by Lavie Tidhar
– What do you have for me, Franz? Fogg says.
– The man you were asking for, Herr Schleier! he says. His name for Fogg.
Says: I have received word of him.
Fogg’s heart, like a caged bird sensing freedom, beats faster in his chest. Bühler? he says; thinking of a man with blond-white hair; thinking of a snow storm.
Franz smiles. A sly smile. A calculating look. How much can he get off Herr Schleier, this time? Says, He no longer goes by that name.
Fogg doesn’t reply. Franz stamps his feet, rubs his hands. Blows cold breaths that condense like fog. Says, Please, Herr Schleier, you have a cigarette?
– What makes a man, Franz? Their old refrain. What makes a hero? Fogg says.
– Please, Herr Schleier. A cigarette?
Fogg takes out his cigarette case. Silver. Belonged to a Nazi colonel, sold to him by an American GI. Opens it. Takes out a cigarette. Franz watching. Closes the case, taps the cigarette against it, thoughtfully. Franz watches, his eyes are like grey seas.
– Danke schön, Herr Schleier.
Franz accepts the cigarette like an offering. Fogg pulls out a Zippo, flicks it into life. Lights up for Franz. Says, Bitte, bitte.
Franz takes a drag. Coughs. Takes another. Fogg says, Where is Herr Bühler?
– He is hiding in the Soviet zone, Herr Schleier.
– Shit, Fogg says.
– He has been very careful, has Herr Bühler.
Sudden hatred illuminates Franz’s face. Takes Fogg by surprise. Franz spits on the ground.
– I would give you him for free, he says. Herr Schneesturm. How you say? Snow Storm. I was on the front, Herr Schleier. I was on the Eastern Front and I saw the Übermensch and what he did.
Fogg regards him silently. Franz, frantically, smoking cigarette dangling in his mouth, reaches down, takes off his shoe. You see? he says. Fogg sees. Two of Franz’s toes are missing.
– This is the Schneesturm’s work, Franz says. To him we were like Jews.
Fogg lets him speak. Into the silence. His informer, bolstered by tobacco and hatred, has a need to fill it.
– I was a soldier, Herr Schleier. How you say Schleier? Fog?
Waiting for a response. Getting none.
– Mr Fog, Franz says, and laughs. Stops. Fogg looks at Franz’s foot. His missing toes.
– I was a soldier, Franz says. His voice is small. I served my country.
Fogg says, This God-damned war.
Franz nods his head, rapidly. Shrugs. Puts his shoe back on, takes a deep satisfied drag on his cigarette. Him I would give you for free, Herr Schleier, he says again. Looks at his nails, the hand holding the cigarette. Examines them thoughtfully. Says, But a man cannot live when a man has no food in his stomach.
Fogg sighs. Fogg reaches into his coat pocket. Fogg brings out a box of cigarettes and something else, something small and soft that flutters in the wind. Franz looks at it, transfixed. It is like a little green butterfly with dark spots.
– Ohhh …
It’s a twenty-dollar bill.
– So, Fogg says.
But Franz seems captivated by the sight. Lips form into an O of wonder. Fogg hands him the cigarettes and the money both. Reanimating him like some mad scientist in a cheap horror film.
– Thank you, Herr Schleier! Thank you—
– There will be double that if I find him—
Fogg stops to look at his informant. The Yanks better not get there first, he says.
– I talk to no one! Only you, Herr Schleier. I swear on my honour—
He’s made the money disappear.
– Now give it to me.
Fogg waits as Franz rummages through his own, dirty coat. Brings out a small piece of paper, folded over several times. Hands it to Fogg, who puts it away.
– Herr Schleier …
– Go away, Franz, Fogg says.
Franz looks at him, conflicting expressions crossing his face, as if he can’t settle on one. With what seems like wounded dignity he says, I was a soldier, Herr Schleier. Fogg only looks at him, and so Franz repeats himself. Perhaps, we think, he is caught in a loop from which there is no escape.
– I was a soldier.
– We were all soldiers, Franz, Fogg says. Now get the fuck out of here.
116. THE OLD MAN’S OFFICE the present
– He was just an informant, Fogg says.
