As darkness fell, the temperature dropped further and the cold became nearly intolerable, especially since Heller had barely eaten that day. Already light-headed from hunger and the constant cold, he nevertheless positioned himself in a driveway along Priessnitzstrasse, so his uniformed colleagues could see him. He didn’t necessarily have to do this. But the men should see that they were not alone in having to stand out in the cold. Respect, Heller knew, was never achieved with dictatorial demeanor but rather through actions and commitment. Back in 1915, during the war, they had hated nothing more than those generals riding atop their horses as they passed the soldiers all standing at attention. Looking so well fed, their boots polished bright, with squeaky-clean uniforms, glistening spiked helmets, and shiny epaulettes. And every one of his fellow soldiers had considered toppling one of those prancing pheasants off their horses with his bayonet.
Frau Schlüter would probably come up either Priessnitzstrasse or Nordstrasse, depending on whether she came by foot or streetcar. Heller was just hoping she wouldn’t resist.
Before he could consider that further, he heard her cautious footsteps on the trampled snow. He pulled back a little, letting her come nearer. He waited for her to pass without noticing him. She was groaning from the effort of carrying two bulging bags. Heller stepped out.
“Frau Schlüter?”
She let out a scream and spun around. “Herr Oberkommissar?”
“I have to ask you to come to the station with me.”
“You’re arresting me?” Frau Schlüter sounded spiteful, more disgusted than surprised.
Heller stepped closer. “I’m asking you to follow me over to the car without making any trouble. You’ll be taken to the station and questioned there.”
“What’s the reason, if I may?”
“Soldiers from the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs could show up here any minute, Frau Schlüter. They won’t bother asking nicely.”
Frau Schlüter shook her head in contempt. “So there it is. You’re a friend of the Russians.”
Heller reached for the whistle he’d gotten from one of the cops. “Are you going to come with me or not?”
“How could you let yourself kiss the Russians’ asses, even you, a solid patriot, a man of the Reich?”
Heller gestured at his whistle. “Frau Schlüter, I’m asking one more time! You can bring your bags.”
“Just look around you. They’re letting us starve while they go around whoring. Defiling our children. Defiling our Reich. Destroying, stealing.”
Heller placed the whistle between his lips and alerted his uniformed colleagues.
“One day, people like you will be sentenced for treason against the Fatherland. To think that my husband and my sons died so suck-ups like you could live off the charity of Russians.”
The policemen came running. Heller nodded to them to take the woman away. Two officers grabbed her elbows, a third took her bags. Heller glanced inside. They were full of potatoes.
“You’ll see soon enough,” Frau Schlüter snarled. “Another war will come, and I’ll be sure to remember which side you took. Then you won’t be able to change your stripes whichever way the wind blows.” Windows opened all around as the officers dragged her to the car.
“You can’t just go arresting everyone!” Frau Schlüter screamed over her shoulder, losing her hat in the process, her blonde hair unraveling. “There are still many of us left. Solid Germans. Real Germans!”
Colonel Ovtcharov of the MVD made a point of showing up personally at Frau Schlüter’s home. Heller met him when he arrived.
“Splendid,” Ovtcharov said, after Heller had explained the situation. “Let’s initiate a manhunt for the boy. Friedel Schlüter.”
“Colonel, I beg your pardon, but the boy’s only a suspect. The fact that we found grenades in the cellar doesn’t prove anything. Forensics first has to secure evidence, fingerprints, footprints. We need to find out where the rest of the evidence was taken. There’s no connection to the murders of Berinov and Cherin. Different methods, different weapons. Even the fact that the boy ran away doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Everyone runs away these days.”
Ovtcharov smiled and patted him on the upper arm. “Do not worry, Comrade Oberkommissar. We’re not going to shoot him on the spot.”
Heller hoped no one had noticed Ovtcharov’s almost comrade-like pat. “It’s also crucial that I question his mother. Today. I’ve had Frau Schlüter taken to the nearest station.”
