Their meeting place was the bridge over the Spree just before Museum Island. It was, according to their heritage studies teacher, the place where the first settlers in Berlin, who were fishermen, had erected their wooden huts. Hedwig leaned for a moment, watching the canal as it glittered in bright rings beneath the setting sun, stirred into lazy arrows by the coal-heaped barges making their slow progress westwards. Above, the sky was as luminous and mottled as an oyster shell, and faint traces of linden blossom were carried on the breeze. It was a lovely spring evening, but Hedwig was sick with nerves.
She had barely slept since the evening of Jochen’s revelations. Tonight was their regular meeting, but she had no idea what they might do or where they would go. Everything had changed now. She had hurried home after work and pulled on a flowered dress that Lottie had sewed up from one of her own designs. It clung to her curves a little too obviously for her taste, and Hedwig was only wearing it because Jochen had once remarked casually that he liked girls in flowered dresses. And because the memory of the beautiful brunette Sofie, whom Jochen admired, burned in her mind.
A hand on her shoulder made her jump, but the sight of him brought the reflex rush of excitement.
“So where are we going?”
“Somewhere interesting. Up west.”
“Where exactly?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
“Is it…to do with what you told me? The other night?”
He grinned. “Patience, Hedy! It’s a secret.”
On the tram Jochen seemed lost in contemplation, so she stared out of the window at the glimmering shop windows and the commuters in their office outfits hurrying home from work. How foolish she had been to assume that Jochen was planning to propose! Perhaps it was for the best. She thought of her mother savagely scrubbing, her father looking her up and down in that way he had. They already thought badly enough of Jochen; God knows what they would think if they knew what he was really doing. Since Lottie’s murder her life seemed to be spooling out of control, with one terrible surprise following another. She desperately hoped that this evening would not be the next.
She waited until the tram had reached the smart boulevards of Wilmersdorf, and they had disembarked, before she spoke again. Jochen moved fast, hands jammed in his pockets, as if propelled by some urgent inner force.
“I still don’t know where we’re going.”
“We’re going to see a fortune-teller.”
Hedwig so wanted to believe him. It was such a wonderful, imaginative idea, and it might have been planned expressly to delight her. Numerous friends had visited fortune-tellers to investigate their romantic futures. Palm reading and tarot cards were all the rage. Irna Wolter had visited a psychic with her fiancé before they married and had learned they would enjoy a long, happy marriage, blessed with five children. Hedwig had not consulted a psychic herself before, but she never missed her horoscope and she kept a Winterhilfswerk donation pin in the shape of her star sign—Pisces—in her lapel. She had bought one for Jochen, too—Aries—but she had never seen him wear it.
“I thought you didn’t believe in fortune-tellers.”
She couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice. Her stars in that month’s edition of Der Zenit promised dramatic developments in her love life.
“I believe in this one. Her forecasts are impressively accurate.”
After a few minutes they reached a building in Pariser Strasse, the kind that Hedwig sometimes fantasized about inhabiting but had never set foot in. It was a five-story stucco block with fancy scrollwork round a doorframe. A lot of smart houses were having swastikas set into their lintels, but here the plaster was molded into a pretty confection of leaves and squirrels. Next to it a buffed brass plaque read, PSYCHIC CONSULTATIONS. FIRST FLOOR.
The door was opened by a maid, who ushered them into a front room with a vaguely Eastern air, bestowed by drawn tasseled curtains, fringed red lamps, and rich Turkish carpets. Around the room, low tables were clustered with the accessories of the trade—crystal balls, tarot cards, and a china phrenological head segmented into areas with labels like CAUTION, SECRECY, ELOQUENCE, and ARTISTRY. A pungent odor hung in the air. Hedwig was quite used to homes that smelled strongly, but unlike the cabbage intercut with rancid fat that perfumed her family’s apartment, this scent was exotic and mysterious. Nutmeg, cinnamon, and frankincense, perhaps. Like the incense in a Catholic church or the ancient smells that emanated from the library at the Ahnenerbe.
The door opened, and a short, commanding figure swept in, wearing a cerise kimono-style silk jacket and a beaded cap. She must have been in her late sixties, with a crooked nose and kinked hair, her dark caramel eyes heavily lined in kohl, and her makeup thickly applied. Exactly like a fortune-teller was supposed to look, thought Hedwig, enthralled.
“This is Hedwig,” said Jochen brusquely. “Hedwig, this is Frau Annie Krauss.”
The Annie Krauss! Everyone had heard of her. All the top people—film actors and singers and sports people—were said to consult Annie Krauss. There had been a feature on her work in Der Zenit—“Madame Krauss Prognosticates,” with a picture of her craning over a crystal ball wearing a fringed headband, and reports of some of her predictions, mostly picking winners at the Hoppegarten racecourse. It was impossible to get an appointment without booking months in advance.
Frau Krauss approached Hedwig and seized her hand. There was an unexpected strength in her stringy claw, and Hedwig wondered if the old lady could discern her future merely from the faint impressions of lines on her palm. Frau Krauss squinted up at Hedwig, as if reading the secrets of her soul.
“Good evening, my dear. I’ve heard about you. I’m so glad to meet you.”
A beady glance up and down. Yet again Hedwig regretted wearing the clingy dress.
“I’m honored to meet you too, Frau Krauss. I’ve always wanted to.”
“Hmm.” The old woman turned away slightly, allowing Hedwig to whisper to Jochen, “Is this about telling our futures?”
He shrugged, enigmatically. “In a manner of speaking.”