Shadow and Light

by Jonathan Rabb

  “Nikolai Hoffner,” Hoffner said as he forced a cordial smile. “I’m a member here, mein Herr.”

  The shape of the legs made the man cavalry. The cut of his mustache and age made him a colonel. “Of course. Herr Hoffner.” It was clear the man had heard the name only in passing. “You’re aware, then, of the rules.” The colonel glanced at Leni with what looked to be a smile, although the mustache was too cleverly placed to make it a certainty.

  Hoffner had never brought a woman here before. It had never even crossed his mind. He looked at her before saying, “It’s Chief Inspector Hoffner, Herr Colonel, with the Kriminalpolizei. And yes. The rules. Of course. I’m simply here to meet my son Georg. Would it be all right if the Fräulein sat in the main hall while I go up and fetch him?”

  Proximity to the police always brought a bristle to a career militarist. Hoffner had never been sure whether it was simple vanity—the defense of a nation’s honor set side by side with the dirty business of public order—or humiliation at his own impotence during these endless spells of peace. The war had done something to shake the foundations, but nine years was a long time to expect self-recriminations to last. This one looked to be too certain in his place to feel anything other than self-importance. The loss of a few fingers might have added to the man’s sense of entitlement, but the colonel was in possession of all his extremities. To his credit, he was managing to keep his sneer despite his wholeness.

  “Certainly, Herr Chief Inspector. Your boy is . . . ?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Then probably up on the fourth floor.”

  “Yes, Colonel, I know.” He looked at Leni. “I won’t be more than a few minutes. I’m sure the colonel will make you comfortable.”

  The man motioned Leni toward one of the sitting rooms, and Hoffner headed up the stairs.

  The smell grew distinctly more human as Hoffner neared the fourth floor, although the clink of steel on steel did give the last few steps a nice marched-to precision. Two large oak doors were opened to the corridor. Beyond them, pairs in full whites and helmets lunged and parried with various degrees of skill. It was impossible to pick Georgi out among them. One boy with particularly good form was along the far wall, but he was too tall. Another was showing tremendous flexibility with the wrist and elbow—mano di ferro, braccio di gomma (iron hand, rubber arm)—but the legs ruled him out. Hoffner’s only choice was to walk to the middle of the hall and wait for Georgi to find him.

  There was, of course, the possibility that the boy had already seen him. Given the way things had gone last night, Hoffner imagined this might be a rather long wait.

  “Do you remember how to use one?”

  Hoffner turned and saw the boy a few meters off, his helmet cupped under one arm. He looked as if he had been expecting him. As with most things to do with Georg, Hoffner had gotten it wrong. There was no reason to ask why.

  The boy drew up and handed Hoffner the saber. It was a good weight, the distribution across the haft nice and even.

  Georg said, “Just in case you thought I might use it.”

  Hoffner tried to find a hint of humor in the face, but there was none. He handed back the saber. “It’s been a long time since I’ve used one.”

  “You’re better with your hands now?”

  The boy’s quick appearance had been no reprieve, after all. This was a different kind of suffering, to be reprimanded by a sixteen-year-old son. “Yah,” said Hoffner. “About that—”

  “You’re not going to start explaining yourself now, are you? That would be odd.”

  The boy was unlike anyone Hoffner had known when it came to moments like these. Even the disappointments at the age of six or eight or ten—the trivialities of a missed air show or a forgotten afternoon in the park—had been met with a candid understanding. Not that Georg had ever excused the mistreatment, or felt his sadness any less deeply, but he saw through to the heart of things. Why his father had acted as he had was not confirmation of a flawed man. It was simply what it was. To find resentment in it, or to wish it otherwise, would have been pointless. What probably struck them both was that Hoffner, at each new turn, should be so surprised by it.

  “Still,” Hoffner said, “bit thuggish on my part.”

  “Well then, at least you were in good company.”

  This was also not expected. “You stayed for a while longer?”

  “Until the Schutzis got there. Sascha thought it might be best if we didn’t get arrested this time.”

