Pierre Frei - Berlin - A Novel

The dead woman was well built, with full breasts and stretch marks on her stomach. 'Strangulation marks from a chain on the throat again.' Mobius went on examining the body. 'Traces of blood in her pubic hair and on her thighs. The murderer tortured this victim with a sharp object too. Do we know who the woman is?'

'Helga Lohmann, aged thirty-five. Works for the Americans. That's all we have so far. When did death occur?'

'Subject to an autopsy, I'd say two to three hours ago.'

The inspector worked it out. 'Between ten and eleven, then. It was still raining at the time. That would explain the trench coat. What do you think, Franke?' But he received no answer. His colleague, green in the face, had collapsed on the floor.

THE BUILDING WAS on the outskirts of the Onkel Toms Hiitte, in Sophie-Charlotte-Strasse: six spacious apartments occupying the ground floor and the two floors above. Helga Lohmann had inherited it from her parents when they died on a skiing vacation, buried under an avalanche. The Lohmanns lived in the ground-floor apartment on the right, where Reinhard Lohmann also had his tax adviser's office. Down in the cellar he had set up a small-bore rifle range for his Sturmabteilung group. Once a week the sound of shots echoed through the apartment building. The attitude of its inhabitants to these SA Brownshirts, family men who were no longer as slim as they had been, was one of amused tolerance.

'Your husband doesn't care for target practice?' Helga asked her tenant, pretty black-haired Frau Salomon from the second floor, one Wednesday evening in the entrance hall. She learned from his wife that Leo Salomon was a good shot himself. He had often gone deer stalking with his late father. and so he had applied to join the Brownshirts' rifle squad.

All our big boys like to play with guns, don't they?' said Helga cheerfully.

'They turned him down,' Frau Salomon confided. 'We're Jewish, you see.'

'Such nonsense,' said Helga firmly. 'I mean, you both go to church at Easter and Christmas, just like us, and you give to the Fi hrer's Winter Aid fund. I'll have a word with my husband.'

'They're nice people, and they pay their rent on time. Herr Salomon's not a novice either. I mean, he often went shooting with his father.' Helga said to her husband at supper.

Reinhard Lohmann carefully put three slices of sausage on his bread and butter. He was a powerful man of thirty-six, with thinning hair and moles on his forearms. He had married Helga, a nurse ten years his junior, in 1930. Until then Helga Rinke had worked on the children's ward of the Charite hospital, where she became pregnant by a doctor. Lohmann knew about it, but her ownership of the apartment building and the rental income it brought in promised security. He was not a particularly successful tax adviser.

'No, not Salomon, can't be done.' He put a fourth slice of sausage on his bread, although there was really no room for it. It hung over the edge.

'Why not? You could do with another good marksman for the next regional match, you said so yourself.'

'Yourself-yourself,' babbled little Karl, bringing his spoon down vigorously on his semolina, which his mother had decorated with swirls from a jug of raspberry syrup.

Karl was six. He had been born after the Lohmanns married, and Reinhard Lohmann had unhesitatingly acknowledged him as his son. That was before the baby showed signs of mongolism: a large round head, slanting eyes, small, podgy, deep-set ears, a flat nose and a thick tongue. After that Lohmann avoided being seen with the boy in public.

To Helga, her son was the most normal child in the world. She simply ignored stares or tactless remarks, and there were not many of those in her small world between the U-Bahn station and the Riemeister Eck. People had long ago become used to the child's looks, and they liked his blonde young mother.

'Why not?' Helga repeated, mopping a few splashes of semolina off the waxcloth table cover beside Karl's plate. 'Eat properly,' she told her son.

'I did try to recruit Salomon.' Lohmann defended himself. 'But there was a query from higher up — was I crazy, trying to sneak a Yid into our ranks?'

'You mustn't call him that — he's a good German citizen. You should have a word with your school friend Olbrich.'

Gunther Olbrich and Reinhard Lohmann had both volunteered for the army in the last year of the Great War, while they were still at school. They never got as far as the Front, and were soon sent home to take their schoolleaving exams. Olbrich studied law and became a legal adviser to the National Socialist party. After Hitler came to power, the Party leadership appointed him head of the legal department in the administrative region of the Berlin Gauleitung. He had excellent connections with senior Party members, and had even once been a guest at the Obersalzberg.

Lohmann joined the Party as soon as the Nazis won their electoral victory, hoping for professional advantages which somehow never came his way. With his friend's help, he made it to Deputy Sturmfdhrer in 'that comic band of warriors,' as Helga called the SA, but such a position was hardly a profitable career.

He changed the subject. 'Giinther's given us two tickets for the Olympic Games. We could get the car out on Saturday.' Helga had inherited the Brennabor along with her parents' apartment building, but she got behind the wheel only when Reinhard insisted. He couldn't drive.

Helga was radiant. 'Oh yes, let's take a picnic. We can leave Karl with the Salomons. He'd be happy, wouldn't you, Karl? You like little Ruth.'

'Little Ruth,' the boy echoed her. His eyes shone.

They drove out to the Reich Sports Stadium on Saturday morning. Beautiful weather contributed to the festive mood. Everyone seemed happy and carefree. Several swastika banners fluttered in the summer breeze, but the flags of the guest countries were in the majority, and the scene was dominated by the elegantly clad ladies of Berlin rather than brown uniforms.

The newly built stadium was an impressive architectural achievement. 'This really shows the world what we can do!' said Helga, focusing her grandmother's opera glasses on the government grandstand. She saw the Fiihrer, in good spirits and wearing his white uniform jacket, and Goring gesticulating with animation, his round face gleaming in the sun. She could identify Hess, the Deputy Party leader, by his thick eyebrows. The other Nazi grandees were unknown to her.

She looked down at the arena. 'That American, Jesse Owens — doesn't he look just fabulous? Such a lovely brown. Wow, they're off! See how fast he runs! Yes, yes, yeeees! He won!' She jumped up in delight.

'If our colonies hadn't been stolen from us it'd be a German black winning the medals now,' muttered Lohmann in annoyance.

Helga opened the picnic basket. 'Like a sausage sandwich and a beer? The bottles should still be cold. I wrapped them in the Morgenpost down in the cellar.'

'Do we get a beer too?' It was Gunther Olbrich. He introduced his companion. 'Meet Ulla Seitz.' The young woman with the dark bob greeted them with some reserve. 'Have we missed much?'

'The hundred metres,' said Lohmann, pouring the beer. 'You're late.'

'Couldn't make it any earlier,' explained his friend. A final fitting at my tailor's. White tie and tails are compulsory at the Staatsoper tonight. The Reich Government is giving a reception for the Games. The King of Bulgaria and the Crown Prince of Italy will be there — think of that!'

'What colour is your evening dress?' Helga asked Ulla Seitz with interest. The question earned her a nasty look and the sharp answer, 'I'm not invited.'

'You could have been a bit more tactful,' her husband reprimanded her when they were home. 'Ulla Seitz is Olbrich's secretary and his mistress.' They were listening to the latest results of the games on the radio. Helga had fetched her son from the Salomons on the top floor, and he was nestling close to her, listening open-mouthed to the words he didn't understand coming from the Bakelite box. Now and then he gurgled happily. Automatically, she wiped the dribble from his lips.