The Sleepwalkers (32 page)

“You were always too in love with Fritz.” He smiled, sadly lifting her hand away.

“And you,” she sighed, “were always too in love with Vicki.” She twisted out the cloth and stood. “And now you’re too in love with her sister.” She saw him freeze. “There’s no shame in it, Willi.” She pulled her hair back. “Ava’s the boys’ mother now. If you two have found real feelings for one another, well, then”—she opened the door—“mazel tov.”

Like a dead man he fell asleep on the couch. Until a loud buzzer nearly sent him from his skin.

“Relax.” Sylvie emerged from her bedroom pulling on a night coat. “Storm troopers don’t bother with doorbells.”

It was Rudolf Kreisler, Fritz’s editor, and his roly-poly wife, Millie, slouched under half a dozen suitcases. Willi had seen them the other night at the Press Ball. She’d been drunk as a goose, shamelessly tap-dancing with her shoes off. Now her goose looked good and cooked, her plump face colorless, her whole head sagging.

“We drove for hours to make sure no one was following.” Kreisler mopped his dripping brow. “They arrested two Ullstein managers yesterday. The company’s full of Nazi cells. They’re taking over. The brothers will be out. We’re fleeing for Prague in the afternoon but . . . well . . . they always come at night, you know.”

“Forgive us,” Millie rasped.

“Give me your coats.” Sylvie held out her arms. “I told you I’d be here, and here I am.”

More people arrived and departed Sylvie’s house that first week of the new “Third Reich” than the Zoo Station. Students from the university. Teachers from the Bauhaus School. A celloist from the Philharmonic. Her hairdresser. Everyone was on the run. And everyone had whispers to pile on the growing trove of horror stories. Bloodcurdling tales of cellar dungeons. Torture. Bodies delivered to families in sealed caskets. Willi had no trouble believing a word of it. No trouble at all.

Like a man possessed, he had now become convinced he alone could save the nation. That the contents of those boxes in the storerooms of the Reichstag were the only elixir powerful enough to awaken Germany from her demonic sleepwalk. If Ullstein could no longer publish the story, someone else would. Somewhere. Somehow. He’d make sure of it. But the Reichstag remained under lock and key. The current parliament had been dissolved by Hitler the day he took office. The Nazis had grasped the reins of power but still had no legislative majority. Convinced he could finally “annihiliate” all opposition—
One people! One party! One Führer!
—Hitler had called for new elections the fifth of March. Willi had to get into the building before then. Getting in, he knew, of course, would be the easy part. Getting out again with all the heavy boxes was the challenge.

One of Sylvie’s overnighters, an energetic young physicist bound for America, theorized that the Nazis knew very well they could never win free elections. A majority of Germans still opposed them. The labor unions would resist. All the guarantees of the constitution—freedom of the press, the right to assemble—remained legally binding. No, he was convinced, the Nazis needed some far more Machiavellian scheme for seizing total power, prior to March 5.

“Let’s say a bullet was fired,” he speculated over dinner.
“Any attempt on Hitler’s life, even if it wasn’t real—as long as it looked real—would be all the pretext necessary for declaring a national emergency. Nullifying the constitution, civil liberties. Banning the press. Outlawing opposition. Bam, bam, bam. A chain reaction resulting in a monstrous fusion of power.”

Willi listened to Mr. Oppenheimer morbidly. If his theory proved correct, then it was all the more reason to do whatever necessary . . . before it really was too late.

For several days Willi stalked the Reichstag building. From varying angles among the statues and fountains in the Plaza of the Republic, he examined the massive steps and great carriage ramps leading to the front doors. From the Tiergarten he studied the neo-Renaissance façades and the towering glass dome allowing light to shine down on lawmakers. From Dorotheen Strasse he took in the rows of recessed windows and the spired towers rising from each of the four corners. It was a monumental structure. Bismarck had built it in the 1890s. Scheidemann had declared the republic from its balcony in 1918. Now Hitler was determined to make it a mausoleum.

From the freezing banks of the River Spree he scrutinized the soot-covered service entrances, who came, who went, how often, what times. Everything got scribbled in his notebook. The security precautions were vigilantly maintained, he saw. With the Reichstag out of session only Entrance Five was open, far on the building’s north side. Visitors, staff, even members of parliament, were carefully inspected before entering. Punctual as a Swiss clock, evenings at seven a night watchman circulated, making sure every door, every window, was secure. The place was like a fortress. By the end of the third day though, he’d come up with a basic plan.

