Berlin: A Novel (63 page)

John Ashburner came out of the bathroom. Ethel was amused. 'Rather impulsive, your young lady.'

'I'm going after her,' he said firmly.

The inspector turned into Argentinische Allee. His stump hurt every time he pushed the pedals down. The bicycle rattled quietly. Candlelight flickered in a few windows, as if Christmas had come early. But it was October, the electricity was off, and there was a murderer cruising somewhere, through the mild, starlit night. He listened to the headphones as if expecting them to answer his question.

He went through the week's events in his mind. Where had he been? What had he been doing? Captain Ashburner had shown him the beeping transmitter. He had been to Mr Chalford's office with Muhlberger to ask about the card index of employees. He had searched the garage in secret, and tampered with the motorbike. He had been on cycle patrol for the last three nights. Somewhere and at some time during the past week, an idea had occurred to him. He had filed it away in his subconscious, and now it was lying there, refusing to be dredged up to the surface.

A faint beeping chirped in the headphones and soon grew stronger. Dietrich braked, laid his bicycle flat on the pavement, and ducked down behind a switchbox beside the road. The motorbike roared past not two metres from him, the rider's goggles reflecting the clear night sky.

Getting on his bicycle. Dietrich followed the fading beep, which showed him that the motorbike was moving away. He had no chance on his old bike. But to his surprise, a minute later the signal grew stronger again, swelling to a fortissimo. His adversary must be very close.

He stopped, looked all round - and saw the small box with the metallic gleam. It was stuck to the lamppost in front of him. His enemy had tricked him.

Something came rushing toward him with concentrated force from the nearby main road. The NSU 300! A dull thud flung him to the ground. His enemy swerved around and returned to the attack. Dietrich rolled aside, but not fast enough. There was an ugly crunch, as if all his bones were breaking. The motorbike raced away.

He lay there helpless. Suddenly revelation struck him like a thousandvolt electric shock. There it was, the connection he had desperately been trying to make for days on end. He tried to get up. He failed. The tyres of the heavy motorbike had crushed his prosthesis, and now it was hanging at a bizarre angle from the stump. Turning up his trouser leg, he unstrapped it.

A jeep was approaching, its searchlight sweeping the pavement. Dietrich raised an arm and waved, but just before the jeep reached him the searchlight switched to the other side of the road. His calls were drowned out by the sound of the engine. The hell with it, I have to get to my feet somehow, he thought. To my foot, he corrected himself.

He turned over and crawled on hands and knees to the street light where his bicycle was lying. It was barely three metres, but it seemed like miles. He hauled himself up by the lamppost. Only at the third attempt did he succeed in picking up his bike. Grasping the handlebars with both hands, he put his half leg over the middle bar and got himself into the saddle. He pushed off with his sound foot. For a few seconds he thought he would tip over, but he soon found out how to keep his balance. Pushing down the pedal, he brought it up again with his instep. It worked better than he'd expected. He got up some speed. There was no time to lose. He hoped the guard would let him telephone the American prohibited zone. And then he had an appointment with the killer.

Benny Goodman and the laughing voices mocked her, and the bright glow of the floodlights burned Jutta's eyes. She pulled herself together. She mustn't let go. She wasn't going to give the other woman the satisfaction.

There was no electricity on the other side of the barrier. She strode energetically forward. She was furious with herself and with John. He'd lied to her. A nice little adventure to see him through until Ethel arrived, that was what he wanted, and silly goose that she was, she'd served it up to him on a silver salver.

She stopped and breathed deeply. The night air did her good. She remembered all that lay behind her. The nights of air raids. The Red Army hordes. The unspeakable humiliations. And here she was getting upset over an American to whom, after all, she had given herself willingly! 'Let's forget it!' she heard Jochen saying. It was what he'd said after their first marital tiff, which led to a delightful reconciliation in bed. She smiled.

