by Philip Kerr
He jerked the back of his head at his haversack. ‘My leg,’ he said without any trace of regret.
‘That’s too bad.’
His face registered quiet resignation. Then he looked at my watches. ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘There was an Ivan round here about fifteen minutes ago who was looking for a good watch. For to per cent I’ll see if I can find him for you.’
I tried to think how long I might have to stand there in the cold before making a sale. ‘Five,’ I heard myself say. ‘If he buys.’
The man nodded, and lurched off, a moving tripod, in the direction of the Kroll Opera House. Ten minutes later he was back, breathing heavily and accompanied by not one but two Russian soldiers who, after a great deal of argument, bought the Mickey Mouse and the gold Patek for $1,700.
When they had gone I peeled nine of the greasy bills off the wad I had taken from the Ivans and handed them over.
‘Maybe you can hang on to that leg of yours now.’
‘Maybe,’ he said with a sniff, but later on I saw him sell it for five cartons of Winston.
I had no more luck that afternoon, and having fastened the two remaining watches to my wrists, I decided to go home. But passing close to the ghostly fabric of the Reichstag, with its bricked-up windows and its precarious-looking dome, my mind was changed by one particular piece of graffiti that was daubed there, reproducing itself on the lining of my stomach: ‘What our women do makes a German weep, and a GI come in his pants.’
The train to Zehlendorf and the American sector of Berlin dropped me only a short way south of Kronprinzenallee and Johnny’s American Bar where Kirsten worked, less than a kilometre from US Military Headquarters.
It was dark by the time I found Johnny’s, a bright, noisy place with steamed-up windows, and several jeeps parked in front. A sign above the cheap-looking entrance declared that the bar was only open to First Three Graders, whatever they were. Outside the door was an old man with a stoop like an igloo — one of the city’s many thousands of tip-collectors who made a living from picking up cigarette-ends: like prostitutes each tip-collector had his own beat, with the pavements outside American bars and clubs the most coveted of all, where on a good day a man or woman could recover as many as a hundred butts a day: enough for about ten or fifteen whole cigarettes, and worth a total of about five dollars.
‘Hey, uncle,’ I said to him, ‘want to earn yourself four Winston?’ I took out the packet I had bought at the Reichstag and tapped four into the palm of my hand. The man’s rheumy eyes travelled eagerly from the cigarettes to my face.
‘What’s the job?’
‘Two now, two when you come and tell me when this lady comes out of here.’ I gave him the photograph of Kirsten I kept in my wallet.
‘Very attractive piece,’ he leered.
‘Never mind that.’ I jerked my thumb at a dirty-looking Café further up Kronprinzenallee, in the direction of the US Military HQ. ‘See that Café?’ He nodded. ‘I’ll be waiting there.’
The tip-collector saluted with his finger and quickly trousering the photograph and the two Winston, he started to turn back to scan his flagstones. But I held him by the grubby handkerchief he wore tied round his stubbly throat. ‘Don’t forget now, will you?’ I said, twisting it tight. ‘This looks like a good beat. So I’ll know where to go looking if you don’t remember to come and tell me. Got that?’
The old man seemed to sense my anxiety. He grinned horribly. ‘She might have forgotten you, sir, but you can rest assured that I won’t.’ His face, a garage floor of shiny spots and oily patches, reddened as for a moment I tightened my grip.
‘See that you don’t,’ I said and let him go, feeling a certain amount of guilt for handling him so roughly. I handed him another cigarette by way of compensation and, discounting his exaggerated endorsements of my own good character, I walked up the street to the dingy Café.
For what felt like hours, but wasn’t quite two, I sat silently nursing a large and inferior-tasting brandy, smoking several cigarettes and listening to the voices around me. When the tip-collector came to fetch me his scrofulous features wore a triumphant grin. I followed him outside and back into the street.
‘The lady, sir,’ he said, pointing urgently towards the railway station. ‘She went that way.’ He paused as I paid him the balance of his fee, and then added, ‘With her schätzi. A captain, I think. Anyway, a handsome young fellow, whoever he is.’
