The Lady from Zagreb Read Online Free PDF

around on pedestals waiting for someone to hand them a bath towel; they all looked bored and wishing they could be out on the nude beach enjoying the sun at Strandbad Wannsee instead of posing in a government ministry. I had the same feeling myself.
    A slim young woman in a dark pencil skirt and white blouse appeared at my shoulder.
    “I was just admiring the graffiti,” I said.
    “They’re called frescoes, actually,” said the secretary.
    “Is that so?” I shrugged. “Sounds Italian.”
    “Yes. It means fresh.”
    “It figures. Personally, I think there’s only so many naked people you can have getting fresh with each other on one wall before the place starts to look like a Moroccan bathhouse. What do you think?”
    “It’s classical art,” she said. “And you must be Captain Gunther.”
    “Is it that obvious?”
    “It is in here.”
    “Good point. I guess I should have taken off my clothes if I’d wanted to blend in a bit.”
    “This way,” she said without a flicker of a smile. “State Secretary Gutterer is waiting for you.”
    She turned away in a haze of Mystikum and I followed on an invisible dog leash. I watched her arse and gave it careful appraisal as we walked. It was a little too skinny for my taste but it moved well enough; I expect she got a lot of exercise just getting around that building. For such a small minister as Joey the Crip it was a very big ministry.
    “Believe it or not,” I said, “I’m enjoying myself.”
    She stopped momentarily, colored a little, and then started walking again. I was starting to like her.
    “Really, I don’t know what you mean, Captain,” she said.
    “Sure you do. But I’ll certainly try to enlighten you if you care to meet me for a drink after work. That’s what people do around here, isn’t it? Enlighten each other? Look, it’s all right. I got my Abitur. I know what a fresco is. I was making a little joke. And the scary black badge on my sleeve is just for show. I’m really a very friendly fellow. We could go to the Adlon and share a glass of champagne. I used to work there so I’ve got some pull with the barman.”
    She didn’t say anything. She just kept walking. That’s just what women do when they don’t want to tell you no: they ignore you and hope you’ll go away right up until the moment you don’t and then they find an excuse to say yes. Hegel got it all wrong; relations between the sexes, there’s nothing complicated about it—it’s child’s play. That’s what makes it such fun. Kids wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t.
    Blushing now, she led me through what looked like the Herrenklub library into the presence of a heavyset, clean-shaven man of about forty. He had a full head of longish gray hair, sharp brown eyes, and a mouth like a bow that no ordinary man could draw into a smile. I resolved not to try. The air of self-importance was all his but the cologne with which it was alloyed was Scherk’s Tarr pomade and must have been battering on the panes of the double-height windows there was so much of it. He wore a wedding band on his left hand and plenty of cauliflower on the lapel badges of his SS tunic, not to mention a gold party badge on his left breast pocket; but the ribbon bar above the pocket was the kind you bought like sticks of candy from Holter’s, where they made the uniform. On such a warm day the brilliantly white shirt around his neck was perhaps a little snug for comfort but it was perfectly pressed and encouraged me to believe that he might be happily married. To be well fed with all laundry found is really all that most German men are looking for. I know I was. There was a large gold pen in his fingers and some red ink on a sheet of paper in front of him; the handwriting was neater than the typing, which was mine. I hadn’t seen that much red ink on my homework since leaving school.
    He pointed to a seat in front of him; at the same time he consulted a gold hunter watch that was on his desk as if he had