My apartment had been more or less fixed up. I had finally managed to find some glass for two windows; the others remained covered with a waxed canvas tarp. My neighbor had not only had my door repaired but had also unearthed some oil lamps to use until electricity was restored. I had some coal delivered, and once the big ceramic stove was started, it wasn’t cold at all. I told myself that taking an apartment on the top floor hadn’t been very smart: I had had incredible luck escaping the raids of that week, but if they returned, and they certainly would, it wouldn’t last. Yet, I refused to worry: the apartment didn’t belong to me, and I didn’t have many personal possessions; you had to keep Thomas’s serene attitude about these things. I simply bought myself a new gramophone, with records of Bach’s Partitas for piano, as well as some opera arias by Monteverdi. In the evening, in the soft, archaic light of an oil lamp, a glass of Cognac and some cigarettes within arm’s reach, I would lie back on my sofa to listen to them and forget everything else.
A new thought, though, came more and more often to occupy my mind. The Sunday after the air raids, around noon, I had taken the car from the garage and had gone to visit Helene Anders. The day was cold and wet, the sky overcast, but it wasn’t raining. On the way, I had managed to find a bouquet of flowers, sold in the street by an old woman near an S-Bahn station. Having reached Helene’s building, I realized I didn’t know what apartment she lived in. Her name wasn’t on the letter boxes. A rather hefty woman who was leaving at that moment stopped and eyed me from head to foot before barking at me, in strong Berlin slang: “Who are you looking for?”—“Fräulein Anders.”—“Anders? There’s no Anders here.” I described her. “You mean the Winnefeld daughter. But she’s not a Fräulein.” She directed me to the apartment and I went up to ring. A lady with white hair opened the door and frowned. “Frau Winnefeld?”—“Yes.” I clicked my heels and bowed my head. “My respects, meine Dame. I came to see your daughter.” I held out the flowers and introduced myself. Helene appeared in the hallway, a sweater over her shoulders, and her face colored slightly: “Oh!” she smiled. “It’s you.”—“I came to ask you if you were planning to swim today.”—“Is the pool still working?” she said.—“Unfortunately not.” I had passed it on my way: a firebomb had gone through the dome, and the concierge who was watching over the ruins had assured me that, given the priorities, it certainly wouldn’t reopen before the end of the war. “But I know of another one.”—“Then I’d be happy to. I’ll go get my things.” Downstairs, I helped her into the car and set off. “I didn’t know you were a Frau,” I said after a few minutes. She looked at me pensively: “I’m a widow. My husband was killed in Yugoslavia last year, by the partisans. We’d been married for less than a year.”—“I’m sorry.” She looked out the window. “Me too,” she said. She turned to me: “But life goes on, doesn’t it?” I didn’t say anything. “Hans, my husband,” she went on, “liked the Dalmatian coast a lot. In his letters, he talked about settling there after the war. Do you know Dalmatia?”—“No. I served in the Ukraine and in Russia. But I wouldn’t want to settle there.”—“Where would you like to live?”—“I don’t know, actually. Not Berlin, I think. I don’t know.” I told her briefly about my childhood in France. She herself was of old Berlin stock: already her grandparents lived in Moabit. We arrived at the Prinz-Albrechtstrasse and I parked in front of number eight. “But that’s the Gestapo!” she cried out, terrified. I laughed: “That’s right. They have a small heated pool in the basement.” She stared at me: “Are you a policeman?”