Rosa (51 page)

“You wouldn’t have trusted me regardless of the positions.”

“Fair enough.”

For the first time in a week Hoffner felt a different kind of hostility, one aimed out, not in. It perched at the base of his throat and was oddly comforting. “And now I’m meant to finish what you started, is that it?” he said.

“I started nothing,” said Jogiches. “I simply chose the best route to an end.”

“Regardless of the consequences.”

“You and I aren’t all that different in that regard, are we, Inspector?” Jogiches could be equally biting. When Hoffner said nothing, Jogiches said, “You’re not the only one to have lost something in this.”

Hoffner remained silent: there was nothing he could say to defend himself.

Jogiches shifted tone: “When was the last time you saw a bed?” Hoffner couldn’t remember; he shrugged. “You need sleep,” Jogiches said as he stood. “I have a place.” Hoffner shook his head, but Jogiches already had the bottle. He turned to the bartender. “We’ll take this with us.” The man nodded distractedly and went back to the woman. Jogiches turned to Hoffner. “You need to get up now.”

I
t was close to eleven when they stepped outside. Hoffner had lost track of the time hours ago—days ago—and was struck by the pitch black of the night sky. Why, he wondered, had he imagined it to be earlier? He breathed in deeply—only a twinge now from his ribs—and let the rawness fill his lungs. He had almost forgotten the taste of crisp air; it cleared his head. He recalled having spent a night at the Hotel Palme in and among the whores and pickpockets, the sight of its tattered awning up ahead now a reminder of muffled voices and thuds coming from somewhere beyond his walls as he had drifted in and out of sleep. He had chosen the Palme for a reason. He now remembered that, as well.

Two streets on, he turned right. Jogiches stopped behind him and said, “Where are you going?”

Hoffner spoke over his shoulder as he continued to walk. “This won’t take long.” With no other choice, Jogiches caught up and the two walked in silence.

The street might have been any other, a lamp here and there to offer the pretense of civility, but the chipped walls and occasional shattered window of the flats above made plain what kind of life lay within. Even where a strip of light peeked through from the edge of a drawn shade, there was no warmth beyond it. This was a street meant to be forgotten, and it was why Hoffner had chosen it.

He mounted the steps to one of the stoops and pressed his thumb twice, then twice again, against the bell for the third-floor flat. Jogiches had remained down in the street. Hoffner peered up and saw a curtain ripple. Half a minute later he heard footsteps through the door. It opened and a dim light spilled out onto the stoop.

Lina held her arms tightly across her chest, her best defense against the chill in a thin dress. She was without makeup, her skin an ashy white, her eyes smaller and less severe than usual: Hoffner had never noticed the natural beauty in her face. “I’m sorry if I woke you,” he said, and she shook her head. “It’s all right, then?” he said. “The place?” Hoffner had called in a favor, a black-market meats peddler who kept a spare room. At least Lina was eating well. She nodded. He said, “It shouldn’t be more than another few days, just to be safe. You have money?”

“I’m going tomorrow.”

Hoffner shook his head. “They might still have someone watching your place.”

“Not there,” she said. Her eyes dropped as she spoke. “I have an uncle in Oldenburg. In the north. He has a shop.”

This was something Hoffner had never considered. He had imagined that he could place her safely away for a time, lose himself, and then return to open the cage: a final act of contrition. Maybe then she would keep him somewhere in her memory, but that, too, seemed not to be. He did his best to sound encouraging. “A flower shop?”

She looked up and tried a smile, but there was too much sadness in her eyes. “I hope not.”

“It’ll be better there, I imagine.” Hoffner had no idea why he had said it.

She nodded unconvincingly. “The boy is all right?”

The boy, he thought. Fifteen-year-old Sascha. What, then, was a girl of nineteen? Hoffner reached into his pocket and pulled out the few bills he had. “You’ll want this for the train.”

She shook her head and said, “I’m all right. Give it to Elise. She’ll need it for the rent.” She took in a deep breath and glanced up at the sky as she tightened her arms around her chest. “I’m not running away, you know. It’s just too much right now.”

Hoffner took her hand and placed the money in her palm. So many things to notice for the first time: the smallness of a wrist, the slenderness of her fingers. He saw her shiver. “You should go in,” he said.

