A Gypsy in Berlin Read online

  “Yes, can I help you?” she chirped.

  There was no hospitality in her tone. She didn’t look interested in helping anyone. In fact, she looked tired and bitter, like so many other Berliners as the war dragged on.

  “Do you remember me?” he asked.

  “Let me guess.” She placed the eraser end of a pencil to her mouth and screwed-up her normally pinched features in feigned concentration. “You were a literature student at the university.”

  “Close enough. I am looking for a journal...a diary, actually.”

  She set the pencil on the counter. “If it is the diary of a distinguished citizen—Schiller, Goethe, Beethoven, Heinrich Heine, Otto von Bismarck—you’ll find it on the shelves. We don’t have room for the journals of common citizens.”

  “What about someone who was not famous in her lifetime, but is notable now?”

  She lowered her glasses to the tip of her nose and peered over them. “Young man, you must be more specific.”

  “Perhaps it is stored in your archives?”

  “If you are unable or unwilling to be more precise, I’m afraid I can’t help.”

  “It’s a sensitive matter, hard to speak freely about.”

  She shoved her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose. “Are you a policeman on official business?”

  “Journalist.” Which wasn’t stretching the truth too much.

  “You have a press card?”

  Thomas showed her the card. “You can call my editor,” he said, bluffing.

  She shook her head. “What exactly are you looking for?”

  He’d left his overcoat in Helga’s car and unbuttoned his blazer, trying for a more scholastic look. “I’m gathering material for a story about the close friend of a political figure. More than that, I can’t reveal. My editor wants it kept confidential until publication.”

  “Have you checked the card catalog?”

  “I’m quite sure it would not be in the stacks.”

  She sniffed. “This is a library, not a detective bureau.”

  She lifted the receiver off a telephone on the counter. “I think you had better leave.”

  A white-gloved hand forced the receiver back into its cradle. “Forget you ever saw this man or that we ever had this conversation. Do you understand?”

  “Who are you?” The librarian’s lips trembled.

  Helga produced her ID. “Don’t make me come back.”

  Tears welled-up in Frau Greber’s eyes. “I won’t say a word,” she promised.

  Putting his hat on, Thomas followed his minder out of the Staatsbibliothek and onto a side street bordering the university. “Weren’t you a bit hard on her?”

  “Old women talk. That one won’t.”

  “Someday you will grow old.”

  “Not in my line of work.”

  “A fatalist?”

  “Realist,” she countered. “I will not deceive myself, Thomas. I am a player in a dangerous game. And, as of Friday, you are too.”

  “You interrupted my work in there.”

  “You accomplished nothing. Nor would you had you taken all morning.” She smiled broadly. “Banned from the state library. Very impressive.”

  Thomas had to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “My predicament, it’s so ridiculous. A reader without a library, a journalist without a job. It’s going to be a great Christmas.”

  “You’ll think of something, Rost. Just try to control those American emotions of yours.”

  He lit a cigarette, turned up the collar of his coat. “You’re right, of course. I do have another idea.”

  “I knew it!”

  “Only this time, you need to wait for me. Try the downstairs lobby of the university building. It’ll keep you out of the cold.”

  “I’ll give you an hour, Thomas. Then I will come looking for you.”

  Chapter 13

  THE CLUTTERED OFFICE of Gerhard Brinkmann was adjacent to a large, empty classroom. Chalk dust floated off the blackboard and through the open, glass-windowed door into Professor Brinkmann’s office, mixing its scent with the distinctive smell of after-shave lotion and pipe tobacco which marked the masculine halls of academia. A longtime member of the teaching faculty, Brinkmann had been Thomas’ instructor in German literature. Now the silver-haired gentleman sat at his typewriter, clad in a red crew neck sweater and herringbone tweed jacket, the knot of his green tie half tucked under the wool sweater. A stream of smoke curled upward from the briar pipe clenched between his uneven set of teeth.

