Shadow and Light

by Jonathan Rabb

Hoffner turned. “Which one is it, Georg?” Hoffner marveled at the boy’s composure. Really very gifted, this one.

  Georg broke into a shy smile. “I’m afraid I don’t know. I should have asked, I suppose.”

  “No, no,” said Leber. “Not much to distinguish them.”

  “Why don’t you show him the book?” said Hoffner.

  This one, however, was beyond the boy’s talents. Georg sat frozen as he tried to find an answer until Hoffner said, “Oh no, wait.” Hoffner reached into his coat pocket. “I have it here.” He slid the small ledger across the desk. “You might be able to tell from this.”

  Leber stared down at the book, then at Hoffner. His expression had lost its enthusiasm.

  Hoffner said affably, “He let Georg borrow it. Just to have a look. You know boys.”

  “No,” said Leber coldly. “I don’t.” Even sternness seemed to hang awkwardly on him. He looked across at Georg. “You’ll bring it back to him and tell him not to do that sort of thing again.” Georg nodded sheepishly, and Leber turned to Hoffner. “I can’t look at that ledger, Nikolai. It wouldn’t be right. Ethically.”

  “No, no, of course not,” said Hoffner. “I think it’s some sort of foreign firm, anyway. The boy’s parents are Danes.”

  Leber nodded vaguely. He was leaning back, mulling over the indiscretion. “These apprentices. Think it’s a game. Showing off to their friends or some girl with something that could be quite sensitive.”

  Hoffner smiled dryly. “The adolescent treats to be found in an accounting ledger.” Leber ignored the comment, and Hoffner said, “You’re sure you won’t take a look?”

  It was the tone that brought Leber back. He was perfectly still for several moments before he said, “You want me to take a look.” The voice held a newfound distance. Hoffner remained quiet as Leber continued to stare. “Georg doesn’t have an interest in accounting, does he, Nikolai?”

  Hoffner let the silence settle. “No.”

  “It’s about this little book.”

  “Yes.”

  Leber nodded slowly to himself. “Of course it is.” He waited, then said, “You’ve always thought me a silly man, haven’t you?” It was strange to hear no malice in the voice. “A little story. Something about fencing—always a nice touch—and then on to what you need. And so clever. Truth is, you’ve always been clever, at least cleverer than I am.” For some reason, Leber glanced around the office. “Not impressive in the slightest, is it? I know it. You know it. The boy knows it. In fact, it’s all rather horrible. But the one thing it is, Nikolai, is earned, whatever that might mean. I’ll take the stares of pity, the indifference, even the little comments. You’d be surprised how quickly one gets used to them. What I won’t be is ridiculous, especially in front of an audience.”

  Hoffner felt a prick of shame; he knew it would have to wait. “Any idea who might have put this together, Jürgen?”

  “Ethics be damned?”

  “The man who wrote it didn’t have any, if that makes it any easier.”

  “That’s never the point.”

  “A man’s dead.”

  “One always is.”

  Hoffner had forgotten this piece to Leber, the strength—erratic as it might be—yet somehow always there. It was what had made him so unpredictable on the strip. Hoffner matched Leber’s gaze and said, “He won’t tell you this, Georg, but Herr Leber had no time for the saber because he was too busy defending his German national foil championship three years running.”

  Georg nodded appreciatively, but knew to keep quiet.

  Hoffner said, “You’d be doing me a tremendous good turn.”

  “Would I?”

  Both men knew this was as close to an apology as Hoffner was likely to get. For several seconds, Leber said nothing. He then slowly leaned back.

  When he finally spoke, there was no trace of emotion. “It’s a Kapel binding, which means you were right, foreign. Not that a few Berlin firms aren’t still using them, but most have moved on to the Parmanian. Funny, really. Berliners using the Hungarian books, while foreigners use the German. The irony of it.” Leber waited again and then reached over and took the ledger. His expression was stone as he scanned the pages. “Parents as Danes. Clever. You probably thought Dutch as well. The 4’s and the 1’s.” He placed the book back on the desk. “You’d have been wrong on both counts. It’s Swiss. The 8’s are too wide to be anything else, and he’s put a double line at every third of a page instead of at every quarter. Something the Swiss like to do. I don’t know why. I’ve never asked.” This was the way Leber had been on the strip, relentless, focused, detached. “There are three firms I would suggest, but I don’t know if any of them specializes in film industry accounting. It’s a rather specific skill.” Leber clearly enjoyed the look of surprise in Hoffner’s eyes. “We’ve done a bit of work with Decla, a few projects out at Ufa. The industry abbreviations are standard.” He took a sheet of paper, scribbled three names on it, and slid it across to Hoffner.

