David Gillham - City of Women

But Wolfram reacts as if perhaps he’s only now noticed that he’s the only patron and that he does not find this astonishing in the least. “Not me, personally, but it does serve my office,” he says, lifting a leather briefcase from the floor beside his false leg and setting it on his lap. “I have a gift for you,” he says, thumbing open its clasp. Out of the case comes a box the size of a book, wrapped in colored tissue and ribbons.

The old uncle arrives. “Gnädige Frau,” he says, and sets the coffee on the linen tablecloth, with a sugar bowl and small cream pitcher filled with a chalky liquid that is nothing like cream. “And for the Herr Leutnant,” he says, setting down the glass of Gilka with a clean ashtray.

When he shuffles away, Sigrid looks down at the package, then up at Wolfram. “Shall I open it?”

“That’s normally the procedure with a gift,” he says.

Carefully, she removes the tissue from the box and opens the lid. It is a book. A newly minted edition, bookshop fresh, with the author’s Charlie Chaplin face glowering up at her from the dust jacket. His eyes like pellets of coal. The fetlock of hair slicked over his brow. The postage-stamp mustache. Sigrid stares into the face. The title is in heavy script: Mein Kampf.

“I thought this was an appropriate choice. Have you read it?”

“No.”

“Then I won’t tell you how it ends,” he says, and then assures her, “You should find everything required within.”

She gives Wolfram half a glance, trying unsuccessfully to read his face. Then lifts the book’s cover only long enough to see the thick envelope fitted securely into the hollowed-out pages.

“I see. Very clandestine.”

“I think you’ll find that all is in order,” Wolfram tells her. “Except I was expecting a man with a Jewish face. You left him out.”

“He’s dead.”

“Really? What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says as she replaces the book into its box, then inserts the box into her bag. “He’s dead. That’s all.”

“How different you’ve become,” Wolfram observes. “So much tougher than you were.”

But Sigrid only shakes her head. “No. Not tougher. Just numb.” Then she frowns at her cup. “This coffee is terrible.”

“I tried to warn you. The Kümmel, on the other hand, is very smooth. Smoke?”

“I’ll share one,” she tells him, and watches him light up. The patrician’s profile. The damage reflected in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Wolfram,” she suddenly says, observing him.

He exhales smoke, and lifts an eyebrow. “Sorry? For what are you sorry?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

“For breaking my heart?”

Almost a smile. “Is your heart broken? I doubt that. I hear you go through women like you do cigarettes,” she says, cheating a drag.

“Again. You cannot believe everything my sister tells you,” he repeats. “So you haven’t mentioned.”

“Mentioned what?”

“Our friend the chess player. I hope he has been improving his game.”

“He’s playing well enough to beat me,” she tells him, staring archly at a spot on the table linen. Then shakes her head. “I don’t know what to do about him.”

“Then I think that you had better drop him.”

She lifts her eyes.

“Please understand, I say this not out of jealousy, Sigrid,” he tells her. “I don’t believe in jealousy. But he is dangerous. Dangerous because he has nothing to live for. And even more dangerous, because he doesn’t yet know it.”

She takes a breath. “And you can tell all this, Herr Leutnant, from a chess game?”

Wolfram shrugs, and taps his cigarette ash. “You will do what you will do, Frau Schröder. That much I have learned about you. But remember, you ignored my warning about the coffee.” Picking up his snifter of Gilka, he clinks it against Sigrid’s coffee cup in a toast. “Prost,” he offers efficiently, taking a deep swallow, sets down the glass, and removes a creamy white envelope from his coat, sliding it across the table.

A look, and then she removes the envelope’s contents and pauses. Another Reisepass. Lifting open the document’s linen facing, she is confronted by her own glum expression. “So. You did steal my card,” is all she says.

“I needed a photograph. And I knew you would never stand for one. So now, Frau Schröder, should you ever decide to take a holiday outside the borders of our Fatherland, you have the Reisepass necessary to satisfy the rubber-stamp brigades.”

“I see,” she says, and reinserts the booklet in the envelope, but as she does a small brass capsule tumbles out onto the table linen. “And what is this?”

Wolfram reaches over and picks it up in his fingers. “Remove the brass cap like this,” he instructs, exposing the tip of a tiny glass vial. “Insert the glass vial into the back of your mouth, and bite down. In case,” he tells her quietly, “you ever need to make a different decision.”

Sigrid gazes deeply at the vial as if gazing at a hole that has suddenly opened up in front of her. “Is it… Is it painful?”

“Painful?” he repeats. The muscle in the line of his jaw twitches lightly. “It’s instantaneous.” Slipping the brass cap back into place, he reinserts the capsule into the envelope. “Are you sure you won’t have that glass of Gilka now?”

“Wolfram, I think I may be under surveillance,” she says suddenly.

His response is unperturbed. “Yes, that’s right,” he nods. “One of the bloodhounds of the Burgstrasse Gestapo office has your scent in his nostrils. A Kommissar Lang, I think.”

Sigrid feels a jolt. “You mean you know this?”

“The Abwehr doesn’t exactly have a brotherly relationship with the Geheime Staatspolizei. But I try to keep a few of their number on our payroll. There’s a fellow named Rössner. Not so bad. He’s an old-time Kriminalpolizei bull, who thought the Gestapo would be good for his career. In any case, he’s been very cooperative.”

“ Cooperative ? I don’t understand what that means.”

“Keep an eye peeled for him. Medium height. Not much of a chin, but more off a belly. Ears stick out like a monkey’s. He favors a brown snap-brim fedora. You’ll spot him, I’m sure.”

“And he’s watching me?”

“Yes, but I pay him to have very poor eyesight. Also, he much prefers stopping off at the corner Kneipe for a short one to traipsing about town wearing out his shoe leather.”

She gazes at him with gratitude and regret. “Once again, you are my champion, Herr Leutnant,” she says.

But Wolfram only turns up his wrist to frown at his watch. “I must go,” he says. But outside, he turns to her. “Here, take this. It’s the key to the flat in the Askanischer Platz,” he tells her. “In the event that you have use of it.” The street is chilled by a sharp breeze.

“Yes. Thank you,” she tells him. “It could be handy.” And then she asks, “Will you kiss me?”

The gun sight. “Why?”

“Because I’m asking you to. Because I want you to.”

A small bob of his Adam’s apple and the gun sight lifts. He kisses her once, as if he might steal a breath from her, then breaks away. She watches him quick-march down the Ku’damm with his cane, as the clock in the Gedächtniskirche chimes the hour.

Two o’clock.

She must head for the zoo.

FOR SEVERAL MINUTES she pretends to be examining the posters placarding a Litfass column across the street. Paper drives are advertised. Clothing drives . Get rid of old clothing and shoes! A bloated toadlike face: The Jew—The inciter of war, the prolonger of war, the caption incites.