  “Herr Professor,” Thomas said from the open doorway.

  The old man looked up, recognition lighting up his aging face. “Thomas Rost, isn’t it? I never forget my best students. Please, come in.”

  The small room was lined with bookcases. Papers and books were everywhere. Wood shavings littered the hardwood floor under the pencil sharpener and wadded-up balls of white paper lay around the metal wastebasket, a testament to poor aim.

  Thomas removed his camel’s hair coat and draped it over an arm. “I need your help, Professor Brinkmann.”

  Taking the pipe from his mouth, the old man said, “What can I do for you?”

  “As a favor to someone in authority, I am trying to locate a journal.”

  The professor gazed at his former student. “An independent thinker, that’s how I remember you. Always questioning, digging deeper, never taken another man’s word as sole proof. Good attributes for a journalist. But I sense that there is much more to your hunt for this journal and, the situation in our country being what it is, you are not free to talk about it.”

  Thomas nodded. “You’ve always had a way of getting straight to the heart of a matter.” He spotted a framed collage of photographs on the wall by the window. “What of your students nowadays with the war going on?”

  “Sadly, the best have been taken from us.” Brinkmann indicated the photos. “One of them, Hans Fischer, was fluent in five languages, with several papers on German Romanticism already published. He was writing a definitive text on the subject when he was called up and sent to the Eastern Front. Last week I was notified of his death. There are many more like him.”

  Thomas looked over the professor’s hunched shoulders at the titles of books on a shelf. Many had been written by authors whose works had been consigned to the flames on Bebel Platz. Resolute courage and a certain stubbornness had been required to save such books from the flames of the Nazi censors—a belief in academic freedom and a deeply-held conviction that state censorship must be resisted. As he silently recited the writer’s names—Erich Maria Remarque, Stefan Zweig, Heinrich Mann—he grew more confident that he had made the right choice in placing his trust in this elderly teacher. But how to phrase his questions and requests without drawing the professor into the nightmare?

  Finally he said, “I am searching for the diary of a private citizen. Years ago, she was the lover of a top government official.”

  “This man would face public embarrassment if the diary were published?”

  “That is an understatement, Herr Professor.”

  “I believe you could tell me more, but have chosen not to in order to protect me. Is that correct?”

  “The subject of our discussion should not leave this office,” Thomas replied cryptically.

  “I think I understand.” Brinkmann took up his pipe again, lit it with a wooden match. “A rare book dealer might have acquired such an item.”

  “Can you recommend a local dealer?”

  “There is an antiquarian bookshop just off the Gendarmenmarkt, opposite the Schauspielhaus. You will spot the sign. Tauben’s.”

  “I’ve passed it many times.”

  “Benjamin Tauben’s shop has managed to survive even as most Jewish-owned businesses have been hounded out of existence. If Herr Tauben does not possess what you are looking for in his collection, he will surely be able to point you in the right direction. I will give him a call. That way he will expect a visit
.”

  “I can’t thank you enough.”

  Brinkmann puffed on his pipe. “Perhaps you can answer a question for me?”

  Thomas pulled on his coat. “If I can, sir.”

  “The one who has engaged your services,” he pointed the pipestem at his former student, “can you rely on that person?”

  “He’s a Nazi.”

  “As I feared.” The old professor half-rose and extended a hand. “Your mind and character will guide you, my dear Thomas.”

  Chapter 14

  WHILE HIS BODYGUARD watched from the steps of the National Theater, Thomas crossed a square named for a 17th century regiment, the Gens D’Armes. On his right stood a domed Protestant church, the German cathedral; on the left was an identically-styled house of worship, built in the 18th century for Huguenot refugees, the French cathedral. With a parting glance at the gray stone Schauspielhaus and the vigilant figure of Helga Schmitt, he walked to a block of shops and apartment buildings and entered Tauben’s.

