Every Man Dies Alone (35 page)

She lies there perfectly quietly. She summons all her strength so as not to give in, not to weaken in the face of her own heart and all the begging outside! She remains true to her resolve no longer to live with him.

At breakfast, the two sit facing one another with pale, weary faces. They barely speak. They don’t refer to their dispute.

But he understands now, she thinks, and even if he doesn’t go looking for a room today, he’ll have to leave my house tomorrow at the latest. I’ll tell him one more time, tomorrow at lunchtime: We must separate!

It’s true, Hetty Haberle is a courageous and decent woman. And the fact that she doesn’t put her resolution into effect, doesn’t put out her Enno, is no fault of hers, but the fault of other people, people she has yet to meet. Inspector Escherich, for example, and Emil Borkhausen.

*
Horst Wessel was a minor Nazi activist murdered in 1930 in a dispute over back rent or politics—it was never determined. Nevertheless the Nazis made him a martyr, and a song he wrote—”Die Fahne hoch,” or “Raise high the flag”—was renamed the Horst Wessel Song and made into the official song of the Nazi Party.

Chapter 27

EMIL BORKHAUSEN MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL

While Enno Kluge and Frau Haberle were linking their destinies, however temporarily, Inspector Escherich had been through some rough times. He had declined to keep it secret from his superior Prall that Enno Kluge had promptly shaken off his shadows and disappeared without trace in the sea of the metropolis.

Inspector Escherich had meekly allowed all the abuse to rain down on him: he was an idiot, he was an incompetent, he should be locked up, the dunderhead who in almost a year hadn’t even managed to catch a stupid anonymous postcard writer!

And then, once he had a lead, he let the fellow go, imbecile that he was! Truly, Inspector Escherich had aided and abetted treason, and that was the basis on which they would proceed against him if he failed to produce Enno Kluge to Obergruppenführer Prall within the week.

Inspector Escherich listened meekly to these attacks. But they had a strange effect on him nevertheless: even though he knew perfectly well that Enno Kluge didn’t have anything to do with the postcards and was unable to help him take a single step toward the apprehension of the real culprit, in spite of that the inspector’s interests were suddenly almost exclusively concentrated on the insignificant little Enno Kluge. It was too annoying that this insect he had meant to
hold up to his superiors as a distraction had now slipped through his fingers. During these weeks the Hobgoblin had been especially busy: three of his postcards had wound up on the inspector’s desk. But for the first time since he had joined the case, Escherich took not the least interest in the postcards or their author. He even forgot to flag the sites where they were found on his map of Berlin.

No, as a matter of urgency he had to lay hands on Enno Kluge again, and Inspector Escherich went to unusual lengths to get his man. He even traveled out to Ruppin, to Eva Kluge, prepared for all eventualities with a warrant for her arrest and his. But he saw pretty quickly that the woman had nothing to do with the man and knew very little of the life he’d led over the past few years.

What she did know she told the inspector, neither especially willingly nor exactly reluctantly, more with utter indifference. The woman didn’t care one way or another what had happened to her husband, what he had done or not done. The inspector learned the names of two or three bars where Enno Kluge had once been a regular, he heard of his love of betting and got the address of one Tutti Hebekreuz, who had sent a letter to the flat once. The letter had accused Enno Kluge of having stolen money and ration cards from her. No, on the last occasion she had seen him, Frau Kluge had neither given him the letter nor mentioned it to him. Only the address had stuck in her head; as a postwoman, or former postwoman, she had a keen eye for addresses.

Armed with this new knowledge, Inspector Escherich returned to Berlin. True to his principle of asking questions but not answering any, of never passing on information, he had not told Eva Kluge of the process against her in Berlin. So he didn’t come back with much, but it was a start, a sniff of a lead—and he was able to show Prall that he was doing something, not just sitting on his hands. That was all his superiors really cared about: something had to be done, even if it was the wrong thing, as the whole pursuit of Kluge was wrong. It was the waiting around that the gentlemen couldn’t endure.

