Hoffner kept busy with whatever it was that was on his desk. “Good night, Hans.”
She was a “word city.”
Hoffner had heard it, or read it, somewhere. Not just in her newspapers, but in her advertisements, her signs, her schedules, and most important, in her Litfassulen-those pillars that appeared on almost every corner of every neighborhood-Berlin breathed as a metropolis of language. It was the pillars, however, that stood apart. They were the modern town criers, filled with the chaos of endless messages: sell a bed, post at the corner; workers’ meeting tonight, post at the corner; find a girl, post at the corner. Capped by their crowns of green wrought iron, the pillars rose two meters higher than anything else on the street, and thus demanded attention. Even the figures in their posters were more garish than anything to be found in a window or on a billboard. Couples decked out in glaring reds and greens screamed out in aggressive poses to passersby: everything angular, sharp, and desperate for recognition. The pillars indulged their own disorder and thus mirrored the life of the streets even as they catered to it.
Find K, post at the corner.
Hoffner had used the Alex’s hectograph to make copies of a single sheet of paper, which he had plastered throughout the Mitte district over the last few days. His two index fingers were still stained with the aniline dye from the ink. It was always something of an adventure using the machine, pressing the sheet to the gelatin pad, waiting the few minutes for the page to absorb the ink, and then hoping not to smear anything in the removal. Hoffner could stomach only forty or so such tries. His patience and the dye usually gave out at about the same time. He was trusting that the simplicity of his note, and not its beauty, would make it stand out among all the more elaborate postings: Krystalowicz. Cafe Dalles. 10 o’clock. I’ll bring the brandy this time.
Hoffner had been at the cafe for the past two nights. Jogiches had yet to make an appearance.
In the meantime, Hoffner had decided to track down the one living link he still had to the diameter-cut: the engineer from the Rosenthaler station, the man who had helped to design the site under the tutelage of the great Grenander himself. In the last week, Hoffner had stopped in at three of the city-run shelters for the homeless. So far, no Herr Tben or his wife and two boys. Hoffner scanned the new map he had hung on his wall. He had been making his way east. Tonight it was Frbelstrasse, and the heart of Prenzlauer Berg.
Durable and cold was how the red brick of state institutions always announced themselves to Hoffner. Situated next to a bit of open ground, with a few trees planted about-not by nature, but by a bureaucrat’s pen-the shelter and its adjacent hospital showed little in the way of life. Even the long line of huddled bodies waiting for admission gave off nothing that might have been construed as flesh and blood. They were cracked faces, etched by hunger and resentment, and buried beneath the dust of decades. The snow seemed a starker white in their presence. Hoffner moved past them and up to the main door.
Several desks were laid out inside to process the line of applicants. Hoffner showed his badge, and a man motioned him over to one of the far desks. The chief administrator, a Herr Mitleid, was tending to one of his charges.
“You’ve come at our busiest time, Chief Inspector,” said Mitleid when Hoffner had introduced himself. The place reeked of sterility, with the tangy odor of ammonia emanating from every corner. It mixed uneasily with the smells of cooking and drying clothes and digestion. “You see us at our best and at our worst.”
This was not the typical administrator, at least not from Hoffner’s recent experience. Unlike the other directors, Mitleid seemed in tune with his own humanity. It was as if the man knew what it was to carry his life in a small sack on his back, or to feel the weight of a refugee’s thousand-kilometer walk in his legs, or to sense what gives a man a look of both fear and confrontation in his every gaze. Mitleid was a man of pure compassion. Hoffner wondered where they had found him within the ranks of officialdom.
“We open the doors at four, close them at nine. Takes about two hours to fill each of the dormitories. You find us in mid-filling, Herr Inspector.”
Hoffner explained what he was looking for: the name, two sons, a former engineer, sometime in the last month and a half. Mitleid thought for a moment. He seemed to recall something, and then brought Hoffner into his office. The two men sat, and Mitleid began to run through a roll of filing cards on his desk.
Hoffner noticed a stack of empty application documents. He took one and was astounded to see how bad things had gotten:
Case No. -- P.B.Was heard by the court in Berlin, on — 1919.Mr. -- was instructed to find himself alternative accommodation within five days, failing which, notwithstanding the most strenuous efforts on his behalf to do so, he would be punished for making himself homeless. The appellant was further warned that in accordance with #361, subsection 8, of the Criminal Law of the German Empire, such punishment will consist of up to six weeks in prison, and in accordance with #362 ibid., transferred to the police authorities, for placement in a workhouse.Approved and signed.Signature of the homeless man in question — Signature of the police case worker —
“Dreadful, isn’t it?” Mitleid was still searching. “Five days to find housing. Can you imagine?”
Hoffner replaced the sheet. “You show me someone who can find a flat that quickly in Berlin these days, I’ll show you your criminal.”
Mitleid tried a smile, but the topic was too close to home. He pulled out a card and said, “Here it is.” He read through it quickly. “I knew it sounded familiar.” His brow furrowed. “You’re sure about the name?”
“Tben,” Hoffner repeated.
Mitleid continued to look puzzled. “This is a Teplitz. A Willem Teplitz. Wife, two boys. I thought for sure.” He shook his head and began to replace the card; Hoffner stopped him and took the card. He read as Mitleid spoke. “Clever man, Teplitz. Helped us rework the placement of the beds. Gave us room for four more each night. Never said he was an engineer, but you could tell.”
According to the card, Herr “Teplitz” had arrived on the night of January 16, the night Hoffner and Fichte had come across Mary Koop.
“Who fills out this card?” said Hoffner.
“I do.”
“Do you have anything Herr Teplitz might have signed?”
Mitleid stood and moved across to a large filing cabinet. He returned with a small folder and handed a sheet to Hoffner. It was a form to request that the family be kept together while inside the shelter. “Another abomination,” said Mitleid. “But the Reichs Ministry insists we have it.”
Hoffner scanned down to the signature, where the lettering was deliberate and uneven. Teplitz had labored with his own name. Hoffner had seen the same hesitation many times before. This was Tben. He had been scared enough to take a false name, and Hoffner was guessing that his fears had had nothing to do with the body his son had discovered at the site. “How long did they stay with you?” he asked.
Mitleid took the card again and flipped it over. “Their last day was the twelfth,” he read. “Last Wednesday.” He looked across at Hoffner. “You believe this is your Herr Tben?”
Hoffner was thinking about the date. February 12: the day Jogiches’s article had appeared. Frau Tben and her boys were five days gone from Berlin: they could be anywhere now. “Was there anyone here that he was particularly friendly with?”
Mitleid again studied the card. “Dormitory three.” He thought for a moment, and his eyes lit up. “Oh, yes. Of course.” He began to get up. “The Colonel.” Mitleid started for the door and then motioned Hoffner through. “Marvelous fellow. A Russian. Fought for the Tsar. You’ll like him at once.”
Dormitory 3 was like all the others, long and narrow, and with two rows of beds jutting out from the walls, barracks-style. There were also a few stray cots that had been placed down the center aisle, the extras Herr Tben had managed to reconfigure. More than half of the beds were filled with men, flat on their backs, here and there a cocked elbow drawn across the eyes. The few who did look up did so with vacant stares. Hoffner knew they were looking directly at him; he just couldn’t feel their gaze.