introduced himself as Captain Rustaveli and took a seat behind the desk.
'Look here,' demanded Lotte Hartmann, 'would you mind telling me why I've been brought here in the middle of the night? What the hell is going on?'
'All in good time, FrSulein,' he replied in flawless German. 'Please sit down.'
She slumped on to a chair beside me and regarded him sullenly. The captain looked at me.
'Herr Gunther?'
I nodded and told him in Russian that the girl spoke only German. 'She'll think I'm a more impressive son-of- a-bitch if you and I confine ourselves to a language she can't understand.'
Captain Rustaveli stared coldly back at me and for a brief moment I wondered if something had gone wrong and Belinsky had not managed to make it clear to this Russian officer that our arrests were a put-up job.
'Very well,' he said after a long moment. 'Nevertheless, we shall at least have to go through the motions of an interrogation. May I see your papers please, Herr Gunther?' From his accent I took him for a Georgian. The same as Comrade Stalin.
I reached inside my jacket and handed over my identity card into which, at Belinsky's suggestion, I had inserted two $100 bills while sitting in the truck.
Rustaveli quickly slipped the money into his breeches pocket without blinking, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Lotte Hartmann's jaw drop on to her lap.
'Very generous,' he murmured, turning over my identity card in his hairy fingers. Then he opened a file with my name on it. 'Although quite unnecessary, I can assure you.'
'There's her feelings to think of, Captain. You wouldn't want me to disappoint her prejudice, would you?'
'No indeed. Good-looking, wouldn't you say?'
'Very.'
'A whore, do you think?'
'That, or something pretty close to it. I'm only guessing of course, but I'd say she was the type that likes to strip a man of a lot more than ten schillings and his underwear.'
'Not the sort of girl to fall in love with, eh?'
'It would be like putting your tail on an anvil.'
It was warm in Rustaveli's office and Lotte started to fan herself with her jacket, allowing the Russian several glimpses of her ample cleavage.
'It's rare that an interrogation is quite so amusing,' he said, and looking down at his papers added: 'She has nice tits. That's the kind of truth I can really respect.'
'I guess it's a lot easier for you Russians to look at.'
'Well, whatever this little show has been laid on to achieve, I hope you get to have her. I can't think of a better reason to go to all this trouble. Me, I've got a sexual disease: my tail swells up every time I see a woman.'
'I guess that makes you a fairly typical Russian.'
Rustaveli smiled wryly. 'Incidentally, you speak excellent Russian, Herr Gunther. For a German.'
'So do you, Captain. For a Georgian. Where are you from?'
'Tbilisi.'
'Stalin's birthplace?'
'No, thank God. That's Gori's misfortune.' Rustaveli closed my file. 'That should be enough to impress her, don't you think?'
'Yes.'
'What shall I tell her?'
'You have information that she's a whore,' I explained, 'so you're reluctant to let her go. But you let me talk you into it.'
'Well, that seems to be in order, Herr Gunther,' Rustaveli said, reverting to German again. 'My apologies for having detained you. Now you may leave.'
He handed back my identity card, and I stood up and made for the door.
'But what about me?' Lotte moaned.
Rustaveli shook his head. 'I'm afraid you must stay, FrSulein. The vice squad doctor will be here shortly. He will question you regarding your work at the Oriental.'
'But I'm a croupier,' she wailed, 'not a chocolady.'
'That is not our information.'
'What information?'
'Your name has been mentioned by several other girls.'
'What other girls?'
'Prostitutes, FrSulein. Possibly you may have to submit yourself for a medical examination.'
'A medical? What for?'
'For venereal disease, of course.'
'Venereal disease ?'
'Captain Rustaveli,' I said above Lotte's rising cry of outrage, 'I can vouch for this woman. I wouldn't say I knew her very well, but I've known her long enough to be able to state, quite categorically, that she is not a prostitute.'
'Well ' he cavilled.
'I ask you: does she look like a prostitute?'
'Frankly, I've yet to meet an Austrian girl who isn't selling it.' He closed his eyes for a second, and then shook his head. 'I can't go against the protocol.
These are serious charges. Many Russian soldiers have been infected.'
'As I recall, the Oriental where FrSulein Hartmann was arrested is off limits to the Red Army. I was under the impression that your men tended to go to the Moulin Rouge in Walfischgasse.'
Rustaveli pursed his lips and shrugged. 'That is true. But nevertheless '
'Perhaps if I were to meet you again, Captain, we might discuss the possibility of me compensating the Red Army for any embarrassment regarding a breach of the protocol. In the meantime, would you be able to accept my personal surety for the FrSulein's good character?'
Rustaveli scratched his stubble thoughtfully. 'Very well,' he said, 'your personal surety. But remember, I have your addresses. You can always be re-arrested.' He turned to Lotte Hartmann and told her that she was also free to leave.
'Thank God,' she breathed, and sprang to her feet.
Rustaveli nodded at the kapral standing guard on the other side of the grimy glass door, and then ordered him to escort us out of the building. Then the captain clicked his heels and apologised for 'the mistake', as much for the benefit of his kapral as for any effect it might have had on Lotte Hartmann.
She and I followed the kapral back down the big staircase, our steps echoing up to the ornate cornice-work on the high ceiling, and through the arched glass doors into the street where he leaned over the pavement and spat copiously into the gutter.
'A mistake, eh?' He uttered a bitter laugh. 'Mark my words, I'll be the one that gets the blame for it.'
'I hope not,' I said, but the man just shrugged, adjusted his lambskin hat and trudged wearily back into his headquarters.
'I suppose I ought to thank you,' Lotte said, tying up the collar of her jacket.
'Forget it,' I said, and started walking towards the Ring. She hesitated for a moment and then tripped after me.
'Wait a minute,' she said.
I stopped and faced her again. Frontally her face was even more attractive than its profile, as the length of her nose seemed less noticeable. And she was not cold at all. Belinsky had been wrong about that, mistaking cynicism for general indifference. Indeed, I thought she seemed more apt to entice men, although an evening of watching her in the Casino had established that she was probably one of those unsatisfactory women who dangle intimacy, only to withdraw it at a later stage.
