Rosa

Jogiches poured out a second glass for himself. “Not nearly the entire story, but then someone had to prod your case into life again.”

“And what is my case?”

“Rosa.” He spoke the name as if it were part of some incantation, hushed and filled with meaning. Then, too casually, he added, “You’ve heard, of course, that tomorrow’s Lokalanzeiger will say she’s in Russia, plotting with Herr Lenin to overthrow the Ebert government.” Jogiches was too busy reordering the ashtray, table lamp, and salt shaker to allow a response. “‘Where’s the body, Berlin?’ they’ll ask. ‘Rosa dead? Nonsense. Watch yourselves. For she’ll sweep in and rip your hearts out when she brings her revolution back again.’” No less intent on his task, he added, “But then, we both know she’s dead, lying on a slab on the fourth floor of the Alexanderplatz. Still, it’ll make for a good bit of press.”

Hoffner had his glass to his lips when Jogiches let go with this little tidbit; Hoffner wondered how many other items Jogiches might be holding in reserve. He tossed back the brandy and set his glass on the table. “No reason for me to play coy, is there?” said Hoffner.

“No.”

“You have someone inside the Alex.”

“Yes.” Jogiches seemed satisfied with his redecorations: order had been achieved. He sat back.

Hoffner said, “So who’s been working for you?”

For the first time, Hoffner was aware that Jogiches was studying him. He wondered which crime Jogiches might be imagining for his own future. Hoffner was about to ask when Jogiches’s eyes suddenly seemed to lose themselves, as if they were looking directly through him.

“You know,” Jogiches said vacantly, “she was much cleverer than all of us.” It was as if he were admitting to some long-held secret. His gaze remained distant.

Hoffner had spent enough time with Rosa now to come to her defense. “Shame you never told her,” he said.

“Yes,” said Jogiches. His gaze refocused and he looked directly into Hoffner’s eyes. “I suppose it was.”

Guilt, thought Hoffner, had an uncanny way of exposing itself. Jogiches, however, had spent too many years denying his own faults to allow any instinct for atonement to take hold for more than a few seconds.

Jogiches said, “You’ve never read any of her work, have you? Her real work, I mean.” Hoffner shook his head. “I didn’t think so. No, no, I don’t mean it that way. I’m sure you could have understood it. She was quite superb in that way. Theories only the geniuses could master, and she made them simple. Marx’s Capital-a morass, completely impenetrable, and then Rosa writes her Accumulation and suddenly Marxist economics has a place in the twentieth century. She even improved on the old man, with a little help, of course.”

“Of course,” said Hoffner.

Jogiches liked the challenge. “You think she could have done it without me?”

Hoffner had neither the inclination nor the ammunition to take on Jogiches. “That story about the gun,” he said. “Did she really pull it on you?”

Jogiches seemed surprised by the question. His answer came with a bit more bite. “She wrote about that?”

“In great detail,” said Hoffner. “I would have thought that you’d have been the first to read through the journals, cover to cover.”

“Evidently you have.”

“But not you?”

Jogiches tapped out his cigarette. “And slog through an endless tirade of revisionist history, Inspector? I’ll take a pass.”

Hoffner heard the self-rationalization in his tone. “So she never pulled the gun?”

“Of course she pulled it. Why not? She couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t permit her to continue seeing that idiot Zetkin.”

Hoffner could feel Jogiches rising to the bait. “You wouldn’t permit her?” he said.

“Something like that.” Jogiches took a last pull, then crushed out his cigarette; he continued to play with the stub. “She thought she could make him into a novelist or a painter, or something equally ludicrous. You’ve read through it. I forget which. Waste of time.” He let go of the stub and brushed off his hands. “She couldn’t accept the man for what he was, and when she tried to make me into something that was her fantasy-” Jogiches caught himself. It was only a momentary hitch, but it was enough to sour his tone. “Zetkin. When she insisted Zetkin could be all of her marvelous romantic ideals-it was pathetic. A woman her age. I told her so. She became very dramatic. Rosa loved the drama. And so out came the little revolver.” He shrugged it off with too much indifference. “She said she never wanted to see me again, which made it even more ridiculous.”

Even now, Jogiches had no idea what the drama had been masking. Hoffner poured himself a second glass and said, “The journals said you promised to kill her if she stayed with Zetkin.”

Jogiches tried an unsuccessful laugh. “That again. The woman was obsessed.”

“She seemed to think it was the other way round.”

“Did she?” Jogiches was now fully engaged. “I’ll tell you something about obsession, Inspector. A nine-year sentence in Mokotw-and we both know what goes on inside those walls-and she thinks I’m having an affair with some woman halfway across the country? I don’t see daylight for five months, and I’m the one carrying on. Guilt is a remarkable thing, don’t you think? She should have shot me when she had the chance. Would have served her right.”

Crushing out his cigarette, Hoffner said blandly, “So who’s in Munich?”

For just an instant, Jogiches winced. It was hardly a movement, the recovery as immediate, but it was enough to tell Hoffner that he had hit a nerve. In that moment, Jogiches knew that he had been outmaneuvered. His eyes grew cold. Hoffner said nothing.

“I see,” said Jogiches icily. “You let me ramble on like a fool, and I give you Munich. Well done, Inspector.”

Hoffner had known to hook Jogiches by his pride-Rosa had told him as much in the journals-but he had never expected this level of self-reproach. “I’m not sure I’d have used the word ‘fool,’ mein Herr,” said Hoffner, “but I think we’re at the point where you can volunteer a little something.”

Jogiches answered cagily, “Am I so easily manipulated?”

“I don’t imagine anything of the kind.”

Jogiches was still cold: “And you think I’m eventually going to trust you, don’t you, Inspector?”

Hoffner pulled a second cigarette from his pack. “I wouldn’t want to set a precedent, mein Herr.”

“No,” said Jogiches, eyeing him more closely. “That would be dangerous, wouldn’t it?”

A clarinet had joined the band. There was hardly space between the tables, yet someone had decided that that meant dancing. Luckily, all the bouncing was keeping itself to the other side of the room.

Jogiches said, “It’s when the smoke clears that the trouble begins, Inspector.” He was on his fourth glass of brandy, though as sober as when he had first sat down. “Berlin wants to dictate to the rest of Germany, but the rest of Germany isn’t all that keen to listen. Communists in Bremen, Social Democrats in Hamburg, royalists in Stuttgart, God knows what else in Berlin, and on and on and on. The revolution isn’t over. It’s simply waiting to see who has the will to see it through.”

“And Munich?” said Hoffner.

Jogiches spoke with absolute certainty. “Munich will make all the difference, even if Berlin doesn’t know that, just yet.”

“But you do.”

Jogiches had a habit of staring at the ember of his cigarette as he held it by his glass. “Did you ever ask yourself why they’re keeping Rosa’s body on a slab of ice in Alexanderplatz?”

“Every day.”

“Yes, but you’ve been asking for the wrong reasons.” He looked across at Hoffner. “You think it’s something to do with your little Belgian.”

“No, I think it extends far beyond that, but I have nothing to tell me why. Isn’t that the reason we’re having