Pierre Frei - Berlin - A Novel

Sergeant Donovan took him by the shoulders. 'Because your Karin is dead.'

'Dead? Karin's not dead. We have a date tomorrow, see, it's at seven, we're meeting by the guard on the main gate in Uncle Tom's.' Morgan spoke fast, as if trying to convince himself.

Donovan shook him. 'She's dead. And you know why? Because someone murdered her. In the most brutal way. Who was it, Morgan? Who killed Karin?'

The young soldier was weeping soundlessly. 'Go easy, sergeant,' Ashburner told him. 'That's all, Morgan,' he said mildly. The GI jumped up and stood to attention. He saluted, tears running down his face, stiffly did an about-turn, and left. John Ashburner leaned back again, thoughtfully. 'He seemed genuinely shocked.'

'Or else he's putting on a cold-blooded act for us.'

'You think he killed her?'

'It's possible, sir. I checked his alibi. Morgan was on guard duty in McNair Barracks from 21 hours to 3 hours on Tuesday. Alone, by the back fence of the motor pool. He could easily have borrowed a car, and he'd have been back in plenty of time before the guard changed.'

'The question is whether he really did it. And why.'

'I see it this way, sir: she won't let him touch her. First he's disappointed, then he's furious, finally he starts to hate her. If he can't have her, then no one else will.'

With all due respect to your home-grown psychology, Mike — that lad's probably as innocent as you or I.'

'Maybe, captain. And anyway, one Fraulein more or less, what's the difference? They all sleep around, and not just with our boys. Why wouldn't it have been a German?'

'Why not, indeed?' Ashburner agreed. 'Draw up a short report detailing Morgan's alibi and send it to that German inspector. And then we've done our bit. Let the German police figure it out.'

'Will do, sir.'

The captain rose to his feet. 'Don't know when I'll be back. You mind the shop here meanwhile.' He turned to go.

'Sir.' Sergeant Donovan indicated the white helmet and the holster with the heavy Magnum on the coat rack, but Ashburner shook his head and took his garrison cap instead.

Ben met Heidi Rodel as he was coming out of the U-Bahn. Heidi was sixteen. She wore sandals with home-made wedge heels and a blouse that her father had made her from the parachute of an English airman who had been shot down. Her breasts swelled gently under the silk. Ben kind of liked to look at them. Touching would have been even better, but presumably that was off limits. Though you couldn't ever be sure what was or wasn't off limits, not with girls.

She threw back her dark-brown hair with a brief toss of her head. 'The Yanks have opened a German youth club in Bruckstrasse. You can do handicrafts and painting there, and have debates, and they give you chocolate bars too.'

Someone in Washington had decreed that particular emphasis should be placed on bringing the joyful message of freedom and democracy to the young people of conquered Germany who had suffered under the Nazi regime. And since the US Army was on the spot already, and was successfully Americanizing those quick learners the Germans with chewing gum. instant coffee and Bing Crosby — even if the first of those items was French, the second Swiss and the third of Irish origin — it fell to them to organize the matter.

There were plenty of requisitioned villas in excellent locations. Games, tools, musical instruments, anything else that might lure the youngsters in — the US Army, better equipped than any other outfit in the world, had all these things in abundance. Hence the rise of German Youth Activities, or GYA, with each branch of the service competing to set up the best GYA Club.

'Why don't we go along together?' Ben saw an opportunity.

'I already have a date with Gert Schlomm. He's started a drama group at the club, and I get to play the leading role.'

Ben couldn't compete with the leading role in a drama group, at least not until he outdid Gert Schlomm's lederhosen with his own made-to-measure suit in Prince of Wales check. 'Well, I may look in sometime,' he said, negotiating a tactical retreat. Although I'm pretty busy right now.'

Pastor Steffen had come up with a New Testament, exactly the India paper edition that Ben needed. He happily climbed the narrow stairs to the attic room. Ralf finished school an hour earlier and had gone round to his friend Hajo Konig in Onkel-Tom-Strasse, so the coast was clear.

Ben took the razor blade and the empty packet of Lucky Strikes from the desk drawer. The Yanks usually just tore off a piece of the silver foil to get at their cigarettes, so the outer packet and the seal remained intact, which was the case with this one. Using the blunt side of his penknife, he carefully levered up the bottom of the packet where it was stuck together and removed the silver paper without changing its shape. He put it back in the wrapping the other way up, pushing it up to the level of the seal.

Carefully, he placed the packet on the table. From the top, it looked virginal again. He opened the New Testament at the Gospel According to St Luke, and cut rectangles the size of the cigarette packet from the paper, going through no more than ten pages at a time.

Now he had to fill the packet to the right strength and elasticity, round off the long sides around the cigarettes it would appear to contain, and close it with a little glue. Ben weighed his successful piece of work in his hand, satisfied. When his brother came clumping upstairs, he put it in his pocket.

Ralf was two years younger than Ben. He had an angelic face, but it was deceptive. 'We're going up to the woods at Krumme Lanke tomorrow. Want to come?'

'What for?' Ben asked cautiously.

'Hajo knows a hollow in the ground where people go to screw.'

Ben decided to postpone putting his cigarette packet on the market until the day after tomorrow. 'OK,' he said magnanimously.

Jutta Weber rubbed dozens of veal schnitzels with garlic, seasoned them with salt and pepper and dusted them with flour, then dipped each in beaten egg and tossed it in breadcrumbs.

'Garlic, that's a good idea,' Mess Sergeant Jack Panelli said with approval, putting the breadcrumb-coated schnitzels in hot oil. They hissed violently.

A real Wiener schnitzel should be fried in lard,' she told the chef.

'What, and have Major Davison thump me round the head with his Torah?' Major Davidson was the garrison rabbi; there were many soldiers of the Jewish faith here. Jack Panelli grinned. Now me, I'm a good Catholic, so you're welcome to make me a real Wiener schnitzel after the kitchen closes. That was a brilliant idea I had, taking you off dishwashing and putting you on the stove. Did I ever tell you you're a damn good cook?'

'Thanks for the compliment, Jack. My parents run a bar and cafe in Kopenick. They used to serve good home cooking there, and I often helped Mother in the kitchen.'

Jutta went on with her work. The soldiers came flocking into Club 48 for lunch. Last orders were around one-thirty. Then came the dishwashing, and next preparations for dinner. which took all afternoon. She automatically looked at her watch. but since the beginning of May it had been on the wrist of a pockmarked little Russian who hadn't raped her only because he'd failed to get an erection.

Sergeant Panelli noticed her glance. 'It's five o'clock.'

'Five o'clock. ' Diana Gerold had said that when it was time for Jutta to make tea — Ceylon Orange Pekoe, a thing of the distant past the final year of the war, although now and then she got some from a woman she knew at the Swiss Embassy. Back then, they would sit in the back room of the bookshop in the shopping street, listening to the U-Bahn trains going in and out, while Frau Gerold talked about the new books she had read. There were fewer and fewer of them. Sometimes Jutta thought about Jochen, who was dead.