Rosa (30 page)

“How did you get my name?” Kepner was being cautious.

“A clerk at KaDeWe.”

Kepner nodded knowingly. “Taubmann.”

“He was explaining the
point tude
when your name came up.” Hoffner saw the slight lift in Kepner’s eyes. “I have a rendering of a single design which I’m hoping you’ll examine.”

“A
point tude.
You know how rare these things are?”

“Yes.”

“And I shouldn’t ask why this is important, should I?”

“No,
mein Herr.
You shouldn’t.”

Again, Kepner took a moment. A Jew this old knew to leave it at that. “I can look at this for you, now,” he said. “But I can’t work on it for you. You understand.” Hoffner shook his head. “Not until after sundown tomorrow.”

For the second time in the last few minutes, Hoffner felt foolish. He was smarter than that. Of course not until after sundown. He hated appearing the amateur. He said, “I’ll need your word that this evidence will remain in your possession at all times. That you will tell no one about it. That you will show it to no one.”

Kepner remained stone-faced. “You don’t need my word, Herr Inspector. You see how I live.”

Hoffner felt another twinge of conscience; this time, however, he was unsure if it was because he should have known better, or because he knew only too well. Did Kepner actually believe that his place was so secured that his life could speak for itself? Could a Jew grow that comfortable in Berlin? Hoffner had no answer. He reached into his coat pocket and produced Wouters’s design. Kepner pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket and took the page. He began to examine it. His expression remained unchanged.

“Crude,” said Kepner. “But yes. This is a design for a
point tude.
” He removed the glasses. “I can’t tell you which specific design it is. I will need more time for that.” He folded the page and placed it in his jacket pocket. “But you knew as much before coming to me.”

“I was hoping.”

“Yes,” said Kepner guardedly. “I don’t suspect that your hopes are ever that far off, Herr Inspector.” Hoffner said nothing as Kepner studied him. “A Kripoman who apologizes for intruding on a Sabbath dinner. Now, that’s a rarity, isn’t it?” Kepner was not expecting an answer as he began to get to his feet. “I will do what I can for you, Herr Inspector. You will give me a telephone number, and we will talk tomorrow.” The two men stood.

A minute later, Hoffner was at the door with Fichte. Brenner had moved them on as quickly as he could. He watched them all the way down the stone path.

O
ut on the street, Fichte was the first to break the silence. “Bit of a cold fish, don’t you think, that Brenner? I suppose Kepner was the same?”

“No,” said Hoffner. “He wasn’t.”

“Oh.” Fichte seemed disappointed by the response. “Took me through the whole thing, Brenner did. I’d never heard about a Jewish ritual before.”

Hoffner continued to walk. “It’s just a meal, Hans.”

“The servants turning the lights on and off for them. And all done in Jewish—”

“Hebrew,” Hoffner corrected. “They speak in Hebrew.”

“Right.” Too pleased with himself, Fichte continued, “I’ll tell you, he was surprised I had so many questions.”

Hoffner said blandly, “Or maybe he was just surprised that you needed to ask them.”

The subtlety was lost on Fichte. He asked, “Did the old Jew have what we wanted?”

Hoffner found himself slowing. He stopped and stood there, deciding whether he wanted to take Fichte down this road. Fichte had stopped, as well. Not exactly sure why, Hoffner turned to him and said, “Herr Kepner has offered to bring his expertise to our case, Hans.” He spoke with no emotion. “What have you brought to it, so far?”

The sting of the comment took a moment to register. When it did, Fichte’s surprise quickly gave way to a look of injured pride. “I don’t know,” he said icily. “I suppose nothing at all, Herr
Kriminal-Kommissar.
”

Hoffner had no interest in stroking Fichte’s ego. He started to walk. “Don’t overstate it, Hans.”

Fichte was at a complete loss. He had no idea what had just gone so terribly wrong. He caught up and pretended as if nothing had happened; it was the best he could come up with. “Did Herr Kepner think he could help us?”

“We’ll know by tomorrow,” said Hoffner. They reached a cab stand and stopped. “You want me to drop you somewhere?” It was a hollow offer.

“We’re done for the night?”

Hoffner had spent the better part of the morning digging up what he could on Leo Jogiches—his possible K—but it had all been preliminary. He now considered taking another crack at the man, but he was tired. He needed a night away from all of this. “I am,” he said. “You’re welcome to head back to the Alex, run through the files by yourself, Hans, but that’s up to you.”

“You’re sure?” Fichte was still trying to wrap his mind around the last few minutes.

Hoffner explained. “There’s nothing we can do until we hear from Kepner. That’s it.” And with an unkind finality, he added, “I’m sure you can fill the time with your Lina.”

Fichte had reached the limits of his confusion. “Look,” he said, trying to make things right, “I’m sorry if I offended you—”

“Offended me?” Hoffner cut in. “You didn’t offend me, Hans.” Not true, but not the point. “You just have to be smarter than that, that’s all.” Hoffner decided to make this very simple. “You want to think that way, go right ahead. Not my business. What is, is how you look at a case, and in a case, that kind of thinking only gets in the way. You don’t see what you need to see. You see only what you already believe, and that helps no one. In another line of work, it wouldn’t matter. But to do what we do—at least to do it well—you can’t narrow the scope. Any kind of preconception, no matter how innocent you may think it is, muddies the view. Yes, Kepner is an old Jew, but that’s not what he is to us.”

