The Informer (10 page)

G
aelle woke in her small apartment and swung her feet onto the floor. Bruises, in the shape of fingertips, were on her thighs and arms, the yellowish green color like a leaf in the fall. She stood in front of the mirror and turned to the side. There were more bruises on her hips. Then she dressed in comfortable clothes that covered the marks and went downstairs and across the street to the park where women took their children to play. A child of three, with blond hair who was wearing a white shirt and brown pants with matching suspenders, came over to the bench where Gaelle sat and played a game of sticks, which turned into marking the sandy path (a river, an island, a foreign country) and then he put out his hands to her to play pat-a-cake, one hit here, on hit there, the touch of his small hands on Gaelle’s having a power that was out of all proportion to the moment. He didn’t notice the scar, but when she pulled up the sleeve of her shirt to play pat-a-cake, he said, “You got a boo.” “Yes,” she said. “I guess I do.” He went back to patting her hands, first one and then another, and finally his mother came along and took him away, frowning once at Gaelle. “Don’t you know better than to frighten children?” she said. Then Gaelle sat on the bench with the marks in the sandy path at her feet, the childish river, the island, the foreign country. The voices of other children who played here came and went with the cadence of birds, their laughter light and almost infectious. Gaelle touched the bruises on her arm and remembered the yellow-leaf quality of those on the inside of her thigh. She decided to go to a bar not far away, a place where she waited in the back for a man who brought opium and morphine from the East. For a moment Gaelle imagined that the boy’s map, the one in the sand, was of Afghanistan. She came out of the park and turned down the avenue.

Aksel leaned against a kiosk on which there were posters for political meetings, advertisements for a cabaret, a picture of a woman in fishnet stockings who winked over her shoulder. He shifted his weight as he kept his eye on her apartment house door, although just when she came out of the park, he turned in her direction.

He wore his white shirt, dark pants, and he had on a coat, too, a brown one that came down below his knees. He looked one way and another and then approached her.

He was taller than she remembered, and he walked next to her with a slight swagger, and as she went along, she felt the lingering buzz of the child’s hand and the sting of the accusation that she had frightened him. The boy hadn’t noticed her face, and it was only with children at this age that she could be herself. Now, still hearing the mother’s words, she turned to this Aksel character. Who did he think he was? Someone to push her around? To accuse her? As though the scar were something she had done wrong? Did he want to make use of her? To have some fun with? Go on, she thought, make your pitch. Maybe I’ll show you a trick. The touch of the child’s hand lingered, and with that galling sense of accusation, she looked up at Aksel and then right up the street. She didn’t know if it was worth letting him have it. Maybe it was better to go to the bar to meet her friend who went to Afghanistan.

She walked a little faster.

“Hey,” he said. “Don’t be like that. Wait a minute.” It was a cool afternoon, and one of her cheeks was pink, her hair filled with highlights, her lips full. “I’m busy now,” she said.

“Look,” he said. “I just want to talk things over.”

“What do you want to talk about?” she said.

“Well, I don’t know. I just want to talk,” he said.

“Sometimes I feel that way. So what?” she said.

“Do you? A young girl like you?” he said.

“I’m not so young,” she said.

He looked around.

“I’ve been thinking about you. All the time,” he said.

“You?” she said. “Aren’t you interested in perfection? Girls with perfect
skin, beautiful hair, long legs, pink cheeks. Classic. Isn’t that the word you would use?”

“I just want to talk,” he said. “I can’t explain it.”

“Oh,” she said. “It’s the forbidden part, isn’t it. Well, take a look.”

“Don’t be like that,” he said.

“Go on,” she said. “Look if you dare….”

They walked along Unter den Linden up to the Lustgarten, where they climbed the steps of the Altes Museum. Inside they stood in the temple of the Roman gods, the statues of which were arranged in a circle, the messengers, the gods themselves, all on columns. The place had a scent of old stone and dampness, too, as though some essence of the Nile exhibits in the next room lingered around the gods. Gaelle and Aksel sat on a stone bench at the side of the temple, their hips almost touching. Well, she thought, it’s too easy with this one. She’d make him pay for the mother’s accusation. No one should speak to her like that.

“So, why would you want anything to do with a damaged woman? Isn’t that the way you’d think of me?” she said.

She turned the scar to him.

“It doesn’t bother me,” he said. “There’s something in it. Something beautiful.”

They looked at the gods and heard the distant and muted sound of people walking in the museum, the echoes suggesting the passage of time and the way distant events lingered.

“You can talk to me,” he said. “You really can.”

“Just think what your pals will do to me when they get the chance. You know, when they win. With your ideas of perfection. Hmmm. I bet they’d ship people like me to someplace far away.”

“Look,” he said. “You and I are more alike than you think.”

