-/-/-/-

Berlin, Federal State Police Archives, 1:51 p.m.

"Now?"

The pale, bespectacled snowy owl trapped in the body of an archivist looked as if Vic and Thea had just confronted her with a most indecent proposal.

Vic gave a small smile, tilting her head just as she'd learned it back in Behaviour Research for Beginners. Calming signals worked with most every mammal.

It really hadn't been much more than a hunch to try the police archives. But as an amateur genealogist, Vic had done her share of relative-hunting. If, as Frau Kroll had said, Aunt Wilhelmina had disappeared just after she'd left a probably illegal party, chances were that the police had been somehow involved. And then there'd be records.

So after they'd left Frau Kroll a little past one o'clock, Thea had hailed the very next taxi and told the driver to take them to the police headquarters, wherever those were. Then she'd taken out that damn mobile and made a few phone calls. Generous inflections of the voice had suggested ample use of La Jones mode. Vic wondered for a second just how Thea knew what numbers to call. But really only for a second, for she wouldn't put it past her lover to call the emergency hotline and ask to be put through to the superintendent himself. Thea had her own ideas of appropriateness.

After a bumpy, probably longer-than-strictly-necessary ride in a stuffy Mercedes with black leather seats, the driver had dropped them off at a busy crossroads surrounded by monumental eyesores.

And in the basement of one of those eyesores, an archivist whom a cheap paper sign on her formica desk identified as Irmgard Schmidt, was just shooting an incredulous look at the clock on the livid-green wall.

"Very well," she snapped, underlining the magnitude of the discomfort with a sigh. "May I see a proof of affiliation with the historical department of an academic institution, alternatively an ID of a respectable press product? I'm not a public library, you know."

"Actually, it's more of a private matter," Vic began. "I'm looking for my great-aunt."

"Ah," the snowy owl said drily. "Well, how lucky for you that I only filed the great-aunts last week. Back there under G, between the grandsons and the great-uncles."

Vic made a mental note. Calming signals apparently no use on Berlin civil servants.

"It's for a le...living history project," Vic explained. "My aunt must have been arrested here in '36, and I was hoping to find some proof of that here."

"Are you an academic?"

"Yes," Vic said. "Did my doctorate on the Danes." And Great Danes they had been.

"Well," declared Irmgard Schmidt and pushed herself up from her chair. "I suppose it'll be another day of unpaid overtime, then. Date of arrest?"

When they asked for the records of the night of 30 April to 1 May 1936, Irmgard Schmidt threw up her hands in despair. Beckoning them to follow her, she briskly strode down a dimly-lit corridor lined with plain, metal shelves and indicated a sign that said "1. Mai 1936".

What they saw stunned them into momentary silence. That wasn't just a folder; it wasn't just a foot or two of shelf space - it was an entire bloody shelf, floor to ceiling, tightly packed with archive boxes and a few plain binders. For one bloody night.

Apparently, it hadn't been a slow night for the Berlin police. "Small misdemeanours, heavy drinking and a bit of crime against property are common for May Night," Frau Schmidt explained. "Add to that a few hundred arrests of communists, socialists, and unionists to show that Labour Day was no longer a socialist but a national socialist affair. And these here are only the records that survived the war, so I can't guarantee that you'll find your aunt here even if she was arrested."

The boxes were labelled with codes, numbers, and words. Part of the order was chronological, but there must have been another system on top of that, for Irmgard Schmidt had begun to ask a few questions ("Party? What party? You have to be more precise. Degenerate music? Expressive dance? Sado-maso orgy?")

"Ah, no," she tutted when she had her answer. "That doesn't fall under homosexuality." She bent down to look at a lower shelf. "Let's try antisocial behaviour or corruption of minors - don't look at me like that. You would much rather have been tried as an antisocial child molester than a homosexual back then."

She then indicated a section at the very bottom of the shelf and proceeded to load herself with more boxes than a middle-aged archivist, even a Prussian one, should anatomically have been able to carry.

"There," she said as she slammed the last of the lot on a metal table illuminated by eye-numbing neon light. "Now wait here while I call the regional chairman of Velspol."

"Of what?"

"Of the Association of Lesbians and Gays in the Police Forces."

Imagine that.

"He'd still be in his office at this time on a Friday?" Thea asked, looking at the clock on the pale green wall in surprise. She knew they'd been lucky that Frau Schmidt hadn't called it a week before they arrived.

"Of course not," Frau Schmidt said drily. "But I think he and my son should be home from their weekend shopping by now. Start with the first two boxes; I'll be right with you."