Evening was falling. An icy wind blew whitecaps on the river behind him. Along Sommer Strasse, the checkpoint to the Reichstag service entrances was cast in deep shadows. He was going to need a truck. Several regularly came and went, he’d observed. Every morning at eight, a yellow postal truck. Every morning at
nine, a black garbage pickup. Mondays at ten a white linen supply, which returned again that night at nine. What he needed to find out was where those storerooms were exactly. A floor plan. Tomorrow first thing, the library, he made a mental note, allowing himself finally to flee the February wind.

Along the Spree Embankment barely a soul braved the cold. Relieved to find a bus near the Bismarck Memorial, he was staring out the window trying to warm his freezing hands when a kiosk came into view. Tacked under blazing spotlights, a dark, hypnotic gaze leaped from a dozen front pages.
Gustave, King of Mystics, Gunned Down in Tiergarten!
Willi’s whole esophagus closed. He gave me that same corny publicity shot when we parted, he realized. Autographed it:
To Inspektor-Detektiv Kraus—a true German hero
. “When I’m dead, who knows,” he’d said, “it might be worth something.” From the look in his eyes it was plain Gustave knew he was a goner. This time he had seen the future.

The devil victorious.

The main reading room of the Prussian State Library had dizzying concentric circles of desks. By the time Willi arrived the next morning, twenty minutes after opening, the place was practically full. He checked out the Reichstag blueprints and took the only seat he could find, nervously guarding his notebook from neighbors while sketching the building’s floor plans. Seeing no one so much as cast a glance his way, he found himself relaxing, thinking, this probably is the safest place in Berlin. He took a deep breath, his mind racing with possibilities as he finally finished around noon. The Reichstag storerooms, it turned out, were exactly opposite the linen supply.

Exiting the old brass doors, he was surprised to find it was snowing out, heavily. The famous rows of lime trees on Unter den Linden, the magnificent statue of Frederick the Great, everything was already draped in white. Only too late did he notice the crowd in front of the library gathered for a speech by the new
information minister: reporters, newsreel cameraman, Nazi officials, a whole detachment of Brownshirts turning into snowmen as Josef Goebbels declared war on “cultural decadence.”

“This great State Library,” the little man cried, fighting to keep snow off his wide-brimmed fedora, “founded by our forefathers four hundred years ago, will be scoured top to bottom! All the lies, all the pornographic filth, all the degenerate Jewish propaganda, will be consigned to the flames!”

Flames? Willi wondered. What were they planning to do, burn the library? With a shudder he recalled the Great Gustave’s prediction of a conflagration this February from which, like a phoenix, a great New Germany would arise. Could this be what he meant? Willi’s contemplations came to a crashing halt when not ten feet away he spotted a large set of bunny teeth and two fiendish eyes fixed on him.

They
had
released him.

The lunatics really were running the asylum.

“Stop him!” Mengele’s finger pointed. “That Jew stole my research!”

Work, Willi thought, leaping the only possible way he could—directly into westbound traffic. That’s all the maniac cares about—his work. A piercing whistle blew. Funny. That’s what Ava said about me. Darting around a bus and several autos, he made it to the center median, where the snowbound lindens tangled overhead. Daring to turn, he was mortified to see what had to be thirty Brownshirts after him. With a gulp of air he leaped in front of Frederick the Great into the eastbound lanes. Centimeters of snow already covered Unter den Linden, and halfway across his foot went flying, slamming him hard on his rear. Shocked, he looked up to see a truck bearing down, blowing its horn like mad. It jammed on its brakes, skidding to one side, stopping just meters away.

The driver rolled down the window. “Jackass!”

A whole chorus rang out from the far side. “Stop him! Thief!”

The man flung open the door. “Thief, huh?” He flew at Willi.
But the instant his foot touched the ground he lost his balance, and Willi took off.

In front of the Opera House a dozen whistles shrieked in a hellish choir. People stared through the curtain of snow trying to ascertain who the villain was. An old lady made a grab for his arm. A kid threw something at him. But slipping and sliding, he reached the Palace Bridge. The beautiful crossing looked like a gag photograph, all the marble deities draped in snowy togas. Half a dozen uniformed men were pushing industrial-size brooms to clear its sidewalks. When they realized he was on the run from Brownshirts, they stepped aside to let him pass. Across the Spree, he saw they’d closed ranks again, pretending not to realize they were hindering the Brownshirts’ chase. Bless you, sanitation workers!

