In her political education classes, Helga had been told again and again that the capitalist system was rotten at the core and she was deeply convinced of the truth of that proposition. Of course one should not take everything that the SED published about the West literally and believe that all was crumbling. As with any propaganda and consciousness raising, one had to leave room for exceptions, but the big picture was correct. It certainly fit into that picture that an Inspector who was married and had several children would have a mistress who was both a nurse and a murderer. And yet, Muschan looked respectable and dull but after all, the people who had carried out the killings in the concentration camps also looked just like that. It didn’t mean a thing. Quite the contrary.
Steffen had left Elisabeth Kusian in the hands of his subordinates and came into the room where Helga had brought their colleague from the West. At least he had come.
“Your assistant asked me to come as a private citizen,” Muschan said.
“Exactly.” They shook hands. “We don’t want to lock you up in a cell for high treason. Let’s sit down. You’ve met Miss Leupahn.”
Muschan nodded as he sat down and stretched his legs. “Yes, but she did not reveal the reason you wanted me to come here.”
“It concerns the dismembered female corpse at Alex… Memhardstrasse… a certain Dorothea Merten.”
Muschan did not have to think long. “I read about that in the paper. M 1/3 is working on it, I have nothing to do with it.”
“Absolutely right. You are here as a private person.”
“I don’t understand…”
Steffen went straight to the point. “Do you know the name Elisabeth Kusian…?”
Muschan jumped. “Was she also…?”
“Murdered? No, no, rest assured.”
“Quite the opposite.” Helga added.
“What am I supposed to understand?”
Steffen stuck a cigarette in his mouth. “Mrs. Kusian is suspected of murder.”
“That’s impossible. She’s a nurse, she’s warm hearted, she’s a wonderful woman. It must be a terrible mistake.”
“I hope so too. For your sake. But first things first. You are friends with Mrs. Kusian?”
Muschan turned away a little. “Yes…”
“You have a relationship with her?”
“Is this an interrogation?”
“No, of course not, just a conversation between colleagues. We need some information. I don’t know if adultery is a punishable offense in the West, but no one is going to denounce you… Now, to the point: we are looking for a witness to exonerate Mrs. Kusian – and we have you. Could you please describe what happened at 154a Kantstrasse on the second day of Christmas?”
Muschan tried to collect himself. “Yes… This is a disaster for me… I knew there would be a day of reckoning. But I was almost like a slave, you know what I mean…”
Steffen nodded. “Man to man, of course I do. But out of respect for the lady who is with us, we will not go into details. So you were at her place on Christmas, on the second holy day…?”
“Yes, at about 9:15 PM. She must have heard me coming, in any case she was standing at the entrance downstairs before I even had time to ring the bell. “Darling, she said to me, I have an unexpected visit, you can’t …” I had to go and sit in a restaurant and I waited a long time, almost until 11 PM. Then she came to pick me up. I had to wait in the foyer of the apartment until she had lit the Christmas candles. I was completely overwhelmed when she showed me the typewriter. ‘For you’. It was embarrassing – she was constantly giving me presents. ‘I can’t give you anything like that in return, with my salary…’”
“And where did she, a nurse, find so much money? Didn’t you wonder about that?”
Muschan understood the question but not the policeman’s surprise. “Why should I? She has rich in laws. They have a clinic in Gera and they keep sending her money.”
Steffen had done his homework: he handed his colleague from the West a page of the population registry. “What do you say to this?”
In a low voice, Muschan read out the relevant section: “Kusian, Elisabeth, born Krüger… father Emil Krüger, farm worker… Husband Walter Kusian, waiter, presently assisting in reconstruction, Berlin Wedding, Sternstrasse…” he dropped the page on his knees. “But that’s impossible…”
“Impostors are not always men,” Steffen said. “But in any case, did you notice anything out of the ordinary in your friend’s room?”
“Not really…”
Steffen’s tone changed and he became very businesslike: “I would advise you, sir, to answer my question as a policeman and not as a friend of the suspect. Going down with the woman you love… that only happens in Hollywood films… so…”
Helga could see how conflicted Muschan was and she pitied him. He too was a victim of Kusian in a sense. She hadn’t throttled him or dismembered his body, but she had smothered him with love.
Steffen gave Muschan 30 seconds to think it over, not more: “So… what struck you?”
