volker kutscher: goldstein. gereon raths dritter · pdf filesample translation volker...

Sample translation Volker Kutscher: Goldstein. Gereon Raths dritter Fall (“Goldstein. Gereon Rath´s Third Case”) Novel Translated from the German by Christine Lo

Publication: September 2010 (Hardcover) Hardcover 570 pages ISBN: 978-3-462-04238-2

Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH & Co. KG Iris Brand [email protected] Aleksandra Erakovic [email protected]

Sample translation from „Goldstein“ by Volker Kutscher __________________________________________________________________________________

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Sample translation pp. 7 – 33

First Part: Crime. Saturday , 27th June to Saturday 04th July 1931

Remota itaque iustitia quid sunt regna nisi magna latrocinia? Quia et latrocinia quid sunt nisi parva regna? Augustinus, De Civitate Dei, Liber IV

Chapter 1

The smell of wood and glue and fresh paint hung in the air. She was alone in the

darkness and the silence. All she could hear was her own breath and the quiet ticking

of the watch in her jacket pocket. The man seemed to have gone away again, but

she decided to wait for a bit. She stretched to get the blood flowing in her arms and

legs. At least there were no hangers on the rail. There was a little light coming

through the gap in the doors. She took the watch out of her jacket. Just past nine.

Surely the nightwatchman would be finishing his rounds soon, even upstairs on the

sixth floor.

The grinding of the lift was her answer, clanking so loud in the darkness that

she started at the sound. He had finished his rounds. He was on his way down again,

and in the next few hours all he would do was check the retractable security grilles

over the doors and the store windows, to make sure that everything was locked up

and that no one had tried to break in.

Alex opened the wardrobe gingerly, oh so carefully, and peeped through the

widening gap. Better safe than sorry, as Benny always said. The advertisement

hoardings on Tauentzien Strasse cast so much multi-coloured light through the

window that there was no need to switch on her torch. She could make out

everything in the luxurious bedroom set up here: a bed so wide that an entire family

could have slept in it, carpet so soft that her feet sank into it. She thought about the


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scratchy coir runner at the foot of the bed that she had shared with Karl when she still

lived with her parents; four people living in far too little square footage and with far

too little daylight. She wondered what had happened to Karl. She did not even know

if the cops had looked for him after Beckmann’s death. She did not miss her family,

but she would have liked to see her little brother again.

Alex turned around; she had spotted a movement somewhere on the edge of

her field of vision. She made out the large mirror on the dressing table and the

eighteen-year-old girl in it with the defiant look on her face, wearing baggy trousers,

with her hair stuffed into a loosely woven linen cap.

She grinned lopsidedly at her reflection. At the end of the expensively

wallpapered plywood panel masquerading as a bedroom wall, Alex looked around

once more. She needn’t have, for the night-watchman would only make his next

round through the store early in the morning, towards the end of his shift. Kalli had

told her that. There wasn’t a soul around. For the next couple of hours, everything

here was hers and Benny’s. She liked that feeling.

Alex had no trouble finding her way. The restless light from outside, flickering

in constantly changing colours, was more than enough for her. Earlier on, when it

was bright as daylight in here and full of people, she had imprinted all the most

important details on her mind. The doors to the southern stairwell were over there

and there on the left, past the display of curtain patterns, were the escalators.

All was quiet. The sound of traffic was muffled and low; it seemed almost

unreal to her, an indistinct sound from another world that had nothing to do with this

enchanted realm inside. She stepped into the empty curtain department, which also

seemed like a fairytale castle, with long curtains of satin, tulle and silk hanging from

floor to ceiling. As a little girl, she had stood here and marvelled at all this, her hand

held by her mother, who, as the little Alexandra would soon notice, never came here

to buy things, but only ever to look, to wonder and to dream. Take a good look at all


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this, she had said to Alex. Poor proles like us can never afford it. But they can’t stop

us from looking.

There had never been enough money for buying things in the rich West, not

even in the better times, when Dad still had a job and Mum still worked as a cleaning

lady. They had hardly ever left their Boxhagen neighbourhood in the first place, let

alone to go to the West. To her father, the shopping boulevards of Ku’damm and

Tauentzien Strasse and the KaDeWe department store were all symbols of a

wasteful capitalism, and the West was a sink of iniquity that he shied away from like

the devil from holy water. If Mum had not insisted, the stubborn old man would not

even have let himself be talked into the handful of visits to the zoo in the summer.

But even Emil Reinhold agreed that the children of the proletariat could not be

deprived of the wonders of nature. Alex had never had eyes for the animals cowering

behind the bars in the zoo. By the time she got to the polar bears, she was already

thinking about the way home, for the entire Reinhold family often walked down

Tauentzien Strasse before getting on the U-Bahn in Wittenbergplatz to go back to the

East. As soon as the first shop window appeared, Emil Reinhold would start on the

same old lecture about the growth of capitalism, while Alex and her mother’s gazes

and thoughts were already absorbed by the goods on display. Alex had been drawn

to the KaDeWe windows as if by magic even then. In Mum’s eyes, too, you could see

long-faded dreams shine again; the dream of a better life, for example, a life that the

dictatorship of the proletariat would never offer her. Dad had never noticed. Or he

hadn’t wanted to notice. He had droned on and on, and his sons had paid attention to

him, especially Karl, who always took everything so seriously. Karl: the prince of the

proletariat, the upright Communist. And now? Now he was in hiding from the cops,

just like his little sister the thief.

