Shadows of Berlin полностью

And the Angel shows her an ugly, humorless smile. “When the Red Army entered Berlin, Dirkweiler blew his own brains out. The lager disintegrated. Berlin disintegrated. Emil and I had slipped into the city at night during a raid, but we split up after the Russians crossed the Teltowkanal, and I didn’t see him again. I hid until the Russians found me like the Russians found most women,” she says. “It was brutal and debasing. But then I acquired a protector. A major in the NKVD. He was ugly and smelled of onions, but he could make things happen. It was he who had the rumor spread that I had been arrested and hanged myself.

“It was all nonsense. I was never arrested. What crime had I committed after all? But it worked. It saved me from the zealots rooting out so-­called war criminals. What dreck. One does what one must to survive, and that is a crime? You did what you did because you thought it would keep you alive, didn’t you, Bissel? When you spied that little Mädchen with the braids in the café that morning? You did what you did to stay off the transports. To keep yourself alive. To keep your mother alive. I understand. Your mother understood. That’s why she gave you up.”

Rachel glares darkly at her.

“Ah, such a look. You didn’t know, Bissel?” she taunts. “Mummy never told her little Schatzi? Well, then I will tell. I asked her permission. Your uncle Fritz had some power over the transport lists, yes, but it was limited. Dirkweiler could overrule any decision at any time. But I had the power to influence the Herr Kommandant himself. No one netted him Jews like I did, not even Emil. But. Before I brought you into the business. Shall we call it that? Before then, I wanted your mother to agree. I simply refused to allow her to pretend that I had stolen you from her. You were a gift, Bissel. Your eema gave you to me. Just as she had given me to your uncle since she was too cowardly to pursue her own feelings for me. She had a reputation. She had a child. It was hard for a woman to survive in the art world. So I understood. But I did not forgive. How does a person ever really forgive betrayal?” She crushes out her cigarette. “I have done some digging on you, Bissel. Isn’t that how it is called? Digging? You are married.”

“Yes,” says Rachel.

“But no children?”

Rachel says nothing.

“No? Your husband would like things differently, perhaps? Never mind. No need to answer. I can see it in your face. My advice, Bissel, is stand to your ground. How is it said? ‘Stick to your guns.’ The world does not have to be an unhappy place. Can you learn that, do you think? There are beautiful things to be had. To be enjoyed. If there is any lesson I can still teach you, perhaps it could be this: the world resents the unhappy but indulges those who know how to take joy from their surroundings.”

And suddenly the Angel issues a laugh. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t mean to laugh. It’s only that here I am preaching. The last thing you expected from me, I’m sure. You must have hoped I would break to pieces in front of you. Come apart like a doll. But be honest, will you?”

Rachel grinds out words. “You have my mother’s painting.”

“Yes. So I do. And—­I believe I have the story correct, yes? Your Feter Fritz discovered it with a pawnbroker?” She pronounces the word with amused disdain. “How astonishing. It makes one suspect the hand of fate, doesn’t it? I sometimes sit and gaze at it, wondering if I could really have ever been so young. With so much fire. Your mother was a genius. She captured the essence of youth. Of desire.”

“And is this why we are here?” Rachel wishes to know. Is it for her to gloat? Kvell is the word she uses.

“What? No. I asked your uncle to arrange things not so I could kvell over a thing. But so I could offer you help. I want to help you, Bissel,” she declares.

“Help? From the one they called Red Angel?”

The Angel’s expression flattens. “Don’t use that name.”

“Why not? It was who you were. The Red Angel of Death. And help from her was always poison.”

“So I am to be blamed now for staying alive? For doing what was necessary? I thought you learned what courage survival took. I thought I had taught you that at least. But now you sound like a pitiful victim. The poor little Jewess who can never remove the Judenstern after it was sewn over her heart.”

Rachel shivers. With rage? With fear? With grief? She can speak only to spit a curse. Black sorrow she wishes upon the woman.

But the Angel is unimpressed. She shakes her head, disappointed, even as tears like ice are running down Rachel’s cheeks. “Ah, Bissel,” she laments. “In so einem Gewirr bist du,” the woman declares. Such a tangle you are in. Then she is digging into her alligator handbag for an expensive linen handkerchief. “You were a delicate child, so your mother always said. ‘Rokhl? She is a delicate little bird,’ is what she told me. Wipe your eyes,” she instructs, offering the linen square.