by Philip Kerr
13
Sunday, 25 September
‘Is Herr Hirsch at home?’
The old man answering the door straightened and then nodded. ‘I am Herr Hirsch,’ he said.
‘You are Sarah Hirsch’s father?’
‘Yes. Who are you?’
He must have been at least seventy, bald, with white hair growing long over the back of his collar, and not very tall, stooped even. It was hard to imagine this man having fathered a fifteen-year-old daughter. I showed him my badge.
‘Police,’ I said. ‘Please don’t be alarmed. I’m not here to make any trouble for you. I merely wish to question your daughter. She may be able to describe a man, a criminal.’
Recovering a little of his colour after the sight of my credentials, Herr Hirsch stood to one side and silently ushered me into a hall that was full of Chinese vases, bronzes, blue-patterned plates and intricate balsa-wood carvings in glass cases. These I admired while he closed and locked the front door, and he mentioned that in his youth he had been in the German navy and had travelled widely in the Far East. Aware now of the delicious smell that filled the house, I apologized and said that I hoped I wasn’t disturbing the family meal.
‘It will be a while yet before we sit down and eat,’ said the old man. ‘My wife and daughter are still working in the kitchen.’ He smiled nervously, no doubt unaccustomed to the politeness of public officials, and led me into a reception room.
‘Now then,’ he said, ‘you said that you wished to speak to my daughter Sarah. That she may be able to identify a criminal.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘One of the girls from your daughter’s school has disappeared. It’s quite possible she was abducted. One of the men, questioning some of the girls in your daughter’s class, discovered that several weeks ago Sarah was herself approached by a strange man. I should like to see if she can remember anything about him. With your permission.’
‘But of course. I’ll go and fetch her,’ he said, and went out.
Evidently this was a musical family. Beside a shiny black Bechstein grand were several instrument cases, and a number of music-stands. Close to the window which looked out on to a large garden was a harp, and in most of the family photographs on the sideboard, a young girl was playing a violin. Even the oil painting above the fireplace depicted something musical–a piano recital I supposed. I was standing looking at it and trying to guess the tune when Herr Hirsch returned with his wife and daughter.
Frau Hirsch was much taller and younger than her husband, perhaps no more than fifty – a slim, elegant woman with a set of pearls to match. She wiped her hands on her pinafore and then grasped her daughter by her shoulders, as if wishing to emphasize her parental rights in the face of possible interference from a state which was avowedly hostile to her race.
‘My husband says that a girl is missing from Sarah’s class at school,’ she said calmly. ‘Which girl is it?’
‘Emmeline Steininger,’ I said.
Frau Hirsch turned her daughter towards her a little.
‘Sarah,’ she scolded, ‘why didn’t you tell us that one of your friends had gone missing?’
Sarah, an overweight but healthy, attractive adolescent, who could not have conformed less to Streicher’s racist stereotype of the Jew, being blue-eyed and fair-haired, gave an impatient toss of her head, like a stubborn little pony.
‘She’s run away, that’s all. She was always talking about it. Not that I care much what’s happened to her. Emmeline Steininger’s no friend of mine. She’s always saying bad things about Jews. I hate her, and I don’t care if her father is dead.’
‘That’s enough of that,’ her father said firmly, probably not caring to hear much about fathers who were dead. ‘It doesn’t matter what she said. If you know something that will help the Kommissar to find her, then you must tell him. Is that clear?’
Sarah pulled a face. ‘Yes, Daddy,’ she yawned, and threw herself down into an armchair.
‘Sarah, really,’ said her mother. She smiled nervously at me. ‘She’s not normally like this, Kommissar. I must apologize.’
‘That’s all right,’ I smiled, sitting down on the footstool in front of Sarah’s chair.
‘On Friday, when one of my men spoke to you, Sarah, you told him you remembered seeing a man hanging around near your school, perhaps a couple of months ago. Is that right?’ She nodded. ‘Then I’d like you to try and tell me everything that you can remember about him.’
She chewed her fingernail for a moment, and inspected it thoughtfully. ‘Well, it was quite a while ago,’ she said.
‘Anything you might recall could help me. For instance, what time of day was it?’ I took out my notebook and laid it on my thigh.
‘It was going-home time. As usual I was going home by myself.’ She turned her nose up at the memory of it. ‘Anyway, there was this car near the school.’
‘What kind of car?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know makes of cars, or anything like that. But it was a big, black one, with a driver in the front.’
‘Was he the one who spoke to you?’
‘No, there was another man in the back seat. I thought they were policemen. The one sitting in the back had the window down and he called to me as I came through the gate. I was by myself. Most of the other girls had gone already. He asked me to come over, and when I did he told me that I was–’ She blushed a little and stopped.
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘–that I was very beautiful, and that he was sure my father and mother were very proud to have a daughter like me.’ She glanced awkwardly at her parents. ‘I’m not making it up,’ she said with something approaching amusement. ‘Honestly, that’s what he said.’
‘I believe you, Sarah,’ I said. ‘What else did he say?’
‘He spoke to his driver and said, wasn’t I a fine example of German maidenhood, or something stupid like that.’ She laughed. ‘It was really funny.’ She caught a look from her father that I didn’t see, and settled down again. ‘Anyway, it was something like that. I can’t remember exactly.’