—“Not at all.” Through the window, I pointed to the former Prinz-Albrecht Hotel next door: “I work there, in the Reichsführer’s offices. I’m a legal advisor, I’m in charge of economic questions.” That seemed to reassure her. “Don’t worry. The pool is used more by typists and secretaries than by policemen, who have other things to do.” In fact, the pool was so small you had to sign up in advance. We found Thomas there, already in a bathing suit. “Oh, I know you!” he exclaimed, gallantly kissing Helene’s white hand. “You’re the friend of Liselotte and Mina Wehde.” I showed her where the women’s changing rooms were and went to change also, while Thomas smiled at me mockingly. When I emerged, Thomas, in the water, was talking with a girl, but Helene hadn’t reappeared yet. I dove in and did a few laps. Helene came out of the changing room. Her fashionable swimsuit molded to her contours, rounded but slim; beneath the curves the muscles were clearly apparent. Her face, whose beauty wasn’t altered by the swimming cap, was joyfuclass="underline" “Hot showers! What luxury!” She dove in, crossed half the pool underwater, and began doing laps. I was already tired; I got out, put on a bathrobe, and sat down on one of the chairs placed around the pool, to smoke and watch her swim. Thomas, dripping, came to sit next to me: “It was high time you pulled yourself together.”—“Do you like her?” The lapping of the water resounded on the room’s vaulted ceiling. Helene did forty laps without stopping, a thousand meters. Then she came over to lean on the edge, like the first time I’d seen her, and smiled at me: “You don’t swim much.”—“It’s the cigarettes. I get out of breath.”—“That’s too bad.” Again, she raised her arms and let herself sink down; but this time she came back up in the same place and hoisted herself out of the pool in one supple movement. She took a towel, dried her face and came to sit down next to us, taking off her cap and shaking her damp hair. “And you,” she said to Thomas, “do you also deal with economic questions?”—“No,” he replied. “I leave that to Max. He’s much more intelligent than me.”—“He’s a policeman,” I added. Thomas made a face: “Let’s say I’m in security.”—“Brrr…” Helene said. “That must be sinister.”—“Oh, not really.” I finished my cigarette and went back in to swim a little. Helene did twenty more laps; Thomas was flirting with one of the typists. Afterward, I washed under the shower and changed; leaving Thomas there, I suggested to Helene that we go out for some tea. “Where?”—“Good question. On Unter den Linden there’s nothing left. But we’ll find something.” Finally I took her to the Esplanade Hotel, on Bellevuestrasse: it was a little damaged, but had survived the worst; inside the tea room, aside from the boards on the windows, masked by brocade curtains, you might have thought it was before the war. “What a beautiful place,” Helene murmured. “I’ve never been here.”—“The cakes are excellent, I hear. And they don’t serve ersatz.” I ordered a coffee for me and a tea for her; we also ordered a little assortment of cakes. They were in fact delicious. When I lit a cigarette, she asked for one. “You smoke?”—“Sometimes.” Later on, she said pensively: “It’s too bad there’s this war. Things could have been so nice.”—“Maybe. I have to admit I don’t think about it.” She looked at me: “Tell me frankly: we’re going to lose, aren’t we?”—“No!” I said, shocked. “Of course not.” Again, she looked into emptiness and drew a last puff from her cigarette. “We’re going to lose,” she said. I took her home. In front of the entrance, she shook my hand, looking serious. “Thank you,” she said. “I enjoyed that very much.”—“I hope it won’t be the last time.”—“Me too. See you soon.” I watched her cross the sidewalk and disappear into the building. Then I went back to my place to listen to Monteverdi.
I didn’t understand what I was seeking with this young woman; but I didn’t try to understand it. What I liked about her was her gentleness, a gentleness I thought existed only in the paintings of Vermeer of Delft, through which could clearly be felt the supple force of a steel blade. I had enjoyed that afternoon very much, and for now I didn’t look any further, I didn’t want to think. I felt that thinking would immediately have led to painful questions and demands: for once, I didn’t feel the need, I was happy to let myself be carried by the course of events, as I was by Monteverdi’s music, at once utterly lucid and emotional, and then we’d see. During the week that followed, in the slack moments during work, or at night, at home, the thought of her grave face or of the calmness of her smile came back to me, almost warm, a friendly, affectionate thought, which didn’t alarm me.