  Hoffner quietly retrieved both the page and the book, and said, “You wouldn’t have told me if I’d asked you directly.” He folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket.

  “No, you’re right, I wouldn’t have. But then Georg here would have missed out on his father having to ask for help.” With anyone else, this might have seemed cruel. With Leber, it was simply where the point had been aiming all along.

  Hoffner stood, and Georg followed. “It’s good seeing you, Jürgen.”

  Leber stood. “You’ll come up to Heidelberg this year. Renner always asks about you.”

  “He’s in Köln?”

  “Stuttgart.”

  “That’s right.” Hoffner extended his hand and the two shook. A nod for Georg sufficed.

  Leber waited until father and son were at the door before saying, “You weren’t always this much of a shit, were you?”

  Hoffner took hold of the handle. He could feel Georg staring at him from the corridor. “No,” said Hoffner. “I think I was.”

  OUT ON THE STREET, the sun had perched above the bank, turning the pavement to glass: there was nowhere to look without squinting.

  Georg was the first to break the silence. “He takes things very seriously, doesn’t he?”

  Hoffner nodded distractedly as they passed a bus stop with an advertising poster for tooth cream. A bob-haired young woman sat wearily peering into a mirror, her long fingers pulling down on her lower lip, her gums somehow never more sensuous. If not for the brush in her hand and the large-print mandate DON’T STAY BEHIND THE TOOTH CREAM TIMES! USE CHLORODONT AND GUARD AGAINST PINK TOOTHBRUSH! Hoffner might have taken it for a teaser—albeit an odd one—for a Tiller Girls review. After all, wasn’t their draw “Things You’ve Never Dreamed of Seeing!”? Hoffner imagined Leber, a kindred spirit, standing first in line, brush in hand. It was enough to provoke another twinge of conscience.

  “He’s got the right body for a champion,” Georg tried again. “I envy him those arms.”

  Again Hoffner nodded as he took them past the Metropol—some Lehár operetta in the offing—and up toward Unter den Linden. A cab raced by, and Hoffner said, “That was my fault.” His eyes were focused in front of him. “Putting you in that position. I’m sorry for that.”

  The sound of his father’s voice was less shocking than the apology. Georg nodded awkwardly.

  Hoffner said, “He deserved better as well, I suppose.” The Brandenburg Gate came into view. “You remember that carousel off the Siegesallee?” Again Georg nodded, relieved to be on to something new. Hoffner headed them across the street and said, “Good. We’ve got over an hour. We’ll have a bit of fun.”

  THE PARK WAS MORE WIDE OPEN here than Hoffner remembered. A boy of about nine was racing about with a stick, scratching jagged lines into the graveled dirt as a clutch of nannies looked on from chairs and benches at the rim of the trees. Four or five older children were playing at some sort of game, disappearing and reappearing from behind the carousel, which
spun slowly to accommodate the youngest riders. Off to the side, a man with a cane tapped at the brim of his hat each time a little boy passed by: “Opa! Opa!” and another mock salute. Beyond them, the park was deserted, only the very young, the very old, and the well paid willing to suffer through this uncompromising sky. Hoffner and Georg settled in at the last of the benches.

  “You liked that one, I think,” said Hoffner, nodding at an old blue on the inner row. “You had a name for it.”

  Georg watched as the horse slipped by. “Did I?”

  “Bompo or . . . Bommio?”

  “Ponky Bo,” Georg said as the horse reappeared.

  “That’s right.” Hoffner pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit up. “Odd name.” He let out a strain of smoke. “You’re much too old for this now, aren’t you?” It was as if this had just occurred to him.