So she was. And not just she.

For forty-five minutes later, one regional chair, one lesbian officer on standby, three idling interns of various identities, and a retired policeman from around the corner had flocked into the basement and busied themselves leafing through box upon box, binder upon binder, document upon document. Vic was baffled, but Robert, who was head of the local Velspol chapter and Frau Schmidt's quasi son-in-law, explained patiently that their only chance lay in going through each paper individually, and that that was exactly what they were going to do. All they asked was that the research result, should there be one, would be used to make the case public. And a voucher copy would be nice.

It was POM Lisa Kohlhaas who finally found the needle in the haystack: a plain, yellowed sheet, with a clean cross of neat creases over pale typewriter letters, not a dog's ear marring its still-crisp edges. Stamped several times, signed in black ink, and annotated liberally in almost completely faded pencil, it must have gone through at least six pairs of hands before it was filed.

There remained the small issue that it was written in German.

Thea cast a quick glance at the letter and decided that this was a case for the native speakers. And very soon, Irmgard Schmidt and their helpers had entered into a parliament-quality debate over verbs, nouns, and prepositions, outbidding each other in convoluted turns of phrases that weren't much less cryptic to Thea or Vic than the original German.

At last, they settled on a compromise. The fastest typist among them - Tanja the superintendent's intern - would type up the body of the letter and run it through an internet translation engine. And if the result was total crap, they'd discuss it again.

To Vic's utter delight, the result was - although unanimously judged an offence to language, taste, and Goethe - usable (especially given that it was a Friday afternoon), and while Vic and Thea were bidding fond goodbyes to the helpers, liberally studded with invitations and offers to reciprocate, should any opportunity arise, Irmgard Schmidt clicked "Print". Not without indicating most graciously that, as their foreign guests, they would not be charged for the copy.

Vic had already sat down with the letter and was just beginning to peruse it, but Thea suddenly seemed strangely in a hurry.

"Thank you so, so much, Frau Schmidt," she purred. "We don't want to eat any more into your well-deserved weekend. You know, if we ever ..."

"Yes, I know, you're welcome," Frau Schmidt said curtly, switching off her monitor and pulling plugs out of their sockets. As she placed an empty Tupperware container into her bag, grabbed her jacket, and rummaged around for keys or whatever, Thea and Vic took leave and disappeared, smiling.

Well, that had been most efficient.

When they were out on the pavement by the busy road, Vic stopped and took the sheet out of her bag. Leaning against a bicycle stand, she unfolded the paper and took a deep breath.

It read:

Reference-taking to your above mentioned inquiry to the incidents of 1 May 1936 I permit myself the following comments to make:

The Wilhelmina Plank (born 10.5.05, resident Berlin W30) and Rolanda Hooch (born 21.2.12, resident Chudleigh, England, British citizen) were on 1 May by 0 Clock 20 by Hauptwachtmeister Karl-Gustav Ihering and Oberwachtmeister Dietrich Diederichsen arrested. Frl. Plank and Frl. Hooch had just left a private danceevent, the possible illicit nature in a separate investigation to further illuminate is. The clothing of both women is unequivocally as mannish to qualify; the Frl. Hooch made a slightly upbeat imprint. Underway to Görlitzer Park, they were by two members of the SS approached, who to the ladies their accompaniment to protection against immoral nightly nearings offered. For no reason attacked the women, whose physique is as manfully to describe, the men. It is likely that they thereby sneaky and surprising proceeded, to compensate for natural genderly disadvantages. It was apparently use of cutting weapons made. A chancely passing police stripe stopped, took the women solid and drove them to headquarters on the Alexanderplatz.

On 1 May at 6 Clock 35 they were because lacking criminal history and available remorse from custody released.

p.P.

Encl.: Pocketcontent Frl. Hooch. Possible hint at immoral danceevent location (decoding necessary)

Vic let the sheet sink into her lap and shook her head before she handed it to Thea.

Something didn't tally. She knew that resistance had become dangerous in Germany by the mid-thirties. However butch her aunt may have been, it somehow didn't ring true for two women to go around beating up Nazis at night.

And not to be charged with assault on two such precious specimens of national flesh, blood and brain.

So either ... but she didn't even want to consider the option. Or ... and that really, really didn't seem likely.

"Vic?"

Vic frowned. "I don't know what to make of it. Either they disappeared, and I don't even want to think about that, or they somehow got out of that prison. But if they were released, why weren't they ever seen again? All I can imagine is that they had to go into hiding - but why?"

