Babylon Berlin (22 page)

Straight after dinner he had led Charlotte onto the dance floor. She was a good dancer, but the look in her eyes was confusing him. He had to make sure he didn’t forget why he was here. The
other reason
he was here. They had been in the
Europa-Pavillon
for over two hours and the band had been playing uninterrupted the whole time. Only now were they taking a break. The dancers applauded as the musicians took their bows. A café violinist filled the break in the music with a few schmaltzy numbers, but no-one paid him any attention. The audience were more interested in Tretschkov’s musicians, who had made a beeline for the bar.

He led Charlotte back to their table. The bottle of champagne in the cooler was almost empty. He waved the waiter over and ordered another, excused himself and disappeared in the direction of the toilets. Just before the toilet door, he swerved towards the bar. She couldn’t see him anymore, despite her excellent position in the gallery.

Ilja Tretschkov was sitting at a table with his musicians, in front of him a large beer that was already half finished. Rath showed his badge discreetly, so that only Tretschkov could see.

‘I need to speak to you for a moment,’ he said. ‘Preferably in private.’

Tretschkov stood up. They found a seat in a quiet corner by the bar.

‘My papers are in order,’ the musician said before he sat down. His German was almost accentless.

‘It’s not about you. It’s about a singer. Lana Nikoros.’

‘Have you found her?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘So you haven’t. Probably wouldn’t be good if the police found her.’ His face alternated between hope and disappointment. ‘I’m worried about her. After we had to leave the
Delphi
, she just didn’t show up anymore. Even though she knew we had a new engagement’.

‘What do you mean she didn’t show up?’

‘We’ve been playing in
Europa-Pavillon
for two weeks. Before that we practised here a few times. She knew the dates but didn’t turn up. She’s never done that before, and we’ve been working together nearly two years.’

‘Have you tried to contact her?’

‘Of course, but it was hopeless. You’ve probably already been in her flat too. Almost everything’s still there, it’s only her that’s missing. And a few things besides. As if she’s gone away somewhere.’

‘You’ve been in her flat.’

‘In Kreuzberg. Luisenufer. I have a key.’

Rath nodded. He could have bet that he knew the number.

‘It’s not what you think,’ Tretschkov was quick to explain. ‘We’re colleagues and friends.’

‘Luisenufer,’ Rath repeated. ‘But she doesn’t live there under the name Lana Nikoros…’

‘No, that’s her stage name. Her real name is Sorokin. Countess Svetlana Sorokina. A famous name in Russia…’

The Sorokin gold!
Rath could scarcely believe it.
Lana Nikoros was one of the Sorokin clan. The girlfriend
of Alexej Kardakov!

The musician continued: ‘…and that’s why she’s living incognito in Berlin, that’s why there’s a common name on the door of her flat. Otherwise the Soviets would have discovered her long ago.’ It sounded as if that was what he feared had happened.

‘What does Stalin want from her?’

‘What does he want? She belongs to the one of the most distinguished noble families in the country. Do I need to remind you what the Bolsheviks did to the Romanovs!’

He had stayed away too long. A woman like Charlotte shouldn’t be left alone. When he returned there was someone with her at the table. A greasy, smarmy type with a nutcracker’s laugh. Some unsavoury show-off who thought he was the bee’s knees and didn’t realise that she found him repulsive. Rath hated guys like him and felt anger rising within him. Or was it jealousy? He brushed the thought aside.

‘Excuse me, but this table is reserved. Would you please leave us alone?’

The man laughed. ‘Is the lady reserved too?’

Rath could see in his eyes that his big talk wasn’t genuine, he’d snorted it up in powder form in the toilet just now.

He leaned over towards the man. Then he seized him by the crotch so quickly that he didn’t have time to react. It was all he could do to sit with teeth pressed together, not daring to move. All this played out in the shadow of the table cloth, so that Charlotte couldn’t see what was happening.

