“The Kranzler’s played out for now, I think,” Angelika replies. “And the service at the Doblin is abominable these days. Not to mention that the Himmelstorte tastes of horse shit. No, I say the Swedish Embassy this morning,” she decides. “If it’s profitable, we can stop at the Uhland Eck for lunch as a reward.”
Cronenberg shrugs. “The embassy it is,” he says, yielding.
“It’s very easy, Bissel. All we need to do is sit here on our bench and let them come to us.”
“Them?” Rashka asks.
“The Jews, Liebchen,” she explains. “There are still Jews so stupid that they think that there are so-called neutral countries who will accept some shiny trinkets and give them a visa. Of course, that will never happen.” She smiles. “So we let them go
But luck is not with the gnä’ Fräulein. No U-boats are spotted. The man Cronenberg looks simply bored, smoking, while it’s Fräulein Angelika who frets this way and that, unable to make herself comfortable. A hungry cat without a meal in sight. Finally, she scowls at her pretty diamond-studded watch. “This is pointless,” she decides, exasperated at the lack of quarry. “Let’s go for a coffee.”
They find a place serving the usual ersatz. The gnä’ Fräulein goes to use the toilet, leaving Rashka alone for the first time with the man Cronenberg.
“My God.” The man sighs. “She is such a gorgeous monster,” he says. Shakes his head. “It’s really a crime.” And then he turns to face Rashka. “Sorry I was so rough on you earlier,” she is surprised to hear him say. “It’s a show for her I put on. She likes to argue. Also, she’s extremely jealous. It would do you no good if I sounded too happy to have another pretty face about.”
Rashka is astonished. She has been eating a slice of cake that tastes of chemical filler, but still she is trying not to gobble it down like a waif. Trying not to gulp down her cup of warm skim milk. Trying to follow orders. Trying not to feel ashamed that she has tried to discreetly pocket a chunk of the cake for her eema. The next bite, she keeps telling herself. The next bite will be her last, and the rest she will take back to her mother. But the next bite is swallowed and so is the next after that. Until this man starts speaking.
“So what’s your name, little baggage?” he asks her.
She must swallow the current mouthful of cake dry before she can answer. “Rashka Morgenstern.”
The man nods as if he figured as much. “Good Jewish name,” he whispers, as if this amuses him. “I’m Cronenberg,” he tells her. “Emil Cronenberg.”
“Yes. I know. And you’re a Jew too.”
“By blood,” he answers. “Yes. And unfortunately, it’s by blood we are all judged these days. Ah well. You must know the old saying: ‘Neither cursing not laughing can alter the world,’” he recites. “You want a smoke?” he asks. “Here, have a taste,” the man offers, proffering the cigarette he has just lit.
She stares at it. Then accepts. Inhales. He chuckles as she sputters smoke. “Head swimming, huh?” he says as he lights his own. “You’ll get used to it. A person can get used to anything. We should know, correct?”
Rashka tries to ignore the sickly taste in her mouth as she tempts fate with another but less ambitious draw of smoke. This time, she manages to keep it down instead of choking it back up.
“She thinks you have talent, you know.”
“She?”
“Your ‘gnä’ Fräulein,’” he tells her, retrieving the cigarette. “And maybe it’s true. God knows,
“She frightens me,” Rashka admits.
“She frightens everyone,” the man also admits, removing a leather-bound flask from his coat. Unscrewing the cap, he takes a slug. “I think she frightens the Gestapo bulls as well. You want a drink?” he asks.
Rashka shakes her head tightly.
He nods. Then as he stares out at nothing, the bemusement in the man’s voice dissolves. “Until the Tommies pummeled it, she favored cafés around the Gedächtniskirche,” he says. “We Jews love our coffeehouses, don’t we? At the Trumpf, I watched her jam the revolving door with her own body to keep her quarry trapped until I could come running with the pistol. After that? She got her own pistol. A Sauer Model 38.” He says this and allows the smoke to drift from his lips. “You’ve heard what they call her, haven’t you?” he asks, his eyes slitting.
“Yes,” Rashka answers. “The Red Angel. The Angel of Death.”
“But she doesn’t care. I think she takes a certain pride in what they call her,” he says. And then he asks her, his eyes landing on her, gaining weight. “So how old are you anyhow?”