A sound brought her back to reality. Jutta turned. A figure emerged from the darkness, arms raised. A chain came around her neck, clinking. Breathing hard, her attacker tugged at her dress. She was gasping like a landed fish. Her hands clutched empty air. The chain cut off her breath. Violet squiggles danced before her eyes. In the last few seconds before death by strangulation you see your whole life pass before your eyes again, she thought; now where did I read that?

J U TTA

WAS IT A dream or reality? She felt his weight on her and his prick deep between her thighs. His face was hidden in the darkness. Jochen? Or the other man, the man she hadn't yet met but would meet some day? He did exist, this man, how else could she dream of him? Her heart was thudding persistently, as if it were Mutti knocking on the door.

It was Mutti. 'Seven o'clock, child!' she cried. Reluctantly, Jutta hauled herself out of bed. She was all hot and damp between her legs. She would have loved to go back into her dream and see his face. His blurred features were still before her as she stood under the shower. In the kitchen she spread her usual breakfast roll with butter, watching a fly crawling over Kaiser Wilhelm's nose. The old gentleman with his mutton-chop whiskers hung on the door of the pantry. Jutta's great-grandfather, very much the loyal subject, had pinned him up there long ago.

Mutti poured coffee from the big, blue enamel pot that stood on the castiron stove. Its coals glowed even at night. A couple of workers were talking in loud voices over an early beer in the bar. Vati laughed approvingly at some remark. He often laughed like that, a short and almost surprised burst of laughter. It saved him the trouble of keeping up a conversation. Mutti put the pot back on the stove. The black brew would stay warm there in case a guest ordered coffee. 'Do we expect you home this evening?'

'It all depends.' She had no idea what it all depended on, she was fending off the questions that Mutti would ask next: why didn't they finally get married? Spending the night with a man, even your fiance, was improper. Jochen should know that too, as an educated man who was aware of his responsibilities.

'I must be off' She avoided the bar and left the Red Eagle through the kitchen garden. It was ten minutes' walk to Kopenick station.

In the train she took Hans Fallada's new novel out of her briefcase. As a future bookseller she had to keep up to date. Today she had the last pages of a depressing story about a hopeless hero in a penitentiary to read.

When she had finished the book she played at guessing what kind of people the other passengers were, with their grave, cheerful, indifferent, friendly or hostile faces. A gentleman in a Homburg hat, his waistcoat stretched tight over a rounded paunch: a jeweller, insurance agent, teacher? He hid his Party badge behind the Lokalanzeiger, and Jutta read the newspaper headlines for this day in July 1934. Austria's Chancellor Dollfuss Assassinated - Hans Stuck wins German Grand Prix for Auto Union - Marie Curie Dies.' The old woman opposite, who had a basket full of eggs, a ham, two sausages and a bunch of rhubarb, must come from Rahnsdorf, Zeuthen or even further out in the country, bringing good nourishing food for city children. The lady in the hat and cotton gloves was surely on her way to have a comfortable gossip over coffee at Kranzler's or the Cafe Schilling with other ladies in hats and cotton gloves. The air force major with his white summer cap and battered leather case was probably on the way to his desk in the new Reich Aviation Ministry.

Also new to the general appearance of the city were the swastika banners on post offices, and the notices in some shop windows: 'Under Aryan Management'. The familiar Prussian blue of the police uniform had changed to an ugly green that even forestry officials disliked.

The Berliners took all this in their stride. It hailed from distant southern provinces that no one took seriously. They were all agreed: this Austro- Bavarian circus would soon close down again.

The man in the boots and brown shirt at Heidelberger Platz, where Jutta changed from the S-Bahn to the U-Bahn, was also a Berliner first and an SA man second. 'Give generously! The Fiihrer needs warm underclothes,' he shouted, rattling his collection tin for the Nazi Winter Charity fund. 'You wearing brown underpants too?' asked a cheeky boy. 'Only when I got the trots,' was the cheerful answer.

Jutta took the U-Bahn to Onkel Toms Hutte. A few years earlier the architect Doering had built a modern shopping centre there on the sandy soil of the Brandenburg Mark around the station. It was on the same level as the U-Bahn tracks, and thus lower than the street.