“There was a lady’s coat,” Muschan whispered, fully aware that what he was saying would seal Elisabeth Kusian’s fate. “Liz… Mrs. Kusian said that her relatives had forgotten it, that they had to leave very suddenly… Oh, yes, there was also a lady’s hat…”
The inspector had Muschan read the description Mrs. Merten’s sister had given of Dorothea’s clothes and then he pressed him: “Are these the clothes that you saw at your girlfriend’s in Kantstrasse?”
“Yes…” Muschan put his elbows on the desk and sat with his face cupped in his hands. His fingers pressed against his temples. “She must be advised of this somehow… Can I talk to her?”
Steffen thanked him for the offer. “Yes, that would be kind of you… Come…”
Muschan walked down the corridor between the inspector and Helga. She had the impression he had suddenly aged. He almost shuffled. The ensuing days and weeks would be terrible. Everything he had kept secret, his double life, would appear in the newspapers. His wife would find out, the whole edifice of his life would come tumbling down like a house of cards.
They reached the room where Elisabeth Kusian was being held. Steffen gave a short knock and he pulled the door open. The couple looked at each other.
“Baby! My baby!” Elisabeth Kusian exclaimed and she rushed up to him. But Muschan took a couple of steps back and Helga held her back. “Baby, you don’t believe that I…”
Muschan managed to compose himself: “You’ve got to tell the truth, Elisabeth! If you don’t you’ll incriminate me too!”
Kusian sobbed. “I can’t tell the truth because I lied to you… No one would believe what I said. So I prefer to say nothing.”
Afterwards though, when Kurt Muschan had left and she had been officially arrested, she did say something.
“I couldn’t say it in front of Kurt, because… There was another man.”
“What?” Helga asked. “You had a relationship with another man at the same time?”
“No, it was long before, but still… So…” Kusian thought hard. “In early 1948 I met a vegetable wholesale dealer at the Old Ballroom, handsome Harry… Harald Henschke.”
“What does that have to do with the murder of Mrs. Merten?”
“A lot, Inspector… In reality Berlin is just a village. When Mrs Merten was at my place on Christmas, we talked about this and that and we looked at some old pictures. All of a sudden, ‘I know that one!’ she exclaims. Well, what can I say: it was Harry Henschke. It so happens that he had been harassing Doris – Mrs. Merten- all this time. He too was a client at the typewriter store, that’s where she had met him. He was crazy about her, he wanted by all means to go to bed with her but she didn’t like him. And he said: ‘If you don’t want to, I’ll force you.’ He stalked her and she was very scared of him.”
They took this down and as soon as Kusian had been led away, Helga called Mr. Beigang at his store to find out about Harry Henschke.
“Yes, that’s correct, he is one of our clients although he lives somewhere in the Eastern sector, near Alex and he wanted Mrs. Merten bad.” Günther Beigang was absolutely certain.
Helga thanked him and informed her superiors. Steffen immediately got on the phone and fifteen minutes later, four armed officers of the People’s Police arrested the vegetable wholesale dealer at his home.
He remained calm and did not protest.
“Because of Merten… I knew something like that would happen.”
“Then why didn’t you come to us of your own initiative?”
“Nobody’s that crazy: hey, let sleeping dogs lie.”
“Thank you…” Helga found the man repulsive. Wholesale dealers, middlemen…it was time that the Party put a stop to these parasites’ games. Why didn’t they just move to the West? Leftovers of the bourgeoisie, that’s what they were, rotting flesh.
“Does the name Elisabeth Kusian ring a bell?”
“Oh, that one…” Henschke made a derogatory gesture. “I had her about two years ago. She pretended to be a medical student and she refused to marry me because I didn’t come from an academic family.”
“And you haven’t seen her since?”
“No.”
“But you saw Mrs. Merten more often?”
“Yes, as often as I could. I was crazy about her.” Henschke didn’t hesitate to admit it.
“So crazy that you threatened to force her…?”
“Oh, so that’s what this is about. No, Inspector, I’m not like that: I get what I want.”
“But not with Mrs. Merten.”
“That’s true, I didn’t get her as quickly as I wanted.”
“And so on the second day of the Christmas holiday, you decided to help it along a bit…?”
“How could I? I was in Oberhof at my brother’s from the 21st until yesterday.”
An hour later it was all cleared up. A local investigation established with certainty that Harald Henschke had not left Oberhof between the 21st and the 29th of December. He was then taken back to his home.
“I like it better this way,” Steffen said as he played with a bunch of keys. “Do you know who this belongs to?”
Helga did not have to think long. “They probably belong to Kusian?”
“Right. And we are again going to meet in front of 154a Kantstrasse at 11PM tonight.”
“What…?” Helga was scared. “You don’t really intend to…?”