Alex had almost reached the escalators when a sound brought her back to

the present: a hard clack that was much closer and more distinct that the cotton-wool

wrapped sound of traffic. Lightning quick, she dropped to a squat behind two


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enormous bales of material and listened: something was knocking against the glass;

there was a clattering and scratching against one of the windows. She tried to identify

the noises. A fluttering, then a cooing. When she ventured out from her hiding place,

she saw, silhouetted against the multi-coloured shimmer of the glass, two pigeons

that had made themselves comfortable on the windowsill outside.

Stupid! Alex took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. First the mirror, now

this! Benny would have killed himself laughing if he’d seen her like this. Since when

had she been such a scaredy-cat? Since she’d realised that her screwed-up life was

worth more to her than she wanted to admit?

The pigeons thrust themselves back into the night with noisy flaps of their

wings and Alex started walking again. She felt safer with every step; the nerves that

had accumulated over the hours she had held out in the wardrobe fused into a core

of alertness deep within her as she began to enjoy wandering through the night-time

stillness of the department store more and more. Everything seemed to have fallen

into a hundred-year slumber, and she was the only person awake in this enchanted

kingdom. KaDeWe beat all the other department stores; it could contain them all:

Tietz without a doubt, but even the gigantic Karstadt on Hermannplatz paled against

the magnificence of KaDeWe on Tauentzien Strasse.

She had left the curtain hall and arrived at the escalator. The metal steps

were dead and still, frozen by a wicked fairy. She had five floors to go down to the

agreed meeting point on the ground floor: the tobacco section, as always. That had

become a kind of ritual. Before they set off, they stocked up on cigarettes, brands

that they would never be able to afford otherwise. Benny had a nose for good

tobacco.

Alex thought about how they had got to know each other, fighting over a half-

smoked fag that some rich wanker had tossed onto the pavement outside Zoo

station. It had been some time at the beginning of February, a couple of weeks after

the trouble with Beckmann; a fucking freezing day. Alex had spent the last of the


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money that she had wangled out of that fatso at the Christmas market. She was

hungry. And she hadn’t had a smoke for two days.

They had lunged for the lit cigarette at the same time: Alex and the skinny,

almost delicate blond youth, who looked awkward, but moved with great skill. But

Alex had been faster. How he had looked daggers at her when her hand closed

round the cigarette first! And she had glared back, her body desperate for that tiny bit

of nicotine. It was incredible, really, that they had agreed to share the fag after that. It

was probably because Alex had seen the look in his eyes. Right from the start, she

had felt a duty to take care of the gaunt boy with the sad eyes, had developed almost

motherly feelings for the lad who was not even sixteen yet, felt like his big sister at

the very least, even though it was he who would show her how to survive on the

streets over the following weeks. Benny showed her how to slide wallets out of

strangers’ jackets without attracting attention, how to unlock doors you didn’t have

the key to, how to drive cars you didn’t own. A whole lot of useful things for a girl

who, when night fell, didn’t know how she would fill her belly the next day.

They had stuck together for the whole of that spring, surviving through pick-

pocketing, petty burglary and doing jobs for Kalli, living from hand to mouth. Until

they had discovered how to work the department stores.

The first time, at Tietz in Dönhoffplatz, it had simply happened; it was pure

coincidence. Alex and Benny had been wandering through the store just before

closing time, but only because it had started raining outside. The idea had come

upon them unbidden, out of the blue, just as the staff started politely asking the

customers to head for the exits. One look between them, and everything was clear.

They spent the next few hours pressed against each other in a gigantic trunk until

everything around them had gone quiet. When they finally emerged, every one of

their muscles ached. They had proceeded to empty the jewellery displays; what else

could they have taken with them after all? A sofa was out of the question. They had

managed to fill two small suitcases that they found in the leather goods department;


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that was all they could comfortably carry without attracting attention. As they climbed

out through a window into a courtyard and walked into Krausen Strasse, no one

stopped them and no one looked at them; no one knew what they had just done and

what they were carrying in their suitcases. Completely calm, they got onto the next U-

Bahn at Spittelmarkt station. No one in the train gave them a second glance either;

the two young people with their suitcases looked like tired street traders on their way

home after a long and unsuccessful day.

Kalli’s eyes had nearly popped out of his head the next morning. And he had

doled out the cash willingly. They had never delivered such a stash before. An old

watch at most, that they had lifted off a drunk, or bits and pieces from some car or

other. They had stopped all that petty stuff after the Tietz job. Nicking wallets on the

U-Bahn or fleecing drunkards was barely worth it, and was always a matter of

chance. The department store racket simply paid more. And it was child’s play: get

locked in, get as much out of the displays as possible and get the hell out. By the

time the nightwatchmen noticed the empty display cabinets, Alex and Benny were

well on their way. They had done four department stores so far, and the last time, at

Karstadt, they had got a really good haul. But it was Kalli who had suggested the

cream of the crop; they would never have thought of KaDeWe themselves, so in awe

of it were they. KaDeWe would have some serious stuff, he had said, why didn’t they

go in there? It wasn’t any better guarded than Tietz or Karstadt, for sure, he knew

someone who worked there.

And now they were in, stalking over the escalators that, in their stillness,

seemed more solid than steps of stone as they led downwards floor by floor. Alex

was suddenly overpowered by the feeling that the gigantic KaDeWe was all hers.

She remembered how she and Benny had gone from section to section in Tietz, and

how they had revelled in being on their own in the midst of all these treasures. They

had tried out lots of things, and had even visited the toy section, a little bashful at first

because despite their closeness, they had mostly hidden their childish sides from


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each other. But the second job they had done, at Tietz again, this time the one on

Alexanderplatz, they had pulled themselves together and gone straight to work.