  Georg said nothing as the boy with the stick fell, his chin slapping at the dirt. A moment later the air filled with screams, and one of the women raced over.

  Georg said, “They’re all very little, aren’t they?”

  “You never cried out like that,” said Hoffner. “I always appreciated that.”

  “I wouldn’t have with you.”

  Hoffner watched as the little boy got to his feet, his chin bloodied, the nanny dabbing at it with a cloth. Within half a minute, he was back with his stick. “Don’t know why I thought this was where to take you,” Hoffner said. “Bit ridiculous.”

  Georg nodded as he stood. “Probably.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few coins. “I’ve got four pfennigs. Good for two rides.”

  Hoffner looked up. “Well, you give my best to Ponky Bo.”

  “I don’t ride alone, Papi.”

  Hoffner snorted a laugh. It was his own fault, anyway. Why not? He took a last draw, stood, and flicked the cigarette to the ground.

  Up on the carousel, he found a stationary banc between two poles and settled in behind Georg. A man—somewhere in his midtwenties—emerged from the central booth. He was tall, thin, and missing an arm.

  “He says it can manage your weight,” Georg said, already on top of his horse.

  The man said, “More fun up than down.”

  “I’m fine here,” said Hoffner.

  Georg gathered the reins and said, “So where did you lose it?”

  The boy’s candor caught Hoffner momentarily off guard. He might have said something had the man not chimed in no less easily.

  “Isonzo.”

  Hoffner chalked it up to that feeling of immortality in the young and the lame. Berlin seemed to be breeding it just now.

  The man added, “July of ’17.”

  Georg nodded, and the man stepped down to the booth. He pulled a lever and the carousel began to move. Waiting for them to pass by, he hopped back up.

  “Shouldn’t have lost it at all,” he said as he leaned against a pole. “Caught something in the shoulder. Ran out of petrol getting me back, at least that’s what they said. Medic had to tie it off. I suppose he saved my life.”

  Hoffner gripped at the bench. Even at this speed, the motion was making him queasy.

  “Nannies don’t like it much,” the man continued. “Except for the ones who’ve been intrigued, if you know what I mean.” Hoffner had no interest in knowing what he meant. “Doesn’t seem to bother the little ones, though, so I suppose that’s good.”

  Hoffner felt himself going green. “A bit young to have been at Isonzo.”

  “Yah.” The man managed to pull a cigarette from his shirt pocket and light it without the least difficulty. “Told them I was twenty. We all lied, at least the ones I was with. I was fifteen.” A little girl vomited, and the man stepped back down and pulled the lever. The carousel slowed and Hoffner immediately felt better. They swung around and he hopped up again.

  “You don’t want to go over?” said Hoffner.

  “She’s not done,” said the man. “Besides”—he nodded at the benches—“the pretty one on the end might be hers.” A crate of a woman rose and began to make her way over. “Oh well,” he said, and flicked his cigarette to the edge. “It wasn’t a secret. They all knew. Generals, colonels, whoever was running the thing. They needed bodies. We wanted to go. It was good to be tall. Not too many questions.”

  Georg said, “You ever think—”

  “No.” The answer came too quickly. “I went. I came back. Besides, they give you a good extra pension if you lose an arm.”

  The girl was on solid ground now, crying, the large woman doing what she could to remove the remains of breakfast from her smock.

  “My brother joined when he was sixteen,” said Georg. Georg might have been looking at the man, but Hoffner knew this had been meant for him.

  The man nodded indifferently. “He make it back?”

  “He never went,” Hoffner said. “He joined in ’19, during the revolution. Freikorps.”

  For the first time the man showed an emotion: something between distaste and bitterness. “Freikorps. Right-wing pricks. Sorry.” He wasn’t.

  “You’ll get no argument from me,” said Hoffner.

  The girl was now trying to break free: tears and vomiting had turned to defiance. Georg dismounted. “Well, good luck to you, then.”

  The man pushed himself up from the pole. “You as well.” He bobbed a nod to Hoffner and stepped down to the booth. Hoffner followed Georg to the edge, and the two hopped off and headed for the trees.

