by Chris Petit
‘What exactly do you see?’
‘It’s obvious, man! You don’t need a crystal ball. Seismic tremors in the east. A change in historical weather. Our glorious summer of 1940 replaced by the endless winter of discontent. Austerity. A brooding city full of foreign men and too many lonely women. And now these bodies, where we have two conditions. Are you with me?’
‘The conditions being?’
‘Intense agitation and glee of killing.’
What was the difference in the end, Schlegel asked.
‘Skinning someone alive, I would venture, comes from living with lots of bodies. What was your main impression of your time in the east?’
‘Everyone’s fear of what was out there. Figures lurking in empty landscapes.’
‘Figments of the imagination. Exactly! Superstition. Agitation is cutting off a man’s penis and dressing the corpse with money. Flaying something beyond recognition is about the pleasure of killing. I doubt if you will find Grigor is the flayer. His killings seem too directed as messages to Gersten.’
‘Is the flayer one of Gersten’s crew, or even Gersten himself?’
‘Maybe Gersten knows. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe it is more than one of his men. From my experience of the east, they like to watch. For all that, you could argue the desire to strip the victim of all identity is a secret wish on the part of the perpe- trator to embrace what he fears most.’
Schlegel wondered what Morgen feared most.
‘The fear without reflects the fear within,’ Morgen went on. ‘Which means he will give himself away in the end. Anyway, it’s very different from Metzler’s day of sticking your head over the parapet for three seconds and nailing someone six hundred metres away. Simpler times.’
‘And until then?’
‘Nothing probably. No proof, no evidence or hope of a confession. For Gersten’s lot it would be a mark of toughness and honour not to tell. Gersten is probably arranging to have himself moved on. Nebe is covering up. There’s no body for Keleman. I would say the situation we are dealing with is amoebic, involving a series of splittings and doublings. We may be witnesses but it would be wrong to think we can solve anything or bring anyone to book.’
Schlegel thought of something else and paled. ‘How many flayed bodies have there been?’
Morgen looked at him with incredulity. ‘Come on. Three!’
‘Yes, first the railway wagon, number two in Treptower Park and the third just now on the banks of the Spree. But Gersten showed me another which he said had been found in Alexanderplatz by a Polish cleaner.’
The flayed body shown by Gersten to Schlegel was no longer in the Gestapo morgue. The search warrant – a waste of time given how long it took to get – was to no avail. Morgen brought several men and they clattered about and found nothing.
A frustrated Morgen lit up in defiance of no-smoking signs. Schlegel recognised Gersten’s hatchet-faced, tubercular-looking assistant when he came down to see what the fuss was about. He was expert at what was commonly known as the bureaucrat’s shrug.
Nebe, Schlegel suddenly thought. What if Nebe knew what was going on and had been dragged into the cover-up? He had much to hide. His name was on Keleman’s bribe list. Those charges alone would be enough to destroy him.
Was Nebe being squeezed or squeezing? Covering up on his own initiative or for someone else? Did it explain why he was so disturbed by Morgen? Schlegel now understood Keleman’s fear. It was like facing a giant tidal wave about to crash down. His hands were clammy. He wished he could sit in the bar with the green door with Keleman and be a better friend.
He felt compelled to explore, to see if the place was as frightening as before. Once he had been taken to a theatrical green room as a boy, where the makeshift warrens backstage and the unpainted reverses of scenery flats reminded him of where he was now, the secret runs in marked contrast to the building’s public facade. As with backstage, the illusion was threadbare, however palpable the menace. The pain in the building was the realest thing about it.
Five minutes later he might as well have been wandering in a forest for all the sense of direction he had, yet he was more fascinated than afraid, drawn by a strange buzzing which made him wonder why there should be flies in winter. He found himself thinking about Sybil. He worried he had been remiss. All the messages she left when he was with Gersten she must have thought he had ignored. He should have protected her more, even in the knowledge that his motives were conflicted. She was haunted and beautiful, all the more for being forbidden.
