The Second Son

The tram stopped, and Hoffner stepped off to a nice dowsing of his trousers from a passing truck. The lettering on its side had it heading west to Doberitz. Everything was heading west these days-food, horses, prostitutes-all of it to keep the Olympic athletes happy. Most were already settled in; the last few stragglers would be setting up digs in the next day or so, with their sauna and chefs and shooting ranges and private showers. Hoffner tried to picture the genius who had seen fit to call such lush accommodations a village.

But for those who had invaded to cheer the athletes on, Berlin was determined to quell any lingering doubts. Thoughts of Olympic boycotts might be long forgotten: everyone who had threatened not to come was already here. Even so, the Jew-baiting signs that had so troubled the French and the English and, of course, the Americans (would they be bringing their Negroes?) had been pulled from shop windows, stripped from the Litfassaulen, and replaced with odes to sport and camaraderie and international friendship. Not that the Greeks had been much on mutual friendships or protecting their weak-mountainsides and babies came to mind-but they had come up with the ideal, and wasn’t that what the new Germany was all about?

It was a cloud of gentle denial-ataraxia for the modern world-that had brought this cleansing rain, and Hoffner wondered if he was the only one to feel the damp in his legs.

He turned onto Alexanderplatz and saw the giant swastika draped across the front of police headquarters. It billowed momentarily. He imagined it was waving to him, a gesture of farewell, good luck, “It was swell, Isabel, swell.” The telephone call from the ministry had no doubt preceded him. The paperwork would follow, but he was out. There was no need for the flag to be anything but gracious in victory.

The look on the sergeant’s face at the security desk confirmed it. The usual nod of deference was now an officious bob of courtesy.

“Ah, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar,” he said. At least the man continued to refer to him by his title. Hoffner had been one of the very few to insist on his old rank after the SS had absorbed the Kripo and the Gestapo into what was now known as the Sipo. He had never considered himself a major or a captain, or whatever rank they had tried to foist on him. Inside the Alex, “detective” would have suited him just fine, but even the Kripo had its standards. So “chief inspector” it remained, if only for a few more days.

“Herr Scharfuhrer,” Hoffner answered.

“Will you be needing help with any more boxes, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar?”

Hoffner had anticipated the ministry’s response. He knew the letter he had sent them a few weeks back would bring his file into play. He knew it would mark the begi

“I think I can manage it, Herr Scharfuhrer,” Hoffner said. He nodded, then pushed through the oak doors and stepped out into the Alex’s vast glassed-over courtyard. The smell of ammonia, with a nice lingering of mildew, pricked at his nose as he headed for the far corner.

The rote quality of the walk to his office had taken on an unwelcome nostalgia in the last weeks: Why should he care that the once-familiar cobblestones now lay buried beneath a smooth flooring of cement? Had he really spent that much time in the subbasement morgue to mourn its dismantling? Was there anything truly lost by riding an elevator up to the third floor rather than taking the stairs? There was a sentimentality here that troubled him, and Hoffner wondered if it would be this way from now on, even beyond the Alex? Was it possible to be disgusted by a self not yet inhabited?

At least he could still take one last stroll past the offices on the floor, stop into the kitchen for a cup of bad coffee, or hear the general incompetence spilling from the desks and telephone conversations. There had been a distinct drop in the quality of police work since the politics of crime had superseded the crimes themselves. The newest officers were hacks and morons, and their brand of policing was growing ever more contagious. Why make the effort when dismissals and convictions rested on political affiliations, even for the most despicable of rapists, murderers, and thieves? At least Hoffner was on his way out. For those with five or ten years left, the Alex had become a cesspool filled with nouveau petty posturing or, worse, old-guard yearning for invisibility until their pensions came due. Either way it was an abyss.

“Nikolai.”

The voice came from the largest office on the floor. Hoffner had long given up trying to figure out how Kriminaldirektor Edmund Prager knew when someone was walking past. There was nothing for it but to pop his head through the doorway.

“Herr Gruppenfuhrer,” Hoffner said. Prager had been given no choice but to take on the new rank.

“Have a seat, Nikolai.”

Prager was pulling two glasses and a bottle from his desk drawer. Over the last few months it appeared as if the desk had been moving ever closer to the window, as if Prager might be pla

Prager said, “I just got the call.” He poured two glasses while Hoffner sat. “So it’s finally done. I can’t say I’ll miss you.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

Prager allowed himself a half smile. “The Kripo might be filled with thugs and idiots now, but at least they do what they’re told. It’s a different sort of babysitting with them, and for another four months I can manage that.” He raised his glass and they both drank.

“And then?” said Hoffner.

“We’ve a place outside Braunschweig. My wife’s family. We’ll go there and wait for this nonsense to pass while they pay me my pension.”

Prager poured out two more and Hoffner said, “Sounds very nice.” He took his glass. “So-how many Gypsies do you have locked up out in Marzahn now? Four hundred? Five?”

Prager had the whiskey to his lips. He held it there another moment before bringing the glass down. “Just once, Nikolai, I’d like to have a drink, a chat, and then see you go. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“You still think it’s nonsense?”

Prager drank and Hoffner asked again, “How many?”

Prager thought a moment, shook his head, and said, “What difference does it make?” He set the glass on the desk. “There’s something wrong with having just one of them out at that camp, isn’t there?”

Hoffner appreciated Prager’s decency, even if it always surfaced despite itself. Hoffner took a sip. “Good for you,” he said, and tossed back the rest.

“Yah,” said Prager. “Good for me.” He thought about pouring out two more but instead put the bottle away. “The camp can house up to a thousand,” he said. “It’s around eight hundred now. Until the games are over. Then we’ll set the Gypsies free. Happy?”

“Not that you’re keeping count.”

“You know what it’s like with these people. The SS likes its papers in triplicate. I’ve no choice.” Prager lapped at the last bit of booze in his glass and then placed it back in the drawer. “You’ll stay in Berlin, of course. Can’t imagine you anywhere else.”

“I hear there’s some nice farmland outside Braunschweig.”

“My relatives know how to use an ax, Nikolai. I’ll tell them you’re coming.”

“It’s been guns and rifles for a while, now.”

“Has it?”

Prager sat back. In twenty years peering across a desk at the man, Hoffner had never seen him strike so casual a pose.

“You and I are too old to be concerned with any of this,” Prager said. “Take your pension, join a bird or card club, learn how to make a few friends, and wait to die. I think even you can manage that.”

Hoffner pushed his glass across the desk for a refill. “But not outside Braunschweig.”