Rosa

Hoffner stared at the page. Kurtzman. Sascha had taken his mother’s family name just in case the message had not been clear enough.

The paragraphs were precisely spaced, the letters exact. How many drafts had the boy written before completing this perfect page, Hoffner wondered. There was only one flaw: a slight swelling of ink at the end of the word “untrue.” Had a moment of conscience prompted the hesitation with the pen? Hoffner hoped not. It would be better for Sascha to forget his own last moments with his mother. The same might not be so easy for Georgi.

An anxious Giselle said, “Does he tell you where he’s gone?”

Hoffner was still with the letter. He turned to her: Tamshik would have to wait. He said calmly, “I need you to wake Georgi and get to the station.” He folded the letter and dug it into his pocket.

She pressed, “All he said was that he was leaving.”

Hoffner was growing impatient. “He’ll be fine.”

She said more pointedly, “He said he saw you with a girl.” When Hoffner’s silence became too much, she began to shake her head angrily. “Fine. Yes. We’ll take him out of the city. Now get out of this house.” She ushered him toward the door.

Hoffner stopped her. “I need to see Georgi.”

Her eyes went wide. “You are some piece of work.” She began to push him into the foyer, when a voice broke through at the far end of the hall. “Let him be, Giselle.”

Both turned to see Eva holding Georgi by the hand. The boy was gazing at his father. He showed almost no reaction, such emptiness on so small a face. Hoffner walked over and went down on a knee. He watched as the vacant little eyes stared back at him. In a soft voice, Hoffner said, “Hello there, Georgi.”

They stood like this for perhaps half a minute before the boy’s brow furrowed and his eyes became heavy with tears; still he stood staring. When his lips pursed, Hoffner reached out and pulled him in. He felt the little body shake as Georgi’s face wedged deep into his neck. He felt the sobbing in the boy’s tiny-ribbed back, the small hands clasped tightly around his neck. Hoffner picked him up and began to walk slowly, back and forth, whispering in his ear, over and over, until Georgi began to catch his breath, his body calming, his head resting back on Hoffner’s shoulder. The boy’s cheeks were streaked and red. Hoffner felt the wetness on his own neck. A little hand came up and rested on Hoffner’s cheek, and Georgi said, “Are we going home, Papi?”

The boy’s hope was like an island in the current. Hoffner could see it: real, graspable, and completely uncharted. It was simply a matter of will to carry himself to it. Hoffner placed his hand over the boy’s and said, “Soon.” He pulled Georgi in tight and kissed him, the taste of tears on his cheek. Hoffner turned and saw a kindness in Eva’s gaze, and he handed him to her.

She said brightly, “So how about a little trip today, Georgi?”

The boy kept his eyes on his father. “Are you coming, Papi?”

The current was growing stronger. Hoffner said, “Tomorrow. I’ll come tomorrow.”

“And then we’ll go home?”

For just a moment, Hoffner let himself imagine something beyond the frailty, something of what could be. Surprisingly, it carried no hint of self-disgust. He placed a hand on the boy’s cheek and then turned for the door.

Fichte tried the handle. It was locked and oddly cold, which gave him hope.

His choices had been limited: he needed something large enough for an examining table and storage, but isolated enough to keep it beyond the flow of everyday business. Two archive halls and a conference room later, he arrived at this, an office at the end of a long corridor at the back of the building. The spacing between its door and the next was sufficiently wide. Fichte sca

The room was pitch black and much colder than the hallway, but it was the odor of formaldehyde that told him he had found her. Fichte shut the door and flicked on the light, and a dull yellow filled the white-tiled space. The windows had been bricked in and, although it was a good deal smaller, the place had the same look and feel of the morgue rooms in the basement: an examining table, shelves for instruments and bottles. The only additions were a woman’s apparel-skirt, bodice, shoes-that hung on various hooks across the room, and a single metal tank that stood against the far wall, underneath one of the absent windows. It was there that Fichte turned his attention.

Resembling an enormous pressure cooker, the tank sported several circular valves on its lid. As Fichte turned the last of them, the hiss of a releasing vacuum-along with an ungodly smell that struck him as rotting cabbage-seeped from the tank. Bringing the tail of his jacket up to his nose and mouth, Fichte pushed open the lid and saw a naked Rosa lying on several planks of wood, which were in turn set atop a bed of ice. Her skin was still remarkably intact and, save for a few tiny decayed bits on her thigh, she looked as if she had been dead for three days at most, not the seven weeks Fichte knew to be the case. Her entire body was covered in a thick layer of grease; even her hair was matted down in the stuff.

It was only then that Fichte thought to examine more closely the contents of the shelves across the room. Almost at once he noticed the collection of jars filled with what he knew to be the same grease. He stepped over and took one. It was labeled ASCOMYCETE 4, and had the eagle crest of the army medical corps stamped above it. A few days ago he might have been surprised, even overwhelmed, to find it here; the greater shock would have been the link to the military corps, but Fichte was beyond such reactions. Instead he opened the jar and sniffed at its contents. It was the same as they had found on Mary Koop, except that this batch had a bit more bite to it: it was in its pure form, having yet to be applied to the skin. Fichte thought of taking a jar for Hoffner, but he knew that would be too dangerous. He closed the lid, placed the jar back on the shelf, and then wrote the name in his notebook, making sure to copy it letter for letter. He then sketched the medical corps insignia and wrote down the number of bottles. Hoffner would be pleased with the work.

Fichte stepped again to the tank. There was really nothing to examine: Rosa was pale and slick and seemed peaceful enough. Fichte closed the lid and resealed the valves. He then took one final look at the room and realized that the label on the jar that he had taken was out of line with the rest. He stepped over and adjusted it. Another nice touch, he thought. Half a minute later he was pulling the door shut as he checked the area around the latch: only someone looking for them would have noticed the hairline scratches. Even so, Fichte licked his thumb-the faint stink of the grease on it-and rubbed a bit of saliva over the wood.

He was feeling quite good about himself as he headed down the corridor: no heroics or missteps, and he had uncovered the name of the grease along with a co

Any sense of redemption, however, was short-lived, as Herr Oberkommissar Braun appeared at the top of the stairs, coming up from the third floor. Fichte did what he could with a casual nod.

“Herr Bezirkssekretr,” said Braun, with a tight-lipped smile. “Were you looking for me?”