Garden of Beasts (23 page)

Käthe was wearing a black dress that would have satisfied even fashion goddess Marion in Manhattan. Close fitting, made from a shimmery material, a daring slit up the side and tiny sleeves that barely covered her shoulders. The garment smelled faintly of mothballs. She seemed slightly ill at ease, embarrassed almost to be wearing such a stylish gown, as if all she’d worn recently were housedresses. But her eyes shone and he had the same thought as earlier: how a subdued beauty and passion radiated from within her, wholly negating the matte skin and the bony knuckles and pale complexion, the furrowed brow.

As for Paul, his hair was still dark with lotion but was now combed differently. (And when they went out, it would be hidden by a hat very different from his brown Stetson: a dark, broad-brimmed trilby he’d purchased that afternoon after leaving Morgan.) He was wearing a navy blue linen double-breasted suit and a silver tie over his white Arrow shirt. At the department store where he’d bought the hat he’d also picked up more makeup to cover the bruise and cut. He’d discarded the sticking plaster.

Käthe picked up the book of poems, which she’d left in his room to go change, and flipped through the pages. “This is one of my favorites. It’s called ‘Proximity of the Beloved One.’” She read it aloud.

I think of you when upon the sea the sun flings her beams.

I think of you when the moonlight shines in silvery streams.

I see you when upon the distant hills the dust awakes;

At night when on a fragile bridge the traveler quakes.

I hear you when the billows rise on high,

With murmur deep.

To tread the silent grove where wander I,

When all’s asleep.

She read in a low voice and Paul could picture her up in front of a classroom, her students spellbound by her obvious love of the words.

Käthe laughed and looked up with bright eyes. “This is very kind of you.” She then took the book in both strong hands and ripped the leather binding off. This part she threw into the trash bin.

He stared at her, frowning.

She smiled sadly. “I will keep the poems but should dispose of the portion that shows most obviously the title and the poet’s name. That way a visitor or guest will not accidentally see who wrote it and won’t be tempted to turn me in. What a time we live in! And I will leave it in your room for now. Best not to carry some things with you on the streets, even a naked book. Now, let’s go out!” she said with girlish excitement. She switched to English as she said, “I want to do the town. That is what you say, is it not?”

“Yep. Do the town. Where do you want to go?… But I’ve got two requirements.”

“Please?”

“First, I’m hungry and I eat a lot. And, second, I’d like to see your famous Wilhelm Street.”

Her face again went still for a moment. “Ach, the seat of our government.”

He supposed that, being someone persecuted by the National Socialists, she would not enjoy that particular sight. Yet he needed to find the best location for touching off Ernst, and he knew that a man by himself was always far more suspicious than one with a woman on his arm. This had been Reggie Morgan’s second mission today—not only had he looked into Otto Webber’s past but he’d gotten the wire on Käthe Richter too. She had indeed been fired from a teaching job and had been marked down as an intellectual and a pacifist. There was no evidence that she’d ever informed for the National Socialists.

Now, watching her gaze at the poetry book, he felt pangs of guilt about employing her in this way, but he consoled himself with the thought that she was no fan of the Nazis, and by helping him in this unwitting way she’d be doing her part to stop the war Hitler was planning.

She said, “Yes, of course. I will show you. And for your first requirement I have just the restaurant in mind. You will like it.” She added with a mysterious smile, “It’s just the place for people like you and me.”

You and me…

He wondered what she meant.

They walked out into the warm evening. He was amused to note that as they took the first step toward the sidewalk both their heads swiveled from side to side, looking to see if anyone was watching.

As they walked, they spoke about the neighborhood, the weather, the shortages, the Inflation. About her family: Her parents had passed away and she had one sister, who lived in nearby Spandau with her husband and four children. She asked him about his life too, but the cautious button man gave vague answers and continually steered the conversation back to her.

Wilhelm Street was too far to walk to, she explained. Paul knew this, recalling the map. He was still cautious about taxis but, as it turned out, none was available; this was the weekend before the Olympics began and people were pouring into town. Käthe suggested a double-decker bus. They climbed aboard the vehicle and walked up to the top deck, where they sat close together on the spotless leather seat. Paul looked around carefully but could see no one paying particular attention to them (though he half-expected to see the two policemen who’d been tracking him all day, the heavy cop in the off-white suit, the lean one in green).

The bus swayed as they drove through the Brandenburg Gate, narrowly missing the stone sides, and many of the passengers gave a gasp of humorous alarm, like on the roller coaster at Coney Island; he supposed the reaction was a Berlin tradition.

