The Second Son: A Novel (9 page)

Hoffner was still finding his bearings. “I didn’t know you’d taken to pimping,” he said. “Or are the economic trends good there, too?”

Radek pulled a bottle of champagne and two glasses from the bag. “It’s one client, Nikolai. I don’t think that makes me a pimp.” He stood and handed a glass to Hoffner. “A marked man, yes, but not a pimp.”

“So he’ll kill you one day.”

Radek snorted a laugh. “He’s going to kill a great many people one day, Nikolai. At least I’m getting paid.”

Radek stepped back and let go with the cork. The echo brought a stream of guards running out onto the first-tier balcony—small, shadowy figures from this far off—and Radek shouted, “Champagne, gentlemen! No worries!”

His voice continued to echo as the men disappeared as quickly as they had come.

“Like trained dogs,” said Hoffner.

“They’re terrified,” said Radek, as he filled Hoffner’s glass. “Sabotage. They think some Russian or Jew is going to infiltrate the place, set off a bomb, ruin their fun. Truth is, there’s nothing they could do to stop it, but the SS likes to show an effort.” Radek poured his own. “No uniforms. You saw that?”

“I did.”

Radek smiled and raised his glass. “It’s all so damned ridiculous.”

Hoffner raised his as well. “And this is for…?”

Radek shook his head easily. “An end. A beginning. Whatever you’d like it to be.” He drank.

“The poet pimp,” said Hoffner. He drank as well.

“We’re going to nip that one in the bud, Nikolai. No more pimp, all right?” Radek finished off his drink and, staring into the glass, said, “You could come work for me. Now that you’re done at the Alex.”

Hoffner nearly choked as the fizz ran up into his nose. He coughed before answering. “I appreciate the joke.”

Radek poured himself a second. “It’s no joke.”

The two men stared at each other until Hoffner finally said, “Yes. Yes, it is.”

Radek needed another few moments before tossing back his drink. He then nodded. “I’m glad I waited, then. Wouldn’t have looked so good if you’d said no at Rücker’s.” He crouched down and set the bottle and glass on the grass. “Pimm said he was waiting until you were done with the Kripo to give you this stuff.” He reached into the bag. “I’m sure he had something pithy he wanted to say before handing it over. I don’t.”

Radek pulled out half a dozen canisters of film. Each had a small strip of adhesive attached to it, with a name and an initial written in fading ink. He set them on the grass.

“Jesus,” Hoffner said in a whisper. He was stunned at what he was seeing.

“Yah,” said Radek. “Turns out they never knew he had them. There’s some nice stuff of Hess and Streicher. Apparently old Julius shares the Führer’s tastes.”

The films had been made in 1927 by members of the then fledgling National Socialist German Workers Party, long before they had decided to trim the party name. At the time, the films were innovative, some of the first to take a crack at synchronization of sound. They were also remarkable for having broken new ground with an unimagined kind of depravity—violent and sexual. Hoffner had spent months trying to forget them. His boy Sascha had been in one.

“I thought Pimm burned these,” said Hoffner.

“And give up this kind of leverage? He wasn’t stupid.”

“A lot of good they did him.”

Radek said nothing as he continued to stare into the bag. Finally, standing, he said, “Yah.” He looked at Hoffner. “You get in trouble, you can always ask Streicher if he wants to run an editorial in
Der Stürmer
on little girls, ropes, and needles. My guess is he’ll take a pass.”

They stood like this for what seemed a very long time before Radek said, “You want to take a run around it?”

Hoffner was still digesting the last few minutes. “Pardon?”

“The track, Nikolai. A lap.”

Radek was being serious; Hoffner half smiled and said, “So the films weren’t enough of a treat?”

“Standing in the middle of my legacy is the treat, Nikolai. The films are what they are. The run—that’s if you’ve always had some pathetic dream of breaking the tape. Don’t worry, I’ll cheer you on at the end, if you want.”

Hoffner laughed quietly. “And I deserve all this because…?”