But the past is a thing that, once it has sunk its teeth into your flesh, doesn’t let go. Around the middle of the week after the air raids, Fräulein Praxa knocked on my office door. “Obersturmbannführer? There are two gentlemen from the Kripo who would like to see you.” I was immersed in a particularly complex report; annoyed, I replied, “Well, let them do what everyone else does: make an appointment.”—“Very well, Obersturmbannführer.” She closed the door. A minute later she knocked again: “Excuse me, Obersturmbannführer. They insist. They said to tell you that it’s about a personal matter. They say it concerns your mother.” I breathed in deeply and closed my file: “Show them in, then.”
The two men who pushed their way into my office were genuine policemen, not honorary ones like Thomas. They wore long gray overcoats made of coarse, stiff wool, probably woven with wood pulp, and held their hats in their hands. They hesitated and then raised their arms, saying, “Heil Hitler!” I returned their salute and motioned them to the sofa. They introduced themselves: Kriminalkommissar Clemens and Kriminalkommissar Weser, from Referat V B 1, “Einsatz/Capital Crimes.” “In fact,” said one of them, possibly Clemens, by way of introduction, “we’re acting at the request of the Five A One, which is in charge of international cooperation. They received a request for legal assistance from the French police…”—“Excuse me,” I interrupted curtly, “can I see your papers?” They handed me their ID cards along with a mission order signed by a Regierungsrat Galzow, assigning them the task of replying to questions sent to the German police by the Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes in the context of an investigation into the murders of Moreau, Aristide, and his wife, Moreau, Héloïse, formerly Frau. Aue, née C. “So you’re investigating my mother’s death,” I said, returning their documents. “How does that concern the German police? They were killed in France.”—“True, true,” said the second one, probably Weser. The first one pulled a notebook out of his pocket and leafed through it. “It was a very violent murder, apparently,” he said. “A madman, possibly, a sadist. You must have been very upset.” My voice remained dry and hard: “Kriminalkommissar, I am aware of what happened. My personal reactions are my business. Why are you coming to see me?”—“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” said Weser.—“As a potential witness,” Clemens added.—“A witness of what?” I asked. He looked me straight in the eyes: “You saw them at the time, didn’t you?” I too continued staring at him: “That’s right. You’re well informed. I went to visit them. I don’t know exactly when they were killed, but it was soon afterward.” Clemens examined his notebook, then showed it to Weser. Weser went on: “According to the Gestapo in Marseille, a travel pass was issued to you for the Italian zone on April twenty-sixth. How long did you stay at your mother’s house?”—“Just a day.”—“Are you sure?” Clemens asked.—“I think so. Why?” Weser again consulted Clemens’s notebook: “According to the French police, a gendarme saw an SS officer leaving Antibes in a bus on the morning of the twenty-ninth. There weren’t many SS officers in the sector, and they certainly weren’t traveling by bus.”—“I may have stayed two nights. I traveled a lot, at the time. Is it important?”—“It could be. The bodies were discovered on May first, by a milkman. They weren’t very fresh. The coroner estimated the time of death at sixty to eighty-four hours prior, that is sometime between the night of the twenty-eighth and the night of the twenty-ninth.”—“Well, I can tell you that when I left them they were very much alive.”—“So,” said Clemens, “if you left on the morning of the twenty-ninth, they would have been killed during the day.”—“That’s possible. I never asked myself the question.”—“How did you learn of their deaths?”—“I was informed by my sister.” “In fact,” said Weser, still leaning over to look at Clemens’s notebook, “she arrived almost right away. On May second, to be precise. Do you know how she learned the news?”—“No.”—“Have you seen her again since?” asked Clemens.—“No.”—“Where is she now?” asked Weser.—“She lives with her husband in Pomerania. I can give you the address, but I don’t know if they’re there. They often go to Switzerland.” Weser took the notebook from Clemens and jotted something down. Clemens asked me: “You’re not in touch with her?”