The large hall on the ground floor opened out before her. So there was an

end to these stairs after all. In order to get to the tobacco section, she had to cut

through men’s fashion, through a boulevard of mannequins. The wax faces looked

down at her, haughty and immobile, just like the wankers who wore these fine clothes

outside, and were so full of themselves that they could barely walk. Alex hated men

like that, and she liked to think that it was precisely they who were trapped here

under some spell, condemned to spend the rest of their lives turned to stone,

standing around in KaDeWe, paying the price for always being able to wear the latest

fashions. She could sense the wood panelling and shelves of the tobacco

department at the end of the army of mannequins.

Benny didn’t seem to be there yet. She tried to make out her surroundings in

the flickering light that came in from outside. Suddenly she froze – one of the

mannequins right at the end of the guard of honour had moved. She looked again,

carefully, but everything was as still as it had been. A red illuminated advertisement

was flickering outside, making shadows dance; that was all. There was no

nightwatchman standing between the mannequins at any rate, not a single peaked

cap in the row, only suave fedoras, bourgeois bowler hats and elegant top hats. Alex

walked on, her heart still pounding in her chest; she thought the sound of it was

surely audible in the silence. The mannequin that had startled her was at the end of

the line, just in front of the entry to the tobacco section. Alex stuck her tongue out at

it.

The mannequin leaned forward slightly and Alex jumped, shock coursing

through her like an electric current running through to her fingertips.

‘Here to look around, my lady?’ the mannequin said, in an operatic Hungrian

accent. ‘Don’t be shy!’


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‘Hey! Are you crazy? Are you trying to give me a heart attack?’ Alex punched

the snow-white shirtfront.

‘Don’t be scared, please!’ Benny bowed, took off his top hat and waved her

through the doorway like a funfair-ride operator courting his public. ‘Step in, my lady!

And don’t fear the prices. High and low count among our customers and it’s all for

naught!’

‘Jesus, you’re a fine one.’ Alex said, but she grinned despite herself. ‘You

look like an apprentice ringmaster!’ When she saw the expression on his face, she

felt like eating her words. He had expected amazement, wonder and approval, not a

joke made at his expense.

‘I thought we might as well get properly togged up while we’re here,’ he said,

trying not to let his disappointment show.

‘You look damn fine,’ Alex said quickly. ‘Never seen you wearing anything like

that before.’

‘Why would you have? It’s not called for in lives like ours. But I’m wearing it

now anyway!’ Benny opened a canvas bag. ‘I got something for you too, upstairs in

the ladies’ fashions,’ he said, drawing a red silk dress out of the bag. ‘What do you

think?’

‘We should stick with jewellery,’ Alex said. ‘Kalli can’t flog clothes.’

‘Just put it on,’ he said, waving the red silk.

‘Now?’

‘It’s an evening dress, and it’s evening!’

Benny held the dress out to her, and Alex looked at the shimmering red

material.

‘Isn’t that a bit too . . . elegant?’

‘What matters is whether you like it.’

The cloth felt good as it flowed through her hands. Alex held the dress up and

looked at herself in the mirrored pillar. It was the right size, and she liked it. She


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would never have credited Benny with such good taste. He had never bought himself

anything to wear, not the smallest thing, not even with the money that Kalli had given

them most recently, which could have bought half a dozen new suits. She had

bought herself a new coat with the money, but it had taken him days to notice it.

Benny looked at her silently. He pulled a silvery tin out of his jacket pocket

and took out a cigarette. Manoli privat – a six-pfennig luxury brand. He really didn’t

look that ridiculous in those fine threads, she thought, it was just unusual. She was

used to seeing him in shabby linen trousers and his battered leather jacket.

‘Want one?’ he asked, holding the tin out to her. But Alex shook her head.

‘Just a puff,’ she said.

Benny lit the cigarette and passed it straight to her. Alex took two deep drags

and passed it back.

‘Looks good, ‘he said, pulling gloves and a small hat out of the bag. ‘You

should put it on.’

Alex hesitated for a moment, then she took the stuff and went behind a pillar

to change. The dress looked like it had been poured onto her. She pulled on the

gloves and put on the hat. Her heart pounded. She had never worn anything so

luxurious in her life. She felt good in the dress, but uncertain at the same time. It was

a strange feeling. Benny must be feeling the same; she really shouldn’t have made

those stupid remarks earlier.

‘Ta-da!’ she said, appearing in her new outfit.

Benny’s amazement made her feel better immediately. The boy who could

normally not stop talking didn’t say a word, but simply stepped closer and stared at

her, looking her up and down. She knew he was impressed. How elegantly he

appeared to move in those clothes, especially now that he was bowing before her.

‘Will you dance with me?’ he asked.

Alex laughed. ‘Do you hear music anywhere?’


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‘Yes,’ he said, taking her right hand and putting his arm round her left

shoulder. ‘Don’t you?’ He started humming a tune and rocking Alex from side to side

slowly in 3/4 time.

‘I can’t dance.’

‘Just leave it to me.’

He started to turn, taking Alex with him. His grip was firm and she gave

herself over completely to his movements and the beat of his song; it all came so

naturally. The display mannequins with their arrogant expressions, the shelves and

the clothes racks, the coloured lights flickering through the windows from Tauentzien

Strasse, all passed in a whirl, and when they came to a stop again, Alex realised that

they had danced round half the floor. She was a little dizzy and out of breath, but she

felt good.

‘Where did you learn that?’ she asked. She was amazed by Benny all over

again, this thin youth with the face of a child, who could sometimes be so grown-up

and serious that he startled her.