  A brass bell tinkled overhead as he closed the glass door. The ground floor was filled with antique furniture and fine china. Colorful glass lampshades and bronze statuettes competed for space with cupboards, bureaus, enameled boxes and silverware. Two shelves ran the length of the far wall, with porcelain cups, saucers, dishes and teapots arranged according to their design and place of manufacture. Dresden china occupied the upper shelf, products of the Berlin area were set lower.

  “You are not interested in Meissen porcelain?” The question came from a short, balding man standing on the last step of a wooden staircase. He wore metal-framed glasses and a loose-fitting gray wool suit.

  “You must be the proprietor.”

  “Benjamin Tauben, at your service.”

  “I believe Professor Brinkmann notified you?”

  “Yes, Herr Rost. The good doctor is one of my oldest customers, mostly curios and knickknacks for his wife, an invalid.”

  “He told you what I am after?”

  “Only in the vaguest terms.”

  Thomas swept an arm around the store. “I don’t see any rare books or manuscripts.”

  “On the floor above. Come with me, please.” The elderly businessman turned slowly, climbed the steps and entered the first room on the right.

  When Thomas caught up, he stood outside in the short corridor and inspected the bookroom, evidently formed by knocking out the wall of the next room to create a more spacious depository. Even so, books were piled up from the floor almost to the ceiling in the spaces between the bookshelves that lined the room. On his left, manuscripts lay on a wide counter in front of glassed-in bookcase that ran the length of that side of the room. Only the narrow aisles were free of books and papers. Besides natural light from a single window opposite the door, the owner had switched on a pair of overhead lamps.

  Thomas entered the room. “A wonderland of literary and scholarly works.”

  “Take your time, Herr Rost. When you are ready, perhaps I can assist in your search.”

  Thomas went to the window, pulled aside the thin curtain and peered up the street. No sign of Helga, he noted, but that didn’t mean much. She would be close by. He crossed the room again and opened the glass doors of the bookcase. “Jack London’s Call of the Wild, Zola’s Nana, Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, the works of banned authors. Where did you get them?”

  “Those and more, rescued from the pyre in Bebel Platz, 1933—pulled from the flames, hidden under coats and smuggled to safety.”

  Thomas shifted his gaze from the books to a ragged coat hanging off a hook by the door, a yellow Star of David sewn on the front. Then his eyes fell to a typewriter on the floor. He pointed to the machine. “I thought Jews weren’t allowed to own one.”

  “Nor are we permitted to own a business,” the Jew said quietly.

  “Isn’t this your store?”

  “I manage it. A good German bought it a few years ago. He keeps me on, I don’t know why. In return I help him turn a fair profit.”

  “Not a fair life for you.”

  The old man sighed. “It isn’t so bad. Others have a much more difficult time of it. In fact, since October matters have become especially precarious for my kinsmen in Berlin. The Gauleiter, Dr. Goebbels, seems determined to clear the capital of Jews. I fear that God had abandoned us.”

  Thomas thought of Pastor Bonhoeffer and the opposition to the Nazis. He ran a fingertip along the spines of banned books. “Tell me about your customers. Who can afford to shop here?”

  “Mostly government officials, their wives and those making money in war-related industries.” Tauben offered a sad smile. “New money chasing old culture.”

  “Sometimes forbidden culture?”

  “That, too.”

  “So who is buying from this room?”

  “Few even know it exists. Most Nazis, I have found, are not great readers.”

  “How many diaries are in your collection?”

  The old man pulled a leather bound book off a lower shelf. “The journal of Theodor Fontane, the author of Effi Briest. Even though he died in 1898, some people still read his novels.”

  “I am looking for the diary of Anka Stahlherm, an ex-girlfriend of the Propaganda Minister.” It was a lie, and an awkward one at that, considering Goebbel’s role in book burnings.

  Tauben eyed Thomas more carefully. “Presumably the girl lost it. It would not have been published.”

  “Dr. Goebbels is very anxious to gain possession of the diary.”