The buzzing sounded electrical. The building was a monument to bad wiring. Many corridor lights, hanging on exposed cables, didn’t work. Others flickered and hissed as the buzzing grew closer.
He was aware of a residual aroma. He couldn’t think what he was reminded of, then identified it as the same sticky smell as butchers’ shops. He came to an open door. The lights inside were off. He put his hand round the frame, feeling for the switch.
The flickering neon hurt his eyes. Blinking, he was confronted by a near replica of the slaughterhouse murder room. The only difference was it was quite stripped and appeared recently tidied and cleared. It was a common utility space, ubiquitous even, but the similarity struck him as uncanny.
The humming was coming from next door.
Schlegel paused outside. The light was on.
Several sets of naked feet were laid out in rows on the floor. He stepped into what more resembled a stack room for the dead than an official morgue. A dozen and more corpses were stretched out on the tiles, covered except for bare feet. Schlegel forced himself to look under each cover. None was flayed.
One he was sure was the still-bandaged man he had seen unloaded from the train in the fog.
The generator whose noise had drawn him there was powering a freezer trench of ice. In it Schlegel found a severed hand in a transparent envelope, then a foot and a thigh bone in their own see-through bags. The round object he supposed was a head, flayed or boiled, as were the other parts, reduced to musculature and bone, stripped to their essence.
Schlegel forced himself to look at the head. It was intact; no hole in the forehead, so not Keleman. Its size suggested a woman. He feared for Sybil.
Metal heel-tips rang down the corridor. Footsteps approaching; Schlegel couldn’t tell how many. A sound of squeaky wheels. Step into the corridor and they would see him. He could hide behind the door and use his pistol to club anyone, but the prospect of behaving like a tough guy was ridiculous. If they were pushing a trolley they were bound to be coming there. He was trapped.
From what he could hear, two men were loading a pair of bodies onto the trolley. They complained of the epic proportions drunk the night before, and the size of their livers.
Schlegel was lying among the corpses, under sacking, hoping he looked dead, praying they would not choose to cart him off. His feet were naked, socks and shoes under his head. He was positioned in the far corner, gripping his pistol.
One of the men farted malodorously. The situation was so close to leaden farce that Schlegel was reminded of bad theatrical turns, at the same time thinking: this is a living morgue, serving a purpose beyond death.
It was a stupid observation. The dead were dead.
He heard his name called from a distance. It sounded like Morgen.
The two men engaged in an urgent exchange, telling each other they should get out.
Schlegel thought one of the voices could belong to Haager, who had snuck up on him with the stun gun.
They hurried off. The wheels didn’t squeak with the trolley loaded. Morgen called for them to stop, but he still had too far to catch up.
Schlegel was sitting on the floor putting on his shoes when Morgen came in. It was the first time he had seen him look properly surprised.
Morgen inspected the bodies in turn, as Schlegel had.
‘Fourteen, not including the two taken away. Eleven I would say died from wounds sustained in action. The bandaged man is a case of severe b
urning. Numbers thirteen and fourteen, I can’t say. I would hazard these boys are our glorious dead from the east.’
‘Do body parts have any intrinsic value?’ asked Schlegel.
Morgen looked at him queerly. ‘Not these days. Two a penny.’
Schlegel said he had been thinking about grave robbers.
‘Now you are clutching at straws.’
They took the parts from the freezer, wrapped in old sacking, and delivered them to Lipchitz at the Jewish hospital, an occasion that caused Lipchitz ghoulish amusement.
‘What am I to do with these?’
‘Keep them safe,’ said Morgen. ‘I don’t suppose analysis will reveal anything.’
‘Not with the equipment they give us,’ said Lipchitz.
53
On his way home Schlegel stopped off at the back entrance to the Grosse Hamburger Strasse holding centre. He spoke into an electronic grille on the outside gate. A caretaker came out to let him in.
‘Warmer weather,’ he observed laconically as he led the way. Schlegel couldn’t say. He had stopped noticing weather.
