Every Man Dies Alone (41 page)

“This is the one!” whispers the concierge.

“You stand here, so that she can see you through the peephole,” the Inspector whispers back.

“Now give a reason why you’ve come up, pigfood for the NSV or the Winter Relief Fund.”
^*

“Done!” says the concierge, and he rings the bell.

Nothing happens, and the concierge rings again, and a third time. All is quiet within.

“Not at home?” whispers the Inspector.

“I doubt it!” says the porter. “I haven’t seen her go out all day.” And he rings a fourth time.

Suddenly, without the two men hearing a sound within, the door opens. A tall, bony woman stands in front of them. She is wearing baggy, faded tracksuit trousers, and a canary yellow jersey with red buttons. She has a thin, sharp face, splotched with red, as the faces of consumptives often are. Also, she has that feverish gleam in her eyes.

“What is it?” she asks curtly, and betrays no shock when the Inspector plants himself in the doorway, so that the door can’t be closed.

“I’d like a few words with you if I may, Fräulein Schönlein. I’m from the Gestapo. Escherich is my name.”

Again, no sign of shock; the woman continues to look at him with her fevered eyes. Then quickly she says: “Come in!” and leads the way into her flat.

“You stay by the door!” the Inspector whispers to the concierge. “If anyone tries to get in or out, shout!”

The room in which the Inspector now finds himself is a little messy and dusty. Ancient velvet upholstery with carved pilasters and ball and claw feet from the last century. Velvet curtains. An easel with the picture of a bearded man on it, a blown up color photograph. There’s cigarette smoke in the air, a few butts in an ashtray.

“What is it?” repeats Fräulein Schönlein.

She’s standing by the table, hasn’t offered the Inspector a seat.

The Inspector sits down anyway, takes a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, and gestures at the picture. “Who’s that of?” he asks.

“My father,” says the woman. And again she asks: “What is it?”

“I had some questions I wanted to ask you, Fräulein Schönlein,” says the Inspector, and offers her a cigarette. “Sit down, have a cigarette!”

The woman says quickly: “I never smoke!”

“One, two, three, four,” Escherich counts the stubs in the ashtray. “And the room smells smoky. Have you got visitors, Fräulein Schönlein?”

She looked at him calmly, without panic. “I never admit to smoking,” she said, “my doctor has forbidden me to smoke on account of my lung.”

“So you don’t have any visitors?”

“I don’t have any visitors.”

“I’ll just take a quick look around your flat,” says the Inspector, and gets up. “No, please don’t trouble. I’ll find my own way round.”

He walked quickly through the other two rooms packed with sofas, cabinets, wardrobes, armchairs and gilt. Once, he stopped to listen, his face up to a wardrobe, smiling. Then he returned to Fräulein Schönlein. She was still standing as he had left her, by the table.

“It has been reported to me,” he said, sitting down again, “that you receive plenty of visitors, visitors who tend to stay with you for two or three nights, but are never registered. Are you aware of your obligation to register visitors?”

“Almost all my visitors are nephews and nieces, who never stay with me for more than two nights. So far as I know, I’m not obliged to register visitors for under four nights.”

“You must have a very large family, Fräulein Schönlein,” said the Inspector gravely. “Almost every night you have one, two, even three people camping here with you.”

“That’s a gross exaggeration. In point of fact, I do have a very large family. Six siblings, all of them married with children.”

“And some dignified old ladies and gentlemen among your nephews and nieces!”

“Naturally, their parents call on me once in a while as well.”

“A very large family, and very fond of traveling… By the way, something else I’d been meaning to ask you: Where do you keep your radio, Fräulein Schönlein? I didn’t see one on my rounds just now.” She pressed her lips together: “I don’t own a radio.”

“Of course not!” said the Inspector. “Of course not. Just as you’ll never admit that you smoke cigarettes. At least radio music does no harm to the lungs.”

“No, just the political orientation,” she said ironically. “No, I don’t own a radio. If music has been heard playing in my apartment, it’s from the portable gramophone on the shelf behind you.”

