A Quiet Flame

Gerda wasn’t joking. The Ochsenhof was a big block of slum apartments in the epicenter of the toughest neighborhood in Berlin and a virtual no-go area for the police. The only way cops from the Alex were ever likely to visit the Ochsenhof was with a tank to back them up. They’d tried it before. And failed, beaten back by snipers and petrol bombs. Not for nothing was it known as the Roast.

“What did he look like, this Rudi Serkin?” I asked.

“About thirty. Small. Dark, curly hair. Glasses. Smoked a pipe. Bow tie. Oh, and Jewish.” She chuckled. “At least he didn’t have a wrapper on his lollipop.”

“A Jew,” muttered Grund. “I might have known.”

“Got something against Jews, have you, darling?”

“He’s a Nazi,” I said. “He’s got something against everyone.”

For a moment or two we were all silent. Then a voice said, loudly: “Finished your talking, have you?”

We looked around and saw the striptease dancer staring drill holes through us. Gerda laughed. “Yeah, we’ve finished.”

“Good,” said the dancer, and dropped her drawers in one quick and unerotic movement. She bent over and paused just to make sure everyone got a good view of everything. Then, collecting her underwear off the floor, she straightened up again and stalked crossly off the stage.

I decided it was time we followed her example.

Leaving Gerda to finish her bottle alone, we went upstairs and took a deep breath of clean Berlin air. After the venereal atmosphere of the Blue Stocking, I felt like going home and washing my feet in disinfectant. And planning my next trip to the dentist. The sight of Neumann’s hideous smile as we were leaving was a dreadful warning.

Grund nodded with enthusiasm. “At least now we’ve got a name,” he said.

“You think so?”

“You heard her.”

I smiled. “Rudolf Serkin is the name of a famous concert pianist,” I said.

“All the better. Make a nice splash in Tempo.”

“Better still, in Der Angriff,” I said, and shook my head. “My dear Heinrich, the real Rudolf Serkin would no more get involved with a crippled whore than he’d play ‘My Parrot Doesn’t Like Hard-boiled Eggs’ at the Bechstein Hall. Whoever it was Gerda met. And whoever it was she saw Anita with. They just gave a false name. That’s all.”

“Maybe there are two Rudolf Serkins.”

“Maybe. But I doubt it. Would you give your real name to a bit of gravel you picked up in the Blue Stocking?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“You suppose right. Gerda knew it, too. Only she had nothing else to give.”

“What about the address?”

“She gave out the one address in Berlin she knows the polenta doesn’t dare set foot in. She was playing us a tune, chum.”

“Then why did you let her keep the gypsy?”

“Why?” I looked up at the sky. “I dunno. Maybe because she’s only got one leg and one arm. Maybe that’s why. Anyway, the next time I see her, she’ll know she owes me.”

Grund grimaced. “You’re too soft to be a cop, do you know that?”

“From a Nazi like you I’ll take that as a compliment.”

THE NEXT MORNING I left my Peek & Cloppenburg suit in the closet and put on my father’s tailcoat and stiff collar. Until his untimely death, he had worked as a clerk for the Bleichröder Bank, on Behrenstrasse. I don’t think I ever saw him wearing a lounge suit. Lounging was not something he did much of. My father was a pretty typical Prussian: deferential, loyal to his emperor, respectful, punctilious. I got all those qualities from him. While he was alive, we never got on as well as we might have done. But things were different now.

I took a good look at myself in the mirror and smiled. I was just like him. Apart from the smile and the cigarette and the extra hair on top of my head. All men come to resemble their fathers. That isn’t a tragedy. But you need a hell of a sense of humor to handle it.

I walked to the Adlon. The hotel car service was run by a Pole named Carl Mirow. Carl had once been Hindenburg’s chauffeur but left the Weimar president’s service when he discovered he could make more money driving for someone important. Like the Adlons. Carl was a member of the German Automobile Club and was very proud of the fact that in all his many years on the roads, he had kept a clean license. Very proud and very grateful, too. In 1922, a raw young Berlin policeman named Bernhard Gunther had stopped Carl for going through a red light. He smelled like he’d gone through quite a bit of schnapps as well, but I decided to let him off. It wasn’t very Prussian of me. Maybe Grund was right. Maybe I was too soft to be a cop. Anyway, ever since Carl and I had been friends.