Kronberg Crimes 01 - The Devils Grin

authentic enough as long as no one examined too closely. It had a narrow rubber tube inserted, with its other end attached to a leather pouch filled with water. I permitted the odd male colleague to spot me take a pee at the urinal and that surely drowned all doubts about my sex before they would have got the opportunity to surface.
    Carefully, I took the contraption off, wrapped it in a towel, and stuck it into my doctor’s bag.
    Gazing at my naked self I let the fact sink in that I was yet again a woman. Every morning I shed my female part and made myself believe I was a man. To me, it was the only way not to be afraid. I had no time for fear when I was at work. Rather, I had no time for fear at all. But this was naivety rather than courage. If my identity were revealed, I would simply start a new life elsewhere. That’s what I tried to make myself believe. But one part of my consciousness kept telling me how hard it would be to let go of all I had accomplished. I rarely listened.
    The left-hand side of my wardrobe contained all things female. I pulled on a bodice, stockings, a petticoat and a simple linen dress. A scarf around my head concealed the fact that my hair was rather short. All in all, I wasn’t worth looking at, and yet, once I entered the streets again, it felt as though I had thrown myself onto the market for sexual reproduction. Half the men noticed me; several of the ones I walked past swayed or reached out almost unintentionally just to brush my shoulder or waist. As a woman, I had many more obstacles in my way than as a man.
    From Bow Street I turned north and walked the few blocks to my small flat in Endell Street, St Giles — the worst rookery of the British Empire.
    London was a monster with many heads, or faces, to be more precise. One could stroll down a clean and busy street, but, making a wrong turn, one would disappear into a maze of dark and filthy alleys, harbouring millions of rats the size of footballs. Rodents thrived in the slums more than anything else, as they were the only inhabitants who always had enough to eat, be it fermenting cabbage, faeces, or cadavers of both animal and human origin. The uninitiated would probably not return, at least not without getting mugged, probably beaten up, and sometimes murdered. Clean water was a rare commodity, as were food, shelter, a warm place in winter, clothes, and basically anything that would make life acceptable. On the other end of the scale were the tranquil and clean upper-class areas. Beautifully dressed and well-behaved ladies and gentlemen could stroll through the parks without being bothered by the poor and dirty. Here, even the trees and bushes were well groomed. People had enough to eat, though their servants often did not.
    Every day, my way to and from Guy’s Hospital took me through these contrasting areas of London’s rich and poor. Every day, I saw the transformation of the city, beautiful villas to filthy bottom-of-the-pit hovels with garbage bags or battered hats as replacements for missing windowpanes.
    And so did I transform, from the fake male bacteriologist and epidemiologist Anton Kronberg to Anna Kronberg — fake widow and fake medical nurse. I knew that changing identities had its risks, but I gladly took them. In Boston I had lived as Anton only, and after three years my own body had become a stranger to me. The lack of a penis was highly bothersome and my breasts were useless and ugly appendages that, at some point, I hid even at night. After many weeks of tightly bandaging my chest, I got a breast infection that threw me down with a high fever and excruciating pain. I spent a week in bed, naked. After that I could not hide my female identity for much longer than a day. I needed to be Anna, to not lose myself.

    ~~~

    Trying to avoid a meeting with the landlady, I ran up the creaking stairs to my apartment and slammed the door shut before she had opened hers. The stench in the hallway told me she had had too much gin and too little time to discard the contents of her chamber pots. Almost every day I was glad they had no children. The crying of neglected youngsters on top of their shouting wars would have been unbearable.
    I cut the bread and cheese, made tea and took an early supper while standing at the open window and listening to the odd mix of drunkard sing-song, children’s play, dog yowls, and laughter.
    Then, I fetched the bucket and walked down to the street to get water from the pump. Back in the