“I don’t intend to go, I must go. And, as a precaution, I need a witness: you.”
“Without a search warrant…in what is, so to speak, enemy territory…?” She just couldn’t accept it.
“Child, do you know what Lenin said about Social Democrats…? No? He said: ‘If they wanted to storm a train station, they would first purchase platform tickets.’” He laughed. Then his laughter turned into a fit of coughing. His laryngitis. “I don’t intend to buy a platform ticket. There will be a big trial with Kusian – and we will be the winners. ‘Markgraf Police beats Stumm Police 3 to nothing.’ It’s all about winning.” He gave her a friendly nod and disappeared towards the cafeteria to buy cigarettes. “See you tonight.”
“I’ll be there and right on time.” She could not help admiring him, even though what they were going to do was illegal. He was right. If you wanted to build Socialism, you couldn’t afford to hesitate, you had to charge ahead full force. But… If only she didn’t have another appointment that evening, an appointment with Bernhard. He had invited her to his house on Fuldastrasse for dinner at 6:30. So she could size up his mother and his aunt. It was too late to go back to Karolinenhof to change. All she could do was freshen up in the precinct bathroom. As she checked her appearance in the mirror, she started wondering whether it was such a good idea to go to Neukölln. She certainly didn’t look like the ideal wife Bernhard’s mother wished for her only son: no plump little woman with a smart little hat, she was a rawboned political commissar with a headscarf and a kalishnikov dangling from her shoulder. Well, maybe she was exaggerating a bit but still, what business did she have with such a bourgeois household? She tried to reason herself. “Come on, you’re not meeting the queen in Buckingham Palace or going to the Krupp villa.”
Still… When she stepped off the train at the station in Neukölln, she felt she was in a foreign country. Even if the street she was going down was named Karl Marx Strasse. These were different Germans. More keyed up, dressed in more colorful clothes, more American in a sense. Of course, this was the American sector. Inside her head some words resonated immediately: Go home, Ami – Ami go home, split your atom for peace! Was she being followed? Silly of her. She was just an unimportant part of the People’s Police. But she was a woman who saw things clearly. She had been warned recently at school that the Western secret services would increase their efforts to approach citizens of the GDR. They wanted to know everything so that RIAS, Radio in American Sector, could have something to use in their propaganda broadcast, From the Zone, For the Zone. There were more things than she expected in the shop windows but what did that mean when the mass of the exploited had no money to buy any of them! True, the American economic machine was running at full speed because President Truman continued to crank up the arms industry; but that would make the coming economic crisis even worse. Soon, the day would come when people from the Western sector came over to the Democratic sector to do their shopping at HO. She didn’t understand why the West Germans were licking the Americans’ boots. A perfect example of Anglo-American colonial subjugation was the pharmaceutical industry: they had stolen 70000 German patents to manufacture expensive drugs which they then sold back on the German market. The Tägliche Rundschau had written extensively about it.
She bumped into a man she hadn’t noticed in the dim light of the street lamps. “Oh, sorry…”
“Sorry? I’ll never forgive you: how could you not recognize me!?” It was Bernhard who had come out to meet her halfway. “I’ll be your guide for the last few meters. Fuldastrasse is full of dangerously high cliffs.”
They kissed but she didn’t enjoy it much. He was somehow foreign and she almost felt like a Frenchwoman stepping out with a German soldier when France was occupied by Hitler’s Wehrmacht. Repulsive. On the other hand, she had always dreamt of a man like him. The easy going American type. Casablanca. Humphrey Bogart. Bernhard could have been his double, and she was the Ingrid Bergmann type. She felt deeply troubled by those images, by the very fact of comparing herself to these people. God, why couldn’t she have fallen in love with a man from Köpenick! Bernhard’s mother and aunt welcomed her at arm’s length so to speak, as if she were trying to sell them a subscription to Neues Deutschland.
“Please take your coat off, Miss. Leupahn. I thought we could meet at a restaurant on Kurfürstendam but my son insisted that I prepare a small repast here in our modest home.”
No one had ever spoken to her in such mincing words. Oh well, she was a teacher after all. They couldn’t help themselves. The sister, Erna Nostiz, was even worse. God, dolled up like a Meissen figurine. She was supposed to have a sick gall bladder. You could see it in her face. The only one missing was Bernhard’s father, the minister. Helga was afraid her father would kick her out of the house when he found out what kind of a family she had landed in. If they ever got engaged, they would have to have two separate celebrations: one in Neukölln with only her, and one in Karolinenhof with only Bernhard.
