Alone in Berlin (Penguin Modern Classics)

23

The Interrogation

When the deputy inspector – in spite of his firm conviction that Enno Kluge was not the author nor the distributor of the postcards – when, even so, he intimated to Inspector Escherich that Kluge was probably the distributor of these writings, he did so because a wise inferior should never try to second-guess his superior. Against Kluge, there was a firm charge from the doctor’s receptionist, Fräulein Kiesow, and whether this had substance or not, that was something the inspector could determine for himself.

If it had substance, then the deputy was a capable man, assured of the future benevolence of the inspector. If it remained unsubstantiated, then it merely showed that the inspector was wiser than the deputy, and the determination of this margin of wisdom on the part of the superior can be more useful to the inferior than any bravura of his own.

‘Well?’ asked the long, grey Escherich, striding into the station. ‘Well, Schröder? Where have you put your captive?’

‘In the left-hand corner cell at the back, Inspector.’

‘Has the Hobgoblin confessed?’

‘Who? Hobgoblin? Oh, I see, I get it! No, Inspector, but of course immediately after our conversation I had him booked.’

‘Good!’ Escherich praised him. ‘And what does he know about the cards?’

‘I did,’ the deputy inspector said cautiously, ‘I did ask him to read the card aloud. Just the beginning of it, really.’

‘Impression?’

‘I don’t want to presume, Inspector,’ said the deputy.

‘Don’t be shy, Schröder! Impression?’

‘Well, to put it no higher, I don’t think it’s very likely that he’s the author of the card.’

‘Why not?’

‘Isn’t the brightest. Also, incredibly timid.’

Inspector Escherich stroked his sandy moustache unhappily. ‘Not the brightest – incredibly timid,’ he repeated to himself. ‘Well, my Hobgoblin is pretty bright, and certainly not timid. Then what makes you think he is the right man? Report!’

Assistant Schröder did so. He emphasized the evidence of the receptionist, and Enno’s attempted flight. ‘I had no choice, Inspector. Following the recent orders, I had to detain him.’

‘Right, Schröder. Absolutely right. Wouldn’t have done it differently myself.’

Escherich felt somewhat re-encouraged by this report. It sounded a little better than ‘not the brightest’ and ‘incredibly timid’. Perhaps a distributor of the cards, even though the inspector thus far had worked on the assumption that the Hobgoblin acted alone.

‘Did you go through his papers?’

‘They’re here. In general they confirm what he told us. I got the impression, Inspector, that he’s a bit of shirker, afraid of being packed off to the front, doesn’t feel like working, likes the horses, too – I found a whole sheaf of racing papers and calculations on him. And then some pretty plainspoken letters by shared women. One of those types, Inspector. But pushing fifty.’

‘Very good, very good,’ said the inspector, but really it was pretty lousy. Neither the author nor any possible distributor of the cards would have much to do with women. He was pretty certain of that. His hopes began to fade again. But then Escherich thought of his superior, Obergruppenführer Prall, and his senior superiors all the way up to Himmler. They would make life pretty hellish for him if he didn’t have some sort of lead. Here was a lead, or at least a strong accusation and suspicious conduct. You could follow such a lead, even if in your heart of hearts you didn’t think it was the right one. No one suffered. What did a good-for-nothing like that matter anyway!

Escherich stood up. ‘I’m going down to the cells, Schröder. Give me the postcard, and wait for me here.’

The inspector walked on tiptoe, and gripped the keys in his hand so that they wouldn’t rattle. Very gently he slid open the spyhole and looked into the cell.

The arrested man was sitting on a stool. He had his head propped in his hands, and his eyes directed at the door. It looked for all the world as though the man was staring into the lurking eye of the inspector. But Kluge’s facial expression indicated that he saw nothing. The man did not flinch when the cover was pushed aside, and his face had nothing taut about it, as was usually the case with someone who feels he is being observed.

He was just staring into space, not thinking, merely drifting, and full of gloomy presentiments.

The inspector at his peephole now knew for a certainty: this was neither the Hobgoblin himself nor any sort of accomplice. He was just a plain and simple mistake – whatever the evidence against him, however suspicious his behaviour.

But then Escherich remembered his superiors. He chewed his moustache, and thought about how long he could drag out this thing, till it was established that he had the wrong man. He mustn’t make a fool of himself.

Abruptly he unlocked the cell and strode in. The prisoner had jumped at the sound of the key turning in the lock, first staring in confusion at the visitor, then making an attempt to get up.