‘In the home. The kitchen girls used to dance with each other sometimes,

when the nuns weren’t watching. They taught me how to dance . . . do you like it?’

She nodded, and Benny took hold of her again, whirling off once more, only in

the other direction this time. Alex was blissfully happy. If her father knew that she

found pleasure in bourgeois frippery like the Vienna waltz, he would probably heap

even more curses on her head than he already did.

When they were back in the tobacco section, she had to hold on to Benny for

a moment; she couldn’t stand up on her own.

‘Amazing,’ she said, still out of breath. ‘We should have done this earlier. I

haven’t had enough practice.’

‘Maybe we should go dancing properly some time. In a really cool place, I

mean, like one of those clubs on the Ku’ damm.’

Alex laughed. ‘If two people like us turned up they’d turf us out straightaway!’


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‘We’d have to dress up properly. Like now.’ Benny paused, as if he was

finding it difficult to get his next sentence out, as if his words had to stumble over a

few obstacles. ‘You’re amazingly beautiful, Alex,’ he said at last, sounding as if he’d

been wanting to say it for a long time. He touched her cheek with the tips of his

fingers and Alex started at the unexpected and unusually tender touch. She flinched

a little, but he didn’t seem to notice. He closed his eyes and came closer. It was only

when his lips touched hers that she reacted. She pushed him away, gently but firmly.

‘Benny! No…’ she said.

‘Why not?’ He looked at her, seeming not to understand. Not wanting to

understand.

‘I don’t know. You’re only fifteen after all.’ Shit. Be nice to him, Alex! ‘Don’t get

me wrong. I like you. You’re my friend.’

‘Why can’t I kiss you?’

He looked so sulky and sad that she couldn’t help taking him by the arm and

stroking his hair. ‘I like you, Benny. But . . . not now. Now especially. We have to get

on with it.’

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get on with this shit.’

He let go of her and took out the second canvas bag, in which he had stuffed

his old clothes. She saw that she had hurt his feelings for the second time that

evening, and more, much more than the first time. But he didn’t want to let it show,

and she let him think that she hadn’t noticed anything. The feeling of enchantment

had evaporated. Just moments ago, they had been floating over the parquet floor of

the department store. Now, in their evening clothes, they looked like two children

playing dress-up with their parents’ clothes. That was what Alex thought, anyway,

and that was how she felt. Benny seemed to feel the same. He hurried to change into

his old clothes and Alex, too, walked over to the pillar behind which she had left her

things, and changed her clothes. Benny had slung his bag over his shoulder again,


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and was waiting for her. ‘Now to work,’ he said, and passed her the second bag.

They set off in silence.

The jewellery department was also on the ground floor. The glass of the

display cases shimmered in the half-light as they entered the hall. Alex felt the

tension within her begin to rise again. The most valuable things were in the safe of

course; they only put copies of those pieces out for display. So Alex and Benny

always ignored the showy stuff dripping with rocks and took the simple pieces

instead, those that were sure to be genuine: unostentatious rings, bracelets and

earrings. And watches above all – lots of them. Gold-plated watches and elegant

bracelet watches. Kalli always paid good money for watches.

Benny took off his leather jacket and wound it round his arm. ‘Alex,’ he said, ‘I

promise you that in two or three years I won’t need to do this anymore. I’ll be wearing

fine suits all day and driving a car, and living in a grand house with servants and all.

And then I’ll ask you again if you’ll go dancing with me.’

She looked at him; he looked determined. Before she could reply, he hit the

case and the glass shattered. The sound seemed so loud to Alex every time, loud

enough to wake the whole city up, but nothing had ever happened.

They hurried nonetheless, no longer speaking but concentrating on their

work. Alex started collecting wristwatches from the shattered display case and

stuffing them into her bag while Benny shook the shards of glass off his leather jacket

and prepared his elbow for the next case. The second crash seemed less loud to

Alex. She took care not to include too many glass shards along with the watches she

was stuffing into her bag. The next display case was more difficult: there were four

low-carat diamond rings in it, lying on silk cloth among the glass splinters. Alex was

concentrating so hard on avoiding the splinters that she did not notice the sharp

corner of glass that was still in the brass frame. She cursed when she cut the back of

her hand on it.


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Benny came over to have a look. The cut was bleeding profusely. He ripped

strips of cloth off his shirt and wound them round her hand. He remained silent

throughout. He emptied the third display case that he had just broken into himself,

and helped her fetch the rings. With her bandaged hand, Alex was not much help

now.

‘Shit,’ she cursed again. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t worry, we—’ Benny stopped mid-sentence and held his breath, his

mouth still open, as if he had been turned to stone. ‘Hey,’ he whispered. ‘Did you

hear that too?’

Alex shrugged.

But then she heard a sound that could not possibly mean anything good.

A door had slammed somewhere in the building.

‘He’s on his rounds again,’ she whispered. ‘But that’s not possible. He must

have just finished his round outside. He can’t be going through the inside of the store

again.’

‘I wouldn’t count on that,’ Benny said, grabbing another handful of rings out of

the case. ‘Perhaps we were too loud. Let’s go with what we have already.’

He fastened both canvas bags and took the heavier one. Alex shouldered the

other bag and they started running, Alex taking the lead because she knew her way

around better. There were now crowds of night revellers on Tauentzien Strasse,

where the windows and doors all had security grilles over them in order not to tempt

nocturnal window-shoppers. They had to get out onto the delivery courtyard through

one of the storerooms at the back or through a window in one of the offices, and get

onto Ansbacher Strasse. Only then could they mingle with the crowds and take the

next U-Bahn back into the east. Just as they always did.