Propelled by sheer fear, he practically skated past the palace of the kaisers, remembering how when he was a kid, he used to watch the generals parading in and out of those grand entrances in their knee-high boots and plumed hemets. Now the great iron gates were locked and rusting. Cousins of the kaiser’s were being pulled from their chic glass homes. The world had turned upside down—several times in his short life.

It was snowing harder by the minute, impossible to see. Every forward motion required total concentration, as if this were a minefield. The whistles were nearing again. The cries of “Stop him!” All they needed were torches and dogs, he thought, squinting at a moving patch of yellow ahead, and he’d be Frankenstein’s monster.

A double-decker bus had pulled up to the corner. Thank God for public transport. He jumped aboard smiling lamely at the big conductor, trying not to pant too heavily as he fished for change. A delicious moment of relief came over him as the bell clanged and they lurched off. But a moment only. Through the heavy snow he realized the bus was traveling slower than the pedestrians. The chorus of “Stop thief!” grew. The conductor gave him one look and moved to block the door. Willi flung
himself onto the spiral staircase. The upper deck was filled with snow. The conductor’s heavy footsteps stormed behind. The guy would have to be twice his size, he thought, peering over the side. The pack of Brownshirts was almost upon them. “Papa!” He swore he heard his sons. If only he could be with them. The huge conductor was approaching, his nose steaming. A yellow streetcar rushed past eastbound. Just as a thick arm was about to grab him, Willi hurled himself over the rail.

“There!” he heard. “He got away!”

Landing with a thud flat on his back, he clung for dear life as the streetcar sped off, whipping around several corners onto Konigs Strasse. His whole face filled with snow. Too terrified to move, he just lay there squinting at the buildings flying by and the blinding flashes of electricity from the wires, praying to be invisible, not to fall, not to get electrocuted. Gradually he realized the screaming whistles were gone. Shaking off the snow, he lifted his head. People were too concentrated on navigating the blizzard to bother with him, he saw. As discreetly as possible he slid to the street, brushed his hat, and stomped along with everyone else past the red City Hall. My God. That was way too close. And he with plans of the Reichstag in his notebook.

Reaching Alexanderplatz, he felt relief to lose himself in the mass of snowy hats and shoulders in front of Tietz. His every bone was screaming,
You are too old for this, Willi. Time to act your age, like Ava said.
Conscious of an amplifying roar behind him, he turned, his whole neck hurting. Three motorized cycles with sidecars were thundering right down Konigs Strasse. His spine stiffened when he realized that it was Mengele in the first one, up on his feet scanning around. A stroke of ill fate brought his black eyes right to Willi’s. The wide-gapped teeth appeared. “Stop! He’s a thief!”

Of all the outrageous things to call me, Willi fumed.

He realized there was only one way to go: beneath the trademark glass globe and through the spinning doors of Tietz. How
familiar the massive lobby with its chiming elevators and noisy throngs. How many times he’d entered here—as a child, clasping his mother’s hand, as an adult, clasping his wife and children. And how many times he’d heard his father-in-law laud its legendary Jewish founder, Hermann Tietz. How everyone laughed in 1904 at his plans to build a retail paradise on run-down Alexanderplatz. “ ‘I don’t need location,’ ” Max never tired of quoting. “ ‘I
make
location.’ ” And Hermann had. The most successful store in Germany. The most magnificent, inside and out. Great vaulted ceilings. Marbled colonnades. Upholstered sofas to rest tired feet, and polished mahogany to display the endless high-quality merchandise at cost-saving prices. Berlin, as the advertising put it, wouldn’t be Berlin without Tietz.

Instantly, he saw it was White Week. Another of the store’s marketing miracles—a giant February sale on linens—the whole atrium, five stories tall, transformed into a fairyland, chandeliers and balconies festooned in more white than the snowstorm outside. Lowering his face, he merged with the crowds. The rattling wooden escalators seemed straining to lift the hordes of hausfraus loaded with shopping bags. Looking around, he realized he was one of the few males in the place. His head shrank lower on his shoulders. Just as he nearly reached the camouflaging mayhem of the Mezzanine White Sale, his whole back cringed. “Stop that thief!” Mengele, flanked by two SS men, was heading toward the escalators.