But Escherich pressed him down on the stool.

‘Don’t get up, Herr Kluge, don’t get up. It takes a lot of effort, and at our age we have to be sensible.’

He laughed, and Kluge made an effort to look amused too, out of pure politeness, and he achieved a miserable-looking smile.

The inspector folded down the bed from the wall and sat down. ‘Well, Herr Kluge,’ he said, and looked alertly at the pale face with the weak chin, the strangely thick-lipped mouth, and the pale eyes that were continually blinking. ‘Well, Herr Kluge, and now tell me what’s on your chest. I’m Inspector Escherich of the Gestapo.’ He carried on talking gently, even as he saw Kluge shrink back in terror at the word. ‘There’s no need to be afraid. We don’t eat babies. And you’re just a baby yourself, I can see that…’

At the ghost of sympathy conveyed by those words, Kluge’s eyes immediately filled with tears, his face quivered, and his jaw muscles worked.

‘Come, come!’ said Escherich, patting the little man’s hand. ‘It won’t be so bad as all that. Or – is it?’

‘I’m lost!’ cried Enno Kluge in despair. ‘I’ve had it! I don’t have a medical note, and I have to go to work. And now I’m sitting here, and they’ll put me in a concentration camp, and I’ll go to the wall, I won’t last a fortnight!’

‘Come, come!’ said the inspector again, soothingly. ‘The thing with your factory, that can be sorted out. If we arrest someone, and it turns out that he’s a law-abiding individual, then we take the trouble to see he doesn’t suffer any adverse consequences. You’re a law-abiding individual, aren’t you – Herr Kluge?’

Once again, Kluge’s jaw worked, and then he decided to make a partial confession to this sympathetic gentleman. ‘They say I don’t work hard enough.’

‘Well, and what’s your view, Herr Kluge? Do you work hard enough?’

Once again, Kluge thought. ‘I get ill such a lot,’ he said pathetically. ‘But they just say this is no time for being ill.’

‘You’re not always ill, are you? Well, and when you’re not ill and you work – do you work enough then? What’s your view of that, Herr Kluge?’

Again Kluge made a decision. ‘Oh God, Inspector,’ he wailed, ‘so many women want a piece of me!’

It sounded equally miserable and vain.

The inspector tutted amiably and shook his head, as though this were really quite a problem.

‘That’s not good, Herr Kluge,’ he finally said. ‘At our time of life we don’t like to say no, do we?’

Kluge merely looked at him with a watery smile, happy to have met with a little understanding from this gentleman.

‘Well now,’ said the Inspector, ‘and how are you off for money?’

‘I have a flutter now and again,’ Kluge admitted. ‘Not often and never very much. Five marks tops, and then only if I’ve got a certainty, I swear, Inspector!’

‘And how do you pay for those avocations of yours, Herr Kluge, the women and the horses? If you don’t work much?’

‘But the women pay me, Inspector!’ said Kluge, almost a little offended at so much incomprehension. He smiled conceitedly. ‘Because I’m so dependable!’ he added.

It was at that moment that Inspector Escherich finally laid to rest the notion that Enno Kluge had anything to do with the composition or distribution of the postcards. This Kluge was just not up to something like that; he didn’t have any of the qualifications. But Escherich still had to interrogate him, because he had to work up a statement about this interrogation, a statement for his superiors, to keep them quiet, a statement that kept Kluge under continued suspicion and justify further steps against him…

So he pulled the card from his pocket, laid it in front of Kluge, and said casually, ‘Do you know this postcard, Herr Kluge?’

‘Yes,’ said Enno Kluge right away, before abruptly correcting himself: ‘I mean, no. I was given it to read aloud earlier, just the beginning. That’s all I know of the card. God’s holy truth, Inspector!’

‘Well,’ Escherich said, a little doubtfully, ‘Herr Kluge, if we understand each other on such a major question as your work and the concentration camp, and since I will go personally to your bosses and straighten things out for you, surely we’ll be able to come to terms on such a trifle as your card!’

‘I’ve got nothing to do with it, nothing at all, Inspector!’

‘I don’t, Herr Kluge,’ said the inspector, unmoved by these protestations, ‘I don’t go as far as my colleague, who takes you for the author of the card and is inclined to drag you in front of the People’s Court and you know what then: Off with your head, Herr Kluge!’

The little man shuddered convulsively, and his face turned ashen.