“Don’t frown at my mother and my aunt like that,” he said to her. “They’re not Nazis and never were. My mother always votes CDU and my aunt SPD.”
“No politics at the dinner table. Please.” His mother was very insistent. “Let us talk about your beautiful Schmöckwitz.”
“She lives in Karolinenhof, Mother.”
“Why don’t you let Miss. Leupahn speak for herself?”
“Thank you.” Helga didn’t know what to choose: minced meat or sausage salad, so she held her bun in her hand and hesitated. The bread was much whiter than in the Eastern sector but it was also hollow and too light. “Yes, Lübbenauer Weg in Karolinenhof. But my mother works at the tire factory in Schmöckwitz.”
“My husband intended to buy a piece of land in Karolinenhof after the war,” Anne-Marie Bacheran said. “But then…” And she talked about the trips she had taken with her husband.
Helga listened but her mind was far away: she was thinking about her next appointment, the ‘visit’ to Kantstrasse. What if the Stumm Police showed up and arrested her? Would Bernhard have enough influence to get her out? She could hear him saying: ‘Yes, but on condition that you move to the West with me.’
After the meal they played rummy and everyone visibly relaxed. Maybe she could get along with his relatives after all.
“Hand rummy!” Erna Nostiz cried.
Helga hadn’t been paying attention; she still had a few cards to play and she had to pay six pfennig. When she took out her East Mark, Bernhard’s aunt protested. “Only real money, please. Otherwise it’s got to be according to the exchange rate, 6 to 1.”
“Don’t take it to heart,” Bernhard said. “Unlucky at cards but lucky in love, that’s life.”
“You are with the Vopos?” Anne Marie Bacheran looked at her a little suspiciously.
“With Homicide.”
“But not for much longer…” Bernhard wanted to make light of it all. “Because soon there will be no crime and no criminals in the GDR.”
“But they might come to us from the West.”
Anne-Marie could barely restrain herself. “Surely you don’t mean that seriously, Miss. Leupahn?!”
Bernhard intervened. “No mother. She’s thinking of this one case where it really looks like someone from the Western sector dismembered two corpses and hid them in the Eastern sector. But let’s forget about that right now. Who’s dealing?”
“The one who asks, always.”
“Your father used to say: ‘God dislikes gamblers because they lust after other people’s money.’”
So they managed to get through the evening without any major incident. Helga felt better. Still she kept looking at the big grandfather clock. The pendulum swung back and forth and soon it was 10 PM. If Bernhard walked her to the subway she would have to take the train in the wrong direction first so she needed to get ready to leave soon.
“Well… I have to get going soon… It’s a long way to Karolinenhof and I absolutely must catch the last 86.” She felt very bad lying to Bernhard. As if she were cheating on him. But there was no way she could let him know about tonight’s mission. So close your eyes and jump, she thought.
When the two ladies said goodbye they weren’t entirely warmhearted but not as stiff as when they greeted her. “I hope you’ll come again sometime, Miss. Leupahn.” Maybe it would work after all.
Outside on the landing the light went out and Bernhard took her in his arms. So passionately that it took her breath away. He was aroused. His hands were under her coat, her sweater, her skirt. Before she could stop him he rubbed himself against her and moaned. She didn’t like it but she let him. Maybe she owed it to him since she had lied. “Helga, I love you.” She bit his earlobe in answer. He shuddered and she realized he had ejaculated. In his pants. His mother would have a fit when she saw that. The light came on. They pulled apart. Another tenant was coming home. They went down the stairs, one behind the other, keeping a safe distance.
Only once they reached the street did he put his arm around her waist again. “We haven’t even had the opportunity to talk about the Kusian case.”
She tried to look composed as she informed him briefly of the fact that they were presently holding the nurse in Neu Königstrasse.
He was taken aback. “But she’s a West Berliner…?”
“If she did in fact murder Seidelmann, well… he was from the GDR. And if she dismembered Doris Merten, the fact is that her victim was found in the Democratic sector. So…”
“All right.” Bacheran started walking in the direction of the U-Bahn station and pulled her with him. “I’m not a diplomat. Did she already confess?”
“No. She keeps coming up with new lies and we have to see how it develops.” She didn’t mention Kurt Muschan either. An official secret was one thing, love another. They were going to beat the Stumm Police by hook or by crook. The more mistakes the West made, the better the Volks Police would come out. Steffen was right about that, and about other things too.
“Do you want to walk back to Neukölln station or will you take the U-Bahn, or the 47?”
