“It’s not their fault. They’re irrational creatures in need of protection from themselves—all of them ruled by their ovaries. Take my word for it, Bernie. She’ll get over it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon. Look, women are sensitive beings. Like children. They feel things more than us men. Especially Greek women. They’re very excitable. All they need is firm guidance and direction. You see a woman like that and you can understand Aristophanes. I tell you, she’ll think better of whatever it was she said to you and then come crawling back. They always do.”
“I don’t think so and neither do you.”
“Maybe you should have listened to me.”
“I think that’s where the problem lies, Max. Look where listening to you has brought us today.”
“I did warn you. Look, you might still have had her if you hadn’t wanted me as well. You could have let me go and held on to that lovely girl without any difficulty. But you were greedy.”
“Don’t talk to me about greed, Max. Better not say that again. And don’t even think of apologizing, because then I really will do something I’ll regret.”
Max ground the car into gear and we set off. On the way we passed Elli walking along the street, and when we drove by her it was like she was wearing blinkers and we weren’t even there. She paid us less regard than if we’d been just another couple of racehorses coming up on the outside in a big steeplechase. I think that was the moment I knew I was right about her: she wasn’t coming back, not ever, and I let out a sigh they could have heard on Mount Olympus. Merten heard it, too, and must have concluded he needed to say something—anything—to take my mind off her.
“However did you catch Gormann anyway?” asked Merten. “I always meant to ask.”
I suppose he was asking in order to avoid having me smack him in the mouth with the pistol. It was certainly what I felt like doing, and if ever a man needed to lose teeth, it was Max Merten. But since the gift horse had already bolted, I saw little point in fixing his rotten dentistry. So I answered him as calmly as I was able, which was a very useful way of controlling my own violent temper.
“There was nothing to it. My whole reputation around the Alex wasn’t built on anything very substantial. The key to being a good detective is to find time to do nothing, which runs counter to the whole idea of being German. Teutonic efficiency seems to cry out for someone to be busy. That’s the problem with Germany—we worship industry—but avoiding work, or at least what other people perceived to be work, was the only way I had time to think. I would close the door, clear away the reports, take the phone off the hook with orders that under no circumstances was I to be disturbed. Only that way did I ever find the time to think. You’re wasting your time if you don’t find time to waste. Letting your mind wander above the clouds like Caspar David Friedrich is what makes a detective any good. That’s what I mean by doing nothing. Doing nothing is usually the best thing to do, at least until you have worked out something better to do. Just like now. My first instinct when she got out of the car and stalked off like Achilles in a sulk was to put a bullet in your face, Max. Only I am not going to do that. In fact, I am going to do nothing to you I wasn’t going to do before she left.”
Merten breathed a sigh of relief.
“Now that she’s left there’s no reason for us to stop being friends,” he said. “You were trying to do the right thing in her eyes. I understand that. But those beautiful eyes have gone. And nothing much is going to be served by handing me over to the Greek cops.”
“Just for the record, we were never friends.”
“Sure we were, Bernie. Hey, what was the name of that brandy bar you took me to once, near the Alex? The one near that weird hotel with the word ‘Hotel’ upside down? You know—that bar with the picture of the lion over the electric piano.”
“The Grüne Quelle.”
“That’s right. Do you remember the sign on the wall? ‘Roar like a lion roars when you need another shot.’ I could use a glass of that stuff now, couldn’t you, Bernie?”
I didn’t answer but I remembered the bar, all right, and the taste of the brandy. I could even hear the tunes on the pianola, too: “I Kiss Your Hand, Madame,” followed by the Glorious Prussia March and everyone in the bar full of cheap brandy and singing along at the top of their voices. I even found myself recalling the taste of the giant fifty-pfennig steamed sausages they served. I missed it all and more than I cared to admit; I certainly wasn’t about to start reminiscing about the old days with a man who’d just scared off my girlfriend. It was important not to forget, but sometimes it was even better not to remember, to permit the new to overwrite the old.
Merten was still full of talk about old Berlin but because I knew why he was doing it I’d almost stopped listening.
“And surely you remember that little restaurant near the courts? Hessel’s, was it? You’d been giving evidence in a murder case—the Spittelmarket Murders. It was there you gave me the best advice I ever had. About not joining the SS.”
“You should have taken it.”
“But I did take it. I told you, I was just an army captain.”
“Perhaps you didn’t join the SS, Max. And maybe you didn’t kill anyone, like you said. But what you did was as bad as anything any of those others did: Eichmann, Brunner, the whole rotten crew. You lied to all those people in