But their plans were going wrong. The door to the southern staircase opened

and a wedge of light fell onto the shop-floor. Alex lunged to the side instinctively and

pulled Benny with her behind a wall of silk ties. She thought she had seen a uniform


15

in the door. Not the red-brown of the KaDeWe watchmen that she had expected, but

the dark blue of the Prussian police.

They heard the men enter. It must be a whole band of cops. Alex looked at

Benny, whose lips were silently forming the word she wanted to scream out loud:

shit.

They had to head towards Tauentzien Strasse instead; they had no choice,

the cops were in the way. What on earth were they doing here in the first place? Alex

gestured at Benny with her head and crept forward. Bent over slightly, using the

shelves and the clothes racks as cover, they slunk through the half-darkness, getting

further and further away from the men in blue.

‘Police!’ they heard someone call. ‘We know you’re in here. Show yourselves.

You can’t escape.’

Suddenly, the lights above began to flicker, but only for a second or two

before it was light as day. Alex bent lower behind the shelf she was passing and

peeped round the corner. It didn’t look good. The cops had divided themselves into

groups and were combing the floor systematically.

She looked at Benny, who shrugged helplessly. Not much time left – they had

to do something. There – the lifts! A couple of metres to the left, and the one on the

middle was on the ground floor! Alex pointed at the ornately decorated lift doors, and

Benny nodded. It was the only chance they had; the only way to give themselves a

small lead, to buy themselves a little time to think up another escape plan. They

crouched down and crawled past a long rail of golfing trousers. The lifts were within

reach now. But not quite. In order to press the button, they had to break their cover.

Alex heard a man’s voice very nearby say, ‘They’ve really gone on the

rampage here. Look at that! Hopefully they’re not gone yet.’

‘They’re still somewhere in the building. I can feel it,’ said another man.


16

Alex listened intently. The men in blue had discovered the shattered display

cases; that would distract them for a moment. It was now or never! She took a deep

breath before she rose to stretch an arm out to press the button.

The door opened with a quiet ping.

Not quiet enough.

‘Police! Stop!’ someone shouted. ‘Put your hands up and show yourselves!’

Alex pulled Benny into the lift and quickly pressed one of the buttons for the

upper floors. As least she knew how these things worked, thanks to her time at

Wertheim. The police were already rounding the corner and their leader was

shouting something like ‘Stop!’ again before the door finally closed and the lift started

moving upwards. Thank God! They were going up now, putting a bit of distance

between themselves and their pursuers. They would have a little time before the

cops had called the other lifts on to the ground floor.

She looked at Benny. At last they could talk again.

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘What on earth are the cops doing here?’

‘Maybe we set off an alarm somewhere.’

‘I think they were expecting us. And they were just waiting to catch us in the

act.’

‘They haven’t caught us yet.’

‘Yup.’ Benny grinned. ‘You’re amazing at getaways, Alex, I always knew that.

But where did you learn how to operate a lift?’

‘A lift attendant at Wertheim was keen on me.’

He poked her in the side and laughed, but she hadn’t been joking. The

business with her ardent admirer had almost cost her the job, which she had lost six

months later anyway.

The lift came to a stop and the doors opened to show a ‘5’ on the wall facing

them.

‘Please disembark, gentlemen,’ Alex said.


17

‘Shouldn’t we go up one more instead?’

‘Yes, but by the stairs. Then the police will start looking for us on the wrong

floor.’

Benny nodded. ‘We’d better split up. You go one floor up and I’ll go one floor

down.’

‘Split up?’

‘The cops are really getting to me,’ Benny said. ‘I’ve no idea why they’re all

over the place. We’ve got to split up in order to give ourselves a chance.’

He sounded like a general before going into battle. Alex would have laughed

if the situation hadn’t been so serious.

‘OK, we’ll split up, fine,’ she said. ‘And then what?’

Benny shrugged. ‘No idea. Get out of here somehow. There’s bound to be

some way to get out of a big store like this.’

‘OK. Where do we meet?’

‘Only when we’re outside. By the Märchenbrunnen. On the hour, every hour.’

Alex nodded. ‘OK, good luck,’ she said. ‘See you outside.’ She looked at him

one more time, and ran upstairs to the sixth floor. Alex heard her footsteps and

Benny’s sounding further and further away from each other. Upstairs, she stopped in

front of the lift and thought about where to go. It was probably a matter of time before

the nightwatchmen would be casting their lights over the sixth floor. But it was still

dark here now. For the first time that evening, Alex switched on the torch she had

brought with her, shining it at the display panels above the lifts. The one on the right

was already in motion and was just passing through the second floor. They were on

their way. No time to lose.

Alex burst onto the shop-floor, looking for another escape route or for

somewhere to hide at least. The beam of her torchlight roamed over red and white

floor tiles and empty glass buffet counters. This was the KaDeWe café, at the centre

of the new food hall. Alex walked across the floor, past the shelves full of jars of jam,


18

until she could go no further. Alex looked for a way through the whitewashed plywood

wall that had so many shelves against it that it was barely recognisable as a

temporary structure. Behind a sales counter, she finally found a small, unremarkable

door with a simple lock on it that was easy to pick. She slipped through the door and

closed it. A pile of boards blocked her way – it was a building site back here. It was

not possible to say what products were to be sold here. Most of the shelves for them

had not been built yet. Alex crossed the room and found a door, behind which a

staircase led upwards.