“Which has been heard to speak in foreign languages,” added the Inspector.

“I own many foreign dance records. I don’t think it’s a crime to play them on occasion to my visitors, even in wartime.”

“You mean, to your nephews and nieces? No, surely that’s not a crime.”

He stood up, thrust his hands in his pockets. Suddenly he wasn’t speaking teasingly, he said brutally: “What do you think will happen, Fräulein Schönlein, if I arrest you, and leave an agent in your place? He would welcome your visitors, and scrutinize the papers of those nephews and nieces of yours. It could be one of your visitors could even come bearing gifts—say, a radio! What do you say?”

“I say,” replied Fräulein Schönlein coolly, “that you came here with the intention of arresting me, so it doesn’t really matter what I say. Let’s go! I suppose you’ll allow me to slip on a dress for these tracksuit bottoms?”

“Not so fast! Of course, it’s to your credit that your first thought should be to free the gentleman hiding in your closet before we leave. Even a moment ago, when I was walking around your bedroom, he seemed to be suffering from shortage of breath. I daresay the mothballs in the closet…”

The red splotches were gone from her face. She was white as a sheet as she stared at him.

He shook his head. “Dear, oh dear!” he said with mock disapproval. “You do make it so terribly easy for us! And you’d like to be conspirators? You’re trying to bring down the state with your childish games? The only people you’ll bring down are yourselves!”

Still she stared at him. Her mouth was tight shut, her eyes had a feverish gleam, her hand was still on the doorknob.

“Well, you’re in luck, Fräulein Schönlein,” the Inspector continued, in a tone of easy, contemptuous superiority, “inasmuch as you’re of no interest to me, not tonight anyway. All I’m interested in is the man in your closet. It could be that, once I consider your case more narrowly back in my office, I may feel obliged to pass on a report about you to the appropriate authorities. As I say, it could be, I’m not sure yet. Perhaps at the given time, your case will seem too trivial—not least in view of your state of health…”

Suddenly it burst from her: “I don’t want your mercy! I hate your pity! My case is not trivial! Yes, I regularly put up political victims here in my flat! I have listened to foreign radio stations! There, now you know! Now you can’t spare me any more—regardless of my lungs!”

“Now now, old girl!” he said mockingly, looking almost pityingly at the strangely old maidish figure in her tracksuit bottoms and yellow jersey with the red buttons. “It’s not just your lungs, it’s your nerves that are shot! Half an hour’s interrogation from us, and you’d be surprised what a whimpering wreck we’ll have reduced you to! It’s a very unpleasant thing to experience. Some people never get over it, they just string themselves up.”

He looked at her once more, nodded gravely. Contemptuously he said: “And those are the kind of people who like to call themselves conspirators!”

She flinched, as though struck by a whip, but said nothing in reply.

“But in the course of our nice conversation we’re forgetting all about the visitor in the closet,” he carried on. “You’d better come along, Fräulein Schönlein! Unless we spring him soon, it’ll be all up with him!”

Enno Kluge really was close to suffocation when Escherich dragged him out of the closet. The Inspector laid the little fellow on the chaise longue, and moved his arms up and down a few times, to help start him breathing again.

“And now,” he said, and looked at the woman, who was standing silently in the middle of the room, “and now, Fräulein Schönlein, I suggest you leave me and Herr Kluge alone for a quarter hour or so.
It’s probably best you sit in the kitchen, where you won’t be able to snoop!”

“I’m not a snoop!”

“No no, just as you never smoke cigarettes, and only play dance records to the edification of your nieces and nephews! Come on, go and sit in the kitchen. I’ll call you when I need you!”

He nodded to her once more, and saw that she really did go into the kitchen. Then he turned his attention to Herr Kluge, who was now sitting up on the sofa, training his colorless eyes fearfully on the Inspector. Already, the tears were beginning to trickle down his cheeks.

