Willi still wasn’t ready to lay this caution aside. ‘She implicates me, doesn’t she? Now I – we both – have knowledge that we didn’t have before, things that it’s dangerous for any of us to know.’
‘Yes, but you also know things that it’s good to know that you didn’t know before. Herr Weber and Herr Meier, for instance. You know you have a friend across the hall. Knowing that could save your life.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘You like her, don’t you?’ said Lola, finally finding her way to the heart of the matter. ‘Now there’s someone else you care about who you have to worry about.’
Willi did not answer, but he looked up and met Lola’s eyes. She saw she was right.
Detective Sergeant Hermann Gruber
Detective Sergeant Hermann and Mitzi Gruber had recently celebrated their wedding anniversary with an excellent dinner in a fancy restaurant. The Golden Pheasant was known for its Tafelspitz, and it had a good cellar of German and French wines. It should have been a happy occasion for them both. But Mitzi had become more and more anxious as the evening went on, as uniformed SS officers and their wives or girlfriends filled nearby tables. Hermann should have expected her reaction, given that the Golden Pheasant was known to be favored by Party members and officials. Maybe it had occurred to him. Maybe it was even part of a subconscious strategy.
Mitzi doesn’t look Jewish, Hermann thought, so what’s her problem? She’s pretty with her blond hair and upturned nose and high bosom. But the fact remained that her mother, Anna Schwarz, née Flegenheim – who didn’t look Jewish either – was a full-blooded Jew, which made Mitzi half Jewish, and, as Hermann had increasingly come to realize, despite his affection for her, a real liability.
He should have been a police captain by now; he had been with Hitler since the beginning. He had cracked heads at those early Nazi rallies and had marched in the failed Putsch in 1923. True, he had failed the detective exam several times. But finally, thanks to his mentor, Major Reineke, a Hitler enthusiast and a chief of detectives, he had passed the exam and become a detective.
Reineke had made it clear early on, though, that as long as Gruber was married to Mitzi, he would remain a sergeant. And being assigned to partner with Willi Geismeier had been another stroke of bad luck. Willi Geismeier … Whenever Hermann thought of the man, he felt bile rise in his throat. Willi had been nothing but trouble, always going his own way, violating every department regulation in the book. He was always investigating matters he wasn’t supposed to investigate, making things difficult for everyone, especially Party members, like Reineke and those higher up too, and thereby making things difficult for Gruber. How much, he wondered, had Geismeier’s bad behavior cost him in terms of advancement and success? No use crying over that spilled milk though. What could he do about it now?
Anyway, he had invested too many years in his career to let it all go now because of an incorrect marriage. That was something he could do something about. He looked around the Golden Pheasant at the SS in their sharp, black uniforms, true Aryans with their Aryan wives and girlfriends, and decided then and there that he had to divorce Mitzi. What choice did he have? She was a Jew. She hadn’t even produced any children, which he momentarily regretted, until he realized they would have been Jewish too.
Of course, he would do the right thing by her. He wasn’t a cad. He would provide for her, support her, protect her, when it came down to it. Once he was admitted into the SS and rose through the ranks, he would have influence and be better able to protect her and her whole family. That thought put his mind at ease.
It was as though Mitzi had read his mind. A few days later she started making preparations for what was coming. ‘I’m going to move in with Mutti and Vati,’ she said.
‘What? Why, Mitzi?’ he said, all innocent and surprised.
‘Because,’ she said. ‘It’s for the best.’
Hermann left it at that. He appreciated Mitzi all the more for her willingness to make this sacrifice.
A judge granted the divorce immediately. Most of Hermann’s police colleagues didn’t react when they heard, although a couple of them solemnly shook his hand, as though he had been freed from a great burden or awarded a prize. Major Reineke said, ‘You did the right thing, Gruber. It’s only too bad it took you so long.’
Hermann did not get promoted after the divorce. In fact, months and then years passed and he remained a sergeant in charge of a small squad of detectives. Major Reineke, the closest thing Hermann ever had to a mentor, was transferred to Berlin, and Hermann was left on his own.
Hermann’s new commander, Captain Robert Wendt, who had once been a detective under Hermann’s command – the insult was almost unbearable – sent down the latest case-closure statistics. Hermann found his squad near the bottom of the chart again, his numbers circled in red pencil. With Willi Geismeier’s departure – Willi had closed more cases than the rest of the squad put together – the squad’s numbers had plummeted to the bottom of the chart and for the last few years had stayed there.
Hermann suddenly had a thought – an inspiration really. Everyone knew Geismeier was responsible for the death of Otto Bruck, and Bruck had been one of the Führer’s favorites. And yet Geismeier was still at large somewhere, still tempting fate, still waiting to