  “This time?” said Hoffner.

  There was a break in the boy’s stare. “Don’t worry, Papi. I’m not much for the kind of hate they’re pushing. You can’t tell Sascha that. I don’t think he’s that keen on it either, but there’s something there that’s got him hooked.”

  How much older this boy was, thought Hoffner, than Sascha had been at this age—than he had been himself. But then, it had nothing to do with age. The boy was a better man at sixteen than either of them would ever be. It was the one constant Hoffner carried with him that came as near to pride as he could manage.

  “I need to see Sascha,” said Hoffner.

  Georg waited before answering. “And that’s why you’re here.”

  “No,” Hoffner said quickly. He continued to shake his head as he spoke. “Not really. I—” He looked at Georg. “I need to see him. I can’t imagine he’d see me without you.”

  Georg said, “We could have dinner?”

  “Good. Fine.”

  “No, tonight. Now. You and me.”

  There was always a price. What made Hoffner feel its sting all the more sharply was that he should have been eager to pay it. He nodded. “Good.”

  Georg said, “He knew you’d slap him. That’s why he dug into you.” When Hoffner said nothing, Georg said, “I’ll get my kit and change.”

  “I’ve got someone with me downstairs,” said Hoffner. He did his best to hold the boy’s gaze. “She’ll join us. That would be all right, wouldn’t it?”

  Georg needed another moment before nodding. “Fine,” he said: disappointment, when it did show itself, always came quietly with this one. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  TWO AND A HALF HOURS LATER, Hoffner had had enough drink for all three of them. He was, however, feeling none of it as he walked, and not for the crispness in the night air. He was simply saddled with an unpleasant clarity.

  Georg had been cordial, even charming, at the restaurant, somehow managing to bring Leni out of herself. They had laughed through the veal and potatoes while Hoffner had foraged through his plate hoping to find something not overcooked.

  “I’m not sure how you managed to produce him,” Leni said as she walked at his side. They had dropped Georg off at his flat half an hour ago. She had her arm through his, but it seemed unfair: she had stopped at half a glass of a very bad French wine.

  Hoffner said, “He’d probably agree.”

  “No,” she said. “He adores you. You don’t even hear it, do you?”

  “I doubt that.”

  “You’re that much of a coward?”

  Hoffner usually let these highly insightful probes into his dark and dreary self pass without a thought. What women chose to see—and what they felt the need to say—was something that always found the surface without any help from him. But the day had left him with a sourness in his throat. Not that he knew why. Maybe the drink had seeped in, after all.

  He said, “Am I meant to run back to his flat now, tell him I understand everything? Is that the next little piece in the drama?”

  He expected her arm to slip from his. Instead, she said, “It’s infectious with you, isn’t it?” The lightness had gone from her voice. “Everything snide and empty.”

  It was his own fault. He could have let it go, given her his silence and the victory. She might even have deserved it. But there was too much rattling around his head from this morning and afternoon to leave room for kindnesses.

  “Tomorrow might not be such a good day,”
he said as they reached his building. The thought of Sascha was weighing on him.

  “Really? And after today was such a charmer.”

  He tried to find the most painless way out. “You’ll probably want to get a good night’s sleep.”

  She stared up at him before laughing quietly to herself. “You have no idea what I want,” she said. “What? Are you going to offer to find me a cab now? Do they even come through this part of town after dark?”

  It was a fair point. The street was deserted. Two of the lamps at the far end had gone out. Best not to think what might be happening beyond them.

  She said, “It’s enough you’re letting me come along tomorrow, isn’t it? Pity as your act of contrition? But that would make it too easy for you.”

  All he wanted was a bit of sleep. Let the films, Ritter, Sascha, all of it sit idle for a few hours. It would be nearly impossible finding sleep alone, but the thought of her next to him was exhausting.

  He took her arm and headed up the stairs, and knew the sun would never come quickly enough.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HUGENBERG

  BY 3:00 A.M., he had done what he could. Cases had a tendency to find their focus in dead-of-night quiet. This time, however, he had managed only flashes, some brighter than others, but none to give what he had a coherent picture. The prospect of seeing Sascha was no doubt clouding things, but knowing that hardly helped.