Käthe pulled the rope and they disembarked on Under the Lindens at Wilhelm Street, then walked south along the wide avenue that was the center of the Nazi government. It was nondescript, with monolithic gray office buildings on either side. Clean and antiseptic, the street exuded an unsettling power. Paul had seen pictures of the White House and Congress. They seemed picturesque and amiable. Here the facades and tiny windows of the rows upon rows of stone and concrete buildings were forbidding.

And, more to the point tonight, they were heavily guarded. He’d never seen such security.

“Where’s the Chancellory?” he asked.

“There.” Käthe pointed toward an old, ornate building with a scaffolding covering much of the front.

Paul was discouraged. His quick eyes took in the place. Armed guards in front. Dozens of SS and what appeared to be regular soldiers were patrolling the street, stopping people and asking for papers. On the tops of the buildings were other troops, armed with guns. There must have been a hundred uniformed men nearby. It would be virtually impossible to find a shooting position. And even if he were able to, there was no doubt that he’d be captured or killed trying to get away.

He slowed. “I think I’ve seen enough.” He eyed several large, black-uniformed men demanding papers from two men on the sidewalk.

“Not as picturesque as you’d expected?” She laughed and started to say something—perhaps “I told you so,” but then thought better of it. “If you have more time, don’t worry; I can show you many parts of our city that are quite beautiful. Now, shall we go to dinner?” she asked.

“Yes, let’s.”

She directed him back to a tram stop on Under the Lindens. They got aboard and rode for a brief while then climbed off at her direction.

Käthe asked what he’d thought of Berlin so far in his short time here. Paul again gave some innocuous answers and turned the conversation back to her. He asked, “Are you going with anyone?”

“‘Going’?”

He’d translated literally. “I mean romantically involved.”

Straightforward, she answered, “Most recently I had a lover. We no longer are together. But he still owns much of my heart.”

“What does he do?” he asked.

“A reporter. Like you.”

“I’m not really a reporter. I write stories and hope to sell them. Human interest, we’d say.”

“And you write about politics?”

“Politics? No. Sports.”

“Sports.” Her voice was dismissive.

“You don’t like sports?”

“I am sorry to say I dislike sports.”

“Why?”

“Because there are so many important questions facing us, not just here, but everywhere in the world. Sports are… well, they’re frivolous.”

Paul replied, “So is strolling down the streets of Berlin on a nice summer evening. But we’re doing it.”

“Ach,” Käthe said testily. “The sole point of education in Germany now is to build strong bodies, not minds. Our boys, they play war games, they march everywhere. Did you hear we’ve started conscription?”

Paul recalled that Bull Gordon had described the new German military draft to him. But he said, “No.”

“One out of three boys fails because they have flat feet from all the marching they do at school. It’s a disgrace.”

“Well, you can overdo anything,” he pointed out. “I enjoy sports.”

“Yes, you seem athletic. Do you body-build?”

“Some. Mostly I box.”

“Box? You mean the sort where you hit other people?”

He laughed. “That’s the only kind of boxing there is.”

“Barbaric.”

“It can be—if you let your guard down.”

“You joke,” she said. “But how can you encourage people to strike each other?”

“I couldn’t really tell you. But I like it. It’s fun.”

“Fun,” she scoffed.

“Yeah, fun,” he said, growing angry too. “Life’s hard. Sometimes you need to hold on to something fun, when the rest of the world is turning to shit around you…. Why don’t you go to a boxing match sometime? Go see Max Schmeling. Drink some beer, yell till you’re hoarse. You might enjoy it.”

“Kakfif,”
she said bluntly.

“What?”

“Kakfif,”
Käthe repeated. “It’s a shortening for ‘Completely out of the question.’”

“Suit yourself.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I’m a pacifist, as I was telling you today. All my friends in Berlin are pacifists. We don’t combine the idea of fun with hurting people.”

“I don’t walk around like a Stormtrooper and beat up the innocent. The guys I spar with? They want to do it.”

“You encourage causing pain.”

“No, I
discourage
people from hitting me. That’s what sparring is.”

“Like children,” she muttered. “You’re like children.”

“You don’t understand.”

“And why do you say that? Because I’m a woman?” she snapped.

“Maybe. Yeah, maybe that’s it.”

“I’m not stupid.”

“I’m not talking about intelligence. I only mean that women aren’t inclined to fight.”

“We aren’t inclined to be the
aggressor.
We will fight to protect our homes.”

“Sometimes the wolf isn’t
in
your home. Don’t you go out and kill him first?”

“No.”

“You ignore him and hope he goes away?”

