ROLF SLEPT UNTIL PAST TWO O’CLOCK the next afternoon. When he woke, he stroked his chin, surprised to find that he hadn’t grown a meter’s worth of beard during his slumber. Klara sat in a chair by the bed, reading by the mid afternoon sunlight a slim volume whose title Rolf’s eyes were too bleary to make out. She looked up at Rolf from her pages and asked if he was all right.
Rolling slowly over, Rolf managed to get himself into a sitting position on the edge of the mattress. “I’m hungry. How long have you been up?”
“I never really slept, Rolf,” Klara said. “I tried for a bit, but my eyes refused to stay shut.”
“What kept you awake?”
Klara snorted. “Are you kidding?”
Rolf pointed at the book. “What are you reading?”
“Ernst Stadler.”
“He’s good.” Rolf had never really read him, and all he knew of him was that he’d been among the first into the meat grinder at Ypres, another bright young thing who’d gone dark.
“Yes. He is.”
Rolf took hold of Klara’s hand. “Thanks for this morning.”
Klara clasped Rolf’s hand in hers. They sat in that way, linked, for a long time, saying nothing. Rolf forgot his hunger and felt no impulse to move. Eventually, his stomach reminded him, and they got up and went downstairs. Klara reheated last night’s leftovers. They ate and talked about things to pack and things to leave behind. After dinner, Klara led Rolf out to the back porch, where she sipped a port, while Rolf stuck to lemonade.
“You know what I’ll miss about Munich?” Klara asked.
“Nothing.”
“Damned right. So, did Himmelwald admit it?”
“As good as.” Rolf traced a wandering route through the mist on his glass.
“How did he admit it?” Klara stretched her legs and yawned. “How did he say it?”
“It was a combination of taunt and boast.”
“Did he try to excuse or justify his behavior?” Klara sipped the last swallow of port in her glass.
“No, but he did threaten us both with arrest and incarceration.”
“You dragged me into this?”
“No. He already knew about you. Apparently he’s been researching us. I assume he has access to quite a lot of information from the security services.”
“What a heaven this country is for him,” Klara said through another yawn. “Did you feel, in talking to him, as if you were talking to someone who wasn’t really there?”
Rolf finished his lemonade. “He seemed there. Not like the Vampire. He wasn’t sullen. He was sneering, as if I were a commoner he’d caught poaching rabbits on his land.”
“In a way, you are. Just think. Most killers, most criminals, really, have to hide from authority. They’ve spent their lives dodging parents, friends, siblings, the law. I wonder what it feels like for him to be free of all that, to know that he really can do anything. He’s Raskolnikov’s dream.” Klara shut her eyes, and for a moment Rolf thought she might just fall asleep there and then, but she half opened them and continued, “I wonder if his situation will continue to satisfy him, or if it’ll eventually bore him into doing something enormous to make the authorities stop him. It’d be an interesting topic for study. How do the morally insane react to an environment that refuses to restrain them?”
“A bit like a rat placed in a maze that’s nothing more than a straight path to the cheese box.” Rolf was rather proud of this way of putting it, but he saw that Klara had slumped in her chair, eyes shut, snoring, and had likely heard none of it.
A knock on the front door echoed through the house. Rolf got up and went to open it. On Rolf’s front porch stood Hans-Josef. “Kommissar, I need you to come with me.”
“Why?”
“Please come, Kommissar. Kriminaldirektor Brüning’s orders.”
“Give me a minute.”
“Kriminaldirektor Brüning said now. He was most insistent, boss.”
Rolf’s head dropped. “Did he say why?”
“No. But he sounded angry. He’s meeting us at Grunwaldstrasse 18, Apartment 401.”
“Radio him that I’m on my way. I’ll be out in a second.”
Rolf shut the door, ran back to Klara, and shook her awake. “I’ve got to go.”
“Why?”
“Hans-Josef’s taking me to see the Kriminaldirektor. Go to a friend’s house.”
Terror took over Klara’s face. “No.”
“Don’t tell me which friend. Just go, quickly.”
“I can’t...”
“Go!”
Klara nodded and grabbed her car keys off the hook in the dining room. Rolf located his jacket on the chaise. He picked the jacket up and jingled his keys to make sure they were still in his pocket. Rolf went outside. His garden smelled wonderful, full of laurel and lilac. Hans-Josef, standing by the passenger side of his car, opened the door for his boss.
