Children of Wrath (7 page)

He could recall a day women wouldn’t dare show so much as an ankle here. He could recall being here with his parents to celebrate the turn of the century when he was five years old … his mother coming up those very steps, holding her skirt off the floor, the ostrich feathers in her hat practically dusting the ceiling. His father with white gloves, gray spats, and a jaunty bowler tilted over one eye. What a different Berlin it had been back then. The Kaiser Reich. Everything so much more proscribed and rigid … yet safer feeling somehow too. If only falsely.

Now Berlin spun like a mad carousel ride. Potsdamer Platz was still the center, and Café Josty still the center of the center. But it all ran at such an accelerating tempo, the city sometimes felt ready to fly right off its axis.

Willi’s eyes roamed out the window. Through the double panes of glass you could take in the whole famous intersection below, in all its turbulent postwar frenzy—and not have to hear a thing. Like a silent movie. A futuristic epic. Amid flashing neon and giant billboards, all the major routes binding Berlin-Center to its western districts converged right here, forming a virtual vortex, sucking in vehicles, throngs of people, tangling them up and then shooting them out again. In the center, a five-sided iron tower bearing Europe’s first electric traffic signals—like a sentinel over the mayhem—streams of cyclists and long, yellow streetcars rushing around it, double-decker buses plastered with advertisements. People pouring in and out of Potsdamer station, one of Berlin’s busiest. Or through the doors of one of the grand hotels: the Esplanade, the Palast, the Furstenhof. Around the corner, the giant Wertheim department store, with its glass-roofed atrium and eighty-three elevators. And down the block, a stunning new office tower rising in glass and steel, curved to follow the shape of the street. Potsdamer Platz was leaping toward tomorrow.

According to the traffic bureau, twenty thousand autos squeezed through this intersection daily, almost all of them German-made: Audis, Opels, BMWs, Horchs, Hansas, Daimler-Benzes, Mercedes. The heart of Berlin pounded perpetually. Not many places on this earth churned with the tempo, the drive, of this one.

Willi’s neck stiffened slightly. A long black sports car like a rocket ship was careening through the traffic below, cutting off cars and trucks alike. Perhaps it should have come as no surprise. As big as this city was, in some respects it was still a small town, and not many Mercedes SSKs were on its streets. Still, he couldn’t help but get a jolt at the unmistakable reflection of Dr. von Hessler’s silver eye patch behind the wheel.

“Looks like you’ve seen the devil.”

Willi jumped.

It was Fritz, finally sitting down across from him in a three-piece suit, with a trilby hat, and walking stick, his thin blond mustache tilted to one side.

“Perhaps I have. You’re forty minutes late,
Mensch
.”

“Grisly traffic.”

“Your dear old friend managed to barrel his way through. What’d he do, drive a tank in the war?”

“Which dear old friend?” Fritz slumped in the chair and began pulling off his gloves, one finger at a time. “I have so many.”

“Von Hessler.”

“Oh, him. Mad as a hatter. Always has been. Last time I saw him, he was convinced he was on the road to altering the course of human history. I do kind of hope he’s onto something, actually.” Fritz tossed his gloves on the table. “We might need it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Hey … before I forget, I’m instructed to remind you: Vicki really is sorry about New Year’s Eve. We always take the kids out to her parents that night, and, well—”

Fritz smiled regretfully. “Sylvie’s crushed, but she’ll get over it. After all, it’s no ordinary New Year’s Eve.” The corners of his lips twisted. “It’ll be a whole new decade. And from what I gather”—his mustache shifted precipitously—“very likely the last happy days for a while.”

“What’s with all the thunderbolts of doom, Jeremiah?”

“Sorry. Just came from a big press conference at the Ministry of Commerce. It’s pretty damned serious. A number of key foreign loans have been canceled.”

Willi waited for more, but that was all.

He didn’t get it.

It wasn’t simply that he was no genius regarding the mechanisms of economics, but 1929 had been a year of such spectacular growth, such euphoric prosperity almost, it seemed impossible to grasp that something as arcane as foreign loans could cause that look in Fritz’s eyes. After the truly terrible years of the war and the revolution and the Great Inflation, this past half decade was a godsend. The economy booming. Wages skyrocketing. Unemployment down to nothing. What they’d read about the stock market in New York of course was terrible. The days of crazy speculation obviously at an end. But it was hard to believe a few foreign loans …

“You’re quite wrong.” Fritz’s gloom was implacable. “Germany’s as dependant on foreign capital as a junkie, Willi. American capital to be precise. Far more than most Germans have the least inkling. You simply can’t imagine the kind of money that’s been wiped out. This was no garden-variety collapse. The bottom’s given way. Which means no more investments. No more loans. No more orders for goods. Brace yourself, friend. It’s going to be a real downslide.”

