Corridor of Darkness

by Patrick W O'Bryon

  “I’ll say what I damned well please, and that is—” he pivoted back to Rolf, “get the hell out!”

  Rolf nodded curtly and left. The Old Major stormed from the salon, his wife close on his heels. Her voice quavered as she dared reproach him, “But Manfred, he’s your only son and—”

  “We’ve lost our son, Klara. No follower of that man, that Austrian, is worthy of this family name.”

  Ryan stared after the departing hosts. The tranquil tradition of the von Haldheim teatime had changed irrevocably. It seemed that Rolf had finally found that fresh inspiration for his German soul.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ryan returned by train from Marburg to pursue his doctoral research at the Berlin university library and catch up on the tumultuous scene as the Weimar Republic faced the 1931 general elections. Political discord rode rampant. The aging Hindenburg stood for reelection as president backed by the centrist Social Democrats. Other, smaller parties that favored the Republic fought to block the rise of Hitler, who was gaining strong support from both middle and rural classes. The Communist party fielded its own candidate, while the Nationalists’ aspirant demanded restoration of the monarchy. Many agreed on a general direction for Germany, but few concurred on specifics.

  The university reception for a visiting American linguistics professor left Ryan bored stiff with incessant political discussion and dull academic small talk. He stood off to the side of the hall, trying to appear involved but smiling vacantly. He thought of returning to Grunewald, where the von Haldheims had made his old room available once again. But the evening was young, and escape to a cabaret or cinema had become his number one priority.

  “You need the mustache.” The husky female voice approached from his left. “Were it up to me, I’d give you a nice slender one, pencil thin.”

  “Pardon?” Ryan turned to meet the smile of a striking young woman, her forefinger pressed against her lower lip as she studied his face with mock seriousness. The bright eyes reminded him of a dancer from the Folies Bergère whose letters had pursued him since the two first met in 1928. “Well, hello there,” he said, breaking into a broad grin of his own.

  “I’ve had my eye on you from across the room,” she said at last. “The smile and rakish look are about right, but a thin mustache would definitely complete the image of the archetypal hero.” She laughed. “I’m sure you read Jung.” She looked into his half-empty champagne glass. “Buy a girl a drink?”

  “With pleasure, but shouldn’t we introduce ourselves?”

  “I’d prefer getting to know you first; a name limits the archetype, you know. But, fine, if you insist…Isabel Starr, reporter extraordinaire for the Chicago Times.”

  “Ryan Lemmon, former impoverished banker, now student of history, and doing my own bit of journalism on the side.” He raised his glass to toast her acquaintance. “Plus, thank God, receiving a study stipend to make ends meet!”

  “Well then, we can forget about your buying me a drink.” She surrendered their glasses to a passing tray and reached for two fresh flutes. “Allow me to treat you to further refreshment.” She moved closer to Ryan, pressing one breast firmly against his forearm, and Ryan suffered a momentary lapse in concentration. “Now then, Herr Lemmon, tell me all about your adventures in our bold city on the Spree. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” Her German held no trace of an American accent.

  He switched languages: “I do rather well with it, with only a year or two of practice.” The university reception had taken an interesting turn. “Actually, I really enjoy it, a bold language for a country that admires strength.”

  “Well, let’s see what you’ve learned. Give me your best German ‘r.’”

  Ryan growled the consonant.

  “No, not that lazy, guttural ‘r.’ I want the actor’s ‘r.’ Go on now, vibrate your tongue.”

  He trilled his best tip-of-the-tongue stage version.

  “Not bad for an American, but I could definitely teach you a thing or two.” She pressed closer still, daring him to pull back.

  “Well, I’d be delighted to study under you,” Ryan said.

  “Tell you what. If I’m to give you lessons, let’s start with something that—when done correctly—will eliminate those linguistic inhibitions.” Isabel set their champagne glasses aside and took his arm, guiding him across the hall toward the cloakroom. She gave a quick glance up the hall as she shut the door and turned the lock. With her hands to his chest she backed him up against a rack of coats, one exploring hand sliding down past his belt as the other encircled his neck. Her lips forcefully found his.

