Pierre Frei - Berlin - A Novel

The inspector and sergeant were glad to get up the stairs and away from the stench below. Dietrich turned to the man on duty. 'Superintendent, how long have you been at this station?'

'Since '38, inspector. I was in Pankow before that.'

All the same, it's possible that you can help us. A woman murdered in the Onkel Tom quarter in 1936 — who's likely to have been in charge of the inquiries back then?'

'Wilhelm Schluter. He was head of the ZehlendorfclD from 1935, ended up as Chief Detective Superintendent. During the war he commanded a Security Police unit in the Ukraine.'

'You don't by any chance know what became of him?'

'You bet I do, inspector. He's in Brandenburg penitentiary. Responsible for mass shootings in Kiev. They say the Russians need him as a witness to cases involving other horrors, or it'd have been a bullet in the back of the neck for him long ago.'

'Brandenburg penitentiary? Franke, we must try to get permission to interview him.'

'What, from the NKvD?' The sergeant gave his superior a pitying glance. Ben bought a twenty-pfennig ticket at the ticket counter in Onkel Tom. There was nothing on the platform to remind anyone of last week's murder. Passengers were waiting calmly for the train. Ben got into the end carriage and sat down in the empty conductor's seat next to the driver's cab. On the way back this would be the front of the train, manned by the driver and conductor. The rails gleamed in the afternoon sun. Out here in the suburbs the U-Bahn track was carved out of the sand of the Brandenburg Mark, and still above ground. Ben thought of what his father had said about Hajo and his hand, and swore to himself never to forget it. This good resolution lasted all of two stations, as far as Thielplatz. By the time he reached Dahlem Dorf station the torn-off hand was in one of his mental pigeon-holes. Ben had many such pigeon-holes in his head: for school, which he attended as sporadically as possible: for Gert Schlomm, who had taught him to masturbate before he began taking an interest in Heidi Rodel: for Heidi's breasts, which he dreamed of, waking with a stiff penis: for the new GYA youth club, which must surely prove productive: for the Prince of Wales check suit in which he intended to make a conquest of Heidi.

That double-breasted suit accompanied Ben into his dreams; smooth, soft fabric, beautifully tailored, with sharp creases down the trouser legs and broad, slightly sloping shoulders. But best of all were the lapels, which he could see in his mind's eye: they rose elegantly, following the curve of the chest in a gentle arc and complementing the collar at a harmonious angle. After careful consideration of the pros and cons he had decided on a button to close the jacket at waist level and four buttons on the sleeves. He had firmly decided on velvety brown suede shoes, too. They were going to have thick crepe soles.

After Podbielskiallee, the underground railway lived up to its name and thundered through the tunnel. Bored, Ben looked at the ads in the carriage. He had been familiar with them from his early childhood: the liveried men from the House of Lefevre delivering carpets: the huntsman from the Pfalz who took salt because Salz rhymed with Pfalz: the green bottles of Staatlich Fachingen water. Just before Niirnberger Strasse, sunlight suddenly shone into the carriage. A bomb had knocked a hole in the roof of the tunnel.

There were crowds of people among the ruins around Potsdamer Platz. Berlin's biggest black market was held here daily. There was nothing you couldn't find being bartered or sold. Gold wedding rings, mink coats and genuine Meissen china changed hands for nylons, coffee, chocolate. American cigarettes, in cartons of ten packets each, fetched a high price. A Leica cost twenty-five cartons of cigarettes. Single packets were more profitable, as Ben knew. The preferred currency was the Allied mark, banknotes which the occupying powers had issued for their troops, although they had soon found their way into the general currency. The old German Reichsmark was hardly worth the paper it was printed on.

Ben was in no hurry. He had to find the right taker. That man in the stained uniform jacket, for instance. Ben sized him up: just back from a POW camp, wouldn't know the current tricks of the trade yet. He walked past close to him, murmuring, 'Yankee fags?'

Then he stopped by a broken lamppost and waited. The man followed him. 'You got some?'

'Lucky Strikes. Three hundred Allimarks.' Ben showed him the packet held in the hollow of his hand. The man reached for it. Ben hung on. 'The money first,' he demanded. Allimarks, like I said.'

The man took Ben's wrist and raised the packet to his nose. He sniffed briefly and let Ben's hand fall again. 'Pelikan glue. You don't get rid of that almond smell so easily. Take care you don't get a thrashing, kid.' Ben made off. Next time he'd use UHU. The acetone dispersed at once.

'Got any Yanks?' asked a young girl. In spite of the heat she was wearing a quilted Russian jacket over her thin summer dress, and white socks below bare legs. She was fourteen at the most, but her pale face beneath the red hair reflected the experience of centuries. Ben showed her the packet. 'Over there.' The girl went ahead, into a ruined building. Ben followed, but stayed on his guard in case she had a boyfriend lurking there.

Weeds grew in the yard of the ruin. A rat scuttled away among chunks of rubble. The girl stopped, turned, and raised her skirt. The pubic hair on her little mount of Venus was bright red in the sun. 'Want to fuck? Or shall I give you a blow job? You can have ten minutes for four Yankee fags.' Ben silently shook his head.

Outside the ruins of the Wertheim department store a thin woman was hanging about in a threadbare but once elegant tailored suit, her bony cheeks slightly rouged. Her eyes greedily devoured the packet Ben showed her.

'Three hundred and fifty Allimarks,' he said, opening negotiations.

'Too much.'

'Three hundred.'

She opened her handbag, took out a couple of notes and offered the to him with nicotine-stained fingers. 'I'll give you two hundred and fifty.' She spoke educated, standard German and was obviously repelled by the bargaining.

'Two hundred and fifty, OK.' Ben took the money, gave her the packet and made his getaway. On the steps down to the U-Bahn he looked round. The woman had torn the packet open. Its contents fluttered to the ground. Disappointed, she picked up one of the snippets of paper and read the New Testament words. She laughed soundlessly. Her laughter turned to a dry cough.

Ben had found an old gentlemen's magazine in his grandparents' attic, with a picture of a man with a moustache in the English style and a firm jaw wearing an immaculate. Prince of Wales check, double-breasted suit. He kept the picture in his hiding place behind one of the rafters, along with a notebook with a black oilcloth cover where he recorded the sums he had made from his fake packets of Chesterfield, Lucky Strike and Philip Morris cigarettes. He always took the money straight to Heidi's father, Rodel the master tailor in Ithweg. Today's two hundred and fifty marks were another step on his way to becoming an arbiter of elegance. The trouble was, he couldn't let himself be seen in Potsdamer Platz too often, so the instalments were mounting up slowly. As things stood at present, he wouldn't get the shoes and suit for less than fifteen thousand marks, so Ben was trying to think of other sources of income.

Perhaps he could make something out of Mr Brubaker. Mr Brubaker was an American, and for that very reason, in Ben's opinion, rather nutty. Ben had known him since he'd found him hopelessly lost, and showed him the way to the Harnack House. Where he came from, Clarence P. Brubaker was what they called a 'nice guy'. He was no great intellectual luminary, but his father owned the Hackensack Herald, which supported the Democrats and thus the new President Harry S. Truman. The newspaper proprietor sometimes played piano duets with Truman.