Inquiries at Tutti Hebekreuz’s were unsuccessful. She had met Kluge in a cafe, and she knew where he worked as well. Once he had stayed in her flat for two weeks, yes, that was the case, and she had written to complain to him about the missing money and ration cards. But he had managed to clear that up on a later visit; it was another subtenant who had done that.

Then he had disappeared again without a word to her: some other woman, doubtless, that was Enno’s way. No, of course
she
had
never been linked to him romantically in any way. No, she had no idea where he had moved to. But it wouldn’t be anywhere in the area, otherwise she would surely have heard about it.

In the two bars, he was known under the name Enno, yes indeed. He hadn’t been seen for a long time, no, but he did drop in from time to time. Yes, Inspector, we’ll not tell him you asked after him. We are law-abiding publicans who only serve respectable people who are interested in the sport of kings. We’ll let you know the moment he comes in. Heil Hitler to you too, Inspector!

Inspector Escherich assigned ten men to go around all the pubs and bookies’ premises in the north and east of Berlin, to keep asking about Enno Kluge. And while Escherich waited for their inquiries to bear fruit, the second bizarre thing happened: it no longer seemed to him out of the question that Enno Kluge might have something to do with the postcards after all. Too many curious coincidences clustered round the fellow: the postcard found at the doctor’s, for a start, and then the wife being first a Nazi, and then requesting to leave the Party, presumably because the son in the SS had done something she didn’t approve of. Perhaps Enno Kluge was much more cunning than the inspector had thought, perhaps he was involved in other affairs than simply these postcards. There was something he was trying to live down, that seemed almost certain.

This was confirmed by Deputy Inspector Schröder, with whom the inspector talked the whole case through in detail in order to refresh his own memory. Deputy Inspector Schröder also had the feeling there was something not quite right about Kluge, that he was sitting on something. Well, they would see, something was bound to come up soon. The inspector had a feeling, and his feelings rarely deceived him in matters like this.

And this time they really didn’t deceive him. During those days of anxiety and irritation, it happened that the inspector was told one Borkhausen desired to speak to him.

Borkhausen? Inspector Escherich wondered to himself. Borkhausen? Who the hell is Borkhausen again? Ah, I remember, that little snitch that would sell his mother for eight pfennigs.

Then, aloud, “Show him in!” But as soon as Borkhausen came in, he greeted him with the words “If this is about the Persickes again, I don’t want you here!”

Borkhausen eyed the Inspector truculently and said nothing. He gave every impression of wanting to speak about just that.

“Well, then!” said the Inspector. “Why are you still here, Borkhausen?”

“Persicke’s took the radio off that Rosenthal woman, Inspector,” he said reproachfully. “I know it for a fact, I’ve been…”

“Rosenthal?” asked Escherich. “The old Jewish woman who jumped out of the window in Jablonski Strasse?”

“That’s exactly right!” confirmed Borkhausen. “And he stole her radio—that is, she was already dead, but he went in her flat…”

“Let me tell you something, Borkhausen,” said Escherich. “I’ve discussed this case with Inspector Rusch. If you don’t stop agitating against the Persickes, we’re going to haul you over the coals. We don’t want to hear one more word about that business, and least of all from you! You are the very last person who ought to be poking around in that business, Borkhausen!”

“But he stole her radio…” Borkhausen began again with that stubborn persistence that comes of blind hatred. “I can prove it…”

“Get out, Borkhausen, or I’ll have you arrested and carted down to the basement!”

“Then I’ll go to the police headquarters on the Alex!” said Borkhausen, offended. “The law’s the law, and theft is breaking it…”

But Escherich had moved on to something else, namely his Hobgoblin case, which these days preoccupied him. He had stopped listening to this idiot. “Tell me, Borkhausen,” he said, “you know a lot of people and you go to pubs a lot. Have you ever come across a certain Enno Kluge?”

Borkhausen, sensing business, said a little truculently: “I know someone called Enno. I don’t know if his other name’s Kluge or not. I always thought Enno was his last name.”