Her fingers closed around his hand. “You could come up?”

The warmth of her body and the promise of a bed, he thought: if only it were that simple. He shook his head and took back his hand. Her neck was now a rippling of gooseflesh.

She said, “There really isn’t anything here for me, is there?”

Hope and despair, like a wake trailing behind him: Hoffner could feel himself being pulled in. “You should take a taxi,” he said. “As close to the time as possible. No reason to be out on the platform longer than you have to be.”

She was reaching for him even as he spoke, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her cheek pulled tight into his neck. He felt the warmth of her breath, and he placed his arm around her. There was life within her embrace, a sudden strength that was all the more wrenching as she pulled away, her arms folded to her chest. Her face was again a placid gray. “You don’t think it will be this way, and then of course it is. Silly, really.”

He could tell how much she wanted from him, now with nothing else beyond this single moment. How difficult would it be to give her that? He said, “When this is over—”

“Yes.” She cut him off. She didn’t want to hear it; it was enough that he had tried. She ran her hand across his chest. She then turned away. A moment later, the door shut behind her.

J
ogiches was kind enough not to ask. The two walked in silence, Jogiches directing them with a nod for a street, a building.

The room he had found was no better than what they had just left behind. This one, however, was a step down from the street, recessed behind the stoop and with thick bars across its door and single window. Jogiches rummaged for a key: the door squealed open and he led Hoffner inside. He struck a match and brought the dank little space to life. An oil lamp was by the door and he adjusted the flame.

Pipes were bare along the ceiling, and the cracks in the walls spread out in a topography of tiny streamlets and rivers. The smell of mold and decay was matched only by the stench of urine. A mattress—long past its prime—lay in the corner. Hovering above it stood a large metal trunk. Hoffner wondered what it was to have the remnants of one’s life always at arm’s reach.

“Landlord doesn’t know I’m here,” said Jogiches, as if the point wasn’t obvious. “You take the mattress. I don’t sleep much these days.”

Exhaustion had been tracking Hoffner like a marksman; he could feel the squeezing of the trigger from behind him. He moved across to the mattress.

Jogiches rested his back against the wall and slid down to the floor. “You’ll be taking that when this is done.” Hoffner looked over and saw Jogiches nodding toward the trunk. “Her papers. All of them. Everything she had.” Jogiches kept the lamp between his knees. “Not much chance of revolution now, is there, general strikes notwithstanding? Even I know it. But that”—Jogiches again nodded to the trunk—“that has to live beyond this.”

Hoffner knelt down and opened the trunk’s lid. He pulled back a thick blanket that had been placed across the top: Jogiches was keeping the contents warm and dry despite his own squalor. Even in shadow, Hoffner could make out the stacks of books and loose pages that were piled high to the edge.

Jogiches said, “We both know I won’t be here long enough to make sure of that.” He pulled his coat tighter around his chest and seemed to lose himself for a moment. “To make sure of any of it, I suppose.” He looked back at Hoffner. “Put the blanket over it and close the lid.”

The irony of a trunk as Rosa’s final resting place was not lost on Hoffner. He did as he was told. “And the cause lives on,” he murmured under his breath.

There was a snort of acknowledgment from across the room. Hoffner turned, surprised that Jogiches had heard: the eyes were barely open; the head was cocked to one side; the shadow above seemed to paint him in the pose of a hanging man. Jogiches nodded slowly, his eyes still closed: “The cause,” he echoed. “She wanted to take her life. Did you know that? Just before the war. She said it was finished, that the workers had betrayed themselves by voting for the rearmament. One day a united proletariat, the next enemies at war. She was right, of course.” His head tilted back as if he were remembering something. “I said we should go together, a final noble act, but she managed to see something else in it. A prelude, she said. The last slap to the workers’ faces. Then they would see how they had been used. Then they would climb from their trenches and tear down the world that had imprisoned them for so long.” He stopped and his eyes opened. He stared distantly into the dark. “‘I am, I was, I shall be.’” His gaze was almost wistful. He looked over at Hoffner. “She wrote that the day before they took her. Not about herself but about the revolution. Yes, I know—cause, truth—you find it all absurd, but that’s not what’s in that trunk. What’s there is faith, hope—even in moments of greatest despair—that she could see beyond herself, beyond the corruption and human frailty, and imagine what could be.” His head fell back against the wall and again he shut his eyes. “And if you find that nave, Inspector, then you haven’t nearly understood what it is you’re now up against.”