I didn’t stay to hear any more and walked as briskly as I was able in the direction which he had indicated.
I soon caught sight of Kirsten and the American officer who accompanied her, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. I followed them at a distance, the full moon affording me a clear view of their leisurely progress, until they came to a bombed-out apartment block, with six layers of flaky-pastry floors collapsed one on top of the other. They disappeared inside. Should I go in after them, I asked myself. Did I need to see everything?
Bitter bile percolated up from my liver to break down the fatty doubt that lay heavy in my gut.
Like mosquitoes I heard them before I saw them. Their English was more fluent than my understanding, but she seemed to be explaining that she could not be late home two nights in a row. A cloud drifted across the moon, darkening the landscape, and I crept behind an enormous pile of scree, where I thought I might get a better view. When the cloud sailed on, and the moonlight shone undiminished through the bare rafters of the roof, I had a clear sight of them, silent now. For a moment they were a facsimile of innocence as she knelt before him while he laid his hands upon her head as if delivering holy benediction. I puzzled as to why Kirsten’s head should be rocking on her shoulders, but when he groaned my understanding of what was happening was as swift as the feeling of emptiness which accompanied it.
I stole silently away and drank myself stupid.
4
I spent the night on the couch, an occurrence which Kirsten, asleep in bed by the time I finally staggered home, would have wrongly attributed to the drink on my breath. I feigned sleep until I heard her leave the apartment, although I could not escape her kissing me on the forehead before she went. She was whistling as she stepped down the stairs and into the street. I got up and watched her from the window as she walked north up Fasanenstrasse towards Zoo Station and her train to Zehlendorf.
When I lost sight of her I set about trying to salvage some remnant of myself with which I could face the day. My head throbbed like an excited Dobermann, but after a wash with an ice-cold flannel, a couple of cups of the captain’s coffee and a cigarette, I started to feel a little better. Still, I was much too preoccupied with the memory of Kirsten frenching the American captain and thoughts of the harm I could bring to him to even remember the harm I had already caused a soldier of the Red Army, and I was not as careful in answering a knock at the door as I should have been.
The Russian was short and yet he stood taller than the tallest man in the Red Army, thanks to the three gold stars and light-blue braid border on his greatcoat’s silver epaulettes identifying him as a palkovnik, a colonel, of the MVD — the Soviet secret political police.
‘Herr Gunther?’ he asked politely.
I nodded sullenly, angry with myself for not having been more careful. I wondered where I had left the dead Ivan’s gun, and if I dared to make a break for it. Or would he have men waiting at the foot of the stairs for just such an eventuality?
The officer took off his cap, clicked his heels like a Prussian and head-butted the air. ‘Palkovnik Poroshin, at your service. May I come in?’ He did not wait for an answer. He wasn’t the type who was used to waiting for anything other than his own wind.
No more than about thirty years old, the colonel wore his hair long for a soldier. Pushing it clear of his pale blue eyes and back over his narrow head, he rendered the veneer of a smile as he turned to face me in my sitting-room. He was enjoying my discomfort.
‘It is Herr Bernhard Gunther, is it not? I have to be sure.’
&n
bsp; Knowing my name like that was a bit of a surprise. And so was the handsome gold cigarette-case which he flicked open in front of me. The tan on the ends of his cadaverous fingers suggested that he didn’t bother with selling cigarettes as much as smoking them. And the MVD didn’t normally bother to share a smoke with a man they were about to arrest. So I took one and owned up to my name.
He fed a cigarette into his lantern jaw and produced a matching Dunhill to light us both.
And you are a — he winced as the smoke billowed into his eye ‘— sh’pek … what is the German word -?’
‘Private detective,’ I said, translating automatically and regretting my alacrity almost at the very same moment.
Poroshin’s eyebrows lifted on his high forehead. ‘Well, well,’ he remarked with a quiet surprise that turned quickly first to interest and then sadistic pleasure, ‘you speak Russian.’