  Ryan broke the embrace to mumble, “What about the hat check girl? She could be here any moment.”

  “Let her find her own guy,” Isabel said, squeezing and caressing. “Or maybe if she’s bored she should join us?” Ryan looked at Isabel quizzically, not convinced of the joke, and she laughed. “Don’t worry, my handsome archetype, I bribed her to take a smoke break in the powder room.” Ryan drew a quick breath as she dropped to her knees before him. “Watch and learn, Herr Lemmon, watch and learn.” He liked the huskiness of her voice. “Next it’ll be my turn, and I’m expecting you to have mastered that tip-of-the-tongue ‘r.’”

  There was always something new to be learned from an attractive woman, Ryan conceded to himself, even if he didn’t plan to grow that mustache.

  Later in the evening they sat over a nightcap in a smoky bar near the university. Isabel confessed her distaste for the roles traditionally assigned to men and women. She found them nonsensical and anachronistic in the twentieth century. Ryan acknowledged she had proven her point quite ingeniously in the cloakroom. She also spoke of her preference for European men, but admitted that Ryan had appealed to her at first glance.

  “So how did you know right off I wasn’t German?”

  “Simple enough—” Isabel said, “no European stands around smiling without a reason. Unless, of course, he’s newly released from the local asylum. You’re not, are you?”

  “Not what?”

  “Just out of the asylum?”

  “Not recently.”

  She reached over and ran a finger across his lower lip. “Good, because I must say, you do have a damned fine smile.”

  The daughter of a Chicago newspaper editor, Isabel was determined to make a career in foreign correspondence without her father’s financial support. Two years Ryan’s senior, she had studied Journalism and German at the University of Chicago and was now three years in Berlin.

  They agreed to speak nothing but German in each other’s company. Isabel proposed trying to pass for Berliner in all public situations, the first to be unmasked paying for the other’s dinner. Initially Ryan found his carefully-watched budget heavily strained. Isabel mercilessly corrected any error in his word choice, grammar or social custom, and cast a critical eye on his American wardrobe, obliging him to shop for new clothes, another budgetary burden. She suggested he switch to cigarettes, teaching him the German man’s habit of constantly rolling the butt between thumb and first two fingers, but he remained true to his briar. He learned to count his thumb when signaling for steins of beer across a crowded pub so as not to order an extra mug. And in a café he requested Präservative for his breakfast roll, only to have his new friend laugh herself hoarse as the waitress looked on in consternation. Once she had caught her breath, Isabel finally clarified: he had asked for condoms, not fruit preserves.

  Unlike Ryan, whose occasional reports to the Kansas City Times earned him a few dollars, Isabel relied on her journalism for a living. Together they sought out interesting stories with appeal for the American reader. At torch-lit rallies the Nazi leaders worked adoring crowds to a fevered pitch, and Isabel and Ryan reported home on Hitler’s oratory genius, its manipulative power touching both peasant and professor alike. The couple walked alongside Communist street protests marked by clenched fists and red banners in the poorest sections of Berlin. And when the conservative Stahlhelmer gathered for a parade, the two youn
g journalists worked the crowd and took notes. Political fervor often turned to violence, and they witnessed several dangerous clashes, exciting moments of living history.

  They also spent some evenings at La Taverne, an Italian restaurant run by a German and his Belgian wife, where correspondents from major overseas agencies gathered to share stories and rumors and drink until the early morning hours. Ryan felt a bit unworthy, representing a small paper rather than the big guns like United Press and International News Service. He and Isabel eavesdropped, gleaning insights into current events in the Reich. Ryan had never felt so alive and involved.

  One morning in February Isabel invited him on a promising nocturnal adventure. She revealed no details, but told him to dress down and expect a good story out of it. “Think of it as a costume party," she said, "think laborer or dock worker.”

  From his first days in Berlin Ryan was determined to explore every aspect of German life. Immersed almost nightly in the city’s high society, Ryan had chosen to experience by day the underbelly of Berlin. He rode the elevated S-Bahn past Alexanderplatz to lose himself in the labyrinthine streets and dives along Mulackstrasse, a district notorious for crime and political unrest. And he had found in Isabel the perfect partner who knew no fear when it came to exploring this underworld.