‘No,’ said the inspector soothingly, and once again laid his hand on the other man’s. ‘No, I don’t take you for the author of the card. But it’s a fact that the card was lying in the corridor, and you did go out there suspiciously often, and then there’s your panic, and your attempt to run away. And there are good witnesses for all of this – no, Herr Kluge, it’s better you tell me the truth. I don’t want you to plunge yourself into destruction!’

‘The card must have been posted from outside, Herr Inspector. I’ve got nothing to do with it, God’s holy truth, Herr Inspector!’

‘From where it was lying, it can’t have been posted from outside. And five minutes earlier there was nothing there, the doctor’s receptionist will testify. During that time, you went to the toilet. Or do you want to claim there was someone else in the toilet, or outside the waiting room?’

‘No, I don’t think so, Inspector. No, I’m sure there wasn’t. If it’s a matter of five minutes, there can’t have been. I wanted to go out for a whole while, and that’s why I kept an eye open to see if there was anyone in the toilet.’

‘Well, then!’ said the inspector, apparently highly satisfied, ‘you said it yourself: only you could possibly have laid the card on the floor!’

Kluge stared at him again with terrified-looking eyes.

‘So since you’ve admitted that…’

‘I haven’t admitted anything, nothing! All I said was that no one went to the toilet during the five minutes before I did!’

Kluge was almost shouting.

‘Now come, come!’ said the inspector, shaking his head disapprovingly. ‘You don’t want to retract a confession you’ve only just made – you’re far too sensible a man for that sort of behaviour. I would have to note the retraction in my report as well, Herr Kluge, and that sort of thing doesn’t make a good impression.’

Kluge stared at him in despair. ‘I didn’t confess to anything…’ he whispered in a dead voice.

‘We’ll come to an agreement about that as well,’ said Escherich calmly. ‘Now why don’t you begin by telling me who gave you the card to drop? Was it a good friend, or an acquaintance, or someone who approached you on the street and offered you a few marks?’

‘None of it! None of it!’ screamed Kluge. ‘I never touched the card, I never set eyes on it before your colleague gave it to me!’

‘But Herr Kluge! You just admitted you dropped the card on the floor…’

‘I didn’t! I never said anything like that!’

‘No,’ said Escherich, stroking his moustache and wiping away his smile. He was already enjoying the experience of getting this cowardly, whimpering dog to dance. It would turn out to be quite a nice statement with strong suspicion – for his superiors. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You didn’t say it in so many words. What you said was that you were the only one who could have put the card down in that place, and that no one but you was there – which seems to me to come to the same thing.’

Enno stared at him with huge eyes. Then, suddenly mutinous, he said: ‘I didn’t say that either. Other people could have gone to that toilet too, only not from the waiting room.’

He sat down; in his excitement at the false accusations he had jumped to his feet.

‘But I’m not saying any more now. I want a lawyer. And I’m not signing any statement.’

‘Come, come,’ said Escherich. ‘Did I ask you to sign a statement, Herr Kluge? Did I even take a note of anything you’ve said? We’re just sitting here like a couple of old friends, and the things we chat about needn’t concern anyone.’

He stood up, and threw the cell door wide open.

‘You see, no one’s listening in the corridor, either. And there you are making such a fuss about a ridiculous postcard. Do you think I care about the postcard? The man who wrote it is obviously a complete imbecile. But with the doctor’s receptionist and my colleague making such a fuss, it’s no more than my duty to look a little deeper! Don’t be a fool, Herr Kluge, just tell me: A gentleman gave it to me on the Frankfurter Allee, he wanted to make trouble for the doctor, he said. And he paid me ten marks. You had a new ten-mark note in your pocket when we took you in; I’ve seen it. You see, if you tell me that now, then you’re my man. Then you don’t make any trouble for me, and I can knock off and go home.’

‘And me? Where do I go? Chokey! And then off to be beheaded! No, thank you, Inspector, I’m never ever going to confess to that for you!’

‘You ask me where you go, Herr Kluge, when I go home? You go home too, haven’t you understood? You’re free either way, I’m letting you go…’

‘Is that the truth, Inspector? I’m free to go now, without a confession, without a statement?’

‘But of course you are, Herr Kluge, you can leave right now if you like. There’s just one thing I’d like you to think about before you go…’

And with one finger, he tapped Kluge – who had leaped to his feet again and had turned toward the door – on his shoulder.

