The Butchers of Berlin (13 page)

Yellow smoke hung over the city, giving everything an opaque glow. Schlegel’s impression was of a shocked hush, combined with a ringing in his ears. The morning’s
transformation was akin to that of an occult visitation: a cow shaking in a crater; those bombed out wandering by dazed, carrying bundles; the strange, corny image of a crone singing a nursery
rhyme in a cracked voice; someone saying half the transport system was bust; roads flooded where water mains had broken; fire engines and ambulances racing, sirens blaring. The army surplus shop in
Kleine Hamburger Strasse was having its windows boarded up while the owner complained half his stock had been pilfered. Metal lay everywhere, debris from shells fallen back to earth. The body of a
car sat upright alongside its chassis, as though it had been lifted rather than blown off. Shopkeepers swept broken glass. Queues formed as usual, for the long and relentless business of waiting.
Despite the devastation, cheerful outrage was the tone most heard. Gangs of kids ran around collecting souvenirs. Schlegel saw one whooping boy carrying a large spent shell case. He presumed school
was off. It was a fine day for a change, with the palest blue sky discernible behind the smoke haze, as though the bombs had chased away the worst of the weather.

The city’s governor and Minister of Propaganda, Dr Joseph Goebbels, was out of town on his way back from Bavaria, delayed in Halle in his private railway carriage. With
all the latest telecommunications kit he could speak directly to his liaison team, which informed him the suburbs to the south and west were still burning, as was the centre. The dome of St
Hedwig’s cathedral had collapsed into the nave. Unter den Linden had received a number of hits, as had Friedrichstrasse. In Wilhelmstrasse his own ministry had been spared but Goering’s
Luftwaffe building had suffered bad damage, which Goebbels thought only fair, given how the fat marshal had boasted the city’s air defences were impregnable.

All talk in the street was of a new super-bomb capable of demolishing whole blocks. They had arrived at the state of total war, and he welcomed the fire of their apocalypse as the ultimate test
before victory. He ordered a full report. He would make an immediate inspection upon his return. He would go to the people and confirm his presence among them, secure in the knowledge that he was
the only leader to show his face these days while the others skulked in their tents.

In the centre at least the transport seemed to be working. One building was already being boarded up, to preserve the line of the street’s facade and cover the
damage.

The pounding seemed also to have provoked the first signs of spring. A few snowdrops had appeared next to some trees on a muddy stretch of grass.

At one big intersection a building had engorged itself onto the road, the facade sheared off, leaving the interiors exposed. On some floors all the furniture had been blown out and on others it
stood intact, turning the exposed rooms into a bizarre display of people’s lives. Schlegel had a flash of the murder room transposed there. How much brutality and how many beatings and fights
had that building seen before meeting its own violent end?

The whole city stank of shit, Goebbels was told upon his train being met at the Anhalter Bahnhof. A further delay had done nothing for his mood. On being told the full extent
of the damage he raked his hands down his face and exclaimed histrionically, ‘Dear God.’

He sat behind a glass screen in his carriage, on the other side of which telephones rang and young aides busied themselves. He travelled with only pretty secretaries. His wife was in a clinic in
Dresden suffering from nervous exhaustion.

When told that both the Scala and Winter Garden variety theatres had been hit, Goebbels was reduced to gnashing his teeth.

‘What! No more Baby the elephant and her high-wire act?’

Via intercom, he ordered telegrams of condolence be sent to the two Swiss brothers that ran the shows. He dictated that they had done more for the image of the circus than anyone since Hagenbeck
introduced new methods of wild-animal training; then in an aside to a secretary, ‘Just to show I know what I am talking about.’

Who could forget the horse that went to bed using a huge pillow to rest its head? There were ponies and camels besides, trumpeting sea lions with their clowns, cattle, bears and chimpanzees, and
only the gentlest and most exemplary methods employed, for the brothers could not abide cruelty to animals. Cabaret and theatre stars were enlisted as well, for which reason Goebbels kept a close
eye on upcoming female talent in need of a leg up.