‘Listen to me, my little snowman,’ Rath whispered with his mouth pressed against the man’s ear, sounding as if he were kindness personified. ‘You were stupid enough to sit down with your coke at a table of cops. If you don’t leave this place within the next ten seconds, then you won’t just have trouble pissing for the next few weeks; I’ll also make sure you end up behind bars. Do I make myself clear?’

He underlined the final question by tightening his vice-like grip. The popinjay nodded eagerly. He had turned blue-red. Even the strip of his scalp, which could be seen through his perfectly straight parting, had turned red.

‘So,’ Rath whispered. ‘If you don’t want to spend the next year inside, then you’ll apologise as soon as I let go, but not before you bow politely in front of the lady!’

The man nodded, stood up and managed to perform something approximating a bow to Charlotte. Then he went down to the foyer in an oddly nimble manner that made him look as if he had soiled himself. Charlotte gazed after him in confusion.

‘The alcohol’s probably gone to his head,’ Rath said, as he re-joined Charlotte. She seemed impressed.

‘Do you do that to everyone who gets in your way?’ she asked.

15

The clock was set for an hour earlier than usual. He hadn’t slept long.
They
hadn’t. Rath was already awake as the hand was just about to click into place and trigger the alarm. With a single blow he silenced the tinny monster before it could make any noise. Black hair lay on the pillow beside him. It wasn’t a dream. He stroked her and kissed her on the nape of her neck, felt her waking up. She lay still so that he could continue kissing her. When she turned round she smiled at him.

When had it happened? Shortly after he had given the gigolo a piece of his mind, Tretschkov’s musicians had returned to the stage and he had led Charlotte to the dance floor. Charly! They had danced, and she had looked at him in such a way that he simply couldn’t help it. At first it was only their noses that had touched, then he had kissed her, just softly, but she had reciprocated in kind.

They danced a little while longer but didn’t dare kiss one another again. Not in public, on the dance floor. Then he led her from the floor back to the table with their hands entwined. They had ordered another drink and gazed in each other’s eyes and suddenly things became serious between them. She was the first to rediscover her smile.

‘Now?’ she asked.

‘Maybe we should call each other by our first names?’ he suggested.

She laughed. ‘I’m Charlotte, but everyone apart from my mother calls me Charly.’

‘At the Castle too?’

‘There, I’m Fräulein Ritter.’

‘I’m Gereon.’

‘A strange name. Never heard it before.’

‘A Cologne saint. My parents are very Catholic and very Rhinish.’

‘I want more from you, Gereon.’

They had already begun in the taxi.

Now she was lying next to him, stroking his cheek and smiling. The bed cover slid away, and the sun shone on her slim body. He felt his desire returning, but they didn’t have time for that now. They had to make haste.

He hadn’t wanted to emulate Weinert, who always sent his ladies home in the middle of the night. Not with Charly! He wanted to fall asleep next to her and wake up next to her, but now he didn’t have the faintest idea how he was going to sneak her past Elisabeth Behnke unnoticed. That he wasn’t actually allowed to receive any female visitors was something he had already confessed to Charly. ‘I always wanted to do something illegal,’ she had said simply, and so he had guided her quietly to his room. Even though he hadn’t seriously reckoned with the possibility, he had nevertheless taken the precaution of removing the map from his wall and concealing the photos before he had set off towards
Europahaus
.

They gave themselves a lick and a promise by the wash basin that stood on the old-fashioned dressing table in his room. In front of the mirror they got themselves halfway fit for the working day at the Castle. It seemed to work. Rath was the more rumpled, but Charlotte looked fantastic anyway, even if she needed a little time to do her hair. She was missing a stocking, but soon standing in front of him ready to leave.

He opened the bedroom door and looked across the corridor. No-one there. The smell of coffee reached his nostrils. Charly remained in his room until he waved her over. She shot quickly across the corridor into the stairwell and descended on tiptoes. Rath closed the door as quietly as possible and returned to his room. They had negotiated the worst; Charly was outside.

He threw on his coat, took his hat and was about to follow her when the kitchen door opened. Elisabeth Behnke stood in her dressing gown. This time though, it was high-necked.

‘Good morning!’ She refrained from saying
Gereon.

‘Good morning, Elisabeth!’