*   *   *

Willi hung on to the pole as the streetcar swayed along busy Leipziger Strasse. Twilight had fallen and the holiday lights cast a golden haze on Berlin’s main shopping drag. Judging from the crowds overflowing the sidewalks, jostling in and out of the shops and department stores, the spectacular show windows brimming with fur coats, fine jewelry, watches, leather goods, the most advanced cameras, the best toys, it seemed hard to believe Fritz hadn’t fallen prey to a bit of ministerial propaganda. There had been real angst in his voice.

Or perhaps he and Sylvie were at it again.

When the streetcar rattled across the river, a near full moon hanging high over the city, the glinting domes of the Police Presidium in the distance brought back the more compelling mystery of those bones. Their grim images seemed to reflect in the rippling water below: femurs tied up like long-stemmed roses. Finger and toe bones, one after the next, linked almost like … sausages. How could he not have heard anything more about it? He didn’t expect to be taken into Freksa’s confidence—but total silence at unit meetings? And what about the newspapers? This was exactly the sort of thing the Berlin press went haywire over.
Bone arrangements! Human thread!
Five weeks, though, and not a word. Since when did Freksa shy away from headlines? Perhaps he hadn’t gotten anywhere on the case. Or perhaps he had something up his—

The whole train of thought screeched to a halt.

On the far side of the Spree his attention was derailed by a small sign out front of a church …
LECTURE TODAY, FIVE P.M… THE REVEREND H. P. BRAUNSCHWEIG
. The topic sent a tremor through him. He checked his watch: just past five now. He shouldn’t, he knew. The case being Freksa’s. But perhaps, as his grandmother used to say, it was
beschert
—meant to be. Yanking a bell for the tram to stop, he jumped off. What else could he do? Total Depravity.

The Spandauer Strasse Evangelical Church was not much larger than a chapel. A dozen or so people filled its wooden pews, all focused on the tall, gray figure at the pulpit, who watched Willi enter.

“It should not be mistaken”—the reverend’s gray eyes followed as Willi removed his hat and took a seat in the back row—“that Total Depravity, or Total Corruption, or even, as some call it, Total Inability, means that people are completely evil. Oh, no. That would be looking at the issue quite backwards. Total Depravity is not an accusation. On the contrary: it is an affirmation. A spiritual underlining of God’s glory.”

It’s hot as hell in here, Willi thought, unbuttoning his coat.

“In Ephesians two, one to three, the Bible tells us, ‘And you were dead in the trespasses in which you once walked … carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath.’”

That phrase again. It shot through Willi’s body. The gray gaze seemed to fix on him, as if the reverend knew precisely why Willi had entered those doors.

“What this passage means is not that people are evil, but that people are not capable of loving God as God wants to be loved. People’s fundamental instincts lead them to be selfish, to ignore God. But without God, even the good a person tries to do is corrupt. Only God can overcome man’s inability, his total depravity. It is through divine grace that children of glory can be fashioned from children of wrath.”

Willi’s cheeks burned.

He waited until the last parishioners had exited, then walked up to the pulpit. The reverend was gathering papers. When he saw Willi, he cocked his gray head, squinting curiously. “You’re new here.” He seemed to be trying to peer into Willi’s soul. “Have you been drawn to us? Did something I say touch you?”

Normally Willi preferred being ethical with people. But when solving crime was the name of the game, deception was often a valuable tactic. Rather than unveil his badge, he sensed he might get further with this chap by stroking the ego a bit.

“Very perceptive of you, Reverend. Yes. I’ve come face-to-face with a truly horrifying evil. When I spotted your billboard, I was drawn to see if you could help me understand. It’s incomprehensible to me that human beings, with so much love and kindness and desire to do good, can be, as you put it, so … depraved.”

“What’s your name, dear fellow?”

“Willi.”

“Willi. Come to my study, won’t you? Join me in a glass. I always need a little sustenance after my lectures. They take so much out of me.”