“Dear Comrade, why so worried? I will not take the woman from you. But it is late, you know. Let the woman spend the night there. You can question her in the morning.”
Heller knew he was supposed to be content with all this. But he wasn’t. “I have to get some spotlights here. We need to follow the boy’s trail, find out what he took from the cellar and where he left it. The apartment must be sealed so forensics—”
The MVD colonel raised a hand to silence him. “Halt, Herr Oberkommissar. You must leave a little work for me as well. I will arrange for a thorough house search. But I am amazed, I admit. At you. Good work, very good. You live up to the reputation that precedes you.”
“Oh? Which is?”
Ovtcharov counted off fingers. “Determined, focused, fast, straight-ahead, always finds what he wants to find.”
This wasn’t what Heller wanted to hear, at least not the last part. “It’s ‘straightforward,’” he explained.
“Straight . . . forward,” Ovtcharov repeated, taking the correction in stride. “Well, I must praise you most expressly for your work.” He turned serious. “Comrade, do not become soft. Have no false sympathy. We must make an example of the boy. We must nip every reactionary in the bud.”
“Provided he’s guilty.” Heller looked into the Russian’s eyes. “I’m asking you. Don’t be so hasty. Bring him in alive, which is in your best interest. If he’s responsible, then maybe he wasn’t acting alone.” It was pointless to explain that the boy had grown up exposed to nothing but Nazi propaganda. That all he had ever learned was to serve the German Reich and follow Hitler. That he was actually a victim, just like all the children. Far more of the guilt resided with his mother for not having taught him better.
Ovtcharov whistled loudly and waved over his driver, who brought a package that the colonel presented to Heller within full view of everyone. It was amazingly light.
“Here, take it. It’s not edible, unfortunately, but I think you’ll find a way to use it.”
This was pure calculation on the colonel’s part, and Heller knew exactly what it meant. It said: You are my man; no, better yet, you are my little dog. You sit up and beg when I tell you. And yet Heller felt forced to play along. He couldn’t refuse without snubbing the Russian and embarrassing him in front of everyone. And Heller would end up feeling guilty about Karin and Frau Marquart missing out. So he took the package and tucked it under his arm. As he did, those venomous things Frau Schlüter had said to him still rang in his ears.
February 8, 1947: Night
It was nighttime when Heller got home. The streetcars had stopped running, and his walk up Bautzner Strasse had stretched on forever. All those dark arched passageways, heading uphill, past Albrechtsberg Castle, Lingner Gardens, and the bridge over Mordgrund Creek, keeping his pistol in his hand behind him as a precaution. On the other side of the road, the woods of the Dresden Heath loomed in the darkness. He had to consider the possibility of being attacked or robbed at any time, even killed. He kept turning around because he’d heard a noise. A soft crack, the squeak of a mouse, the call of an owl. A car passed him at one point with its lights off, and he had pressed himself against a wall. The relentless cold was all-pervasive, in his toes, his legs, his fingers, his ears. Sometimes it seemed as if the planet itself had renounced its sun and separated from its orbit and was now tumbling toward the deathly ice cold of the darkest parts of the universe. It was inconceivable to him that heat could exist somewhere on the other side of the globe. It seemed as
if everything was gradually freezing over, as if there would never be another spring, warming rays of sunshine, budding trees. There was no life here anymore, only hunger and bitter cold. And until the end, the people would fight and wage war over all the remaining resources.
Heller shuddered, mad at himself for not being able to get Frau Schlüter’s hate-filled words out of his head. People like her didn’t want to understand who had driven this country to its downfall. They didn’t see that they themselves had been among the ones who had done it. And they had not disappeared; on the contrary—they were all suddenly resurfacing and assuming high offices and important posts. Speidel was one of them. Nazi Party member since ’34, now rehabilitated. He was allowed to become public prosecutor. These were the people Frau Schlüter should be blaming.