‘No breakfast?’

‘Thank you, but I have lots to be getting on with today. Didn’t I say that to you yesterday?’

‘Have you already been downstairs? I thought I heard the door.’

‘I had forgotten some important papers.’ He glanced at the time. ‘But now I really do have to go!’

He put on his hat and ran downstairs where Charly was waiting. She had hidden in an entrance. You could tell the woman worked at the Castle.

Barely an hour later they entered the station as inconspicuously as they had crept out of the flat. After a quick breakfast they had got on the underground at Wittenbergplatz, and had sat, love-struck, next to one another for a time. Nevertheless, as soon as the train was nearing Alex, they had begun to distance themselves from one another. The probability that a colleague would get on grew with each station. Rath gave Charly a final kiss and rose to his feet at Spittelmarkt. At Alex they proceeded to disembark from different doors and, shortly afterwards, strolled through the station like two strangers. Even six metres below the ground, Alexanderplatz resembled a building site. Charly had been first to arrive at the Castle; Rath had examined a few train timetables, before likewise setting off towards Dircksenstrasse.

The office was still empty, but the post had been delivered. On his desk Rath found a package. When he recognised the foreign stickers, he knew straightaway. There was only one person who sent him post from abroad, and who knew his new work address. For a moment, he even forgot about Charly as he cut the cord and opened the package. Newspaper cuttings in English poured out. The package was well padded with a letter on top, but his curiosity was initially reserved for something else. A new record! He examined the flat cardboard square and, with a practised movement, allowed the record to slide out.
Fletcher Henderson Orchestra
, he read,
Easy Money
Blues.
Fresh from New York! He wanted to listen to it right away.

Only one man sent him packages like this, a man who, in his father’s world, no longer existed: Severin Rath had taken the mail boat to America in the spring of 1914 and never returned. Not when the war broke out in August and the Fatherland called him up for military service. Nor, some four and half years later, when the war was over.

Gereon understood back then and even more so today. Engelbert Rath hadn’t, and the shame of housing a traitor to the Fatherland had affected him deeply. Not even the hero’s death suffered by his eldest son could offset it. Quite the opposite: it was almost as if he held Severin responsible for Anton’s death. Engelbert Rath had allowed his second son to die through his silence alone. Severin was no longer discussed, and his letters went unanswered. They weren’t even read until, at some point, they stopped coming.

No-one, not even Ursula, knew that Gereon had tried to find his brother after the war. Not so very easy, since the old New York address was no longer valid, and many people in the city had anglicised their German names to avoid being interned on Ellis Island. After a laborious exchange of letters with the US authorities, who didn’t always react in a friendly manner, he had finally located a Sevron Rath in Hoboken, New Jersey. And he had actually written back.
Poste restante
. As agreed. That was when the first jazz record had been enclosed. The start of a little collection.

Rath took the black disk from its sleeve and held it like expensive porcelain. Midnight-blue, silver font.
Come on, Baby
, the title said on the other side. Which straightaway reminded him of
her
again. Charly was sitting only a few rooms away. The thought of that alone made him crazy.

Stephan Jänicke interrupted his daydreaming. The rookie stormed through the door, full of energy, surprised to find another colleague in the office so early.

‘Didn’t you say you were going out yesterday evening?’ he asked.

‘I’ll sleep at the end of the month,’ Rath said and wrapped the package back up. That was what he had said to Charly last night as well. When they had fallen into his bed. But not to sleep.

He realised he was aroused just by the thought of it. It was high time he got this woman out of his head, at least for a few hours! He had to work.

It was to remain no more than an honourable intention. He hadn’t been able to banish her from his thoughts all day, no matter how hard he tried. Time and time again Bruno had caught him daydreaming. Even as they were planning the raid! Even Jänicke seemed to realise something wasn’t right with Rath. It had come to a head when he encountered her in the corridor. He addressed her formally, said hello, remaining polite and distant as they had discussed. And Charly? She pulled him by the tie into an office and kissed him. Thank God it was empty.

‘If anybody comes,’ Rath said and looked around.