Philip Kerr - A Man Without Breath

That was one sobering thought. Another was that if I hadn’t helped Franz Meyer he would certainly have stayed in the welfare office in Rosenstrasse and his wife and sisters would probably have remained with the rest of the women outside, in which case all of them would still live. Homeless, perhaps. But alive, yes, that was quite conceivable. There’s no amount of aspirin you can swallow that will take away that kind of toothache.

I left the state hospital but I didn’t go home. At least not right away. I took a Ringbahn train north-west, to Gesundbrunnen. To begin work again.

The Jewish Hospital in Wedding was about six or seven modern buildings on the corner of Schulstrasse and Exerzierstrasse, and next to St George’s Hospital. As surprising as the fact that such a thing as a Jewish hospital even existed in Berlin was the discovery that the place was modern, relatively well equipped, and full of doctors, nurses and patients. Since all of them were Jews, the place was also guarded by a small detachment of SS. Almost as soon as I identified myself at the front desk I discovered that the hospital even had its own branch of Gestapo, one of whose officers was summoned at the same time as the hospital director, Dr Walter Lustig.

Lustig arrived first, and it turned out we’d met several times before: a hard-arsed Silesian – they always make the most unpleasant Prussians – Lustig had been head of the medical department in the Police Praesidium at the Alex, and we’d always disliked each other. I disliked him because I don’t much care for pompous men with the bearing if not the height of a senior Prussian officer; he probably thought I disliked him because he was a Jew. But in truth, seeing him at the hospital was the first time I realized he was Jewish – the yellow star on his white coat left me in no doubt about that. He disliked me because he was the type who seemed to dislike nearly everyone who was in a subordinate position to him or ill-educated by his elevated academic standards. At the Alex we’d called him Doctor Doctor because he had university degrees in both philosophy and medicine, and never failed to remind people of this distinction.

Now, he clicked his heels and bowed stiffly as if he’d just marched off the parade ground at the Prussian military academy.

‘Herr Gunther,’ he said. ‘After all these long years we meet again. To what do we owe this dubious pleasure?’

It certainly didn’t seem as if his new lower status as a member of a pariah race had affected his attitude in any way. I could almost see the wax on the eagle with which he’d decorated his top lip. I hadn’t forgotten his pomposity, but it seemed I had forgotten his breath, which required a good half-metre at least for a man with a heavy cold to feel properly safe in his company.

‘Good to see you, too, Doctor Lustig. So this is where you’ve been keeping yourself. I always wondered what happened to you.’

‘I can’t imagine it kept you awake at night.’

‘No. Not in the least. These days I sleep like a dog without dreams. All the same I’m pleased to see you well.’ I glanced around. There were some Hebraic-looking design details on the wall but no sign of the kind of angular, astronomical artwork the Nazis were fond of adding to anything owned or used by Jews. ‘Nice place you’ve got here, Doc.’

Lustig bowed again, and then glanced ostentatiously at his pocket watch. ‘Yes, yes, but you know, tempis fugit.’

‘You have a patient, Franz Meyer, who was brought here on Monday night or perhaps the early hours of Tuesday morning. He’s the key witness in a war-crimes inquiry I’m carrying out for the Wehrmacht. I’d like to see him, if I may.’

‘You’re no longer with the police?’

‘No sir.’ I handed him my business card.

‘Then it seems we have something in common. Whoever would have thought such a thing?’

‘Life springs all sorts of surprises on the living.’

‘That’s especially true in here, Herr Gunther. Address?’

‘Mine, or Herr Meyer’s?’

‘Herr Meyer’s, of course.’

‘Apartment three, ten Lutzowerstrasse, Berlin Charlottenburg.’

Curtly, Lustig repeated the name and address to the attractive nurse now accompanying him. Immediately and without being told, she went into the office behind the front desk and searched a large filing cabinet for the patient’s notes. Somehow I sensed Lustig was used to always having the first plate at dinner.

He was already snapping his fat fingers at her. ‘Come on, come on, I haven’t got all day.’

‘I can see you’re as busy as ever, Herr Doctor,’ I said as the nurse returned to his side and handed over the file.

‘There is some sanctuary in that, at least,’ he murmured, glancing over the notes. ‘Yes, I remember him now, poor fellow. Half his head is missing. How he’s still alive is beyond my medical understanding. He’s been in a coma since he got here. Do you still wish to see him? Perhaps wasting time is an institutional habit in the War Crimes Bureau just as much as it was in Kripo?’

‘You know, I’d like to see him. I just want to check he’s not as scared of you as she is, doc.’ I smiled at his nurse. In my experience nurses – even the pretty ones – are always worth a smile.

‘Very well.’ Lustig uttered a weary sigh that was part groan and walked quickly along the corridor. ‘Come along, Herr Gunther,’ he yelled, ‘you must pursue me, you must pursue me. We need to hurry if we are to find Herr Meyer capable of uttering the one all-important word that may provide the vital assistance for your inquiry. Evidently my own word counts for very little these days.’

A few seconds later we met a man with a largish scar under his ill-tempered mouth that looked like a third lip.

‘And this is why that is,’ added the doctor. ‘Criminal Commissar Dobberke. Dobberke is head of the Gestapo office in this hospital. A very important position that ensures our enduring safety and loyal service to the elected government.’

Lustig handed the Gestapo man my card.

‘Dobberke, this is Herr Gunther, formerly of the Alex and now with the Bureau of War Crimes in the Wehrmacht’s legal department. He wishes to see if one of our patients is capable of providing the vital testimony that will change the course of military jurisprudence.’

Quickly I walked after Lustig; so did Dobberke. After several days in bed, I figured such violent exercise could only do me good.

We went into a ward full of men in various states of ill health. It hardly seemed necessary, but all of these patients wore a yellow star on their pyjamas and dressing gowns. They looked undernourished, but that was hardly unusual by Berlin standards. There wasn’t one of us in the city – Jew or German – who couldn’t have used a square meal. Some were smoking, some were talking, and some were playing chess. None of them paid us much regard.

Meyer was behind a screen, in the last bed under a tall window with a view of a fine lawn and a circular ornamental pond. Not that he seemed likely to avail himself of the view: his eyes were closed and there was a bandage around a no longer completely round head, which reminded me of a partly deflated football. But even badly injured, he was still startlingly handsome, like some ruined marble Greek statue on the Pergamon altar.

Lustig went through the motions, checking the unconscious man’s pulse and taking his temperature with one eye on the nurse, and only glancing cursorily at his chart before tutting loudly and shaking his head. It was the kind of bedside manner that would have embarrassed Victor Frankenstein.

‘I thought so,’ he said, firmly. ‘A vegetable. That’s my prognosis.’ He smiled brightly. ‘But go ahead, Herr Gunther. Be my guest. You may question this patient for as long as you see fit. Just don’t expect any answers.’ He laughed. ‘Especially with Commissar Dobberke at your side.’