Philip Kerr - Berlin Noir

‘Quite so. I was hoping that we could meet and discuss the matter. Fräulein Hartmann mentioned the sum of $200 for this Russian captain. Also that you had offered to act as her intermediary.’

‘Did I? I suppose I might have.’

‘I was hoping I might give you the money to give to this wretched fellow. And I should like to thank you, personally.’

I felt sure that this was König, but I stayed silent for a moment, not wishing to seem too eager to meet him.

‘Are you still there?’

‘Where do you suggest?’ I asked reluctantly.

‘Do you know the Amalienbad, on Reumannplatz?’

‘I’ll find it.’

‘Shall we say in one hour? In the Turkish baths?’

‘All right. But how will I recognize you? You haven’t even told me your name yet.’

‘No I haven’t,’ he said mysteriously, ‘but I’ll be whistling this tune.’ And with that he proceeded to whistle it down the line.

‘Bella, bella, bella Marie,’ I said, recognizing a melody that had been irritatingly ubiquitous some months before.

‘Precisely that,’ said the man, and hung up.

It seemed a curiously conspiratorial mode of recognition, but I told myself that if it was König, he had good reason to be cautious.

The Amalienbad was in the 10th Bezirk, in the Russian sector, which meant catching a number 67 south down Favoritenstrasse. The district was a working-class quarter with lots of dirty old factories, but the municipal baths on Reumannplatz was a seven-storeyed building of comparatively recent construction which, without any apparent exaggeration, advertised itself as the largest and most modern baths in Europe.

I paid for a bath and a towel, and after I had changed I went to find the men’s steam-room. This was at the far end of a swimming pool that was as big as a football field, and possessed only a few Viennese who, wrapped in their bath-sheets, were trying to sweat off some of the weight that was rather easy to gain in the Austrian capital. Through the steam, at the far end of the luridly-tiled room, I heard someone whistling intermittently. I walked towards the source of the tune, and took it up as I approached.

I came upon the seated figure of a man with a uniformly white body and a uniformly brown face: it looked almost as if he had blacked-up, like Jolson, but of course this disparity in colour was a souvenir of his recent skiing holiday.

‘I hate that tune,’ he said, ‘but Fräulein Hartmann is always humming it and I couldn’t think of anything else. Herr Gunther?’

I nodded, circumspectly, as if I had come there only reluctantly.

‘Permit me to introduce myself. My name is König.’ We shook hands and I sat down beside him.

He was a well-built man, with thick dark eyebrows and a large, flourishing moustache: it looked like some rare species of marten that had escaped on to his lip from some colder, more northerly clime. Drooping over König’s mouth, this small sable completed a generally lugubrious expression which started with his melancholy brown eyes. He was much as Becker had described him but for the absence of the small dog.

‘I hope you like a Turkish bath, Herr Gunther?’

‘Yes, when they’re clean.’

‘Then it’s lucky I chose this one,’ he said, ‘instead of the Dianabad. Of course the Diana’s war-damaged, but the place does seem to attract rather more than its fair share of incurables and other assorted lower humans. They go for the thermal pools they have there. You take a dip at your peril. You could go in with eczema and come out with syphilis.’

‘It doesn’t sound very healthy.’

‘I dare say that I’m exaggerating a little,’ König smiled. ‘You’re not from Vienna, are you?’

‘No, I’m from Berlin,’ I said. ‘I come and go from Vienna.’

‘How is Berlin these days? From what one hears the situation there is getting worse. The Soviet delegation walked out of the Control Commission, did it not?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘soon the only way in or out will be by military air transport.’

König made a tutting noise and rubbed his big hairy chest wearily. ‘Communists,’ he sighed, ‘that’s what happens when you make deals with them. It was terrible what happened at Potsdam and Yalta. The Amis just let the Ivans take what they wanted. A great mistake, which makes another war a virtual certainty.’

‘I doubt if anyone’s got the stomach for another one,’ I said, repeating the same line I had used on Neumann in Berlin. This was a fairly automatic reaction with me, but I genuinely believed it to be true.

‘Not yet, maybe. But people forget, and in time – ’ he shrugged, ‘ – who knows what may happen? Until then, we carry on with our lives and our businesses, doing the best that we can.’ For a moment he rubbed his scalp furiously. Then he said: ‘What business are you in? The only reason I ask is that I hoped that there might be some way in which I could repay you for helping Fräulein Hartmann. Such as putting a little business your way, perhaps.’

I shook my head. ‘It’s not necessary. If you really want to know, I’m in imports and exports. But to be frank with you, Herr König, I helped her because I liked the smell of her scent.’

He nodded appreciatively. ‘That’s natural enough. She is very lovely.’ But slowly, rapture gave way to perplexity. ‘Strange though, don’t you think? The way you were both picked up like that.’

‘I can’t answer for your friend, Herr König, but in my line of work there are always business rivals who would be glad to see me out of the way. An occupational hazard, you might say.’

‘By Fräulein Hartmann’s account, it’s a hazard to which you seem more than equal. I heard that you handled that Russian captain quite expertly. And she was most impressed that you could speak Russian.’

‘I was a plenny,’ I said, ‘a POW in Russia.’

‘That would certainly explain it. But tell me, do you believe that this Russian can be serious? That there were charges made against Fräulein Hartmann?’

‘I’m afraid he was very serious.’

‘Have you any idea where he could have got his information?’

‘No more than I have about how he came to have my name. Perhaps the lady has someone with a tooth against her.’

‘Maybe you could find out who. I’d be prepared to pay you.’

‘Not my line,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘The chances are that it was an anonymous tip-off. Probably done out of spite. You’d be wasting your money. If you’ll take my advice you’ll just give the Ivan what he wants and pay up. Two hundred is not a lot of coal to get a name off a file. And when the Ivans decide to keep a dog away from a bitch it’s best to settle the account without any trouble.’

König smiled and then nodded. ‘Perhaps you are right,’ he said. ‘But you know, it has occurred to me that you and this Ivan are in it together. It would after all be a nice way of raising money, wouldn’t it? The Russian puts the squeeze on innocent people, and you offer to act as intermediary.’ He kept on nodding as he surveyed the subtlety of his own scheme. ‘Yes, it could be very profitable for someone with the right kind of background.’

‘Keep going,’ I laughed. ‘Maybe you can make an ox out of an egg.’

‘Surely you admit that it’s possible.’

‘Anything is possible in Vienna. But if you think I’m trying to give you some chocolate for a lousy two hundred, that’s your affair. It may have escaped your attention, König, but it was your ladyfriend who asked me to walk her home, and you who asked me to come here. Frankly, I’ve got better things to polish.’ I stood up and made as if to leave.

‘Please, Herr Gunther,’ he said, ‘accept my apologies. Perhaps I was allowing my imagination to run away with me. But I must confess that this whole affair has me intrigued. And even at the best of times, I find myself suspicious with regard to so many things that happen today.’