Berlin: A Novel

It was opened by Professor Raab's wife Mascha, a beautiful woman of forty with slender hands and dark, velvety eyes. 'Jutta, how nice. My husband will be so pleased. He's in the studio, just go down.'

She had been the same way countless times. Through the spacious hall, past the massive refectory table which always had fresh flowers glowing on it, straight to the dark oak panelling at the side of the steps, from which a door led down.

The bright basement room was both workshop and studio. In the middle of it there was a printing press with a huge spindle. Shelves filled with dozens of different kinds of paper rose along the walls. The sturdy workbench, bearing the traces of decades of work. stood at one of the two barred windows through which you saw the garden at eye level. There was a charcoal sketch of Igor on the easel beside it.

The professor was bending over a block of wood, carving fine shavings from its smooth surface with a tiny knife. 'This one's going to be a Diirer woodcut. Still life with cabbage and potatoes, supposed to be a previously unknown work by the master. I shall print it off on paper of the period. I've bet Max Liebermann that the new curator of the national gallery here will fall for it twice over. First he'll miss the fact that it's a forgery at all, second he'll fail to notice that potatoes didn't reach Germany until a hundred years after Diirer. So far the good curator has put his limited knowledge of his subject to hunting for "degenerate art". Liebermann's masterpieces, which all the world admires, fall into that category.' The professor chuckled like a naughty schoolboy. 'Know what the curator said? "1 can't eat as much of it as I'd like to throw up again."' He went on working with the knife. 'I expect to be thrown out of the academy any day and fired from the university. All of a sudden we Jews aren't German enough. Well, Mascha's looking forward to my early retirement. She hopes she'll have more of me to herself. And how are you, Jutta, my dear?'

'Very well, professor.'

'But not as well as you'd like to be.' The stout little man with the wreath of grey hair put his knife down. 'You're prettier than ever, and you've grown up since our last sitting. There must be more than one man interested in you, and that's why you're here.'

'I don't know what I should do. I'm engaged to Jochen. But this girl Isabel keeps coming between us, and now I've met an interesting young lawyer. I think he likes me.'

'You mean you like him. As much as your Jochen? Better? Or as an instrument of sweet revenge?'

She hadn't seen it as clearly as that. 'I think because of the revenge.' She pouted. 'But not entirely.'

Raab sat down on the stool by the window and propped a large sketchpad on his knee. 'Will you get undressed?'

'Of course.' Unselfconsciously, she stripped.

'Last time you were sixteen, and before that fourteen.' The professor began working with a soft pencil. 'Do you remember our very first sitting?'

Mascha appeared with a tray of lemonade. 'She was five then. You insisted that her mother must come too. How is she?'

'Thank you for asking. Mutti has the house and kitchen well in hand.'

'You were seven when you came alone for the first time. Do you remember, Mascha darling — the child absolutely didn't want to get undressed. Why not is a mystery to me to this day.'

Jutta laughed. 'Because I had a brand-new dress on, red with big white spots. I thought I looked truly beautiful in it. How often have you drawn me. Professor?'

There were fourteen nude drawings. Raab took them out of their folder after the sitting and looked at them, pleased. 'From little girl to pretty young woman. All of them good. They'll be yours after my death. Will you go on modelling for me?'

As long as you like.'

'Unless we have to go away,' Mascha said, with an anxious look.

'Nonsense, dear heart, no one will actually harm us. They'll remove me from my position, that's all. A kind of early retirement. We can live with that.'

'Time for your insulin, Georg.'

And I must go and help Mutti in the kitchen.' Jutta said goodbye.

The professor showed her out. 'Make yourself desirable for your Jochen.' He smiled slyly. And introduce Isabel to the lawyer.'

As always, hasty footsteps could be heard along the two shopping streets shortly before closing time. A babble of voices rose from the shops. Office workers were buying their supper on the way home from the U-Bahn. Jutta bought half a pound of freshly churned butter in the dairy, and quarter of a pound of sliced meat in Lehmann's butcher's shop.

'Hello, bookworm,' Jochen greeted her by the public clock.

'Good evening, teacher, sir.'

'Hop in.' He took a half eaten apple off the passenger seat. 'Want a bite?'

'Thanks, no. I had breakfast ages ago. Was the weekend with her fun?'

'Oh, don't be silly. We worked damn hard. Isabel's a good companion, that's all.' He pulled her close. 'You're the only one I love.'

'When?' She let the tip of her tongue play in his ear.

'Later, you immoral girl. Off to school first.'

The Hanomag set off, making a comic rattling sound. They stopped in the Dahlem district, outside a large building with a double roof. A mighty clock tower rose above the broad entrance. The wings of the building adjoined the central section to right and left.

'The Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Gymnasium, my future place of work as teacher of German, English and history. Qualified Schoolmaster Weber. Sounds good, eh?'

'Provided you pass the exam,' she said cautiously.

'The last test was this morning. They handed out the certificates this afternoon. I passed the whole thing. What do you say now, bookworm?'

'Three cheers!' she cried so loud that a pedestrian turned to stare. She hugged him hard. 'Why didn't you say so at once? I thought you wouldn't know until next week.'

'So you'd quake with anxiety on my behalf? Well, it's over and done with now.'

'You're a genius,' she said happily.

'Lucky, more like. I shone with those Merovingians in my history viva, thanks to Isabel's knee.'

'You were cheating, then!'

'No worse than Armin Drechsel. Professor Gabler himself hinted that he'd be asking him about Charlemagne.'

'Gabler's favourite?'

'Gabler's Party Comrade.'

'Does he still go about the place in silly short trousers with his knees braced rigid?' Jutta had met Drechsel a couple of times, and hadn't really taken to him.

'Drechsel is high up as a Hitler Youth leader. He's going to teach maths, so we'll be seeing each other daily in the staff room. I have to get on with him as well as my other colleagues. Isabel's coming round later with sparkling wine. We're going to celebrate our success.'

'Not a day without Isabel.'

'Don't be a spoilsport. She's a nice girl. Come on, let's look at my new workplace. The caretaker knows we're coming.' They ran hand in hand up the steps to the porch. Inside was a vestibule with pseudo-Romanesque columns, and between them a roll of honour of former pupils who had fallen in the Great War.

Jutta read aloud. 'Imperial Count Kuno von Schweinitz — Baron Artwig Schreck zu Cadelbach — Prince Heinrich XXIII von Selb. Not a single ordinary Schulze, Meier or Muller. It's pure Almanach de Gotha.'

All of Prussia sends its sons to board here,' Jochen said. A Prussian Eton. The headmaster was tutor to the imperial princes.'

'What a snob you are!'

'So why do you think I want to marry Princess Jutta von Kopenick?'

'Do you really want to?'

'You bet I do, princess. Come along, I'll show you a classroom and the big hall. The caretaker locks up at eight on the dot.'

After the guided tour they chugged away again. Twenty minutes later they parked the little car at the end of Trabener Strasse. There was no wind, and it was sultry. A storm was in the air. Jochen put up the convertible's roof to be on the safe side.