Inside, the man made him wait until he was in his hutch-like room and opened the glass divide. He asked Schlegel to state his business. It was all ridiculously formal.
Schlegel said he wanted to speak to someone who had known Sybil. The caretaker referred him to what he called the residents’ common room and said he thought Frau Kübler was in. Actually they all were because they were confined to quarters.
‘You can’t miss her.’
You could not, was Schlegel’s first thought. The blonde perm. Bright red nails and lipstick. The coquettish angle of the head. Schlegel had never encountered anyone so aware of being watched, like a spotlight was on her, and she adjusted accordingly. He supposed that was how life was for film stars. Stella made the others in the room look dowdy. She was sitting in a chair reading an out-of-date fashion magazine.
She put it down when Schlegel addressed her, stood up, looked at him ruefully, as an equal, and said, ‘No more fashion now. I had to make this skirt myself. Not bad.’
She pouted at the mention of Sybil’s name. For all the woman’s star quality, she was not a good actress. Perhaps she didn’t have to be because she was there only to please herself, leaving others to stand in her reflected glory. She was magnificently superficial.
Schlegel asked if they could speak in private.
Stella suggested they go to her room. Schlegel was aware of blushing. She touched his arm and smiled becomingly.
‘Get your coat,’ he said, stiffly. ‘We can talk in the grounds. I’ll wait downstairs.’
The caretaker looked at them askance and told Stella she had to sign out. She called over her shoulder that she wasn’t leaving.
It was nearly dark. The garden consisted of unkempt grass, a few laurel bushes and naked flower beds. Stella took her cue from this forlorn sight to talk about her grandparents’ summer garden, bursting with blooms.
Everything about the woman was predicated on seduction. She must be very successful, otherwise she would not have lasted so long.
He could see she dismissed him as harmless and only useful as a rehearsal for trickier situations.
‘What is your interest in the Todermann woman, if I may be so bold?’
‘She was helping us locate someone.’ How awkward he sounded.
‘Grigor,’ she said, contemptuous. ‘They deserve each other.’
‘Do you know Grigor?’
‘Most of the pretty girls made a point of having him once.’
Stella pulled a face. ‘Less than meets the eye. Insecure, then he would get angry afterwards for being no good and blame the girl. I can see you’re dying to ask. Just the once. He came in his trousers.’
Stella wanted a cigarette. When he said he didn’t smoke she produced one of her own and lit it.
‘He liked beating up, but I wouldn’t have said then he was capable of killing. It’s cold out here. What do you want?’
‘Where are they now?’
‘Dead for all I know. The woman was a thorough bitch. She was so jealous she tried to have me killed. Grigor beat one woman so badly she died and he skinned her afterwards.’
‘Who told you?’
‘Word travels.’
‘What about her friend?’
‘Lore. She’ll be dead too. She had no stomach for the job. We’re all trapped. The difference is some fight to survive. Are you a fighter?’
‘Do I look like one?’
‘I like you. You’re confused. You’re confused about Jews and even more confused about women. I could eat you for breakfast.’
She laughed, ostentatiously dropped her unfinished cigarette and ground it out with her foot.
‘Ah, well, we step back into our lives.’
She brushed his cheek with her hand, the femme fatale act back in place. Schlegel felt lonely for both of them.
It was the first night his bed hadn’t been cold to get into. Sybil was dead or in danger. From the beginning she had always been just ahead, running away from the Metzler shooting just before he got there. As for her whereabouts, she could be anywhere. Then he thought, no she wasn’t. People were creatures of habit, even in extremes.
He took out Metzler’s diary again. The man’s obsession with Sybil seemed more obvious. He wondered about the razored pages.
He got up and went up on the roof and leaned over, looking down, trying to work out the exact point where night turned to total darkness.
54
Schlegel walked into his office, ignored as usual by Frau Pelz in her alcove. His unexpected good mood brought on by the good weather evaporated with her indomitable presence. Outside, the most pleasing feature of a beautiful spring day was the sight of adventurous girls wearing no overcoats.