"Persecution?" Thea ventured as she handed the letter back to Vic. "If that other one was really Jewish and Aunt Willie was her lover?"

"No." Vic shook her head. "Not in thirty-six. Jews were losing their jobs and their possessions, but not their lives. Not at that point. And you heard that owl down there. Dykes weren't considered a national threat. I mean, two women couldn't really have sex, right? I read somewhere that lesbian sex ..." - Vic nodded politely at an elderly gentleman whose head shot up from the bicycle he was unlocking - "... was equalled with mutual aid in bodily hygiene. Anyway, that's beside the point."

"Hm." Thea touched Vic's arm and pointed at a small coffee stand by the crossroads. Vic nodded gladly. That nap in the morning hadn't really merited its name, and anyway it was breakfast time in Seattle.

"It hurts me to say it, Vic, but I think it really may be what you fear," Thea said as they slowly walked down the Columbiadamm. "But now that we've come this far, we're going to find out as much as we can, or it'll be a damn short article for the Lesbian History Project. Two coffees, please. As black as you have it."

As they waited for their coffee, Thea opened her shoulder bag.

"I didn't want to give you this until we're safely out of reach from Frau Schmidt," Thea began as she rummaged. "What with your Prussian ethics and all."

A small card, yellowish and with ragged ends, much like thick parchment - if that wasn't exactly what that was - appeared out of the dark depths of the bag. Something was penned on it in black ink. Three words, hardly legible, written in Old German cursive.

Vic shot Thea a puzzled look. "What ...?"

"Well, let's just say this must have fallen into my bag as our fellow rainbow riders were deliberating vocabulary."

"Thea!"

"I know. Theft in the first. But, darling, what we have here is the pocket content of that Hooch Fräulein they refer to in the letter. And as such, it must have been written by your aunt. Gosh, Vic, don't you think you should have this? I know how much things like that mean to you. And it's not like they'd miss it; that archive box has never been opened."

Vic twirled the little card in her hand. It was soft and smooth to the touch, and if Vic had been more sentimental she'd almost have said that holding this piece of parchment was a bit like feeling a connection with the aunt she never knew she'd lost.

It was almost magical.

"What does it say?" Vic asked.

Thea shrugged. Her Wagnerian and Schubertian German might be antiquated, but that only went for the spoken part. As to handwriting ...

"Excuse me?" She'd turned to the elderly man with the bicycle who had joined them at the coffee stand and just ordered a small coffee and a warm sausage from a steamed-up glass container. There was a short exchange; Thea showed him the card, and the man chuckled as if he had just looked at a particularly amusing cartoon.

"Why, it says Hotel am Nollendorfplatz," he told Vic, still grinning. "Funny woman, your aunt, yes?"

And with that, he shook his head, repeated "Hotel am Nollendorfplatz ..." with a wide grin, and was gone.

Nollendorfplatz ... she'd seen that somewhere. On a map, underground or city or both. Or was it in the women's travel guide, section "Places of Interest"? And how many meanings could the word "Hotel" have in a language?

"I'd like to go there."

"What, now?"

Yes." Timidly. "Do you mind?"

Thea shook her head, stifled a yawn, and raised her hand. "Taxi!"

-/-/-/-

Berlin-Schöneberg, 30 April 1936, 6:51 p.m.

Splash!

That was the contents of the puddle from a leaking water pump as it landed on Rolanda Hooch's trousers, courtesy of a cackling newspaper boy on a bicycle.

Rolanda muttered an array of curses under her breath as she shook a fist at the boy, who was, of course, long out of sight. She fervently hoped that the drying charm she'd slipped in between the expletives would pass unnoticed by the people in their cheap suits, shabby dresses, and babyshit-coloured uniforms who strode past her on the pavement by the tram stop at Nollendorfplatz.

It had been easy enough to get there. After she'd finished up by the Quidditch pitch and neatly filed away the preliminary declarations of intent signed by Heinz Bell and the tiny Chaser - a hopeless case but in desperate need of a place to emigrate to - she'd transfigured her broom into a bassoon case and hopped onto the tram that Wilhelmina had told her to take.

Nollendorfplatz was impossible to miss. Six streets and various tram and omnibus lines met around a small park studded with young trees, and in the middle sat a monumental elevated railway station, topped by a dome of steel and glass, surrounded by copiously-adorned tenement buildings.

When she'd returned her robes to a presentable state, Rolanda looked around. "Hotel am Nollendorfplatz" was what Wilhelmina's card said. Needless to say, there was no hotel around. Not that Rolanda had expected that; it would be bit of a blatant giveaway if the card ever ended up in the wrong hands.

