March Violets by Philip Kerr

Weizmann, the proprietor, to appear from the back of the shop.
    There was an old Pickelhaube helmet, a stuffed marmot, in a glass case, that looked as if it had perished of anthrax, and an old Siemens vacuum-cleaner; there were several cases full of military medals — mostly second-class Iron Crosses like mine own, twenty odd volumes of Kohler’s Naval Calendar, full of ships long since sunk or sent to the breaker’s yard, a Blaupunkt radio, a chipped bust of Bismarck and an old Leica. I was inspecting the case of medals when a smell of tobacco, and Weizmann’s familiar cough, announced his present appearance.
    â€˜You should look after yourself, Weizmann.’
    â€˜And what would I do with a long life?’ The threat of Weizmann’s wheezing cough was ever present in his speech. It lay in wait to trip him like a sleeping halberdier. Sometimes he managed to catch himself; but this time he fell into a spasm of coughing that sounded hardly human at all, more like someone trying to start a car with an almost flat battery, and as usual it seemed to afford him no relief whatsoever. Nor did it require him to remove the pipe from his tobacco-pouch of a mouth.
    â€˜You should try inhaling a little bit of air now and then,’ I told him. ‘Or at least something you haven’t first set on fire.’
    â€˜Air,’ he said. ‘It goes straight to my head. Anyway, I’m training myself to do without it: there’s no telling when they’ll ban Jews from breathing oxygen.’ He lifted the counter. ‘Come into the back room, my friend, and tell me what service I can do for you.’ I followed him round the counter, past an empty bookcase.
    â€˜Is business picking up then?’ I said. He turned to look at me. ‘What happened to all the books?’ Weizmann shook his head sadly.
    â€˜Unfortunately, I had to remove them. The Nuremberg Laws -’ he said with a scornful laugh, ‘ — they forbid a Jew to sell books. Even secondhand ones.’ He turned and passed on through to the back room. ‘These days I believe in the law like I believe in Horst Wessel’s heroism.’
    â€˜Horst Wessel?’ I said. ‘Never heard of him.’
    Weizmann smiled and pointed at an old Jacquard sofa with the stem of his reeking pipe. ‘Sit down, Bernie, and let me fix us a drink.’
    â€˜Well, what do you know? They still let Jews drink booze. I was almost feeling sorry for you back there when you told me about those books. Things are never as bad as they seem, just as long as there’s a drink about.’
    â€˜That’s the truth, my friend.’ He opened a corner cabinet, found the bottle of schnapps and poured it carefully but generously. Handing me my glass he said, ‘I’ll tell you something. If it wasn’t for all the people who drink, this country really would be in a hell of a state.’ He raised his glass. ‘Let us wish for more drunks and the frustration of an efficiently run National Socialist Germany.’
    â€˜To more drunks,’ I said, watching him drink it, almost too gratefully. He had a shrewd face, with a mouth that wore a wry smile, even with the chimneystack. A large, fleshy nose separated eyes that were rather too closely set together, and supported a pair of thick, rimless glasses. The still-dark hair was brushed neatly to the right of a high forehead. Wearing his well-pressed blue pin-striped suit, Weizmann looked not unlike Ernst Lubitsch, the comic actor turned film director. He sat down at an old rolltop and turned sideways to face me.
    â€˜So what can I do for you?’
    I showed him the photograph of Six’s necklace. He wheezed a little as he looked at it, and then coughed his way into a remark.
    â€˜If it’s real -’ He smiled and nodded his head from side to side. ‘Is it real? Of course it’s real, or why else would you be showing me such a nice photograph. Well