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Back The One from the Other
Chapters (50)
  1. Praise
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. SIXTEEN
  22. SEVENTEEN
  23. EIGHTEEN
  24. NINETEEN
  25. TWENTY
  26. TWENTY-ONE
  27. TWENTY-TWO
  28. TWENTY-THREE
  29. TWENTY-FOUR
  30. TWENTY-FIVE
  31. TWENTY-SIX
  32. TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. TWENTY-NINE
  35. THIRTY
  36. THIRTY-ONE
  37. THIRTY-TWO
  38. THIRTY-THREE
  39. THIRTY-FOUR
  40. THIRTY-FIVE
  41. THIRTY-SIX
  42. THIRTY-SEVEN
  43. THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. THIRTY-NINE
  45. FORTY
  46. FORTY-ONE
  47. FORTY-TWO
  48. EPILOGUE
  49. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  50. Teaser chapter

Americans took the Föhn more seriously than anyone, of course, and kept their children indoors to avoid it, almost as if it had been carrying something more lethal than a few positively charged ions. Maybe they knew something the rest of us didn’t. Anything was possible now that the Ivans had exploded their atomic bomb the previous month. Possibly there were all sorts of things in the Föhn to really worry about. Either way, the Föhn served a very useful purpose. Müncheners blamed the Föhn for all kinds of things. They were always grousing about it. Some claimed it made their asthma worse, others that it gave them rheumatic pains, and quite a few that it caused them to have headaches. If the milk tasted funny, that was the Föhn. And if the beer came out flat, that was the Föhn, too. Where I lived, in Schwabing, the woman downstairs claimed that the Föhn interfered with the signal on her wireless radio. And on the tram I even heard a man claim he’d got into a fight because of the Föhn. It made a change from blaming things on the Jews, I suppose. The Föhn certainly made people seem cranky and more irritable than usual. Maybe that’s how Nazism got started here in the first place. Because of the Föhn. I never heard of people trying to overthrow a government who weren’t cranky and irritable.

That was the kind of day it was when I went back to Wagmullerstrasse and stood in front of the art gallery window next door to the offices of the Red Cross. I was earlier than the appointed time. I’m usually early for things. If punctuality is the virtue of kings then I’m the kind of person who likes to get there an hour or two before, to look for a landmine underneath the red carpet.

The gallery was called Oscar & Shine. Most of the city’s art dealers were in the Brienner Strasse district. They bought and sold Secessionists and Munich Post-Impressionists. I know that because I read it on a Brienner Strasse gallery window, once. This particular gallery looked a little different from those others. Especially inside. Inside it looked like one of those Bauhaus buildings the Nazis used to frown upon. Of course it wasn’t just the open staircase and the freestanding walls that looked futuristic. The paintings on exhibition were similarly modern-looking, which is to say they were as easy on the eye as a sharp stick.