“There speaks the undertaker.”
“It’s a business, not a vocation.”
“I’m sure I don’t care what becomes of me.”
Urban looked around. “Besides, there are plenty of Jews in Ostfriedhof already. Many of the prisoners from Dachau were cremated and their ashes scattered here.”
“Along with those top Nazis you mentioned?”
“Along with those top Nazis.” He shrugged. “I’m sure we can trust the Lord to sort out who’s who.” He handed me an envelope. “Can I count on you tomorrow? Same time. Same place.”
“If I’m alive, I wouldn’t miss it.”
“You will be. I’m sure of it. When you’ve been in the trade as long as I have, you get a feeling for that kind of thing. You might not think it but you’ve got a few years left in you, my friend.”
“You should run a clinic in Switzerland. There are people who’d pay handsomely for a positive diagnosis like that.” I lit a cigarette and looked up at the sky. “I kind of like this place. One day I might move here permanently.”
“I’m sure of it.”
“Need me anymore?”
“No. You’re through for today. Go home, get into your casket, and get some sleep.”
“I will. But first I have to go and see someone. Dracula once had a bride, you know.”
With my envelope in my pocket I walked away and, after a great deal of searching—some of it inside my own soul—I found Kirsten’s stoic remains. I stood there for a while, apologized profusely for not having visited before—not to mention a host of other things—and generally took a walk to the far end of memory’s rickety and probably unreliable pier. I’d have stayed out there longer but BELOVED WIFE OF BERNHARD GUNTHER was chiseled on the stone panel in front of the urn, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the big detective from the hospital heading my way. By now I’d remembered his name, but I was still hoping to prevent him from discovering mine. So I took off at an angle, lingered in front of another memorial tablet in a pathetic attempt to throw him off the scent, and then headed toward the main gate, only he was hiding in ambush for me behind the tomb of Grand Duke Ludwig Wilhelm of Bavaria. It was large enough, just about. The big cop was even bigger than I remembered.
“Hey, you. I want to talk to you.”
“Well, as you can see, I’m in mourning.”
“Nonsense. You were one of the pallbearers, that’s all. I asked about you. At the hospital.”
“That was kind. But I’m making a good recovery now, thank you.”
“They said your name was Ganz.”
“That’s right.”
“Only it’s not. My wife’s maiden name is Ganz. And I’d have remembered that the first time we met. A long time ago. Before Hitler came to power, I think. Before you grew that beard.”
I was tempted to make a remark about his wife’s maidenhood and thought better of it; it’s not just conscience that makes cowards of us all but false names and secret histories. “Maybe your memory is better than mine, Herr—?”
“It’s not. Not yet, anyway. On account of how I haven’t yet remembered your real name. But I’m more or less sure you were a cop back then.”
“Me a cop? That’s a laugh.”
“Yeah. I remember thinking that, too, because you were a Jew-loving Berlin cop looking for this detective I used to know at the local Praesidium. My old boss.”
“What was his name? Charlie Chan?”
“No. Paul Herzefelde. He was murdered. But as I recall, we had to lock you up for the night because you nobly thought we weren’t doing enough to find out who killed him.”
He was right, of course. Every word of it. I never forget a face and especially a face like his, which was made for denouncing heretics and burning books, probably both at the same time, one on top of the other. Laugh lines as hard and lacking laughs as a wire coat hanger were etched on either side of a nose that looked like the thorn on a halberd. Above the hooked nose were the small, expressionless blue eyes of a giant moray eel. The jaw was unfeasibly wide and the complexion vaguely purplish, although that might have been the cold, while the man’s height and build and white hairs were those of a retired heavyweight boxer. I felt that at any moment he might feel me out with his jab or plant his big right fist deep in what still remained of the solar part of my plexus. I remembered his name was Schramma and he’d been a criminal secretary at the Munich Police Praesidium and while I didn’t remember much more about him I did remember the night I’d spent in the cells.
“That’s what was funny, see? Nobody liked Paul Herzefelde. And not just because he was a Jew the way you thought. People thought he was a crook. On the take. You could have seen that just looking at his clothes. It was strongly suspected that one of Munich’s biggest fraudsters—a fellow named Kohl—had bribed him to look the other way. People thought it was Nazis that killed Herzefelde but it probably wasn’t. My guess is that, not satisfied with the bribe, Herzefelde tried to squeeze Kohl for more and he didn’t like it.”
“I think you’re mistaking me for someone else. I’ve never met anyone by that name. And I was never a policeman in Berlin. I hate cops.” I