“All right,” she said. “Let’s put it to the test. Are you ready?”

“Me?” he said. “What kind of test?”

“Make me trust you,” she said. “Show me you aren’t just getting a cheap thrill out of me. That’s what a lot of men do.”

“I’m not like that,” he said.

“Oh,” she said. “You’re different? How many times do you think I’ve heard that?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

The stone gods put off a damp scent.

“This is a hard city to be alone in,” he said.

“You think I’m worried about that?” she said. “Why I’ve got all kinds of friends.”

She faced him and looked from one of his eyes to the other.

“How can I get you to trust me?” he said.

“Tell me something that is dangerous to talk about.”

“It means so much to you?” he said.

“I want you to prove this doesn’t bother you,” she said. She touched her face. “To get you to prove you aren’t laughing at me. Or using me. I want something from you.”

“You go first,” he said.

“Why should I?” she said.

“It’s a two-way street,” he said.

She swallowed. And yet, in the moment, she had the desire to be honest.

“I keep making mistakes.” She blinked. “That’s the truth.”

They sat quietly in the room of the old, dead gods. He kissed her on her neck and eyes and she moved toward him, into a beam of light that came from the front door of the temple. Then she put her fingers into his hair and pulled him closer. He trembled.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll make you trust me. I’m not afraid.”

She smiled to herself and looked at the gods.

“Something dangerous now. That’s the only thing that means anything.”

He leaned back, out of the light. Then he turned back to her. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he said.

She nodded, her upturned, slick face in the beam of light that came into the temple.

“We have someone in the Soviet embassy, an employee. He’s a German, but he works for the Soviets. He tells us everything about the Red Front. How much money they get from Moscow, what they are going to do, where they are going to demonstrate. Then we wait for them. Like shooting fish in a barrel. Why we even know where they are keeping guns.”

She swallowed and looked around.

“You didn’t expect a real secret, did you?”

“No,” she said.

“Nothing so big, right?” he said.

“What’s the name of the man who’s doing this?” she said.

“Hans Breiter,” he said. “I’ll even give you his address. Ahnsdorf Strasse. Number fourteen.”

Now, as she sat there, she knew that he had put his life in her hands, and as she realized the power of that, she felt warm, more certain, a little happier, but suddenly more afraid, as though she had something she thought she had wanted, but now that she had it, she wasn’t so sure. Still, underneath it all, she remembered the way he had kissed her, the weight of the sun as it had come into the circle of gods.

He took her hand.

“Let’s just sit here for a moment. I never thought people felt like this,” he said.

The scent of the old stone of the gods surrounded them and the miasma of it was a damp smell that Gaelle thought must be the wake that time left behind. Then she put her head back and let the sunlight hit the scar: it was a warm, living caress that felt like hope itself. She had something to work with.

G
aelle sat with Mani against the wall of the main room of the Red Front’s restaurant. She spoke and gestured with her hands, obviously pleading a case. She had made a mistake on the train, that was true, but this was something real, and it was proof that she was up to it, that she could be trusted. That she was needed. She hadn’t given up on proving herself and she wasn’t a coward, not damaged goods, whose father was a banker. It was up to Mani to see things clearly.

Mani pursed his lips, as though considering something for sale, and then went back to looking at her with that steady evaluation. Usually, he thought, they lasted a little longer than this and they didn’t start hanging around with the thugs quite so fast, either. She took out a piece of paper on which she had written: “Hans Breiter. Ahnsdorf Strasse. Number 14.” Then she held it, offering it as evidence of how useful she really was.

The white walls had faded to a cream color from cigarettes and the smoke that came from the fireplace at the side of the room. The ceiling fixture made a cone of light that ended in a circle on the floor. Men sat at tables in groups of two or three, all dressed in heavy pants and coats, large shoes, their thick hands holding a glass of beer or rubbing a face as they waited for the next chance, the next street fight, the next piece of action.

Karl sat at a table, and the brandy glass in front of him seemed about the size of a thimble in his fingers. He had a sip, looked at Gaelle and Mani, his doubt about both of them showing as a sour expression. He stood up, too, his size becoming more obvious as he rose from the shadows, as though emerging from the depths. His slightly humped physique seemed coiled more than deformed as he came across the room to Mani and Gaelle. He brought the last of his drink with him.

“What’s going on?” said Karl.

Gaelle’s pale skin was a little pink. She had washed her hair, and the shine of it looked nice.

Mani showed him the piece of paper.

“So, who’s that?” said Karl. He rolled his shoulder, as though sitting still was hard and that these long periods of waiting gave him a cramp.

“This asshole is telling the Brownshirts what we are doing. He works for the Soviet embassy,” said Mani.

“The Brownshirts are around a lot of times when we think we’ve been careful,” said Karl.