“I’ll take the U-Bahn. That way I don’t have to freeze while I wait. She was lying again: she wanted to take the U-Bahn so she could take the C line to the center of town and change there for the A line and get to Zoo station as fast as possible. “You mustn’t come down to the platform with me. I hate long goodbyes.”
“And I love you.”
She hoped he wouldn’t be too much of a gentleman and get on the train with her. But he did! He was so much in love he wanted to spend every minute he could with her. “What I’d really like is to take you to a hotel and…”
“Oh … yes…” Why not, that way the die would be cast: Steffen would be furious tomorrow, he would accuse her of deserting and make sure she was kicked out of the Vopo. So what! Bernhard would certainly give her shelter in the West.
“Just a thought.” So it was just a joke. Of course. Why was it that men never realized when it was time to make their move…?
And so she was very quiet as they sat together on the train. It was embarrassing too because anybody with a good nose could smell the odor of sperm on him. But it was only two stops. He walked her up to the S-Bahn. They walked hand in hand and she felt as if she were his fiancée even though not a word had been spoken on the subject. She was still very old fashioned and bourgeois in the way she looked at things: if you slept with a man, you were automatically engaged. The train came, the air in the brakes made a hissing sound and the train came to a stop. He pulled the door open. One last kiss. He pushed his tongue in her mouth and moved back and forth. So obscene it made her stomach tingle and twitch. “Bernhard, Bernie…”
“Doors closing. Step back!”
He pulled away. The doors slammed shut right in front of her. As the train jerked forward she was thrown onto a bench. She wanted to wink goodbye but the windows were fogged up. The train was already on the main track. She settled back in her seat and noticed the dampness between the thighs. He wasn’t the only with something to hide, she was in the same condition now. All she could do was laugh at herself. When Steffen looked at her she would blush… Steffen! God, where was she now? For a moment she lost her bearings. They were slowly pulling out of a station. She wiped the condensation off the window pane. Köllnische Heide. All right. The best thing to do was to go on to Baumschulenweg and then get on the Stadtbahn. With luck she would be only a few minutes late.
But it was already 11:15 PM when she reached the house on Kanstrasse.
“Five minutes early is soldier’s timeliness,” Steffen said in a tone of mild reproach.
“My instinct tells me that widow Stöhr has just fallen asleep.”
“Well then, lets’ go. We’re a married couple returning home late in the evening.” Inspector Steffen opened the front door but did not turn on the light. It wasn’t easy to go up the stairs to the fourth floor in the dark but since they had been there once before they knew of the possible dangers. “Psst… Just like Winnetou and old Slatterhand.”
“Yes. Ah…” Helga was surprised that Steffen should quote Karl May whose silly unrealistic novels were all but forbidden in the GDR.
They safely reached the top of the stairs and the inspector opened the door of the apartment, making almost no noise at all. They stood still in the entrance hall for a few seconds, holding their breaths. There wasn’t a single light on in the apartment. Someone was snoring. Probably Mrs. Stöhr’s mother. Elisabeth Kusian’s room was locked. But he had the keys and unlocked the door. They listened. “Nothing…” He pressed down the latch, pushed the door open and let Helga in. “Pull the curtains shut,” he whispered to her.
She went to the window and did as he said. She felt like a burglar. Whichever way you looked at it they were doing something illegal. What if the American military police just happened to…? No, this was the British sector. But there could be agents of the English secret service, MI5. The ceiling lamp came on. Her heart missed a beat. But it was Steffen who had turned it on of course.
“If Doris Merten was killed in this room there have to be traces for chrissake.” He started dragging the sofa away from the wall to look behind it. “Nothing here…”
Helga opened the drawers of the writing table determined to find a severed hand or a foot. Although… they had everything that belonged to Doris Merten. Still… But her efforts were in vain.
Steffen was ready to admit defeat a second time but as he felt behind the tile stove one last time, he pulled something out that, at first, looked like a dust cloth. “Hey, what have we here…?”
“A neck tie!” Helga shouted forgetting all their precautions. “A man’s neck tie. Blue with yellow and red stripes.”
Steffen shushed her but he was just as excited. “This can only belong to one man…”
“Hermann Seidelmann.”
“Right. And this confirms my theory: Seidelmann and Merten were both dismembered by the same person. Come, we’ll leave now and tomorrow morning early we’ll see to it that the evidence guys come here, East sector or West sector guys, it doesn’t matter. If Elisabeth Kusian cut up both of her victims’ bodies in this room, there must have been a lot of blood… and it will have run between the floorboards. You can’t wipe off every trace.”