The Butchers of Berlin (2 page)

The man they were referred to wore the usual unofficial uniform of snap-brim fedora and leather trench coat. He gave them a peremptory look and said, ‘Gersten.’

Gersten’s hair was worn unusually long over the collar. Schlegel remained preoccupied with his hangover as they were led through an arch into a deep courtyard surrounded by dilapidated
barracks-like blocks with crumbling brickwork, dark with soot.

‘Two Jews,’ said Gersten. He pointed to a block entrance.

‘You drag me out of bed for a couple of Jews!’ protested Stoffel.

‘Today the Jews are all busy getting arrested. We go in at full daylight, so you have five minutes to sort them out.’

Stoffel, still grumbling, said to Schlegel, ‘You tell me what happened. Consider it part of your education.’

Stoffel was already nipping from a hip flask.

They were in a ground-floor corridor that ran from front to back, outside the block warden’s quarters. The staircase took up most of the space. The hall stank of cordite. One man had been
shot while putting on his coat and had fallen awkwardly. The eye was a gaping hole. The other by comparison appeared formally arranged, so neat he could have been laid out by an undertaker.

Schlegel passed Stoffel the pistol using his gloved hand. Stoffel looked at the weapon in appreciation.

Schlegel said, ‘The old man shot himself after shooting the other man. There may have been a witness who ran away.’

‘We’re not looking to complicate this.’

‘I stepped over a puddle of vomit by the door.’

Stoffel inspected the soles of his shoes, yawned ostentatiously and went outside. Schlegel followed. The yard was now surrounded by troops with submachine guns and attack dogs straining their
leashes. He had heard nothing of their arrival.

Gersten beckoned them over. Stoffel insisted that Jews were not the business of the criminal police. Gersten ignored him and said Stoffel still needed certification of death.

‘Get the bodies out here in the meantime. They’re in the way.’

Gersten nodded to an SS corporal with a bull whip, who blew a long blast on his whistle. A squadron of Jewish marshals ran in and fanned out towards the block entrances. The corporal cracked his
whip and the dogs pulled on their leads, followed by the noise of doors being hammered on and kicked in, then banging and screaming and people being yelled at.

Schlegel was quite unprepared for such controlled fury. It pitched him back to that other time, which he had trained his mind to blank, during the waking hours at least.

A man upstairs yelled, ‘No packing. Get dressed and out!’

Stoffel was in no hurry to move the bodies by himself. He ordered a couple of marshals who were in the process of chasing out the first residents.

The men hesitated until Stoffel shouted, ‘Unless you want to join the rest in the yard.’

A middle-aged woman tried to press money into Schlegel’s hand, saying a terrible mistake had been made, her name should not be on the list. Schlegel looked at the pathetic amount and
turned away. The woman moved on to Stoffel, who took the money and told her to wait outside. He asked her name and said he would have a word. The woman babbled her thanks.

‘Go along, before I change my mind,’ said Stoffel not unkindly, pocketing the money.

The sound of blows came from upstairs, followed by a sharp crack and glass being smashed.

‘Dead body!’ a voice shouted.

Schlegel thought perhaps the old man had been forewarned. As to where he had got the gun or why he’d shot the other man, he doubted anyone would care. Stoffel was smoking another of his
foul-smelling cheroots. The tip, even wetter than the last, reminded Schlegel of a dog’s dick. A steady crowd pressed downstairs. Some whimpered. Others complained about pushing. It was like
watching a river surge.

Someone fell on the stairs. People started to get trampled. Schlegel tried to restore order, aware of Stoffel’s sceptical gaze. The crowd seemed incapable of stopping. Schlegel was close
to losing control of himself as he saw back to that flat horizon, marshland, huge summer mosquitoes, villages little more than a collection of hovels.

He pulled people up and shouted at others. A scream from under a pile of bodies seemed to act as a sign for the pushing to stop. Schlegel walked away, leaving them to sort themselves out. The
air outside was absolutely still. It had stopped raining, not that it had done more than drizzle. His hands trembled in his coat pockets.

The corporal snapped his whip and ordered everyone to stop milling around. He separated the mostly elderly men. One who tried to point out his wife was screamed at. The crowd recoiled whenever
the dogs showed their fangs.

