The Sleepwalkers Read Online Free PDF Page A

Berlin-North.”
    “Make it three hours.” Willi slapped Hans’s shoulder. “I’m off to the Six-Day Race.”
    “Ach so.”
Hans instantly understood.
    The fastest way to the Sportpalast was by streetcar. Willi took the crowded No. 12. Over the swaying sea of padded shoulders and big felt hats, he could hardly avoid the afternoon headlines: Who Will Lead?
    Hanging on to a leather strap, he gazed at
Berlin am Mittag
over someone’s shoulder. Bad enough half of what the papers printed was pure garbage, he knew from experience. But the press had positively addicted Germans to living in perpetual crisis. In Berlin, which had more daily papers than any other city on earth, half the population lived off the adrenaline fix provided by the morning, late-morning, early-afternoon, late-afternoon, early-evening, and late-evening horror headlines.
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Jew?” Every head in the streetcar turned. He looked to see whom the sharp-faced man in a black derby in front of him was accusing, then got it. “Get your dirty Jew nose out of my newspaper!”
    Willi was stunned. He barely even thought of his Jewishness, except on High Holidays. But his dark eyes and curly, dark hair advertised it as clearly as any flashing sign on the Ku-damm. Germans were becoming more brazen by the hour in their anti-Semitic outbursts. The next thing you know they’d want to put Jews back into yellow dunce caps, like in the Dark Ages. All this nut had to do was accuse him of trying to pick his pocket and there’d be real trouble. If he wasn’t who he was. He pulled out his Kripo badge. The change on the guy’s face was almost worth the insult.
    “Oh, pardon me, Herr Inspektor-Detektiv.” The man removed his derby and held it trembling. “I had no idea to whom I was speaking. I meant nothing by it. Forgive my stupidity. We’ve all heard of the great Inspektor Kraus, the
Kinderfresser
catcher!”
    How German was it to torment the weaker and grovel before the more powerful.
    Willi stared until the man got so uncomfortable he pulled on his derby and fled the tram.

    The Berlin Sportpalast, a templelike stadium built 1910, was the city’s largest indoor arena, home of professional boxing matches, major political rallies, and the wildly popular Six-Day Bicycle Race. Begun in 1920, this grueling marathon pit teams of cyclists in a round-the-clock run for high-stakes prizes. Only one rider from each team had to be out on the track, so the second could eat, sleep, or bathe while his partner racked up points by gaining laps on the competition or in ball-busting sprints every third hour.
    Willi was admitted through the front doors with the flash of his Kripo badge and hit by a wave of humidity. Inside, cones of brilliant white floodlights transported him into the arena. The whole place shook as if in an earthquake, the air exploding with the roar of thousands, the bleachers thundering with stamping feet. A dozen cyclists bent parallel to the ground insanely pedaled the track of wood that circled the arena floor, trying to pull ahead, an inch, a foot, flying past in a blur of color. “Around and around and around they go!” the loudspeakers were blasting. “How long can they last,
meine Damen und Herren
? How long?”
    Willi soon enough learned that Konstantin Kaparov, No. 8, was out there right now. Fortunately though, in just a few minutes, the section would end and Kaparov would retire to let his teammate take over. Willi’d shown up just in time.
    Lucky day, he thought.
    Until he saw Kaparov stumble off the track after six hours of racing.
    Poor guy’s eyes were rolling into the back of his head. A crew wrapped his heaving body into a towel and led him to a rest area. The man looked on the verge of death. Willi gave him a few minutes to at least regain some consciousness before showing him his Kripo badge. Kaparov nodded, taking another glass of juice, then summoned what seemed his last ounce of strength.