The Hotel Warsaw was one of the few comfortable places in the Soviet sector. Half the buildings on the street were shells of rubble. He had seen this kind of damage on that train ride back from Helsinki, in Poland and Czechoslovakia, tall buildings compressed until they came up to your nose. It made him wonder how much space the Capital would take up if all the air were sucked out of it. A home was always smaller than you thought.
The Warsaw was generally filled to capacity, but when Emil tried out his German on the morose desk clerk, he learned that a small, cold room-just big enough for the bed frame and a sink-had recently been cleaned. He took it. His head lay near the windowpane, and through it came the whine of engines. It was like flies buzzing in his ear, and he wished he had a bottle of plum brandy to put himself out. He wished he had a stomach that could take that much liquor. He wished he could stop thinking of Lena. He would have to lie here until sleep, at its leisure, claimed him. Then, from the exhaustion of his anxiety and the low, dull pain of his wounds, it did.
The airplanes had not ceased.
After a shower down the hall, he bought the sector’s currency — Ostmarks-at a bad rate from the front desk, and breakfasted in the hotel cafe. The bureaucrat from last night sat with a young brunette who looked like she had weathered a storm. She sipped at her coffee and stared straight ahead, while the bureaucrat shoveled fluffy eggs into his mouth.
It was a cool, brisk morning. There were a lot of pedestrians out, going to work, which was strange against the backdrop of a demolished city. It brought him back to that first year when he returned to the Capital, after the Arctic. Women in thick heels stepped carefully over broken bricks and stood outside shops waiting for work and busses. There were few men-German men, at least-except the very young and the very old. Russian soldiers with rifles walked in pairs, watching over everything under a sun that gave no warmth. It was all too familiar.
The rubble of broken buildings had been collected at some corners, and children scrambled up the little mountains, laughing. Some workers in coveralls held hammers and long, discolored boards cannibalized from exploded homes. Now and then his cane slipped, and he grew accustomed to watching the broken sidewalks. Ahead, a crowd descended into a metro station.
Always, the backdrop of planes. Buzzing.
It took a while, maybe an hour, before he picked them out. Ever since arriving, he had been paying close attention to faces. Maybe too much attention. He hadn’t seen a thing. When eyes met his he paused a moment to give them a once-over, or stopped now and then to look around, playing the lost tourist. Then, while looking at a store window stocked with ten colors of fabric, he noticed a man pause at a display of children’s clothes. Low-slung fedora. A leather overcoat.
He couldn’t know for sure, so he crossed to the other side of the street, took the corner, and waited in the blackened doorway of a firebombed restaurant. The man appeared soon, hands in his coat, and was followed by a partner. Fedora, leather coat and, for distinction, thick prescription glasses. The first was wide-faced, fat, while the one with glasses was thin. They both had serene, unsmiling faces.
Russian Intelligence. MVD. He was expected.
He left the doorway and took some streets at random. His shadows held back as he made his way up streets; then, just before he took a corner, they began jogging after him. Near an uprooted park, he found a sidewalk cafe and sat in the shade. By the time his coffee had arrived, the two men were at the edge of the park, waiting. They sometimes came together and talked, nodding and shrugging, and once a third man recognized them and shook their hands before leaving. Emil paid for his coffee, but did not leave. He gazed at the other customers, some pretty girls and an old man. He tried to clear his mind, to look utterly at ease, but when he did that, Lena came inevitably to him, and worry thickened his throat.
Finally, the shadow with the glasses spoke to his partner (who gave an unexpected, broad smile) and walked away.
Emil waited. Once the man was out of sight-looking for a telephone, perhaps, or a car-Emil got up and left the cafe.
The abandoned partner hesitated, unsure and again unsmiling, then followed.
Emil took quick turns, hobbling along, and dove into small, unlabeled streets. He was getting himself lost, he knew, but that wasn’t his worry now. In some dark alleys, men slept among trash cans, and in others, plump prostitutes muttered at him. Then he appeared in an empty, bomb-damaged courtyard with three possible avenues of escape. It was lined with trashcans on one side and a high pile of discarded clothing on the other. Emil crouched behind the clothes, as low as the pain would allow. The soiled clothes stank of death.
In no time the fat Russian appeared, gasping. He looked up each alley, considering the possibilities. Then he chose the middle way, and rushed forward.
Emil waited for his breath to return and his heart to slow. Then he backtracked, leaning more heavily on his cane. His stomach was troubling him again. A prostitute recognized him and smiled. “Change your mind, sweetheart?”
He offered a few coins and asked the fastest way to Wilhelm Strasse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Wilhelm Strasse 14 was one of four buildings that survived on its block. It rose three floors, noticeably tall and skinny amid the ruins scattered around it. On the steps, three children blocked Emil’s way.
“Pay the toll,” said the tallest one, maybe twelve.
“Yes yes,” said a smaller one. Eight, or nine. “Money.”
Emil considered their grimy, open hands a moment. “Listen,” he said. Their faces wrinkled as they tried to place his accent. “You clean these steps, and I’ll pay you. I mean it-will you look at them? They’re filthy.”
The tall boy cocked a head that had been shaved bald to rid him of lice. “You’re Russian?”
“Close enough.” He stepped past them into the foyer, where the mailboxes placed a?. messer on the second floor. He looked back at the children and made a swirling motion with his index finger. “Clean!”
Hardly any light leaked into the stairwell, only the buzz of planes, and he had to feel his way up. There was something foul- smelling here, turpentine or urine; he couldn’t place which. On the landing, he had two doors to choose from. One had been struck repeatedly until the wood around the handle had shattered. When he pushed it open, dusty sunlight from the empty apartment illuminated the other door behind him. He knocked and waited.
“Yes?” came a thin voice.
Emil knocked again. “Konrad Messer?”
The door opened a few inches. A tall man with dark hair swept over his brow stared at him. “The very same. Who the hell are you?”
“Emil Brod. I’m a homicide inspector.”
Konrad Messer nodded. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Noon,” said Emil.
“Smartest Slav I ever met.” Konrad showed straight, clean teeth when he smiled, then licked his lips, and at first Emil thought from these gestures that the man was scared, really terrified, then he wasn’t sure.
“I need to ask some questions.” Emil took off his hat. “I’ve come a long way.”
Konrad opened the door. He wore a short, rose-colored silk robe and Oriental slippers. “Do I look ready to answer your questions?”
Emil was out of words. He shrugged.
“Where are you from, then?”
Emil told him. “I’m here about Janos Crowder.”
Konrad judged him a moment more. His thin, arched brows were almost sculpted, and his skin looked soft. But his thick nose was as bent as a boxer’s. He sighed finally. “Then come on. I need to get ready for work anyhow.”
The bright apartment was fully furnished. Konrad pointed beside the sofa to a large radio set.
“Put something on. And don’t touch anything.” He disappeared behind a door.
When the radio warmed and the dial glowed, Emil heard a voice speaking in German with a heavy American accent. “ Operation Vittles, the goodwill of the Allies toward the German people.”
“Something lighter ^ 7.” came Konrads annoyed voice.
