Children of Wrath (16 page)

From what Willi could make out in the dim candlelight, the membership appeared affluent enough in tailored suits and smart leather accessories, middle-aged mainly, though some looked not much older than students. Some artist types. Definitely no children, though he couldn’t exactly stare. Oddly, he noticed, no one was paying much attention to anyone else. Silence reigned as the women headed through one door and the men another.

He took a deep breath and followed.

Inside, he was surprised to find himself in a dark chamber among a small throng of men in various stages of undress. Apparently, one was supposed to trade one’s street clothes—all of them, from the bare asses he saw—for a black robe hanging on one of the hooks. These floor-length things, Willi could see from those already in them, had hoods that nearly concealed the face.

Did he really have to do this?

He could flash his badge of course, demand to be taken to Helga. But then he would never find out what was happening here. To beguile the time, look like the time, he thought. Off came the shoes, the tie and jacket. The trousers. At the last second, though, instead of butt naked, he slipped the robe atop his underwear, breathing a sigh of relief when it went unnoticed. He had no intention of walking around without even shorts on. But no one seemed the least concerned about him. They were all too busy preparing to ascend a circular staircase at the far end of the room.

Feeling completely aberrant in this hooded outfit—a Jew in monk’s robes—he joined the pilgrimage, climbing around and around until halfway up it struck like lightning: his Kripo badge. He’d left it in his jacket pocket. He turned, determined to retrieve it, but saw the narrow staircase full of men behind. If he didn’t want to cause a scene, he was going to have to keep going.

Dear Lord. He really felt naked now.

Four full flights led to what had to be a rooftop penthouse, a dark auditorium drenched in mauve light. No chairs, only pillows on a carpeted floor, which was quickly filling with seated figures. Entering from an opposite staircase was another procession in hooded robes, only in white—the women. At the front, several steps led to what appeared to be an altar draped in blue satin curtains. Atop it a winged lion painted glittery gold looked vaguely Babylonian. Two of the walls had murals depicting sunrises over the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Corny, and plenty costly. The dues around here were probably astronomical, he surmised.

A few minutes before the clock struck five a tom-tom started beating. Then a flute, floating through the air. Softly at first, then louder, the congregation began chanting:
“Mazdaznan … Mazdaznan…”

Were these the same Berliners he’d seen minutes earlier—hurrying down Bleibtreu Strasse in their tailored outfits? Perhaps it wasn’t surprising, Willi thought—with all the amazing advances in wireless communication, brain chemistry, atomic physics—that urban sophisticates might be drawn to the primitive and mystical, the metaphysical, especially now when the rug was being pulled out from under them, everything solid liquefying. But this group really seemed over the edge. It brought him back for a second to that crazy car ride home from the Admirals-Palast after they’d seen Josephine Baker. What had Dr. von Hessler meant, he was studying human fear?

At five exactly, like magic, the blue curtains drew away from the altar. Helga the High Priestess appeared—sitting on a bed enclosed in some strange polyhedron-shaped cage.
“Mazdaznan … Mazdaznan … Yasna Haptanghaiti…”
The beating tom-tom seemed to waken her and gradually she rose, standing with her back to the congregation, slowly lifting both milky arms. “Aurora,” she cried. “Goddess of the Dawn—open your gates. Let Shamesh arise!”

Willi had to keep from snickering. This was tackier than a Friedrich Strasse revue. Even with her back to them he could see Helga was no kid, but a mature woman in her forties, her ripe figure draped in a metallic-gold gown that left her shoulders and most of her back bare. She radiated power. Her voice. Her posture.

At last she turned and faced her congregation, a siren from the wrong side of the tracks, her sultry smirk seeming to declare,
What you see is what I made. And if you don’t like it—kiss my rear.

Behind her, a sour-faced redhead Willi recognized as Brigitta drew back another set of curtains, unveiling a panorama of Berlin-West all the way to the Tiergarten, across which the first pink rays of dawn were just now falling. Raising some sort of scepter with one arm, Helga faced the city like a figure in a stained-glass window.

“Torch of Heaven, Bride of the Gods. From you planets are born. From you life is nurtured. In the name of Titan, Helios, and Ra, we welcome you with
Mazdaznan
!”

“Yasna Haptanghaiti!”
the congregation returned.

