The Sleepwalkers (24 page)

Now Willi felt like laughing. Horthstaler told him he had to find the princess. Alive and well. So there it was. A big fat setup.

Her brittle eyes glared at him. “You, Inspektor, not my husband, were supposed to be the sacrificial lamb.” She clenched her teeth, rolling her eyes as if she might have spoken too loudly. “The whole affair was to have died with you! No one imagined you’d ever go to von Schleicher—and certainly not to Roehm. You’re a man with, how do they call it in your language,
chutzpah
?”

“My language is German.”

She seemed not to hear him. “Unfortunately for my husband, once word got back to the SS that Roehm was cooperating with you on an investigation, well . . .”

Willi was almost foolish enough to want to apologize. “Frau Meckel”—his voice grew adamant—“you must tell me at once: where is Sachsenhausen—this place they perform these ghastly experiments?”

Her eyes widened, as if he were mad. “Do you imagine I am privy to such information?” Her whisper edged toward hysteria. “I’ve never even heard that name. This entire matter has always been the strictest secret. And once it became
extralegal
as they call it, well . . . a word could cost a person his life!”

Willi glanced up at the mighty Ishtar Gate feeling, he supposed, as many a Babylonian must have at the sight of the advancing hordes of Persia.

“How can they be stopped?” he said as much to Frau Meckel as to whatever other forces for justice existed in the universe.

Her puffy, red eyes grew narrow and fierce. “It won’t be easy.” Her whisper blackened. “Unless you think you can take on the
SS. But there is one night they all come together. Everyone in the institute. Thurseblot. The Feast of Thor.” She saw his face. “I know it sounds ridiculous to you, Inspektor, but you must remember, these men are truly . . . pagans.”

A vision seemed to take shape before her. “There’s an inn out in Spandau.” One of her blond eyebrows rose. “Just across from the S-Bahn station.” The thick corners of her lips twitched. “The night of January’s full moon”—she turned to him, her whole face afire with bloodlust—“that’s where you’ll find them all.”

Willi’s footsteps echoed as he left the museum—a proverbial man with the rug pulled out from under him. Night had fallen. A nasty chill seeped through his overcoat. He’d known for some time now he was being set up, but how badly he could not have imagined. Glancing up for a sign of the moon, he saw only darkness.

He’d never felt so alone.

On the footbridge over the Kupfergraben he was overwhelmed by the insane irony of it all. Ernst Roehm had saved his life, completely unwittingly. Himmler and Heydrich were too afraid to make an enemy of a man with half a million Brownshirts at his command. So they’d got rid of Meckel. But how long would that sanctuary last?

As he trudged the windy sidewalks of Georgen Strasse, only one certainty loomed: his career on the Berlin police force was done for. The mythic quest they’d sent him on—to rescue the
missing princess—had been a fool’s errand. Horthstaler painted the whole picture with his cigar. They wanted the Jew boy out. And they’d get him, too. One way or another.

Unless . . .

Unless he could bust Sachsenhausen. Then the case would be publicized all over Germany. People’s minds change. Look at Frau Meckel. At least now, he lowered his hat against the wind, there’s a chance of netting the whole depraved lot. Thurseblot. The very name sent a shudder through him. He’d have to find Sachsenhausen first, though. You can’t get one and not the other. Signals would be sent. The disease would survive. The whole thing had to be cauterized simultaneously.

Only, he had no idea when the full moon was.

Across the street was a bookstore. An elderly man in a wool vest was just about to pull down the gate. He hurried to stop him. “Sir. Could I get in to check a calendar and find out when the next full moon occurs? It’s terribly important.”

The old fellow stiffened with disdain. “The way people depend on the stars and moon these days, you’d think there’d never been an Enlightenment.”

Willi had no energy for a philosophical debate. “It’s police work.” He broke out his badge.

“Well then, the Age of Reason is most assuredly dead,” the old fellow grumbled, “when the police are consulting the stars.”

Perhaps he’s right, Willi thought.

But whatever the age, a Kripo badge got things done in Germany, and he was soon enough able to ascertain the date.

Impossible. Not until the twenty-fourth? Three more weeks? He couldn’t wait that long. Paula couldn’t. And yet . . . what choice was there? Thurseblot was the only night they all came together. God in heaven.