He remained a great public advocate of wholesome variety entertainment. Perfect for families, and the best antidote for troops on leave from the front. He had taken his own children and watched
in delight as they stared up, eyes blazing with excitement, necks craned and little mouths agape as the trapeze artistes flew high above the crowd. Goebbels watched with a more discerning eye;
he’d had the female flyer, for the simple reason of fancying hard muscle as a change from the usual soft contours.

As he was passing close enough to the central revenue office in Jüdenstrasse, only a short walk from his office, Schlegel stopped off and spoke to a corpulent young man
with whom he had worked on several cases and whose jovial air hid a sharp mind. Otto Keleman’s other distinguishing feature was glasses so smeared Schlegel wondered how he managed to see
through them. Keleman’s myopia and flat feet were enough to keep him from being conscripted, though he hinted that the tax office looked after its own, providing false medical certificates.
Accounting was deadly dull but not as bad as being shot at.

Despite his background and modest appearance, Keleman was an unlikely party boy, with an inside track on every reception and embassy bash going. He had even managed to wangle invitations to some
of Schlegel’s mother’s parties, which were notoriously hard to get into.

Keleman worked in an enormous room where hundreds of officials sat at rows of desks.

‘I slack, you slack, we slack,’ he said on seeing Schlegel. ‘I’ve no windows in my apartment. Spectacular, no? How’s yours?’

‘Intact.’

‘What can I do for you?’

‘I want to see a man’s tax file.’

‘That’s what we’re here for!’

Keleman wrote down Morgen’s name, saying a man’s tax returns, true or false, told you everything you needed to know about him.

‘Any reason?’ he added.

‘He sits opposite me. He’s SS.’

Keleman looked surprised. ‘Working with you?’

‘He turned up yesterday.’

‘They stick like anything to themselves usually. Barely ever mix.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Either you are very privileged or you’re in trouble.’

‘Can you get his military record too?’

‘Shouldn’t really; not impossible.’ Keleman paused. ‘He will have been sent to spy. Everyone’s at it now more than ever. It’s this season’s
fashion.’

‘We’re very dull. We keep our heads down.’

‘Both the SS and Ministry of Propaganda – that’s quite a big and – have been all over us in the past months, involving us in endless tax investigations into the Gestapo.
They were getting too pally with the Jews, cutting deals and so forth. Big scandal. Dismissals for embezzlement and corruption. Don’t you know about this?’

Schlegel shook his head.

‘Gossip, man!’ said Keleman, eyes bright. ‘Jungle drums. Doesn’t any of that reach you?’

‘Not in my backwater.’

‘Same here, until six months ago. We could have been a posting in Outer Mongolia. No one would have been seen dead co-operating. Tax investigations were virtually unheard of. What was the
name of those stables in Greek myth?’

‘Augean.’

‘Shit sure is getting shovelled now. Revisionism is in the air. Maybe your turn next to get turned upside down.’

‘That’s what Stoffel says. Who’s doing it?’

‘It has Goebbels written all over it. Short, sharp and austere, and very gnomic. On the other hand, the SS has its oar in too, and SS and Propaganda aren’t usual bedfellows.
It’s not only the Gestapo being turned upside down.’ Keleman pointed to a pile of files on his desk. ‘There’s a civilian offensive. August Nöthling?’

‘As in the food store?’

The man’s delivery vans were still a common feature of everyday life. Schlegel knew from his mother that those with money paid to circumvent the increasingly bothersome matter of rationing
cards.

‘Shopping Bags is up to his neck.’

‘Shopping Bags?’

‘That’s what we call him. Everyone’s known for years Nöthling is the back-door man to the golden pheasants. Two months ago nobody gave a toss and now his case is top of
the list, and I can tell you nothing has been that high priority in this office since 1941 when we were sorting tax breaks for the new territories in double time.’

Keleman flicked through a file.

‘The man is certainly well endowed when it comes to clients. Interior Minister Frick. An army C-in-C and a naval one. The Minister for Science Education and National Culture. The list goes
on. Remember Walter Darré?’

‘Food and Agriculture?’

‘Former Food and Agriculture. Currently on sick leave.’ Keleman made a drinking motion. ‘The thing about Darré is that when he ran the Food Estate it was not subject to
public audit of accounts. These boys have very deep pockets. Listen to this. Eleven kilos of chocolate, one hundred and twenty of poultry and fifty kilos of game, and that’s just
Frick’s delivery list.’