“Don’t go to Spain.”

“You’ll miss me that much?”

“You’ll die there.”

Hoffner saw the concern in Radek’s eyes. It was genuine and therefore all the more unnerving. “You’re probably right,” Hoffner said.

“It’s rifles and bullets, Nikolai. Maybe even some German rifles and bullets.”

“Really?”

Radek’s gaze sharpened. “Trust me, Nikolai. Two weeks ago we had a crack squad of Wehrmacht troops training out at the Olympic Village. No one knew it, and now they’re gone. Makes you wonder where they went with all their desert gear and machine guns. Not much need for desert gear in the Rhineland, is there?” Radek waited for the silence to settle. “This isn’t some dustup, Nikolai. You haven’t heard from Georg in ten days not because he’s up on some hilltop. It’s because he’s dead. You want to tell his pretty wife and little boy that you tried, fine. But unless you’re planning on spending your time sitting in a café in Barcelona drinking the health of the Republic, I don’t think you come home.” Even Radek’s caring had a cruelty to it. “I got off the needles. That’s on you. I’m telling you not to go to Spain. That’s on me.”

Radek leaned over and picked up the bottle. He took a long swig as he walked off. “So is it a lap or not?” he said, gazing off into the stands.

Hoffner stood staring after him, the wide expanse beyond them suddenly small. “Wrong shoes,” he said.

Radek looked back. “Fine.” He started for the track. “Then pick up your films and let’s get out of this shithole.”

*   *   *

Hoffner was in a good drunk by the time he made it back to Droysenstrasse. The lights were out in the house, but Lotte had been kind enough to leave the back path lit. He wove his way through the yard, found the door to the carriage house, and hoisted himself up the stairs.

As it turned out, the lecture out at the stadium had been just the tip of the iceberg. Radek, in full political lather, had spent the last three hours taking everyone through the latest reports coming out of Spain and the Rhineland. On Spain he was a bit spotty; his sources were having trouble getting through. Imagine that? But on the rearming of the Rhineland, there he was fully informed.

“Five months and no one’s raised a finger against us.” He liked to slap his own down onto the table for emphasis. “And we went in on bicycles, for Christ’s sake. They’ll let us do whatever we want, and it’ll be the same in Spain.”

It was unclear whether this was good or bad news to Radek. He had fallen asleep before explaining. The fact that his pillow had been the chest of a very fat and very naked girl made it clear that he had no idea where or who he was at the time.

Hoffner steadied himself at the top of the stairs. He did his best with a few of his buttons before finally just pulling the shirt over his head. His shoes and trousers dropped to the floor without too much effort as he fumbled his way onto the bed. Had he been any less drunk he might have jumped at the sudden sight of Elena looking back at him.

“I hear you’re going to Spain tomorrow,” she said.

Hoffner took a moment to appreciate the very fine pair of breasts staring up at him. He nodded.

“So you might be killed,” she said. “And then we’d never have done something this stupid.”

He needed another few moments before saying, “I’m drunk.”

“Yes,” she said. “Is that going to get in the way?”

This required no thought. He shook his head.

“Good.”

She pulled back the rest of the covers and invited him in.

CLIMBING BOOTS AND SHORT PANTS

At 8:00 a.m. on the dot, the band of the Berlin Guards Regiment sounded
Ein Grosses Wecken
—a grand reveille—outside the Hotel Adlon. Luckily, Hoffner was far enough removed across town to sleep through it.

The members of the International Olympic Committee, however, were not. Given just over an hour to wash, shave, and eat—always avoid the rabbit crepes at the Adlon—they were then shuttled off to either the Berlin Cathedral or the Church of St. Hedwig (Protestants on the left, Catholics on the right) for an hour of religious observance so as to fortify themselves for the day’s events. While they prayed, thousands of children—all across the city’s recreation fields—began to perform in exhibitions of group gymnastics, obstacle races, and synchronized club twirling: the object here to show the many athletic pursuits of Berlin’s schoolchildren. Mendy, having watched the neighborhood children prepare for these displays over the last weeks, and eager himself to twist and leap and bend along with them, had been told he was too young and too Jewish to be included. Lotte decided to keep him inside for the day.

