Every Man Dies Alone (46 page)

She looked at him with big, staring eyes.

“And then I picture to myself how it will be. It’s good to think about such things in advance, that way nothing will surprise you. Do you think about it sometimes?”

“I know what you’re talking about, Otto,” Anna Quangel replied evasively.

He stood with his back against Ottochen’s bookcase, his shoulder brushing against the boy’s radio assembly guide. He looked piercingly at her.

“As soon as they’ve arrested us, we’ll be separated, Anna. We might see each other two or three times more, at the interrogation, at the trial, maybe for the last time half an hour before the execution…”

“No! No! No!” she screamed. “I don’t want you to talk about it. We’ll get through, Otto, we have to!”

He laid his big, rough worker’s hand calmingly on her small, warm, trembling one.

“And what if we don’t make it? Would you regret anything? Would you like any of what we’ve done to have remained undone?”

“No, nothing! But we’ll get through undiscovered, Otto, I feel it!”

“You see, Anna,” he said, without responding to her latest assertion. “That’s what I wanted to hear. We will never regret anything. We will stand by what we’ve done, no matter how they torture us.”

She looked at him, and tried to suppress a shudder. In vain. “Oh, Otto!” she sobbed. “Why do you have to talk like that? You’ll only draw the calamity upon us. You never used to talk like that!”

“I don’t know what’s making me talk to you like this today,” he said, stepping away from the bookcase. “I have to, at least once. Probably I’ll never talk about it to you again. But I had to do it once. Because you must know, we’ll be very much alone in our cells, without a word to each other, we who haven’t been apart for one single day in twenty years and more. It will be very difficult. But we can be sure the other won’t weaken, that we can depend on each other, in death as in life. We will have to die alone too, Anna.”

“Otto, to hear you talk, it’s as though it was imminent! And yet we’re free, and no one suspects us. We could stop any day, if we wanted…”

“But do we want to? Is it even possible for us to want to?”

“No, and I’m not saying we want to, either. I don’t, you know that! But I don’t want you to talk as though they’d caught us and there was only death ahead of us. I’m not ready to die yet, Otto, I want to live with you!”

“Who wants to die?” he asked. “Everyone wants to live, every-one—even the most miserable worm is screaming for life! I want to live, too. But maybe it’s a good thing, Anna, even in the midst of life to think of a wretched death, and to get ready for it. So that you know you’ll be able to die properly, without moaning and whimpering. That would be disgusting to me…”

For a while there was silence.

Then Anna Quangel said quietly, “You can rely on me, Otto. I won’t let you down.”

Chapter 36

THE FALL OF INSPECTOR ESCHERICH

In the twelve months after the “suicide” of little Enno Kluge, Inspector Escherich had been able to lead a fairly tranquil existence, not too burdened by the impatience of his superiors. When the suicide was reported and it was clear that the scrawny little man had put himself beyond interrogation by the Gestapo and the SS, Obergruppenführer Prall had of course thrown one fit after another. But in time he had calmed down: that trail had gone cold, and now they were forced to wait for another.

And besides, the Hobgoblin didn’t seem so important any more. The sheer unvarying monotony with which he wrote his postcards that no one read, that no one wanted to read, that plunged everyone who found them into embarrassment or dread, made him a ridiculous, stupid figure. Of course, Escherich continued to stick his little flags into the map of Berlin. With some satisfaction he saw that they were concentrating more and more in the area north of Alexanderplatz—that was where the bird must have his nest! And that striking group of almost a dozen flags south of Nollendorfplatz—that must be somewhere that the Hobgoblin had some regular, if occasional, business. All that would come out in the wash, one day…

You’re coming along! You’re coming along nicely, all in your own time! chuckled the inspector to himself, and rubbed his hands.

But then his attention was claimed by other work. There were more urgent and important cases. A madman—a devout Nazi, as he called himself—was just then very current: he did nothing but send Minister Goebbels daily letters that were crude, and often pornographic in nature. At first the letters had amused the minister, then they’d bothered him, and finally he had thrown a fit and demanded the man’s head. His vanity was mortally offended.

Well, Inspector Escherich was in luck, he had managed to solve the “Filth” case within three months. The letter writer, who really was in the Party, and had a low joining number, had been taken to Minister Goebbels, and with that Escherich could wash his hands of the case. He knew he would never hear anything about “Filth” again. The Minister never forgave anyone who had offended him.

Then there were other cases—above all, the case of the man who sent papal encyclicals and radio addresses from Thomas Mann, both real and fake, to prominent persons. A wily fellow—nabbing him wasn’t easy. But in the end, Escherich booked him into his death cell in the Plötze.

And then there was the middle manager who had suddenly turned into a megalomaniac and announced that he was the director of a non-existent steelworks plant. He addressed confidential letters not merely to other directors but also to the Führer himself, with details of the parlous state of the German weapons industry, details that were in many cases true. Well, that bird was relatively easy to catch; the number of people privy to such information was relatively small.

So Inspector Escherich had enjoyed some important successes, and his colleagues were muttering he might be due an exceptional promotion. It had been a pleasing year, since the suicide of little Kluge; Inspector Escherich was quite happy.

But then a time came that saw Escherich’s superiors once again grouped in front of the map with the Hobgoblin’s pins. They listened to explanations of the flags, they nodded thoughtfully when the clustering north of Alexanderplatz was explained to them, they nodded thoughtfully again when Escherich drew their attention to the second, smaller cluster south of Nollendorfplatz, and then they said, “Do you have any other leads, Herr Escherich? What plans have you made for the apprehension of this Hobgoblin? The invasion of Russia seems to have inspired the man to new spasms of literary activity. The past week alone has seen five postcards and letters from him!”