What an insane goulash of thirty dead religions, Willi thought. Though Helga dished it out with real panache.

“The ancients”—she held her white arms out, seeming to offer succor—“believed that to enable the Divine Energy to ascend all thirty-three chambers of the spinal medulla and bring about absolute bliss, years of practice were required.”

She smiled, cocking her head, implying how little those ancients knew. Then her gaze, scanning lovingly, affixed like two magnetic beams—on Willi. For a moment, the strangest quiver shot up his spine.

“Today of course we have the Space Crystal, which enables us in a very short while to achieve what the ancients even with so much hard work had no guarantee of reaching—spiritual ecstasy. Yes. Inside the aura field of our polyhedron, our twenty-nine sacred movements galvanize the soul directly into contact with the Fourth Dimension.”

Leading her flock through a series of stretches and toe touching, Helga shouted, “Flux and Flow! Feel the Light!” as the drumbeat intensified, the movements quickening. “Remember: space does not exist!” Finally, as rising sunlight fell on the red silk bed, she announced, “Now is the time to fuel the unfurling cosmos.”

It didn’t take long before Willi got the picture of what exactly in the cosmos was about to unfurl.

On opposite walls the white and black robes began forming separate lines, the subliminal tension mounting to overt anticipation.

“Ego’s death and arousal of Astral Body climaxes in the Angelic State!”

Helga nodded to the first man and woman on each line. They dropped their robes and slowly, ceremoniously, stepped toward the Space Crystal. As they reached the red silk divan and climbed in together naked, everyone started chanting,
“Yasna Haptanghaiti … Yasna Haptanghaiti…”

Weird. And disturbing. But not criminal, as far as Willi could tell. Consenting men and women were free to do as they wanted in this country. Clearly the child abuse accusation was unjustified, since there wasn’t a kid in the place. And not a drop of animal blood. In ten years of marriage, though, he’d never cheated on Vicki, and he had no intention of starting now. But what an inspired racket, he thought. A celestial sex club. People paid to screw anonymously and feel they were getting enlightened.

High Priestess Helga, he noticed, whispered something to Brigitta, then ducked out a side door. Thank you, God, he thought. My exit visa. He counted to ten, then, yanking his robe so he wouldn’t trip, slipped through the door after her. Tiptoeing down a long flight of steps, he felt ridiculous in his getup but more determined than ever to corner this babe. He’d been on her trail for months already.

At the bottom of a long, carpeted staircase, down a dark hall, he spotted a glint of her gold gown disappear through a doorway. Hugging the wall he inched forward, almost too late noticing the chair across from her room with a big mustached man in it. The same red turban who’d let them in downstairs. A bodyguard, naturally. He pressed into an alcove.

Now what?

The ceiling all but trembled with groaning couples copulating evidently right overhead. Willi broke into a sweat. He remembered Vicki’s expression when he told her he was scouting out this place. If she ever saw him now … Wiping his forehead, he realized he could make out the guard’s image in a brass vase across the hall. The mustached fellow was just sitting there, tapping his foot. A fine spot. He couldn’t exactly go back upstairs. And how long could he stand here without being seen? Fate, however, or perhaps human nature, finally took a hand. The turbaned man found the sexual goings-on upstairs too stimulating to ignore apparently and began underneath his tunic working to relieve himself. Willi closed his eyes. Moans were coming from all sides now, testing his endurance. Luckily, it wasn’t long before he heard a muffled yelp and some panting, then, opening his eyes, he saw the turban waddle down the hall and disappear into what presumably was a bathroom.

Flying, he could only pray the High Priestess’s door was unlocked. Please, knob, turn! Abracadabra. It did.

Helga’s private quarters dispensed with the spiritual, everything chrome and mirrors. A white couch. White carpet. Big bouquets of flowers. Seated at a dressing table, Helga was changed into a white silk robe, smoking a cigarette.

Soon enough she spotted him in the mirror.

“Couldn’t you even wait until—” She spun around, her eyes doubling in size. “What the—?”

Her whole torso shivered, and for a second Willi saw she was really afraid, as if something from her past had finally caught up to her. And what a past it must have been. From up close, Helga looked as if she’d been around the block. Plenty.

