Mrs. Adolf Weissmann walked through the apartment. Doctor Krone was sitting in a corner with Gerda, her daughter’s gymnastics teacher.
Honestly, she thought. You invite a talented young man like that to a soirée where he could meet a few rich girls and make a good match, and he spends all night sitting with that thing, which will give him nothing. Some people just don’t know how to get ahead.
It was four in the morning. Furs were being handed out in the cloakroom, cars were being ordered. Klaus Michael Waldschmidt accompanied Käte out. She found young Waldschmidt very pleasant.
Mr. Cochius said to Frächter, “I’d be pleased if you paid me a visit sometime. I’ve said so before.”
Mr. Muschler said, “Well, Mr. Kaliski, I’ll be hearing from you.”
Kaliski nodded. “I’ll give you a call.”
Lieven kissed Hannelore and Susie’s hands. “I’ll ring you sometime.”
The man of the evening said to Margot, “Allow me to inquire tomorrow.”
Krone accompanied the gymnastics teacher home.
“Once again, there were absolutely no suitable young people there,” Mother said to Father as they got into the car with the two seventeen-year-olds. “Perhaps Klaus Michael, but he’s the kind of man who spends all evening dancing with someone like Herzfeld.”
Otto Peter sadly watched them go. At Zoo Station, he got out of his taxi and switched to the night bus.
I’ll end up in a homeless shelter, the unemployed young man thought. Ten years ago, I thought I’d build something for my fellow citizens. I’m at the end of my rope now. I can’t go on.
Oppenheimer accompanied Miss Kohler home.
“The moment you entered the room,” he said, and kissed her hand. “You have such strange eyes!”
“It’s quite warm outside already.”
“Please, stay seated like that—no, like that, half in profile! I would have definitely married you if the thought had crossed my mind.” And then he kissed her hand. “Spring is coming,” he said. “Please give my greetings to your dear mama. I’ll ring you sometime.”
Miss Kohler thought about Oppenheimer. She walked up the stairs terribly agitated, awfully unhappy about the man of the evening and Oppenheimer.
Käte got into Klaus Michael’s car, a Nash two-seater.
Käte said, “I’ll sit a bit closer to you, it’s so cold in an open car, my dear.”
How easy, Klaus Michael excitedly thought. As he covered her with a blanket, he grazed her bare arm through the wide sleeves of her evening coat.
“It’s quite surprising,” he said, “how a bit of cold skin can be so thrilling.”
Käte was thrilled by the young man’s position, his car, his coat, his athleticism. Besides, she was tired from drink and the late hour, and thus found him brilliant. Young Klaus Michael drove her to his apartment. He noticed the bright glow of the area around the Gedächtniskirche over the Tiergarten.
“I’ve never seen that before, look how red the sky is. Like a glowing fire.”
Käte thought, He seems to love me.
Mrs. Muschler sat in her bedroom, which was done in white varnished wood and decorated with pink carpeting and pink silk furniture. She dipped a cotton swab into Arden’s precious Cleansing Cream to clean her face of powder and makeup. She looked very pretty in pink ostrich-feather slippers and glistening pink silk pajamas. She observed her husband in the mirror. He had a large stomach and was wearing pale green underwear.
“Mausi,” he said, “Young Kaliski, old Waldschmidt’s son-in-law, proposed a plan for using our land.”
“For God’s sake,” Mausi said. “Does he know what state we’re in?”
“Nonsense. Not a soul knows. Our reputations are spotless.”
“What do we still own?”
“Nothing, except for the land.”
“And Perleberger Strasse?”
“Two mortgages.”
“And Niederschönhausen?”
“Same.”
“So let’s sell the land, move away, and live off the interest!”
“The land won’t go for that much. I can only get back on my feet if I pull off a coup. If this construction project brings in ten thousand marks a year in profits, we’ll make it.”
“How will you manage that?”
“Kaliski wants to find me a developer who will bear all the risk and provide heavy guarantees.”
“And Cannes?”
“Hey, of course we’re still going to Cannes. We won’t tank our credit like that.”
“Well, naturally. We don’t want to give people anything to talk about, after all. What would the Weissmanns say?”
“Who knows if the Weissmanns are doing all that splendidly.”
“Come on, iron?”
“Iron’s doing badly right now.”