Hoffner almost believed what he had said. A detective’s cold rationale had always been his best defense for an open mind. He knew it went deeper than that, but neither he nor Fichte could afford to dig that far. Moral indignation had never been Hoffner’s strong suit.

Fichte waited before answering. “Yes,” he said: something had struck a chord. “I appreciate the advice. And, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

Hoffner heard the sincerity in the boy’s voice. Maybe he had said too much. “Go see your Lina, Hans. Take the day. Be at the Alex by three.”

Things were all right again. Fichte nodded and then turned and headed down the street. If he was lucky, he would be on Friedrichstrasse by half past eight: he would have an entire evening with her.

Hoffner called over a cab. He imagined Hans in Lina’s arms as he stepped inside. Another act of contrition. Hoffner was becoming quite adept at them.

THE MASTER DRAFT

Sascha had been sulking for the last hour. There had been the promise of an outing with friends after school—someone had mentioned horseback riding in the Tiergarten—but Martha had insisted he be home for lunch with her sisters: another Saturday afternoon with the spinsters. Sascha had never understood why he had to be punished for their failures; his father had always wondered the same thing. So, in their last hour of freedom, father and son had snuck out to the kiosk on the corner, Hoffner to assess the damage Herr Braun had wrought, Sascha to check on yesterday’s rally results.

The
Tageblatt
had set the tone. Pasted across its front page, alongside a photograph of the American President—triumphant before an adoring Paris crowd—was an artist’s rendering of Berlin’s latest “chisel murder” victim. At least the editors there had had the decency to keep her relatively well clothed; Mr. Wilson was, after all, a modest man. The
Lokalanzeiger,
on the other hand, had offered her up with a bare back and a bit of thigh showing. Obviously, Ullstein was hedging its bets: if horror failed, then perhaps titillation would move the papers off the stands.

Naturally, the one name that had appeared over and over throughout each of the articles was that of Detective Inspector Nikolai Hoffner. Herr Braun, no surprise, had managed to maintain the elusive title of “Polpo source.” Hoffner was glad to see Sascha too busy with his results to take any notice.

A second item—lower down on the page—had also caught Hoffner’s eye. They were burying Karl Liebknecht today at the Friedrichsfelde cemetery. An empty coffin for Rosa was to be buried by his side. Hoffner could only imagine the throngs that would be following behind: the papers were estimating crowds in the thousands. Such was Rosa’s continuing hold on Berlin: even absent from her own funeral, she was the day’s central attraction.

A week ago, Hoffner would have given the article only a glance. Now there was a human side to it, with poetry and self-doubt and loneliness and a parasol, and somehow Hoffner felt as if these were his alone. Even so, he knew there was something safe in indulging the personal with a woman alive only on paper. He would have to be more careful elsewhere.

Back at the flat, Martha’s sisters showed no signs that they had seen any of the articles. The size of their appetites, along with the vacuousness of their conversation, told Hoffner as much.

“Fascinating,” he said, as he helped himself to another serving of cold potatoes. Martha had saved up a good bit of the cream from the week; the potatoes stuck to one another like clumps of packed snow. It was his favorite dish.

Gisella, Martha’s eldest sister, nodded. She was large and square, and wore wool even in the summer—the result, Hoffner guessed, of sixteen years confined to a secretary’s desk in a lawyer’s office. “It’s going to be a busy time once this new government starts changing the law books,” she said. “I can tell you that.”

Georgi kept a toy plane by his plate. It was reserved for emergencies only. He picked it up and took it out for a short flight under the tablecloth. His other aunt, Eva, watched him with delight. She was not so large, and very soft. A nurse in a dentist’s surgery, she had impeccably white teeth. As a little boy, Georgi had been frightened by her smile.

“Look how graceful he is,” said Eva as she beamed.

“Up on the table,” said Martha quietly. Georgi brought the plane up for a final approach, and then landed it by his plate. He smiled at Eva.

“I hear this new government might not last,” said Sascha, who was seated by his father. The boy was brazen enough to say it, though not yet sure enough of himself to look up from his plate when he did.

“That’s quite a statement,” said Gisella. Her entire torso shook when she laughed. “Do we have a young politico in the family?”

“Sascha has no taste for the socialists,” said Hoffner. He licked at his spoon. “Even the democratic kind.”

Gisella tilted her square head at the boy. “You could do a lot worse, Alexander.” Like all good aunts, she never forgot what he liked to be called. “It’s an exciting time to be young.”

Sascha nodded quietly. He felt the starch in his collar grate against his neck.

The conversation might have droned on and on—with a few more test flights before dessert—had the telephone not interrupted: Sascha and Georgi perked up; Martha looked to Nikolai for guidance; Gisella and Eva simply looked confused.

Hoffner stood. “I’m expecting a call,” he said. “About a case.” This managed to settle the table. Of course, the call was meant for after sundown—and back at the Alex—but maybe Herr Kepner had grown impatient, so impatient that he had tracked down the telephone number to the flat.
Points tudes
were rare things, after all. Hoffner excused himself and moved through to the living room.

“Hoffner here,” he said when he picked up.

Sadly, Kepner had not been so resourceful: it was the duty sergeant at the Alex. The man apologized for the intrusion. They had found another body, number seven, this one just west of the Tiergarten. Hoffner listened to the details, then hung up.

The zoo, he thought. Over five kilometers from any of the other murder sites. And just a day after Herr Braun’s press briefing. How convenient.

Hoffner considered phoning Fichte, but knew that would be pointless. A call to Lina’s would be equally ill-advised. He was about to start back to the dining room when he saw Sascha standing in the doorway.