A Man Without Breath

Not that the ministry looked like it would be of much help to me anyway, as soon after the field marshal had left, an orderly presented me with a teletype message from State Secretary Otto Dietrich at the ministry informing me that if the international commission left Smolensk before completing its work, then neither Sloventzik nor myself should even bother coming home. It was – the message informed me – our joint responsibility to make sure the death of Dr Berruguete remained a secret, at all costs. I tossed a second glass of schnapps at the back of my head, since it seemed unlikely that I could feel any worse than I did right then.

‘It’s a little early for that, isn’t it?’

Ines Kramsta was standing behind me with a cup of coffee, a cinnamon roll and a cigarette. She was wearing the same combination of trousers, blouse and jacket she’d been wearing the previous night, but she still looked better than most women.

‘That all depends on whether I went to bed or not.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes, eventually; but I couldn’t sleep. I had too much to think about.’ I took the cigarette from her mouth and puffed at it for a second while ushering her to a spare table. We sat down.

‘I’m quite sure schnapps won’t help you think any better than you can manage normally.’

‘Well, that’s the whole point of it. Too much thinking is bad for me. I get ideas when I’m thinking. Crazy ideas like I know what I’m doing down here.’

‘Would some of those crazy ideas include me?’

‘After last night? They just might. Then again that’s hardly a surprise. It seems you’re a woman of many parts.’

‘I had formed the impression that there was only one part that really interested you. Are you sulking because I didn’t let you sleep with me last night?’

‘No. It’s just that even as I think I might be getting to know you I find I don’t know you at all.’

‘Do you think it’s because I’m smarter than you?’

‘It’s that or everything I’ve discovered about you, doctor.’

She didn’t flinch. I had to hand it to her, if she had killed Dr Berruguete she was a cool one.

‘Oh? Like what, for instance?’

‘For one thing I found out that you and Colonel Rudolf Freiherr von Gersdorff are related.’

Ines frowned. ‘I could have told you that.’

‘Yes, and I wonder why you didn’t when you suggested I should arrest him for Dr Berruguete’s murder. That was very cute of you.’ I stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray before quietly pocketing the stub.

She smiled a sly smile and then stopped it up with the cinnamon roll. It certainly didn’t stop her from being cute – not in my eyes.

‘We’re not exactly close, Rudolf and me. Not any more.’

‘He told me that himself.’

‘What else did he tell you?’

‘That you used to be a communist.’

‘That kind of thing is called history, Gunther. It’s a favourite subject for Germans. Especially rather backward Prussians like Rudolf.’

I sighed. ‘Family feud, huh?’

‘Not really. Tolstoy says that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. But it’s simply not true. With any family it’s always the same reasons that cause trouble for everyone: politics, money, sex. That’s how it was for us. I think that’s how it is for everyone.’

I sighed. ‘I don’t think any of those cover the kind of trouble I’m in right now.’

‘Your trouble is that you persist in seeing yourself as an individual in a systematized collectivist world. Trouble is what defines you, Gunther. Without trouble you have no meaning. You might think about that sometime.’

‘It will be a real comfort to me when I’m hanged to know that I really didn’t have any choice but to do what I did.’

‘You really are in trouble, aren’t you?’ She touched my arm solicitously. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘The field marshal tells me he’s going to hang me if his Russian Putzer dies.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘He means it.’

‘But what’s that got to do with you?’

‘After you went to bed I tried to knock some sense into the fellow. He was drunk and threatening to shoot people. German people.’

‘And you knocked a little too hard, is that it?’

‘You understand everything, doctor.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘In the state hospital. Unconscious. Maybe worse than that. I’m not so sure there’s anyone there who knows the difference anymore.’

‘Is that where they took Berruguete’s body last night?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why don’t we look in on him before I carry out the autopsy?’

‘Professor Buhtz can spare you?’

‘Autopsies are a bit like making love, Gunther. Sometimes there’s no need to make a meal of it.’

I smiled at her candour. ‘Well then, bon appetit, doctor.’

‘I’ll get my bag.’

*