Berlin: A Novel

On the way to the GYA Club, Ben did his sums. If he could get twenty cartons of cigarettes out of Brubaker instead of fifteen, he would be certain of his suit and his shoes. But the great reporter wouldn't pay up until he could shake the hand of Hitler's right-hand man, and this was going to be a difficult feat to bring off, even for the ingenious Ben. 'I'll think of something,' the German Reich's latter-day beneficiary told himself.

The drama group was rehearsing. 'We lead a life of liberty,' bawled Schiller's robbers down in the cellar, 'we lead a life of joy. ' Meanwhile, behind the improvised stage, Herr Appel was taking a mouse out of a trap and tipping it into the garbage. Ben watched with interest as Appel removed the chewing gum from his mouth and stuck it on the little board as bait, then set the trap again.

Heidi Rodel sat down beside him. 'What did you think of the song?'

'Not much different from what we sang in the Jungvolk.' Only a few months earlier, he and the other members of his troop had sung 'Flames arise!' Or as his grandfather Hellbich called it under his breath, 'Song of the Young Brown Fire-Raisers'. That had been the full extent of Hellbich's public opposition to the regime.

Heidi moved close enough for their knees to touch. 'We're going skinnydipping when it gets dark. Want to come?'

On weekend expeditions with the Jungvolk they had held swimming races naked, comparing penis size with their neighbours as they lay in the sun and thinking nothing much of it. But plunging into the water at night with a naked Heidi was something else. Ben suddenly had a feeling like climbing the bars in gymnastics. Confused, he went upstairs, dropped into an armchair and reached for the latest issue of the American soldiers' paper, Stars and Stripes.

Herr Appel made his laborious way up the stairs. He unwrapped a new piece of chewing gum from its silver paper, stuck out his tongue and applied the gum to it. With his bulging eyes, he reminded Ben of a chameleon he'd seen in the reptile house at the zoo. Except that Herr Appel drew in his tongue with its prey rather more slowly.

'We lead a life of liberty, we lead a life of joy.'sang the chorus down in the cellar for the umpteenth time.

Not bad, that Goethe,' said Appel appreciatively, chewing.

Ben didn't bother to put him right. He picked up the newspaper and read the headline: 'WEREWOLVES GETTING ACTIVE'. An over-eager correspondent had written about an alleged conspiracy of former members of the Hitler Youth, which he claimed had organized itself into a secret league called The Werewolves, whose aim was to oppose the occupying power. In his mind's eye, Ben saw the solution to his problem begin to emerge, if only in vague outline for the time being.

Inspector Dietrich was waiting in the outer office of the German-American Employment Office. The German secretary was painting her fingernails. 'Would you like a coffee, inspector? And a sandwich to go with it? I'll have one brought over from the canteen. We have plenty of everything here.'

'That's very kind of you, but I don't want to go in to see your boss with my mouth full.'

'Tell you what, I'll pack one up for you to take away,' she whispered in conspiratorial tones. 'My name's Gertrud Olsen.'

'Extremely nice of you, Frau Olsen.'

'I'm looking for a man, see? Well, a girl will try anything. Even sandwiches. Are you married, inspector?'

'Yes, these last fifteen years. We have two sons.'

'We'd been married just a year, Horst and I. He was a military airman, went on reconnaissance flights for the artillery. They shot him down at Smolensk. I lost our baby when the news came. I mean, it's not that I'll ever forget Horst. Only when you're on your own you feel kind of claustrophobic. Come and see me some time. Irmgardstrasse 12a.'

'That's very close to me. We live with my parents-in-law in Riemeister Strasse. As I said, I'm married.'

'The nice men always are.' She took a mirror out of her handbag and retouched her lips. Dietrich thought the colour of the lipstick was rather too bright. 'Present from the boss. It's what he prefers,' she said apologetically.

'What's your boss like?'

'Mr Chalford? I don't think he likes Germans much. Otherwise he's OK. A bit impatient sometimes, maybe. But then again, he often brings me a little something from the PX.'

Chalford arrived about five o'clock. He had been in a meeting with the city commandant. 'Come into my office. inspector. Captain Ashburner said you were coming. Let's see what we can do for you.' Dietrich looked at the American with curiosity. Chalford was round and well nourished, a messenger from a world where everything was all right. 'Terrible, all these murders.' The smooth, pink face with the pale-blue eyes was distressed. 'OK, inspector, let's come straight to the point.'

'What do you know about the dead woman?'

'We don't as a rule give information to Germans. But Captain Ashburner has asked me to help you, so I'll make an exception.'

'How good of you.'

Curtis S. Chalford stroked back his thin fair hair, looking a little uncertain. Was this German making fun of him? 'What would you like to know, inspector?' he asked.

'Who was she?'

Chalford picked an entry out of a card index. 'Marlene Kaschke, aged thirty-three. No sexual diseases. I gave her a job as an usherette in the Uncle Tom cinema three weeks ago. She lived at 198 Argentinische Allee.'

'The house where she was murdered,' the inspector told him. 'Is anything known about her past?'

'She said she'd been working as a farmhand.'

'Can you give us any more detailed information?'

'That's all I know. Are you on anyone's trail yet?'

'The murderer is presumably a German employee of the US Army and knows his way around Onkel Toms Hiitte. You probably gave him a job yourself.'

'The Uncle Tom Killer,' said Chalford in his broad American accent. 'Why the hell does he kill in Uncle Tom?'

'We're assuming that he has a hideout somewhere there.' Dietrich came out with his request. 'Captain Ashburner says you have a card index containing photographs of employees. We have a witness who claims to have seen the murderer. I'd be very grateful if you would let him take a look at the pictures of all the Germans employed by the army.' Chalford's face twisted. He obviously didn't like this at all. Perhaps it upset his routine. 'It really would be a great help to us, sir,' the inspector said with great courtesy. Chalford was playing impatiently with a pencil. 'We'll fit in with your engagements, of course.'

Chalford put the pencil down. All right, inspector. Come tomorrow, and Gertrud will show you the card index. Time to go home, Gertrud!'

'Yes, Mr Chalford,' said the secretary from the next room.

Franke was waiting downstairs in the Opel. 'How did it go, sir?'

'Chalford is a pompous ass. Probably a low-grade office worker at home, but he puts on airs here. It doesn't matter to us, just so long as we can see his card index. Let Miihlberger know.'

Curtis S. Chalford took the army bus from his office in Lichterfelde to the OMGUS headquarters in Clayallee, as he did every evening. From there he had only a couple of minutes to walk home. He was living in a requisitioned villa in Gelfertstrasse, assigned to him because of his position.

He was looking forward to his evening. The reason was a plump woman with dark curly hair, a pretty, full face, and the beginnings of a double chin. Renate Schlegel was twenty-eight, and the maternal type.

She had come to the German-American Employment Office to look for work. She spoke passable English. Chalford invited her to lunch. Over chicken and rice he made her an offer: she could live with him as his housekeeper and look after him. He offered her three cartons of cigarettes over and above her official wages, and of course good food, as well as those little items from the PX that a woman likes to have.