“I pay enough not to have any. Someone spill a bottle of schnapps on you?”
“Long day.”
The river spread out as a gray flatness, the far shore visible only in pockets of reflected light. Even then, the outline was deceptive. Only the smell of the Spree offered any kind of bearings this far east. Here, it was the scent of baking bread that rose off the water, the grain boats moored all the way up to the Oberbaum Bridge. The granary itself loomed in the distance, tall and dreary: even in daylight, its sooted walls kept it black and unforgiving. Now, at the edge of twilight, it was nothing more than a wide emptiness in a sinking sky.
“How far to the other side?” Hoffner asked.
“Why? You thinking a swim will clear your head?”
“Remind me—you use the barges for what, cocaine, black-market coal?”
Pimm shouted to one of his men: “There’s two more trucks coming down. Pack them in tight.” He took out a flask and handed it to Hoffner. “It’s not for drinking. Sprinkle some on your face and coat. Do us all a favor.”
Hoffner sniffed at the contents: lavender and talcum. That was twice today he had had to suffer through it. “Men actually wear this?”
“When they smell like you, yes. You can keep the flask.”
There was a splash at the far end, and Pimm said, “Now what?” He was about to head over when a figure appeared from the shadows. Even in the half-light Hoffner recognized the lanky frame of Zenlo Radek. The man never seemed to age. The sharp features of his face remained preserved under a thin coating of skin, just enough to cover the bone. Somehow the eye sockets always looked to be in need of a bit more.
“It’s nothing,” Radek said. His accent was equally taut, eastern European, although Hoffner doubted if even Pimm knew its exact origin.
“Nothing?” said Pimm. “I don’t pay them to lose—”
“The thing,” said Radek with a quick glance at Hoffner. “What we talked about. How long until the next truck?”
Even with his head in knots, Hoffner laughed to himself. “I don’t want to know what or who, do I?”
“Who,” Pimm echoed. For a moment Hoffner thought he saw something else in the eyes. Pimm then echoed the laughter and said, “That’s right. I’m going to dump a body this far downriver, especially with a winter current in the water? I’d do better delivering it straight to the Alex. You really don’t think that much of me, do you?”
“The problem is, I think too much of you and manage to forget all this.”
Pimm turned to Radek. “Fifteen minutes. Tell them to take a smoke.”
Radek nodded and headed back.
“Nothing’s in the works,” said Pimm. He had promised to make a few calls: a crankman out at Luna Park, the projector operator up at Hugo Geller’s Burlesque Emporium, and two London boys who ran a strip and squirt room in the attic of The Barrister’s Bonn—originally slated as The Barrister’s Bone (those clever English), but the boys had ordered the gas signs over the telephone and had failed to confirm the spelling. What a lawyer’s imagining of a southern German town had to do with a self-gratification parlor remained a mystery to most. To those in the know, it made the place only more laughable. Still, they were the best in the city at getting people in front of a camera.
The last on Pimm’s list was a chemist out in Treptow who, when not dispensing arthritis and bladder curatives to the dying poor, was known to be the top developer of nudie films in Berlin. None of them had heard a thing.
“What about Americans?” said Hoffner.
“What about them?” When Hoffner said nothing, Pimm added, “I don’t do a lot of business in those circles.”
“You disapprove?”
“No,” Pimm said easily. “Not at all. How people do what they do—not for me to judge. Funny enough, they don’t use as much muscle as everyone else. You’d think they would, but they don’t. It’s the French who like all that—knives and knuckles and kneecaps. Maybe it’s because they think they actually won the war. Why should I be looking for Americans?”
“There’s a girl—”
“Now that’s where you’ll find your muscle.”
“A German,” said Hoffner. “She’s got hold of a piece of equipment some Americans might want.”
“And she knows they want it?” Pimm nodded to himself. “That always makes for a bit of desperation. You’re sure she’s not dead?”
“I’m guessing they want her for more than just the equipment.”
Pimm nodded again. “The sex films. Someone wants a new leading lady.”