“But they’re looking for an apartment in the old west.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. How Weissmann’s doing isn’t my problem. At any rate, there are still plenty of rich people around. That was clear tonight. Kaliski married very well.”
“He’s quite good-looking, too.”
“You think so? I don’t.”
“Oh, don’t keep the faucet running forever in the bathroom. You’re making me all nervous.”
“I’m always making you nervous.”
“Well, the way you pace back and forth for hours in your underwear.”
“I’m not as handsome as Mr. Kaliski. Oh, are you upset? But dear? It’s fine. See, I’ve put on pajamas now.”
12
A development project begins
WHAT Muschler had told Kaliski—that he’d never considered developing his property—wasn’t true. The day after Margot’s party, the two Waltkes dropped by to see Muschler. They proposed a project. It would be financed exclusively through mortgages, Muschler could keep his money. He wanted a guarantee on the rental income. They couldn’t give it to him.
“You’re wasting your time,” Muschler said. But Erich Waltke came by anyway.
“Mr. Muschler,” he said, “we’ll build you something really swanky. Apartments fit for royalty. Five- and six-room apartments. A thousand to twelve hundred marks for a room. You can make a fortune off that.”
“Aren’t there plenty of empty luxury apartments right now?” Muschler asked.
“Not at all, where?” said Erich Waltke. “Everything’s been rented out. People are paying up to ten thousand marks just in moving fees. You’re mistaken, Mr. Muschler. Think of how much Köpenick made.”
“Those were different times.”
“But the city’s still in need of thirty thousand apartments.”
“Who’ll guarantee the rent? I need guarantees. I’m a banker, not a building contractor. I don’t pour money into dubious deals.”
“All the same, I’d still like to show you the project we’ve put together.” He unrolled the plans. “Below are garages. Each will cost a hundred marks a month. Then stores, then four floors of apartments. Earns twenty percent. No property taxes.”
“And the many repairs I’ll have to make?”
“They aren’t prohibitive.” He showed him the project.
“Very nice,” said Muschler. “But I’m most concerned about the financing, you see.”
Waltke left.
Waltke phoned up his brother.
“He’s very concerned about getting a mortgage,” he said.
“I’ll ask around, shouldn’t be hard.”
Muschler called up the D. Bank. He borrowed money against bonds. Thirty Siemens bonds. Then he let it fly, went to the cashier, debited one thousand mark, and exchanged another ten thousand francs for Cannes.
Meanwhile, Kaliski was on the phone with Mr. Rübe, whose wife was the daughter of an important building contractor. Mr. Rübe was an architect. He was older, had a blond goatee, and sported black, decoratively trimmed velvet jackets at home.
Kaliski informed Rübe of his discussion with Muschler. Rübe was all for it. A project w
orth two million. His father-in-law would be the building contractor. He’d be the architect. His father-in-law could get a mortgage, no big deal. Kaliski would manage the rentals. Pronto, pronto.
Rübe threw himself into it. He visited the terrain and saw lots of potential. A theater, apartments, garages, shops. Each apartment would have five or six rooms.
Kaliski phoned up Muschler and asked for a terrain sketch. Because of this, Commissioner Mayer, old Mayer, who’d apprenticed under Muschler’s father, learned of the plan.
“Good God, Mr. Muschler, what’s all this about?” he asked. “Shouldn’t we talk it over with young Mr. Oberndorffer?”
“ ’Course we can, but I’m not sure what you’re expecting.”
“He’s an expert, after all.”
“If the Rübes can’t bear the entire risk, I won’t go through with it, and if they do, I won’t need an expert.”
Old Mayer said, “Young Mr. Oberndorffer’s always done everything for us. I feel we owe it to him.”
“All right, fine,” Muschler said good-naturedly.
Muschler called up Oberndorffer. “Hullo, Mr. Oberndorffer, how are you doing?”
“Well, thank you.”
“And your dear wife?”
“Well, thank you.”
“You know, I’d like to talk to you. We’re thinking of developing the property on the Kurfürstendamm, you know.”
“Wonderful, Mr. Muschler, I’d love to,” Oberndorffer cried, over the moon.
“Not like that,” said Muschler. “I’ve been speaking to a few folks who are going to do the whole thing for me and pay for it. I just want to get your advice.”