“Yes. Exactly. And you teach him he doesn’t need to be destructive.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Paul said. “You can’t talk a wolf into being a sheep.”

“But I think you can if you wish to,” she said. “And if you work hard at it. Too many men don’t want that, however. They
want
to fight. They
want
to destroy because it gives them pleasure.” Dense silence between them for a long moment. Then, her voice softening, she said, “Ach, Paul, please forgive me. Here you are, being my companion, doing the town with me. Which I haven’t done for so many months. And I repay you by being like a shrew. Are American women shrews like me?”

“Some are, some aren’t. Not that you
are
one.”

“I’m a difficult person to be with. You have to understand, Paul—many women in Berlin are this way. We have to be. After the War there were no men left in the country. We had to become men and be as hard as they. I apologize.”

“Don’t. I enjoy arguing. It’s just another way of sparring.”

“Ach, sparring! And me a pacifist!” She gave a girlish laugh.

“What would your friends say?”

“What indeed?” she said and took his arm as they crossed the street.

Chapter Eighteen

Even though he was a “lukewarm”—politically neutral, not a member of the Party—Willi Kohl enjoyed certain privileges reserved for devout National Socialists.

One of these was that when a senior Kripo official had moved to Munich, Kohl had been offered the chance to take his large four-bedroom apartment in a pristine, linden-lined cul-de-sac off Berliner Street near Charlottenburg. Berlin had had a serious housing shortage since the War and most Kripo inspectors, even many at his level, were relegated to boxy, nondescript folk-apartments, thrown together in boxy, nondescript neighborhoods.

Kohl wasn’t quite sure why he’d been so rewarded. Most likely because he was always ready to help fellow officers analyze crime scene information, make deductions from the evidence or interview a witness or suspect. Kohl knew that the most invaluable man in any job is the one who can make his colleagues—and superiors especially—appear invaluable as well.

These rooms were his sanctuary. They were as private as his workplace was public and were populated by those closest to his heart: his wife and children and, on occasion (sleeping always in the parlor, of course), Charlotte’s fiancé, Heinrich.

The apartment was on the second floor and as he walked, wincing, up the stairs, he could make out the smells of onions and meat. Heidi kept to no schedule in preparing her food. Some of Kohl’s colleagues would solemnly declare Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays, for instance, to be State Loyalty Meat-free Days. The Kohl household, at least seven strong, went without meat often, owing to scarcity as well as cost, but Heidi refused to be bound by a ritual. This Saturday night they might have aubergine with bacon in cream sauce or kidney pudding or sauerbraten or even an Italian-style dish of pasta with tomatoes. Always a sweet, of course. Willi Kohl liked his linzertorte and strudel.

Wheezing from the walk up the stairs, he opened the door just as eleven-year-old Hanna raced to him. Every inch the little blonde Nordic maid, despite her parents’ brown hair, she wrapped her arms around the large man. “Papa! Can I carry your pipe for you?”

He fished out the meerschaum for her. She carried it to the rack in the den where dozens of others sat.

“I’m home,” he called.

Heidi stepped into the doorway and kissed her husband on both cheeks. A few years younger than he, she’d become round over the course of their marriage, developing a smooth extra chin and huge bosom, adding pounds with each child. But this was as it should be; Kohl felt you should grow both in soul and in girth with your partner. Five children had earned her a certificate from the Party. (Women with more offspring had higher accolades; producing nine children won you a gold star. Indeed, a couple with fewer than four offspring were not allowed to call themselves a “family.”) But Heidi had angrily stuffed the parchment into the bottom of her bureau. She had children because she enjoyed them, enjoyed everything about them— giving them life, raising them, directing their course—not because the Little Man wished to swell the population of his Third Empire.

His wife vanished then returned a moment later, bearing a snifter of schnapps. She let him have only one glass of the potent drink before dinner. He grumbled about the rationing occasionally but he secretly welcomed it. He knew far too many policemen who didn’t stop with the second glass. Or second bottle.

He said hello to Hilde, his seventeen-year-old, lost as always in a book. She rose and hugged him and then returned to the divan. The willowy girl was the family scholar. But she’d been having a difficult time lately. Goebbels himself said that a woman’s sole purpose was to be beautiful and populate the Third Empire. The universities were largely closed to girls now, and those admitted were limited to two courses of study: domestic science (which earned what was contemptuously called the “pudding degree”) or education. Hilde, however, wished to study mathematics and science and ultimately become a university professor. But she would be allowed to teach only lower grades. Kohl believed both of his older daughters were equally smart but learning came more easily to Hilde than to vivacious and athletic Charlotte, four years older. He was often amazed at how he and Heidi had produced such similar and yet vastly different human beings.