Twenty minutes later, Hans-Josef hit the brakes in front of Grunwaldstrasse 18, all six dilapidated stories of it. Four police vehicles clogged the parking spaces. Rolf showed his badge to the officer at the front door to get in the building and to the officer at the apartment door to access the crime scene.
Inside was a charnel house. Blood spray decorated the walls of this small studio dwelling. Two men lay parallel, one face up, the other face down, in pools of their own blood and brain matter, skulls blasted open, torsos riddled with bullets. Leaflets, bloodstained, were pinned to one victim’s back and to the other’s collar. Paul, their best crime scene photographer, was still snapping photos of bullet holes in the walls.
Standing over the bodies were Kriminaldirektor Brüning and — Rolf felt a chill — Weissengel. Weissengel turned around and said, “We have quite a mess here, Kommissar.”
“Yes, we do.”
“I’d like you to take a close look at the papers pinned to them.”
Rolf tiptoed in an attempt to try to step in as little blood as possible. When he got close enough to the bodies he crouched down and examined the lists. It appeared to be a simple list of names, addresses, and physical descriptions. The only thing of interest was that each list had one name on it circled. “I take it the circled names belong to these men,” Rolf said.
Weissengel said, “Yes, Kommissar, that’s right.”
Rolf checked the upturned face of the man in front of him. His mouth was blackened in places with powder burns. He looked at the other man and saw the same damage, though with him the burns also went up one cheek. “Shot in the mouth. Someone was unhappy that they were talking.”
“Yes. You’re full of insight this evening, Kommissar,” Weissengel said. “Now just tell me this. Where did these lists come from?”
Rolf felt the sudden, heady rush of a terrifying thought. Weissengel spoke in the tones of a professor scolding a flunking student. “These are lists of Gestapo informants. Very current, very accurate. These men were ours, and they were clearly killed by members of the Jewish underground, members of the Jewish underground who had access to our most secret information, Kommissar Wundt.”
Rolf’s knees creaked as he rose from his crouch. “I guess you gentlemen haven’t been diligent enough in taking care of information.”
Weissengel nodded slowly, with his eyes fixed on Rolf. “That is so, Kommissar. It’s clear that during this time of transition for the police, certain loose ends remain to be tied up, remnants of the old order. Don’t you agree, Kriminaldirektor Brüning?”
Brüning stammered, “Yes, I mean, well, obviously.”
A man in a black leather coat and death’s head cap strode into the apartment. He and Weissengel saluted each other. The man in black said, “We have two young Jews in custody, Hauptstürmführer. They were seen trying to dispose of shotguns, clothing, and pistols in a trash bin about half a kilometer from here.”
“Call a doctor and ready them for enhanced interrogation.”
“Yes, Hauptstürmführer.”
The two saluted again, and with a quick turn of his heel, the man in black tromped out. Hauptstürmführer Weissengel addressed Rolf again, “Kommissar, is there anything you want to tell me? I’ve had a busy night already and it’s about to get busier. You could save me considerable time. If mistakes were made, I’ll certainly understand, in light of your past service.”
“I have nothing to say to you, Kommissar.” Did Weissengel really think this would work? The “We have evidence...” game? Rolf had played that so many times that he felt insulted to have it used on him.
“You will say things to me, Kommissar, one way or another. I guarantee it.” That said, Weissengel saluted both Rolf and Kriminaldirektor Brüning, and out of the apartment he went. Kriminaldirektor Brüning gestured with his head in the direction of the door and started walking. Rolf followed him. Soon they were up the stairs and on the roof, alone, standing by the supports of a water tank.
“Rolf, who did you give that list to?”
“I told you you didn’t want to know.”
“I want to know now,” Brüning hissed. “Goddamn it, you’ve put me on top of your bomb. Do you realize that? You gave the fucking list to Jews? To Jews? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“I wouldn’t say no.”
“You know what’s going to happen now, right? By morning they’ll have broken those kids...”
“Their techniques don’t work. They’ll probably get them to name half the Jewish population of Munich.”
“You hope. But maybe they sell out, and they find out who got the list to them. Then they get that person, and sooner or later trace it back to you. Or maybe they don’t work it that way, and instead find my source, and get to me. Either way it comes back to you and me, and we get it in the neck.” Kriminaldirektor Brüning’s eyebrows were sweating. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but I have no intention of dying for it or losing my career. No intention at all. I’ll sell you out, you little shit. I’ll sell you out. I ought to do it right now!”