It was a remarkable mind, thought Hoffner. For a man who had spent the first ten years of his life killing stray dogs so as to eat, Pimm saw things with a clarity that denied his natural viciousness. Then again, maybe that was what had kept him alive.
“I’ll see what I can find,” Pimm said. “You need some bacon?” He peered out at the barge.
“Bacon?” said Hoffner.
“Danish bacon. Very nice this time of year.”
Hoffner smiled. “No. No bacon. Thanks.”
“Just wondering.”
DARKNESS ALWAYS CAME as a reprieve to Wedding. Whatever decay lived on the streets during the day, nightfall brought at least temporary relief from the humiliation. True, the place had yet to succumb in the ways that Prenzlauer Berg and the Mitte districts had: workers here still carried their pride in little lunch pails and Sunday suits fit for bodies twenty years younger. Nonetheless, it was hard for a man to find his way through when all he could see was how much worse it would be for his sons, more so for their sons yet to come. Even the violence in the night struck out with a kind of depressed rage.
Hoffner took the subway steps two at a time and emerged to the leaden quiet of a deserted square: the locals knew to stay in on nights when the Pharus Hall opened its doors. The only sound was the trickling of water from a fountain, and Hoffner was suddenly reminded of how parched he was. He made his way over and scooped out a few handfuls. The water had the sour taste of stone and rust. Both seemed to bring some life back to his head.
Sadly, the surroundings were less inspiring. Brown stucco tenements stretched on from block to block with a silence that belied the life within. Sounds of squalor kept themselves hidden inside the courtyards, where the smell of boiled cabbage and water-rinsed clothing hung in the air like the unwashed breath of poverty. There was nothing to distinguish the buildings from one another except for the occasional weathered number on a porter’s door.
Hoffner took the turn onto Müllerstrasse and heard the first rumblings of the crowd, raucous even by its usual standards. A bright light spilled out onto the street, and the figures moving to the door seemed to form out of the yellow haze of the streetlamps. Several open-back trucks were parked along the road, their drivers sitting in the cabins as Hoffner made his way over. He checked to see if these might be from the local precinct—always good to have the threat of a roundup in view—but they were commercial. Maybe the Rummelsberg and Erkner party members had decided on a little outing, a bit of support for their city brothers. Did Communists actually use the word “outing,” Hoffner wondered. It still failed to explain why Sascha would be putting in an appearance.
A few shouts rang out and Hoffner joined the crowd. All he could think of was Georg and how completely ill equipped he was for tonight. Not that the Reds were always looking for a dustup: they were, but that hardly distinguished them from any number of Berlin’s other bare-fisted bands of roving politicos. These simply needed to bore their would-be followers with hours and hours of impenetrable speeches. How a group of factory men and cobblers found inspiration in these endless rants always astounded Hoffner—long-hairs shipped in from far more reasonable parts of town, where discussions of economic inevitabilities and five-year plans tended to make more sense over a nice cup of black-currant tea and a sticky roll.
He scanned the faces for Georg, rough men with deep-set eyes carved out by drink and defeat. They came to each other in the vain hope of finding some untap
ped purpose. It would have been too much to call it inspiration, but for those young enough not to know any better, there still might have been a faith even in that.
A pamphlet was thrust into his hand, and Hoffner slipped it into his pocket as he moved into the auditorium. The sudden heat of sweat and tobacco stifled the air as a babbling of voices filled the room. People were either sitting or milling about all the way up to the stage, where a group of men stood on either side of a podium. One barked orders to an unseen figure in the audience; another flipped through pages of what looked to be a very long speech. The rest stared out at the crowd checking their watches with surprising consistency. There was something uncertain to the room, as if a single shattered glass might bring the whole thing crashing down, but Hoffner was now strangely unaware of it. Instead, he was staring at the second figure from the right. The face was a bit fuller, the chest broader, but the rest appeared as if time had forgotten the boy.
Sascha was a young twenty-four, still too thin, and still with a gaze that showed no hesitation in how it viewed the world. Even smiling, he looked incapable of pity.