Wrapping his scarf more tightly around him, he continued morbidly toward Friedrich Strasse. Dead ahead the lights of the train station seemed to summon him.

Paula’s mother, he understood.

Poverty filled his nose when he reached the old tenement district. Vacant eyes stared from cracked windows. Dirty children lurked in the hallway. Paula’s mother came to the door but could barely hold herself erect. Hair a mess. Eyes half-closed. The stink of cheap gin hung from her like her disheveled robe.

“Frau Hoffmeyer.” His stomach burned with acid. How did you tell a mother her daughter was missing? That it was all your fault? “Inspektor-Detektiv Kraus here. I need to speak with you a moment . . . about Paula.”

“Paula?” Her voice felt like ammonia hitting his face. So harsh. So caustic. “You’re a little for that late, fella.”

“Sorry?”

“They’ve already been here. I know all about it.”

“Who’s been here?”

Her eyes flared as if he were an absolute idiot. “You guys. Schupo. Security Police.”

“I’m Kripo.”

“So what? You gonna tell me a different story?” She shoved a hand into her robe pocket and pulled out a small ID card, waving it furiously at him. Paula’s. But it couldn’t be; she’d taken it with her that night. He’d seen her put it in her purse.

“You gonna tell me my daughter
ain’t
been murdered?”

The breath completely left him.

“With her profession, and the kind of maniacs they got loose today . . . it didn’t exactly come as a big surprise.” She pretended to spit. “Dominatrix. I knew something would happen. But don’t think it hurt none the less. To hear her skull’d been cracked in two.” Her bloodshot eyes fixed on him. “At least she went instantly.” The harsh voice broke halfway. “That’s all I can be grateful for. Now, for Christ’s sake, leave me alone!”

She slammed the door in his face.

He stood there as if his own skull had split. Gradually, through pounding pain, he began to piece it together. Paula must have kept up the charade of being Polish—until Sachsenhausen. Only . . . by then it was too late. She’d seen too much. They couldn’t free
her. A German mother, though, deserved notification . . . so they’d sent Schupo over with a story. Not a lie, entirely. They probably did crack her skull in two. The bastards.

He tried to hold himself together, but step by step as he headed downstairs, he could sense his inner springs detaching. By the time he reached the lobby his legs gave way. He slid down the wall. He crouched on the floor, emitting some animal kind of wail, holding his arms over his head as if being beaten. Pictures of Paula kept flashing in his brain. How clearly he could see her strutting Tauentzien Strasse in her men’s tuxedo and silk shorts. That cancan she did, her white breasts bouncing. All zipped up in that tight pink gown, toasting 1933.

He crouched there sobbing, unable to stop, his shoulders wracked with spasms.

Was he any better than the Nazis who killed her? Why did he let her go? he asked himself. Because she was a morphine addict? Because she liked getting spanked? Did that make her a subhuman? Something to be . . . experimented with?

But then again, he had to remind himself—he hadn’t exactly forced her. The whole idea was hers to begin with. She’d begged to go. Cursed him for denying her the one chance to do something meaningful with her life.

Whatever that meant.

She was a spectacular woman. Life just never gave her a chance. Who knew, the few weeks they’d had together might have been the best she’d ever had.

They hadn’t been bad for him, either.

Eventually, no tears were left. Fishing out his handkerchief, he wiped his face and slowly lifted his head. Through his watery, exhausted eyes he noticed a crowd of children in the hallway staring at him transfixed, as if he were Charlie Chaplin or something.

The sky looked painted blue the next morning when he, his every muscle throbbing, and Gunther set out in an unmarked Opel for
Oranienburg. It was starting to get to him, this world they lived in. Impossible to believe Paula was no longer in it. That he’d been the one to let her go. How could he have been so stupid, so idiotically reckless? Poor Paula! Though shocked by the disciplinary action taken against Willi, Gunther managed to keep his chin up. “We’ll find that Bulgarian princess yet,” he kept saying. “You’ll see. Ten days is a long time, Chief.”

Willi didn’t have the heart to tell him. By Thurseblot he’d be off the force. Out in the cold. With the rest of the unemployed.

But all would not be lost.

The chancellor of Germany was still on his side. And the armed forces.

“Just keep your eyes and ears open.” Willi instinctively kept training the kid. “And your nose, Gunther. For that stench.”