Rolanda carefully scanned her surroundings. Wizard folks being what they were, they could be trusted either to go for the plainest, best-concealed building - or the exact opposite.

And Nollendorfplatz definitely sported one severe case of the latter.

She crossed the park, walked past a smelly but lovingly-decorated green shack that went by the term public needs establishment, and headed toward a monumental, light grey blob of a building. A theatre, obviously, and not one of the more tasteful specimens. This had to be it.

She reached into her pocket, took out the card Wilhelmina had given her, and formed the words in her head. She fervently hoped that the charm on the parchment allowed for a certain leeway in mental pronunciation.

"Hotel am Nollendorfplatz."

Needless to say, the guess was spot on. It wasn't so apparent at first (big, glamorous reveals didn't do in busy inner-city areas), but the trained eye could easily see that something had appeared that hadn't been there before: a brass sign that read Hotel am Nollendorfplatz and pointed right, into the direction of what looked like a stage door. Rolanda followed it, for once blessing the dratted bassoon case on her back for the authentic looks it no doubt gave her as she put a hand on the door handle. It didn't turn easily, and she went about it with care - one never knew with unknown magical places - but it did open. Timidly, she ventured in. There was nothing but dark space, smelling slightly musty, like a cabinet that hadn't been aired in a long time. Her right hand inconspicuously wrapped itself around the wand in the back pocket of her trousers, just to be sure. She stuck her head in, and something that felt like cobwebs brushed past her nose. Not exactly welcoming.

Yes, this had to be it.

As soon as she'd taken a step across the threshold, the scenery changed. Small chandeliers flared up, the walls and the ceiling retracted almost politely, letting fresh air in through wood-latticed ventilation holes and turning the dark, stuffy closet into a small but dignified-looking entrance hall that smelled of floor wax and old oak. A doorwizard was dozing behind the counter of the porter's lodge, a copy of the Morgenprophet covering his face and dancing on his deep, forceful snores. To Rolanda's left, a large board with brass signs listed the names of the tenants. Wilhelmina Plank occupied one of the flats on the top floor, up one hundred and twenty-nine steps that groaned under threadbare sisal carpets, past a trapdoor that probably led to the attic and then to the left.

The hello was friendly but not overly showy, just as Rolanda preferred it. She took off her boots and caught her breath with the help of a kitchen chair and three large glasses of water. And after that, not much time passed until Rolanda Hooch found herself half-dressed in Wilhelmina Plank's small but cosy bedroom.

Smoking a cigarillo stuck into a slender, brown cigarette holder, Wilhelmina lay sprawled sideways on her oaken bed, surrounded by heaps of discarded clothes. Most of them were her own. Her old wardrobe stood wide open, and while there hadn't been much inside to begin with, it now was almost completely empty.

Meanwhile, Rolanda stood in front of a tall mirror and craned her head to see if Wilhelmina's black trousers fitted better around her well-trained gluteus than the brown ones or the dark grey ones. She'd tried all kinds of charms, but since she'd never been the best at needlework, with or without needles, the results hadn't been grand. Yet this ... this would do perfectly. It sat nicely tight around the buttocks, accentuated the slim waist and flat stomach, flared just right so that the fabric didn't bulge around the abductors but let her legs seem positively endless - yes, this seemed like just the right choice for a night out with Muggle girls.

"Dashing," Wilhelmina agreed, and a dimple appeared on her cheek.

There remained the question of what should go with the trousers. The off-white polo shirt that Rolanda had worn under her sports robe could certainly be transfigured, but after an afternoon in the standee section it was, alas, far beyond the best deodorising charms. Yet there in the wardrobe, between a shapeless flannel monstrosity and a khaki vest, Rolanda spotted a shirt. It looked slim-cut, with black-and-white vertical stripes and a white, starched collar. If Wilhelmina didn't mind a little alteration, reversible of course, it might be just the thing.

"Mind if I take the sleeves off that?" Rolanda asked as she pointed at the coveted object in the wardrobe.

"Not at all." Wilhelmina motioned for Rolanda to help herself. "Have your way with it. I rarely wear it anyway. Prefer the earthy tones myself. More friendly towards paw prints and rhino hair."

And so it was that half an hour later, Rolanda Hooch and Wilhelmina Plank boarded the elevated railway, one in black-and-white, one in brown tweeds and a flat cap, a matching necktie fastened to a starched shirt with a silver tie clasp. Two brash Berlin bubis, dressed to dance and dally with the damsels.

-/-/-/-