Фолькер Кучер: Babylon Berlin

There was another crash against the door.

‘ Kardakow ,’ cried a deep, foreign voice, only slightly muffled by the closed door. ‘ Aleksej Iwanowitsch Kardakow! Atkroj dwer! Eta ja, Boris! Boris Sergejewitsch Karpenko! ’

He flung the door open and gazed into the baffled blue-green eyes of a scruffy, ragged figure. Tangled strands of dark blond hair fell over the man’s gaunt, unshaven chin. Rath could smell the alcohol on his breath.

‘What’s all the racket?’ he asked. The man stared at him with glassy eyes. ‘You’d be better off going home to bed instead of banging on people’s doors in the middle of the night.’

The man said something in a language that Rath didn’t understand. Russian? Polish? He couldn’t say for sure, but he was fairly certain the stranger had just asked him a question.

‘Do you speak German?’ he asked.

The stranger repeated his question. All Rath understood was that it was about a man named Alexej. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you,’ he said. ‘Go home! Good night!’

No sooner had he closed the door than the banging started again.

‘That’s enough,’ he hissed as he threw the door open a second time, ‘if you don’t clear off this instant, there’ll be real trouble!’

The man pushed him to one side and stormed inside. Only Rath’s door was open in the hallway, and that was where the drunk staggered next. Rath rushed after him and grabbed him by the collar but, with a cry, the stranger pushed him up against the wall. A strong forearm pressed against Rath’s neck; the man’s face was so close that his alcoholic breath was almost unbearable.

‘ Gdje Aleksej? Schto s nim? ’ the man hissed before Rath kneed him in the guts. He doubled up momentarily but was soon back on his feet. ‘ Yob twaju mat! ’ he cried, charging towards Rath, who dodged skilfully. The stranger crashed against the huge neo-Gothic wardrobe, taking a chunk out of its side.

Rath grabbed him by the collar, twisted his arm behind his back and dragged him into the hall. The drunk bellowed something incomprehensible, trying vainly to escape. Rath positioned him carefully before sending him on his way with a hefty kick. The drunk stumbled into the darkness of the stairwell, crashing against the door of the flat opposite. Rath slammed and bolted the door, and leaned against it panting. From the stairwell he heard a few muffled cries before the door banged shut and all was still.

‘Has he gone?’

Rath looked up in surprise. The widow Behnke had thrown a crochet shawl over her nightdress and was standing in the doorway that led from the hall into the dining room and then to her private rooms. The landlady was in her late thirties and obviously lonely. If her gaze spoke volumes her hints could have replaced whole libraries. So far, he had resisted her advances. Start something with his landlady? With someone who wouldn’t even allow female visitors? Out of the question! Right now though, she was allowing him a look at her ample décolletage. Elisabeth Behnke was obviously enjoying seeing her tenant short of breath.

‘Come on, Herr Rath. I’ll make us a tea. With rum. Just the thing to get over the fright. I thought all that nonsense with these Russians was finally over.’

He followed her into the kitchen. Once an opulent dining room, when she had been forced to sublet she had turned the old kitchen into a bathroom for her male tenants, and moved the kitchen units here.

‘Drunken Russians on the rampage in strangers’ flats in the middle of the night is a common occurrence here?’ he asked at the dining table.

She looked at him and shrugged her shoulders.

‘The previous tenant gave me more than my share of sleepless nights, I can tell you. Every so often your room would be teeming with Russians carousing until the small hours.’ She lit the gas stove and placed a kettle on the hotplate. ‘You’d think there were more Russians than Germans in this city.’

‘Sometimes I think there are just too many people here in general.’

‘They arrived just after the war, after the Bolsheviks drove them out. You’d hear more Russian than German on the streets of Charlottenburg.’

‘That’s still true in some of the bars on the Tauentzien.’

‘I don’t visit establishments like that. Cesspits. And there’s you having to deal with them the whole time as part of your job, poor thing.’ She fiddled noisily with the teapot as if to distract herself, before placing two cups on the table. ‘To think Herr Kardakov seemed so refined when he first moved in three years ago.’

‘Who?’

‘The tenant before you. Herr Kardakov was an author, you know.’ The kettle began to whistle. She poured hot water into the pot. ‘A quiet tenant, I thought. What a mistake! They were always going on, these late night excesses.’

‘…but you’ve banned me from receiving female visitors.’

‘Do you mind? Herr Kardakov only ever had male guests. They talked and talked and drank and drank. You’d be forgiven for thinking by talking and drinking was how they earned their money.’

‘So, how did they make their money?’

‘Don’t ask me. Quite honestly, I don’t want to know either. Herr Kardakov always paid his rent on time, though I’m not sure he ever published a book. He certainly never showed one to me anyway.’ She almost sounded hurt. Rath could imagine that Kardakov had also been obliged to resist his landlady’s overtures.

‘I suppose that visit just now must have had something to do with Herr Kardakov?’

‘You can be sure of it.’ Elisabeth Behnke poured tea for them both.

‘I think the man’s name was Boris. Does that mean anything to you?’

‘No idea. There were so many of them coming and going.’

‘Well, good old Boris demolished my wardrobe. Perhaps Herr Kardakov would be so kind as to pay for the damage.’ Or to buy me a completely new wardrobe , Rath thought to himself.

She fetched a half-full bottle of rum from the wall cupboard and poured generously. ‘He left in a hurry last month and there’s been no trace since – though he still owes me a month’s rent and the cellar’s full of his junk. I’ve written to him at his new address several times. No reply. Do you think there’s anything you could do? His name’s Alexej. Alexej Ivanovitsch Kardakov.’

That was the name Boris had used.

‘Maybe he’ll show a little more respect if the police get involved,’ she said, and passed him a cup. ‘Drink up. It’ll do you good after a shock like that. Although I’m sure you’re used to it, as an officer.’

He didn’t know quite what she meant. Was it the shock or the alcohol he was supposed to be used to? Probably both. Phew, she hadn’t stinted on the rum! For a moment he suspected she was planning to get him drunk, but then he saw how she downed her own cup in one.

‘Another?’

He finished his cup and nodded, feeling he could use a little self-medication. Not so much because of the stranger, but because of the dream he still hadn’t managed to shake off. He’d sleep easier with a rum or two in his system.

‘Forget the tea,’ he said, and handed her his cup.

He awoke the next morning at quarter to nine, sat bolt upright and held his head in his hands. It was throbbing after the unexpected exertions of the previous evening. What on earth had he been drinking? More to the point, how much? He was in his own bed at any rate, albeit naked. A record was performing forlorn pirouettes on the gramophone. Rath groped for the telephone on his bedside table, almost getting tangled up in the cables. He could have reeled off Wolter’s extension in his sleep. Uncle lifted the receiver and Rath mumbled an apology into the mouthpiece. He heard laughter on the other end of the line.