Philip Kerr - The Lady from Zagreb

“You’re a romantic, then. You begin to interest me, Herr Gunther.”

“Sure. I’m a regular hero with a sentimental yearning for old times. Almost eleven years ago, to be precise. You should see me walking around on the seashore. I can get quite sensitive about a lot of things. The dawn, a storm, the price of fish. But mostly I specialize in helping damsels in distress.”

“You’re making fun of me now.”

“No, I meant what I said. Especially the part about the damsels in distress. The minister of Truth told me you were in trouble and that you needed my help. So here I am.”

“Did he, now? What else did he say about me?”

“That he was in love with you. Of course, he could have been lying. It wouldn’t be the first time. That he’s been in love, I think. I imagine he always tells the truth, at least about that sort of thing. And now that I’ve met you, it’s easy to see anyone might feel that way.”

“Did he also tell you I’m married?”

“He left out that particular detail. But then men in love often do. I think it’s what the poets call a pathetic fallacy.”

“Are you speaking from experience?”

“Yes. I was a private detective for about five years. I did a lot of missing persons, husbands mostly. For one reason or another.”

“Then you sound like the one man who might be able to help me.”

“I bet you said exactly the same thing to — to Josef.”

“He warned me that you were a tough guy.”

“Only when I’m standing next to the doctor.”

She smiled. “You know, I don’t think he’s a real doctor.”

“I wouldn’t get undressed in front of him if that’s what you mean. But he’s a real doctor, all right. At least, he has a PhD from Heidelberg University on nineteenth-century literature. I guess that’s why they put him in charge of the book burning. There’s nothing like a university education to make you hate literature.”

“What book burning?”

I smiled. “Before your time, I guess. Suddenly I feel my age. Do you mind me asking how old you are, Fräulein Dresner?”

“Twenty-six. And I don’t mind at all.”

“That’s because you’re twenty-six. In ten years’ time you’ll start to think differently. Anyway, back in 1933, when you’d have been sixteen, I guess, the good doctor helped organize an action against the un-German spirit. That’s what they called it, anyway. They burned a whole load of books right here in Berlin, on Opernplatz. Books written by Jews and more or less anyone who was opposed to the Nazis, but mostly people who could just write. People like Heinrich Mann.”

She looked horrified. “I wasn’t living in Germany at the time so I had no idea. They really did that? They burned books?”

“Sure. And it wasn’t because it was the end of Lent or because the public libraries were looking to make some space, or even because of the tough winter we were having. This was in May. They put on quite a show. Lit up the whole city. I had to draw my curtains early that night.”

Dalia shook her head. “You say the strangest things. I wonder how Josef even knows someone like you, Herr Gunther.”

“I’ve asked myself the very same question.”

“I mean, wearing that uniform you look like a Nazi. But you make it quite clear, to me at least, that you disapprove of them.”

“Obviously I didn’t make myself clear enough. It’s a lot more than disapproval. I hate them.”

“You know, I think you did, only I’ve learned to be one of the wise monkeys when I hear that kind of subversive talk. After all, if you’re a good citizen you’re supposed to do something about it, aren’t you? Call the Gestapo, or something.”

“Be my guest.”

“But then you wouldn’t be able to help me. And then where would I be? Still in distress.”

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up, Fräulein Dresner. Not yet. After all, you haven’t told me what the problem is. I have a habit of disappointing people.”

“Maybe I’d better tell you all about it.”

“Maybe you should and then we’ll know if I can help you.”

I waited for a moment but she said nothing, as if she wasn’t yet quite ready to talk. That happens a lot. Generally you just have to wait until they’re good and ready to open up.

“Josef said he was certain that you could,” she said uncertainly.

“Josef is the minister of Propaganda. Not the minister for Pragmatism. It’s up to me to decide if I’m going to stick my neck out for you. It’s my neck, after all.”

“I’m not asking you to stick your neck out for me.”

“Josef was.”

“I don’t see how.”

I told her about Kaltenbrunner and Müller and how they were keen to find some scandal about the little doctor that would embarrass him in front of the leader.

“That’s what I mean by sticking my neck out. Those people have a tendency to play rough.”

“I’ve done nothing for which either one of us need feel embarrassed,” she insisted.

“I’m sure it’s none of my business if you have.”

“I haven’t slept with him, if that’s what you mean,” she said indignantly, and then shuddered.

“He does have a reputation as a ladies’ man.”

“And I’m supposed to be a saint, after that awful film I was in about Hypatia. But it doesn’t mean I am any more than he is a ladies’ man, as you put it, or the devil.”

I let that one go.

“I wonder that you can even think such a thing. He’s not my type at all. And as I said, I’m married.”

“And that usually prevents this kind of thing from happening.”

She relaxed a little and smiled again. “What, you don’t believe people can be happily married?”

“Sure I do. It’s just that history shows how, from time to time, people decide they want to be happily married to someone else.”

“You’re such a cynic,” she laughed. “I like that.”

“I think maybe that’s the real reason the doctor seems to like me.”

“Maybe it is.”

“Only, he seems to like you more.”

“You can’t blame me for that.”

“Speaking as a cop, I couldn’t blame you for anything. Not even if you were alone in a locked room with a body on the floor and the murder weapon in your bloodstained hand.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I told you. I’m a romantic. The worst kind.”

“An incurable case?”

“Terminal.”

Dalia Dresner lit a cigarette and crossed her legs. She watched me watching them for a while and then smiled. “You’re a strange man.”

“I imagine you make a lot of men feel that way.”

“Oh, I’m used to that. No, what I mean is that you almost make me feel like a normal person. That’s a rare thing for me, Herr Gunther. For anyone in the movie business. I don’t have many friends. How could I? Just look at this mausoleum of a house. The king of Siam would feel just a little overawed by this place. When they meet me, most Fritzes go all tongue-tied and bashful and fall over their own feet in an effort to light my cigarette or find me a chair. But you’re something else. For one thing, you know just what to say to keep me interested. And for another, you know how to make me laugh. Any man can open a door for me, or pay me a handsome compliment. But there are very few men who know how to make me feel comfortable in their company. I like that about you. Maybe it’s because you’re a little older than most of the men I know.”

“All right. No need to spoil it. I’m a regular Dietrich of Verona. So maybe now you’re feeling comfortable enough to tell me what it is that stops you from going to work in the morning.”

“Yes, I think I’m ready now.”

My real name is Dragica Djurkovic and I was born in what rather romantically used to be called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. That was a bit of a mouthful, even for Serbs and Croats, so, in 1929 we started calling ourselves the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which was probably a death knell for the poor king. My father was a former Roman Catholic priest from a little Serbian town called Banja Luka. After the war he lost his faith and left the Church and married my mother, who was an actress and a German-speaking Croat. I went to school in a place called Novi Sad. But he and my mother didn’t get along and she went back to her hometown of Zagreb, where I went to school, while my father, regretting his decision to abandon his faith and leave the Church, went to live at a Franciscan monastery back in his hometown of Banja Luka. Politics in Yugoslavia were always fractious to say the least. King Alexander was assassinated in Marseilles, during a state visit to France, by a Macedonian, in October 1934.”