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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

He closed his eyes in a poor affectation of piety and added, “Yes, that is a lovely hymn, isn’t it?” He nodded. “Until five o’clock, then.”

I left him and walked out of the building. I went south and west, across the city center, vaguely in the direction of the Holy Ghost Church but more precisely in the direction of the Hofbrauhaus, in the Platzl. I needed a beer.

With its red mansard roof, pink walls, arched windows, and heavy wooden doors, the Hofbrauhaus had a folkish, almost fairy-tale air, and whenever I passed it, I half expected to see the Hunch-back of Notre Dame swinging down from the roof to rescue some hapless Gypsy girl from the center of the cobbled square (assuming there were any Gypsies still left in Germany). But it could just as easily have been the Jew Süss swinging down into the medieval marketplace. Munich is that kind of a town. Small-minded. Even a bit rustic and primitive. It’s no accident that Adolf Hitler got started here, in another beer hall, the Burgerbraukeller, just a few blocks away from the Hofbrauhaus on Kaufingerstrasse. But Hitler’s echo was only part of the reason I seldom went to the Burgerbrau. The main reason was I didn’t like Löwenbräu beer. I preferred the darker beer at the Hofbrauhaus. The food there was better, too. I ordered Bavarian potato soup, followed by pork knuckles with potato dumplings and homemade bacon-cabbage salad. I’d been saving my meat coupons.

Several beers and a sweet yeast pudding later, I went along to the Holy Ghost Church on Tal. Like everything else in Munich, it had taken a battering. The roof and vaulting had been completely destroyed and the interior decoration devastated. But the pillars in the nave had been re-erected, the church reroofed and repaired sufficiently for services to be resumed. There was one under way as I entered the half-empty church. A priest who wasn’t Gotovina stood facing the still impressive high altar, his fluting voice echoing around the church’s skeletal interior like Pinocchio’s when he was trapped inside the whale. I felt my lip and nose curl with Protestant abhorrence. I disliked the idea of a God who could put up with being worshipped in this reedy, singsong, Roman way. Not that I ever called myself a Protestant. Not since I learned how to spell Friedrich Nietzsche.