54
Arriving in Klettenberg, Rath hesitated a moment before ringing the front door. Frieda opened and looked at him wide-eyed.
‘Young man. Back again I see.’
‘Just passing through.’
‘I’m glad you’re here. We’re going out of our minds inside.’
She let him in and fetched his parents. Engelbert Rath looked as if he hadn’t slept, greeting his son as if he had seen him only five minutes before, and disappearing into his study.
‘You must excuse Father,’ Erika Rath said. ‘The last few days have been a little frantic.’
‘Why isn’t he at police headquarters?’
‘He called in sick. They know he’s a friend of Adenauer, and given Elfgen says he can no longer guarantee Konrad’s safety, your father fears the worst.’
‘The district president said that?’
‘The very same, but don’t go thinking Elfgen is actually doing anything about the brownshirts. It’s white feathers all around.’
Rath couldn’t help but smile. ‘Sounds like someone here didn’t vote for the Nazis. Am I right?’
‘Of course not! What are you thinking?’
After what he had seen earlier, her outrage did him the power of good. ‘It’s all right, Mama, I was only teasing.’
‘Your father’s party colleagues have been calling all day.’ She led her son into the sitting room where Frieda had laid out a pot of tea. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’
‘Police business.’
‘You’ll stay the night?’
‘If it’s no trouble.’
‘Trouble? Of course not… Wait! There was something.’ She stood up and went to the drawer to fetch a letter. ‘This came for you. We were going to send it on to Berlin, but seeing as you’re here…’
Rath looked at the envelope. Cologne Police Headquarters. ‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But Papa must.’
‘I didn’t want to bother your father with it. He has enough on his plate at the moment.’
He opened the envelope. It was a summons. A Detective Wiefelspütz from the Cologne Police wished to speak with him. One Herr Wilhelm Klefisch had accused him of misappropriating fifty marks from his wallet.
‘What is it, son?’
‘Nothing important.’ He stowed the letter in his jacket.
Engelbert Rath didn’t join them until supper, seeming tired but restless at the same time. Rath had never seen him unshaven before. His father had even managed on the black day they received news of Anno’s death.
‘I’m sorry I’m in such a mess, Gereon, but the telephone has been ringing for days and nights on end.’
‘I hear Adenauer’s been deposed.’
‘That’s what Gauleiter Grohe says. The brown mob stormed the town hall this morning.’ Engelbert Rath shrugged his shoulders as if to apologise. ‘Ever since the Reichstag elections, the SA have been behaving as if they own the city.’
‘And you’re letting them?’
‘What do you mean you?’
‘The police. The Centre Party. You!’
‘What would you have us do?’
‘Help Adenauer. Prevent the town hall from being stormed.’
‘Our hands are tied, boy. The district president has instructed police to avoid any conflict with the SA. Anything else would lead to bloodshed.’ Engelbert Rath sat in his armchair, hunched and helpless.
‘That’s it?’
‘You don’t know what’s been happening here. It’s as if everything’s been turned on its head.’
‘Elfgen’s a Centrist, isn’t he?’
‘Of course he is,’ Engelbert Rath said, as if the prospect of the Cologne District President belonging to any other party were simply unthinkable.
‘Yet here he is playing into Nazi hands?’
‘Some party members believe we must move with the national uprising and steer it in the right direction, rather than stand in its way.’
‘By working with people who would have Konrad Adenauer up against a wall?’
‘Gereon, you don’t understand…’
There was a knock and Frieda peered through the crack in the door. ‘Apologies, but it’s urgent. You’re wanted on the telephone. The mayor.’
‘Adenauer?’
‘Who else?’
Frieda looked appalled. In her world Konrad Adenauer was still mayor of Cologne. Rath found it equally hard to imagine someone else in the post. It felt almost as if God himself had been dethroned. For as long as he could remember the mayor here had been Konrad Adenauer, and for as long as he could remember the man had been a regular in the Rath household. Only two weeks ago he had been drinking Frieda’s tea.
Engelbert Rath stood up. ‘Excuse me, but I’ve been waiting to hear from Konrad all day. Let’s hope he’s arrived safely in Berlin.’
‘Adenauer is in Berlin?’
‘The brownshirts would have shot him here.’
‘Then what’s he doing in Berlin, of all places? Talk about the lion’s den. If you think the Nazis have taken over Cologne, wait till you see things there.’
‘What do you think he’s doing? He’s going to call on the Prussian Interior Ministry and protest against what is happening here. Konrad is still the rightful mayor, and president of the Prussian State Council besides.’
‘Call on the Interior Ministry? On Göring?’
‘Who else?’
‘But he’s a Nazi too!’
‘As well as being acting Interior Minister. He won’t like hearing how the SA have been carrying on down here. He’ll do something about it.’
Suddenly Rath realised that his father, once so in control of this city, had lost his political compass.
55
Charly entered the ballroom of the Hotel Eden just after eight o’clock. A new band played softly, there were no dancers and only a few guests, all of whom sat at the tables. An army of waiters prepared for the evening ahead. She waved one over.
‘Sorry, but the dancers – could you tell me where they eat?’
The waiter looked at her disparagingly. Perhaps he thought she was a girlfriend of one of the men. No doubt that sort of thing was frowned upon here. The dancers didn’t dine with their clients in the hall but had their own table in the basement, just by the kitchen. In the servants’ quarters, where they were joined at the long table by liftboys, chambermaids, porters and other hotel staff. Just no waiters, right now they had their hands full.
The dancers were already in evening dress and a little apart from the rest. Charly’s gallant from the afternoon spotted her and stood up. ‘There you are,’ he said, stretching out a hand with such perfect elegance she was afraid he might request a second dance. Instead he led her around the table and made the introductions. ‘Gentlemen, this is the reporter I mentioned earlier, Fräulein…’
‘Weinert,’ Charly said. It was the only name she could think of.
‘Fräulein Weinert is writing an article on our former colleague Roddeck, who, as we know, is currently making waves as an author.’
The dancers in the Eden were a motley bunch, bound only by their polished manners and more or less attractive appearance. Their table, meanwhile, was so full of gossip they could have been taking coffee at Kranzler. Everyone had a story to tell. She sat down between Bertrand and a blond youth he introduced as Willy from Vienna.
‘The lieutenant… he was quite a fellow,’ the blond said with admiration. ‘Certainly knew how to swoop.’
‘To swoop?’
‘We swoop on a lady when we ask them to dance,’ Bertrand explained, eyeing Willy angrily.