The band-a violin and piano-plunked out something that blended easily into the haphazard spray of conversation, nothing to take focus, though the air would have grown stale without it. Hoffner began to navigate his way across to the far corner and what had become his usual table. Like a distant shore under mist, it was obscured by clouds of smoke. He checked his watch and saw that it was a quarter to ten. The place was just revving up as he passed by a waiter and told the man to bring over a bottle of Mampe’s, no doubt the watered-down stock, but why should tonight be any different, he thought.
Hoffner loosened his tie, settled in, and pulled a cigarette from his pack. He knew he could have sat like this for hours, a full glass, watching the little dramas play themselves out at the nearby tables: parry, thrust, parry, thrust, and always at a safe distance.
He was taking in one such performance-the muffled pleadings of a heavyset girl to her indifferent lover-when the bottle arrived. Still intent on the scene, Hoffner pulled a few coins from his pocket.
“Very kind, Herr Inspector.”
Hoffner looked up to see Leo Jogiches pouring out the second of two glasses. For an instant, Hoffner thought he recognized Jogiches, not from Rosa’s photographs, but from somewhere else, something more immediate. The sensation passed, and Hoffner returned the coins to his pocket.
Jogiches was no longer a handsome man. His beard, a silky brown in the photos, had grown gray and knotted, as if a cat had been grooming him. Worse was the hairline that rose just too high on one side and made everything seem to droop to the left. His skin sagged as well, especially under the eyes, where sleeplessness and beatings collided in an array of dark blotches and fading bruises. Only the eyes themselves recalled the past: they showed that same deep calculation and fierceness that Rosa had known. This was a man who had lived his life on the run, and the uncertainty of his world-the inherent danger in his very presence-was like an intoxicant to him. Ancient photographs aside, Jogiches was exactly what Hoffner had expected.
“But again, my treat,” said Jogiches. He capped the bottle and took a seat. “To your health, Inspector.” He tossed back the brandy and settled in.
Any sense of validation Hoffner might have felt at seeing the man-the theoretical K, now flesh and blood-quickly fell away. Jogiches’s presence confirmed far more than just good detective work.
Hoffner held up his pack. “Cigarette?” Jogiches took one and Hoffner continued: “I didn’t see you when I came in.”
“You weren’t meant to,” said Jogiches. He lit up and explained, “Two nights. By the bar. To make sure you were as determined as you seemed.”
“And tonight you got your answer?
Jogiches took a deep pull. “We’ll see, won’t we?” The smoke trailed slowly from his mouth as he gazed out into the crowd: “The man there is a thief,” he said with certainty. “The woman there doesn’t want us to know she’s a whore, but she’s a whore just the same. And the couple there”-the indifferent lovers Hoffner had been tracking-“that boy will kill someday. Look at how he crushes his cigarette into the pile of ash, over and over. There’s no satisfaction in it. The wonderful tension in his hand. He wants to crack the girl across the face, but he keeps digging the little butt into the ashtray.” Jogiches’s gaze seemed to intensify. “One day he’ll have the courage.” He watched a moment longer, and then turned to Hoffner. “And then, Herr Inspector, you’ll have to hunt him down.”
“Quick to judge, aren’t you?”
Jogiches’s smile was unlike any Hoffner had ever seen: the mouth conveyed the requisite joy, but the eyes remained cold. It was as if even his face was keeping secrets from itself. “No judge, Herr Inspector, just the accuser. I’ll leave the judging to someone else.”
Hoffner flicked a bit of ash onto the floor. “I enjoyed your article.”
Jogiches poured out a second glass for himself. “Not nearly the entire story, but then someone had to prod your case into life again.”
“And what is my case?”
“Rosa.” He spoke the name as if it were part of some incantation, hushed and filled with meaning. Then, too casually, he added, “You’ve heard, of course, that tomorrow’s Lokalanzeiger will say she’s in Russia, plotting with Herr Lenin to overthrow the Ebert government.” Jogiches was too busy reordering the ashtray, table lamp, and salt shaker to allow a response. “‘Where’s the body, Berlin?’ they’ll ask. ‘Rosa dead? Nonsense. Watch yourselves. For she’ll sweep in and rip your hearts out when she brings her revolution back again.’” No less intent on his task, he added, “But then, we both know she’s dead, lying on a slab on the fourth floor of the Alexanderplatz. Still, it’ll make for a good bit of press.”
Hoffner had his glass to his lips when Jogiches let go with this little tidbit; Hoffner wondered how many other items Jogiches might be holding in reserve. He tossed back the brandy and set his glass on the table. “No reason for me to play coy, is there?” said Hoffner.
“No.”
“You have someone inside the Alex.”
“Yes.” Jogiches seemed satisfied with his redecorations: order had been achieved. He sat back.
Hoffner said, “So who’s been working for you?”
For the first time, Hoffner was aware that Jogiches was studying him. He wondered which crime Jogiches might be imagining for his own future. Hoffner was about to ask when Jogiches’s eyes suddenly seemed to lose themselves, as if they were looking directly through him.
“You know,” Jogiches said vacantly, “she was much cleverer than all of us.” It was as if he were admitting to some long-held secret. His gaze remained distant.
Hoffner had spent enough time with Rosa now to come to her defense. “Shame you never told her,” he said.
“Yes,” said Jogiches. His gaze refocused and he looked directly into Hoffner’s eyes. “I suppose it was.”
Guilt, thought Hoffner, had an uncanny way of exposing itself. Jogiches, however, had spent too many years denying his own faults to allow any instinct for atonement to take hold for more than a few seconds.
Jogiches said, “You’ve never read any of her work, have you? Her real work, I mean.” Hoffner shook his head. “I didn’t think so. No, no, I don’t mean it that way. I’m sure you could have understood it. She was quite superb in that way. Theories only the geniuses could master, and she made them simple. Marx’s Capital-a morass, completely impenetrable, and then Rosa writes her Accumulation and suddenly Marxist economics has a place in the twentieth century. She even improved on the old man, with a little help, of course.”
“Of course,” said Hoffner.
Jogiches liked the challenge. “You think she could have done it without me?”
Hoffner had neither the inclination nor the ammunition to take on Jogiches. “That story about the gun,” he said. “Did she really pull it on you?”
Jogiches seemed surprised by the question. His answer came with a bit more bite. “She wrote about that?”
“In great detail,” said Hoffner. “I would have thought that you’d have been the first to read through the journals, cover to cover.”
“Evidently you have.”
“But not you?”
Jogiches tapped out his cigarette. “And slog through an endless tirade of revisionist history, Inspector? I’ll take a pass.”
Hoffner heard the self-rationalization in his tone. “So she never pulled the gun?”
“Of course she pulled it. Why not? She couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t permit her to continue seeing that idiot Zetkin.”
Hoffner could feel Jogiches rising to the bait. “You wouldn’t permit her?” he said.
“Something like that.” Jogiches took a last pull, then crushed out his cigarette; he continued to play with the stub. “She thought she could make him into a novelist or a painter, or something equally ludicrous. You’ve read through it. I forget which. Waste of time.” He let go of the stub and brushed off his hands. “She couldn’t accept the man for what he was, and when she tried to make me into something that was her fantasy-” Jogiches caught himself. It was only a momentary hitch, but it was enough to sour his tone. “Zetkin. When she insisted Zetkin could be all of her marvelous romantic ideals-it was pathetic. A woman her age. I told her so. She became very dramatic. Rosa loved the drama. And so out came the little revolver.” He shrugged it off with too much indifference. “She said she never wanted to see me again, which made it even more ridiculous.”