She did not know where she was going. All she knew was that she could not,

at all costs, let herself fall into the hands of the police. Never let yourself be caught by

the cops! That was her most important rule since she had started living on the

streets. But for half a year now she’d been living in fear that the police would get

hold of her and pin Beckmann’s death on her. Or worse: they could interrogate her

and find out that it was Karl who had shot that damn Nazi; that his sister had been

standing next to him and seen everything. And that she was guilty of everything. That

was certainly what Alex thought sometimes: that she was the one who had turned

her brother into a murderer in the first place. But then everything in her rose up in

protest at the thought, for without the whole Red Front shit, Karl wouldn’t have had a

rifle in the first place, and would never have been able to shoot Beckmann.

But he’d had it. And he had shot him.

Alex switched off the torch and listened. There were voices, no doubt about it.

And the voices were getting louder. They were upstairs now. Of course the cops

were combing the sixth floor; they weren’t stupid enough to be fooled by the lift into

searching the fifth floor. The lights above flickered and came on. Alex shrank into the

dark stairwell instinctively, although the partition over the building works hid her from

sight. For now, at least. What must the passers-by on the street think, seeing all the

floors of KaDeWe suddenly lit up just before midnight?


19

Alex adjusted the bag on her shoulder and started climbing the dark, narrow

stairs leading upwards. She had to get away before the police discovered the

plywood wall and started searching behind it. She climbed through two dark attic

floors before she came to a locked door, but it was no obstacle for her lock-pick. A

cold wind blew against her; she was outside again, on a roof terrace high up above

the city. The dark outline of the Gedächtniskirche loomed out of the sea of buildings

and the kaleidoscope of lights from the ravines of the streets below. The noise of the

traffic pressed loud and clear into her ears, no longer muffled as it had been in the

building. A car horn reminded her that life and freedom were waiting below. But how

was she to get there? The wind blew cold in Alex’s face, as if it was reminding her

that she had entered unfamiliar territory. The cut on her hand throbbed more

insistently. Alex bent over the balustrade of the roof terrace and looked down. The

KaDeWe lettering shone into the night, casting its neon light onto a steep roof full of

glass panes and dormer windows. No way of getting down. She could only pray that

the police would not think to look up here. Who would be so daft as to escape onto

the roof in the first place? Well, yes, Alexandra Rheinhold was daft enough, but the

police couldn’t know that.

Jesus, you stupid bitch, she cursed herself. You’ve got yourself into a fine

mess here!

No, she must backtrack, must slip past the police somehow and get down,

down to the ground floor, and out. But how? Alex turned around and entered the

stairwell again. After she had closed the door, she stood still for a moment and

listened. Not a sound to be heard and everything was still dark. When she was sure

that it was safe, she walked down the stairs slowly and opened the door onto the

light. The voices were gone. Had the police gone? There was no one here on the

building site anyway. Strange that they hadn’t looked here. But they’d left the lights

on. Alex was confused. She slipped up to the plywood wall as quietly as she could

and peeped through a narrow slit.


20

Damn! There was a cop standing by the lifts.

The police didn’t have to bother to comb the building. All they had to do was

guard all possible exits.

Alex retreated to the rear section of the building site. Carefully, she opened

one of the windows on the west side and was startled by how loud the noise from the

street was. She hoped the sound didn’t travel to the lifts. She stuck her head into the

night air that smelt of petrol and rain clouds and looked out. Some four metres below,

she could see the balcony on the fifth floor that ran round almost the whole building,

and the abyss of Passauer Strasse beyond. She could dangle as far as possible from

the window sill and jump. That was possible. As she contemplated the consequences

of such a reckless action, she saw a figure press itself into the recess of a window in

the balcony beneath.

Benny.

So the police had hounded him outdoors too. He didn’t notice her, but

remained crouched in his hiding place, watching the door. Alex closed the window.

Damn! How on earth were they going to get out of this?

The cut on her hand started throbbing again. What a shitty day! She had to

get out of here, now! Alex opened a door on the south side of the floor; it was dark

here too. She listened for a while, and when she was sure that no footsteps or voices

could be heard, she switched her torch on again and saw a long corridor in the

wavering, uncertain beam of light. An office area, all new; the walls smelt of fresh

plaster. She walked down the corridor slowly, ignoring the doors on either side; it

opened onto the left at the end, perhaps there was another stairwell round the

corner. Alex switched off her torch before she turned the corner. She had seen a faint

gleam of light. It was just a window at the end of the corridor, through which a thin,

tired light fell into the building. She saw a wall outside; this must lead out onto the

goods delivery area.


21

Fantastic, Fräulein Reinhold, all according to plan, just a couple of storeys too high!

It had started raining. Alex longed for nothing more than to be standing in that

rain, right in the middle of the rain that had spoilt so many summer days. She stared

through the window at the rain and muttered a quick prayer. Dear God, if you’re there

somewhere and can hear me, let me get out of here somehow, just let me get out

and I’ll do anything in return; I’ll even go to church. She closed her eyes in order to

lend weight to her prayer and listened to the patter of the rain. Something about the

sound of the rain made her stop and open the window. The rain was making an

incredible racket now; it sounded as if someone was striking a small anvil with a

hammer, over and over again. Alex stuck her head out through the window and

thought she must be dreaming. She was convinced she had her prayer to thank for

this.

A fire escape!

Iron steps led down into the courtyard, floor by floor. Alex put her torch away

and shouldered her bag. She stepped out onto the grating and looked down

cautiously. A whole armada of trucks and delivery vehicles was parked down there,

all in tidy, gleaming rows. Apart from that, the courtyard was empty – not a blue

uniform to be seen. The cops weren’t covering the fire escape; it seemed they had

simply not thought of it.