The two bodies were now lying dumped in a corner by the bins, behind the rank of soldiers. The old man wasn’t looking so neat now. Schlegel knelt down and put his hand inside the
man’s coat, like a pickpocket. The wallet he extracted was fake leather. The papers were stamped with a ‘J’. Schlegel noted the name, Metzler, and the number of his apartment
upstairs. The other man had no papers.

The corporal kept cracking his whip like he was Buffalo Bill. Anyone showing indecision was kicked into line by the Jewish marshals. An ugly pudding of a woman with orange hair let out a wail
and ran across the yard, arms jerking like a wind-up doll. At the bins she threw herself on the body of the other man. The courtyard was momentarily stilled except for the woman’s keening.
The corporal stopped to look, then screamed at one of the civilians, ‘You! Cockroach! Eyes front!’

Gersten had a stick of lip salve, used surreptitiously to moisten his mouth. He came over and said to Schlegel, ‘The other man was the block warden, not Jewish, so it is technically a
homicide.’

The woman paused her wailing to shout, ‘We are German. I won’t have my man touched by a Jew doctor. We were here years before this riffraff!’

Even for Stoffel this was too much. He snapped, ‘What difference does it make? One dead man is the same as another.’

Gersten looked worried. ‘In fact, one Jew didn’t shoot another. She’s right. You’re going to have to get a proper doctor now.’

The block’s only telephone was in the hall of the warden’s apartment. Through the door to the living quarters Schlegel saw what looked like a comfortable set of
confiscated furniture. The telephone was fixed to the wall, with a phone book underneath. He called a doctor and an ambulance. He then spoke to the Jewish Association and demanded a hearse.

When Schlegel went back outside the corporal was yelling, ‘Do as you are told or the dogs will have you for breakfast!’

The purpose of his aggression was only to create more terror. A small boy duly wet himself from fright and stood transfixed by the expanding puddle at his feet.

An elderly Jewish medic had been found to pronounce the old man dead. He stood to address Stoffel. ‘Take a look at the medal around his neck.’

Stoffel leaned in and whistled.

The doctor said, ‘An old soldier deserves more.’

The medal, on a ribbon, had been hidden by the man’s scarf: Iron Cross, first class. Not many of those, thought Schlegel.

The doctor said, ‘A man prepared to die for his country.’

Stoffel, not usually short of an answer, was silent.

The widow yelled, ‘Fucking Yids! You’ll get what’s coming!’

Stoffel ordered two policemen to get her out of the yard before she caused trouble, then told Schlegel to take a look at the old man’s apartment. His leg hurt, he said, and he didn’t
fancy the climb.

Locks were broken on many of the doors. Schlegel couldn’t understand why the process had to be so destructive. He half-expected the building to take its revenge for being
so violated, causing him to tumble downstairs and break his neck.

In the yard names were shouted. Abelman! Abendroth!

The old man lived on the third floor. The door was shut but unlocked. Schlegel pushed it open and saw bedrolls on the floor of the tiny living space and kitchen, and more in the corridor, making
it more like a refugee camp than anything resembling a home. The old man would have had no choice about how many were billeted with him. Schlegel counted six suitcases. Nappies hung over the sink.
No pictures or signs of personal possessions.

At the end of a corridor stood a tomblike bedroom, with space only for a single bed and chair.

Under the bed he found the man’s military trunk with army postings stencilled on the top and old stickers for tourist steamships on the side. It contained only some tattered underclothes,
a spare shirt, a threadbare green sweater and an empty collar box. The only two items of interest were a key and a notebook full of doodles and entries written in a minute old-fashioned Gothic
script. Schlegel pocketed it, presuming it might be evidence.

The key was a small one, like those for lockers in cloakrooms, with a tag and the number, 2716. He took that too and thought had the old man not shot himself he would be waiting to be taken
off.

Below in the courtyard he could see Stoffel smoking his cheroot while absent-mindedly kicking the foot of the dead warden. He turned away, and asked himself where the old man could possibly have
hidden his pistol.

Behind a chest in what passed for the reception room, he found a chimney cavity where a stove had once stood. He got down on all fours and put his arm up the hole to see if there was a ledge. He
wasn’t sure if he looked round because he heard someone enter or if the woman had been watching him.

