Philip Kerr - If the Dead Rise Not

Noreen smiled her neon smile. Her glamour seemed to warm the apartment, as if someone had lit a fire in the empty grate. She lit a cigarette from a little gold case, which she pushed toward him. He took one and slid it behind his ear like a pencil.

“Could a man drown in Berlin seawater, he asks,” said Blitz. “Two hundred sixty million years ago this whole area was an ancient sea-the Zechstein Sea. Berlin itself was founded on a series of islands that appeared in a river valley during the last Ice Age. The substrata are mostly sand. And salt. A lot of salt from the Zechstein Sea. The salt formed several islands on the land surface, and quite a few deepwater groundwater chambers all over the city and the surrounding area.”

“Seawater chambers?” asked Noreen.

“Yes, yes. In my opinion, there are some places in Berlin where men should not be digging. Such a chamber might easily be ruptured, with potentially disastrous consequences.”

“Could such a place include Pichelsberg?”

“It could happen almost anywhere in Berlin,” said Blitz. “For someone in a hurry, who didn’t carry out a proper geological survey-boreholes and that kind of thing-it would not just be the old lies that the new Germany obliged him to swallow, but a considerable quantity of salt water, also.” He smiled carefully, like a man playing a card game whose rules he was still uncertain of.

“Including Pichelsberg?” I persisted.

Blitz shrugged. “Pichelsberg? What is this interest in Pichelsberg? I’m a geologist, not a town planner, Herr Gunther.”

“Come on, Stefan, you know why I’m asking.”

“Yes, and I don’t like it. I have enough problems without adding Pichelsberg as well. Where exactly are you going with this? You mentioned a drowned man. A Jew, you said. And a newspaper article. Forgive me, but it seems to me that one dead Jew is quite enough.”

“Dr. Blitz,” said Noreen, “I promise you. Nothing you say will be attributed to you. I won’t quote you. I won’t mention Uncle Tom’s Cabin or that I even spoke to a geologist.”

Blitz removed the cigarette from behind his ear and studied it like a core of white rock. When he lit it, his satisfaction could be seen and heard. “American cigarettes. I’m so used to cheap ones I’d forgotten how good tobacco can taste.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps I should try to go to America. I’m damned sure the meaning of life in Germany doesn’t include liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not if you’re Jewish, anyway.”

Noreen emptied her case on the table. “Please,” she said, “keep them. I have more back at the hotel.”

“If you’re sure,” he said.

She nodded, and pulled the sable coat closer to her chest.

“A good engineering company,” he said, carefully. “It would first drill, not dig. You understand? The Ice Age left behind a real mixture of substrata that would make construction here very unpredictable. Especially somewhere like Pichelsberg. Does that answer your question?”

“Is it possible that the people building the Olympic Stadium don’t know this?” she asked.

Blitz shrugged. “Who mentioned the Olympics? I know nothing about the Olympics, and I tell you I don’t want to know. We’re told it’s not for Jews, and I for one am very happy about this.” It was chilly in his apartment, but he wiped some sweat off his forehead with a ragged handkerchief. “Look, if you don’t mind, I think I’ve said enough.”

“One more question,” I said, “and then we’ll leave.”

Blitz stared momentarily at the ceiling as if calling on his maker to give him patience. His hand was trembling as he put the cigarette back between his cracked lips.

“Is there any gold in Berlin’s substrata?”

“Gold, yes, gold. But only trace amounts. Believe me, Bernie, you won’t get rich looking for gold in Berlin.” He chuckled. “At least not unless you take it from those who already have it. This is a Jew telling you, so you can take that to the bank. Even the Nazis aren’t stupid enough to look for gold in Berlin.”

We didn’t stay much longer. We both knew we’d unsettled Blitz. And in view of what he’d said, I didn’t blame him for being circumspect and nervous. The Nazis would hardly have taken kindly to what he was surely saying about the construction site at Pichelsberg. When we left, we didn’t offer him money. He wouldn’t have taken it. But when his back was turned to lead us out of the apartment, Noreen slipped a leaf under the coffeepot.

BACK IN THE CAR, Noreen let out a loud sigh and shook her head. “This town is beginning to get me down,” she said. “Tell me you don’t get used to it.”

“Not me. I’ve only just got used to the idea that we lost the war. Everyone says the Jews were to blame for that, but I always thought it was the navy’s fault. It was them who got us into it and their mutiny that forced us to quit. But for them we might have fought on, to an honorable peace.”

“You sound like you regret that.”

“Only the fact that the wrong people signed the armistice. The army should have done it instead of the politicians, which let the army off the hook rather, and which is why we’re in the state we’re in. D’you see?”

“Not really.”

“No? Well, that’s half the problem. Nobody does. Least of all us Germans. Most mornings I wake up and think I must have imagined the last two years. The last twenty-four hours most of all. What does a woman like you see in a man like me?”

She took my left hand and squeezed it. “A man like you. You make that sound as if there’s more than one. There isn’t. I know. I’ve looked. And in all kinds of places. Including the bed we slept in. Last night I was wondering how I’d feel in the morning. Well, now I know.”

“How do you feel?”

“Scared.”

“Of what?”

“The way I feel, of course. Like you’re driving the car.”

“I am driving the car.” I wiggled the steering wheel for effect.

“At home no one ever drives me anywhere. I like to drive myself. I prefer to decide when to start and when to stop. But with you, I really don’t mind. I wouldn’t mind if you decided to drive us all the way to China and back.”

“China? It’d be enough for me just to have you stay on in Berlin for a while.”

“So what’s stopping me?”

“Perhaps Nick Charalambides. And your newspaper article. And maybe this. That it’s my honest opinion that Isaac Deutsch wasn’t murdered at all. That his death was an accident. No one drowned him. He drowned. Without any help from anyone else. Right here in the center of Berlin. I know, it’s not as good a story if he wasn’t murdered. But what can I do?”

“Damn.”

“Exactly.”

For a moment I was reminded of Richard Bömer and his disappointment at discovering that Isaac Deutsch was Jewish. And now here was Noreen Charalambides, disappointed to discover the poor guy hadn’t been murdered. It’s a hell of a world.

“Are you sure?”

“Here’s what I think happened. After his career as a boxer was outlawed by the Nazis, Isaac Deutsch and his uncle got a job on the Olympic building site. In spite of the official policy about hiring only Aryan workers. Given how much there is to do before the Olympiad starts, in 1936, someone decided it might be best to cut a few corners. And not just with the racial origins of the workforce. With safety, too, I suspect. Isaac Deutsch was probably involved in some kind of underground excavation when he ruptured one of those water chambers Blitz told us about. He had an accident, and he was drowned in seawater, only no one knew it was seawater. Someone figured it might be best if his body was found drowned a long way from Pichelsberg. Just in case some nosy cop started asking questions about illegal Jewish workers. Which is how the body ended up in a freshwater canal, on the other side of Berlin.”