Alex gripped the cold, wet handrail and started climbing down the rickety

metal stairs slowly, step by step, keeping both the courtyard and the window in sight

constantly. The wind blew the rain in her face and the stairs squeaked and wobbled

as she stepped on them, but she was getting closer to the ground, metre by metre.

The rain was not heavy, but she was soaked through in no time; her bandage was all

soggy and her bag grew heavier and heavier with every minute.

Then she was on the ground at last. She’d made it. If only she could tell

Benny about the fire escape! She hoped he would be as lucky as she was. Taking

cover behind the delivery vehicles which were all parked neatly next to each other,


22

she moved forwards slowly towards the entrance, which led out onto Passauer

Strasse. The gate was locked; she’d expected that. Alex took her lock-pick out; she

was shivering a little and took a little longer than usual, but the lock in the big iron

gate was not particularly difficult to pick.

The gate squeaked when she pushed it. She opened it carefully, only just

wide enough for her to slip through.

And then she was standing outside! On the street, free! The noise of the

traffic on Tauentzien Strasse had never seemed so wonderful. She breathed in the

air as if it was a different air from inside the building, as if she could only really

breathe now after an underwater dive that had lasted too long. The rain had stopped.

There wasn’t much going on in Passauer Strasse: a few passers-by hurrying along,

closing their umbrellas, two or three cars spraying through the puddles; no one was

taking any notice of her. She put her head down and cast a glance at the front of the

department store, crowned with giant illuminated advertisements on the Passauer

Strasse side. By night, the lighted store looked festive, almost Christmassy. Alex

thought about Benny, who was somewhere in that giant box looking for a way out.

Just then, she spotted him scrambling about by the metal railing of the balcony. What

on earth was he doing? He didn’t seem to have moved far from the hiding place she

had seen him in a few minutes ago.

He climbed over the railing and was now standing on the ledge of the

balcony, which must have been a foot wide at most. He was holding onto the railing

with both hands. Alex couldn’t breathe. He didn’t mean to climb down with that heavy

bag on his back, did he? But it looked like it. Benny crouched down quickly, gripped

the ledge with both hands and lowered his body slowly until his legs were dangling; a

dark shadow directly in front of one of the narrow lit windows. His feet were much too

far away from the next windowsill; he would never make it; what was he thinking?

Alex heard a brief gasp and turned to look. A thin man with nickel framed glasses

and a fedora hat was looking up.


23

The outline of a cop appeared against the railing, the star on his cap glinting

in the light. Now Alex knew why Benny was hanging onto the ledge. He was hiding:

the front of the building was his last resort. But the cop must have already seen him.

The officer was leaning over the railing and searching the ledge, so he knew that

someone was there. He was getting closer to the spot Benny was hanging from.

Alex ought to have run away, but she couldn’t. She stood rooted to the spot

on Passauer Strasse.

‘The cop’s found him,’ Alex heard nickel-glasses-man say. ‘Why on earth

would a suicide case choose KaDeWe, of all places!’

Alex longed to reply, but she stayed silent. She couldn’t make out what was

happening up there, only that the cop was now by Benny, and had also climbed over

the railing. Was he trying to help him up? But the cop wasn’t bending down; he

stayed standing, and merely bent his head, as if he was talking to Benny. Benny

seemed to be saying something too, but Alex couldn’t make it out.

Then she heard Benny utter a sharp scream, and she flinched. Was his

strength giving out? No, surely not! Give yourself up, she thought, there’s no point

now. Climb up again and let them arrest you. The cop’s head was still lowered; in the

glow of light from the hoarding, Alex thought she could see his face for a moment,

twisted in a furious grimace. What was going on? Had Benny been unable to keep

his mouth shut again? She heard him scream again, a drawn-out cry this time, more

despairing. Now he sounded like the boy that he still was, not the man that he

wanted to be.

Alex tipped her head so far back that her neck ached. She could not look

away. Why was he letting go with his right hand? How was he going to hold on with

only one hand, and with the heavy bag on his shoulder too? She stared and stared,

unable to believe what she was seeing. Until she finally understood, but did not want

to.


24

No scream, not a sound; he fell through the night in complete silence. She did

not want to believe that this was Benny, this mute body that was falling towards the

ground.

The next thing she heard was the sound of the impact. A thump, like a sack of

potatoes that had fallen from a lorry, and a cracking sound at the same time.

Then everything was quiet.

The trance that she had fallen into during the fall, the inability to move or even

to blink, was lifted at last. There Benny lay, not ten metres away from her, crumpled

into a strange position, not moving. Alex ran up and crouched over him. Strange,

there was hardly any blood. Benny’s eyes were closed. Someone coughed above

her: nickel-glasses-man was staring.

‘Get an ambulance!’ Alex hissed at him.

The man shrugged, helpless rather than questioning, and disappeared.

Alex bent over Benny; she heard a rasping breath.

He was alive! She knew it!

She knelt on the cobblestones and took his head onto her lap, stroking his

hair. He opened his eyes and his breaths grew quicker and higher pitched.

‘Alex,’ he said as he recognised her.

‘Don’t speak. The ambulance will be here soon; they’ll help you.’

‘I’m sorry, Alex. I’ve messed up.’

‘Nonsense!’

‘Couldn’t . . . couldn’t hold on any more. He stepped on my fingers.’

There was a whistling sound as Benny struggled for air. He was finding it

more and more difficult to speak.

‘Don’t talk so much Benny, don’t talk so much.’

‘You have to get out of here . . . They’ll get you otherwise. Evil guys . . .’