“Why haven’t you?”
“Because I haven’t...” Brüning whispered in Rolf’s ear, “Because I haven’t worked out a plausible story. I think it’ll go along the lines of my needing the list, and your stealing it from my office to sell to your Jew friends. As soon as I work out how to say that convincingly...”
“There’s no need, Kriminaldirektor. I can take care of this.”
“You can? How?”
Rolf wished Brüning hadn’t asked that question. “Just give me some time, Kriminaldirektor. Please.” Yes, it had come to saying that.
“I’m going to sell you out, Kommissar. It may take some time for me to rehearse, but in the end, I’m going to sell you out. So do whatever you think you can do fast. I’m getting more convincing by the minute.”
Rolf raced down to Hans’s car. He threw open the driver’s door. “Give me the keys.”
“What?”
“There’s no time. Get out. Give me the keys. Now.”
Hans-Josef froze a second, long enough for Rolf to work out the logistics of cracking him in the jaw and throwing him out, but before his fist could close, Hans-Josef slid out of the front seat, leaving the keys in the ignition. Rolf jumped into the warm seat, shut the door, and sped away.
With Weissengel on the warpath, Rolf needed to get Anika out of her house. Maybe he could stash her somewhere, hook her up with her comrades and get her out. She was far too hot to stay in Munich. The buildings seemed to be rushing past at a million kilometers per second. The motor roared like river rapids in his ears.
Ahead, Rolf suddenly saw flashing lights. He slammed on the brakes. A police car and an ambulance blocked the street. Rolf started to back up, but then he saw the faded sign above the shop to his right, and he realized he was in front of Mandelsohn’s eyeglasses shop. Rolf got out of the car and, flashing his badge to a cop, went to the door where Inspector Genchler leaned against the door frame. Genchler was the laziest homicide detective in Bavaria. Hans-Josef once said of him that even if a murderer had been caught sitting on top of a stabbing victim, holding the bloody knife and shouting, “Too bad I can’t kill this bastard twice!”, Genchler would still let the guy go free, just to dodge the paperwork. Rolf had spoken to him only once in the squad room. That conversation convinced him that there was nothing to be gained from further discourse.
“What happened here?”
“I think murder-suicide,” Genchler said. “The old man shot the girl, then shot himself. Probably some sex thing. You know how Jews are.”
Rolf entered the shop. Behind the counter lay Mr. Mandelsohn, shot in the stomach and covered in blood. His daughter lay in a corner about three meters away. The wall propped her up and made her look as if she was just sitting there, but on the left side of her chest were two wounds, two open, dumb, purple mouths. What was missing from the room was a gun. Rolf went back out to Genchler, “Did you collect the gun?”
“No.”
“Then where is it?”
“This isn’t your case, Kommissar. Solve your own cases.”
“I don’t have time for this. Make sure the gun you press into the old man’s hand is the right caliber, or... never mind, it doesn’t matter. Fuck it.” Rolf ran back to his car, jumped in, and backed away.
Now driving again, at high speed, through the Munich streets, Rolf’s mind swirled. Suicide! God, Genchler was pathetic. While Rolf couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the Mandelsohns had been robbed or killed because of some quarrel unrelated to his investigation, his gorge rose when he considered the possibility that his questions propelled the bullets into their bodies. Maybe, after Rolf left his office, Himmelwald made a call to Himmler or Heydrich. The doctor could have told them anything. Maybe he said that some Jews were slandering him, making all kinds of accusations. Maybe he spoke of Rolf. Maybe some sort of death squad, like the ones Himmler used to kill Röhm and the Mandelsohns, would tonight give Rolf his own private night of the long knives. At least Klara was away. She’d be safe if she picked her friend well. Now Rolf, feverishly calculating and recalculating how much time he probably had before Weissengel cracked his suspects or Brüning cracked on his own, raced to get Anika. He didn’t think Weissengel had broken his victims down just yet. Rolf kept telling himself he had an hour, maybe two, as he ran stop signs, dodged slow cars, and roared down narrow avenues and alleyways.
Rolf drove the car up onto the sidewalk in front of the Spender home, smashing a trash can, before he jumped out of his vehicle. Lights came on inside the Spender house. Rolf was up the stairs, gun drawn, when SS-Untersturmführer Spender stepped out, dressed in his work shirt, suspenders and pants. Rolf grabbed Spender by his shirt collar, stuck the gun under his chin and pushed him back into the house, stopping only when Spender’s back hit the foyer wall and knocked over three framed family pictures.
