Free The One From the Other by Philip Kerr Page A

said.
    “Well, how is Nijinsky these days?”
    “There was a rumor that he had died. But that was false. He’s still alive. Although he remains in psychiatric care.”
    “I guess that answers my question.”
    “About Nijinsky?”
    “About my wife.”
    These days I rarely ever saw Dr. Bublitz. Mostly I sat beside Kirsten and brushed her hair and sometimes lit her a cigarette that I fixed in the corner of her mouth, where it stayed until I took it out, unsmoked. Sometimes the smoke trailing up her face made her blink, which was the only sign of life she ever showed, which was half of the reason I did it. Other times I read the paper to her, or a book; and once or twice, because her breath was so rank, I even cleaned her teeth. On this particular occasion I told her the plans I had for the hotel and myself.
    “I have to do something with my life,” I said. “I can’t stay at that hotel any longer. Otherwise we’ll both end up in here. So, after I leave here today, I’m going to see your family lawyer, and I’m going to put the place up for sale. Then I’m going to borrow a little money against it from Herr Kohl at Wechselbank, so I can start a little business of my own. As a private detective, of course. I’ve got no talent whatsoever for running a hotel. Police work is the only work I know. I’ll rent an office and a small apartment here, in Schwabing, so I can be near you. As you know this part of Munich always reminds me a little of Berlin. And it’s cheap, of course. Because of the bomb damage. Somewhere close to Wagmullerstrasse, at the south end of Englischerstrasse would be ideal. The Bavarian Red Cross has its offices there and that’s where everyone goes first when they’re looking for a missing person. I think there’s probably quite a decent living to be made specializing in that end of the business.”
    I didn’t expect Kirsten to say anything, and she certainly didn’t disappoint me in that respect. She stared at the floor as if my news was the most depressing thing she had heard in months. As if selling a failing hotel in Dachau was the worst business decision anyone could make. I paused and put her cigarette in my mouth and took a drag of it before stubbing it out on the sole of my shoe and dropping the butt into my jacket pocket—the room was dirty enough without my adding a cigarette end to the filth.
    “There are lots of people missing in Germany,” I added. “Just like when the Nazis were still in power.” I shook my head. “But I can’t go on in Dachau. Not on my own. I’ve had enough of that, forever. The way I feel right now, it’s me who should be in here, not you.”
    I jumped out of my skin as one of the other women let out a screech of laughter and then went to face the wall where she remained for the rest of my visit, rocking on her feet like some old rabbi. Maybe she knew something I didn’t. They say that insanity is merely the ability to see into the future. And if we knew now what we’ll know then, it would probably be enough to make any of us scream. In life the trick is all about keeping the two separate for as long as possible.

THREE
    I had to get a denazification certificate from the Ministry of the Interior, on Prinzregentenstrasse. Since I had never actually been a member of the Nazi Party, this didn’t present too much of a problem. There were plenty of bulls at the Police Praesidium on Ettstrasse (where I had to have the certificate countersigned) who, like me, had been SS, not to mention quite a few who had been in the Gestapo or the SD. Fortunately for me, the occupation authorities did not hold the view that ex officio transfers from KRIPO, the criminal police, or ORPO, the uniformed police, into these Nazi police organizations were enough to disqualify a man from being a police officer in the fledgling Federal Republic of Germany. It was only younger men who had started their careers in the SS, the Gestapo, or the SD who faced any real difficulties. But