Here at last was the humanity, thought Hoffner. Jogiches had recognized in Rosa something more vital than his own cold conviction, and it was that, and that alone, that he was now desperate to save. Hoffner said, “You surprise me.”

Jogiches kept his eyes closed. “How so?”

“A romantic at the end?”

Jogiches found a smile somewhere. “And what is it for you, then, Inspector? Loose ends? A detective’s need to mop things up? I don’t believe that, and neither, I suspect, do you.”

Hoffner had no reason to disagree. He said, “So what would she have done now?”

Jogiches opened his eyes and peered over at Hoffner—that familiar, impenetrable gaze. “She would have gotten some sleep,” he said.

Hoffner needed no more by way of encouragement. The lamp flared out and they slipped off into quiet darkness.

L
ater, Hoffner had a dream. He was in the water of Wannsee, staring out into the endless blue, when he heard the sound of splashing coming out toward him. He turned, but the sun was too much in his eyes and he saw only the outline of a figure, a woman—Martha—drawing closer. He put up his hand to shield his eyes, but he could barely make her out. He turned back to the blue and waited for her to join him.

“You raced so far ahead,” she said when she was almost to him.

Hoffner ran his hands through the water and he turned to see Rosa standing next to him.

“I’ve brought you this,” she said as she handed him the pebble.

Hoffner took it and rubbed his thumb across its smoothness. It suddenly felt like sand and began to crumble in his palm.

“That’s all right,” she said. “I can bring you another.” She started to go, but Hoffner reached out and took her arm.

“Why?” he said.

“Why?” she said with a kind smile. She pulled away and her face became Lina’s. “Because it’s enough that you want it.” He felt himself losing his footing. He fell back into the water and his eyes opened.

I
t was several moments before Hoffner realized where he was. He heard Jogiches’s breathing from somewhere across the room and he brought himself up to his elbows. Dreams usually exhausted him: they required unpacking. This one, however, had left him strangely refreshed.

It was true: he had raced too far ahead and had let himself get lost in things that were still too much for him—sacrifice and redemption, nobility and despair—and while he had been forced to confront and ultimately concede to them in the world of Martha and his boys and Lina—all of it beyond his control—he had also let them seep into the one place where they had no right to be: his case. He had gotten caught up in the larger ideas—Thulian or socialist, it made no difference—and had let them color his perception. They were clouding the details, and the one detail that had forever been out of place—the one that had stood apart from the very start—was Rosa. Everything led to her. It was only now that Hoffner recognized why that had never been the point. What mattered—what he had failed to grasp all along—was that these men wanted her: they had wanted her from the start. And if they wanted her, then he needed to take her from them. It was as simple as that. Let them come to him, then, and explain why.

“Jogiches,” he said as he got to his feet. “What do you say to a bath?” He heard movement from across the room.

An anxious whisper followed: “Who’s . . . ?” Jogiches caught himself; he, too, had been drifting elsewhere. A match flared and the lamp lit up. Hoffner checked his watch. Three-fifteen. “Is it safe to leave the trunk here?” he said.

Jogiches needed another moment to find his focus. “The trunk?” he said. “I imagine. Yes. As safe as anywhere.” It was only when he was on his feet that he thought to ask, “A bath?” Jogiches looked genuinely puzzled. “What about a bath?”

I
t took them nearly half an hour to get across town to the Admiral’s Palace, even at this time of night. The steam rooms were a common destination for Berlin’s night-crawl crowd—open once again through the night now that the city had come back to its senses—and where a few marks and forty minutes were all that was needed to rejuvenate any set of tired bones or aching heads. For the most devoted—those who saw the pools and steam baths only by first light—it was known as the “clean break,” the stop between bar and desk. It was remarkable how a few minutes sweating out the booze could make a day at the office seem almost bearable.