OF THE REICH! French perfume, Italian silks, Scandinavian furs, Dutch cigars, Belgian coffee, Russian caviar, British televisions -the cornucopia of Empire spilled across the pages. Births, marriages and deaths:
TEBBE, Ernst and Ingrid; a son for the Fuhrer. WENZEL, Hans, aged 71; a true National Socialist, sadly missed.
And the lonely hearts:
FIFTY years old. Pure Aryan doctor, veteran of the Battle of Moscow, who intends to settle on the land, desires male progeny through marriage with healthy, Aryan, virginal, young, unassuming, thrifty woman, adapted to hard work; broad-hipped, flat-heeled and earring-less essential. WIDOWER aged sixty once again wishes to have Nordic to mate prepared to present him with children so that old family should not die out in male line.
Arts pages: Zarah Leander, still going strong, in Woman of Odessa, now showing at the Gloria-Palast: the epic story of the resettlement of the South Tyrolese. A piece by the music critic attacking the “pernicious, Negroid wailings” of a group of young Englishmen from Liverpool, playing to packed audiences of German youth in Hamburg. Herbert von Karajan to conduct a special performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony — the European anthem — at the Royal Albert Hall in London on the Fuhrer’s birthday.
Editorial on the student anti-war demonstrations in Heidelberg: TRAITORS MUST BE SMASHED BY FORCE! The Tageblatt always took a firm line.
Obituary: some old Bonze from the Ministry of the Interior. “A lifetime’s service to the Reich …'
Reich news: SPRING THAW BRINGS FRESH FIGHTING ON SIBERIAN FRONT! GERMAN TROOPS SMASH IVAN TERROR GROUPS! In Rovno, capital of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, five terrorist leaders had been executed for organising the massacre of a family of German settlers. There was a photograph of the Reich’s latest nuclear submarine, the Grossadmiral Donitz, at its new base in Trondheim.
World news: In London it had been announced that King Edward and Queen Wallis were to pay a state visit to the Reich in July “further to strengthen the deep bonds of respect and affection between the peoples of Great Britain and the German Reich”. In Washington, it was believed that President Kennedy’s latest victory in the US primaries had strengthened his chances of winning a second term…
The paper slipped from March’s fingers and on to the floor.
Half an hour later, the telephone rang.
“So sorry to wake you.” Koth was sarcastic. “I had the impression this was supposed to be priority. Shall I call back tomorrow?”
“No, no.” March was wide awake.
This you will love. This is beautiful.” For the first time in his life, March heard Koth chuckle. “Now, you are not playing a joke on me? This is not some little trick you and Jaeger have worked out between you?”
“Who is it?”
The background first.” Koth was enjoying himself too much to be hurried. “We had to go back a long way to get a match. A very long way. But we got one. Perfect. No mistake. Your man has a record all right. He was arrested just once in his life. By our colleagues in Munich, forty years ago. To be precise, on the ninth of November 1923.”
There was a silence. Five, six, seven seconds elapsed.
“Ah! I can tell that even you appreciate the significance of the date.”
“An alter Kampfer.” March reached down beside his chair for his cigarettes. “His name?”
“Indeed. An old comrade. Arrested with the Fuhrer after the Burgerbraukeller Putsch. You have fished out of the lake one of the glorious pioneers of the National Socialist Revolution.” Koth laughed again. “A wiser man might have left him where he was.”
“What is his name?”
After Koth had rung off, March paced around the apartment for five minutes, smoking furiously. Then he made three calls. The first was to Max Jaeger. The second was to the Duty Officer at Werderscher Markt. The third was to a Berlin number. A man’s voice, slurred with sleep, answered just as March was about to give up.
“Rudi? It’s Xavier March.”
“Zavi? Are you crazy? It’s midnight.”
“Not quite.” March patrolled the faded carpet, the body of the telephone in one hand, the receiver tucked beneath his chin. “I need your help.”
“For God’s sake!”
“What can you tell me about a man named Josef Buhler?”
That night, March had a dream. He was at the lakeshore again in the rain and there was the body, face down in the mud. He pulled at the shoulder — pulled hard — but he could not move it. The body was grey-white lead. But when he turned to leave, it grabbed his leg, and began pulling him towards the surface of the lake. He scrabbled at the earth, trying to dig his fingers into the soft mud, but there was nothing to hold on to. The corpse’s grip was immensely strong. And as they went under, its face became Pili’s, contorted with rage, grotesque in its shame, screaming “I hate you … I hate you … I hate you …'
PART TWO
WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL
detente, s.f. 1 (a) Relaxation, loosening, slackening (of something that is taut); relaxing (of muscles), (b) Easing (of political situation).
ONE
Yesterday’s rain was a bad memory, already half-faded from the streets. The sun — the miraculous, impartial sun — bounced and glittered on the shopfronts and apartment windows.
In the bathroom, the rusted pipes clanked and groaned, the shower dangled a thread of cold water. March shaved with his father’s old cut-throat razor. Through the open bathroom window, he could hear the sounds of the city waking up: the whine and clatter of the first tram; the distant hum of the traffic on Tauentzien Strasse; the footsteps of the early risers hurrying to the big Wittenberg Platz U-bahn station; the rattle of shutters going up in the bakery across the street. It was not quite seven and Berlin was alive with possibilities the day had yet to dull.
His uniform was laid out in the bedroom: the body-armour of authority.
Brown shirt, with black leather buttons. Black tie. Black breeches. Black jackboots (the rich smell of polished leather).
Black tunic: four silver buttons; three parallel silvered threads on the shoulder tabs; on the left sleeve, a red-white-and-black swastika armband; on the right, a diamond enclosing the gothic letter “K”, for Kriminalpolizei.