Keleman sat back. His pullover had moth holes.

‘Have you heard about Horcher’s?’

Everyone knew Horcher’s and almost no one could afford it. Schlegel remembered formal meals on special occasions, usually birthdays, normally with just his stepfather, who held an account.
His mother found the restaurant’s baronial panelling and heavy oil paintings too reminiscent of provincial English hotels and preferred Kempinski’s.

It was so protected it could virtually afford to advertise its scorn of the very idea of ration cards, and its staff were exempt from conscription.

Keleman said, ‘There’s a ding-dong battle between the Poisoned Dwarf Goebbels, who eats only spinach like Popeye, and insists on closing everything so he can mobilise the civilian
reserve, and Fatty Goering whose favourite dining table it is. Dr G has already asked us to take a look at Horcher’s books, which I can tell you now won’t bear inspection. It always
makes for amusement when the gods fight among themselves. Do you fancy a drink tomorrow? I’ve scrounged a ticket to a press screening to Dr G’s latest epic, and in colour to boot.
Starts at eight, so shall we say six? As for Horcher’s, red caviar and sturgeon is what I’d have, if anyone were offering.’ He gave a burst of laughter and said, ‘I’m
still buzzing from the bombs. Give my best to your mother.’

Schlegel had to smile. They had shaken hands maybe twice. ‘Naturally. She always asks after you.’

Lore’s only extravagance was buying 35mm film for her camera. It was in short supply and expensive. She used it to take clandestine photographs of abandoned Jewish
sites.

Her one piece of identification was an out-of-date press pass whose photograph showed her looking boyish. She told Sybil she had bought it on the black market, replaced the photograph and a
friend had touched up the stamp. By friend, Sybil presumed Lore meant former lover. Lore rarely talked about her past but Sybil gathered that she had moved among a free-wheeling set of women who
all slept with each other out of a disrespect for what they called the baby-making machine, their dismissive term for male genitalia.

Lore knew the pass wouldn’t stand up to inspection, nor would a false letter she had on Agfa notepaper certifying she was an important worker employed as a camera assembler. It could be
easily checked she wasn’t. Yet Lore remained optimistic about her chances where Sybil thought only a proper false identity and an actual job would offer security, which Lore dismissed, saying
she didn’t want to be a secretary.

On the morning after the raid, Lore asked Sybil to do her a favour, as Alwynd was already putting her to work. She had her photographs developed at a particular shop in Pankow whose owner,
Schmidt, she had known for years and trusted. Sybil would need to take a 51 tram. Lore had three rolls she wanted developed.

The tramline’s direct service was interrupted because of track damage. They could only go so far, then everyone had to get out and walk a short distance to pick up
another.

Schmidt, thin and balding, was a morose type who didn’t become any friendlier when Sybil mentioned Lore, except to say she was always cadging cigarettes.

Sybil said he must be mistaken because Lore didn’t smoke.

Schmidt said, ‘I know.’

Sybil supposed she had passed some test, until the man asked to see her papers as it was security regulations now. Sybil said she had left them at home. The only thing she had on her was a
library card from the tobacconist in Turmstrasse that lent books on the side for a small subscription.

Schmidt made no further mention of the papers. Sybil thought he seemed preoccupied.

As she turned to go, he said, ‘I might be able to help.’

Schmidt moved from behind the counter, switched the door sign to closed, slid the bolt and pulled down the blind. He motioned to follow him through to a shabby room comfortably furnished with
old pieces. He said he had an unusual proposal. For a terrible moment Sybil thought he was about to make a pass.

‘I don’t have to spell out your situation. Papers and so forth.’

Sybil presumed he was offering his services, but couldn’t be sure.

He asked if she would be interested in modelling work.

Seeing which way the conversation was going, she asked what kind.

‘It pays well. We sell to soldiers.’

‘Do you have any samples?’

Schmidt cleared his throat and stood up.

He showed her a photograph of a woman stepping out of a bathtub and several more lying naked on a rug. The poses were suggestive rather than blatant. The woman wasn’t glamorous or
beautiful.