A Trace of Smoke (Hannah Vogel) Read online

  “So far.”

  The waitress came with our food. It was served on simple ceramic plates with a sprig of parsley. The meaty smell of bratwurst made my mouth water. I concentrated on eating in a ladylike manner, instead of gulping it down the way my hunger demanded.

  “Where do you go to school?” I asked Trudi, taking a sip of bitter beer.

  “At the Bülow Gymnasium.” Trudi pushed her wurst around on her plate with her fork. “But I want to quit and become a hatmaker. I want to learn a real skill instead of trigonometry.”

  “Why not go to university and meet a nice man?” her father asked.

  “Vati,” she said. “No smart girl wants to do that anymore.”

  “My friend, Sarah, is a hatmaker,” I said. “She loves the design work and all the colored felt and feathers.”

  “See, Vati,” Trudi said, smiling for the first time. She had beautiful brown eyes, like her father. “It’s a wonderful occupation.”

  She looked so thrilled that I cast around in my mind for something to sustain that excitement. I described films for which Sarah had made hats: Hocus Pocus, Three from the Gas Station, even Storm Over Mont Blanc with Leni Riefenstahl.

  “I do want to be a hatmaker,” Trudi told her father. “Especially now that feathers and birds are coming back in fashion on hats.”

  “The hours are very long.” I did not want to be the cause of this girl dropping out of school to spend a lifetime bent over hat forms and feathers. “She works until late at night.”

  “Does this Sarah have a husband?” Boris popped the last bite of bratwurst into his mouth and smiled. “One who puts up with the long hours?”

  “He died in the war,” I said. “Along with my fiancé. So now we both must work.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Boris said, serious again. “I lost Trudi’s mother in childbirth. She was a wonderful woman. Strong, like Trudi. Beautiful like her too.” Trudi smiled. A tiny smile, but it promised to be radiant when she was happy again.

  “It’s not easy to lose a loved one,” I said.

  Boris nodded. “And to that war. It was a terrible war. I am lucky that I survived, quite by chance, while so many others did not.”

  We sat through a long, uncomfortable silence. A double-decker bus roared by, full of workers heading home. I needed to get to the paper to write up the trial, but I did not stand.

  “How many hats does your friend make in a day?” Trudi asked finally.

  “For that, you must ask her employer, Frau Charmain.”

  Trudi gasped. “But she is a famous designer!”

  “And a good woman. She kept Sarah on when some of her largest department store clients demanded that she employ only German workers, not Jews.”

  “It makes me ashamed to be German,” said Boris. “That kind of nonsense.”

  Handsome and no Nazi. I smiled at him. “Indeed it should.”

  Trudi looked from Boris to me. “I must powder my nose.”

  “Should I come with you?” I asked.

  “I can find the way,” she said tartly. “I am fourteen years old, for goodness sake.”

  “Practically an old maid.” Boris winked at her.

  She walked confidently, with her shoulders back and her head held high, but she flinched away from tables occupied by men.

  “Thank you for coming,” Boris said. He too, watched Trudi. “You are good with her.”

  “Perhaps she is the one being good with me,” I said, turning back to him, knowing that she had left us alone on purpose.

  The waitress came to clear our plates, glaring at Trudi’s untouched meal.

  “Would you care for another wurst?” Boris asked, noticing my empty plate.

  “No, thank you,” I said, embarrassed that I’d eaten so quickly.

  The waitress gathered our plates and hurried back along the route Trudi had chosen, taking no special notice of the tables of men.

  “Trudi does not eat much.”

  “You know how young girls are,” he said. “Starving one day and eating only confections the next.”

  “I only know about young boys,” I said. “Boys are different.”

  “Do you have children?” Boris asked.

  “I’ve never been married,” I answered. “I raised my brother, but that did not turn out as well as I’d hoped.”

  He raised one eyebrow. “Why?”

  “The path he was given to walk is one I would not have chosen for him. One that I would choose for no one.” I thought of the boys who had attacked him at school, sensing his difference even then.

