The baron leapt from his seat so quickly that it tipped backward and crashed into the low rail surrounding the fireplace.
“What did you say?” he said, grabbing the pawnbroker by the throat.
“You’re hurting me!”
“Talk, for God’s sake, or I’ll break your neck this instant.”
“A plain black mahogany box,” replied the old man in a whisper.
“The pistol! Describe it!”
“A Mauser C96 with a broom handle grip. The wood on the butt wasn’t oak, like the original model, but black mahogany, matching the case. A fine weapon.”
“How can this be?” said the baron.
Suddenly weak, he released the pawnbroker and slumped back into his seat.
Old Metzger straightened up, rubbing his neck.
“Mad. He’s gone mad,” Metzger said, making a dash for the door.
The baron didn’t notice him go. He remained seated, his head in his hands, consumed by dark thoughts.
35
Ilse was sweeping the corridor when she noticed the shadow of a visitor cast across the floor by the light of the wall lamps. She knew who it was even before raising her head, and she froze.
Holy God, how did you find us?
When she and her son had first arrived at the boardinghouse, Ilse had had to work to pay for part of the rent, since what Paul was making carrying coal wasn’t enough. Later, when Paul had transformed Ziegler’s grocery into a bank, the young man had insisted that they find better lodgings. Ilse had refused. There had been too many changes in her life, and she clung to whatever gave her security.
One of those things was the broom handle. Paul-and the owner of the boardinghouse, to whom Ilse wasn’t much help-had insisted that she stop working, but she had paid no attention. She needed to feel useful somehow. The silence into which she’d sunk after they’d been expelled from the mansion had initially been the result of anxiety, but later had become a voluntary manifestation of her love for Paul. She avoided conversation with him because she was afraid of his questions. When she spoke, it was of unimportant things, which she tried to invest with all the tenderness she could muster. The rest of the time she simply gazed at him silently, from afar, and grieved over what she had been deprived of.
Which was why her anguish was so intense when she found herself face-to-face with one of the people responsible for her loss.
“Hello, Ilse.”
She took a step back cautiously.
“What do you want, Otto?”
The baron drummed on the ground with the end of his walking stick. He wasn’t comfortable here, that much was clear, as was the fact that his visit signaled some sinister intent.
“Can we talk somewhere more private?”
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you. Say what you have to say and leave.”
The baron snorted in annoyance. Then he gestured scornfully at the moldy paper on the walls, the uneven floor, and the fading lamps that gave off more shadow than light.
“Look at you, Ilse. Sweeping the corridor in a third-class boardinghouse. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Sweeping floors is sweeping floors, it makes no difference if it’s a mansion or a boardinghouse. And there are linoleum floors that are more respectable than marble.”
“Ilse, dear, you know that when we took you in you were in a bad way. I wouldn’t have wanted-”
“Stop right there, Otto. I know whose idea that was. But don’t think I’m going to fall for the routine that you’re only a puppet. You’re the one who’s controlled my sister from the very start, making her pay dearly for the mistake she made. And for the things you’ve done hiding behind that mistake.”
Otto took a step back, shocked at the anger that seethed from Ilse’s lips. The monocle fell from his eye and swung against the front of his overcoat like a condemned man hanging from a gibbet.
“You surprise me, Ilse. They told me you’d-”
Ilse gave a joyless laugh.
“Lost it? Gone crazy? No, Otto. I’m quite sane. I’ve chosen to remain silent all this time because I’m afraid of what my son might do if he found out the truth.”
“So stop him. Because he’s going too far.”
“So that’s why you’ve come,” she said, unable to contain her scorn. “You’re afraid the past will finally catch up with you.”
The baron took a step toward Ilse. Paul’s mother moved back against the wall as Otto brought his face up close to hers.
“Now, listen carefully, Ilse. You’re the only link there is to that night. If you don’t stop him before it’s too late, I shall have to break that link.”
“Go on, then, Otto, kill me,” said Ilse, feigning a bravery she didn’t feel. “But you should know I’ve written a letter revealing the whole affair. All of it. If anything happens to me, Paul will receive it.”
“But… you can’t be serious! You can’t write that down! What if it falls into the wrong hands?”
Ilse didn’t reply. All she did was stare at him. Otto tried to hold her stare, a tall, solid, well-dressed man facing down a fragile woman in ragged clothes who clung to her broom to stop herself from falling.
Finally the baron gave up.
“It doesn’t end here,” said Otto, turning and rushing out.
36
“You called for me, Father?”
Otto glanced at Jurgen with misgiving. It had been weeks since he’d last seen him, and he still found it hard to identify the uniformed figure standing in his dining room as his son. He was suddenly aware of how Jurgen’s shoulders filled the brown shirt, how the red armband with the twisted cross framed his thick biceps, how the black boots increased the young man’s stature to the point where he had to duck slightly to go under the door frame. He felt a hint of pride, but at the same time he was overwhelmed by a wave of self-pity. He couldn’t help but draw comparisons to himself: Otto was fifty-two, and he felt old and tired.
“You haven’t been home for a long time, Jurgen.”
“I’ve had important things to do.”
The baron didn’t reply. Though he did understand the Nazis’ ideals, he had never really believed in them. Like the great majority of Munich’s high society, he considered them to be a party with little promise, condemned to become extinct. If they’d come so far, it was only because they were benefiting from a social situation that was so dramatic, the underprivileged would believe any extremist prepared to make them wild promises. But at that moment he did not have time for subtleties.
“So much so that you neglect your mother? She’s been worried about you. Might we know where you’ve been sleeping?”
“In SA quarters.”
“This year you were meant to have begun your university studies, two years late!” said Otto, shaking his head. “It’s already November, and you still haven’t shown up for a single class.”
“I’m in a position of responsibility.”
Otto watched as the pieces of the image he’d preserved of this ill-mannered adolescent-who not long ago would have hurled a cup onto the floor because the tea was too sweet for him-finally disintegrated. He wondered