I shrugged. ‘A little.’
‘But that is not a common word. Not for someone who only speaks a little Russian. Sh’pek is also the Russian word for salted pig fat. Did you know that as well?’
‘No,’ I said. But as a Soviet prisoner of war I had eaten enough of it smeared on coarse black bread to know it only too well. Did he guess that?
‘Nye shooti (seriously)?’ he grinned. ‘I bet you do. Just as I’d bet you know that I’m MVD, eh?’ Now he laughed out loud. ‘Do you see how good at my job I am? I haven’t been talking to you for five minutes and already I’m able to say that you are keen to conceal that you speak good Russian. But why?’
‘Why don’t you tell me what you want, Colonel?’
‘Come now,’ he said. ‘As an Intelligence officer it is only natural for me to wonder why. You of all people must understand that kind of curiosity, yes?’ Smoke trailed from his shark’s fin of a nose as he pursed his lips in a rictus of apology.
‘It doesn’t do for Germans to be too curious,’ I said. ‘Not these days.’
He shrugged and wandered over to my desk and looked at the two watches that were lying on it. ‘Perhaps,’ he murmured thoughtfully.
I hoped that he wouldn’t presume to open the drawer where I now remembered I had put the dead Ivan’s automatic. Trying to steer him back to whatever it was he had wanted to see me about, I said: ‘Isn’t it true that all private detective and information agencies are forbidden in your zone?’
At last he came away from the desk.
‘Vyerno (quite right), Herr Gunther. And that is because such institutions serve no purpose in a democracy —’
Poroshin tut-tutted as I started to interrupt.
‘No, please don’t say it, Herr Gunther. You were going to say that the Soviet Union can hardly be called a democracy. But if you did, the Comrade Chairman might hear you and send terrible men like me to kidnap you and your wife.
‘Of course we both know that the only people making a living in this city now are the prostitutes, the black-marketeers and the spies. There will always be prostitutes, and the black-marketeers will last only for as long as the German currency remains unreformed. That leaves spying. That’s the new profession to be in, Herr Gunther. You should forget about being a private detective when there are so many new opportunities for people like yourself.’
‘That sounds almost as if you are offering me a job, Colonel.’
He smiled wryly. ‘Not a bad idea at that. But it isn’t why I came.’ He looked behind him at the armchair. ‘May I sit down?’
‘Be my guest. I’m afraid I can’t offer you much besides coffee.’
‘Thank you, no. I find it a rather excitable drink.’
I arranged myself on the couch and waited for him to start.
‘There is a mutual friend of ours, Emil Becker, who has got himself into the devil’s kitchen, as you say.’
‘Becker?’ I thought for a moment and recalled a face from the Russian offensive of 1941; and before that, in the Reichskriminal police — the Kripo. ‘I haven’t seen him in a long time. I wouldn’t call him a friend exactly, but what’s he done? What are you holding him for?’
Poroshin shook his head. ‘You misunderstand. He isn’t in trouble with us, but with the Americans. To be precise, their Vienna military police.’
‘So if you haven’t got him, and the Americans have, he must have actually committed a crime.’
Poroshin ignored my sarcasm. ‘He has been charged with the murder of an American officer, an army captain.’
‘Well, we’ve all felt like doing that at some time.’ I shook my head at Poroshin’s questioning look. ‘No, it doesn’t matter.’
‘What matters here is that Becker did not kill this American,’ he said firmly. ‘He is innocent. Nevertheless, the Americans have a good case, and he will certainly hang if someone does not help him.
‘I don’t see what I can do.’
‘He wishes to engage you in your capacity as a private detective, naturally. To prove him innocent. For this he will pay you generously. Win or lose, the sum of $5,000.’
I heard myself whistle. ‘That’s a lot of money.’
‘Half to be paid now, in gold. The balance payable upon your arrival in Vienna.’
‘And what’s your interest in all this, Colonel?’
He flexed his neck across the tight collar of his immaculate tunic. ‘As I said, Becker is a friend.’
