Dora called on March 3 to see if everything was going according to plan. Hans confirmed that the dray had been arranged, but Franz, the black marketeer, hadn’t delivered Inge’s new identity papers. “They were due by the end of February,” he said.
“You haven’t checked with him?”
“No. He lives on the sixth floor of an apartment block on Christstrasse. It’s hard work climbing all those stairs.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
Dora cycled around to Franz’s apartment block on Christstrasse and climbed the stairs. She found the door to his apartment swinging open. Inside, the apartment had been ransacked, everything of value removed, the floors strewn with loose sheets of paper.
She got down on her knees and began to search the papers, going through them carefully, one-by-one, stacking them as she went.
“What are you looking for?” said a voice behind her.
She looked up to see a large woman glaring down at her.
She got to her feet and faced her, her eyes level with the buttons on the woman’s blouse, in the valley between her enormous breasts. “What’s it to you?”
“Answer the question.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you responsible for all this? Have you taken everything from my brother?”
“Your brother? I didn’t know he had family.”
“Where is he? What have you done with Franz?”
The woman splayed her hands. “Not me. The head-hunters took him. He’s been conscripted.”
“You’re lying. Someone must have killed him.”
The woman laughed. “Nothing so simple. He had a special arrangement with the Gauleiter’s agent. When Jungblutt died, the arrangement died with him. The SS had their eye on him. They picked him up as soon as Jungblutt died.”
The woman turned and left with a parting smirk. “Good luck with whatever you’re looking for, Franz’s sister. There’s nothing of value here.”
Dora’s search revealed a piece of paper containing a name that she recognized. Petronella Mertens was a known forger, originally from Eindhoven in the Netherlands. She had done good work for Dora in the distant past but was no longer in the business. As it was the only lead she had, and she knew where to find Petronella, she pointed her bicycle north and set off.
It took Dora two hours of hard cycling to reach Petronella’s home, in Weissensee, to the north of the city. Petronella Mertens’s house was in a row of 100-year-old houses untouched by the bombing, although a huge crater in the street and a line of burnt-out cars was testament to how close one bomb had come.
She knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked again, and then hammered on the door. The door opened a crack, and Petronella’s prominent nose appeared.
“It’s Dora Hoffmann. Let me in.”
Petronella opened the door and Dora stepped into the hallway.
Petronella was no chicken when Dora had had regular business with her. Now, a couple of years later, she had become a frail old woman, all skin and bone. She glared at her visitor. “What do you want?”
“Are you still in business?”
The old woman lifted a narrow shoulder. “Not really.”
“So you still do some. Have you done anything for Franz recently?”
“No, I haven’t seen him for years.”
“Then you’ve never heard of Inge Pitt?”
The light in Petronella’s eye told Dora she’d hit gold.
“You know the name. Do you have Inge’s papers?”
“Franz has them. I gave them to him.”
Dora swore and immediately apologized to the older woman when she made an unpleasant face. “I’m sorry, Petronella, but Franz has been taken. I suspect he may be at a barricade on the eastern fringes of the city by now, holding back the Red Army hordes.”
She cycled back empty-handed. How could Inge leave Berlin without papers? Then she thought: Thousands of refugees were fleeing the city. Surely some of them would have lost their papers in the bombings.
38
On March 5, Gretchen arrived home from a foraging trip to find Oskar lying on the floor. Inge was hiding in the bedroom, weeping.
Gretchen helped him back into his chair. Then she sat Inge on the bed. She gave the child a handkerchief to dry her eyes.
“What on earth happened?” she said, when Inge’s cries had reduced to sobs and hiccupping.
“He – he tried to…”
“What, child? Oskar did something to you?”
“He put his hand…”
Gretchen put an arm around Inge’s shoulders. “Oskar? You’re talking about Oskar?”
Inge nodded.
“He did something to you?” Gretchen couldn’t believe it.
“I was reading. I fell asleep. I’ve read the book so many times…”
“You fell asleep. Where were you?”
“In there.” She pointed. “On the sofa. He was in his chair, looking at me, the way he always does.”
“All right, and you fell asleep. Then what happened?”
“He put his hand…” Her voice faltered.
Gretchen turned Inge’s shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “That isn’t possible. He has hardly moved a muscle in a year.”
“It’s true! When I woke up, he was standing…”
“Where was he standing?”
“He was leaning over me. He had his hand on my leg, under my…”
Gretchen’s ears were burning. For months she had hoped for signs of life from a husband who was close to catatonia, but why did it have to be this sort of behavior?
“What did you do?”
“I pushed him. He fell. And I came in here.”
“He didn’t follow you?”
Inge shook her head.
“All right. I’ll sort this out. Until we can come up with a better idea, I want you to stay in the bedroom. I have a key for the door somewhere. You can sleep in here with me. Oskar can sleep on the sofa.”
“Can’t you find me somewhere else to live?”
“That may not be possible, Inge. And we’ll be leaving Berlin in less than a week.”
Gretchen searched everywhere, but she couldn’t find the key to the bedroom door.
Inge stamped her foot. “I’m not staying here. You can’t make me. I’m leaving.”
“Where can you go?” said Gretchen.
“I’ll find somewhere.” Inge started throwing her things into her
