A whistle shrieked, the train jolted, and then we pulled slowly out of Anhalter Station on the six-hour journey that would take us to Nuremberg. Korsch, the compartment’s only other occupant, was already reading his newspaper.
‘Hell,’ he said, ‘listen to this. It says here that the Soviet foreign minister, Maxim Litvinoff declared in front of the League of Nations in Geneva that his government is determined to fulfil its existing treaty of alliance with Czechoslovakia, and that it will offer military help at the same time as France. Christ, we’ll really be in for it then, with an attack on both fronts.’
I grunted. There was less chance of the French offering any real opposition to Hitler than there was of them declaring Prohibition. Litvinoff had chosen his words carefully. Nobody wanted war. Nobody but Hitler, that is. Hitler the syphilitic.
My thoughts returned to a meeting I had had the previous Tuesday with Frau Kalau vom Hofe at the Goering Institute.
‘I brought your books back,’ I explained. ‘The one by Professor Berg was particularly interesting.’
‘I’m glad you thought so,’ she said. ‘How about the Baudelaire?’
‘That too, although it seemed much more applicable to Germany now. Especially the poems called “Spleen”.’
‘Maybe now you’re ready for Nietzsche,’ she said, leaning back in her chair.
It was a pleasantly furnished, bright office with a view of the Zoo opposite. You could just about hear the monkeys screaming in the distance.
Her smile persisted. She was better looking than I remembered. I picked up the solitary photograph that sat on her desk and stared at a handsome man and two little boys.
‘Your family?’
‘Yes.’
‘You must be very happy.’ I returned the picture to its position. ‘Nietzsche,’ I said, changing the subject. ‘I don’t know about that. I’m not really much of a reader, you see. I don’t seem to be able to find the time. But I did look up those pages in
‘That’s right.’
I sat down and faced her across the desk.
‘But that sort of thing is possible?’
‘Oh, yes indeed.’
I handed her the page from
‘Even with something like this?’
She looked at me levelly, and then opened her cigarette box. I helped myself to one, and then lit us both.
‘Are you asking me officially?’ she said.
‘No, of course not.’
‘Then I should say that it would be possible. In fact I should say that
‘Can you speculate a little? The effect, I mean.’
She pursed her beautiful lips. ‘Hard to evaluate,’ she said after a pause. ‘Certainly for weaker personalities, this sort of thing, regularly absorbed, could be corrupting.’
‘Corrupting enough to make a man a murderer?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t think so. It wouldn’t make a killer out of a normal man. But for a man already disposed to kill, I think it’s quite possible that this kind of story and drawing might have a profound effect on him. And as you know from your own reading of Berg, Kurten himself was of the opinion that the more salacious kind of crime reporting had very definitely affected him.’
She crossed her legs, the sibilance of her stockings drawing my thoughts to their tops, to her garters and finally to the lacy paradise that I imagined existed there. My stomach tightened at the thought of running my hand up her skirt, at the thought of her stripped naked before me, and yet still speaking intelligently to me. Exactly where is the beginning of corruption?
‘I see,“ I said. ’And what would be your professional opinion of the man who published this story? I mean Julius Streicher.‘
‘A hatred like this is almost certainly the result of a great mental instability.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Can I tell you something in confidence?’
‘Of course.’
‘You know that Matthias Goering, the chairman of this institute, is the prime minister’s cousin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Streicher has written a lot of poisonous nonsense about medicine as a Jewish conspiracy, and psychotherapy in particular. For a while the future of mental health in this country was in jeopardy because of him. Consequently Dr Goering has good reason to wish Streicher out of the way, and has already prepared a psychological evaluation of him at the prime minister’s orders. I’m sure that I could guarantee the cooperation of this institute in any investigation involving Streicher.’
I nodded slowly.
‘Are you investigating Streicher?’
‘In confidence?’
‘Of course.’
‘I don’t honestly know. Right now let’s just say that I’m curious about him.’
‘Do you want me to ask Dr Goering for help?’
I shook my head. ‘Not at this stage. But thanks for the offer. I’ll certainly bear it in mind.’ I stood up, and went to the door. ‘I’ll bet you probably think quite highly of the prime minister, him being the patron of this institute. Am I right?’
‘He’s been good to us, it’s true. Without his help I doubt there would be an institute. Naturally we think highly of him for that.’
‘Please don’t think I’m blaming you, I’m not. But hasn’t it ever occurred to you that your beneficent patron is just as likely to go and shit in someone else’s garden, as Streicher is in yours? Have you ever thought about that? It stikes me as how it’s a dirty neighbourhood we’re living in, and that we’re all going to keep finding crap on our shoes until someone has the sense to put all the stray dogs in the public kennel.’ I touched the brim of my hat to her. ‘Think about it.’
Korsch twisted his moustache absently as he continued reading his newspaper. I supposed that he had grown it in an effort to look more of a character, in the same way as some men will grow a beard: not because they dislike shaving – a beard requires just as much grooming as a clean-shaven face -but because they think it will make them seem like someone to be taken seriously. But with Korsch the moustache, little more than the stroke of an eyebrow-pencil, merely served to underscore his shifty mien. It made him look like a pimp, an effect at odds with his character however, which in a period of less than two weeks, I had discovered to be a willing and reliable one.
Noticing my attention, he was moved to inform me that the Polish foreign minister, Josef Beck, had demanded a solution to the problem of the Polish minority in the Olsa region of Czechoslovakia.
‘Just like a bunch of gangsters, isn’t it, sir?’ he said. ‘Everyone wants his cut.’
‘Korsch,’ I said, ‘you missed your vocation. You should have been a newsreader on the radio.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ he said, folding away his paper. ‘Have you been to Nuremberg before?’
‘Once. Just after the war. I can’t say I like Bavarians much, though. How about you?’