Heller was no friend of the Russians. He only wanted to do his job and ensure what was fair and just. The last thing he wanted to do was ask for charity. And yet here he was carrying this package under his arm. It had to be about ten packs of cigarettes. At the central exchange, these were good for several weeks of food. Absurd. And even more absurd was that others gave up their food for the cigarettes.
It was already quite late when Heller turned onto the Rissweg. Light came from the kitchen window—Karin was likely waiting up for him. His stomach growled. That feeling of hunger was permeating and unbearable. His thoughts had turned almost solely to food. He fantasized about bread with jam and fried eggs, fruit tarts, and roast pork. Hopefully there was some stew left. Or at least some gruel.
Heller opened the gate, crossed the front yard, and pulled out his keys with numb fingers. But he couldn’t get the key in the lock—a key was already in it, from the inside.
Heller knocked softly at first, then more forcefully, until he heard hurried footsteps approaching.
“Who’s there?” Karin asked.
“It’s me!”
Karin rushed to turn the key twice and opened the door.
“Sorry it’s so late, Karin . . .” Heller was startled by the sight of his wife. Her eyes were red, her eyelids swollen, a strand of hair dangling. She held a damp cloth in one hand.
“What happened? Is she dead?”
Karin shook her head. She grabbed him by the sleeve of his overcoat, giving him no chance to take his shoes off, and dragged him down the hallway into the kitchen.
“Max, look who’s here,” she said before pressing a hand to her mouth. Her other hand feebly let go of his sleeve.
Heller stared, frozen.
At their dining table sat a man who stared at him with wide eyes sunk deep in their sockets. He rose slowly, his limbs ponderous and stiff. His age was hard to estimate, maybe twenty or much older. He looked so down-and-out, with his tattered clothes and hollow cheeks, clearly starving, his hair shaved short. He eyed Heller indecisively, his mouth stretched into a hapless smile. A smile Heller knew all too well.
The package of cigarettes hit the floor with a thud.
“Klaus!” Heller pushed aside the table between him and this miserable figure, then wrapped his arms around his son. He clutched Klaus tight, pressing his face into the crook of his son’s neck. “For God’s sake, Klaus!”
He hadn’t recognized Klaus at first. His own son. He had stared at him like a stranger. He might never forgive himself for it.
“Klaus!” He had to say it again. Yet it still wasn’t enough, not even if he said the name a thousand more times.
And Heller suddenly saw himself thirty years ago, after he had returned home from two years of war and army hospitals and had to stand directly in his mother’s path because otherwise she would have walked right by him. She had been heartbroken about that for the rest of her life and had kept asking him for forgiveness, even on her deathbed. Now he finally understood.
Klaus stank horribly, of delousing agent, mold, sweat, and grime. But Heller didn’t care. He eagerly breathed in the odor. This man returning home was his son. Klaus leaned on his father as if he’d lost all strength, and his shoulders trembled. Heller ran his fingers through the stubbly hair on Klaus’s head and patted him on the back like he used to when Klaus had been sad about losing a soccer game or had gotten a bad grade in school.
Karin stood next to them, staring at Heller, her eyes pleading. Heller gently let go of Klaus and handed him to Karin, who took him in her arms, sobbing, cradling his face, kissing him on the cheeks, the forehead, the nose, searching for any way to hold on to him.
Heller bent down for the package of cigarettes, picked it up, and placed it on the table. Which he then straightened, standing there indecisively, until he got an idea. He went into the living room to Frau Marquart’s cabinet, where he kept a bottle of schnapps far down in back.
He carried it into the kitchen, got out three glasses, and poured. Klaus had sat his mother down on a chair, but she didn’t want to let him go and kept holding his hand. So he pulled another chair over, and the three of them sat at the table, glasses in front of them.
Heller tried to keep it together as he again saw himself and his parents all those years ago, silent, groping for the words and the composure. There seemed to be no words worth breaking this moment, this calm. And yet something needed to be said, and back then it had been his father who had raised his glass.
“To your health!” Max said now, raising his glass.
