“Whatever you think you know,” said Elli, “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Let me tell you something about this sweet man seated behind you, Elisabeth,” he said softly.
“Don’t bother treating me like a jury. I’m a lawyer myself and I know all a lawyer’s tricks.”
“Oh, it’s no bother.”
“As far as I can see, Mr. Merten, you have only one advantage over me and it’s that you never had to endure a car journey with Max Merten.”
“I know the real Bernie Gunther. That’s one advantage.”
“The number of times I’ve heard people say they know the real me and what they actually knew was just the me they imagined I was. The longer I live the more I realize that no one knows anyone. So do yourself a favor and save your very unpleasant breath.”
“But you do like him, don’t you?”
“Are you looking for an answer or an explanation?”
“An answer.”
“Yes. I like him.”
“Why?”
“Now you want an explanation. And I’m not obliged to give you one. Not obliged and certainly not inclined.”
“I’ve known this man for almost twenty years, Elisabeth. A man whose reputation around police headquarters in Berlin went before him during the thirties. For a lot of younger and impressionable men like myself Bernie Gunther wasn’t just a successful detective, he was also something of a local hero.”
“I distinctly remember telling you I wasn’t interested in anything you had to say.”
“You heard the lady, Max. Why don’t you give it a rest?”
“Famously Bernie caught Gormann the strangler, a man who murdered many aspiring young film actresses. When were those Kuhlo murders—1929? I’m not sure about that. But I think it was probably 1931 when Bernie joined the Nazi Party and became the Party’s liaison officer in the Criminal Police, because it was definitely the following year when he helped to form the National Socialist Civil Service Society of the Berlin Police. Which means he was a die-hard Nazi even before Hitler came to power.”
“You know I was never a Nazi. Not even in my worst nightmare.”
“Oh, come on, Bernie. Don’t be so bashful. Let me tell you, Elisabeth, this man was one of the first in the police department who had the courage to declare his hand, politically. And because he did, many others followed. Me included, although to be quite frank I only did it to advance my career; unlike Bernie I really wasn’t much interested in politics and certainly not in persecuting Jews and communists. I’m not sure what he thinks about Jews but I’m quite sure Bernie hates the communists. Then, in the autumn of 1938, your friend here caught the eye of Heinrich Himmler’s number two, Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich was a slippery sort—”
“Almost as slippery as you, Max. You could spread this stuff on a field and it would grow two crops a year.”
“—the very embodiment of fascist evil and the architect of many atrocities, which is why later on they called him the Butcher of Prague. To be fair to Bernie I expect Heydrich saw someone he could use, the way he used many others. But it was Heydrich who promoted Bernie to the rank of commissar and until Heydrich’s death, Bernie was his number-one troubleshooter; the joke around headquarters was that when Bernie saw trouble he usually shot it.”
As Merten laughed at his own joke I lifted my injured arm, grabbed him by the tie and twisted it, the way he was twisting the truth, but not enough to silence him.
“I’m beginning to see why Alo Brunner is so keen to kill you, Max. With a mouth like yours it’s a wonder how you managed to stay alive for this long.”
Still talking quickly, Merten retreated along the leather seat, pressing himself into the corner.
“For example, in November 1938 it was rumored he murdered a doctor by the name of Lanz Kindermann, because he was homosexual. The Nazis never liked homos all that much and Bernie was certainly no exception. But by then he was exceptional in one respect and that was in the amount of license he seemed to enjoy from his pale-faced master, Heydrich, and so his crime went unpunished, as most real crimes did by then. The following year—a few months before war broke out—Bernie was even invited to Obersalzberg, to stay at Hitler’s country house, the Berghof. It was Hitler’s fiftieth birthday and a singular honor for anyone to be invited, let me tell you. Not many people could say as much unless they were very highly thought of. No one ever asked me there for the weekend.” Merten chuckled. “Isn’t that right, Bernie? You were the leader’s houseguest, weren’t you? Tell her.”
For a brief moment I considered trying to explain the real reason I’d been at the Berghof—to investigate a murder—but almost immediately I could see the futility of doing so. There was no way my being there could ever have been satisfactorily explained. So I did what any man would do when confronted with another’s man barefaced lie. I laughed it off and lied straight back.
“Of course I wasn’t there. It’s absurd even to suggest such a thing. I have to hand it to you, Max. You must be quite a good trial lawyer. Next thing you’ll be trying to persuade her that Hitler was my long-lost uncle.”
Elli laughed. “Don’t give him any ideas.”
“The story is actually just getting started. A couple of years later, in 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, many of Berlin’s senior policemen were drafted into the SD, which was the intelligence agency of the SS, and that’s how Bernie here came to be an SD captain in uniform, just like Alo Brunner. Tell me, old man, which