‘And did the driver say anything back to him?’
‘He suggested to his boss that they could give me a ride home. Then the one in the back asked me if I’d like that. I said that I’d never ridden in one of those big cars before, and that I’d like to–’
Sarah’s father sighed loudly. ‘How many times have we told you, Sarah, not to–’
‘If you don’t mind, sir,’ I said firmly, ‘perhaps that can wait until later.’ I looked back at Sarah. ‘Then what happened?’
‘The man said that if I answered some questions correctly, he’d give me a ride, just like a movie-star. Well, first he asked me my name, and when I told him he just sort of looked at me, as if he were shocked. Of course it was because he realized that I was Jewish, and that was his next question: was I Jewish? I almost told him I wasn’t, just for the fun of it. But I was scared he would find out and that I would get into trouble, and so I told him I was. Then he leant back in his seat, and told the chauffeur to drive on. Not another word. It was very strange. As if I had vanished.’
‘That’s very good, Sarah. Now tell me: you said you thought they were policemen. Were they wearing uniforms?’
She nodded hesitantly.
‘Let’s start with the colour of these uniforms.’
‘Sort of green-coloured, I suppose. You know, like a policeman, only a bit darker.’
‘What were their hats like? Like policemen’s hats?’
‘No, they were peaked hats. More like officers. Daddy was an officer in the navy.’
‘Anything else? Badges, ribbons, collar insignia? Anything like that?’ She kept shaking her head. ‘All right. Now the man who spoke to you. What was he like?’
Sarah pursed her lips and then tugged at a length of her hair. She glanced at her father. ‘Older than the driver,’ she said. ‘About fifty-five, sixty. Quite heavy-looking, not much hair, or maybe it was just clos
ely cropped, and a small moustache.’
‘And the other one?’
She shrugged. ‘Younger. A bit pale-looking. Fair-haired. I can’t remember much about him at all.’
‘Tell me about his voice, this man sitting in the back of the car.’
‘You mean his accent?’
‘Yes, if you can.’
‘I don’t know for sure,’ she said. ‘I find accents quite difficult to place. I can hear that they’re different, but I can’t always say where the person is from.’ She sighed deeply, and frowned as she tried hard to concentrate. ‘It could have been Austrian. But I suppose it could just as easily have been Bavarian. You know, old-fashioned.’
‘Austrian or Bavarian,’ I said, writing in my notebook. I thought about underlining the word ‘Bavarian’ and then thought better of it. There was no point in giving it more emphasis than she had done, even if Bavarian suited me better. Instead I paused, saving my last question until I was sure that she had finished her answer.
‘Now think very clearly, Sarah. You’re standing by the car. The window is down and you’re looking straight into the car. You see the man with the moustache. What else can you see?’
She shut her eyes tight, and licking her lower lip she bent her brain to squeeze out one last detail.
‘Cigarettes,’ she said after a minute. ‘Not like Daddy’s.’ She opened her eyes and looked at me. ‘They had a funny smell. Sweet, and quite strong. Like bay-leaves, or oregano.’
I scanned my notes and when I was sure that she had nothing left to add I stood up.
‘Thank you, Sarah, you’ve been a great help.’
‘Have I?’ she said gleefully. ‘Have I really?’
‘You certainly have.’ We all smiled, and for a moment the four of us forgot who and what we were.
Driving from the Hirsch home, I wondered if any of them realized that for once Sarah’s race had been to her advantage – that being Jewish had probably saved her life.
I was pleased with what I had learned. Her description was the first real piece of information in the case. In the matter of accents her description tallied with that of Tanker, the desk sergeant who had taken the anonymous call. But what was more important it meant that I was going to have to get the dates on which Streicher had been in Berlin from General Martin in Nuremberg, after all.
14
Monday, 26 September
I looked out of the window of my apartment at the backs of the adjoining buildings, and into several sitting-rooms where each family was already grouped expectantly round the radio. From the window at the front of my apartment I could see that Fasanenstrasse was deserted. I walked into my own sitting-room and poured myself a drink. Through the floor I could hear the sound of classical music coming from the radio in the pension below. A little Beethoven provided a nice top and tail for the radio speeches of the Party leaders. It’s just what I always say: the worse the picture, the more ornate the frame.
Ordinarily I’m no listener to Party broadcasts. I’d sooner listen to my own wind. But tonight’s was no ordinary Party broadcast. The Führer was speaking at the Sportspalast on Potsdamerstrasse, and it was widely held that he would declare the true extent of his intentions towards Czechoslovakia and the Sudetenland.
Personally, I had long ago come to the conclusion that for years Hitler had been deceiving everyone with his speeches about peace. And I’d seen enough westerns at the cinema to know that when the man in the black hat picks on the little fellow standing next to him at the bar, he’s really spoiling for a fight with the sheriff. In this case the sheriff just happened to be French, and it didn’t take much to see that he wasn’t much inclined to do anything but stay indoors and tell himself that the gunshots he could hear across the street were just a few firecrackers.
