Pierre Frei - Berlin - A Novel

There was a roll of barbed wire propped against a post. It had probably been left over from building the fence. Jutta screamed. A woman's face, waxen and pale, was staring at her through the coiled wire with wide, dead eyes.

They ate a hot meal in the evening: dehydrated potato sticks from US supplies, you had to soak them for two days before you could cook them. With a roux made of a little flour and home-grown onions, the dish bore some distant resemblance to potato soup. The family sat around the table and spooned it up in silence.

Dr Bruno Hellbich tapped his spoon on the side of his plate with annoy ance. 'The neighbours grow real potatoes. They have their own carrots too. And lettuces. Setting you all an example.'

'Papa, please don't be unfair. We're using every patch of earth in the garden to grow your tobacco,' Inge Dietrich reminded her father.

'I suppose you'd rather I went and sold the last little bit of our silver on the black market for a few Yank cigarettes?' asked the district councillor, indignant.

You could smoke less,' suggested his son-in-law in neutral tones.

For a moment it looked as if they were in for one of Hellbich's furious tirades, which the family found ridiculous rather than terrifying, but his daughter changed the subject. 'Frau Zeidler was in Kalkfurth's, queuing for margarine. She keeps her bread coupons in the drawer of the kitchen table. When she pulled out the drawer the other day all that was left was a heap of tiny shreds of paper. A mouse had been at them. The month's ration for the whole family was gone. She didn't have much hope, but she put the remains in an envelope and took them to the head of the ration-card distribution centre. He laughed like a hyena and gave her replacement coupons straight away, saying he was sure no one would make up a thing like that.'

It was not a particularly funny story, but it mollified her father. 'Sensible man,' he said. The power went off, and he lit a candle.

'That Frau Kalkfurth is hard as nails.' His daughter told them about her attempt to get the powdered egg in advance.

'She's bitter. You can't blame her. Not a very lucky family, the Kalkfurths. They bought the Am Hegewinkel house in '29. It was a better place than the Prenzlauer Berg where their butcher's shop was. They had sausage stalls all over town. "Kalkfurth Sausages", that's how everyone knew them at the time. Not that success in business did them much good. An ox kicked Adalbert Kalkfurth in the belly when he was slaughtering it, tore his guts to pieces. Heinz Winkelmann carried on the business, with Kurt the son helping him. He was going to take it over some day. Big, strong lad with a baby face. Always chasing around the district on his motorbike. Volunteered for the Motorcycle Corps and was killed at the very beginning of the war in the Polish campaign. Martha Kalkfurth had a stroke when the news came, she's been in that wheelchair ever since. Any more potato soup?'

'Half a ladleful for everyone.' Inge Dietrich concentrated on dividing up what was left. She was thirty-six and had a few silver threads in her thick brown hair, mementoes of the countless nights she had sat in the cellar holding her sons close, listening to the deep hum of the aircraft and the sound of bombs dropping.

Her face glowed softly in the candlelight. How beautiful she is, thought Klaus. She smiled a little, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

The district councillor had finished. He rolled himself a cigarette with the tobacco that they dried green, and was thoughtful enough to go and smoke it in the garden. A lovely warm night,' he called. 'Come on out.'

'We're going up to bed.' his daughter called back. 'Goodnight, Father. Ben, Ralf, help Grandma clear away and don't stay up too long. Coming, Klaus?'

He picked up the dynamo lamp that was part of every household's equipment and lit the way upstairs. They undressed in silence. In spite of the slight drizzle, the night was light enough for him to see her figure — medium height, with breasts still firm and a slender waist above the feminine curves of her hips. He sat on the edge of the bed, undid his prosthesis, and put it aside together with its shoe and sock. She knelt in front of him and took him between her warm lips. Then they sank back on the bed. Their lovemaking was calm and satisfying.

The telephone rang in the middle of the night, its sound muted because Klaus Dietrich had wedged some cardboard between the bell and the beater so that it wouldn't wake Inge. Sergeant Franke was on the line. Another murder, sir. This time right up by the fence of the Yankee zone.'

'Where exactly?' Dietrich kept his voice low.

'Right at the back, where the weekly market used to be. I'll wait for you there. Over.'

He dressed quietly, but the prosthesis slipped from his hands and clattered to the floor. 'What is it, darling?' asked Inge sleepily.

'Business.' He fetched his bike from the veranda and cycled off. The direct way through the prohibited area was out of bounds to him, so he went the long way round, over Waltraudbriicke and through the Fischtal park. An owl hooted among the fir trees. A duck, waking early, quacked on the pond. The first hint of dawn shimmered in the east. It was infinitely quiet and peaceful.

Franke had parked the gas-powered Opel so that its headlights illuminated a place in the fence. A Military Police jeep stood slightly to one side, and Sergeant Donovan was leaning against it with his arms folded. The inspector parked his bike and nodded to him, but Donovan ignored him. Franke pointed to the fence. At first all Dietrich could make out was a roll of barbed wire. Then he saw its ghastly contents.

'Woman called Jutta Weber found the body,' his sergeant told him. 'Cycled to the Zehlendorf-Mitte police station to report it. I've asked her to come and see us this afternoon.'

Klaus Dietrich looked at the pale face, surrounded by strands of blonde hair. Lifeless blue eyes stared at him through the coils of wire. 'What do we know about her?' he asked, without turning round.

'Her name's Helga Lohmann, she's thirty-five and works for the Yanks. Her shopping bag, containing her pass and four cans of corned beef, was lying by the fence here.'

'Clues?'

'Maybe that rag?' Franke pointed to a piece of fabric caught in the barbed wire.

Dietrich took it from him and held it in the light to examine it. 'Olivegreen gabardine. Could come from an American trench coat.'

A hand reached into the beam of the headlights and removed the fabric from his grasp. 'Confiscated,' said Sergeant Donovan, adding it in German. 'Beschlagnahmt.' The word tripped off his tongue so fluently it was clear he'd used it many times before.

'But we need it as evidence,' Dietrich protested.

'Shut up, you goddam Kraut!' Donovan barked, and put his hand on his Magnum. Then he swung himself into his jeep and raced away, tyres squealing.

'What are we going to do with her?' asked Franke, a little helplessly.

Dietrich pointed to the luggage rack on the car roof. 'If we strap her firmly in place we can get her to Waldfrieden hospital in one piece.'

'It's all the same to the lady now,' muttered Franke, lending Dietrich a hand.

Dr Mobius set to work with the wire-cutters. And regards from the caretaker,' he said. 'The old boy wasn't best pleased when Nurse Dagmar woke him and asked to borrow these.' It was four in the morning. The power had been back on at the hospital for the last half-hour. All in the course of normal surgery,' said the doctor sarcastically, beginning to cut through the barbed wire. He bent back coil after coil until the dead woman lay exposed before them. She was wearing a simple, grey dress with a white collar. Her stockings were torn. With the nurse's help, he undressed her. The police officers stood back a little, the sergeant shifting uneasily from foot to foot. In spite of the surgical mask he wore, the smell of formalin and decomposition bothered him. 'No panties, just like the other one,' said Dr Mobius in matterof-fact tones. 'Come closer, would you?' Only Dietrich came forward.