At least he didn’t have to worry anymore about Paula. Miserable solace, but now that she was gone, he could take his time and do this properly. He’d rather have her back. But God only knew how many more souls were still out there waiting to be rescued. He was going to find them if it took his last breath.

Less than hour from the Police Presidium, Oranienburg was a fairy-tale village. All the buildings painted bright white with steep, red-shingled roofs. Horses clopping along cobblestones, hauling hay carts. Swans sunning on the riverfront. At City Hall the
Bürgermeister
pretended to be thrilled to see them, all the way from Berlin-Center. What had brought two Kripo Inspektors out here of all places, to their quiet town?

“Herr Bürgermeister, last July you filed a complaint with the Ministry of Health on Konigsburger Strasse.”

The mayor knit his brows, making a big show of trying to recall. “
Ach,
yes.” It seemed a revelation. “That fishy stink last summer. Well . . .
Gott sei Dank
that is all over with now. Some
Idioten
at the leather works spilled a barrel of tannic acid. Killed a whole school of carp. Can you imagine? A hundred marks we slapped on the slipshods. Plus the cost of cleaning up. They won’t do that again.”

Certainly not, Willi knew. That tannery had been closed since 1930. “There’ve been numerous complaints though,” he added to the mayor. “Including several only last month. A foul, acrid odor along the river, like rotting meat.”

“Well, along the river naturally there are always funny smells.” The mayor smiled relentlessly. “It could have been a dozen things. Goodness knows we’ve our fair share of skunks out here.”

Willi realized he was wasting his breath.

Between last July and now, obviously, someone had made it quite clear to the mayor that there
were
no foul odors in Oranienburg.

“Well, if there’s no problem . . .” Willi put away his notebook.

“Of course not. No problem at all!”

“Then we’ve come out here for no reason, Gunther.”

“Might I suggest”—the mayor brightly pointed out the window—“a tour of our baroque palace. A charming experience, I assure you.”

“No doubt.” Willi winked.

Outside, Gunther whistled with amazement. “Phonier than a glass eye.”

Good, Gunther. Sharpen your senses. Always keep sharpening them.

Willi inhaled. The air was truly sweet. Country air that made one realize the foulness of what one breathed in town. Paula would have loved the place.

They skipped the palace and drove to six addresses where people had filed stench complaints. To a person, all agreed the offending odors had entirely disappeared. They questioned the barber. The florist. The dressmaker. Amazingly, Oranienburgers were unanimous in their conviction that nowhere on earth was the air any better than right here, along the gentle river Havel.

“Something sure stinks in this town,” Gunther finally observed. “Everyone acts like a marionette.”

“Then we’ve got to sniff around more. Find out who’s pulling the strings, eh, Gunther?”

Climbing back into the little Opel, they headed south along the road parallel to the river. According to the map, about a kilometer and a half through the woods was the abandoned leather tannery. Sure enough, reaching the crest of a small hill, they spotted its towering smokestack. Willi hit the brakes.

There was no mistaking the heavy black smoke pouring from its top.

“Abandoned my ass,” Gunther said.

Around the next bend the old tannery appeared about a hundred yards to their right, a long shedlike structure of unpainted wood just along the river. Willi pulled the car off the road. They loaded pistols. Climbing a nearby rise for an overview, they heard several bloodcurdling screams.

“Lord almighty,” Gunther whimpered.

A small, worn-out meadow appeared below. At the far side of it, the ramshackle tannery, belching smoke. At the center of the field a dozen furiously shrieking children were on their knees in a rigid line, completely lost in a game of leapfrog.

Willi laughed.

The Great Depression had left thousands without homes. A few dozen evidently had taken refuge here. Outside the old building several ragged women battled winds to hang laundry on lines. Two men were unloading crates from a busted-up truck. This definitely wasn’t Sachsenhausen.

Back in the car, another kilometer down the road they approached the Oranienburg Brickworks. Trucks stacked high with piles of red brick rumbled from the gate, turning past them down the road into town. A hot, gritty dust hung in the air. Nothing rotten.

According to the map, a kilometer farther was the turnoff to a bridge directly onto Asylum Island. Except that, beyond the brickworks, the paved road ended. A pitiful dirt trail led into the woods.