“This is why,” Mani. “Right here.”

“We’ve been getting some rough knocks,” said Karl.

“I’m telling you, this is it,” said Mani.

Karl finished the last of his drink.

“We’ve got to protect ourselves,” said Mani.

“I get tired of just sitting around,” said Karl. “Fights on the train.”

Mani turned to Gaelle, who had sat silently, her face appearing like a white flower on a black bough.

“We’ve got something to do tomorrow,” Mani said to Karl. “In the evening.”

He held out the paper.

“I know where it is,” said Karl.

“Tomorrow,” said Mani.

“All right,” said Karl. “Fights on trains. Kid’s stuff.”

“We’ll wait in the street,” said Mani.

“That’s good,” said Karl. “When he comes out, I’ll take it from there.”

“OK,” said Mani. “Tomorrow.” He looked down at the paper. “You wanted to stop the kid’s stuff. Well, now’s our chance.”

“We don’t have to check with anyone?” said Karl. “With anyone in Moscow. Maybe they’d want to know about this.”

Mani shook his head.

“I’ve made a decision,” said Mani.

“Good,” said Karl. “We’re going to be on our own? Separate from the rest of the party?”

“Yes,” said Mani. “We can’t go on the way we have. We’ve got to make a decision. No waiting. No playing around. I’m tired of worrying about people coming in here and harassing me about accounting….”

“I did it so you could trust me,” Gaelle said to Mani.

“Oh,” he said. “I trust you.”

Then she went through the browns and grays of the restaurant where men sat at the tables under the yellow cone of light. Karl raised his glass to her in a quick, noncommittal toast. His sudden toast, after his usual patient waiting, had the quality of an insect that had been in a chrysalis and had finally broken the transparent case that had so neatly confined it. He seemed to shimmer there, for an instant, where the oily film on his coat caught the light.

S
till, Mani hadn’t said that he would stick up for her or that she was forgiven for not fighting on the train. He had left her, as he always did, suspended between what she wanted and what he would give. Why couldn’t she get one man, one group, someone to act in a way that she could trust? She had dismissed the idea of love, but it still tugged on her, and now, with a fury at the hope she shouldn’t have had combined with stark experience, she pushed the notion of love into even deeper recesses, into the outer realm of her thoughts, at the frontier of her mind, which, she guessed, was like the edge of a bowl, a black one that was turned upside down. If nothing else, her sense of being betrayed, of not being loved, left her with the frank notion that someone was going to pay the price. And the desire for revenge was a sort of love turned upside down, and the more disappointed she was, the greater the impulse to strike back.

Surely, there wasn’t anything to be gained in waiting. She showed Hauptmann’s card to Felix.

“You know where this is?” she said.

“You want to go there?” said Felix.

“Yeah,” she said.

Even from a distance the banners were visible: they hung down crimson and dark over the windows that had been painted black. At Gaelle’s side Felix limped along, his head going up and down like the head of a horse on a carousel. He looked straight ahead, his eyes on their destination, his head pitched forward, as though no matter where he was going, it was always downhill. Gaelle had put on a dark coat and worn dark shoes, but somehow, even though she tried, she couldn’t look as respectable as she wanted. She put her hand to her hair, stopped and looked in her pocket mirror, put on some lipstick. Well, maybe it was a shade too bright, but it
made her look more crisp, more desirable, and that was the most important thing.

The door to the headquarters of the National Socialist Party was halfway open, and when Gaelle pushed it open, she smelled dust. The room was like a recital hall, one where women, in black dresses that were shiny with age, gave recitals with a piano that needed to be tuned. Gaelle could almost see the yellowed sheet music as it was turned from one page to another. Chairs had been arranged in lines in front of the low stage where there was a lectern and a glass pitcher of water that was filled with small bubbles. A man, in plus fours and a white shirt, swept the floor, going between a row of chairs, where he pushed the pile of dust along, making clouds of sparkling bits, and then stopped and brushed it into a pan. Then he moved the next row of chairs into the clean path, and started back, underneath where the chairs had been. The dust, against the black cloth of curtain behind the stage, flickered in the air, where it hung with a golden sparkle.

Felix tried to walk straight up, without limping, but after a few steps he started again. Gaelle touched her hair and went up to the sweeper.

“I’d like to talk to someone,” she said. She held out the card. “Is he here?”

The sweeper stopped and looked up, from her to Felix.

“About what?” he said.

“It’s sort of private,” she said.

“I don’t think we want your kind in here,” said the sweeper.

“I think someone will be interested in what I have to say,” said Gaelle. She stood up straight, put her shoulders back, the bits of dust floating around her as though her perfume were visible.

“Wait a minute,” the sweeper said.