She looked up. The cop was still standing there, staring down and explaining

something to his colleague, pointing at them, pointing at Alex and Benny on


25

Passauer Strasse. The other policeman was interrupting his colleague; he seemed to

be berating him. But that couldn’t undo what had happened.

Benny drew breath again, and the air whistled through his lungs once more.

Alex looked at him and saw blood gush out of his mouth.

‘Benny!’ she screamed. ‘Hang in there! Hang in there!’

‘Alex.’ He tried to smile. ‘You’ll go dancing with me sometime, promise?’

‘Promise,’ she said, feeling her tears start to flow. His breaths were coming

more and more quickly and more dark blood spurted from his mouth. Alex mopped it

up with her sleeve. Benny looked at her; he kept looking at her wistfully, as if he was

bidding her farewell. Then he closed his eyes.

‘No,’ Alex said, ‘Don’t give up, do you hear me? Don’t give up! The

ambulance will be here any second.’

Benny did not open his eyes again. The whistling breaths came quicker and

quicker and stopped suddenly, as if someone had switched off a machine. ‘No!’ Alex

screamed. ‘You can’t just die! You can’t!’

She shouted and screamed, but she knew he could no longer hear her. His

head sank slowly back onto the cobblestones.

Alex looked round. A few curious onlookers had come over from Tauentzien

Strasse. Nickel-glasses-man had not turned up again, neither had the ambulance.

Instead, a couple of uniformed men had stepped out of a side door in KaDeWe.

She gulped her tears down and started running.

‘Stop that boy! That’s one of them!’

Alex didn’t need to turn around to know that she was being followed. She had

to cut through the passers-by; she swore at an elegantly dressed woman, who fell

back against the security grille over the store window, and ran towards the crowds

strolling down Tauentzien Strasse. Mingle with them and get away. A shrill whistle

sounded behind her and someone shouted.

‘Stop! Stay where you are! Police!’


26

She carried on running, right across the pavement onto Tauentzien Strassse,

past honking cars; a taxi screeched to halt and the driver cursed, but Alex wasn’t

listening. After what had happened to Benny, she suddenly feared for her own life.

She dived in front of a tram, whose driver sounded the warning bell, onto the central

reservation, and carried on running in the same direction as the tram, which was

trundling eastwards at a moderate pace. Her eyes fell on the warning sign that

forbade jumping onto the tram while it was in motion. After a split-second’s thought,

she lunged forward and jumped onto the platform, pushing her way into the tramcar.

She tried to catch a glimpse out of the other window, which was largely blocked by

other passengers. There they were: her pursuers. Two men in blue were waiting for

the tram, which was curving round to the Wittenbergplatz U-Bahn stop, to pass. Alex

pushed further into the car, ignoring the mutters of protest. She looked up at the

display. The number 6 to to Schöneberg. Not quite in her direction, but if she got out

at Wittenbergplatz the cops would probably find her. The tram stopped and the mass

of people moved. More people got off than on; Alex watched as her cover got smaller

and smaller. She kept looking out of the window, but didn’t see any blue uniforms.

The last person to get on was a fat man who she immediately sidled up to. She kept

an eye on the door as she hid behind him. God forbid that a cop jumped on at the

last moment. But the bell sounded and the tram started moving again. It sped up with

every metre it travelled; with every metre that passed, Alex’s fear melted away. She

had shaken them off!

Suddenly, she felt the cut on her hand throbbing again. The blood had

seeped through the makeshift bandage, the bandage that Benny had made for her.

That was an hour ago, perhaps; it couldn’t have been longer than that. Grief pounced

on her like a wild animal that had been lurking in the undergrowth. Tears shot into her

eyes and she was helpless against them. She started crying uncontrollably, as she

had not cried for years.


27

It was only when she had calmed down, and was wiping away her tears with

her sleeve that she noticed everyone in the tramcar staring at her.

‘What are you looking at?’ she hissed. Everyone who had been looking at her

with sympathy backed away.

- end of sample -

Further books to the Series:

Der nasse Fisch (The Wet Fish) 496 pages, first release in Fall 2007 140,000 copies sold per September 2010 Sample translation in English/complete translation in French available In this first part of his new crime series Volker Kutscher conjures up the Berlin of 1929. His hero Gereon Rath experiences a city in a state of ecstasy. Cocaine, illegal night clubs, street riots between the rising Nazis and the communists – it’s like dancing on the edge of disaster. This young and ambitious inspector, new in town and ordered to work for the vice squad, meddles with the investigations to a murder – and is not yet aware that he has stirred up a hornet’s nest. “The best German crime novel of the year!” Bücher Rights sold to: Denmark (Bazar), France (Seuil), Italy (Mondadori), Netherlands (Mynx), Norway (Bazar), Serbia (Laguna), Spain (Ediciones B)

Der stumme Tod (The Silent Death) 544 pages, first release in Spring 2009 65,000 copies sold per September 2010 March 1930: The death of a movie actress leads Gereon Rath to the studios of movie metropolis Berlin. The young inspector gets to know the shady side of glamour and experiences the business in a process of change: Talking films are taking over the silver screen and many a producer, cinema owner and silent movie star is falling by the wayside. Volker Kutscher follows on seamlessly from his bestseller Der nasse Fisch and brings 1930s Berlin back to life again in a complex and gripping mystery. He draws readers back into an era that is much closer to the present day than they might expect. “This book brilliantly merges fiction with historical fact.“ Die Welt Rights sold to: France (Seuil), Netherlands (Mynx)

volker kutscher: goldstein. gereon raths dritter · pdf filesample translation volker...

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