Jonathan Rabb - Rosa

Prager had nodded. He liked a victory-along with the good press-as much as anyone else. However, he also liked his victories clean. Two minutes after Weigland had scuttled back upstairs, Prager called Hoffner into his office.

The photograph that Jogiches had printed now stared up at Hoffner from his desk. It was a dreary affair, twenty or so men in gray uniform, another few in black, one little barmaid in white standing at the center with a tray in her hands. Hoffner had been studying the faces for almost an hour. It was the first such block of time he had been able to devote to the case in almost three weeks.

They had let him see the bodies on that first Friday after he returned to work: the woman inside the trunk had been no different from the others, another lonely seamstress with no family to claim her; Wouters had not been much of a surprise, either, except for his hands. Even lifeless, they had shown remarkable strength, especially on so small a man.

More than that, however, was no longer available. The bodies were in the ground; Weigland had made sure of that during Hoffner’s extended absence. It seemed only appropriate given the speed with which the case had resolved itself: Tamshik’s single shot, all discussion closed. Why bother with the evidence?

Hoffner’s eyes continued to drift to the girl in the photo. It was clear that she had been persuaded to pose with the men: she seemed uncomfortable in their presence. The soldiers, however, needed a symbol for what they had been fighting to protect. The entire group stared grimly into the lens, except for one fellow who was seated at the front. He was sporting a tight smirk, with one hand in his coat pocket, the other around a thick cigar. His had been a job well done.

Rifleman Otto Runge and his cohorts looked to be the perfect dupes, posed over a few buckets of beer, and without a spark of intelligence among them. Runge himself had the air of a halfwit, with his drooping moustache and narrow eyes: not difficult to see that the best these men could have managed was a quick crack on the head, or a bullet to the ribs. Hoffner had no doubt that they had killed Liebknecht and Luxemburg, but the etchings on Rosa’s back-and her connection to Wouters and beyond-were clearly far too involved for their simple minds. Like Tamshik in the pit rooms, someone had set them on their task. The question remained: Who?

And yet, the more Hoffner studied the photo, the more he realized that Jogiches was trying to tell him something with it. There was a certain arrogance in the assumption, but Hoffner had not been wasting all of his time in recent weeks. Stealing a few minutes here and there, he had begun to dig deeper into Herr Jogiches’s past. Last Thursday, while rummaging through it, Hoffner had stumbled upon his K.

Naturally, it was Rosa who had led the way: her 1912 journal had held the key. Several of the entries detailed a period during which Jogiches had been living under an assumed name somewhere in the city. Rosa, of course, had never given up the name-Hoffner had admired her discretion-but she had let slip the address of a hotel in two of the passages. Hoffner had paid a visit to the hotel: what he had unearthed was a story worthy of a Rossini libretto.

Years ago-long before her move to Berlin-Rosa had told her family that she and Jogiches had been married in Switzerland. It wasn’t true, and by 1911, when the two were no longer together, it had become something of an embarrassment whenever members of Rosa’s family came to visit. While she had been willing to concoct a sham marriage so as to save face, she was not so eager to present her family with a sham divorce. To maintain the fiction, Jogiches had agreed to leave his name on the lease and to rent a room at the Hotel Schlosspark under an assumed name. Unfortunately, Jogiches’s tailor had never been fully apprised of the arrangement. Hoffner had discovered a receipt-still in the hotel files-for a pair of trousers that had been delivered to the room of a K. Kryzysztalowicz, on the fourteenth of March, 1912. The name on the receipt, Leo Jogiches.

Further proof of the alias came from a much earlier entry devoted to Leo’s brother, Osip, that dated from 1901. According to that journal, Osip had been dying of tuberculosis since the early nineties and, in the last weeks of his life, was advised by his doctors to take a trip to Algiers for his health; naturally, Leo had insisted that he join him. Hoffner had checked the ship’s manifest and, once again, had found meticulous German paperwork up to the task. Osip had indeed sailed for Algiers. Oddly enough, Leo had not accompanied him. A Dr. Krystalowicz, however, had.

Spelling variations aside, Jogiches was his K.

More than just the name, though, Hoffner’s digging had begun to lay bare the man himself, one obsessed with hidden meanings and ciphers. Jogiches inhabited a world built on secrecy and intrigue, and, more often than not, used them as tools to test those closest to him. Not surprisingly, Rosa had been his favorite target over the years. Resilient as she was, however, his incessant goading had ultimately torn them apart.

Why, then, thought Hoffner, would Jogiches treat the recent article and photograph any differently? They were simply the latest pieces in his puzzle: the note to return to her flat; the papers waiting there; the creased letters that had led Hoffner to Jogiches in the first place? Presumptuous as it might sound, Hoffner believed that Jogiches was now testing him, that he had been testing him all along. Jogiches’s inclusion of the photograph-hardly a damning piece of evidence on its own-could only mean that he knew far more than he was willing to print, or that he thought safe to expose. He was simply waiting for Hoffner to contact him. At least that was the theory.

Unfortunately, Hoffner was now alone in his speculations, for while he had been busy unpacking Jogiches, Fichte had been occupied elsewhere.

Most nights, Fichte could be found at the White Mouse, drinking too much and allowing himself to be photographed with any number of popular faces. Last week, the BZ had included the young detective sergeant in a candid photo with three of the Haller Revue girls, lots of thighs and teeth, along with a leering grin from Fichte. Fichte had become the new image of the Kripo, vibrant and charming-it was a Fichte whom Hoffner had never known-and Prager seemed only too happy to encourage it. Fichte was now irresistible to the night-crawl crowd. In fact, Fichte could hardly resist himself. Even his knock on Hoffner’s door had grown in stature. Where before, several light taps had signaled his approach, now two rapid-fire raps announced his presence.

Hoffner looked up from behind his desk. Fichte had been given an office of his own down the hall, but the files remained here.

“We’re done with this one, yes?” said Fichte. He placed the pages on Hoffner’s desk: a drunk had stabbed his wife and then confessed; it was hardly a case. Fichte already had his hat in hand.

“New suit?” said Hoffner.

Fichte glanced down at the jacket. One of the shops along Tauentzienstrasse had given it to him as a gift, the least they could do for a hero of the Kripo. Fichte smiled. He had been working on this particular smile for a week now. “Sure. You should get one for yourself. They want to know when you’re coming in.”

Hoffner took the sheets and moved over to the filing cabinet. “You don’t think about it anymore, do you?”

Fichte had trained himself to look mildly amused whenever his old confusion reared its head. A furrowed brow was hardly in keeping with his new image. “Think about what?” he said.

“I sent a wire to van Acker.” Hoffner flipped through the files. “See if they’ve come up with anything on that body. Wouters’s replacement.”