  “From the rumors that surface about his wife, Magda, I imagine he would like it under his control.”

  “Would anyone buy such a document?”

  “Now we get to the point of your visit. I will not insult you by assuming that you are an errand boy for Dr. Goebbels. I suspect that you are under some kind of pressure to obtain the girl’s diary, and for that you have my sympathy.”

  Thomas flinched under the shopkeeper’s unyielding gaze. “Forgive me, Herr Tauben. I misled you in a clumsy attempt to limit the damage of my inquiries.”

  “You can risk telling me.”

  “It is something quite sinister, I must warn you.”

  “That is the nature of the world a Jew lives in.”

  “People have been hurt, some have died because of this diary.”

  “I am a survivor,” Tauben assured. “In order to help you, I need the truth.”

  Thomas took a deep breath. “All right, I have until Christmas Day to find the diary of Geli Raubal.”

  The bookseller’s face turned ashen. “And you do this for Dr. Goebbels?”

  “For another in the Party elite. He has his reasons. As for me, I want to get my father out of prison.”

  Tauben paced from the door to the window and back. He stopped and said, “Peter Rost used to come here and browse the shelves. Did you know that?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You are involved with very nasty people. I can see nothing good coming from this search. But for the son of Thomas Mann’s editor, I will do what I can.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The owner of this store, Wilhelm Neurath, is one of Germany’s most discerning collectors. He lives a quiet life on Oranienburgerstrasse, close to Neue Synagogue—what’s left of it after Kristallnacht.”

  “Will you give me a letter of introduction?”

  “I suppose so. Herr Neurath has a country home west of Potsdam, but he was here yesterday. That means he is spending the holidays in the city.”

  “Any chance he might have the diary?”

  “He specializes in 19th century manuscripts and first editions, so probably not. He has not expressed any interest in politics to me. But he is personally acquainted with most of Germany’s collectors of private literary estates and individual volumes.”

  Suddenly there was the sharp sound of plate glass shattering downstairs, followed by a duller crack, a glass container hitting the floor and then a bright flash of light. Black smoke rose quickly on the superhe
ated air and, as Thomas stuck his head out into the hall, smoke curled darkly up the stairs. On the ground floor, flames were spreading fast, feeding on the old wood.

  “Is there another way out?” Thomas asked.

  “Kristallnacht,” Tauben said, “it’s happening again.”

  “Think, Herr Tauben,” Thomas said loudly. “Is there a fire escape at the back of the store?”

  Before Tauben could answer, a brick smashed through the window pane, followed by another burning bottle that broke on the floor and spread gelatinous gasoline over books and papers and the proprietor’s pants and coat. Thomas reached for the shopkeeper and pulled him down in the corridor and beat out the flames with his bare hands. The air quickly became too hot to breathe, the smoke too thick to see through as the fire fed off of old manuscripts—many of the bound volumes on the shelves facing immolation for the second time.

  As Thomas’ nostrils filled with noxious smoke, he said, “Molotov cocktails. We’ve got to get out.”

  The old man had collapsed on the floor. Gritting his teeth, Thomas bent down and hoisted Tauben over his right shoulder in a fireman’s carry and carefully descended the stairs. His eyes stung from the smoke and fine ash. His throat was beginning to ache. At the bottom of the stairwell, he stumbled on the last step, caught himself and turned toward the front door. It was blocked by blazing furniture.

  Even the wood floor was burning, flames erupting like streams of lava. Not familiar with the store’s layout, he couldn’t trust to finding an unlocked back door, so he crouched down, shifted Tauben’s weight on his shoulder and made for the front through the curtain of fire. Ten feet from the door he bumped into a grandfather clock, knocking it over and blocking his path. As he tried to step over it, he tripped and went down hard, losing his hold on the shopkeeper.

  A hand grabbed his right arm, tugged him up and pulled him outside onto the sidewalk. “What would you do without me?” she said, breathing hard.