The inspector walked out onto his small balcony, where he would sometimes sit and smoke his pipe late at night. It faced west and now he gazed at the fierce red-and-orange clouds, lit by the vanished sun. He took a small sip of the harsh schnapps. The second was kinder and he sat down comfortably in his chair, trying hard not to think about fat, dead men, about the tragic deaths in Gatow and Charlottenburg, about Pietr—forgive me,
Peter
—Krauss, about the mysterious churning of the DeHoMags in the basement of the Kripo. Trying not to think about their clever Manny’s New York suspect.

Who are you?

A clamor from the front hall. The boys were returning. Feet thudded powerfully on the stairs. Younger Herman was first through the doorway, swinging it shut on Günter, who blocked the door and started for a tackle. They then noticed their father, and the wrestling match ceased.

“Papa!” Herman cried and hugged his father. Günter lifted his head in greeting. The sixteen-year-old had stopped hugging his parents exactly eighteen months ago. Kohl supposed sons had behaved according to that schedule since the days of Otto I, if not forever.

“You will wash before dinner,” Heidi called.

“But we swam. We went to the Wilhelm Marr Street pool.”

“Then,” their father added, “you will wash the swimming water off of you.”

“What are we having for supper, Mutti?” Herman asked.

“The sooner you bathe,” she announced, “the sooner you’ll find out.”

They charged off down the corridor, teenage-calamity-in-motion.

A few moments later Heinrich arrived with Charlotte. Kohl liked the fellow (he would never have let a daughter marry someone he did not respect). But the handsome blond man’s fascination with police matters prompted him to query Kohl enthusiastically and at length about recent cases. Normally the inspector enjoyed this but the last thing he wanted tonight was to talk about his day. Kohl brought up the Olympics—a sure conversation deflector. Everyone had heard different rumors about the teams, favorite athletes, the many nations represented.

Soon they were seated at the table in the dining room. Kohl opened two bottles of Saar-Ruwer wine and poured some for everyone, including small amounts for the children. The conversation, as always in the Kohl household, went in many different directions. This was one of the inspector’s favorite times of the day. Being with those you loved… and being able to speak freely. As they talked and laughed and argued, Kohl looked from face to face. His eyes were quick, listening to voices, observing gestures and expressions. One might think he did this automatically because of his years as a policeman. But in fact, no. He made his observations and drew his conclusions because this was an aspect of parenthood. Tonight he noted one thing that troubled him but filed it away in his mind, the way he might a key clue from a crime scene.

Dinner was over relatively early, in about an hour; the heat had dampened everyone’s appetite, except Kohl’s and his sons’. Heinrich suggested card games. But Kohl shook his head. “Not for me. I will smoke,” he announced. “And soak my feet, I think. Please, Günter, you will bring a kettle of hot water.”

“Yes, Father.”

Kohl fetched his foot-soaking pan and the salts. He dropped into his leather chair in the den, the very chair his father had sat in after a long day working in the fields, charged a pipe and lit it. A few minutes later his oldest son walked into the room, easily carrying the steaming kettle, which must have weighed ten kilos, in one hand. He filled the basin. Kohl rolled up his cuffs, removed his socks and, avoiding looking at the gnarled bunions and yellow calluses, eased his feet into the hot water and poured in some salts.

“Ach, yes.”

The boy turned to go but Kohl said, “Günter, wait a moment.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Sit down.”

The boy did, cautious, and set the kettle on the floor. In his eyes was a flash of adolescent guilt. Kohl wondered, with amusement, what transgressions were fluttering through his son’s mind. A cigarette, a bit of schnapps, some fumbling exploration of young Lisa Wagner’s undergarments?

“Günter, what is the matter? Something was bothering you at dinner. I could see it.”

“Nothing, Father.”

“Nothing?”

“No.”

In a soft but firm voice Willi Kohl now said, “You will tell me.”

The boy examined the floor. Finally he said, “School will start soon.”

“Not for a month.”

“Still… I was hoping, Father. Can I be transferred to a different one?”

“But why? The Hindenburg School is one of the best in the city. Headmaster Muntz is very respected.”

“Please.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know. I just dislike it.”

“Your grades are good. Your teachers say you are a fine student.”

The boy said nothing.

“Is it something other than your lessons?”

“I don’t know.”

What could it be?

Günter shrugged. “Please, can’t I just go to a different school until December?”

“Why then?”

The boy wouldn’t answer and avoided his father’s eyes.

“Tell me,” Kohl said kindly.

