Филип Керр - Metropolis

His father was the manager at the Luisen Theater on Reichenberger Strasse and his middle-class family lived in a comfortable apartment on Belle-Alliance-Platz. Nice people, probably. I wondered what they might say if I telephoned and told them that their son was being questioned at the Alex.

‘Do you own a typewriter, Sigmar?’

‘I think my father has one. Why do you ask?’

‘Do your parents know you’re here?’ I asked. ‘Confessing to five murders?’

It was four murders, of course, but he didn’t contradict me.

‘It’s nothing to do with them,’ he insisted. ‘And I came here of my own accord. I’m the man you’re looking for.’

I shrugged. ‘Why not keep going? Until your confession we were nowhere near catching you. Why quit now when you’re making such a good job of running rings around the police?’

Gröning shrugged. ‘I’m bored with it. And I think I’ve made my point.’

‘That you have. That you have. You know, I hate to break it to you, sonny, but they’ll probably execute you for this.’

‘That’s a matter of small importance to me.’

‘To you, maybe. But I would think your mother might be upset to see you sent to the guillotine at Plötzensee.’

‘Might wake her up a bit. She’s horribly complacent. I’m actually looking forward to her having to see my death.’

‘Only because you’ve never seen what the falling axe can do. I have. It’s not a pretty sight. One time I saw the condemned man — a real skinny-looking Fritz, like you — pull his head back in the lunette, just a couple of centimetres, but enough for the blade to lodge in the skull instead of slicing cleanly through the neck. It was a terrible situation. Took us almost fifteen minutes to get the blade out of his cranium. And all the time this Fritz was still alive, screaming like a pig — it was a real mess. I almost threw up, myself.’

‘You don’t scare me.’

‘That’s what they all say, sonny. But believe me, when they first catch sight of the man in the top hat, they soon change their minds.’

I lit a cigarette and leaned back in my chair. ‘Your father. Let’s talk about him, shall we?’

‘Must we? I hate him.’

‘Oh sure. That goes without saying. All fifteen-year-old boys hate their fathers. I know I did. But I would think that his is an interesting job. He must see a lot of plays. In his theatre. You, too, for that matter.’

‘Could I have one of those, please?’ he said, nodding at my cigarettes. He placed a hand on the table between us; it was a violinist’s hand, slender, delicate, with badly bitten fingernails.

‘You’re too young to be smoking.’

Gröning bit his lip, perhaps irritated he wasn’t being treated with the respect he had expected.

‘Well, does he? See a lot of plays?’

‘Dumb question.’

‘I guess it was. All right. Let’s get to it, Siggy. Why did you kill them? That’s more to the point. Wouldn’t you agree? I mean, I have to write something on my report to the public prosecutor. It doesn’t look good in court if I just write down any old reason. I killed them because I could and stopped because I got bored. Nobody will believe you. That is the point of you coming in here and confessing, isn’t it? You do want us to believe you, don’t you, Sigmar?’

‘Yes.’

‘So why did you do it? Why did you shoot those five men?’

‘Like I said in my letter. They’re Germany’s shame, not to mention a burden on society.’

‘You don’t actually believe that crap, do you?’

‘Of course I believe it. Just as I believe that this country has a destiny.’

‘And you really think Hitler has the answers?’

‘I think only he can deliver Germany from its present humiliation, yes.’

‘Fair enough. You know, I expect this will make you famous, Sigmar. I can’t think of any other fifteen-year-old boys who’ve killed five people. You’ll probably end up a Nazi hero. They seem to admire this kind of decisive action.’

‘The deed is everything, the glory nothing.’

I smiled, recognizing a quote from Goethe’s Faust , and suddenly I thought I understood exactly what he was doing. I got up and wandered around the room before coming back to him and blowing some smoke in his face. What I really wanted to do was hit him very hard with my fist. To knock some of the arrogance out of him before it was too late — for him and for Germany.

‘You know what I think? That you’re playing a part. Like an actor playing Faust in your daddy’s theatre. You’ve taken on this very difficult and challenging role — the part of a murderer — and you want to play it out, to see how far you can get with it before an expensive lawyer pulls your chestnuts off the brazier and tells the court that your confession is all a pack of lies. You fancy yourself to be a great actor — the next Emil Jannings. Get your name in the paper, and everyone will be impressed that you’ve pulled this off. That you’ve convinced those dumb cops you did it. Now, those are real notices that any actor would be proud of.’

The boy reddened.

‘That’s it, isn’t it? Look, did someone at school put you up to this nonsense, Sigmar? Or is there someone in the theatre you want to impress? A girl perhaps. An actress.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Sure you do, sonny. Maybe you think you can beat the rap, like Paul Krantz did. That in spite of your confession people will look at your sweet chorister’s face and think it impossible you could have done such a thing. Or maybe you think the worst that can happen is that you’ll be charged with wasting police time. Although a good lawyer could probably make that go away, too. “My client is just a boy, Your Honour. It was all a stupid prank that got out of hand. He’s at a good gymnasium and is a promising student. It would be a shame to spoil his chances of his Abitur and going to university by imposing a custodial sentence.”

‘So you know what we do with snot-nosed kids like you who waste our valuable time? We let the police dogs have them for a few minutes. That way we can let the dogs take the blame when you get injured. Nobody’s about to prosecute an Alsatian for police brutality.’

‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘Let’s find out, shall we?’

I stood up and took hold of his ear, twisting it hard for good measure. I was tired and pissed off and keen to go home. And much as I would have liked to have left him alone with a police dog, it was time to put a quick end to the whole charade.

‘All right, sonny, out you go.’

I hauled him onto his feet and dragged him to the door of the interview room, picking up speed as we passed through the main hall. One or two uniformed cops laughed as they realized what was happening; none of us liked time wasters, especially when they were just out of short trousers. Once through the big door, I let go of the Pifke ’s ear and then kicked his skinny behind, hard.

‘And don’t come back. Not without a sick note from your mother.’

I watched him sprawled on the pavement for a moment and smiled, recalling my own gymnasium days.

‘I always thought I should have been a schoolteacher.’

‘I’d like you both to listen to my theory,’ I told Weiss and Gennat. My office was the size of a goldfish bowl and, walled mostly with glass, just as public. A telephone was ringing in the next office, and the hot twilight and the noise of traffic were coming in through the open window.

‘A theory,’ said Gennat. ‘You need a long grey beard to make one of those sound persuasive in this temple of cynicism, Gunther. Like Feuerbach. Or Marx.’

‘I can stop shaving if it helps.’