Klaus looked like he could fall asleep at the table. He had reached the front door just ten minutes before his father. He had been delayed, the locomotive breaking down before they even left Russia. They had spent two nights in a barn before continuing their journey, and there hadn’t been any way to inform anyone back home. Once back in Dresden, Klaus hadn’t been able to get his bearings at first. Someone had shown him the way, but the streetcars weren’t running by that point, and he had to go on foot.
In hindsight, it was a miracle that Klaus had been taken prisoner. He could just as easily be dead. A split-second impulse had proven decisive. The Red Army had their small infantry unit surrounded, giving them no choice but to surrender. Once they did, a dispute arose about what to do with the prisoners. A Russian officer eventually decided to let them live. That was June 24, 1944, and there had been moments since when Klaus had wished the Russian had decided otherwise.
All his possessions were in an old wooden suitcase and a large sack he’d knitted himself for carrying as a backpack. Klaus didn’t want to talk about the camp. Perhaps one day. Not one bad word about the Russians passed his lips. He had even brought liverwurst, fatty Russian liverwurst. He had saved it for home.
Later that night, Heller lay in bed and listened to the darkness. Klaus was sleeping downstairs on the sofa in the cold living room. Frau Marquart had tried refusing the pills at first but then started burning with fever and eventually gave in. She now slept soundly for the first time in three nights. Karin had fallen asleep the second her head hit the pillow. The only thing that would not rest was Heller’s mind.
The only one missing now was Erwin, he thought. They knew he’d been released long ago and was living somewhere in Cologne. He had even found a job and wanted to begin his studies at some point. He’d prefer to be in Dresden, of course. But his fear of the Russians prevented him from returning home.
Heller’s limbs were slowly warming under their thick down blanket. Finally, after so many years, he had been relieved of a great burden. He wanted to show gratitude, but he didn’t know whom to show it to. He knew so many people whose sons were never coming home from the front. He had known so many who had lost their lives in February of ’45. Gratitude itself felt misplaced somehow. It was thanks to mere happenstance that he and his family were still alive. And yet he knew as well as anyone that everything came at a price. He could see in his son’s eyes that the boy had already paid some.
Heller turned on his side and stared at the luminous hands of his alarm clock, ticking and counting off the seconds, as if his life were trickling out of a faucet. He turned back over.
Klaus had always been a p
ensive boy. He never handled defeat well. When something didn’t work out, he blamed himself first and wanted to make things good and right again. He couldn’t understand why others would threaten to beat him up simply because he’d wanted to explain things to them. Heller often used to find the boy staring into space, deep in thought.
That was what wouldn’t let Heller sleep. He needed to know how high a price Klaus had paid.
Heller got out of bed quietly, careful not to wake Karin, and went down to the living room. Klaus was not there. Then he saw that he was lying on the floor in front of the sofa. Klaus had apparently been awake too, because he raised his head right away. “Dad?”
“I can’t sleep. Like you, I’m guessing.”
Klaus got to his feet. He pulled on his jacket and moved close to Heller. Father and son stood like this for a while in the dark, saying nothing. Klaus was the first to speak.
“What happened to the city?”
Heller wanted to answer, but he couldn’t speak. The return of his son had opened a door inside him, one that he had locked for a good two years. But suddenly those fountains of flame were shooting into the sky once more, melting metal and glass, the rolling barrage of fire advancing down the streets, bursting all the walls, while permeating everything with an ear-deafening roar like that of some giant wounded beast.
He grew dizzy and had to brace himself on Frau Marquart’s round table that they never used. Then he sat on one of the good upholstered chairs.
Klaus was about to sit with him, but then he went into the kitchen and came back with the bottle of schnapps and two glasses. He poured in silence. They emptied their glasses.
Heller tried to start over, but his throat tightened again.
Klaus sat with his head lowered and whispered in a barely audible voice, “I’d heard about Dresden. When I was a prisoner. I tried, but I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it.” He ran a hand over his stubbly head. “I prayed you two survived. I prayed like never before. I sound like such a hypocrite.”
A Thousand Devils (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 2) Page 11
