Shadows of Berlin полностью

The numbers are rigid. A thousand Jews ordered for transport. A thousand will go. Not one less. Not one more. But the names? The names are fluid. And that is where Feter Fritz has found his value. It’s the dirty work of negotiations and graft where Feter Fritz excels. He has carved out a small position for himself in the Gross Hamburger Strasse Lager and has even some small measure of power to determine whose name is typed onto which list—­Paradise or Not Paradise—­or if a name is rescued from the list completely. Of course, the entire quite delicate procedure can be overturned with a pencil stroke by Herr Kommandant Dirkweiler, who reigns like a petty god.

“Keep your head down,” Feter tells Eema. “No disturbances. No arguments,” he says, so Eema tries to contain herself in a cage of her own devices. And her little goat follows.

Keep everything in. Don’t react. Don’t expect. Eat what is given. Don’t make noise.

But something shocking happens. Something terrifying for Rashka, though Feter Fritz seems to consider it a wild stroke of fortune. “She has an interest in your daughter,” he informs Eema.

“An interest? What does this mean?”

But Feter Fritz isn’t interested in answering this question. All he says is, “She has power here, Lavinia. Power with the Gestapo. Power over the lists in a way that I do not.”

So he prepares Rashka. Coaches her on how she should behave with the woman she now addresses as gnä’ Fräulein. “Think of yourself as her pupil and she as your teacher,” says Feter Fritz. “Let her talk, but don’t be afraid to ask questions. She likes an interested pupil. Only be careful,” he warns. “Under no circumstances should you question her judgment. Do you understand?”

Rashka can barely nod.

“It’s a generous offer, ziskeit. She has influence here with these lunkhead Gestapo bulls. She’ll make sure your name and your mother’s name are kept off the transport lists.”

Rashka turns to her mother. “This is what I must do, Eema?”

Her mother sighs with mournful resignation. “At least,” she says, “if it keeps us off the trains…”

“But why? Why does she want me?” Rashka wants to know. She wishes to cry but holds it in. “What am I to her?”

A silence. Then Eema says, “She has no children of her own. Perhaps she thinks she’s protecting you. Perhaps she wishes to punish me by stealing you away. Perhaps both.”

“But why?” Rashka asks again. Though no answer to her question is forthcoming.

A café near the Anhalter Bahnhof. “A fresh hunting ground,” the woman calls it. The two of them sit side by side at a table facing the door. Rashka’s clothes are worn and stiff with the grime that comes with U-­boat life. Her shoes battered, she wears a knit hat, but she has been given a new coat. A lovely wool coat with a fitch fur collar. A lady’s coat. A “gift” from the gnä’ Fräulein, so smartly clad and coiffed beside her. Black lace gloves and a matching lace veil over her eyes. Angelika Rosen, la muse rouge. Eema calls her Fräulein Rosen or simply “the lady,” as in “You must do as the lady says,” though Rashka has heard the other names given her. The Red Angel. The Angel of Death.

“Light me a cigarette,” the gnä’ Fräulein commands. Rashka knows how this is done because she used to light cigarettes for her eema when she was small. She strikes the match, sucking in air. The smoke fills her mouth, but she doesn’t inhale. She whistles it out, careful to keep her lips pursed so she doesn’t make the cigarette paper soggy.

“Two coffees, please, and a bun,” the gnä’ Fräulein tells the craggy old waiter, employing a sleekly imperious tone that is both superior and seductive. Then she turns to her pupil. Down to business. “So. Do you know who you are looking for, Bissel?” she asks.

“Jews,” Rashka answers simply, because isn’t that the truth of the matter?

But the gnä’ Fräulein laughs lightly at the absurdity. “Well. If you mean beaked noses and heavy lips? Goggled eyes? Then no, Bissel. No. That’s strictly rubbish. We aren’t here to search for repulsive caricatures. We are hunting the invisible Jew. A very elusive quarry,” she says and expels a graceful drift of smoke from her cigarette.

Rashka can remember a pair of beautiful red suede gloves. Ten years before, when she was a child and the gnä’ Fräulein was not so much older than Rashka is now. The gloves were immaculately stitched with scalloped cuffs. A gift from the artist to her muse, according to Eema, as if that would explain away the light brightening her mother’s eyes. A light seldom bestowed upon her daughter.

The waiter reappears to deliver the coffees and a lumpy bun on a plate. Only old men are left in Berlin to wait at table. Rashka inhales the sweetish smell of the Feigenkaffee, ground from dried figs, and the slight chemical bake of the bun’s ersatz flour.