March Violets Read Online Free PDF Page B

was a sulkiness about her mouth, and my acquaintance with the science of physiognomy told me that she was used to having her own way: in cash. Brilliant clips flashed on her perfect ears, and as she got nearer the air was filled with the scent of 4711 cologne. Just as I thought she was going to ignore me, she glanced in my direction and said coolly: ‘Goodnight, whoever you are.’ Then the library swallowed her whole before I had a chance to do the same. I rolled my tongue up and tucked it back into my mouth. I looked at my watch. It was 3.30. Ulrich reappeared.
    â€˜No wonder he stays up late,’ I said, and followed him through the door.

3
    The following morning was grey and wet. I woke with a whore’s drawers in my mouth, drank a cup of coffee and went through the morning’s Berliner Borsenzeitung, which was even more difficult to understand than usual, with sentences as long and as hard-to-incomprehensible as a speech from Hess.
    Shaved and dressed and carrying my laundry bag, I was at Alexanderplatz, the chief traffic centre of east Berlin, less than an hour later. Approached from Neue Königstrasse, the square is flanked by two great office blocks: Berolina Haus to the right, and Alexander Haus to the left, where I had my office on the fourth floor. I dropped off my laundry at Adler’s Wet-Wash Service on the ground floor before going up.
    Waiting for the lift, it was hard to ignore the small noticeboard that was situated immediately next to it, to which were pinned an appeal for contributions to the Mother and Child Fund, a Party exhortation to go and see an anti-Semitic film and an inspiring picture of the Fuhrer. This noticeboard was the responsibility of the building’s caretaker, Herr Gruber, a shifty little undertaker of a man. Not only is he the block air-defence monitor with police powers (courtesy of Orpo, the regular uniformed police), he is also a Gestapo informer. Long ago I decided that it would be bad for business to fall out with Gruber and so, like all the other residents of Alexander Haus, I gave him three marks a week, which is supposed to cover my contributions to whichever new money-making scheme the DAF, the German Labour Front, has dreamed up.
    I cursed the lift’s lack of speed as I saw Gruber’s door open just enough to permit his peppered-mackerel of a face to peer down the corridor.
    â€˜Ah, Herr Gunther, it’s you,’ he said, coming out of his office. He edged towards me like a crab with a bad case of corns.
    â€˜Good morning, Herr Gruber,’ I said, avoiding his face. There was something about it that always reminded me of Max Schreck’s screen portrayal of Nosferatu, an effect that was enhanced by the rodent-like washing movements of his skeletal hands.
    â€˜There was a young lady who came for you,’ he said. ‘I sent her up. I do hope that was convenient, Herr Gunther.’
    â€˜Yes — ’
    â€˜If she’s still there, that is,’ he said. ‘That was at least half an hour ago. Only I knew Fraulein Lehmann is no longer working for you, so I had to say that there was no telling when you would turn up, you keeping such irregular hours.’ To my relief the lift arrived and I drew open the door and stepped in.
    â€˜Thank you, Herr Gruber,’ I said, and shut the door.
    â€˜Heil Hitler,’ he said. The lift started to rise up the shaft. I called: ‘Heil Hitler.’ You don’t miss the Hitler Salute with someone like Gruber. It’s not worth the trouble. But one day I’m going to have to beat the crap out of that weasel, just for the sheer pleasure of it.
    I share the fourth floor with a ‘German’ dentist, a ‘German’ insurance broker, and a ‘German’ employment agency, the latter having provided me with the temporary secretary who I now presumed was the woman seated in my waiting room. Coming out of the lift I hoped that she wasn’t battle-scarred