Ten minutes later we were approaching Bülowplatz, which was Erich Mielke’s preferred destination, being the location of the KPD headquarters in Berlin. Occupying a whole corner of one of the most heavily policed squares in Europe, Karl Liebknecht House was a noisy indication of what all buildings might look like if the lefties ever got into power, each of its five stories decorated with more red flags than a dangerous beach and several bromide slogans in large white capital letters. If architecture is frozen music, then this was a partly thawed Lotte Lenya telling us we must die and not to ask why.
Mielke slid down in the passenger seat as we entered the square. He said, “Drop me around the corner, on Linien Strasse. In case anyone sees me getting out of your car and thinks I’m a spy.”
“Relax,” I said. “I’m in plain clothes.”
He laughed. “You think that will save you when the Revolution comes?”
“No, but it might save you this afternoon.”
“Fair enough, Kommissar. If I sound ungrateful, it’s because I’m not used to getting a square deal from a Berlin bull. Pork Cheeks is the kind of polyp I’m used to.”
“Pork Cheeks?”
“That swine Anlauf.”
I nodded. Captain Paul Anlauf was—among the communists at least—the most hated cop in Berlin.
I pulled up on Weyding Strasse and waited for Mielke to get out.
“Thanks. Again. I won’t forget it, polyp.”
“Keep out of trouble, yeah?”
“You, too.”
Then he kissed the brunette on the cheek and was gone. I lit a cigarette and watched him walk back onto Bülowplatz and vanish into a crowd of men.
“Don’t mind him,” said the brunette. “He’s really not so bad.”
“I don’t mind him as much as he seems to mind me,” I said.
“Well,” she said. “I’m grateful for the lift. This is fine for me here.”
She was wearing a bright print percale dress with a heart-shaped button waistline, a lacy collar, and cute puff sleeves. The print was a riot of red and white fruit and flowers on a solid black background. She looked like a market garden at midnight. On her head was a little white trilby with a red silk ribbon, as if the hat were a cake and it was someone’s birthday. Mine perhaps. Which, of course, it was. The smell of sweat on her body was honest and more provocative to me than some expensive, cloying scent. Underneath the midnight garden was a real woman with skin on every part of her body, and organs and glands and all the other things about women I knew I liked but had almost forgotten. Because it was the kind of day when girls like Elisabeth were wearing summer dresses again, and I remembered just what a long winter it had been in Berlin, sleeping in that cave with just my dreams for company.
“Come for a drink,” I said.
She looked tempted, but only for a moment. “I’d like to, but—I should really be getting back to work.”
“Come on. It’s a warm day and I need a beer. There’s nothing like spending a couple of hours in the cement to give a man a thirst. Especially when it’s his birthday. You wouldn’t want me to drink alone on my birthday, would you?”
“No. If it really is your birthday.”
“If I show my identity card, will you come?”
“All right.”
So I did. And she came. Immediately next to the police station on Bülowplatz there was a bar called the Braustübl, and, leaving my car where it was, we went in there.
The place was full of communists, of course, but I wasn’t thinking about them, or about Erich Mielke, although for a while Elisabeth kept on talking about him as if I were interested, which I wasn’t. But I liked watching her red lips open and close to show off her white teeth. I was especially taken with the sound of her laughter, as she seemed to like my jokes, and that was really all that mattered because when we parted she agreed to see me again.
When she’d gone I bought some cigarettes, and heading back to my car I caught the eye of one of the uniformed cops on the square and stopped to chat with him in the sunshine. Bauer, that was his name, Sergeant Adolf Bauer. Our chat was the usual splash on the walclass="underline" the trial of Charlie Urban for a murder at the Mercedes Theater, Brüning’s emergency decrees, Hitler’s evidence at the court in Moabit. Bauer was a good bull, and all the time we were speaking I noticed how he had his eye on a car that was parked in front of Karl Liebknecht House, as if he recognized it or the man waiting patiently in the driver’s seat. Then we were both watching three other men come out of the Braustübl and get into the car with this other fellow. And one of the men was Erich Mielke.
“Hullo,” said Bauer. “There goes trouble.”
“I know the kid,” I said. “The one with the quiff. But I don’t know the others.”
“The one driving is Max Thunert,” said Bauer. “He’s a low-ranking KPD thug. One of the others was Heinz Neumann. He’s in the Reichstag, although he doesn’t limit causing trouble to when he’s there. I didn’t recognize the other fellow.”
“I was just in that bar,” I said. “And I didn’t see any of them.”
“There’s a private room upstairs that they use,” said Bauer. “It’s my opinion that they keep some weapons there. Just in case we decide to search Karl Liebknecht House. Also, if the SA mounts a demo here they won’t be expecting anything from the top floor of that bar.”
“Have you told the Hussar?”
The Hussar was a uniformed sergeant called Max Willig, who was frequently about Bülowplatz and almost as unpopular as Captain Anlauf.
“I’ve told him.”
“Didn’t he believe you?”
“He did. But Judge Bode didn’t when we went to get a warrant. Said we need more evidence than an itch on the end of my nose.”
“Think they’re planning something?”
“They’re always planning something. They’re communists, aren’t they? Criminals, most of them.”
“I don’t like criminals who break the law,” I said.
“What other kind are there?”
“The kind that make the law. It’s the Hindenburgs and Schleichers of this world who are doing more to screw the Republic than the commies and the Nazis put together.”
“You got that right, my friend.”
I might never have heard the name of Erich Mielke again but for two things. One was that I saw a lot more of Elisabeth and, now and again, she’d say that she’d seen him or one of his sisters. And then there were the events of August 9, 1931. There’s not a policeman from Weimar Berlin who doesn’t remember August 9, 1931. The way Americans remember the Maine.
12
To say the least, it had been a difficult summer. In spite of some new laws that made political violence a capital crime, Nazis were killing communists at the rate of almost two to one. After the March elections, in which the Nazis got more than three times as many votes as the KPD, the communists became increasingly violent, probably out of desperation. Then, in early August, there was a call for an election in the Prussian Parliament. Most likely this was something to do with the world economic crisis. After all, this was 1931 and we were in the middle of the Great Depression. Almost half the banks had failed in America, and in Germany we were still trying to pay for the war with almost six million men out of work. And you can blame the French with their Carthaginian peace for a lot of that.
Prussian elections were always a barometer for the rest of Germany and usually bad-tempered affairs. For that you can blame the Prussian character. Jedem das Seine is a Prussian’s motto. Literally it means “To each his own,” but more figuratively it means everyone gets what he deserves. Which is why they put it on the gates at the Buchenwald concentration camp. And probably why, given the peculiar character of the Prussian Parliament, we got what we deserved when, on the ninth of August, the results were announced and it turned out that not enough people had voted to force an election at a national level. With no quorum for a vote, tempers all over Berlin got even worse. But especially on Bülowplatz outside Karl Liebknecht House. Figuring that some sort of dirty deal had been done between the Nazis and the Prussian administration, thousands of communists gathered there. Possibly, they were correct about a deal. But things turned ugly when the riot police showed up and started cracking Red heads like eggs. Berlin cops were always good at making omelettes.