  “That’s a shame.” Boris reached across the table and covered my hand with his. I barely knew him, but it felt safe and right. “We cannot protect our children from everything, no matter how much we want to.”

  “Why not?”

  Boris sighed. “Because we do not run all the world.”

  I forced myself to smile. “You are correct, of course.”

  Light glinted off the gold flecks in his eyes, like a painting. The warmth of his hand sent a current of electricity up my arm, a reaction I had not felt so strongly since I was with my fiancé, Walter, many years ago. “Perhaps we could meet for dinner sometime?” Boris asked.

  “Perhaps.” My heart fluttered, actually fluttered, like in a romance novel. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling at the thought.

  “Let me give you my telephone number.” He fished a card out of a silver case. Already, I missed the feeling of his hand on mine. He wrote a number on the back of his card, his tapered fingers producing elegant handwriting. “The front is my number at the bank. The back is my number at home.”

  I barely heard his words, because I watched his lips while he said them. I tucked the card in my satchel. “I—”

  He laughed. “Do not say no immediately. Give yourself some time to consider it.”

  I tore my eyes away from his lips and sipped my beer. I had a rule about not dating men I met at the courthouse, but Boris seemed like a man of high character, someone I could get involved with. Then I reminded myself that Peter Kürten, the Vampire of Düsseldorf, had character witnesses too, and they were every one wrong. “Now is a difficult time for me.”

  “Now is not always the best time for anyone.” He glanced to where Trudi emerged from the door. “Sometimes the worst times are exactly when you need to reach out to other people.”

  There was truth in that.

  “Tomorrow?” he said. “I could pick you up at seven.”

  Before I could think better of it, I wrote down my address on a sheet of paper in my notebook. I tore it out and passed it to him, my heart pounding.

  “Hello,” Trudi said, sitting back down.

  “I apologize,” I said. “But I must go.”

  Boris rose as I stood to leave. “I will see you soon.” He leaned forward and kissed my hand. Tingles ran up my arm to my stomach and I, the hardened reporter, blushed right there in the café, in front of a roomful of hungry diners.

  “It was delightful talking with you, Trudi,” I said. “And with you as well, Herr Krause.”

  I hurried out of the restaurant, my heart racing, my kissed hand wrapped safely around my sketchpad.

  I arrived at the paper late that night, having dawdled too long at the restaurant with Boris and Trudi. On the bus, I’d compared Boris to Walter, the man I would have married if he had lived through the Great War. I wondered what kind of parent Walter would have been and rode right by my stop on Koch Strasse. Walter had loved children. He’d been wonderful with Ernst, although Ernst had been only six when Walter died. But the war had brought out an angry side of Walter, one that sometimes spilled over into violence. What would Walter have done if he’d seen Ernst singing at the El Dorado? I would never know.

  I walked back the two blocks, admiring the modern façade of my office building, the Mosse House, when it came into sight. Faced with shiny black tile and sensuous curving windows, the building arced to follow the street and stood tall and
plain, like an elegant modern cake. After the original building was damaged during the Spartacus uprising at the end of the war, old Herr Mosse hired noted Expressionist architect Erich Mendelsohn to remodel it. The Mosse House was not as curvaceous and provocative as the tower he built for Albert Einstein, but still shocking enough to annoy the other newspaper owners.

  I hurried across the expansive lobby to the elevator. “Good day, Xavier,” I said to the elevator operator.

  He held the door open with one gloved hand. “Fraulein Vogel.”

  “Five, please.”

  The fifth floor was a letdown after the beautiful façade and posh elevator. Mosse had decided we did not deserve new furniture and had brought furniture from the old building. Battered wooden desks paired with creaky chairs. The office teemed with people. Conversations rumbled under the clattering of typewriters.

  I hurried to open the window and let out the thick clouds of cigarette smoke.