“Because…”

“Go on.”

“Because in December everyone must join the Hitler Youth. And now… well, you won’t let me.”

Ah, this again. A recurring problem. But was this new information true? Would Hitler Youth be mandatory? A frightening thought. After the National Socialists came to power they folded all of Germany’s many youth groups into the Hitler Youth and the others were outlawed. Kohl believed in children’s organizations—he’d been in swimming and hiking clubs in his teen years and loved them—but the Hitler Youth was nothing more than a pre-army military training organization, manned and operated, no less, by the youngsters themselves, and the more rabidly National Socialist the junior leaders, the better.

“And now you wish to join?”

“I don’t know. Everyone makes fun of me because I’m not a member. At the football game today, Helmut Gruber was there. He’s our Hitler Youth leader. He said I better join soon.”

“But you can’t be the only one who isn’t a member.”

“More join every day,” Günter replied. “Those of us who aren’t members are all treated badly. When we play Aryans and Jews in the school yard, I’m always a Jew.”

“
What
do you play?” Kohl frowned. He had never heard of this.

“You know, Father, the game Aryans and Jews. They chase us. They aren’t supposed to hurt us—Doctor-professor Klindst says they aren’t. It’s supposed to be tag only. But when he isn’t looking they push us down.”

“You’re a strong boy and I’ve taught you how to defend yourself. Do you push them back?”

“Sometimes, yes. But there are many more who play the Aryans.”

“Well, I’m afraid you can’t go to another school,” Kohl said.

Günter looked at the cloud of pipe smoke rising to the ceiling. His eyes brightened. “Maybe I could denounce someone. Maybe then they’d let me play on the Aryan side.”

Kohl frowned. Denunciation: another National Socialist plague. He said firmly to his son, “You will denounce no one. They would go to jail. They could be tortured. Or killed.”

Günter frowned at his father’s reaction. “But I would only denounce a Jew, Father.”

His hands trembling, heart pounding, Kohl was at a loss for words. Forcing himself to be calm, he finally asked, “You would denounce a Jew for no reason?”

His son seemed confused. “Of course not. I would denounce him because he
is
a Jew. I was thinking… Helen Morrell’s father works at Karstadt department store. His boss is a Jew but he tells everyone he’s not. He
should
be denounced.”

Kohl took a deep breath and, weighing his words like a rationing butcher, said, “Son, we live in a very difficult time now. It is very confusing. It’s confusing to me and it must be far more confusing to you. The one thing that you must always remember—but never must say out loud—is that a man decides for himself what is right and wrong. He knows this from what he sees about life, about how people live and act together, how he feels. He knows in his heart what is good and bad.”

“But Jews
are
bad. They wouldn’t teach us that in school if it weren’t true.”

Kohl’s soul shivered in rage and pain to hear this. “You will not denounce anyone, Günter,” he said sternly. “That is my wish.”

“All right, Father,” the boy said, walking away.

“Günter,” Kohl said.

The boy paused at the door.

“How many in your school have not joined the Youth?”

“I can’t say, Father. But more join every day. Soon there won’t be anyone left to play the Jew but me.”

The restaurant that Käthe had in mind was the Lutter and Wegner wine bar, which, she explained, was well over a hundred years old and an institution in Berlin. The rooms were dark, smoky and intimate. And the place was devoid of Brownshirts, SS and suited men wearing red armbands with the hooked, surely-you-know cross.

“I brought you here because, as I said, it used to be the haunt of people like you and me.”

“You and me?”

“Yes. Bohemians. Pacifists, thinkers, and, like you, writers.”

“Ah, writers. Yes.”

“E.T.A. Hoffmann would find inspiration here. He drank copious champagne, whole bottles of it! And would then write all night. You’ve read him, of course.”

Paul hadn’t. He nodded yes.

“Can you think of a better writer of the German romantic era? I can’t.
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King
—so much darker and more real than what Tchaikovsky did with it. That ballet is pure puff, don’t you think?”

“Definitely,” Paul agreed. He thought he’d seen it one Christmas as a boy. He wished he’d read the book so he could discuss it intelligently. How he enjoyed simply talking with her. As they sipped their cocktails, he reflected on the “sparring” he’d done with Käthe on the walk here. He’d meant what he’d said about arguing with her. It was exhilarating. He didn’t think he’d had a disagreement with Marion in all the months they’d gone out. He couldn’t even remember her getting angry. Sometimes a new stocking would run and she’d let go with a “darn” or “damnation.” Then she’d press her fingers to her mouth, like the prelude to blowing someone a kiss—and apologize for cussing.