“True,” said the inspector. “And there are three already this week!”

“So what’s the state of play, Escherich? Think of how long the man’s been writing now. We can’t let him go on like this! This isn’t a statistical office for the analysis of treasonable postcards—you’re a detective! So, what leads are you following?”

Thus pressed, the inspector complained bitterly about the idiocy of the two women who had seen the man and not stopped him, who had seen him and couldn’t even come up with a description of what he looked like.

“That’s all very well, my dear fellow. But we’re not talking about brainless witnesses, we’re talking about clues uncovered by your shrewd brain!”

Whereupon the inspector led the gentlemen back to the map, and, speaking in a whisper, showed them how although there were flags evenly sowed all over the area north of the Alex, one little area had none at all.

“And that’s where my Hobgoblin lives. He doesn’t drop any cards there, because he is too well known; he would have to worry that a neighbor might see and identify him. It’s a little working-class enclave, just a couple of streets. That’s where he lives.”

“And why do you let him live there? Why haven’t you called for a house-to-house search in those few streets? You’ve got to catch him, Escherich! We don’t understand you—you have an impressive record otherwise, but in this case it’s one blunder after another. We’ve seen the files. There’s the run-in with Kluge, whom you let go, even after he confessed! And then you let him drop out of sight, and you even allowed him to do himself in, and that at a time when we really needed to talk to him! One blunder after another, Escherich!”

Inspector Escherich, nervously tugging at his mustache, permits himself to point out that Kluge manifestly had nothing to do with the author of the postcards. The postcards had continued to come in after his death.

“In my opinion, his confession that an unknown man gave him the card to drop is absolutely credible!”

“Well, as long as you think so! We think it’s absolutely necessary that you do something! We don’t care what it is, but we want to see movement! Conduct house-to-house searches in those streets. Let’s see what that throws up. It’s bound to be something, the infestation is everywhere!”

In turn, Inspector Escherich humbly begs to remind his visitors that even searching those few streets will mean knocking on close to a thousand doors.

“It will cause great disquiet among the residents. People are getting more nervous as it is, on account of the increased bombing raids, and now if we give them further grounds to complain! And ask yourselves, What will a search accomplish? What are we looking for? All the man requires for his criminal activities is a pen, and every household has one, and a bottle of ink, ditto, and a couple of postcards, ditto, ditto. I wouldn’t know what to tell my men to look for. At the most, a negative indication: the author has no radio. Never in all the cards have I seen any suggestion that he may have got his news from the radio. Often, too, he is badly informed. No, I wouldn’t know how to instruct a search.”

“But, my dear Escherich, we simply don’t understand you any more! You are full of doubts and hesitations, but you don’t come to us with a single positive suggestion! We must capture the man, and soon!”

“And we will capture him,” said the inspector, smiling, “but I don’t know how soon. I can’t guarantee it. But I don’t think he’ll still be writing his postcards in two years’ time.”

They groaned.

“And why not? Because time is working against him. Look at the little flags—another hundred of them, and we’ll be much further along. He is an incredibly tough, cold-blooded guy, my Hobgoblin, but he’s also been incredibly lucky. Cold-bloodedness on its own isn’t enough—you need a bit of luck as well, and he’s had that to the most baffling degree. But it’s just like playing cards, gentlemen: for a while the cards will favor you, but then your run comes to an end. And suddenly the deck will be stacked against the Hobgoblin, and we’ll have all the trumps!”

“That’s all very well, Escherich! Detection theory, I’m sure—we understand. But we are not so interested in theoretical questions, and all we take from your words is that we may be kept waiting for two more years before you decide to take any action. Well, we haven’t got the patience. We suggest you think through the whole case again and come to us with your proposals, in, say, a week. Then we’ll see if you’re a suitable man to take care of this or not. Heil Hitler, Escherich!”

After they had all gone, Obergruppenführer Prall, who had kept quiet because of the presence of higher-ranking officers and officials, came storming back in: “You moron! You imbecile! Do you think I’ll allow my department to be further damaged by a fool like you! You’ve got one week!” He waved his fists furiously at Escherich. “Heaven help you if you don’t come up with anything this time! I’ll haul you
over the coals!” And so on and so forth. Inspector Escherich no longer listened to such talk.

Over the next week Inspector Escherich busied himself with the Hobgoblin case by doing nothing at all. Once before, he had allowed himself to be pressured by his superiors out of his patient waiting game, and as a result, everything had gone wrong, and that was what had ultimately made necessary the sacrifice of Enno Kluge.

Not that Kluge weighed heavily on his conscience. A useless, pathetic moaner—it didn’t matter whether such a creature lived or died. But Inspector Escherich had had a lot of trouble over that little wretch. Once that mouth had been opened it had cost him quite a bit to close it. Yes, on a certain night that the inspector didn’t like to recall, the inspector had been rather agitated, and if there was anything the gaunt, colorless, gray man disliked, it was being agitated.

No, he wasn’t going to be tempted out of his patient insistence, not even by his high-and-mighty superiors. What could they do to him? They needed their Escherich; he was in many ways irreplaceable. They might rant and rave at him, but in the end they would do the one thing that was right: wait. No, Escherich had no proposals to make…

It was a remarkable meeting. This time, it wasn’t held in Escherich’s office, but in the conference room, under the chairmanship of one of the top officials. Of course the Hobgoblin case wasn’t the only one on the agenda—many other cases from other departments were also discussed. There were reprimands, yelling, and mockery. And then it was Next, please!

“Inspector Escherich, would you now tell us what you have to say in the case of the anonymous postcard author?”