Philip Kerr - If the Dead Rise Not

“A man should have a hobby. Me, I like model train sets.”

“It’s more than a hobby, I’m afraid. Nick’s made a whole career out of drinking. He even writes about it. He drinks for a year and then he gives up for a year. You’ll think I’m exaggerating, probably, but I’m not. He can stop drinking on January the first and start again on New Year’s Eve. Somehow he has the willpower to last for exactly three hundred sixty-five days doing one or the other.”

“Why?”

“To prove he can do it. To make life more interesting. To be bloody-minded. Nick’s a complicated man. There’s never an easy explanation for anything he does. Least of all, the simple things in life.”

“So now he’s drinking.”

“No. Now he’s sober. That’s what makes this a bad year. For one thing, I like a drink myself and I hate drinking alone. And for another, Nick’s a pain in the ass when he’s sober and perfectly charming when he’s drunk. That’s one of the reasons I came to Europe. To have a drink in peace. Right now I’m sick of him and I’m sick of myself. Do you ever get sick of yourself, Gunther?”

“Only when I look in the mirror. To be a policeman you need a good memory for a face-your own, most of all. The job changes you in ways you don’t expect. After a while you can look in a mirror and see a man who looks no different from any of the scum you’ve put in jail. But lately I also get sick when I tell someone the story of my life.”

At Halensee I turned south, onto Königsallee, and pointed north out of the window. “They’re building the Olympic Stadium just up there,” I said. “Beyond the S-Bahn railway to Pichelsberg. From here on in Berlin is just forest and little lakes and exclusive villa colonies. Your friends the Adlons used to have a place down here, but Hedda didn’t like it, so they bought a place near Potsdam, in the village of Nedlitz. They use it as a weekend place for extra-special guests who want to escape the rigors of life at the Adlon. Not to mention their wives. Or their husbands.”

“I suppose the price of employing a proper detective is his knowing everything there is to know about you,” she said.

“Take my word for it. The price is a lot cheaper than that.”

About eight kilometers southwest of Halensee Station I stopped in front of the prettily situated Hubertus Restaurant.

“Why are we stopping?”

“An early lunch and a little information. When I said the Turk was living in the Grunewald, I neglected to mention that the forest covers almost eight thousand acres. If we’re ever going to find him, we’re going to have to pick up some local knowledge.”

The Hubertus was something out of a Lehar operetta: an ivy-clad, cozy villa with a garden where a crown prince and his young baroness might stop for a quick knuckle of veal on their way to some grand but doom-laden hunting lodge. Surrounded by a chorus of rather well-fed Berliners, we did our best to look like a leading man and his lady, and to hide our disappointment at our waiter’s ignorance of the local area.

After lunch we drove farther to the south and west, and asked at a village shop on the Reitmeister See, then at the post office in Krumme Lanke, and finally at a garage in Paulsborn, where the attendant told us he’d heard of some people living in tents along the left bank of the Schlachtensee, in a place that could best be reached by water. So then we drove to Beelitzhof and hired a motorboat to continue our search.

“I’ve had a lovely day,” she said as the boat cut through the chill Prussian blue waters. “Even if we don’t find what we’re looking for.”

And then we did.

We saw their smoke first, rising above the thick coniferous trees like a pillar of cloud. It was a small village of army-surplus tents, about six or seven of them. During the Great Depression, a large tent shantytown for the poor and unemployed had been built rather nearer home, in the Tiergarten.

I cut the engine and we approached carefully. A small, ragged group of men, several of them obviously Jewish, came out of their shelters. They were carrying clubs and slingshots. If I’d been alone, it’s possible I might have met with a more hostile reception, but, seeing Mrs. Charalambides, they appeared to relax a little. You don’t go looking for trouble wearing a set of pearls and a sable coat. I tied up the boat and helped her to step ashore.

“We’re looking for Solly Mayer,” she said, smiling pleasantly. “Do you know him?”

No one spoke.

“My married name is Noreen Charalambides,” she said. “But my maiden name is Eisner. I’m Jewish. I’m telling you that so you can be sure we’re not here to spy on you or to inform on you, or on Herr Mayer. I’m an American journalist and I’m in search of some information. We think Solly Mayer might be able to help us. So please don’t be afraid. We mean you no harm.”

“We’re not afraid of you,” said one of the men. He was tall and bearded. He wore a long black coat and a broad-brimmed black hat. Two long curls of hair were hanging off the sides of his forehead like lengths of seaweed. “We thought you might be Hitler Youth. There’s a troop of them camped around here somewhere and they’ve been attacking us. For fun.”

“That’s terrible,” said Mrs. Charalambides.

“Mostly we try to ignore it,” said the Jew with the earlocks. “There’s a limit to what the law allows us to do in the way of self-defense. But lately their attacks have been increasing in violence.”

“We just want to live in peace,” said another man.

I glanced around their encampment. Several rabbits hung off a pole next to a couple of fishing rods. A large kettle stood steaming on a metal grate laid over a fire. A line of washing was strung between two thread-bare tents. With winter fast approaching I didn’t give much for their survival chances. I felt cold and hungry just looking at them.

“I’m Solly Mayer.”

He was tallish, with a short neck, and, like the rest of them, heavily sunburned from months of living in the open air. But I ought to have picked him out immediately. Most boxers have their noses broken horizontally, but the Turk’s had been stitched vertically as well. It looked like a small pink upholstered cushion lying in the center of a wide expanse called his face. I could imagine a nose like that doing a lot of things. Ramming a Roman trireme. Breaking down a castle door. Finding a white truffle. But I couldn’t imagine anyone breathing through it.

Mrs. Charalambides told him about the article she was planning to write and about her hope that the Americans might still boycott the Berlin Olympiad.

“You mean they haven’t done that already?” said the tall man with the beard. “The Amis really mean to send a team?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Mrs. Charalambides.

“Surely Roosevelt can’t ignore what’s happening here,” said the tall man. “He’s a Democrat. And what about all those Jews in New York? Surely they won’t let him ignore it.”

“I kind of think that’s exactly what he wants to do at the moment,” she said. “You see, among his opponents, his administration already has a reputation of being too friendly with American Jews. He probably imagines that it’s better for him politically to have no position on the matter of whether or not the American team comes here in thirty-six. My newspaper would like to change that position. And so would I.”

“And you think,” said the Turk, “that writing an article about some dead Jewish boxer might help?”

“Yes. It think it might.”

I handed the Turk the photograph of “Fritz.” He settled a pair of glasses on what was laughingly called the bridge of his nose and, holding the photo at arm’s length, stared at it critically.