seriously hurt.”
“Police officers?”
“But they look like yids. Some of them do, anyway.”
“What kind of cops go around dressed as yids?”
“Secret policemen, that’s who,” I said, and slapped the oldest-looking boy hard on his freckled cheek. He started to cry. “These are Gestapo officers on the lookout for a vicious killer who’s been murdering boys in this forest. That’s right. Boys like you. He cuts their throats and then dismembers their bodies. The only reason it hasn’t been in the papers is that we don’t want to cause a panic. And then you mugs come along and nearly blow the whole operation.”
“You can’t blame us, sir,” said another boy. “They looked like yids.”
I slapped him, too. I thought it best they formed an accurate impression of what the Gestapo was really like. That way Germany might have some kind of future, after all.
“Shut up,” I snarled. “And don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. Got that?”
The members of the Hitler Youth troop nodded sullenly.
I took hold of one by his neckerchief.
“You, what have you got to say for yourself?”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Sorry? You could have had that officer’s eye out. I’ve a good mind to tell your fathers to leather the lot of you. Better still, I’ve a good mind to have you all arrested and thrown into a concentration camp. How would you like that, eh?”
“Please, sir. We didn’t mean any harm.”
I let the boy go. By now all of them were looking contrite. They were looking less like Hitler Youth and more like a group of schoolboys. I had them where I wanted them now. I might have been handling a squad back at the Alex. After all, cops do all the same stupid juvenile things that schoolboys do, except the homework.
“All right. We’ll say no more about it this time. And that goes for you, too. Tell no one about this. No one. Do you hear? This is an undercover operation. And the next time you feel inclined to take the law into your own hands, don’t. Not everyone who looks like a Jew really is a Jew. Remember that. Now go home before I change my mind and run you all in for assaulting a police officer. And remember what I said. There’s a vicious murderer at work in these woods, so you’d best stay away from here until you read that he’s been caught.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll do that, sir.”
I walked back to the little group of tents on the edge of the lake. The light was beginning to fade. The bullfrogs were opening up shop. Fish were jumping in the water. One of the Jews was already casting a line at a widening ripple. The man with the hat wasn’t badly injured. He was smoking one of my cigarettes to steady his nerves.
“What did you say to get rid of them?” asked the Turk.
“I told them all you were undercover cops,” I said.
“And they believed you?” asked Mrs. Charalambides.
“Of course they believed me.”
“But why?” she said. “It’s such an obvious lie.”
“And when did that ever stop the Nazis?” I nodded at the boat. “Get in,” I told her. “We’re leaving.”
I fetched my last cigarette from behind my ear and lit it from a piece of firewood that the Turk brought to me. “I think they’ll leave you alone,” I told him. “I didn’t exactly put the fear of God in them. Just the fear of the Gestapo. But to them that probably means more.”
The Turk laughed. “Thanks, mister,” he said, and shook my hand.
I untied the rope and climbed into the boat alongside Mrs. Charalambides. “That’s one thing I’ve learned in the last few years,” I said, starting the engine. “To lie like you mean it. As long as you can convince yourself of something first, no matter how outrageous, there’s no telling what you can get away with these days.”
“And I thought you had to be a Nazi to be that cynical,” she said.
I think she meant it as a joke, but it didn’t feel good hearing her say it. At the same time, I knew of course that she was right. I was a cynic. In my defense I might have told her I was an ex-cop and that being a cop is to know but one truth, which is that everything you’re told is a lie, but that wouldn’t have sounded good, either. She was right, and it was no good brushing it off with another cynical remark about how the Nazis probably put something in the water, like bromide, that made all of us Germans believe the worst about everyone. I was a cynic. Who wasn’t that lived in Germany?
Not that I could have believed anything bad about Noreen Charalambides. And I certainly didn’t want her to think anything bad about me. There wasn’t a dog muzzle handy, so I folded one lip under another to keep my mouth under control for a while, and then pushed the throttle forward. It’s one thing biting your enemies. It’s quite another when it looks like you might bite your friends. To say nothing of the woman you are falling for.
16
WE RETURNED THE BOAT and got back into the car. We drove east, into Berlin, along streets full of silent people who probably wanted nothing to do with one another. It had never been a particularly friendly city. Berliners are not known for their great hospitality. But now it was like the town of Hamelin after the children had left. We still had the rats, of course.
Respectable men in well-brushed felt hats and cake-box collars were scurrying home after yet another day spent trying, respectably, to ignore the uniformed and licensed louts who persisted in resting their dirty boots on the country’s best furniture. Bus conductors leaned precariously off their platforms so as to avoid any possibility of conversation with their passengers. These days nobody wanted to speak his mind. They didn’t put that in Baedeker.
At the taxi rank on the corner of Leibnizstrasse, the cabbies were putting up their checkered hoods—a sure sign that the weather was getting cooler. It wasn’t yet cold enough, however, to deter the trio of SA men bravely continuing with their vigilant boycott of a Jewish-owned jewelry store next to the synagogue on Fasanenstrasse.
Germans! Defend Yourselves! Don’t Buy from Jews! Buy Only from German Shops!
With their brown leather boots, brown leather cross belts, and brown leather faces, and lit up by the green neon of the Kurfürstendamm, the three Nazis looked prehistoric, reptilian, dangerous, like a bask of hungry crocodiles that had escaped from
the aquarium in the Zoological Gardens.
I felt vaguely cold-blooded myself. Like I needed a drink.
“Are you sulking?” she asked.
“Sulking?”
“As in silent protest.”
“It’s the only kind that’s safe these days. Anyway, it’s nothing a drink can’t fix.”
“I could use a drink myself.”
“Only not at the Adlon, eh? Someone will ask me to do something if we go there.” As we neared the junction with Joachimstaler Strasse, I pointed. “There. The Cockatoo Bar.”
“Is that one of your regular haunts, Gunther?”
“No, but it’s someone else’s. Someone you should speak to for your article.”
“Oh? Who?”
“Gypsy Trollmann.”
“That’s right, I remember. The Turk said he’s the doorman at the Cockatoo, didn’t he? And he’s the one who fought Erich Seelig.”
“The Turk didn’t sound like he was one hundred percent positive that Seelig is our Fritz. So perhaps Trollmann can confirm it. When you spend time in the ring with a fellow who’s trying to hit you, you probably get to know his face pretty well.”
“Is he really a Gypsy, or is he just a Gypsy the way Solly Mayer is a Turk?”
“Unfortunately for Trollmann, he is the real thing. You see, it’s not just the Jews the Nazis don’t like. It’s Gypsies, too. And pansies. And Jehovah’s Witnesses. And communists, of course, we mustn’t forget the Reds. So far the Reds have had it toughest of all. I mean, I haven’t yet heard of anyone who’s been executed for being Jewish.”
I thought about repeating Otto Trettin’s story about the falling ax at Plötzensee and rejected the idea. Since I was already going to have to tell her about Gypsy Trollmann, I figured one sad story was all she could handle that evening. Stories certainly didn’t come any sadder than Gypsy Trollmann’s.
