If Hoffner had been out of place on the street, he was now an eyesore up among the artistes. They were all postures and attitudes, geometric shapes in the guise of bodies, long sharp necks peering down at canvases, pencil-thin arms at angles in the service of a cigarette or a drink. There was a distinctly chiseled feel to everything: Hoffner chalked it up to a lack of food. He noticed Lina by one of the sculptures. She, too, was managing a triangular effect of her own, legs apart, arms straight at her sides, standing on the edge of a group intent on a man who was yammering away about one of the pieces. Hoffner quietly drew up to her side and pretended to be listening. It was several seconds before she realized he was standing next to her. Her reaction was not what he had expected.
“Nikolai?” she said uncomfortably. “You came.”
Hoffner saw the welt under her eye. It was fresh, and her powder was doing little to conceal it. “Yes,” he said, trying not to look too closely.
“You didn’t get my note.”
Evidently the day had been filled with notes. “No,” he said. He wanted to ask about the eye, but knew it would be a mistake. “Was it important?”
She answered distractedly, “No. Not really.”
“I can go if you like.”
“No,” she said quickly. “You don’t have to do that.” She seemed to be convincing herself. “I don’t want you to go.”
He tried to lighten things up. “Just wanted to see what your painter has done with you, that’s all.”
Lina did her best with a weak smile; she could always appreciate the attempt. “It’s etchings, Nikolai. Lithographs. She’s not painting now.”
“Oh,” he said, the distinction meaningless.
She moved him over to a less crowded area. There were still bodies everywhere, but she managed to carve out a small circle for them.
Hoffner kept close. He said, “So, which one are you, then?”
She motioned carelessly to the far wall. He expected her to lead him over; instead, she looked directly at him and said, “You didn’t say anything to Hans, did you?” There was almost a hope in her tone, as if knowing it had come from him would have made things all right. Naturally, she knew better. “No, of course you didn’t.”
“Did he do that?”
“Does it matter?”
She was right, of course. He wasn’t likely to teach Fichte a lesson. By the look of things, Fichte had already mastered the tools by himself.
“Lina!” a voice shouted out over the din. Both looked over to see a wide orb of a man heading toward them. A second, smaller ball rested atop his neck, and this was his head.
“Oh God,” said Lina under her breath. She perked up and produced an engaging smile. “Herr Lamprecht,” she said. “What a pleasure.”
Lamprecht plowed on. “There are people who want to gawk at the model, over by the drawings.” He managed to step out of himself for a moment. “Good God, what’s happened there?” He pointed tactlessly at her eye. “Has someone been slapping you about?”
Hoffner cut in. “I’m Nikolai Hoffner.” He extended his hand. It was enough to distract Lamprecht.
“Yes, hello there,” said Lamprecht; he took Hoffner’s hand. “Are you with our Lina?”
“She asked me to come, yes.”
Lamprecht refocused. “So look, dear. They’re the money, and they’re just over by the-”
“By the drawings,” Hoffner cut in again.
Lamprecht seemed confused by the interruption. “Yes,” he said. He was searching for something else to say; when nothing came, he settled for, “Well, all right, then.” He then forced a smile and-clearly outmatched-headed back into the crowd.
Hoffner said, “Is he as unpleasant as he seems?”
“Not always.” And with surprising energy, she added, “All right, I’ll take you for a look. But from a distance. I’m not that keen to be on display tonight.”
The drawings were off on a side wall in a group of three, all of which seemed to be of the same subject in different stages of completion: mourners peering over the body of a dead man. There were variations in the facial details, in the number of mourners, in the angle of a torso or a hand, but the one constant was that of a mother and child gazing down into the dead man’s lifeless face. Hoffner quickly realized that the mother was the only woman in any of the drawings; more fascinating, she and the child were the only ones staring directly into the face. The rest of the gathering either gazed out or looked down into nothingness. It made it impossible not to stare with her.
Hoffner knew the gaze. He had woken to it several times himself, but had said nothing. He never knew why Lina stared at him as he slept. He had never thought to ask.
He said, “You’re right there in the middle in each of them. That must be good. She must like you to put you there.”
Lina was less enthusiastic. “It looks like I haven’t eaten anything in weeks,” she said. “It’s not very flattering.”
Hoffner knew that wasn’t the point. “You look fine. And it’s not supposed to be you.”
Lina seemed ready for a nice sulk, when a voice just behind them said, “He’s right, you know, so stop your complaining.”
They turned. A woman had appeared from behind a small door: by the sounds of the gurgling water beyond, Hoffner was guessing the toilet.
It was a sad face with thin lips and well-manicured eyebrows. Hoffner would have said somewhere in her fifties, but the gray hair might have made her older.
“Don’t move,” said the woman. “If we stay like this, no one can see me here, and then you’ll have made me very happy.”
Hoffner said, “And if someone wants to use the toilet?”
The woman liked the question. “There’s always the window, Herr Inspector.” Before Hoffner could respond, she said to Lina, “I’m assuming this is the older one, because if it’s the younger one”-she raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow-“my God, then you’re in trouble.”
Lina made the unnecessary introductions: even a Kripo detective could visit a museum now and then. Hoffner had recognized Kathe Kollwitz the moment he saw her. Funny how Lina had never mentioned it: “A woman; two marks an hour.” That was all she had said.
“You know who that is, of course,” said Kollwitz, peering past him at her drawings. “You’re probably the only one in here who does.”
Hoffner looked over. He had been so focused on Lina’s figure that he had failed to pay any attention to the dead man. Even so, the face remained unfamiliar.
“They let me see him the morning after he was shot,” Kollwitz continued. “At the morgue. The family brought me in, as if I could add anything more to their tragedy. It’s all rather nauseating, isn’t it?”
Hoffner now recognized him, albeit without his customary beard and spectacles. “Liebknecht,” he said.
“I saw him speak,” said Kollwitz. “Very passionate, very rousing. I didn’t much go in for the violence, but they did.” She nodded at the figures in the drawings. “The workers. So I gave him to them. I imagine they’ll be the ones to miss him most.” Her gaze deepened. “It’s all very rough, but I think some of it’s right.”
Hoffner had never put much stock in fate. Lina, on the other hand, saw signs in everything. A girl selling flowers along Friedrichstrasse had no other choice: how else could she imagine a life beyond it? The coin placed in her basket from the year of her birth, the piece of newspaper blowing into her hand with a phrase that she had dreamt of the night before, the color of the coat on a man dashing over to buy a few roses for his wife: these were the markers along the way that told her that she was following the right course, that life had more in store for her than she could possibly know at present. All she needed was a bit of patience to see it through. She had mentioned one or two of her “sightings” to Hoffner and had laughed at them, admitting to their silliness, but with just enough hope in her voice to betray what she needed to be true.