‘Smoke?’
The old woman’s eyes lit up like she was looking at the Koh-i-noor diamond.
‘Please.’ She took one tentatively, almost as if she thought that I might snatch it away again.
‘It’s a fair exchange for a cup of tea,’ I said, lighting her cigarette. I didn’t smoke one myself. I hardly wanted either of them thinking I was Gustav Krupp.
The old woman took an ecstatic puff of her cigarette, smiled and went back into the kitchen.
‘And here was me thinking you were just Parsifal. Looks like you’ve got the touch. Healing lepers is easier than raising a smile on her face.’
‘But I get the feeling she disapproves of you, Fraulein Tauber.’
‘You make that sound almost benign. Like my old schoolmistress.’ Fraulein Tauber laughed bitterly. ‘Frau Lippert — that’s her name — she hates me. If I was Jewish she couldn’t hate me more.’
‘And what’s your name? I can’t keep calling you Fraulein Tauber.’
‘Why not? Everyone else does.’
‘The man who attacked you. Did you get a good look at him?’
‘He was about your height. Dark clothes, dark eyes, dark hair, dark complexion. In fact everything about him was dark on account of the fact that it was dark, see? If I drew you a picture he’d look exactly like your shadow.’
‘Is that all you can remember about him?’
‘Come to think of it he had nice fruity breath. Like he’d been eating Haribos.’
‘It’s not much to go on.’
‘That all depends on where you were thinking of going.’
‘The man was trying to rape you.’
‘Was he? I guess he was.’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe you should report it. I don’t know.’
‘To the police?’
‘I certainly didn’t mean the newspapers.’
‘Women in this city get attacked all the time, Parsifal. Why do you think the police would be interested in one more?’
‘He had a knife, that’s why. He might have used it on you.’
‘Listen, mister, thanks for helping me. Don’t think I’m not grateful because I am. But I don’t much like the police.’
I shrugged. ‘They’re just people.’
‘Where did you get that idea? All right, Parsifal, I’ll spell it out for you. I work at the Golden Horseshoe. And sometimes the New World, when they’re not closed for lack of beer. I make an honest living but that won’t stop the cops from thinking otherwise. I can hear their patter now. Like it was a movie. You left the Horseshoe with a man, didn’t you? He’d paid you to have sex with him. Only you took his money and tried to dodge him in the dark. Isn’t that what really happened, Fraulein Tauber? Get out of here. You’re lucky we don’t throw you in Ravensbruck for being on the sledge.’
I had to admit she had a point. Berlin cops had stopped being people when they married into the Reich Main Security Office — the RSHA — and joined a Gothic-looking family that included the Gestapo, the SS and the SD.
‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘you don’t want the police buzzing in your ears any more than me. Not with your American cigarettes and all those cans in that bag of yours. No, I should think they might ask you some very awkward questions, which you don’t look able to answer.’
‘I guess you do have a point there, at that.’
‘Especially not wearing a suit like that.’
Her visible eye was giving me the up and down.
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Nothing. It’s a nice suit. And that’s the point. It doesn’t look like you’ve been wearing it very much lately. Which is unusual in Berlin for a man with your accent. Which makes me think you must have been wearing something else. Most likely a uniform. That would explain the cigarettes and your quaint opinions about the police. And the tin cans, for all I know. I’ll bet you you’re in the Army. And you’ve been in Paris, if that tie is what I think it is: silk. It matches your pre-war manners, Parsifal. Manners are something else you can’t get in Berlin any more. But every German officer gets to behave like a real gentleman when he’s stationed in Paris. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. So, you’re not a professional blackie. Just an amateur blackie, making a little money on the side while you’re home on leave. This is the only reason you’re naively talking about the police and reporting what happened to me this evening.’
‘You should have been a cop yourself.’ I grinned.
‘No. Not me. I like to sleep at night. But the way things are going, before very long we’re all going to be cops whether we like it or not, spying on each other, informing.’ She nodded meaningfully at the door. ‘If you know what I mean.’
I didn’t say anything as Frau Lippert came back carrying a tray with two cups of tea.
‘That’s what I mean,’ added Fraulein Tauber in case I was too dumb to understand her the first time.
‘Drink your tea,’ I said. ‘It’ll help keep that eye down.’
‘I don’t see how.’
‘This is good tea,’ I told Frau Lippert.
‘Thank you, Herr-?’
‘That is, I don’t see how it can help a blue eye.’
I nodded, appreciating the interruption: it was Fraulein Tauber’s turn to help me. It wasn’t a good idea to tell Frau Lippert my name. I could see that now. The old woman wasn’t just the house guard dog; she was also the building’s Gestapo bloodhound.
‘Caffeine,’ I said. ‘It causes the blood vessels to constrict. You want to reduce the amount of blood that can reach your eye. The more blood that seeps out of the damaged capillaries on that lovely face of yours, the bluer your eye will get. Here. Let me have a look.’
I took away the cold compress for a moment and then nodded.
‘It’s not so blue,’ I said.
‘Not when I look at you, it’s not.’
‘Mmm-hmm.’
‘You know, you sound just like a doctor, Parsifal.’
‘You can tell that from mm-hmm?’
‘Sure. Doctors say it all the time. To me, anyway.’
Frau Lippert had been out of this conversation since it started and must have felt that it lacked her own imprimatur. ‘She’s right,’ said the old woman. ‘They do.’
I kept on looking at the girl with the cold compress in her hand. ‘You’re mistaken, Fraulein. It’s not mm-hmm your doctor is saying. It’s shorter, simpler, more direct than that. It’s just Mmm.’
I drained my tea cup and placed it back on the tray. ‘Mmm, thank you.’
‘I’m glad you liked it,’ said Frau Lippert.
‘Very much.’
I grinned at her and picked my bag of canned food off the floor. It was nice to see her smile back.
‘Well, I’d better be going. I’ll look in again sometime just to see you’re all right.’
‘There’s no need, Parsifal. I’m all right now.’
‘I like to know how all my patients are doing, Fraulein. Especially the ones wearing Guerlain Shalimar.’
Chapter 4
The Pathological Institute was at the Charite Hospital just across the canal from Lehrter Station. With its red-brick exterior, its Alpine-style wooden loggias, its clock and distinctive corner tower, the oldest teaching