“Tell me where Anika is, or you’re dead.”
“I don’t know,” Spender whimpered.
“Let’s count to three, SS-Mann.”
“But I—”
“One,” Rolf said. A doubt flashed across his mind of what would happen if he reached three, but he’d shot people before to save someone else in immediate danger. This would be like that.
“Please.”
“Two.” Rolf dug the barrel of his pistol deeper into the pink flesh under Spender’s chin.
“God.”
From behind Rolf came a blast. Flakes of plaster tumbled down from the ceiling. Rolf turned and saw Mrs. Spender, in her robe, with a shotgun aimed at Rolf. Her voice was low, animal, and full of rage. “Let my husband go, you son of a bitch!”
“Back off, lady.”
“Let him go!”
“You better back the fuck off!” Rolf barked. “If you fire that you’ll kill the pair of us, you fucking bitch! Back the fuck off!”
Spender jabbered but managed to say, “Back off, honey. Back off. It’s all right.”
Mrs. Spender kept the barrels of her weapon trained on Rolf. She backed up toward the stairs. “Don’t you hurt my husband.” Tears streamed down her face but her aim was steady.
“I don’t give a fuck about your husband, or you. I’m looking for someone worth a hundred of you, and if this son of a bitch doesn’t tell me where she is, I’ll kill him.”
“You do that, and I kill you.”
“I think we should calm down,” Spender said. “I really do.”
“Things will get calm once you tell me where Anika is. Has the Gestapo been here? Did you hand her over?”
Spender shook his head frantically. “No one’s been here. Anika was gone when we got here. We just got back an hour ago!”
“You just got back.”
“You can read the train ticket, Kommissar.” Spender said. “Honey, get it for him.”
“I’m not going anywhere until he puts that gun away.”
Rolf took a deep breath as he returned his pistol to its holster. “Forget it. I believe you.”
“You do?” Spender said.
Rolf pointed to the valises he’d just spotted in the hall by the staircase. Spender said, “Yeah, see. We don’t know where she is.”
“Was the house undisturbed when you came in?” Rolf asked.
Mrs. Spender lowered her shotgun. “Yes. It was as we left it.”
“Had Anika packed?”
“No. Her things are in the basement closet.” Mrs. Spender said. “Now will you please leave.”
Rolf did leave. He didn’t apologize because he felt nothing but contempt for the Spenders. Besides, he didn’t feel even remotely like himself. He jumped back into his car and started driving. He didn’t care where. He just looped around and around the city, for hours. He’d stuck guns in the faces of two people today, and almost killed a third.
Munich had been a jungle since he’d arrived here, but he’d always felt separated from it, a man among the beasts. Now he’d transformed himself. Now the woods were dark, and he wasn’t sure where he was going. Where was Virgil? Wasn’t he supposed to come to the rescue of strayers from the narrow path? Rolf was terrified to go home because of death squads, yes. But having veered off and thrashed around like this, and having become so lost, was there a way for Rolf to get back to himself? And what of Anika? Was she on the run, or were her running days already over? Rolf tried to calculate the next course, but he couldn’t see it, and in the end fatigue made his driving sloppy, and he knew he’d worn himself to near nothing. He didn’t think he could sleep in the normal way. He’d have to just keep going until he collapsed, but it made the most sense to do that at home. If unlucky, he’d be shot, or wake up in a cell; if lucky, this would seem to him as a dream, and with the benefit of the season of all natures, he’d be able to see the course back to a self that made sense to him, for whatever that was worth now.
Rolf pulled up to his house at first light. He slid out of the front seat, feeling less like a man and more like a large, amorphous, one celled creature, an egg slipped out of its shell. He lumbered over to his walkway, which was all shadows. He took three steps, then tripped over something and fell to the walkway pavement, landing on his right wrist and suddenly drowning in intense waves of nauseating pain.
When Rolf’s senses recovered enough to allow him to see what he’d tripped over, he looked up and saw himself locking eyes with a young, blonde girl, ashen faced except for the black streak of dried blood descending from the corner of her mouth across her cheek. On her naked chest, carved with a scalpel, were the words “Welcome to Eppland, Kommissar!”
Rolf, cradling his wrist, felt as if his mind were a roiling wasp hive, stoned by malicious boys who were cruising for a sting.