Willi pulled off his hood. “Sergeant-Detektiv Willi Kraus, Berlin Kriminal Polizei,” he said to calm her. “Just here to ask a few questions.”

She breathed again. But not happily.

“You’ve got some nerve busting in like that.” She reached for the cigarette and took a long drag, disappearing behind a veil of smoke. “Aren’t you supposed to identify yourself with a badge or something? And why are you wearing one of our robes?”

“It was the only way I could get in to speak to you. Sorry. My badge is in the changing room. With my clothes.”

“I see.” A light rose in her eyes as she turned back to her mirror and began tugging at her face here and there. “What’s so urgent you had to sneak in here like a fox, Sergeant? How’d you get past Zoltan, anyway?”

Just then the door swung open and Brigitta entered. “Helga, I—” Instantly she recognized Willi. “You.” She snorted.

“You know him?” Helga turned, intrigued.

“Sure. A private dick. Came around a couple of months ago … sniffing after your ass. Braunschweig sent him.”

Now both of Helga’s eyebrows arched with real amusement. She took another long draw on her cigarette and shot smoke through her nose.

“He’s not a private dick, Brigitta
Liebchen
. This is Sergeant Kraus. Of the Berlin Kriminal Polizei. Don’t worry. I can handle him. Leave us a while.”

“But, Helga—”

“I said go.”

Brigitta’s bony face crumbled before she slammed the door behind her.

“Jealous cunt.” Helga crushed out her cigarette, then smiled at Willi, loosening her robe slightly, showing more cleavage. “So. My ex-husband sent you. How fascinating. He’s never been able to forget me. How is the dear?”

“Stone drunk.”

“You’re kidding. I’m shocked.”

“Look, it’s imperative I speak to you about someone named the Shepherdess.”

The High Priestess lost a shade of color.

Slowly she opened a silver case and pulled out another cigarette, knocking it hard against the metal before sticking it in her mouth. “What do you want to know about her?”

Despite the coolness, Willi could see her hand trembled slightly as she lit a match.

“I need to find her.”

“Why?”

“If you don’t mind, I’m asking the questions.”

She shrugged, rolling her eyes slightly. “I have no idea where she is. It’s been a long time.”

“How long?”

She smiled coyly, pursing her Kewpie-doll lips. “I believe it was Einstein, Sergeant, who said time was relative. That in some cases—”

“Look, if you prefer to continue this downtown—”

“Well. You needn’t persecute me. I told you I have no idea where the bitch is. I haven’t seen her in years.”

“How many years?”

“I don’t know. Two. At least two years, if not more.”

“But you do know who I’m referring to?”

“Yes of course I do.”

“What was her real name?”

“Ilse.”

“Ilse what?”

“I’ve no idea. She never told me and I never asked.”

“You must know someone who can find her. Think.”

Helga stared at the smoke curling from her cigarette. “No. Not a one.”

“Where did you and Ilse meet?”

“Tell me, Sergeant, are you always so brusque? Why don’t you sit and have some tea. You don’t mind if I put on a little face cream while we chat? I know I’m not supposed to, but I put a premium on staying young.”

“I asked how you met Ilse.”

“It just so happens I’m an idealist.” She began rubbing cream on, making circles with her fingers. “I tend to paint the world in pastel colors, see only the best in everyone. As a result I befriend all sorts of people, some of whom I shouldn’t.”

“Is there a reason you’re evading my question?”

“You’re so perceptive. I feel naked in front of you. I guess I’m embarrassed because I met her at church. There, I said it. My husband’s church. Funny, huh, looking back? Ilse was a congregant. When I left, she came with me.”

“What was the nature of your relationship?”

Helga shrugged. “Close, for a while. Until I moved on. She got jealous. It’s the Hydra I’m always up against. My desire for harmony’s such that I generally avoid confrontation. But this girl, well, I finally had to lay down the law. She had a mean streak.”

“How mean?”

“Ugly mean.”

“Why was she called the Shepherdess?”

“Because, Sergeant, she used to bring us animals. For rituals. Although we
don’t
do that anymore.” She seemed anxious for Willi to understand this.

“Did she have connections at the
Viehof
?”

“The
Viehof
?” Helga stopped rubbing and stared at Willi in the mirror, her face a ghostly mask. “What an odd question. Why do you ask?”