However, I resolved to make one final effort. With Frau Hanf’s help I discovered the names and addresses of two agencies and approached them with Karl-Heinz’s details. They were not sanguine. They hinted that he might not even be in Berlin anymore. Four million German refugees, they told me, had fled westwards or had been expelled from Russian-occupied countries since the war had ended. Perhaps Herr Kornfeld had gone with them? They would see what they could do.
About a week after these visits I went to see Meine Frau die Hexe at the cinema. I’m not sure what stimulated my memory — I think one of the extras reminded me of his secretary — but I thought suddenly of Eugen P. Eugen. Was he still alive? He might be worth trying. I thought of our earlier encounters. The man was tenacious, there was no denying that, and unscrupulous. Conceivably, he might be more efficient than the harassed agencies.
The building that had contained Eugen’s offices had been completely destroyed, along with the rest of Fehmarnstrasse. Indeed the street had not yet been cleared; only a meandering path ran through the rubble hills. I knew I was in the right place because I could see the burned and shattered blocks of the infectious-diseases hospital a few hundred yards away. Then as I walked back to Putlitzstrasse Station I had an idea. Ten minutes’ further searching uncovered the small café where Eugen used to lunch. What had he been eating that day when he told me Sonia had beaten him up? Cucumbers? Cabbage? Sausage?… Yes, it was cabbage — I remembered the smell.
The cellar café still existed and was open. Above it teetered the facade of a house, shored up with wooden buttresses. Somehow I knew Eugen would be there.
Of course, he wasn’t. Life is rarely that accommodating, but the proprietor said there was a good chance he would be in that evening.
When I returned at seven, half a dozen people sat in silence staring at watery beers in front of them and trying not to look at a small man eating avidly and noisily in a corner. I knew it was Eugen, though I would scarcely have recognized him. He was gaunt and his blond hair was gone. He wore a collarless gray-flannel shirt and a green uniform jacket. On his bald pate were three large scabs. I sat down opposite him.
“Herr Eugen?”
He looked up.
“My name is Todd. You did a job for me, a long time ago, 1928.…”
He stared at me and frowned.
“My God,” he said. “My God, yes. And then we met again in Switzerland. With Miss Bogan.”
We shook hands.
“How is Miss Bogan?”
“She’s fine.”
“Good, good. I am a great admirer.”
Neither of us seemed to want to reminisce about our last encounter. I told him what I required of him. He screwed up his face.
“Difficult. Almost impossible.” He paused. “Have you got a cigarette? You’re sure he’s in Berlin?”
We discussed the problems, then his fee. We settled on five hundred cigarettes. Somehow the transaction seemed to rejuvenate him. I could see the tiny dapper blond man in him again, like his soul.
“Can I offer you some food? They say these are rabbit rissoles. It may not be rabbit, but there is certainly a minimum of sawdust.”
I declined politely. We were awkward with each other. Two decades intervened.
“It’s strange to meet again,” he said. “I can’t tell you how distressed I was — the last time. I felt most embarrassed.” He laughed. “Which is most unusual in my trade. Not like me at all.”
He then embarked upon a long angry complaint about a burned-out tank that still hadn’t been removed from the end of the street where he lived. I commiserated with him.
“What do you think of our wonderful city?” he said with sudden bitterness.
“It’s terrible,” I said. “I couldn’t believe it, at first.”
“Can you imagine London, Paris, so totally destroyed?”
I thought about it. Buckingham Palace razed, Nelson’s Column toppled, Sacré-Coeur a heap of white rubble, all the bridges gone across the Thames and the Seine, the Grand Palais open to the sky …
“It’s hard,” I admitted. I was about to remind him who had started the destruction business off, but I changed the subject. I asked him where he would start looking for Karl-Heinz.
“Berlin is full of gangs,” he said, “deserters, displaced persons, refugees. They live in holes in the ground. I’ll make some inquiries with the police.” He smiled proudly. “I still have my contacts there.”
April 23, 1946. Interminable press conference at Lancaster House — British HQ — announcing the failure of discussions for pooling food supplies in the four sectors. Talk to a British soldier who says the officers “are living like gods” in Berlin while the other ranks are confined to barracks. Everywhere is out of bounds to the British enlisted man. “We are an army of gentlemen and floor wipers,” he says. It is not like this in the American sector.
To the Dandy Bar. Henni tells me she had the chance of a job in Hamburg teaching music in a school. She thinks she should get her mother out of Berlin. I encourage her. To her room for one hour, then back to PSR-4 in time for a late supper. I think Frau Hanf has developed a soft spot for me; she remembers seeing Julie. I tell her what has become of Doon.
April 24, 1946. Saw a film poster today—Der Ausgleicher, a Western. I almost walked past it until I translated the title and saw “ein Film von J. J. Todd.” Word soon got out in the WarCorrMess and I find I am something of a celebrity. Two of my colleagues interview me. Curious to have a film playing in Berlin again.
A message from Eugen. We are to meet tomorrow in the Dandy Bar at midday.
Eugen wasn’t actually allowed in the bar because he was too badly dressed. I arrived to find him arguing with the doorman. I led him away and calmed him down. He was close to tears.
“My God! In the old days I wouldn’t have looked into a stinking dive like that!” he said. “I belonged to five clubs. Five. Very select. The most exclusive places.”
“Have you found him?”
“What? Yes. Yes, I think so.”
He calmed down when I gave him his cigarettes.
He took me off somewhere in the French sector. There were Tricolors everywhere. I think the French were enjoying occupying Berlin just as much as the Russians. We abandoned the car and walked through a partially cleared street. Tremendous fires had raged here and the buildings were quite black with soot. It was a cool cloudy day with occasional drizzle. From time to time the fresh wind unpeeled a patch of encrusted soot from the walls and sent it dancing through the air like a stiff black handkerchief. We turned a corner and came to an open space, once a small square perhaps. Beyond it, the houses had been completely flattened and we found we were in a brick wasteland, big as a soccer field, pretty with copious weeds and wildflowers. Here and there people seemed to be camping in hollows burrowed in the rubble. A crowd of about thirty gathered round a blazing bonfire.
With some difficulty Eugen and I made our way across the uneven ground towards a half-demolished church. I felt most peculiar. I could hardly believe I was going to meet Karl-Heinz. I felt childishly tearful and full of trepidation. I stumbled badly and my leg began to ache.
The roof of the church had gone and so had all the pews and furniture — for firewood, I assumed. Many people seemed to be living there, sitting docilely against the wall guarding bundles of possessions, or crouched over tiny fires cooking food in steaming pots. We went down into the crypt. It was lit by electric light, to my surprise, and was very smoky. Eugen spoke to a young woman with one arm. I looked around: the place was full of young people — boys and girls. She pointed her stump towards the back of the room.