Slapping Willi’s shoulder, he led him into a sparse apartment behind the chapel. “People aren’t as depraved as they could be.” He motioned Willi to sit. “Everyone has a little good in him.” He poured them each some peppermint schnapps. “You can’t deny that.” He clinked Willi’s glass and smiled before downing his in a single gulp.

Willi partook in a little sip, as long as he had nothing particular to do at the office.

“But even though they’re not entirely corrupt”—the reverend coughed, knitting his gray brows—“what corruption they have extends to every part of them, and everything they do. Consider this.” He pointed at the bottle.

“Most delicious by the way.” Willi was grateful for the minty warmth flowing through his chest suddenly. Quite a wallop. He took a longer sip.

“Just my point. Add a single drop of cyanide, though—and we’d both be dead.” The reverend smiled sadly. “Because even though the bottle isn’t filled with it, that single corruption spreads to every part. Catch the analogy? People may not be
completely
evil, but the original evil they’re born with extends to everything they do. That’s what’s meant by Total Depravity.”

That Willi declined a second drink didn’t stop the reverend from pouring himself one. “Might it not be possible, though”—Willi watched him dump it down his throat again in one long gulp—“that some people have no goodness at all. That they really are
totally
depraved?”

The reverend pounded his chest several times and blinked at him. “I don’t get what you’re driving at.”

Willi was suddenly feeling the schnapps too, surprised by how strongly it was blanketing his brain.

“For instance, those who commit violent crimes.”

“You mean, like Cain and Abel—”

“I mean, Reverend Braunschweig, today, right here in Berlin—someone’s murdering little boys.” He hadn’t exactly planned to blurt that out, but liquor always made him loose-tongued. “Boiling their bones and using their dried muscle to bind them together into bizarre—”

He halted, seeing he’d pushed too far, too fast. The reverend was losing color. All that warmth in Willi’s heart transformed into trepidation. He was out of bounds here, he realized. If word ever reached headquarters he was trespassing on Freksa’s case, it wouldn’t be pretty. But screw it, he thought. The schnapps may have started it, but he’d be damned if he was going to stop now.

Besides, Freksa’d never follow this lead.

“Reverend, is there anyone you can think of, in your congregation, or at your lectures, or who showed any interest at all in the topic of Total Depravity who might be capable of such a—”

The reverend went white with confusion. Willi realized he’d left out the part about the Bible in the burlap bag, the circled passage from Ephesians:
children of wrath
. But it was too late. Braunschweig suddenly looked as if he feared the murderous maniac might be Willi himself.

“Reverend, I’m Sergeant-Detektiv Kraus, Berlin Kriminal Polizei.” He belatedly revealed his badge.

“A cop?” Braunschweig reeled as if he’d been hit by brimstone. “How dare you deceive me like that? Pretend you were here for spiritual guidance! And not even a Christian.” Color returned, bolting through his cheeks. “The moment you walked in, I thought, what’s this Jew doing here? Now I see. A most underhanded way of approaching an investigation, I must say.” His gray brows knit with indignation. “Perhaps that’s all one can expect from you people.”

“I might remind you it’s illegal to withhold information from the criminal police. Except, of course, in the case of the clergy. So I can’t order you to talk. Nor will I attempt to amend your beliefs about what to expect from me or ‘my people.’ But I do assure you little boys are being murdered in this city, Reverend. And that a very sick individual is on the—”

“Get out.” Braunschweig all but spit.

Willi picked up his hat. “Okay then.” He shrugged. “Thanks for the schnapps.”

As he reached the door, though, Braunschweig suddenly changed tunes.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake … I really didn’t mean that, Detektiv.”

Willi paused.

“You caught me off guard is all. You oughtn’t surprise a guy like that. Stay for another drink, Sergeant. Sit.”

The man, Willi saw, had something on his tongue.

The reverend quickly downed another schnapps, then another.

“I sure as hell don’t know anyone who’d fit the bill of horrors you just presented, but I can tell you this.” He looked at Willi, coughing, bleary-eyed but definitely aching to spill something. “Every congregation has its nuts. Over the years I’ve seen my fair share, believe me.” He took a moment to glance outside as if they were all there again, lined up outside his window. “Normally I pay no attention once they’re gone, but in this case…” He turned to Willi. “Several have joined what sounds like something straight out of a tawdry novel, only it’s not. It’s all too real.” His bushy eyebrows arched dramatically. “A satanic love cult. Yes, it’s true!” He leaned forward. “And the things that go on there, I’ve been told.” He had to steady himself on the table. “With children too.” His speech was slurring.