Garden of Beasts

quite sure why he’d been so rewarded. Most likely because he was always ready to help fellow officers analyze crime scene information, make deductions from the evidence or interview a witness or suspect. Kohl knew that the most invaluable man in any job is the one who can make his colleagues—and superiors especially—appear invaluable as well.
    These rooms were his sanctuary. They were as private as his workplace was public and were populated by those closest to his heart: his wife and children and, on occasion (sleeping always in the parlor, of course), Charlotte’s fiancé, Heinrich.
    The apartment was on the second floor and as he walked, wincing, up the stairs, he could make out thesmells of onions and meat. Heidi kept to no schedule in preparing her food. Some of Kohl’s colleagues would solemnly declare Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays, for instance, to be State Loyalty Meat-free Days. The Kohl household, at least seven strong, went without meat often, owing to scarcity as well as cost, but Heidi refused to be bound by a ritual. This Saturday night they might have aubergine with bacon in cream sauce or kidney pudding or sauerbraten or even an Italian-style dish of pasta with tomatoes. Always a sweet, of course. Willi Kohl liked his linzertorte and strudel.
    Wheezing from the walk up the stairs, he opened the door just as eleven-year-old Hanna raced to him. Every inch the little blonde Nordic maid, despite her parents’ brown hair, she wrapped her arms around the large man. “Papa! Can I carry your pipe for you?”
    He fished out the meerschaum for her. She carried it to the rack in the den where dozens of others sat.
    “I’m home,” he called.
    Heidi stepped into the doorway and kissed her husband on both cheeks. A few years younger than he, she’d become round over the course of their marriage, developing a smooth extra chin and huge bosom, adding pounds with each child. But this was as it should be; Kohl felt you should grow both in soul and in girth with your partner. Five children had earned her a certificate from the Party. (Women with more offspring had higher accolades; producing nine children won you a gold star. Indeed, a couple with fewer than four offspring were not allowed to call themselves a “family.”) But Heidi had angrily stuffed the parchment into the bottom of her bureau. She had children because she enjoyed them, enjoyed everything about them—giving them life, raising them, directing theircourse—not because the Little Man wished to swell the population of his Third Empire.
    His wife vanished then returned a moment later, bearing a snifter of schnapps. She let him have only one glass of the potent drink before dinner. He grumbled about the rationing occasionally but he secretly welcomed it. He knew far too many policemen who didn’t stop with the second glass. Or second bottle.
    He said hello to Hilde, his seventeen-year-old, lost as always in a book. She rose and hugged him and then returned to the divan. The willowy girl was the family scholar. But she’d been having a difficult time lately. Goebbels himself said that a woman’s sole purpose was to be beautiful and populate the Third Empire. The universities were largely closed to girls now, and those admitted were limited to two courses of study: domestic science (which earned what was contemptuously called the “pudding degree”) or education. Hilde, however, wished to study mathematics and science and ultimately become a university professor. But she would be allowed to teach only lower grades. Kohl believed both of his older daughters were equally smart but learning came more easily to Hilde than to vivacious and athletic Charlotte, four years older. He was often amazed at how he and Heidi had produced such similar and yet vastly different human beings.
    The inspector walked out onto his small balcony, where he would sometimes sit and smoke his pipe late at night. It faced west and now he gazed at the fierce red-and-orange clouds, lit by the vanished sun. He took a small sip of the harsh schnapps. The second was kinder and he sat down comfortably in his chair, trying hard not to think about fat, dead men, about the tragic deaths in Gatow and Charlottenburg, about Pietr—forgive me, Peter —Krauss,about the mysterious churning of the DeHoMags in the basement of the Kripo. Trying not to think about their clever Manny’s New York suspect.
    Who are you?
    A clamor from the front hall. The boys were returning.