Babylon Berlin Read Online Free PDF Page B

Iwanowitsch Kardakow! Atkroj dwer! Eta ja, Boris! Boris Sergejewitsch Karpenko! ’
    He flung the door open and gazed into the baffled blue-green eyes of a scruffy, ragged figure. Tangled strands of dark blond hair fell over the man’s gaunt, unshaven chin. Rath could smell the alcohol on his breath.
    ‘What’s all the racket?’ he asked. The man stared at him with glassy eyes. ‘You’d be better off going home to bed instead of banging on people’s doors in the middle of the night.’
    The man said something in a language that Rath didn’t understand. Russian? Polish? He couldn’t say for sure, but he was fairly certain the stranger had just asked him a question.
    ‘Do you speak German?’ he asked.
    The stranger repeated his question. All Rath understood was that it was about a man named Alexej. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you,’ he said. ‘Go home! Good night!’
    No sooner had he closed the door than the banging started again.
    ‘That’s enough,’ he hissed as he threw the door open a second time, ‘if you don’t clear off this instant, there’ll be real trouble!’
    The man pushed him to one side and stormed inside. Only Rath’s door was open in the hallway, and that was where the drunk staggered next. Rath rushed after him and grabbed him by the collar but, with a cry, the stranger pushed him up against the wall. A strong forearm pressed against Rath’s neck; the man’s face was so close that his alcoholic breath was almost unbearable.
    ‘ Gdje Aleksej? Schto s nim? ’ the man hissed before Rath kneed him in the guts. He doubled up momentarily but was soon back on his feet. ‘ Yob twaju mat! ’ he cried, charging towards Rath, who dodged skilfully. The stranger crashed against the huge neo-Gothic wardrobe, taking a chunk out of its side.
    Rath grabbed him by the collar, twisted his arm behind his back and dragged him into the hall. The drunk bellowed something incomprehensible, trying vainly to escape. Rath positioned him carefully before sending him on his way with a hefty kick. The drunk stumbled into the darkness of the stairwell, crashing against the door of the flat opposite. Rath slammed and bolted the door, and leaned against it panting. From the stairwell he heard a few muffled cries before the door banged shut and all was still.
    ‘Has he gone?’
    Rath looked up in surprise. The widow Behnke had thrown a crochet shawl over her nightdress and was standing in the doorway that led from the hall into the dining room and then to her private rooms. The landlady was in her late thirties and obviously lonely. If her gaze spoke volumes her hints could have replaced whole libraries. So far, he had resisted her advances. Start something with his landlady? With someone who wouldn’t even allow female visitors? Out of the question! Right now though, she was allowing him a look at her ample décolletage. Elisabeth Behnke was obviously enjoying seeing her tenant short of breath.
    ‘Come on, Herr Rath. I’ll make us a tea. With rum. Just the thing to get over the fright. I thought all that nonsense with these Russians was finally over.’
    He followed her into the kitchen. Once an opulent dining room, when she had been forced to sublet she had turned the old kitchen into a bathroom for her male tenants, and moved the kitchen units here.
    ‘Drunken Russians on the rampage in strangers’ flats in the middle of the night is a common occurrence here?’ he asked at the dining table.
    She looked at him and shrugged her shoulders.
    ‘The previous tenant gave me more than my share of sleepless nights, I can tell you. Every so often your room would be teeming with Russians carousing until the small hours.’ She lit the gas stove and placed a kettle on the hotplate. ‘You’d think there were more Russians than Germans in this city.’
    ‘Sometimes I think there are just too many people here in general.’
    ‘They arrived just after the war, after the Bolsheviks drove them out. You’d hear more