I shrugged. ‘Only a second class.’ So that was it, I thought; the flyer was hungry for glory.
‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘an Iron Cross. The Führer’s Iron Cross was a second class.’
‘Well, I can’t speak for him, but my own recollection is that provided a soldier was honest – comparatively honest – and served at the front, it was really rather easy towards the end of the war to collect a second class. You know, most of the first-class medals were awarded to men in cemeteries. I got my Iron Cross for staying out of trouble.’ I was warming to my subject. ‘Who knows,’ I said. ‘If things work out, you might collect one yourself. It would look nice on a handsome tunic like that.’
The muscles in Buerckel’s lean young face tightened. He bent forwards and caught the smell of my breath.
‘You’re drunk,’ he said.
‘Si,’ I said. Unsteady on my feet, I turned away. ‘Adios, hombre.’
2
It was late, gone one o’clock, when finally I drove back to my apartment in Trautenaustrasse, which is in Wilmersdorf, a modest neighbourhood, but still a lot better than Wedding, the district of Berlin in which I grew up. The street itself runs north-east from Guntzelstrasse past Nikolsburger Platz, where there is a scenic sort of fountain in the middle of the square. I lived, not uncomfortably, at the Prager Platz end.
Ashamed of myself for having teased Buerckel in front of Dagmarr, and for the liberties I had taken with Carola the stocking-buyer in the Tiergarten near the goldfish pond, I sat in my car and smoked a cigarette thoughtfully. I had to admit to myself that I had been more affected by Dagmarr’s wedding than previously I would have thought possible. I could see there was nothing to be gained by brooding about it. I didn’t think that I could forget her, but it was a safe bet that I could find lots of ways to take my mind off her.