– But he found Erich Bühler for you, didn’t he, Fogg? The Old Man says. He found Schneesturm?
– He said Schneesturm was hiding in the Soviet sector, Fogg says.
– So you do remember, Henry.
Fogg makes himself relax. Even offers a little half-smile. Says, As I recall, I submitted a full report at the time.
– Quite, quite, the Old Man says. His face softens. I want you to know I really do appreciate you coming in on such short notice, Henry, he says.
– Sir?
– You’ve been out in the cold for too long, Henry. Too many years, the Old Man says.
– It was such a long time ago, Fogg says. Does it really matter any more?
The Old Man seems to let that one go. Perhaps not, he agrees.
Waves his hand as if to say, none of this is of importance any more. Pulls towards him a different folder. Opens it. Looks at it thoughtfully.
– Let’s get back to Franz, the Old Man suggests. Franz Schröder. Your informant in Berlin in forty-six.
Fogg shifts in his chair. I really don’t see … he says.
– Humour me, Fogg.
Fogg stares at him. What do you want to know? he says. Resigned again. Knowing that the questioning is not at all over. That it has, in fact, just reached its crucial point. What the Old Man has been after all along.
– Tell me about Berlin, Fogg, the Old Man says. Tell me about Snow Storm.
And Fogg, resigned, does.
117. BERLIN 1946
– Berlin. You have to understand what it was like, Fogg says. Berlin in forty-six was an insane asylum. It was a circus of the grotesque. There were all manner of freaks. And ghosts …
The snow falls over the grey broken-down streets, the shadows of the street-dwellers slink like rats along the walls, but there, in neon lights, a sign: Der Zirkus and, in only slightly smaller letters below: Nachtklub.
The cold permeates everywhere. Fogg’s fingers feel frozen, unresponsive. The fog rises around him like a shield: from the watching eyes of the Berliner lost, of the shadow men and shadow women, the post-war living ghosts.
– Every intelligence and acquisitions agency in the world was in Berlin that year, after the war, Old Man. We were looking for Übermenschen. We were looking for Vomacht. For the people who had worked with him in his labs. For the Nazi big shots who had so far managed to evade the Allies and stay free. We were looking for Nazi scientists. We were looking for rocket people.
How long has he been outside in the cold? He’d met with Franz and Franz had given him a piece of paper, with an address written on it. He was so cold.
– Christ, Fogg says. Most of the time, we couldn’t even find ourselves.
He walks to the club doors and pushes them open and goes back inside.
118. DER ZIRKUS NIGHTCLUB, BERLIN 1946
He steps into an air of luxury. Of cigarette smoke and beer, laughter and music. It’s so warm inside after being in the cold. He stands still and savours the atmosphere. This little cocoon of life in the midst of all the death.
On stage the same lone woman as before stands, singing mournfully. He recognises her.
Machenstraum, Fogg thinks.
She is tall, she wears a man’s black suit and a circus ringmaster’s black top hat. She is not conventionally pretty, though she could, if she wanted to, assume any shape she wants, Fogg knows. Machenstraum. Dream Maker. The spotlight engulfs her. The rest of the stage is dark, dark like an ocean. Fogg stands and listens to the music, ‘I Had the Craziest Dream’. She had been singing something else before.
Fogg nods
his head in time to the music. Lights a cigarette. The smoke curls around his arm like a snake. He looks at the occupied tables. The silent waiters gliding along the floor. The moth-eaten velvet drapes. Looks at the Americans still sitting there, at their usual table.
And it is as if he is in two places at once, the past and the present, a time-traveller split in half, and in the Old Man’s office Fogg talks rapidly, like a younger man, the words just come and come and come. Suddenly he can’t stop talking. Like something’s been at last let loose.
– The Americans were crazy for rocket scientists, Fogg says. They grabbed von Braun as soon as they could. He ended up running their space programme for them. They were all over Berlin, spooks and super-men – like Tigerman and the Green Gunman and Whirlwind.
In the then, in Berlin after the war, Fogg looks at them, squinting his eyes against the smoke, listening to Machenstraum’s singing.
– The Americans were always so showy, Fogg says. They showed off their super powers like an English hostess shows off her best china. The entire nation was a super power and they wanted everyone to know it.