  So Ryan had no difficulties dressing down for Isabel’s latest outing. He borrowed well-worn trousers, a pullover, and a formless jacket from the von Haldheim chauffeur Ulrich, and changed in the driver’s apartment above the carriage house. A threadbare overcoat and woolen cap with narrow brim completed the costume. Ulrich commended his proletarian look and required no explanation for the masquerade, telling Ryan he knew a woman was involved.

  To avoid inquiries from his host family—the “Old Major” could never fathom Ryan’s interest in Berlin’s low-life—he snuck through the back garden under cover of darkness. A cottage well to the rear of the estate was home to the butler Erich and his wife, and a small gate just beyond gave access to a service alley. Ryan walked the few blocks to the nearest S-Bahn station. He passed Café Braunitsch, where he was already well-known as a guest of the von Haldheim family, and his customary waiter eyed him with suspicion. The disguise was clearly effective.

  The rendezvous was set for a workers’ dive in Wedding, a rough urban neighborhood known as a hotbed of Communist activity. He and Isabel had ventured into this borough only once before, posing as radical students and playing the role of an amorous drunken couple when their cover appeared blown. The S-Bahn had spirited them back across the river in the early evening hours, while run-down shops were still open and the main streets teemed with down-and-out crowds rather than hoodlums and thugs.

  On this evening he exited the station at Müllerstrasse. The ravages of the depression had badly scarred the neighborhood. He ran a gantlet of prostitutes vying for his attention, offering discounts from the typical ten marks to a low of four marks seventy-five. One streetwalker cursed him brazenly when he ignored all invitations. A crippled curbside vendor hawked a booklet for twenty pennies on “The Passions of Berlin,” and Ryan received with his purchase specific directions to a narrow side street off Ackerstrasse where a flickering neon sign marked his destination.

  Behind the bar stood a burly man of indeterminate age, his heavily-greased hair dyed an unnatural black. A cigarette with a mind of its own dangled from the man’s lip as he picked absent-mindedly at a scab on his cheek. Ryan scanned the dive for Isabel, but was not overly surprised at her absence, for she was often late. Placing a few coins on the counter, he ordered a beer. He winced at first taste and the second proved equally disappointing, so he requested a Bötzow-Privat, his regular choice at Café Braunitsch. The bartender rolled his eyes, mumbled something incoherent, and continued to rinse a glass, no cleaner for the effort.

  Ryan turned his back to the counter. Grime-dulled lamps struggled with the thick haze of smoke. Three groups of heavyset men, crumpled fedoras and caps low over their brows, hunched over half-empty glasses. They concentrated on loud games of Skat, slamming down the cards and occasionally muttering to each other in the Berlin dialect he had yet to master. The place reeked of stale beer, fried onions, and unwashed bodies.

  At a back table a hooker smoked a cigarillo and casually observed the card players. Once she knew she had Ryan’s eye she leaned forward to straighten the seams of her white stockings, revealing both shapely legs and the swelling mounds of her breasts, so he carried his beer to her table. She glanced up as if surprised by his presence and smiled sweetly, raising one eyebrow. “Kommst Du mit?” she asked, the customary hooker’s invitation with flirtatious inflection and often a wink.

  “Gladly,” he said. He leaned down, lifted the half-veil of her hat, and brushed his lips lightly across her cheek. The Chanel belied the brassy costume, but fought a losing battle against the stench of bar and cigarillo. “Another beer first?”

  “No time for that, Liebchen,” Isabel mimicked the dialect effortlessly. “I am, after all, a working girl, and on duty. Besides, the beer here is worse than disgusting.”

  She snuffed out the slender cigar and headed toward the door, swinging both handbag and hips in exaggerated fashion. The Skat players finally looked up from their cards. She nodded toward the barkeep, also suddenly attentive, and directed: “Give him a mark, it’s his cut.” Ryan reluctantly pulled the coin from his trousers and placed it on the counter. The bartender acknowledged the tip with a desultory nod before returning to the scab on his cheek.

