Shadows of Berlin полностью

The Adlon. Berlin’s premier hotel. Let those nationalist thugs and Hitlerites pollute the dining room of the Kaiserhof if they must, the Adlon wouldn’t have them in to sweep the rugs. The Brandenburg Gate looms immensely through the windows as the liveried doorman and bellhops busy themselves with the arrivals of their guests from a stream of taxicabs rolling up to the granite curb. Only the top cut of people, of course, come to enjoy a final vestige of Kaiserliche glory that the Adlon proffers within its imperial walls. Fritz owns a garden villa in the Grunewald but keeps a suite here as a matter of course. The hanging chandeliers, the fine linen, the cathedral windows of the dining room provide the luxury that he feels comfortable with. A spot where the great and near-­great sit for luncheon. A string ensemble in tailcoats plays Mozart, the Quartet in D minor, as if they are spinning threads of gold.

Angelika’s hair is plaited in a crown, ladylike, and she is dressed in what’s obviously the best dress available to a girl from the inner courtyards of the Wilhelmine Ring. Their waiter is a stiff-­necked old soldier of the hotel, dressed in black cutaway and crisply pleated bib. “A brandy for the honored gentleman,” the Herr Ober announces as he serves the cognac. “And,” he adds with a certain spring to his tone, “a brandy for the gnädige Fräulein.” Even a staunch Adlon Prussian is not invulnerable to the desire she generates.

She touches Fritz’s hand as he ignites her cigarette with a gold lighter bearing a shell cameo. “What a pretty bauble,” she says.

“Alfred Dunhill,” Fritz reports.

“Is it valuable?”

He shrugs. Valuable? “Value is relative, I’ve learned.” He ignites his own cigarette screwed into a short black onyx holder. “You strike me as a person who appreciates value,” he observes. “Is that so?”

“My father runs a wholesale business in the Prenzlauer Berg. He sells buttons to garment makers. It costs him one pfennig to sell a button for two pfennigs. That’s all I understand about value, Herr Landau.” She says this and takes a sip from her snifter of cognac. “Besides, that isn’t really what you want to talk about. Is it?”

Fritz lifts his eyebrows. “Isn’t it?”

The girl shrugs but does not alter her gaze.

“You’re different now,” he observes.

“Am I really?”

“You’re better dressed. This lovely frock you’re wearing. The lovely pearl earrings.”

“Money buys things. Your sister paid me well to pose for her.”

“Nine marks an hour is what my sister pays when she uses a model,” he contradicts. “And in any case,” Fritz points out, “you’re no longer posing for my sister.”

A small smile but without pleasure. That’s all she offers.

“What happened?” he wants to know.

A shrug, inhaling smoke. “You should ask her.”

“I did,” Fritz assures her.

“And?”

“And she said it was none of my business.”

“Ha,” says Angelika.

“But she’s wrong. It is my business. She is my business, in a quite literal sense. So I’m going to ask you again, Angelika. What happened between the two of you?”

The girl takes a gulp of cognac and frowns. “She broke her promise.”

“Promise?”

“She said she would send me to Feige-­Strassburger. To study fashion.”

“Did she really? Well, that’s a surprise.”

“I’m not lying.”

“I didn’t say you were. But then she changed her mind?” Fritz wonders.

“She broke her promise,” the girl repeats. “She was jealous.”

A sip of cognac. “That’s interesting to hear. Can you explain what you mean?”

The girl snorts a laugh. “Do I need to explain?” She can’t believe that she does. So all she says, with a crooked smile, is “She wanted me all to herself.”

Fritz sets down his glass and strokes the point of his Vandyke, as if to make a study of this woman in front of him. He may not be as artistically gifted as his sister, but he has a certain artistic instinct about people. He can recognize a true work of art. “What do you want?” he wonders aloud.

Angelika raises her eyebrows. “Want?”

“Yes. What does Fräulein Rosen want? From today?” Fritz asks. “From tomorrow? From life?”

“Oh. That’s simple,” she tells him. “I want freedom. Freedom to do whatever I please. Freedom to be whomever I choose. Freedom to be with whomever I choose,” she says. And then: “Your sister. She made a point of announcing that you are married.”

“I am,” he admits in an uncomplicated tone. “My wife lives in Frankfurt.”

“That’s far away for a wife.”

“She keeps her own home, and I keep mine. I send her a gift on her birthday. I believe last year it was a set of crystal sconces.”

“So this is a sport for you, then? Schtupping pretty girls who aren’t ashamed to take off their clothes for—­as you reminded me—­nine marks an hour.”

Fritz considers. “Is that what I’m doing, you think?” he asks. “Having sport?”