Hoffner felt a quick push to his back. The crowd behind him was evidently not as taken with the sight of his son. He stepped to the side, found a place along the back wall, and continued to stare.
What made for the passing of eight years, he wondered. A minute ago, he might have been able to reconstruct it with a kind of coherence—maybe not a meaning, but at least something to approximate movement. Now all he had were flashes of time, and Sascha appeared in none of them. Even the sound of his voice was completely unknown—that perhaps oddest of all—watching his son speak in the distance, trying to make out the words, and hearing only a boy in his head.
“I can’t believe it.”
Hoffner turned and saw Georg moving through the crowd.
“You actually made it.”
Georg drew up, and Hoffner reached over and hugged him. It was no different from what was happening in the rest of the hall: men embraced with fat slaps to the back, the exaggerated gestures of camaraderie. Here, however, it was foreign to both of them. Hoffner felt the solidness of his son in his arms and let go.
Georg’s expression was a mixture of amusement and confusion as he stepped back. “Well, it’s good to see you, too, Papi.” He nodded up to the stage. “Have you seen him?”
Hoffner nodded quietly, his eyes fixed on Georg, and Georg suddenly understood what had just passed between them. He was no better for it, his smile too wide, the pat on his father’s shoulder too emphatic to hide his inexperience with this kind of affection. Both knew there was nothing to trust in it.
“I told you he was doing well,” said Georg. “He’s the personal secretary—something like that—to the man who’s speaking. We should go over.”
“He looks busy,” said Hoffner. “I don’t want to get in the way.”
“The fellow’s notoriously late. Sascha said so. We’ve got time.”
Georg slipped into the crowd, and Hoffner had no choice but to follow. The men around them seemed even more ragtag than Hoffner had thought outside. Communists usually put on a better face. This had the smell of a beer hall.
They neared the stage, and Sascha caught sight of Georg, a hand up, the same stifled smile. It was another second before he saw Hoffner.
There was an ease in the expression, stiff as it was, that dispelled any connection the two might still have had.
“Georgi,” Sascha said as he came down the steps: Hoffner thought he was hearing his own voice. “And Nikolai Hoffner. So there is some courage in there, after all.”
The phrase had the tone of being too well practiced, but Hoffner let it go. Eight years for a boy of twenty-four deserved the first cut.
“So, you’ve come up to Wedding” was all Hoffner could find to say. “Bit of a surprise.”
“Right in their backyard,” Sascha said. “But that’s the whole point, isn’t it?”
Hoffner nodded, not understanding what the boy meant, and not caring. “You look good, Alexander.”
“The living continue living, Fath—” Sascha caught himself, his eyelids heavy for a moment. He found his recovery in another cut. “Doesn’t look as if you’ve been doing much of that.”
Hoffner bobbed his head in agreement. “The old get older.”
There was an awkward silence, and Georg jumped in with too much energy. “Father’s been working on something out at the studio, so I suppose the game’s up there, but he’s been pretty good about it.”
“Not that keen he’s out of school,” said Hoffner, trying to match Georg’s lightness. It was a poor attempt.
“You’ll get over it,” said Sascha.
The blows were coming more accurately now. Hoffner glanced beyond Sascha and found refuge in the movement up on stage. “So this is . . . ?”
“A meeting,” said Sascha. “Like any other.” Again, there was too much preparation in the tone. “The man I work with”—not for, but with, thought Hoffner—“he has some very powerful ideas. And he’s not afraid to throw them back in the Reds’ faces. Naturally, we’re prepared for whatever they might have in mind tonight.”
Evidently this was some sort of gauntlet being thrown down, out beyond the fringes of real politics. What else were a few broken bones and bloody faces good for? The local cops would come in, toss the worst of them in the clink for the night, and give the rest of the less committed a sense of martyred victory. And the next speech and meeting would begin with the names of the gallant few . . . It was a mindless game Berlin had been tolerating for too long.
“Kurtzman.”