Oberndorffer was deeply disappointed. He had done everything for Muschler; his furnishings, his summer house, he had provided him with estimates and assessments, and had worked very cheaply, sometimes below cost. Everything for a chance to work on the Kurfürstendamm property, everything for a shot at a big project, everything for a chance to finally show off his skills.
Now someone else had swooped in. He was beside himself. But he decided to get moving, and drove over to Muschler straight away. While Oberndorffer was in the car, Rübe was already on the phone with Kaliski. His father-in-law had a full proposal. He’d secured a first mortgage at 8.25 percent, and he’d assume the second mortgage himself at 10 percent—come on, these days, everyone’s asking for 11 or 12. The first would be paid out at 98, the second at 97, all first-rate conditions.
Kaliski was passing Rübe’s proposal along to Muschler just as Oberndorffer walked in the door.
“Good day, have a seat.”
“So, what kind of shenanigans are you up to, Mr. Muschler? You want to build something? What?”
“A theater for Käsebier and a large apartment building with stores and garages.”
“And which architect, if I may ask?”
“Of course you can ask, why not? Rübe.”
“What, Rübe?”
“Yes, Rübe.”
“Who’s Rübe?”
“I don’t know, the son-in-law of Otto Mitte & Co.”
“What, and you want to sell yourself to Otto Mitte lock, stock, and barrel? Otto Mitte & Co. could cost you hundreds of thousands in extra construction fees.”
“That doesn’t matter, he’s assuming the risk for the lease and the rental income. I couldn’t care less.”
“But Mr. Muschler, you’re the client. You can’t ignore the project costs.”
“I’m not an entrepreneur, Mr. Oberndorffer, I’m a banker. I care about rents and profit. If Otto Mitte calculates a good profit margin and guarantees it, I couldn’t care less.”
“But something might be miscalculated. Then you’ll end up with a poorly constructed building for too much money.”
“Our calculations won’t have any mistakes.”
“What if something happens to Otto Mitte?”
Muschler laughed. “Do you know who Otto Mitte is? All Tegel and Weissensee belongs to him, not to mention half of Steglitz. Come on, the man’s private fortune has been estimated at five million. Otto Mitte! The moment I heard that Rübe was Otto Mitte’s son-in-law, I was relieved. When you build, the building itself isn’t that important; the financing is everything.”
“I’m not speaking out of personal interest, Mr. Muschler, I’m speaking in your interest. If the theater is beautiful, what a great advertisement it will be! And it’s so much easier to rent out well-built apartments than badly built ones!”
“If Otto Mitte lets his son-in-law build everything and guarantees the rents, I’ll be relieved.”
“Have you already spoken to Käsebier?” Oberndorffer asked.
“Nah,” said Muschler. “Why bother? We have plenty of time for that. First, the financing has to be taken care of. How can I negotiate with Käsebier before I have the go-ahead?”
“I’m warning you,” said Oberndorffer.
“My dear young man, you don’t have to warn me about anything.”
“I’ll draw up a counterproject for you that will generate much higher returns.”
“By all means,” said Muschler, “as long as you don’t charge for it. Goodbye, Mr. Oberndorffer.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Muschler.”
Old Mayer handed the plans over to Oberndorffer. Old Mayer was concerned.
“I don’t think we should close a deal with Mitte now, while Mr. Frechheim is gone,” he said. “But they’re offering very good conditions. And there’s no risk.”
“There’s always some risk.”
Oberndorffer got to work drawing up a project.
That same day, Otto Mitte phoned up a man at the Ministry for Social Welfare.
“Well, councilor, I’m having some trouble with the eighth floor of my high-rise on Fehrbelliner Platz. I’d already received verbal confirmation and planned on it. The foundation has been engineered for eight stories. This won’t do. Please see to it. You can’t give Otto Mitte any trouble.”
The councilor was exceedingly polite. “No, no. That must be an error, dear councilor.”
“That’s what I thought too,” said Mitte. “Look, I took care of what needed to be done a while ago.”
The councilor said, “Do you know, dear councilor, that the Rail Service is planning a large housing development in Hohenschönhausen?”
“Yes,” said Mitte. “ ’Course. We toasted to that ages ago. So see to it.”
“Certainly, councilor.”