“Small man, slight build, pale, quiet, shy?”

“Could be the same man, Inspector.”

“Light-colored coat, checkered brown cap?”

“That’s my man.”

“Always sniffing around women?”

“I wouldn’t know about women. Where I saw him, you don’t get many women.”

“Likes to play the ponies—“

“That’s right, Inspector.”

“Favorite bars: the Also Ran and Starter’s Orders?”

“The self same man, Inspector! Your Enno Kluge must be my Enno!”

“I want you to find him for me, Borkhausen! Drop that stupid Persicke stuff; that’ll only land you in concentration camp if you pursue it! Find me Enno Kluge instead!”

“But what would you want with him, Inspector!” exclaimed Borkhausen. “He’s a real tiddler. Pathetic little squirt! What would you trouble yourself over such an idiot for, Inspector?”

“Never you mind, Borkhausen! If you help me land Enno Kluge, there’s five hundred marks in it for you!”

“Five hundred marks, Inspector! Ten Ennos ain’t worth that! You must be making a mistake!”

“Well, maybe I am and maybe I’m not, but that needn’t concern you either way, Borkhausen. You’ll get your five hundred.”

“Well, if you say so, Inspector, then I’ll see if I can’t get hold of Enno for you. But is it okay if I just point him out to you? I don’t have to bring him in, do I? I don’t like to talk to people like that…”

“I wonder what you two got up to together! You’re not usually so sensitive as that, Borkhausen! I’d guess you got into some mischief together in the past, and you’re trying to forget it. Well, I won’t meddle with painful memories. Off you go, Borkhausen, and find me Kluge!”

“Might I ask the inspector for a little advance first? No, not so much an advance,” Borkhausen corrected himself, “as some cash toward my expenses.”

“What expenses, Borkhausen? That sounds like a challenging proposition to me.”

“Well, I’ll need to ride around on the subway, and spend time in various establishments, and stand a round here and a pint there, you know, and it all costs money, Inspector! But I think fifty marks ought to cover it!”

“Of course, any time the great Borkhausen goes out, everyone’s just waiting to see the color of his money! I’ll give you ten, and now scram! Do you think I’ve got nothing better to do than talk to you all day?”

In fact, Borkhausen did think precisely that: that an Inspector had nothing better to do than pump people for information and get them to do his work for him. But he carefully declined to say so. Indeed, as he made his way to the door, he said, “But if I find Kluge for you, then you’ve got to help me with the Persickes. Those guys made me angry…”

With a single bound, Escherich was after him, seized him by the shoulder, and held his fist under his nose.

“Do you see this?” he screamed at him furiously. “Sniff on that, you tosser! One more peep out of you about the Persickes and you’ll be on your way down to the basement, and I don’t care if all the Enno Kluges in the world are still at large!”

And he drove his knee into the other man’s rump, sending him careering down the hallway like a cannonball. And as Borkhausen happened to have been discharged in the direction of an SS adjutant, he received a second powerful kick…

The noise of these successive detonations had alerted two more SS sentries by the stairs. They caught hold of the still staggering Borkhausen and slung him down the stairs like a sack of potatoes, tumbling over and over.

And when Borkhausen got to the bottom and lay there stunned and bleeding, the next sentry grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and screamed, “You think you can dirty our nice floor here, you pig!” dragged him to the exit, and heaved him out into the street.

Inspector Escherich witnessed Borkhausen’s progress with satisfaction, until the stairs blocked his view.

The passersby on Prinz Albrecht Strasse studiously avoided looking at the man sprawling in the dirt, because they knew perfectly well the dangerous nature of the premises he had been thrown out of. It might already be accounted a crime to gaze at someone like that sympathetically, and you certainly couldn’t think of helping them. The sentry, though, emerging from the exit with a heavy tread, said, “Listen, pig, if you’re still disfiguring our entrance in three minutes, then I’ll give you a personal escort you won’t forget in a hurry!”