  “He’s in town,” Georg said. The gravel muffled their voices.

  “What?”

  “Sascha. He’s in town.”

  Hoffner stopped. It was another few strides before Georg turned to him. Hoffner said, “I thought you said you hadn’t heard from him in months?”

  “I lied.”

  Hoffner stifled the urge to reach over and slap the boy across the face.

  “He’s doing well, Papi. He’s not what you think.” Georg spoke with a remarkable calm. “He’s invited me to something tonight.”

  “Tonight,” Hoffner said quietly.

  “A get-together. He asked for you to come.”

  “Really?”

  Georg held his ground.

  “Where?” said Hoffner.

  “Up in Wedding. The Pharus Hall.”

  That hardly made sense. Wedding was a workers’ district. The Pharus Hall was for gatherings of the Communist variety. “So your brother’s a Red now?”

  “Do you want to see him?”

  It was a question Hoffner had never fully been able to answer. “How long?”

  “How long what?”

  “How long has he been in town?”

  Georg knew not to go down this path. “You should see him. It’s tonight. At eight.”

  The music from the carousel started up again, and Hoffner said, “There’s an appointment I need to get to.” He saw a slight clenching in Georg’s jaw. “We don’t want to be late.”

  A numbness glazed over the boy’s eyes. He waited and then said, “We? You’ve always been better on your own.”

  They stood like this, with nothing between them, until Georg finally turned and headed off. Hoffner watched the boy go, his son lost in the stride of this young man. It would always be like this, he thought, the current too swift for either of them.

  He turned to the carousel and saw the girl retching again. This time she had managed to include her shoes.

  THE ACCOUNTANT

  HOFFNER NEVER MADE IT to Potsdamer Platz.

  Had he been at all aware of why Ufa deserved his contempt—they had sent Georg to him; they had made this morning an inevitability; they had brought Sascha back from the dead—he might have acted differently. After all, it was dangerous to let such things affect a case. But Hoffner was not aware. He never troubled himself with personal motivations: only criminals merited that kind of digging. His sins were of a different order and thus lived free of any deeper origin. To him, the missed appointment was simply a flexing of muscles: they had told him when to com
e, and he had told them no.

  By noon, he was finished with the first firm on Leber’s list and was enjoying a bit of minced pork, onions, and peppers on a roll—a nice Hackepeterbrötchen with a few gherkins on the side—helped down by a pale ale and corn-schnapps chaser: even a cop could pretend to have a Berlin morning now and then.

  Standing at one of the café’s pillar tables, he read through the sporting pages of the BZ (WHEEL JAMS: RIDER LOSES EAR), and tried to forget the chief accountant and his smell of talcum and lavender: “A Kapel binding?” The man’s disdain had bordered on the personal. “We don’t use those sorts of bindings anymore, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar.” Hoffner wondered if perhaps poor old Kapel had been caught in some sort of erotic intrigue, something to do with red ink and sheets of lined paper, a nice full girl with bits and pieces of leather binding squeezed in where they weren’t meant to be. Or maybe that was just the way accountants were taught to answer. He finished with the cycling results and bought another roll for later.

  It was gone by the time he reached the fourth floor of the second firm, its accounting hall a study in efficiency and regret. A stiff, sallow man appeared from around the side of a long wooden counter where three rows of perfectly aligned desks stretched to a distant wall. Trunks, arms, and hands manned each station as fingers scribbled quietly in ledgers the size of a woman’s torso. Had some of these living husks not been wearing eyeglasses, the heads would have been indistinguishable from one another.

  “Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar.” The man managed just enough voice to be heard over the scribbling. He seemed genuinely eager to help. “Yes, we use them.” The appearance of Hoffner’s little book prompted a simple nod. Good old Kapel. Maybe the girl had refused to press charges? “No, I’m afraid I can’t examine the contents. The ethical question. You understand.” Hoffner wondered if this might be the only phrase to be found in the accountant’s training manual. “But,” the man continued, “should the Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar wish to describe these contents, perhaps I might be able to determine whether we are working with such a firm.” Evidently ethics came in any number of varieties.