– As if everyone didn’t already know, the Old Man says. Fogg snorts.
– And they wanted what we wanted, he says. Vomacht, rogue Übermenschen. There was a market in the changed. They double-crossed us and we stabbed them in the back in return.
Fogg stares at the stage. The song is ending. In Berlin, in forty-six? he says to the Old Man, everybody played the game.
119. DER ZIRKUS, BERLIN 1946
Fogg rejoins the British table as the last notes of the song fade away. The lights return, and with them the ambient noise.
– Champagne? Oblivion says. He is glowing, Fogg sees, with some inner light, a happy drunkard stage which is rare for Oblivion. Fogg nods and Oblivion pours him the drink. The bottle, Fogg sees, sits in a bucket of ice on the table. He raises his eyebrows.
– Compliments of the competition, Oblivion says. He gestures at the American table. Fogg raises his glass in salute and the Americans, Tigerman and Whirlwind and the Green Gunman, respond in kind.
– How very civilised, Fogg says.
On stage, the singer bows to muted applause then walks off stage.
– When are we going to arrest her? Spit says.
– Machenstraum? Oblivion says, in evident surprise. She is too precious to waste.
Spit snorts. Dream Maker! What a stupid name. She’s a Nazi and she’s got the Vomacht touch. We should have collected her a long time ago.
Oblivion frowns. If the war had gone the other way, he says, we’d be the ones being collected.
Spit stares at him. What, are you going soft, Oblivion? Are you getting all sympathetic because some Nazi super-bitch turns you on?
Fogg has his doubts about that last one, but he keeps them to himself. Oh come on, Spit, Oblivion says. Everyone knows who she is. She’s hardly Adolf bloody Eichmann, is she.
– Isn’t she? Spit says, darkly.
– No. She isn’t, Oblivion says. If you must know, the Americans have already tagged her. She’s theirs. Got a free pass out of the country.
– Really? Fogg says, surprised.
Oblivion nods. Spit’s in that raging drunk stage. Like every other bloody Übermensch, she says, and Oblivion shrugs. Well, what did you think was going to happen to her? he says.
– I don’t know, Spit says. And, more quietly – This war …
Fogg just sits there, drinking his champagne. Enjoying the warmth. Spit and Oblivion’s bickering, as familiar as old leather. The band’s background music. Thinking all the while of the note in his pocket, the address Franz had given him. Thinking of Paris, in forty-three, of a man called Erich Bühler, called Snow Storm. Of Tank in a hospital bed in a military field hospital, somewhere in Scotland. Finishes his drink in one gulp and stands up.
Spit looks up at him. Where the hell are you going now? she says, slurring the words.
– I’m going to see a man about a storm, Fogg says.
120. THE OLD MAN’S OFFICE the present
– You went to the Soviet quarter that same night?
The Old Man turns the pages of Bühler’s dossier. Finger. Page corner. The whoosh of paper softly sliding against paper. No clocks in the room, Fogg notices, not for the first time. No way to tell the hour.
– I was restless, Fogg says. I didn’t tell them. Not even Oblivion.
– No, the Old Man says, but dubiously, it seems to Fogg. Dubiously. Not even Oblivion, you say.
– Schneesturm, Fogg says. I remembered him, Old Man. I couldn’t forget Paris. He was the reason we lost Tank. I couldn’t stop thinking about Tank. What had happened to him. Auschwitz. We’d all seen the images by then. I was there, after.
– I remember, the Old Man says, softly.
– I needed to be the one to find him, Fogg says, pleads. The Old Man doesn’t reply. Studies him with his head tilted. Blinks, once.
– Erich bleeding Bühler, Fogg says. Leans across to the Old Man’s desk. Stares at him. Snow Storm, he says.
The Old Man nods.
– Yes, Fogg says. Yes I went to the Soviet quarter that night.
121. BERLIN 1946
Driving past the Tiergarten, Fogg and the driver he’d requisitioned outside Der Zirkus, the army jeep, cold night air on their faces, the fog trailing them like a pack of dogs.