‘Do you mind explaining how?’
‘He saved my life, Herr Gunther. I must do whatever I can to help him. But it would be politically difficult for me to assist him officially, you understand.’
‘How do you come to be so familiar with Becker’s wishes in this affair? I can hardly imagine that he telephones you from an American gaol.’
‘He has a lawyer, of course. It was Becker’s lawyer who asked me to try and find you; and to ask you to help your old comrade.’
‘He was never that. It’s true we once worked together. But “old comrades”, no.’
Poroshin shrugged. ‘As you wish.’
‘Five thousand dollars. Where does Becker get $5,000?’
‘He is resourceful man.’
‘That’s one word for it. What’s he doing now?’
‘He runs an import and export business, here and in Vienna.’
‘A nice enough euphemism. Black-market, I suppose.’
Poroshin nodded apologetically and offered me another cigarette from his gold case. I smoked it with slow deliberation, wondering what small percentage of all this might be on the level.
‘Well, what do you say?’
‘I can’t do it,’ I said eventually. ‘I’ll give you the polite reason first.’
I stood up and went to the window. In the street below stood a shiny new BMW with a Russian pennant on the bonnet; leaning on it was a big, tough-looking Red Army soldier.
‘Colonel Poroshin, it wouldn’t have escaped your attention that it’s not getting any easier to get in or out of this city. After all, you have Berlin surrounded with half the Red Army. But quite apart from the ordinary travel restrictions affecting Germans, things do seem to have got quite a lot worse during the last few weeks, even for your so-called allies. And with so many displaced persons trying to enter Austria illegally, the Austrians are quite happy that journeys there should be discouraged. All right. That’s the polite reason.’
‘But none of this is a problem,’ Poroshin said smoothly. ‘For an old friend like Emil I will gladly pull a few wires. Rail warrants, a pink pass, tickets — it can all be easily fixed. You can trust me to handle all the necessary arrangements.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s the second reason why I’m not going to do it. The less polite reason. I don’t trust you, Colonel. Why should I? You talk about pulling a few strings to help Emil. But you could just as easily pull them the other way. Things are rather fickle on your side of the fence. I know a man who came back from the war to find Communist Party officials living in his house — officials for whom nothing was simpler than to pull a few strings in order to ensure his committal to a lunatic as
ylum just so they could keep the house.
‘And, only a month or two ago, I left a couple of friends drinking in a bar in your sector of Berlin, only to learn later that minutes after I had gone Soviet forces surrounded the place and pressed everyone in the bar into a couple of weeks of forced labour.
‘So I repeat, Colonel: I don’t trust you and see no reason why I should. For all I know I might be arrested the minute I step into your sector.’
Poroshin laughed out loud. ‘But why? Why should you be arrested?’
‘I never noticed that you need much of a reason.’ I shrugged exasperatedly. ‘Maybe because I’m a private detective. For the MVD that’s as good as being an American spy. I believe that the old concentration camp at Sachsenhausen which your people took over from the Nazis is now full of Germans who’ve been accused of spying for the Americans.’
‘If you will permit me one small arrogance, Herr Gunther: do you seriously believe that I, an MVD palkovnik, would consider that the matter of your deception and arrest was more important than the affairs of the Allied Control Council?’
‘You’re a member of the Kommendatura?’ I was surprised.
‘I have the honour to be Intelligence officer to the Soviet Deputy Military Governor. You may inquire at the council headquarters in Elsholzstrasse if you don’t believe me.’ He paused, waiting for some reaction from me. ‘Come now. What do you say?’
When I still said nothing, he sighed and shook his head. ‘I’ll never understand you Germans.’
‘You speak the language well enough. Don’t forget, Marx was a German.’
‘Yes, but he was also a Jew. Your countrymen spent twelve years trying to make those two circumstances mutually exclusive. That’s one of the things I can’t understand. Change your mind?’
I shook my head.
‘Very well.’
The Colonel showed no sign of being irritated at my refusal. He looked at his watch and then stood up.