“Well now, Herr Kluge,” said the Inspector soothingly. “Are those tears of joy at this unexpected reunion with your old friend Escherich? Did you miss me very much? To tell the truth, I’ve missed you too, and I’m very glad I’ve run into you again. But I don’t think anything will come between us now, Herr Kluge!”

Enno’s tears poured down his cheeks. He gulped back a sob: “Oh, Inspector, you promised to let me go!”

“And didn’t I do just that?” asked the Inspector in surprise. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t take you back if I find I can’t do without you. What if I have a new statement for you to sign, Herr Kluge? As my good friend, you surely wouldn’t refuse me such a small favor, would you?”

Enno trembled under the level stare of those mocking eyes. He knew the eyes would draw everything out of him, he would blab, and then one way or another he was lost for evermore…

*
NSV: “Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt,” literally, Nazi Public Welfare, an organization partly funded by the Winter Relief Fund.

Chapter 32

ESCHERICH AND KLUGE TAKE A WALK

It was already completely dark when Inspector Escherich left the garden house on Ansbacher Strasse in the company of Enno Kluge. No, in spite of her pulmonary condition, the Inspector had not been able to view the case of Fräulein Anna Schönlein as venial. That old maid really seemed in the habit of putting up criminals quite indiscriminately—or even purposely—without even knowing their story. With Enno Kluge, for instance, she hadn’t even asked his name; she had agreed to hide him merely because a friend of hers had brought him along.

He would also have to take a closer look at Frau Haberle. These Germans were a disgrace! With the greatest war in history being waged to assure them of a happy future, they persisted in their ingratitude. There was a bad smell wherever you stuck your nose. Inspector Escherich was firmly convinced that he would find a knot of secrecy and deceit in well-nigh every German home. Almost no one had a clean conscience—of course with the exception of Party members. And he knew better than to institute the sort of search he had conducted at Fräulein Schönlein’s at any Party member’s home.

Well, at least he had put the concierge in charge of the flat. He seemed a reliable fellow, Party member by the way; he should remember to get him some small well-paid job. That kept people like him on
their toes, and sharpened their eyesight and hearing. Stick and carrot, that was the way to go.

The Inspector, arm in arm with Enno Kluge, makes for the poster pillar behind which Borkhausen is waiting. Borkhausen isn’t at all keen to see his erstwhile partner; to avoid meeting him, he sidles round the pillar. But the Inspector changes direction and catches him, and Emil and Enno confront one another.

“Evening, Enno!” says Borkhausen, and puts out a hand.

Kluge won’t shake. A bit of indignation stirs even in this pathetic creature. He hates Borkhausen, who talked him into that break-in that earned them nothing but blows, who made thousands from blackmail this morning, and who has still betrayed him now.

“Inspector,” says Kluge excitedly, “did Borkhausen not tell you that he blackmailed my friend Frau Haberle for two thousand five hundred marks this morning? He promised to let me go in return, but now…”

The Inspector was only going to Borkhausen to give him his money and pack him off home. But now he leaves the little wad of notes in his pocket, and listens in amusement as Borkhausen replies coarsely: “And didn’t I let you go, Enno? If you go and get yourself caught again right away like the bloody fool you are, that’s no fault of mine. I kept my promise.”

The Inspector says: “Well, we can talk about that some other time, Borkhausen. But for now, you should go home.”

“First I want my money, Inspector,” demands Borkhausen. “You promised me five hundred smackers if I hand Enno over to you. You’ve got him, let’s see your money!”

“You don’t get paid twice for the same work, Borkhausen!’ says the Inspector. “You’ve already had two thousand five hundred!”

“But I haven’t got it!” Borkhausen almost screams back. “She transferred it to the post office in Munich, to try and get me out of the way!”

“Clever woman!” says the Inspector admiringly. “Or was that your idea, Herr Kluge?”

“He’s lying again!” Enno shouts bitterly. “Only two thousand were sent to Munich. Five hundred, more than five hundred, were paid out to him in cash. Look in his pockets, Inspector!”