‘And now?’ he said, dabbing his mouth with a serviette. ‘Fancy a little dessert? I know just the thing…’
She made a disappointed face. ‘Sorry, Gereon, but I have to go.’
‘What? Where?’
‘I’m meeting Greta.’
‘So that’s it for our reunion, is it? I thought we could make an evening of it. Dance to old Ellington, finish the wine, and then… well… then I thought we could really celebrate.’
‘It sounds good. I just can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’d rather stay here too, but I’ve promised Greta. You weren’t due back from Cologne until the day after tomorrow, and we wanted to have a girls’ night, like old times.’
‘Two women going out on their own? So you can, what? Make eyes at strange men?’
‘You’re not jealous?’
‘Of course not. But… we’re engaged! You should be going out with me. Especially on a night like this.’
‘Greta will scratch my eyes out.’
‘That I can believe.’
‘Gereon, I know the pair of you have never got on, but… she’s my best friend, and her friendship is very important to me.’
‘All right, it was a joke.’ He attempted a smile. ‘I don’t want to spoil your evening.’
‘We’re going to the cinema, then out dancing. Don’t worry, I won’t speak to any strange men. Unless, of course, they ask me to dance…’
‘Is this your way of saying I don’t take you often enough?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Then how about we celebrate my birthday on Sunday in style? Dinner followed by dancing in the Kakadu-Bar.’
‘Sounds good.’ She smiled and stood up. ‘But I really do have to go.’
Rath put on a brave face, and a quarter of an hour later Charly stood ready at the door. She looked stunning. ‘Should I drive you?’
‘I’ll take the S-Bahn. It goes almost door to door. We’ll get a taxi from Spenerstrasse.’
‘How about the way back? Are you planning to take the S-Bahn at night?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll sleep at Greta’s.’
‘Come again?’
‘See you tomorrow morning. At the Castle.’
Before he could say anything, she planted a kiss on his cheek and left. For a moment he thought about going after her, only to reconsider. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself.
Was he jealous? Too damn right he was!
Jealous of any man who danced with her tonight, even of Greta. She still hadn’t said anything about the Negro from Aschinger last year, not that he’d admitted seeing them together. Were they still in touch? He’d have liked nothing more than to go after her, to watch how she spent her evening, but he couldn’t. Not at any cost.
‘Well, old girl,’ he said to Kirie. ‘It’s just me and you tonight.’ He attached her lead and they set off on her evening walk. Perhaps he might take a little trip up the Ku’damm himself.
17
Sewage pipes and electric cables ran along the low ceiling, and water dripped periodically onto the concrete floor. Leo stood in a long corridor alongside a group of men he didn’t recognise. He didn’t know how long he’d been here, didn’t know if it was day or night, if he was still in Berlin or in the country somewhere.
They had dragged him half conscious into the car and placed a stinking sack over his head. The drive had taken so long that blood from his head wounds had congealed against the coarse material. The wounds opened again when the sack was wrenched from his head and he blinked into the dim light of a 40-watt bulb.
That was when he knew he’d be lucky to make it out alive. They weren’t finished with him, otherwise they’d have thrown him out of the car on the way over. At one point it looked as if they might. The burr of cars and traffic had grown suddenly louder as he felt the ice-cold air on his skin, but then the man about to push him out had held fast. By his comrades’ laughter, he knew they were only messing around.
The men in uniform had come for him in the middle of the night, kicking down the door before he had a chance to open it. Seconds later they were in the bedroom. Vera had gazed first at him, then them, her world turned on its head. She had always known the cops might come knocking, but hadn’t reckoned on SA men in the white armbands of the auxiliary police grinning at her as she pulled the covers to her chin.
Leo chose not to reach for the revolver in the drawer of his bedside table, but when their leader made a suggestive remark, he couldn’t hold his tongue and paid for it with a heavy blow. He spat out blood and teeth and heeded their command to get dressed. As he struggled with his trousers, the leader hit him again with his rubber truncheon, on the knuckles this time. The four undernourished-looking dwarves that made up the rest of the troop hounded him out of the bedroom. Taking him by the arms, they hauled him downstairs and threw him onto the rear seat of a car waiting outside. A different SA man pulled the sack over his head before administering a third truncheon blow.
When he came round, head still ringing, he couldn’t see anything and his breathing was hampered by the stinking linen fabric. His hands were tied behind his back, but he wasn’t gagged. He knew they were driving, but not where. The men around him said nothing. Realising he was conscious again, they had played their trick with the car door, but otherwise left him in peace until they reached their destination and the fun started again. He thought it was another joke, but this time they really did throw him out.
He heard the crunch of tyres stopping on gravel. There must have been others waiting. Taking him by the feet they hauled him across the courtyard and down a flight of stairs. He didn’t want to know how many bruises he’d suffered, but experience from the war told him he wouldn’t feel them until tomorrow. If, that is, they let him live that long.
Another drip of water.
He hadn’t the slightest idea how long he had been down here with the others, hands on trouser seams, standing in line like carrots waiting for harvest. Stand up straight was the command, and no one dared move or lean against the damp, whitewashed wall. The first to give in was beaten for so long he was little more than a bloody clump when his three assailants dragged him out. When another poor soul could no longer hold his bladder, they forced him to lick up his own piss, and laughed when he vomited. Then they beat him to a pulp too.
Leo was damned if he was going to move. He didn’t need the loo, thank God, and was used to standing for hours. No, he wouldn’t give these bastards any excuse. People were screaming in pain, shrill and full of despair. He had seen people suffer and die before, but this waiting, this uncertainty, was wearing him down so much he wondered if it wouldn’t be better to get himself beaten to death and have the whole thing over with. The temptation to step forward and give one of these brown scumbags a little something to think about grew with every minute. Perhaps they would shoot him, the kind of quick and painless death he’d always wished for.
There was movement in the stairwell, the steel door at the end of the corridor opened and a uniformed officer with a file under his arm emerged. ‘Juretzka, Leopold!’
Leo’s voice failed him at first, but at length he rasped a ‘Here’.
The SA man planted himself in front of him and rammed a rubber truncheon into his gut. Leo doubled up with pain.
‘Answer loud and clear when I address you,’ the Nazi said. ‘Stand up straight.’
Leo stood up straight and yelled: ‘Here!’
‘Now come with me, shit-heap.’