In the hope that I was wrong about this, I turned on the radio, and like 75 million other Germans, waited to find out what would become of us.
A lot of women say that whereas Goebbels merely seduces, Hitler positively fascinates. It’s difficult for me to comment on this. All the same, there is no denying the hypnotic effect that the Führer’s speeches seem to have on people. Certainly the crowd at the Sportspalast seemed to appreciate it. I expect you had to be there to get the real atmosphere. Like a visit to a sewage plant.
For those of us listening at home, there was nothing to appreciate, no hope in anything that the number one carpet-chewer said. There was only the dreadful realization that we were a little closer to war than we had been the day before.
Tuesday, 27 September
The afternoon saw a military parade on Unter den Linden, one which looked more ready for war than anything ever seen before on the streets of Berlin. This was a mechanized division in full field equipment. But to my astonishment, there were no cheers, no salutes and no waving of flags. The reality of Hitler’s belligerence was in everyone’s mind and seeing this parade, people just turned and walked away.
Later that same day, when at his own request I met Arthur Nebe away from the Alex, at the offices of Gunther & Stahlecker, Private Investigators – the door was still awaiting the sign-writer to come and change the name back to the original I told him what I had seen.
Nebe laughed. ‘What would you say if I told you that the division you saw were this country’s probable liberators?’
‘Is the army planning a putsch?’
‘I can’t tell you very much except to say that high officers of the Wehrmacht have been in contact with the British prime minister. As soon as the British give the order, the army will occupy Berlin and Hitler will be brought to trial.’
‘When will that be?’
‘As soon as Hitler invades Czechoslovakia the British will declare war. That will be the time. Our time, Bernie. Didn’t I tell you that Kripo would be needing men like you?’
I nodded slowly. ‘But Chamberlain has been negotiating with Hitler, hasn’t he?’
‘That’s the British way, to talk, to be diplomatic. It wouldn’t be cricket if they didn’t try to negotiate.’
‘Nevertheless, he must believe that Hitler will sign some sort of treaty. More importantly, both Chamberlain and Daladier must themselves be prepared to sign some sort of treaty.’
‘Hitler won’t walk away from the Sudeten, Bernie. And the British aren’t about to renege on their own treaty with the Czechs.’
I went over to the drinks cabinet and poured a couple.
‘If the British and French intended to keep their treaty, then there would be nothing to talk about,’ I said, handing Nebe a glass. ‘If you ask me, they’re doing Hitler’s work for him.’
‘My God, what a pessimist you are.’
‘All right, let me ask you this. Have you ever been faced with the prospect of fighting someone you didn’t want to fight? Someone larger than you, perhaps? It may be that you think you’ll get a good hiding. It may be that you simply haven’t got the stomach for it. You try and talk your way out of the situation, of course. The man who talks too much doesn’t want to fight at all.’
‘But we are not larger than the British and the French.’
‘But they don’t have the stomach for it.’
Nebe raised his glass. ‘To the British stomach, then.’
‘To the British stomach.’
Wednesday, 28 September
‘General Martin has supplied the information about Streicher, sir.’ Korsch looked at the telegraph he was holding. ‘On the five dates in question it would seem that Streicher was known to be in Berlin on at least two of them. With regard to the other two that we don’t know about, Martin has no idea where he was.’
‘So much for his boast about his spies.’
‘Well, there is one thing, sir. Apparently on one of the dates, Streicher was seen coming from the Furth aerodrome in Nuremberg.’
‘What’s the flying time between here and Nuremberg?’
‘Couple of hours at the most. Do you want me to check with Tempelhof airport?’
‘I’v
e got a better idea. Get on to the propaganda boys at the Muratti. Ask them to supply you with a nice photograph of Streicher. Better ask for one of all the Gauleiters so as not to draw too much attention to yourself. Say it’s for security up at the Reichs Chancellery, that always sounds good. When you’ve got it, I want you to go and talk to the Hirsch girl. See if she can’t identify Streicher as the man in the car.’
‘And if she does?’
‘If she does, then you and I are going to find that we have made a lot of new friends. With one notable exception.’
‘That’s what I was afraid of.’
Thursday, 29 September
Chamberlain returned to Munich. He wanted to talk again. The Sheriff came too but it seemed that he was only going to look the other way when the shooting started. Mussolini polished his belt and his head and turned up to offer support to his spiritual ally.
While these important men came and went, a young girl, of little or no account in the general scheme of things, disappeared while doing the family shopping at the local market.
Moabit Market was on the corner of Bremerstrasse and Arminius Strasse. A large red-brick building, about the same size as a warehouse, it was where the working class of Moabit–which means everyone who lived in the area – bought their cheese, fish, cooked meats and other fresh provisions. There were even one or two places where you could stand and drink a quick beer and eat a sausage. The place was always busy and there were at least six ways in and out of the place. It’s not somewhere that you just wander round. Most people are in a hurry, with little time to stand and stare at things they cannot afford; and anyway, there is none of those sort of goods in Moabit. So my clothes and unhurried demeanour marked me out from the rest.
We knew that Liza Ganz had disappeared from there because that was where a fishmonger had found a shopping bag which Liza’s mother later identified as belonging to her.
