Charly struggled to keep cool. ‘We don’t want to give her what for. We want to help her,’ she said, ‘even if that’s hard for you to understand. Alexandra is suspected of having broken into a department store…’
‘Do what you want. Just leave me in peace.’
Finally, Charly’s patience ended. ‘You need to learn how to listen! Is this how you treated your son? I’m not surprised your family wants nothing more to do with you.’
‘We proles don’t need help, especially not from Social Democrats. We look after our own!’
‘You’re too proud to accept the help of your son, just because he’s a Social Democrat?’
‘A social Fascist! Complicit in the exploitation of labour by capital!’ Reinhold’s face turned red. ‘It won’t be long before the hour strikes and the proletariat rises in arms!’
Rath understood why the Reinhold family had fallen apart. ‘I think the hour has struck already,’ he said. ‘Many thanks for the information, Herr Reinhold.’
He linked arms with Charly and pulled her away from the hut. Emil Reinhold closed the door as soon as their backs were turned.
‘Why did you do that?’ she asked. ‘I had more questions.’
‘That he wouldn’t have answered. You heard the nonsense he was spouting!’
‘Perhaps he’d have given us something.’
‘Perhaps if you’d been a little friendlier. And besides…’ Rath gazed skywards. ‘Take a look up there. It’s getting dark, and I don’t know how old the batteries in my torch are. We need to make sure we get back to the car. It was hard enough in the light.’
Charly said nothing, but Rath could see she was angry. They reached the square in silence, where Stalin’s master was sparking the bonfire. ‘Is the Sozi-delegation leaving our workers’ paradise so soon?’ he asked.
The dog lay dutifully next to the blazing fire, which had already started to crackle. Kirie began to growl once more, cautiously this time, so that no one could hear, especially not the other dog.
‘I don’t know what everyone here has against the SPD,’ Rath said.
‘Well, take a look around: unemployed, homeless people everywhere. Families with barely anything to eat thanks to Social Democrat policies. At the expense of us workers!’
‘Looks rather idyllic to me,’ Rath gestured towards the bonfire, which had drawn the first people from the settlement. ‘Almost like a gypsy camp. All you need now is a guitar.’
‘Why don’t you come back in February when the lake’s frozen over and you can barely get any water; when the cold saps all the warmth from your body. Then you’ll rethink your gypsy romanticism. This is no operetta. This is real life.’
They left the camp, returning through the wood, and with every step visibility grew poorer. Rath switched on his torch. The beam of light flashed along the tree stems, making anything it didn’t illuminate seem darker. The torch was no use here. They couldn’t find the trail.
‘Maybe we should let Kirie go on ahead,’ Charly said. ‘She relies more on her nose than her eyes.’
Rath nodded and, unable to think of anything better, gave the dog the car key to sniff. It seemed to work. She fixed her nose to the ground and took up the scent. Rath loosened the lead and followed through undergrowth that became thicker and thicker.
‘Are you sure this is the way we came?’ Charly asked after a while.
‘No idea. At least the dog has a scent.’
‘Yes, but what?’
Five minutes later Kirie accelerated when they reached the edge of the wood. She pounced on something that lay on the ground, taking it in her mouth and swinging it back and forth.
‘Drop!’ cried Rath who, despite the torchlight, wasn’t sure what she had picked up. Only at the third ‘drop’ did Kirie let her prey fall to the ground. Rath shone the light on a bundle of fur that had been ripped to pieces, a soggy red sludge pouring out of it like a burst plush cushion.
A dead squirrel.
Kirie looked guilty. Charly couldn’t help but laugh.
‘Don’t laugh,’ Rath said. ‘We have to be strict with her.’
She pulled herself together, but when Rath said ‘Bad dog’ in all seriousness, she burst out laughing again.
‘We’re never going to be able to train her,’ he sighed.
‘Now that both your torch and your dog have come up short, how about we rely on my sense of direction.’
Rath switched off the torch, and Charly gazed into the night sky. She seemed to go by the moon, or perhaps the stars. Either way they were soon on the right path, though it still took them half an hour to reach the car. They found themselves in marshy terrain along the way, a detour that left Rath with only one shoe. All their searching with the torch, temporarily switched back on, proved futile; the marsh had swallowed the shoe and wasn’t about to give it back.
Rath sat with the car door open and wrung out his socks. Charly’s feet didn’t look much better, but at least she still had both shoes. They couldn’t wring out Kirie’s wet paws. The dog made a huge mess of the car and Charly’s coat when she placed her head on her lap. Rath stuffed his socks and shoe into the footwell and started the engine.
‘Can you drive without shoes?’ Charly asked.
‘Mit bläcke Fööß jeht alles. You can do anything barefoot.’
They jolted slowly across Köpenicker Landstrasse back into town. Naturally the Hanomag didn’t make the journey without letting them down, this time at Schlesisicher Tor, right in the heart of the city. Passersby looked on with a mixture of interest and amusement as a barefooted but otherwise impeccably dressed man climbed out of the car, opened the bonnet, fixed something, closed the bonnet, got back inside and started the engine.
Charly grinned when he reclaimed his place alongside her.
‘Sorry,’ he growled, putting the car in gear. ‘Normally I’d have a replacement pair of shoes.’
Charly’s grin disappeared. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘What’s the matter? Only that we haven’t made any progress. Unless you count wet feet, dirty clothes and a missing shoe. Oh, and a few hours’ less sleep.’
‘So what? I’ll sleep at the end of the month. Isn’t that what you always say?’
‘We could have had a nice evening at home with a bottle of red wine, instead of wasting our time out here.’
‘Wasting our time?’ Charly feigned indignation. ‘Please! I’ve never been more emphatically warned about the dangers of social democracy.’
‘True. The rubbish that Reinhold and his comrades were spouting makes more sense than anything else this evening!’ He looked at her. ‘Now, won’t you please admit that this was a crackpot idea.’
Charly said nothing, as he observed her out of the corner of his eye. When her features became hard like that, it was better to seek cover. She needed almost a minute to compose herself.
‘What is this?’ she said, her voice as chilly as it had been in a long time. ‘Are you really just upset about your stupid shoe? Or do you regret helping me with my crackpot idea?’
‘That’s not how I meant it!’
‘Then how did you mean it?’
‘You have to admit I’m right: we should have given this to Warrants right away.’
‘But that’s exactly what I don’t want. Can’t you understand that? I want to find Alex before Warrants do!’
‘Why? It’s no longer your concern. You’ve made good on your error, now let other people take care of the rest.’
‘Why don’t you understand? She saw her friend plunge to his death. She’s terrified of blue uniforms. Something happened up there.’