—“Not very often,” I replied.—“And your mother, did you see her often?” asked Weser. They seemed systematically to take turns talking, and this little game was grating on my nerves. “Not much, either,” I replied as dryly as possible.—“So,” said Clemens, “you’re not very close to your family.”—“Meine Herren, I’ve already told you, I’m not about to talk to you about my inner feelings. I don’t see how my relations with my family can concern you.”—“When there’s murder, Herr Obersturmbannführer,” Weser said sententiously, “anything can concern the police.” They really did look like a pair of cops from an American movie. But they probably acted that way on purpose. “This Herr Moreau was your stepfather by marriage, isn’t that right?” Weser continued.—“Yes. He married my mother in…1929, I think. Or maybe ’twenty-eight.”—“1929, that’s right,” Weser said, studying his notebook.—“Are you aware of his last will?” Clemens abruptly asked. I shook my head: “Not at all. Why?”—“Herr Moreau wasn’t poor,” said Weser. “You’ll probably inherit a tidy little sum.”—“That would surprise me. My stepfather and I didn’t get along at all.”—“That’s possible,” Clemens continued, “but he had no children, and no brothers or sisters. If he died intestate, you and your sister will share everything.”—“I hadn’t even thought about it,” I said sincerely. “But instead of pointlessly speculating, tell me: did they find a will?” Weser leafed through the notebook: “Actually, we don’t know that yet.”—“Well,” I declared, “no one has contacted me about it.” Weser scribbled a note in the notebook. “Another question, Herr Obersturmbannführer: there were two children at Herr Moreau’s house. Twins. Alive.”—“I saw those children. My mother told me they were a friend’s. Do you know who they are?”—“No,” Clemens grumbled. “Apparently the French don’t know, either.”—“Did they witness the murder?”—“They never opened their mouths,” said Weser.—“They might have seen something,” added Clemens.—“But they didn’t want to talk,” repeated Weser.—“Maybe they were shocked,” Clemens explained.—“And what’s become of them?” I asked.—“Actually,” Weser replied, “that’s the curious thing. Your sister took them with her.”—“We don’t really understand why,” said Clemens.—“Or how.” “What’s more, it seems highly irregular,” Weser commented.—“Highly,” Clemens repeated. “But at the time, the Italians were running things there. With them anything is possible.”—“Yes, absolutely anything,” Weser added. “Except an investigation by the rules.”—“It’s the same thing with the French, too,” Clemens went on.—“Yes, they’re the same,” Weser confirmed. “It’s no pleasure working with them.”—“Meine Herren,” I interrupted. “That’s all very well, but how does it concern me?” Clemens and Weser looked at each other. “You see, I’m very busy right now. Unless you have other specific questions, I think we can leave things there?” Clemens nodded; Weser leafed through the notebook and returned it to him. Then he got up: “Excuse us, Herr Obersturmbannführer.”—“Yes,” said Clemens, getting up in turn. “Excuse us. For now, that’s all.”—“Yes,” Weser went on, “that’s all. Thank you for your cooperation.” I held out my hand: “Not at all. If you have other questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.” I took some business cards from my stand and gave one to each. “Thank you,” Weser said, pocketing the card. Clemens examined his own: “Special representative of the Reichsführer-SS for the Arbeitseinsatz,” he read. “What is that?”—“That’s a State secret, Kriminalkommissar,” I replied.—“Oh. I’m sorry.” They both saluted and headed for the door. Clemens, who was a good head taller than Weser, opened it and went out; Weser paused on the threshold and turned around: “Excuse me, Herr Obersturmbannführer. I forgot one detail.” He turned around: “Clemens! The notebook.” He leafed through it again. “Oh yes, here it is: When you went to visit your mother, were you in uniform or in civilian clothes?”—“I don’t remember. Why? Is it important?”—“Probably not. The Obersturmführer in Marseille who issued the travel pass thought you were in civilian clothes.”—“That’s possible. I was on leave.” He nodded: “Thank you. If there’s anything else, we’ll call you. Forgive us for coming like this. Next time we’ll make an appointment.”