Still later, as Hoffner stirred from a remarkably deep sleep (retirement and robust late-night exertions will do that), an honor guard from the Wehrmacht, along with various uniformed Hitler Youth detachments, looked on from Unter den Linden as the Belgian delegate—a Monsieur Baillet-Latour—laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; so nice to have all the hostilities between the two countries long forgotten, even better to see military sacrifice as the prelude to amateur sport.

By mid-morning, it was Hermann Göring—always so dapper in his sky-blue uniform—welcoming the IOC members and his Führer to the Old Museum in front of the Royal Palace a few blocks down. While Hoffner shaved, thousands of SS men and ever more Hitler Youth regaled them by singing:

Hoist up our flags in the wind of the morning!

To those who are idle, let them flutter a warning!

No one was even remotely idle as the dashing Baldur von Schirach—twenty-nine and leader of the Youth—stepped to the podium and addressed the crowds with the truly inspirational words, “We, the youth of Germany, we, the youth of Adolf Hitler, greet you, the youth of the world.” Unter den Linden erupted in applause and cheering as the torchbearer finally appeared.

There was a quiet intensity along the avenue as the white-clad young man jogged slowly to the museum, lit the flame, and then jogged back across the square, where another pyre awaited him. The “flames of peace,” so Göring had promised, would burn throughout the games. No one had mentioned Berlin’s good fortune to have several libraries and bookstores in the immediate vicinity, should the flames need feeding.

Lotte was at the kitchen table reading through the
Tageblatt
when Hoffner finally appeared at the door. She kept her eyes on the paper. “You’ll be joining us for lunch?” she said.

He was still feeling the whiskey at the back of his throat; it was enough just to nod. He noticed Elena by the sink, washing and peeling something. Mendy was under the table with a train.

Lotte continued to read. “Yes or no?”

Hoffner managed a croaked, “Yes.”

Lotte looked up and said, “If you could fix another plate, Elena, that would be very nice.”

Elena dried her hands and moved to the stove. “Bit of a cold, Herr Chief Inspector?” she said.

“No,” he said. “Just getting old.”

“You’ve a long way to go there, Herr Chief Inspector,” she said. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Hoffner caught Lotte staring at him for a moment. Just as quickly she leaned under the table. “Lunch, Mendy.” She looked back at Hoffner. “We’re all done playing.”

*   *   *

It was nearly half past one before Hoffner made it to the middle of town. The crowds were already out at the stadium, the athletes due to arrive within the hour, Hitler by four. To keep them all entertained, the Olympic Committee had enlisted the services of the Berlin Philharmonic, the National Orchestra, and—how could they go on without them?—the Bayreuth Wagner Festival choir, all three en masse with soaring renditions of the
Meistersinger
overture, Liszt’s
Les Preludes
, and anything else with lots of trumpets and trombones. The stadium had yet to open its beer and wine concessions, so the louder the better.

Hoffner stepped down from the tram, crossed Kaiser-Wilhelm-Strasse, and pushed through the door at number 17.

The Berlin office of the British Pathé Gazette Company was three rooms at the top of a rather sweet if old five-floor walk-up: one secretary, four filmmakers, and all of them with the singular task of covering Germans in the news. Hoffner had stopped in twice before: the first time three years ago, to see Georg’s new digs; the second last month, when Mendy had been rushed to the hospital after falling down the stairs. The telephones at Georg’s had somehow gone out. Luckily, Hoffner had been at the Alex, only a fifteen-minute walk—or ten-minute run—depending on the traffic. Papi and Opa had arrived at the hospital to find Mendy unbroken and utterly delighted to be sporting a very long bandage on his leg. He had limped for two days after—each day a different leg—until Lotte had told him to knock it off.