Mitte knew nothing about Hohenschönhausen. Karlweiss, he thought. Surely Karlweiss is building it. He called up Karlweiss the architect.
“I’ve got a few different projects floating around and was thinking of asking you to get involved. When could you pay me a visit?”
Karlweiss understood immediately, and replied, “By the way, I also wanted to invite you to join me on the Hohenschönhausen project. The forms will go out in the next few days.”
“Just don’t invite too many people. You know that the more you invite, the more expensive it’ll be.”
“There must be some folks outside the Ring, too.”29
“Well, if you want to work with those folks!”
“When shall we talk?
“What about Thursday at eleven thirty? Is that all right with you?”
“Yes, that’s fine. I’d prefer eleven forty-five.”
“Very well. Goodbye.”
13
Käsebier in sound, on screen, and as a table spread
IN THE meantime, Frächter had approached Omega Records and suggested that they record Käsebier, since there was now a tremendous demand for his songs. Frächter suggested that Omega acquire various rights to Käsebier’s work. He wanted a 2 percent cut as a negotiation fee. They would release his four hits; each on its own, of course. “How Can He Sleep with That Thin Wall?”—“Boy, Isn’t Love Swell?”—“If You Wanna Come with Me, Come with; and If You Don’t, Go Your Way Alone”—“In Tent Two, by the Spree, with a Cup of Coffee.”
Gödowecz designed a gian
t poster for Omega even before Käsebier could begin recording. He was currently booked up, preparing for his Wintergarten premiere.
“Hear Käsebier speak and sing—only on Omega!”
They finally reserved an afternoon to record him two days after the premiere. On the same day, Käsebier was scheduled for an afternoon film shoot at the Wintergarten for the weekly UFA newsreel. He had also been invited to a late breakfast at Mrs. Adolf Weissmann’s at five o’clock. He couldn’t keep things straight anymore and mixed everything up. The recording session was cancelled, since it was more difficult to cancel the film shoot, which was still silent. All there was to see was Käsebier’s extraordinary acting, his distraught expression as he sang “How Can He Sleep with That Thin Wall?” The weekly news ran a segment, “Cowboy Games in South America,” before him and “Il Duce Christening the Training Ship Brigella” afterwards; in between, two minutes of Käsebier.
The recording session took place the following day.
On Sunday afternoon, he sang on the radio for twenty minutes at 5:20, including a few old hits from the Biedermeier era, a real treat for connoisseurs. The Daily Profile in all the Sunday radio magazines was Käsebier. The photograph was by Miss Ilsemarie Kruse. She had been the first to photograph Käsebier, and now that she was earning ten marks per picture, she was doing brisk business.
Miss Isolde von Knockwitz had created silhouette portraits of Käsebier, one laughing, one crying, which were prominently featured in Sunday’s Berliner Rundschau.
In addition to Gödowecz, Dietz the illustrator had also thrown himself on Käsebier. He had drawn a series, “Käsebier in Twelve Portraits,” which appeared in the Grossberliner Woche.
Pankow, a young painter, exhibited a painting of Käsebier singing “How Can He Sleep with That Thin Wall?” in the Secession show. The painting was depicted in the catalog and mentioned dismissively in all of the reviews. The critic of the Berliner Tageszeitung even took twelve lines to rip it apart, a tactic that proved very successful. The Völkischer Aufbruch wrote, “Positively bestial—there is truly no other fitting expression—is the only way one can characterize Gottfried Pankow’s portrait of this Untermensch. It is yet another snobbish painting of ape-folk, depicting them in their (im)purest form, amidst the civilization of Kurfürstendamm. Brr.” Another little-read, exceedingly genteel right-wing newspaper wrote, “Pankow dazzles with a portrait of the singer Käsebier, which deserves a place of honor in the Academy exhibition. The painting is well executed in its attention to pacing and hue.” Pankow was elected to the jury. The critic of the Berliner Tageszeitung wrote another article mentioning the painting’s thin, unskilled lines, a silly New Objectivity that made it look no different from a colored print. A savage little newspaper published an embittered article about the heights of snobbery, the downright barbaric appreciation of art, how ridiculous it was, a miserable portrait, just because it depicted a current celebrity; we should continue to favor fine floral still lifes and landscapes painted by great painters—because there were still great painters to be had.
Käsebier Takes Berlin Page 14