He stood up brushing his hands, like a man caught out. She was a tiny creature, stick-thin. He couldn’t say if his presence frightened her. Her head was covered with a scarf, tied like a
pirate’s, a detail that took Schlegel back to games played in childhood.

The woman blurted out to ask why his hair was white.

Because that was the way it was, he said self-consciously.

She looked exotic, Oriental almost, quite old but interesting and attractive. She kept giving him odd looks.

He asked, ‘Why did he shoot the warden?’

‘Perhaps he intended to do something useful before he died.’

That made sense; block wardens were generally loathed.

Schlegel wondered if her real reason for being there was to frisk the place for anything useful. Why hadn’t she been taken with the rest?

They were interrupted by heavy footsteps coming upstairs. At least three men, stopping on their floor. The woman paled, her terror palpable, and shrank back as they passed, followed by banging
on a door further down, with shouts to open up. The woman’s composure was quite gone. Schlegel turned away. She gasped as though he would betray her, and again as he stepped outside.

Three sweaty and dishevelled marshals stood in the corridor.

‘We’re short,’ said the eldest, a little man who bristled with self-importance.

Schlegel recognised him as one of the men Stoffel had ordered to take out the bodies.

The door was unlocked. Schlegel led the way. The place was empty. Two tiny rooms, badly sectioned. Two beds, one made, one unmade. The same stale atmosphere of deceit and despair. The marshals
seemed reluctant to leave.

‘Well?’

The one who had spoken said, ‘We have to fill the quota.’

‘Show me,’ Schlegel said, indicating the man’s list.

Typewritten columns of names and addresses, nearly all ticked. Against the old man’s name was written ‘deceased’.

‘What of those you can’t account for?’

‘We must search for them.’

‘And if you don’t find them?’

‘They send us away to make up the numbers.’

Funk rolled off them in waves, on top of the prevalent smells of the building: the thin, sour stink of drains; lack of human washing; and something high and feral Schlegel put down to the
greater fear left by the evacuation.

He studied the list again. The names for that apartment had two Todermanns not crossed off.

Schlegel said, ‘They must have left early or are on a night shift.’

He returned the list, went out and waited for the men. He meant to leave with them but instead returned to the old man’s apartment. The woman was standing in the same spot, shaking from
head to foot. Schlegel raised a finger and waited for the footsteps to go.

It had taken – what? – thirty minutes to clear the place.

Schlegel mumbled he wasn’t there to arrest anyone. He asked if the woman was living with her sister.

Her daughter.

She stepped forward and offered to read his palm, garrulous with relief, saying she was a professional. She looked like she wanted to cling to him for protection. The situation was so ridiculous
Schlegel wished he had gone downstairs.

He surprised himself by sticking out his hand, which he quickly withdrew, failing to hide his embarrassment.

The woman took it anyway. She grew calmer. Her hand was cool in his. The experience was disconcerting.

Schlegel hadn’t touched anyone in two years, avoided even shaking hands.

‘Do I have a future?’ he asked, feeling foolish for playing along.

‘Yes, not the one you expect.’ She ran her fingers over his palm. ‘But you have a past.’

He could not decide whether their strange enactment was in reaction to the brutality around them.

She gave him a stricken look and let go.

‘You’re different from the rest. Remember that, for you will see enough terrible things to turn your hair white many times over.’

He walked out without a word and went downstairs.

Outside it was trying to snow. The courtyard was empty except for the old man’s body. The warden’s was gone. Stoffel hadn’t bothered to wait. A few snowflakes
drifted down. The next set of incumbents would move in with their new habits and noises and smells, and it would be as though none of it had happened.

Schlegel looked at the old man again. There was a dignity to him, unlike his victim, but he saw nothing of the war hero, just an emaciated corpse keeping its secrets.

The old man’s medal would get buried with him in an unmarked grave, preserved long after the body disintegrated; perhaps hundreds of years. Schlegel genuflected and touched the cold iron,
unable to remember when anything had last aroused his curiosity. He undid the knot, his fingers stiff and clumsy. It came free. He stood up and stuffed the medal in his pocket, thinking of old
recidivist habits.