He leaned his broom against the stage and went to a door at the side of the room where, if this were a musical performance, a singer and a piano player would emerge to take their places onstage. Maybe, at the end, someone would bring them a bouquet of wilted roses wrapped in florist’s paper.

“Did you see the way he looked at me?” said Felix.

“Yes,” said Gaelle.

“He’s just sweeping out,” said Felix. “A big cheese. A great big cheese. I know my place, but who is he?”

“Nobody,” said Gaelle. “I don’t like the waiting.”

“Me neither,” said Felix. “I’m going to count to fifty, and when I get there, we go. What do you say?”

Gaelle shrugged.

“All right,” she said. “Start counting.”

Felix did it by counting chairs, going along and touching one and then another, and after about ten chairs, the sweeper came back and said, “What are you doing there?”

“Nothing,” said Felix. “Counting.”

“He’ll see you now,” said the sweeper. “Back in there. Turn right. First door on your left.”

The hallway was covered with wainscoting that had been stained dark brown, and an overhead bulb left it covered with a sheen of icy light. It was dusty back here, too, mixed with the scent of disinfectant, the sort of thing that is used in a hospital. Gaelle went along, Felix’s head going up and down beside her.

“So,” he whispered. “So? What are you going to do?”

Hauptmann sat at the desk, his long arms in shirtsleeves, his waistcoat trim, tight fitting, his long fingers holding a pen that had the shape of an exclamation mark. A ledger was on the desk in front of him, and he had a bottle of ink and a pen, which he held up now, with a drop of ink trembling from the nib. He tapped it against the jar of ink, tap tap, and then finished writing a number that was at the bottom of a column. Then he took a blotter and rolled it over the ink, looked at the impression on the blotter paper, and put the thing down, the entire operation having the air of a man who is grooming himself in public.

“Gaelle,” he said. “The champagne girl. Well, I wondered how long it would be. Come in.”

Gaelle had her small silver bag with her, and she held it in both hands. Felix looked around the room. More posters, a little yellowed, a coat hung on a hook, a desk lamp that threw a pool of light over the table.

“You asked me for help,” said Gaelle.

“Yes,” Hauptmann said. “That’s right.”

“Well, I’ve come to see you,” she said.

“And you want some reassurance from me?” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“We never forget people,” he said. “They go into a sort of file, and it’s as though there’s a list of the things they do. We never forget.”

“It’s not something that I want to get around,” she said.

“Of course,” said the man. “You can trust me. Look. They let me do the books. Why, isn’t that proof of how I can be trusted?”

“I don’t know,” said Gaelle.

“So, you want to tell me something but you don’t want to tell me? Is that the way of it?”

“Yes,” said Gaelle

“Tell him,” said Felix.

“Be quiet,” said Gaelle.

“How did that happen to your face?” said Hauptmann.

“An automobile accident. Gasoline got on my face and caught on fire,” said Gaelle.

“Did it hurt?” said Hauptmann.

“Not like what you’d think,” said Gaelle. “Not then.”

“I guess something like that would make you cautious,” said Hauptmann. “That is, you wouldn’t want it to happen again.”

Gaelle looked around the room, her lips pursed, as though she had tasted something of uncertain quality.

“Now, now,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m on your side.”

“Tell him and let’s get out of here,” said Felix.

“I know something about a man by the name of Breiter. Some people are going to hurt him. From the Red Front.”

“When are they going to do that?” said Hauptmann. “Soon,” she said. “I don’t know when.”

“Not right away?” he said. “Not tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “He’s been telling secrets. He works in the Soviet embassy. He’s been telling your side some things.”

“I know what he’s doing,” said Hauptmann.

He wrote on a slip of paper, first dipping the pen into the ink and then
scribbling across a piece of scrap newsprint, where the ink bled away from the letters like blood in a bandage.

“OK,” he said. “Is that it? Or is there something else?”

“No,” said Gaelle. “That’s enough.”

“All right then,” said Hauptmann. “But you’re certain. Not right away?”

“I don’t think so,” said Gaelle. “I don’t know.”

Gaelle pulled her coat together at the neck, looked around at the posters on the wall, at the man with the ink-stained fingers and the ledger before him, and wished that there was something more to say. Felix looked around, too, but there was nothing but the desk, the chair, the light, and that smell of disinfectant.

“OK,” she said. “Remember that I tried to help.”

“Of course,” said Hauptmann.

“Come on,” said Felix. “Let’s go.”

In the hall Gaelle kept pulling her coat together at the neck, and she tried to walk with her head up, as though if she could just find some dignity, all of this would be all right. Felix tried to make loud noises with his shoes, as though he were heavier than he really was. Then they walked into the room where the man was still sweeping, the dust coming up from the head of the broom like clouds behind trucks on a dirt road.