  “You owe me in spades,” Ryan said, taking her long coat with worn fur collar from the rack and holding it open for her. They stepped out into the chill evening air. “Did you catch that? In spades.”

  Isabel only laughed. On the sidewalk she belted her coat. The temperature was dropping quickly. She steered him to the right down the dimly-lit street. “Not exactly my favorite neighborhood for an evening stroll,” Ryan said.

  “Then you should get out more often.” she suggested.

  Street lamps guided them past interconnected five-story tenements. Signs faded from years of neglect marked the shuttered storefronts, and a cobbled pavement strewn with trash and broken glass slowed their progress. Wind-gusted newsprint gathered at the stoops, and weather-shredded posters advertised years of political turmoil. Hastily-wrought swastikas competed with hammer-and-sickle graffiti and the slogans of belligerent political movements. Down with Police Terror! Now Berlin stays Red! The gutter reeked of urine, and a deflated child’s ball sat incongruously in the middle of the street, reminding him that children, whole families, lived out their lives in this miserable neighborhood. They passed portals opening to inner courtyards. The stench of privies and spoiled garbage was all-pervasive, and from time to time Isabel held her handkerchief to her nose but made no comment on their surroundings. Somewhere above their heads a woman traded obscenities with a man, perhaps a husband, a lover, a pimp. Beneath a streetlamp a cloud of vapor rose from a viscous, purplish puddle, and the ragged trail of heel marks pulled the eye into a nearby courtyard.

  Ryan drew the obvious conclusion.

  Isabel shrugged. “Welcome to the real Berlin.”

  Ryan was less sanguine. “You could at least tell me where we’re headed, just in case I ever have to explain what brought us to this god-forsaken place.”

  Isabel chuckled and described the evening’s agenda: Leftists were gathering for a march of solidarity in the fight against the reactionary right. Violent clashes between brown-shirted Storm Troopers, Communists and sympathizing Socialist Reichsbanner were becoming more common, and bashed heads and knife injuries were not unusual. Some fatalities had been reported. The invitation had come from two of her “Red” acquaintances, and they encouraged her to bring Ryan as long as they both dressed to fit in. “What a fascinating moment in history,” she said. “And we’re right in the middle of it! How lucky is that?”

  “Sure, lucky…if we live long enough.”

  “Don’t worry; you look suitably proletari
an to witness a class struggle.” She reached up and stroked his chin. “Although a bit of stubble might have helped. Must you always look so clean-cut?” Ryan was surprised by his own wariness. “Leave it to my friends to look after us,” said Isabel. “There’s no real risk, I’m sure.”

  At the approach to the next tenement Ryan suddenly grabbed her elbow. A solitary figure in wide-brimmed fedora had stepped from a passageway and halted mid-street. Cupping his match to shield it from the wind, he lit a cigarette. In the flare Ryan saw the battered mug of a boxer. The man stared directly at the couple, slowly released a cloud of smoke through his nostrils, and acknowledged their presence with a nod. He then turned abruptly and strode off, only to disappear into another passage a block farther up. As they passed that spot no lights shone in the windows above.

  They pushed onward until a narrow side street finally matched the route she had memorized. A broken gas lamp high on a wall and the shards of its shattered globe underfoot marked their turn. Ahead lay a stretch of brick buildings, and some hundred meters beyond loomed a large industrial structure. A vehicle hugged the wall on either side of the narrow street. Silhouetted figures gathered before an open doorway pouring light onto the cul-de-sac. Two guards flanked the entry.

  “This must be the place,” Isabel said, “and it looks like we’ve got a welcoming party.”

  “You’re pulling my leg, right?” Ryan marveled at her composure.

  A rope stretching across the street from bumper to bumper linked two brewery trucks with canvas panels. Suspended from the cord was a barely legible, hand-lettered sign warning police to keep their distance. They stepped over the barrier.

  A voice called out to Isabel, and a petite woman broke free from the group to greet them warmly, her Communist friend, Doro. “I’ve been watching for you. We’re about to start inside.”