‘Listen. I’m going to sort out the thing in the factory for you, out of the kindness of my heart. I’ve promised you that, and I like to keep my promises. But now think about me for a minute, please, Herr Kluge. Think of all the trouble I stand to get from my colleague if I let you go. He’ll go on about me to my bosses, and I can get into hot water over you. I think it would be decent of you, Herr Kluge, if you would put your name to the story of the man on the Frankfurter Allee. Where’s the risk in it for you? It’s not as though we can find the man anyway, so how about it, Herr Kluge?’

Enno Kluge had never been a great one for resisting temptation. He stood there doubtfully. Freedom beckoned, and the factory would be sorted too, if he managed not to antagonize this man. He was terrified of antagonizing this nice inspector. Then that policeman would take over the case again, and he might pursue the matter to the point where one day he would force Enno to confess to the break-in at the Rosenthals’. And then Enno Kluge would be lost, because the SS man Persicke…

He really could do the inspector such a favour – what would it cost him? It was a stupid card, something political, and he’d never got involved in any of that, didn’t know the first thing about it. And the man on the Frankfurter Allee would never be caught, simply because he didn’t exist. Yes, he would help the inspector out, and sign his name.

But then his timidity, his inborn caution, warned him again. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and then when I’ve signed, you won’t let me go after all.’

‘Oh, come, come!’ said Inspector Escherich, and saw his game as good as won. ‘Because of a stupid card like that, and when you’re doing me a good turn? Herr Kluge, I give you my word of honour both as detective inspector and as a human being: As soon as you’ve signed the statement, you’re free.’

‘And if I don’t sign?’

‘Why, then, you’re free too!’

Enno Kluge decided. ‘All right, Herr Inspector, I’ll sign, just so that you don’t have any unpleasantnesses, and to do you a favour. But you won’t forget the bit with my factory?’

‘I’ll see to it today, Herr Kluge. This very day! I suggest you check in there tomorrow – and go easy on the disability! If you take the occasional day off, say one a week, none of the people I’m going to speak to will bat an eyelid over it. Will that suit you, Herr Kluge?’

‘Down to the ground! I’m very grateful to you, Inspector!’

This exchange had seen them down the corridor of the cell block, back to the room where Deputy Inspector Schröder was sitting, curious to learn how the questioning had gone, but on the whole already somewhat reconciled to the probable outcome. He jumped to his feet as the two men walked in.

‘Well, Schröder,’ said the Inspector, smiling, and inclining his head at Kluge, who stood beside him small and timid, because the policeman looked so terrifying. ‘Here’s our friend back again. He’s just admitted to me that he left the card in the doctor’s corridor, having been given it by a gentleman on the Frankfurter Allee…’

A sound like a groan broke from the chest of the deputy inspector. ‘My God!’ he finally said. ‘But he couldn’t…’

‘And now,’ the inspector continued serenely, ‘and now we’re going to draw up a little statement together, and after that Herr Kluge will go home. Is that right, Herr Kluge, or is that right?’

‘Yes,’ replied Kluge, but very softly, because the presence of the policeman filled him with fresh fears and anxieties.

The deputy inspector meanwhile stood there feeling dumbfounded. Kluge hadn’t left the card, never, not possibly, that was beyond a doubt for him. And yet here he was prepared to put his name to it.

What a fox Escherich was! How on earth did he do it? Schröder admitted – not without a twinge of envy – that Escherich was streets ahead of him. And then, following the confession, to let the fellow go! It passed comprehension, he couldn’t understand the game. Well, however clever you thought you were, there were always some people who were cleverer.

‘Listen, Schröder,’ said Escherich, having sufficiently enjoyed the bafflement of his colleague. ‘Do you feel like going on an errand for me to headquarters?’

‘At your orders, Inspector!’

‘You remember I’ve got this case going on there – what was it called again – oh yes, the Hobgoblin case. You do remember?’

Their eyes met and understood each other.

‘Well, I’d like you to go to headquarters for me, and tell a Herr Linke – oh, do sit down, Herr Kluge, I just have something to arrange with my colleague here.’

He walked with the deputy inspector to the door. He whispered: ‘I want you to pick up a couple of men there. They’re to come here right away, good, experienced shadowers. I want Kluge followed from the moment he leaves the station. Reports on all his movements at two- or three-hour intervals, phoned through to me at the Gestapo. Code word: Hobgoblin. Give both men a sight of Kluge; I want them to take it in turns. And you come back in here when you’ve got the men ready. Then I’ll let him go.’

