Rosa by Jonathan Rabb Read Free Book Online Page B

later, after having retrieved his coat and having jotted down a few notes, Hoffner joined Fichte out on the square. The rain was misting in tiny drops of water visible only as haloes around the street lamps.
    Fichte was enjoying a cigarette; he offered Hoffner a drag, but the smell of the smoke was enough to put anyone off a tasting. Fichte had a girl: he needed to save his pfennigs. Hoffner had always reasoned that the cheaper the tobacco, the greater the capital required to grease the way. From the expression on Fichte’s face each time he inhaled, few came more chaste than little Lina.
    There was no reason to ask where they were heading. If Fichte was playing it well—and from the tobacco, he clearly was—he would have progressed to old Josty’s in Leipziger Strasse by now, over in the west, a step up: the café was fancy enough so that the girl would feel Fichte was showing her the proper respect, lively enough to know that respect wasn’t really what he was after. Fichte had probably asked one of the boys at headquarters where to take her, someone reliable. Hoffner felt a bit tweaked that Fichte had gone elsewhere for the advice.
    “She’s quite popular, is she?” said Fichte as they continued to walk. Hoffner had no idea what Fichte was saying. “Or at least she was.”
    “Was what?” said Hoffner. “Who?”
    “At the lab. Luxemburg. She was popular.”
    “Ah, Luxemburg. I suppose that depends on who you are.” Hoffner pulled up the collar of his coat. “You fancy yourself a Red, then?”
    Fichte laughed awkwardly. “Certainly not.”
    “So you’re more for the oppression of the masses. The inscrutable certainty of capitalism.”
    “The what?” said Fichte.
    Hoffner smiled quietly. “Yes. She was popular, Hans.”
    Fichte nodded and then said cautiously, “You’re . . . 0A0;    not a Red, are you, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar ?”
    Hoffner dug his hands deeper inside his coat pockets. “And what did you have in mind?”
    “Well, you know         .         .         .” Fichte had been given the go-ahead. “Blowing up buildings, marching in the streets, chaos, that sort of thing.”
    “‘That sort of thing,’” Hoffner echoed. “Sounds a bit more like anarchy, don’t you think?”
    “Anarchy. Socialism. Same thing.”
    “I’ll leave the distinctions to you, shall I?”
    Fichte hesitated. “She was a Jew,” he said with surprising certainty.
    Hoffner nodded to himself. “Well, then, there you have it. The complete picture.” They ducked in behind a cart and headed across the street. Hoffner said, “You know, your anarchist wasn’t always waving her fists from balconies, Hans, but then you’re probably too young to remember that.” Hoffner hopped up onto the curb.
    “Really?” said Fichte, following.
    “Really.”
    They continued to walk in silence until Fichte managed, “How so?”
    The boy was genuinely keen on the subject. Hoffner said, “It might do you to pick up a newspaper now and then, Hans.”
    Fichte nodded. “It might, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar, but then I’ve always got you if I don’t.”
    Hoffner had never heard Fichte’s playful side: the prospect of seeing his girl was evidently working wonders. “Fair enough,” said Hoffner. “It was before the war, around the time they hanged that Hennig fellow for the Treptow murders. You remember the case?” Fichte nodded. “Frulein Luxemburg printed an article in one of her papers, something about how the average soldier was being mistreated by his officers. Not that this was any great news to anyone, but she claimed that it had gotten out of hand. Lots of press after that. A Red coming to the aid of the army’s downtrodden. Powerful stuff.”
    Fichte was skeptical. “Luxemburg did that . . . 0A0;    for the soldiers?”
    “She wasn’t trying to scrap the whole business, Hans—she wasn’t angling for them to disband the army or hang the culprits—she just wanted a bit of fair