Peter Leonard - Voices of the Dead

They went inside and had dinner: sauerbraten and roast potatoes.

“You’re obviously German,” Harry said. “But your name isn’t and you speak English with a British accent.”

“My father, Joe Rizik, was Lebanese. My mother was German. His family emigrated from Beirut in the early twenties and settled in Berlin. My grandfather imported Persian rugs. His clientele were wealthy Germans, mostly Jews.”

“How’d your parents meet?”

“My father was in the hospital, with appendicitis. My mother was his nurse. They got on, fell in love. Got married right before he enlisted. He was in the Heer, the regular army, not the SS.”

She took a photograph out of her purse, a cracked, faded shot of a good-looking dark-haired guy posing in a coat and tie.

“I never met him. He was a sergeant in the infantry, killed in action on the Eastern Front, 1944. Served with great distinction. One of only twenty-seven men to receive the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. My mother said he was a good man, ashamed of what the Nazis were doing.”

She was proud of him, that was obvious, the war hero father she never knew.

“What about your mother?” He cut a piece of sauerbraten and pushed it through the gravy, took a bite, the smell and taste taking him back thirty years.

“She’s retired, living outside Bergheim, a village just north of Salzburg.” She paused, watching him eat. “You‘re hungry, yes? Enjoying the sauerbraten, Harry?” she said, smiling, being herself, no pretensions.

She told him about getting a degree in journalism from the University of Berlin, the same school Albert Einstein and Otto von Bismarck had attended. She told him about the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the autumn of her senior year, forty-three kilometers long, dividing West and East Berlin.

“Why was it built? I can’t remember,” Harry said.

“The communists wanted to keep East German professionals from emigrating to the west. They were losing too many doctors, lawyers, and engineers. The manpower losses had been estimated at twenty-five billion marks. I did a story on it when I was hired by the Berliner Zeitung after graduating.”

“Where’d you get the Brit accent?”

“I lived in London, worked for the Daily Telegraph for several years.” She paused, sipped her beer. “Harry, I have done all the talking. Tell me about yourself, please. Where do you live?”

“Detroit,” Harry said.

“Sure, yes, where the automobiles are made. Is it nice there?”

“The garden spot of the Midwest.” Harry grinned to show her he was kidding.

“What is your occupation?”

“Now I’m really going to impress you,” Harry said. “I’m a scrap-metal dealer.” He explained the basics of the business and she gave him a blank look, chewing a bite of sauerbraten. “Not very interesting, is it?”

“Are you married, Harry?”

“No.”

“Were you ever?”

“A long time ago.”

“And you don’t want to talk about it.”

“You’re very perceptive.”

“What brings you to Munich?”

“I read an article in a car magazine about a road trip from Munich to Salzburg. It sounded like fun.”

They finished their meal and Harry paid the bill and they walked outside, stood in front of the Augustinerkeller. It was 8:30, a clear warm night.

“I can drive you back to your hotel, Harry, but it is early. Let’s go to a club. I’ll show you where I live.”

“Why not,” Harry said.

She hooked her arm around his and they walked to her Volkswagen and drove to Schwabing. It looked different thirty years later. Reminded him of Greenwich Village, same feel, streets lined with cafes, avant-garde shops, clubs and bars, but the look, the architecture was considerably different. She found a space on the street and parked a block from Leopoldstrasse.

“I live right over there, Harry. Two blocks away on Wagnerstrasse 12.”

They went to a small dark bar, a Miles Davis track playing in the background, smoke from dozens of cigarettes filling the room. The clientele were young, the men had long hair and beards and dressed in black, the women wore long cotton dresses, or dark tee-shirts and jeans.

They sat next to each other in a booth, facing the room. A waitress in a black miniskirt took their order. She had a tattoo on the side of her calf but it was too dark to tell what it was. Harry ordered bourbon on the rocks. He was full from the beer. Colette ordered schnapps. The waitress walked away from the table.

“Harry, when are you going to the Alps?”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“No, I’m trying to understand you.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“I don’t know, Harry. Something isn’t right. You come to Munich to go on this vague trip but you don’t have a schedule or an itinerary.”

“How do you know?” Harry said.

The waitress brought their drinks. He sipped his bourbon, felt the burn in his throat.

“You were attacked in a restaurant by a group of neo-Nazis,” Colette said. “They don’t target foreign tourists. That is not how they operate.”

“Maybe they were after Cordell Sims, the guy with me. Blackshirts sees a black dude in a claret-colored leisure suit, it sets them off.”

“Harry, they ransacked your hotel room and painted a swastika on the wall.”

“Maybe it was a coincidence.”

“Two times in one night,” Colette said. “I think there is something you are not telling me.” She sipped the schnapps, eyes on him.

“I think there’s something you’re not telling me.”

She looked surprised, and now eased away from him.

“Who do you work for?”

“I told you, Harry, Der Spiegel .”

“I phoned the main office in Berlin, nobody seemed to know you.”

“I’m a freelance writer,” she said, sounding defensive. “I will give you the name and phone number of my editor.” She looked angry now, drained her schnapps. “This is crazy. Who do you think I work for?” Calling him out.

Harry sipped his bourbon, studying her face. He was going to say Ernst Hess, get a reaction, but didn’t.

“Come on, you can’t make such an accusation without explaining yourself.”

Now she slid out of the booth, moved across the room toward the door. Harry got up, pulled a five-mark note out of his pocket and put it on the table under Colette’s schnapps glass. He walked out of the club and looked down the crowded sidewalk. It took a few seconds to spot her among the nighttime revelers, crossing the street.

She passed her VW and kept going. He followed, hanging back in the shadows, watched her walk up to the brightly lighted front of a modern three-storey building, take a key ring out of her purse and open the door. He waited, saw lights on the second floor. Moved to the door, scanned the directory, saw “C Rizik” and rang the bell.

“Who is it?” she said in German.

“Harry.”

“What do you want?” Hard edge to her voice.

“Can we talk?” Harry said.

“About what? You do not trust me, so we have nothing more to talk about.”

Harry stepped away from the door, started down the street and heard the buzzer, stepped back, turned the handle and opened the door.

He walked up a flight of stairs and there she was, door open, standing on the threshold, light behind her, blazer off, top two buttons of her blouse undone.

“I want to apologize,” Harry said.

She ran her tongue over her front teeth and tucked her hair back behind her ears.

“Then you are welcome to come in.”

Colette moved left out of the doorway. Harry moved past her and she closed the door, turned and faced him, waiting for an explanation.