‘Understood, Inspector. Heil Hitler!’

The door banged, the deputy was gone. The inspector now sat next to Enno Kluge and said: ‘Well, that’s got rid of him! I take it you’re not overly fond of him, Herr Kluge?’

‘Not as much as you are, Inspector!’

‘Did you see the face he made when I told him I was letting you go? He was pretty hacked off! That’s why I sent him away, I didn’t want him to be here for our little statement. He would have kept butting in. I won’t even have a secretary come in – I’d rather write it out myself. It’s just something between the two of us, so that I’m slightly covered with my bosses for letting you go.’

And after he’d quieted down the frightened little so-and-so, he picked up a pen and began to write. Sometimes he repeated what he was writing loudly and clearly (if indeed he was writing what he was saying, which was by no means a given with such a wily detective as Escherich), and sometimes he just muttered under his breath. Kluge couldn’t make out what he was saying then.

All he saw was that it wasn’t just a couple of lines: this statement took up almost four full pages of foolscap. But that didn’t interest him all that much just then – all he was interested in was whether they would indeed spring him right away. He looked toward the door. On a sudden impulse, he got up, walked over, and opened it slightly…

‘Kluge!’ came a call behind him, though not a peremptory one. ‘Oh please, Herr Kluge!’

‘Yes?’ he asked, and looked back. ‘May I not go then?’ He smiled fearfully.

The inspector, pen in hand, smiled at him. ‘Are you having second thoughts about our little deal, Herr Kluge? Your firm promise? All right then, I’ve wasted my time.’ He slammed down the pen. ‘Then get lost, Kluge – I see you’re no man of your word. Go along, I see you won’t sign! I’ll get by…’

And in this way, the inspector ensured that Enno Kluge really did sign the statement. Yes, Kluge didn’t even ask to have it read back to him. He signed it in complete ignorance of its contents.

‘Now may I go, Inspector?’

‘Of course. Thank you for your help, Herr Kluge, you did very well. Goodbye. Or perhaps better not, given the circumstances. Ach, one more moment, if you please, Herr Kluge…’

‘Can I not go yet?’

Kluge’s face was starting to tremble again.

‘But of course you can! Are you back to not trusting me again? You are a suspicious character! I just thought, wouldn’t you like to take your papers and your money away with you? There, you see! Let’s make sure there’s nothing missing, Herr Kluge…’

And they started to compare: employment book, army conduct book, birth certificate, marriage licence…

‘Why do you carry all those papers everywhere with you, if I might ask, Herr Kluge? Imagine if you mislaid them somewhere!’

…Police registration, four wage-slips…

‘You don’t make very much, do you, Herr Kluge! Oh, I remember, you’ve only been working three or four days a week, you little shirker, you!’

…Three letters…

‘No, don’t worry, I’m not interested in them!’

…Thirty-seven Reichsmarks in notes, and sixty-five Reichs-pfennigs in coins…

‘Ah, there’s the new ten-mark note you got from the gentleman. I’d better keep that back for the files. But, hang on, I don’t want you to lose out, so here’s ten marks out of my own pocket to replace them…’

The inspector kept this up until Deputy Inspector Schröder came in again. ‘I’ve carried out your instructions, Inspector. And Inspector Linke says he’d like a word with you on the Hobgoblin case.’

‘Fine. Fine. Thanks again. Well, we’re all done here. Goodbye then, Herr Kluge. Schröder, please show Herr Kluge out. Herr Schröder will accompany you out. Goodbye now, Herr Kluge. I won’t forget about the factory. Don’t worry about anything! Heil Hitler!’

‘Well then, Herr Kluge, no hard feelings,’ Schröder said on Frankfurter Allee, and they shook hands. ‘You know, a job’s a job, and sometimes things can get a bit rough. But remember I asked them to remove the handcuffs from you right away. And no ill-effects from where the sergeant hit you, eh?’

‘No, none at all. I understand… I’m sorry to have put you to so much trouble, Inspector.’

‘That’s all right. Heil Hitler, Herr Kluge!’

‘Heil Hitler, Inspector!’

And weedy little Enno Kluge trotted off. He jogged at a fast clip through the crowds on Frankfurter Allee, and Deputy Inspector Schröder watched him go. He checked to see that both of the men he had set on his tail were there, and then he nodded and walked back into the station.