  The heat from the bed stayed with him as Hoffner stepped out onto the street. At any hour, Prenzlauer Berg was ugly. That might have been unfair, but it was why he had chosen it. He could claim it was closer to the Alex, cheaper, a place where cops never lived—and why not be the only cop on the block?—but no one cared who or what he was, and that was perhaps more important than anything. Ugliness brought anonymity.

  Somewhere near the Rosenthaler Platz, he realized the back of his shirt had gone damp through. He had made it to the edge of Berlin’s nightlife. A boy bar called the Swaying Palm was still open across from the U-Bahn station. Its rival, the less daring Fat Gerda’s, stood a few doors down and boasted girls of fourteen dressed in Eton jackets, monocles, and drawn-on mustaches. Gerda’s was a bit passé—Paris had done the naughty-straight-girl-boy routine two years ago—but for a first-time tourist, it was dangerous enough. Both closed up shop around four, so it was always a lark to see the two groups colliding out on the street: those who truly enjoyed the goods dangling high on a thigh, and those who had yet to find the courage to take hold of them. Shouts of “Scaredy-cock” and “Nervous Willie” could be heard most nights. The current favorite was a verse from a cabaret song now popular among university-trained homosexuals:

  What kind of feelings do you have, Moritz, Moritz, Moritz?

  Are they cool ones or muggy ones, Moritz, Moritz, Moritz?

  You don’t say yes, you don’t say no.

  You’re so fine and yet so cruel!

  A group of four were well into the song as Hoffner moved along the square. He looked over as he walked, two of the boys holding up a champagne bottle in mock toast, the others tossing sugar cubes down the street at their would-be targets.

  If he had thought about it, Hoffner might have been amazed to see how far things had come. Unrepentant homosexuals taunting their ersatz counterparts was something new even for Berlin. Evidently the crime was now of a different sort of pretense.

  Ammunition gone, the boy farthest down the street was making his way back for more. There was an intensity to the sweating face that seemed oddly out of place. It became clear why when, a few seconds later, three of his recent victims appeared. Their jeers were anything but playful, the exchange brief, before the largest of the three snatched the champagne bottle and smashed it against the wall. Hoffner stopped under the awning of a shop and watched as the boys stood silently staring, all of them fully aware of how this would end.

  For some reason, Hoffner was drawn to the pieces of sugar still resting on one of the recent arrivals’ hats. Its brim was pulled down low, making the tiny bits of white seem like the remnants from a child’s snow fight. One of the singing boys tried to run, but Herr Sugar Cubes quickly caught him and threw him against the wall. An arm flew up from the boy, but all it managed to do was knock the hat from its attacker’s head. In an instant, the back of a hand slapped across the boy’s face.

  Hoffner might have felt the blow himself, for caught in the lamplight, and red from drink, was Sascha’s face peering down into the eyes of the now cowering boy.

  What followed came with hardly a sound. Hoffner’s throat choked as Sascha landed blow after blow. His friends were having an equal go of it with their own homosexuals, but there was something in the way Sascha struck, measured and taut, that made his beating more brutal. With the boy propped up against the wall and Sascha heaving for breath, Hoffner thought the thing might finally be at an end, when Sascha suddenly gripped the boy’s jaw and pulled him up close. The two stared at each other. Sascha then leaned in and, with what seemed an unimagined tenderness, kissed him.

  The stillness lasted only moments before the kissing grew more frantic. Sascha began to drive himself onto the boy, one hand grabbing at the buttocks and thighs, the other cupping the testicles. He then slipped his hand into the boy’s pants and began to move with an even greater need. The boy’s pain gave way to a different kind of violence, his back and buttocks in spasms, his bloodied face lost to release. He fell back against the wall, and Sascha slowly wiped his hand across the boy’s face. Sascha then pushed him to the ground, turned, and vomited.