– Been here long? says the driver. Something about him Fogg doesn’t like. Not an Übermensch, regular army, a corporal, but something about him. Black hair slicked back, a cigarette dangling from his lips – American, not a rollie and not cheap. Looks by far too well-fed. Cheeky, is what it is. That grin, those even white teeth.
– Long enough, Corporal, Fogg says shortly.
– You know, sir, the corporal says, if you ever need anything, you can tell me. It gets lonely on the cold nights here, in Berlin.
They head east. The corporal easily avoids the potholes and the bomb craters. Their headlights are the only source of illumination in the Berlin night. People draw deeper into the shadows when they pass.
– And some of the Fraus are incredibly obliging, sir.
– Excuse me?
Fogg stares at him. The corporal’s long fingers are steady on the wheel. The grin he turns to Fogg is white and cheery, positively American.
– Women, sir, the corporal says patiently. Girls. Ladies. Some of the Russians used them a bit rough, sir. When they took Berlin, you know. Some of them are a little used. Not my ones, sir. Each one’s a bleeding masterpiece.
Fogg looks away. Closes his eyes, for a moment. Feels the night around him. The wind on his face like a benediction. Opens his eyes, takes out his cigarette case, lights up.
– I’ll bear that in mind, Corporal, he says. Blows smoke. For just a moment it shapes itself into the shape of a stick man, waving its hands before evaporating into the air. If the corporal notices that, or the fog that follows the jeep, almost engulfing it, he doesn’t say. And perhaps, Fogg thinks, the young man is used to the strange ways of the army’s attached specialists from the BSA, from the so-called Bureau for Superannuated Affairs. Either way he flashes a grin again at Fogg.
– Or jewellery, sir? he says cheerfully. Maybe you have a girl back home, sir, who’d like some new jewellery? I can get you a very special price on gold, sir.
Fogg smiles. Blows smoke into the shape of a dove that flies away. A girl back home … he says. Yes, yes, I guess you could say that.
– Sir?
– Somewhere there’s a place where it’s always summer, Fogg says. Closes his eyes. Exhales smoke. A white stone house, surrounded by a meadow, he says. The grass is green, and bees hum lazily in the air. The light is soft, like music …
– Sir?
Fogg opens his eyes. The corporal has lost his grin. They’re on Wilhelmstrasse, passing the huge Reichsministerium, Hermann Göring’s Reich Air Ministry building. It is the only building left intact on that once-magnificent street. Everything else – the Reich Chance
llery, built by Albert Speer for the Führer; and the grandiose former President’s Palace occupied by Ribbentrop during the war; and the Propaganda Ministry, and all the rest of them – all these symbols, this centre of Nazi power, now reduced to rubble, by Allied bombs dropped from Allied planes. All but Göring’s building: a lone survivor. It is eerily quiet, and the only light comes from farther ahead, where Fogg knows the Russians have their checkpoint.
– Stop here, Corporal, Fogg says.
The corporal seems glad to oblige. The sound of the engine dies, leaving them in silence. Fogg tries to remember the last time he’d heard a bird, and can’t. Whatever non-human life there has been in Berlin it is all gone, died off or eaten by the human survivors. The city reeks of death but it reeks even worse of life.
– What’s your name, Corporal? Fogg says.
The corporal swallows. King, sir, he says. Corporal King.
Fogg nods. Wait here until I get back, King, he says.
– Here, sir?
– Problem with your hearing, Corporal?
– No, sir.
– Good.
Fogg turns from him. As he walks away the fog gathers around him, rising from the ground until it covers him. In moments he disappears. Corporal King stares after him. Looks at the bombed-out buildings, the lights of the Soviets in the distance. Listens to that hush of post-war Berlin. Wraps himself tighter in his coat, pulls out a cigarette and lights it. He blows smoke into the darkness, stares at the rising fog.
– Rum old bird, he says, meditatively.
122. THE OLD MAN’S OFFICE the present
– Corporal King, eh? the Old Man says.
– Yes.
– What we used to call a useful chap.
– Quite, Fogg says.
Every military company has a man like Corporal King. A man who can get things done. A man who can get things, for the right price.
In Berlin it was chocolate and American cigarettes and nylons. It was women. It was drugs, or guns, or even identity papers. It was anything. Anything but peace. That was one luxury Berlin no longer had.