The bookshop was in one of the two shopping streets that ran parallel to the two long sides of the station platform. On its left was Zabel's soap shop, on the right was Fraulein Schummel. gentlemen's outfitter. Further right, Herr Muller and Herr Hacker sold and repaired radio sets, while to the left of the soap shop a smell of the North Sea wafted from Ehlers the fishmonger's.

There was a smell of freshly brewed coffee in the bookshop. Jutta's boss drank it all morning, in tiny coffee cups, smoking Egyptian cigarettes with it. In the afternoon she took tea. She was sitting in the back room as usual, reading. Diana Gerold was in her thirties, with short, black hair and a healthy glow from all the tennis she played at the club on Hiittenweg. 'Like a coffee too?'

Jutta poured herself a cup. They opened at nine, which gave her another ten minutes. She pointed to Diana's book. A new publication?'

'No, old stock. Stefan Zweig's novellas. Twenty copies, unsaleable because they've just been banned. Degenerate and un-German, apparently. Although there's hardly a greater master of the German language than Zweig. Unlike the clumping style of one Herr Beumelburg, whose wartime prose the German Book Trade Association so warmly recommends. His publisher is reserving us fifty copies of the latest, with the gentle hint that it wouldn't look good if we take any fewer. Outrageous blackmail, that's what it is.' Diana Gerold had talked herself into a rage.

'Time I opened up.' Jutta dealt with sales and the lending library, while the owner of the shop usually stayed behind the scenes.

Herr Lesch was already waiting: Ewald Lesch, widower, retired postoffice official, a regular customer of the library. 'Good morning, Herr Lesch. We have a new Lord Peter Wimsey in,' she greeted him. Lesch loved English detective stories. She took the Dorothy L. Sayers volume off the shelf.

'I hope it's not a let-down like that Edgar Wallace book. I thought Sanders of the River would be a crime story. Didn't know the man writes about Africa too. I'm not interested in African stories.'

'You could have a nice Agatha Christie,' Jutta said, to mollify him. 'What about Hercule Poirot?' Herr Lesch went away, a satisfied customer. At the door he passed a well-dressed, youngish man, who came in and looked rather helplessly around the shop.

'Good morning, sir. Are you looking for anything in particular?'

'Yes, Hitler's Mein Kampf.' He seemed embarrassed about it.

'Cloth-bound or half-cloth?' asked Jutta in a business-like way.

'Leather-bound, please. Russian leather or morocco. Gold-stamped. India paper if possible.'

'I'm afraid we don't have a de luxe edition like that in stock, sir. Maybe if you tried one of the big bookshops in the city centre ...'

'I can order what you want by phone.' Frau Gerold had come into the front of the shop. 'The book distribution people will send it with tomorrow's delivery. Meanwhile, take the half cloth edition to read. We won't charge you.'

'I don't want to read the damn thing. I need a handsome edition for the desk in my new legal offices.'

'Of course, as a good German and an upright National Comrade one likes to have the great work of our Fiihrer and Reich Chancellor always to hand.' Diana Gerold's mouth twisted in a mocking smile.

He gave Jutta his card. 'For when the order arrives.' He was Dr Rainer Jordan, a lawyer. She could tell that he liked her. As I said, I'm new around here, and a bachelor. Would you think it too forward of me to ask you to drink a glass of wine with me after work?'

'Not at all forward, Dr Jordan, I take it as a compliment. But I already have a date this evening.'

'Well, anyway, I hope you have a good day.' He raised his hat.

'Congratulations, an admirer,' said Frau Gerold from the back of the shop.

And a very nice one too,' said Jutta happily. putting Sanders of the River back in its place. She thought of Jochen.

On the dot of seven, when the shop had shut, she was up at the public clock. She could hear the hammering of the engine from a long way off. The little Hanomag, called the Loaf of Bread by the people of Berlin for its shape, turned the corner, hiccuped and stopped. Jochen's hair was untidy as usual, and his tie was crooked as usual too. 'Hello, bookworm,' he cried cheerfully.