  I stole a chair from an empty desk, then rolled a piece of clean paper into the heavy black typewriter, enjoying my favorite part of being a reporter: the moment when the white page stood open to receive all possibilities. I’d worked here long enough now that no one dared to disturb me this close to deadline. I savored the moment, forming the story in my mind.

  The rapist looked guilty to me, so I chose a headline that started with “Guilty Verdict Assured.” They had eyewitnesses who had seen the man disappear with the girls, written testimony from the girls, and hair ribbons found at his apartment. I would look a fool Monday afternoon if they acquitted him, but by the end of the week no one would remember.

  I started my story evoking the innocence and trust of the Berlin schoolgirls, walking home in the bright sunshine. Open and friendly, willing to look for a lost puppy. None of them could bear the thought of a little dog wandering alone in the park, not with all of those automobiles. Like Little Red Riding Hood, they stepped off the path, away from the street with its safe stone sidewalks, and into the shadows of the woods. There they lost their innocence, figuratively and literally. Would any of them enjoy a sunny day again?

  I sighed. It was a good story, but this time I felt a connection to Trudi and her father. Was Trudi one of the victims, or just the friend of one, as her father had implied? When I wrote about how the girls were unable to eat, I remembered Trudi pushing the uneaten wurst around on her plate. How she sat with her face upturned to the tall windows, bathed in the sunlight that had not protected her after all. Bogeymen did not always live in the shadows.

  I had typed feverishly. The piece flowed well. I had pulled out the final sheet of paper, and run it down to printing. I missed my deadline, and the story would not run until Sunday morning.

  And I had met Boris Saturday. We had a delightful time. He was charming, witty, and the attraction between us was undeniable. I had promised to go sailing with him and Trudi soon. Then we had shared that wonderful kiss on my stoop.

  I remembered stealing a glance at him before I closed my door. He had looked at me in a tender way that no man had for a very long time.

  4

  Now, in the courtroom, Boris’s eyes were no longer tender. I shifted on the bench, bumping Philip with Rudolf’s box. Philip rolled his eyes, and I smiled apologetically. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Boris still watching me. He must be angry about the story, angry that I’d put in details about Trudi and her loss of appetite.

  To keep from facing Boris’s angry eyes, I outlined the two possibilities for today: “Man Acquitted in Travesty of Justice” and “Rapist Convicted.” Both stories were pat, boring. Luckily, I’d written each a hundred times before, as my mind did not seem to be working well. As much as I tried not to, my thoughts returned to the photograph I saw in the Hall of the Unnamed Dead that morning.

  I closed my eyes and tried to listen, but I did not hear much until the verdict came down.

  Not guilty.

  A gasp traveled through the courtroom.

  I glanced at Trudi. She looked stunned, like a child after she falls down and before she begins to cry, disbelieving that the world could have provided the hurt. I remembered that expression from Ernst’s childhood. Boris wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her to him.

  I rushed out to claim the pay telephone and to get away from Boris. Hopefully Maria, the fastest writer at the newspaper, would be waiting for the news. The telephone booth was occupied, and I paced in front of the glass door, wanting to be done with the story and on my way home, away from everything, shut up alone in my apartment. I hefted Rudolf’s box on my hip.

  “Hello, Herr Weill,” said a voice behind me. Boris.

  I winced and turned. He stood close enough to touch. I felt heat emanating off his body. Even furious, he was incredibly sexy.

  “Herr Weill,” he repeated.

  There was no point in denying that I was Peter Weill. He must have read my article, the bit about the girls being unable to eat. “Hello, Herr Krause.”

  “You have a good story now,” he said. “ ‘Poor Wolf Wronged by Little Red Riding Hood.’ ”

  “People want to know how the case came out.” It grated to be third to phone in the news, but I stepped to the side to let Philip use the now empty telephone booth ahead of me.

  “People—want—to know.” Boris talked at a normal volume, although any fool could see that he wanted to shout. He leaned closer to me. His cologne smelled of limes and cedar trees with a hint of musk. “Is it just a bedtime story to you?”