It sounded like Morgen was already in. As Schlegel entered the room he was stopped short by the sight of Nebe, sitting at his desk, going through its contents, not looking at all put out to be discovered. He subjected Schlegel to his camel-like gaze, then continued to inspect drawers until he came across the animal stun gun, which Schlegel had done nothing about.
‘What are we to make of this?’
‘Confiscated, sir.’
Nebe sat back and folded his hands. ‘Where do we start?’
‘I am not sure what you mean, sir.’
‘With your arrest, my bribes, flayed bodies, the impossible Morgen or forged money?’
His bribes?!
‘Do you know what Morgen was up to when he was away?’
‘He hasn’t said.’
Apart from human lampshades.
Nebe studied his manicured nails. ‘I hear he went off to Weimar and was staying in the Elephant Hotel, which you don’t do on a budget. Heads previously believed to have been firmly attached to shoulders are starting to roll. These are dangerous times, revolutionary even for the old guard. From what I understand, Gersten could easily have lost you in the system.’
‘Who told you, sir?’ he asked without meaning to.
‘Morgen. Who else?’
Who wasn’t in bed with whom? Schlegel experienced that face-pressed-against-the-glass moment and wondered who his bedmate was supposed to be.
‘The Italians say keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’
Schlegel felt he had enough leeway, just, to ask which he was. The remark verged on the insubordinate, but he knew Nebe didn’t mind because it made him appear tolerant.
‘For you to work out, dear boy. In the meantime, watch Morgen. He has a soft spot, but don’t be fooled. His behaviour in Weimar was astonishingly ruthless.’
Nebe, usually so smooth, grew awkward. Schlegel presumed he was about to be told something he didn’t want to hear.
‘I like to think of you as the son I never had.’
Schlegel felt they were all swimming in molasses. The man’s eyes were moist. Whatever the emotion, he was sure it wasn’t paternal. He was as slippery as they came. Schlegel couldn’t b
elieve Nebe had made reference to his own bribes. Was it a brush-off or a dangle he was supposed to pick up on?
Nebe went on, seeming to address himself more than Schlegel. ‘These are hard times to read. We did our best to get rid of religion, yet we seem to be entering an age that can only be described as biblical, perhaps even pre-revolutionary.’
Was this seditious talk, or was Nebe trying to trap him by hinting at such matters?
Nebe stood up and again Schlegel wondered if he hadn’t been meant to bite. Nebe rested his hand briefly on his shoulder.
‘Let’s leave it at that.’
Instead of going, he went and looked out of the window, hands stuck in his pockets, a picture of easy authority.
‘Spring is in the air but sometimes it is better to stay hibernating,’ he said, seeming to imply Schlegel should make himself scarce.
Schlegel had had enough. ‘Is there anyone who can tell me what is going on, sir?’
Nebe looked at him sharply. The question was far too direct.
‘Your name is starting to come up in the wrong way. Someone mentioned it in connection to Konto five.’
Nebe cocked his head, studying Schlegel’s Adam’s apple.
‘You don’t go there, whatever Morgen tells you. The situation is extralegal and I state that categorically. The one that can go is Nöthling. He’s a ladies’ man. Take care of that. Use a woman.’
‘A sex trap, sir?’
Nebe sighed. ‘Oh, do grow up. Do it now. The time is right.’
Schlegel was sitting at his desk in uneasy contemplation when Frau Pelz rushed in breathless with excitement to ask if he knew where Morgen was. Schlegel didn’t and saw it was her own news Frau Pelz was bursting to share, even with him.
She had spoken to Reichsführer-SS Himmler’s personal attaché who wished to speak to Morgen. Never did she believe such a thing would happen in their little outpost. She proffered the telephone number, written in her neatest hand, with double exclamation marks after the caller’s name.
After all the flannelling with Nebe, it was a relief just to tell her to go away. She left, resentful and deflated. Another bridge burned, thought Schlegel, another twist. Morgen had given no hint.