One of the men called down from the stage, and Sascha turned. Hoffner had done his best to forget this little tidbit. Taking his mother’s maiden name had been Sascha’s last act of defiance. Or perhaps it had been his first. Hoffner had never figured out which.
“He’s here,” the man barked, and headed for the wings.
Sascha turned back to Georg and said, “You’ll want to meet him. He’s very approachable.” For the first time, he looked at his father with something other than disdain. “You can come, too, if you like.”
Hoffner followed them up the stairs and into the backstage area. A man handed Sascha a clipboard and then led them toward a door at the far side. It opened out into an alleyway, where the sound of a car door slamming brought Sascha to full attention. He cleared his throat and waited.
A small man, early thirties and in a leather long coat, appeared in the doorframe. His fedora looked too large for his narrow face, although the nose did manage to keep pace with the brim. There was something of the little Jew to him, and Hoffner wondered how far afield Sascha had managed to go in just eight years.
The man spotted Sascha and raised his tiny hand. Hoffner now saw where the boy had learned his stiffness.
“Kurtzman,” the man said as he walked over. He had a limp that everyone seemed careful not to notice. “Excellent. Have we had any trouble?”
“Police had the place barricaded until about twenty minutes ago.” Sascha spoke with a newfound authority. “I’d say two-thirds of the crowd is Red. They’ve been waiting a good half hour.”
“Then I’ll need to go in through the front, won’t I?”
“That might not be the best—”
The hand went up again, and the man smiled. “Open warfare. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? And this is . . . ?”
Sascha stepped back. “Oh yes. This is Georg Hoffner.” The two shook hands. “And his father.” Hoffner took the small hand, the fingers like slick bone. Still, it was a firm grip. “Herr Doktor Joseph Goebbels,” Sascha continued. “Leader of district Berlin-Brandenburg.” Hoffner noticed the little badge on his lapel, an open-winged eagle perched on a wreath, surrounded by leaves. It was not a war medallion he knew.
“You’ve seen the crowd, mein Herr?” Goebbels spoke to Hoffner as if the two had been friends for years. “On edge, are they?”
Hoffner said, “That would be an a
ccurate way of describing it, mein Herr. Yes.”
Goebbels’s smile had all the subtlety of oil. “Then we mustn’t disappoint them.” He turned to Sascha. “Give me two minutes to get through the crowd out front, then have Daluege announce the opening of the meeting. That should get things flying.” He put a hand on Sascha’s shoulder. “Don’t look so worried. Can’t be worse than charging up a trench, and I’ve been through that.” He added a playful slap on the boy’s cheek and then headed for the door.
Hoffner waited until Goebbels was out of earshot. “He seems fond of you.”
Sascha continued to watch Goebbels go. “Yes.”
“That must be nice for you.”
“Yes.”
Hoffner had hoped for at least a glance from the boy, but Sascha kept his eyes on the little man: how much clearer to see oneself erased from a life. He said, “He doesn’t exactly look like Freikorps material.”
Sascha turned to his father with the same even gaze. “National Socialist. We still use old members of the Korps, but only when we need to show a bit of strength. It’s a thinking man’s party now.”
Hoffner recalled something about these thinkers, somewhere in the south. Evidently they were setting their sights on bigger prey. “I see. He’s surprisingly nimble, what with the—”
“Yes, he is,” said Sascha. “One of the remarkable things about him. Took four bullets to the calf in the Somme. They said he wouldn’t walk.”
Hoffner now understood why he had been invited. Burgeoning hero worship always softened the sting of old betrayals: so much easier to extend the olive branch to those no longer with any claim. The boy, however, was still his to protect.
“That wasn’t from a bullet,” Hoffner said.
Sascha looked momentarily puzzled. Here he had made the effort, and here was his father finding a way to ruin even that. “You’re right. It was four bullets.”
“It wasn’t any bullets.” Hoffner gave up on the pretense. “The man never fought in the war, Sascha.”
The boy stared at his father, a familiar coldness rising in his eyes. “Really?”
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