Garden of Beasts

second floor.”
    “No. I’m simply using the rear exit door.” Kohl started forward. The SS trooper took a subtle step toward him. “I’m sorry to report that it is no longer in use.”
    “I didn’t hear about that.”
    “No? Well, it has been the case for the past several days. You will have to go back upstairs.”
    Kohl heard a curious sound. What was it? A mechanical clap, clap . . .
    A burst of sunlight filled the hallway as two SS men opened the far door and wheeled in dollies holding cartons. They turned into one of the rooms at the end of the corridor.
    He said to the guard, “That door is the one I’m speaking of. It appears to be in use.”
    “Not in general use.”
    The sounds . . .
    Clap, clap, clap and, beneath it, the rumbling of a motor or engine . . .
    He glanced to his right, through a partially open doorway, where he glimpsed several large mechanical devices. A woman in a white coat was feeding stacks of paper into one of them. This must be part of the Kripo’s printing department. But then he observed that, no, they weren’t sheets of paper but cards with holes punched in them and they were being sorted by the device.
    Ah, Kohl understood. An old mystery had been answered. Some time ago he’d heard that the government was leasing large calculating and sorting machines, called DeHoMags, after the firm that made them, the German subsidiary of the American company International Business Machines. These devices used punched cards to analyze and cross-reference information. Kohl had been delighted when he’d learned of the leases. The machines could be invaluable in criminal investigations; they might narrow down fingerprint categories or ballistics information a hundred times faster than a technician could by hand. They could also cross-reference modus operandi to link criminal and crime and could keep track of parolees or recidivist offenders.
    The inspector’s enthusiasm soon soured, though, when he learned that the devices were not available for use by the Kripo. He’d wondered who’d gotten them and where they were. But now, to his shock, it seemed that at least two or three were less than a hundred meters from his office and guarded by the SS.
    What was their purpose?
    He asked the guard.
    “I couldn’t tell you, sir,” the man replied in a brittle voice. “I have not been informed.”
    From inside the room the woman in white looked out. Her hands paused and she spoke to someone. Kohl couldn’t hear what was said, nor see the person she was speaking to. The door slowly swung shut as if by magic.
    The guard with the vertical face stepped past Kohl and opened the door that led back up the stairs. “Again, Inspector, as I said, there is no exit here. You will find another door up one flight and—”
    “I’m familiar with the building,” Kohl said testily and returned to the stairs.
    •   •   •
    “I brought you something,” he said.
    Standing in Paul’s living room in the Magdeburger Alley boardinghouse, Käthe Richter took the small package with a curious look: cautious awe, as if it had been years since anyone had given her a present. She rubbed her thumbs on the brown paper covering what Otto Webber had located for him.
    “Oh.” She uttered a faint exhalation as she looked at the leather-bound book on whose jacket was stamped Collected Poems of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
    “My friend said it’s not illegal but it’s not legal either. That means it will soon be illegal.”
    “Limbo,” she said, nodding. “It was the same with American jazz here for a time, which is now forbidden.” Continuing to smile, Käthe turned the volume over and over in her hands.
    He said, “I didn’t know his names run in my family.”
    She glanced up with a quizzical look on her face.
    “My grandfather was Wolfgang. My father was Johann.”
    Käthe smiled at the coincidence and flipped through the book.
    “I was wondering,” he said. “If you’re not busy, perhaps some dinner.”
    Her face went still. “As I told you, I am able to serve only breakfast, not—”
    He laughed. “No, no. I want to take you out to dinner. Perhaps see some sights in Berlin.”
    “You want to . . .”
    “I would like to take you out.”
    “I . . . No, no, I couldn’t.”
    “Oh, you have a friend, a husband. . . .” He’d glanced at her hand and seen no rings but he wasn’t sure how one declared commitment in Germany. “Please, ask him to come too.”
    Käthe