  “It’s not my fault he was acquitted.” I glared into his brown eyes, angry that he accused me, angry that he leaned close because he hated me, and angry that he smelled so good. “What have I done?”

  “Lied to me.” His lips compressed to a thin line. “Exploited the sorrow of his victims to sell papers. And glamorized him.”

  I was incredulous. “I was in no way sympathetic to him.”

  “He didn’t need your sympathy. He needed your voice,” he said. “And you gave him that. You have a gift, you know, and you are squandering it.”

  “What are you talking about?” My eyes strayed to Philip chattering in the telephone booth, phoning in his story. He flailed with his free hand as if the person on the other end of the line could see him.

  “He was talking about your story this morning, as they brought him in. Did you not hear? He is your biggest fan.”

  My stomach dropped to my feet. I was horrified, but I tried not to show it. “I am not responsible—”

  “You have the public’s ear, and you are filling it with stories of evil, poison.” He lowered his voice and leaned closer. “Poison that will infect us all.”

  “My job is to report to the public what happens.”

  “Why not make it your job to show justice? To show wholesome things?”

  “I have to eat,” I said, feeling like an ass. But I certainly would not let him intimidate me. My job was to write the news in a way that sold papers. “No one pays for wholesome.”

  “But—”

  “And while we are on the subject, you are not campaigning for justice. You are a banker. Banks might dispense money, but they do not dispense it justly.” I shifted my satchel to my left arm.

  “People withdraw what they deposit,” he said, shaking his head. “Which is more than I can say for the criminal justice system.”

  “Rich people put money in,” I said. “And they draw it out. Usually that’s how the criminal justice system works too. Just not this time.”

  “Of all the—”

  “Vati.” Trudi approached and put her gloved hand on his arm. “Let’s go.”

  “Soon.” He placed his hand over hers. “I have a few more things to say to Herr Weill.”

  Trudi looked confused. “That’s Fraulein Vogel,” she said. “You went out to dinner last weekend, remember?”

  Boris looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time. He narrowed his eyes as if he disliked what he saw. “I remember,” he said. Trudi led him away.

&n
bsp; I blinked back tears, pacing in front of the telephone booth, waiting to do my job. Boris was only a man I’d dated once. I should not care what he thought. Except, I did. Today, of all days, I wanted to fall into someone’s arms and be comforted. Philip hung up the telephone. I shook my head. I would get no comfort from Boris, today or any other day. As always, I was on my own.

  Philip stepped out of the booth in front of me. He held the door open. “Nice piece on Sunday.” I nodded, avoiding his eyes.

  I stepped into the telephone booth, dropped my coins in the slot, and dialed the familiar number. The switchboard put me right through to Maria, which was a blessing. She wrote well and fast.

  “How’d it come out?” she asked. Typewriters clacked in the background.

  “Not guilty.” I stared out the glass door at the front of the courthouse. The defendant walked down the stairs and hugged his discomfited lawyer. I turned so I faced the telephone box.

  “Really?” She sounded surprised. “He seemed guilty in your last piece.”

  “I think he was.” I twined the rough cord of the telephone around my finger.

  “Give me a headline,” she said, and I dictated the story to her, dwelling on the antics of the defense lawyer, playing up how he had snatched victory only through a spirited defense. His impassioned pacing and spitting had made all of the difference.

  “I’ll have to tone that down.” The sound of keys clattering in the background reminded me that she sat at a battered desk, in a cloud of smoke. “What if that lawyer has some pull? You know how much Neumann loves those angry telephone calls.”

  “Heaven forbid we write anything that makes Neumann’s job difficult.” The defense lawyer sprinted down the street and hailed a taxi. He ran like a man escaping from prison.

  “He does write our checks,” Maria said. “And I remember being unemployed quite vividly, even if it seems remote to you. Do you know the unemployment figures right now?”

  “Five million or so, I think. I know, Maria. Everywhere qualified men are willing to do my job for less money.”

  “Why is this one so personal to you?” Maria asked. “You’ve been through worse without blinking before.”