The Sleepwalkers Read Free Page A

to take over? The things they promise! How can one make rational choices in an atmosphere like this, never knowing what tomorrow will bring?”
    Willi respected his father-in-law greatly, but inside him an anger exploded that made him feel like grabbing the man’s lapels and shaking sense into him. Pull out? What was he talking about? Had fear overcome all logic? They still had a constitution, yes?An army. Laws. Had Max so little faith in Germany, in his fellow Germans, that he thought they’d sell themselves out to a gang of criminals? Had men like Willi fought and bled and died in the Great War, won an Iron Cross for bravery behind French lines, so that men like Max had to pack up and run?

Two
    Alexanderplatz—or the Alex—was the great traffic hub of central Berlin, a sprawling plaza crisscrossed by streetcar lines, swarming with motor vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians, and framed by two of the city’s largest temples of mass consumption: the Wertheim and Tietz department stores. Beneath all this was the new U-Bahn station, a juncture of several of Berlin’s busiest subway lines, and overhead the S-Bahn station, which sent elevated trains hurtling to every far corner of the metropolis. The Alex was also home to the vast, old Police Presidium building, occupying one full corner on the southeastern side of the square, a soot-covered behemoth built in the 1880s, half a dozen stories tall with several churchlike cupolas. Coat and hat already in hand, Willi entered Entrance Six at precisely 8 a.m.
    As an Inspektor-Detektiv he was head of one of numerous units in the Homicide Commission, with three Detektivs and astaff of fifteen working under him. As the only Jew in the commission, in the entire building practically, he felt it imperative to maintain an air of authoritarian distance with them all, except, that is, for his secretary, Ruta, and his junior apprentice, Gunther—both of whom he treated more like family than underlings.
    “What news, Ruta?” he asked the sexy grandma of six, who despite the new longer skirts managed to show most of her leg. Years ago, she claimed, she’d been a Tiller Girl at the Wintergarten.
    “All quiet on the western front, boss,” she replied, grinding away at her little wooden coffee mill. Every morning she made the most delicious fresh brew on the small gas stove Inspektor-Detektivs received. When she was in a good mood, they got hot
Brötchen,
too, from the Café Rippa downstairs. “No casualties since Miss Mermaid.”
    Somehow, she always knew about things practically before they happened.
    “Oh, and Pathology called. Dr. Hoffnung wants you to drop by as soon as you can.”
    “Excellent. Gunther in?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Send him down to Hoffnung’s when he comes.”
    The pathologist, smoking a pipe in his white smock, was staring out a window when Willi arrived. The moment Hoffnung turned around, Willi was struck by the dark disquiet in his eyes.
    “It’s an extraordinary thing I’ve seen.” He motioned Willi to sit. “Had you told me about it the day before, I wouldn’t have believed it possible. But there it is.” Hoffnung relit his pipe.
    Willi saw the pathologist’s hand was trembling. Really trembling.
    “Let’s begin with the externals.” The smoke seemed to relax Hoffnung. “That gray smock the girl was wearing is standard issue at Prussian state mental asylums. Numerous scratches on the scalp indicate her head had indeed been clean-shaven, a practice at several of those institutions. Other than that, there wereneither major internal nor external injuries. She was very much alive when she went into that water. And didn’t drown. Managed to keep herself afloat fifteen or twenty minutes before she succumbed to hypothermia. Six, maybe seven hours before we pulled her out. I’d say she was one very determined young lady. Sure as hell wanted to live.”
    “Those legs, Doctor—”
    “Well, as I said. I’d never have believed such a thing possible. In