She produced a cigarette case and invited me to smoke, adding as a proviso: ‘They’re menthol.’
I thought it was curiosity that made me take one, but as I sucked my first lungful I winced, realizing that I had merely forgotten how disgusting a menthol tastes. She chuckled at my obvious discomfort.
‘Oh, put it out man, for God’s sake. They taste horrible. I don’t know why I smoke them, really I don’t. Have one of your own or I’ll never get your attention.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, stubbing it out in a hub-cap of an ashtray, ‘I think I will.’
‘And while you’re at it, you can pour us both a drink. I don’t know about you but I could certainly do with one.’ She pointed to a great Biedermeier secretaire, the top section of which, with its bronze Ionic columns, was an ancient Greek temple in miniature.
‘There’s a bottle of gin in that thing,’ she said. ‘I can’t offer you anything but lime juice to put in it. I’m afraid it’s the only thing I ever drink.’
It was a little early for me, but I mixed two anyway. I liked her for trying to put me at my ease, even though that was supposed to be one of my own professional accomplishments. Except that Frau Lange wasn’t in the least bit nervous. She looked like the kind of lady who had quite a few professional accomplishments of her own. I handed her the drink and sat down on a creaking leather chair that was next to the chaise.
‘Are you an observant man, Herr Gunther?’
‘I can see what’s happening in Germany, if that’s what you mean.’
‘It wasn’t, but I’m glad to hear it anyway. No, what I meant was, how good are you at seeing things?’
‘Come now, Frau Lange, there’s no need to be the cat creeping around the hot milk. Just walk right up and lap it.’ I waited for a moment, watching her grow awkward. ‘I’ll say it for you if you like. You mean, how good a detective am I.’
‘I’m afraid I know very little of these matters.’
‘No reason why you should.’
‘But if I am to confide in you I feel I ought to have some idea of your credentials.’
I smiled. ‘You’ll understand that mine is not the kind of business where I can show you the testimonials of several satisfied customers. Confidentiality is as important to my clients as it is in the confessional. Perhaps even more important.’
‘But then how is one to know that one has engaged the services of someone who is good at what he does?’
‘I’m very good at what I do, Frau Lange. My reputation is well-known. A couple of months ago I even had an offer for my business. Rather a good offer, as it happened.’
‘Why didn’t you sell?’
‘In the first place the business wasn’t for sale. And in the second I’d make as bad an employee as I would an employer. All the same, it’s flattering when that sort of thing happens. Of course, all this is quite beside the point. Most people who want the services of a private investigator don’t need to buy the firm. Usually they just ask their lawyers to find someone. You’ll find that I’m recommended by several law firms, including the ones who don’t like my accent or my manners.’
‘Forgive me, Herr Gunther, but in my opinion the law is a much overrated profession.’
‘I can’t argue with you there. I never met a lawyer yet that wasn’t above stealing his mother’s savings and the mattress she was keeping them under.’
‘In nearly all business matters I have found my own judgement to be a great deal more reliable.’
‘What exactly is your business, Frau Lange?’
‘I own and manage a publishing company.’
‘The Lange Publishing Company?’
‘As I said, I haven’t often been wrong by trusting my own judgement, Herr Gunther. Publishing is all about taste, and to know what will sell one must appreciate something of the tastes of the people to whom one is selling. Now, I’m a Berliner to my fingertips, and I believe I know this city and its people as well as anyone does. So with reference to my original question, which was to do with your being observant, you will answer me this: if I were a stranger in Berlin, how would you describe the people of this city to me?’
I smiled. ‘What’s a Berliner, eh? That’s a good question. No client’s ever asked me to leap through a couple of hoops to see how clever a dog I am before. You know, mostly I don’t do tricks, but in your case I’ll make an exception. Berliners like people to make exceptions for them. I hope you’re paying attention now because I’ve started my act. Yes, they like to be made to feel exceptional, although at the same time they like to keep up appearances. Mostly they’ve got the same sort of look. A scarf, hat and shoes that could walk you to Shanghai without a corn. As it happens, Berliners like to walk, which is why so many of them own a dog: something vicious if you’re masculine, something cute if you’re something else. The men comb their hair more than the women, and they also grow moustaches you could hunt wild pig in. Tourists think that a lot of Berlin men like dressing-up as women, but that’s just the ugly women giving the men a bad name. Not that there are many tourists these days. National Socialism’s made them as rare a sight as Fred Astaire in jackboots.
‘The people of this town will take cream with just about anything, including beer, and beer is something they take very seriously indeed. The women prefer a ten-minute head on it, just like the men, and they don’t mind paying for it themselves. Nearly everyone who drives a car drives much too fast, but nobody would ever dream of running a red light. They’ve got rotten lungs because the air is bad, and because they smoke too much, and a sense of humour that sounds cruel if you don’t understand it, and even crueller if you do. They buy expensive Biedermeier cabinets as solid as blockhouses, and then hang little curtains on the insides of the glass doors to hide what they’ve got in there. It’s a typically idiosyncratic mixture of the ostentatious and the private. How am I doing?’
Frau Lange nodded. ‘Apart from the comment about Berlin’s ugly women, you’ll do just fine.’
‘It wasn’t pertinent.’
‘Now there you’re wrong. Don’t back down or I shall stop liking you. It was pertinent. You’ll see why in a moment. What are your fees?’
‘Seventy marks a day, plus expenses.’
‘And what expenses might there be?’
‘Hard to say. Travel. Bribes. Anything that results in information. You get receipts for everything except the bribes. I’m afraid you have to take my word for those.’
‘Well, let’s hope that you’re a good judge of what is worth paying for.’
‘I’ve had no complaints.’
‘And I assume you’ll want something in advance.’ She handed me an envelope. ‘You’ll find a thousand marks in cash in there. Is that satisfactory to you?’ I nodded. ‘Naturally I shall want a receipt.’
‘Naturally,’ I said, and signed the piece of paper she had prepared. Very businesslike, I thought. Yes, she was certainly quite a lady. ‘Incidentally, how did you come to choose me? You didn’t ask your lawyer, and,’ I added thoughtfully, ‘I don’t advertise, of course.’
She stood up and, still holding her dog, went over to the desk.
‘I had one of your business cards,’ she said, handing it to me. ‘Or at least my son did. I acquired it at least a year ago from the pocket of one of his old suits I was sending to the Winter Relief.’ She referred to the welfare programme that was run by the Labour Front, the DAF. ‘I kept it, meaning to return it to him. But when I mentioned it to him I’m afraid he told me to throw it away. Only I didn’t. I suppose I thought it might come in useful at some stage. Well, I wasn’t wrong, was I?’