  Hoffner stared at the hunched-over figure of his son, a wire of saliva caught between lips and pavement. He knew he was meant to feel something, hear a thousand questions racing through his head, but all he found were the mundane and the obvious: How long had it been, how much did Georg know? Any thoughts for Sascha’s turmoil or self-loathing, or even happiness, were beyond Hoffner’s grasp. He had never tried to understand the boy’s fears or triumphs before. Why should he do so with this?

  Sascha suddenly straightened himself up and called over to his friends. The smaller of the two was pissing on the slumped body of his own victim. The other was having a smoke. Sascha found his hat and wiped the edges of his mouth with it. A lone sugar cube fell to the ground, and he picked it up and hurled it at the boy. A minute later, all three were gone.

  Hoffner waited before stepping out. The wet in his shirt had chilled. He pulled his coat tighter around his chest and suffered through the momentary shock. It took him another minute to realize he needed to be walking.

  That it was all happenstance hardly mattered. He had seen it. So what of that? Sascha was other, had always been other. Not that Hoffner could have known it stemmed from this—if, in fact, this was the reason at all—but the last ten minutes had changed nothing. It would have been so much easier pinning it all on some stifled perversion, but who ever had that kind of luck? All Hoffner knew was that they shared nothing, and that made Sascha somehow less terrifying. Perhaps, then, fate had simply been kind enough to remind him of that.

  Hoffner stepped over the tram rails and heard the sounds of the boys getting up from behind him. There was no reason to turn. They would find their way home, patch each other up, and convince themselves that this was the way their lives were meant to be lived.

  THE MARQUEE ALONG TORSTRASSE came as a surprise, then a relief. Hoffner was feeling a heaviness in his legs, and the city’s only all-night Film Palast—a recent stroke of genius from the minds at Ufa—seemed his best bet. The last real theatergoers were always gone by two. Even the pianist was sent home after that, leaving the 4:00 a.m. showing sufficiently quiet for those in need of sleep. All that was required was a hat over the eyes to take care of the flashing light from the screen. That the place had become a plush seat in a warm room for Berlin’s well-heeled vagrants—those who could afford the three pfennigs—was probably not lost on the studio sages. They were making their money while Berlin slept, even if they did have to spend a little extra on d
isinfectant.

  Hoffner settled in about twenty rows back. As he brought his hat down, he caught sight of something familiar on the screen. It was that same mass of people, that same endless building, he had seen in the screening room out at Ufa.

  So this was Metropolis, he thought. He watched for another few seconds, then pulled his hat over his face. At least now he could tell Lang he had truly seen it.

  SOME THREE HOURS LATER he found himself waiting in line at the men’s toilet, a particularly dapper stromer keeping them all waiting while he combed through his mustache. There was a trace of something well fitted in the suit and shoes, but the rip in the cloth just above the back of the knee and the laces tied only halfway up the tongue (couldn’t the man find a few longer pieces of string?) made the hair seem a misplaced vanity. Hoffner rinsed his mouth, ran a bit of water over the back of his neck, and dried off with a towel already moist with infection. It was its smell of hair cream, though, that took him over the edge.

  Outside, the glare was already at full pitch, though the novelty was wearing thin. It had begun to sour the streets. Folded newspapers had become extensions of every hat, held up to the forehead as if the morning commute were a game of pirate search, troves of buried gold as yet undetected in the distance. Others simply moved with their heads down, inviting any manner of shoves and bumps. It brought a meanness to walking.

  The café was exactly where Georg had said it would be, a jaunty little place that kept two tables and a heating lamp outside for anyone stupid enough to think that charm had a chance against this sky. Hoffner saw the boy through the wall-front window. He was reading a paper at one of the back tables. A little bell jangled, and Hoffner stepped inside.

  “Not getting much sleep these days?” said Georg as his father drew up. He slid the paper into his satchel. “The stubble’s a nice touch, though.”

  Instinctively, Hoffner rubbed a hand across his cheek. He felt more scabbing than hair. The smell of the towel was still on him. “You got home all right?”