There Is No Going Home

by Madalyn Morgan

  The waiter curled his forefinger in the young man’s direction and he left his seat for the one next to me.

  When he sat down, I saw he was wearing black pencil round his eyes and rouge on his cheeks.

  He asked me if he could be of assistance translating words I didn’t understand.

  I groaned inwardly. Get out of this, I thought. I told him I spoke some German, enough to get around the city, order from menus in cafés and I knew the German for bier, which made him giggle. ‘It’s understanding what people are saying when they speak to me that I find difficult. If they speak quickly, or with a dialect, I’m lost.’ My turn to laugh, as if I was embarrassed. I was.

  ‘It can be difficult,’ he said. ‘It is the same with me and English.’

  I nodded. ‘And when a foreign language is written down, as it is in newspapers, I am often at a loss to understand whole sentences.’

  ‘It is the structure of the sentence that is difficult for English people,’ he explained, ‘and the grammar.’

  The boy was right. Not that I’d ever had a problem with German grammar. The waiter was attending to a customer at a nearby table. He glanced over and raised the coffee jug, so I asked the boy if he would like coffee.

  ‘Ja,’ he said, ‘danke,’ and tapped my knee.

  I flinched and moved my leg. Had inviting him to drink coffee with me given him the wrong impression? Surely not. He was a friend of the waiter, a student at the university. I brushed away my doubts and motioned to the waiter to bring more coffee.

  He told me his name was Heinz - which I don’t suppose for a second it was - and he said he had no interest at all in politics, the Olympic Games, or Germany’s ugly Chancellor.

  That was that then, I thought. I’m not going to get any useful information out of Heinz to pass on to Highsmith at breakfast tomorrow. I finished my coffee and refused a refill from the waiter who hovered around us with a cynical grin on his face. He knew the type of man he’d introduced me to. Fine, no tip for him. I let a couple of tiresome minutes pass, while the boy batted his eyelashes at me and made lewd comments, and when the waiter arrived to refresh his coffee I put my hand over the cup.

  ‘Do you really think I am stupid?’ I dropped a note on the table. ‘This will more than cover the food and drink that I have consumed. I bid you farewell,’ I said, in my best German.

  The boy looked frightened and asked me if I was sure I wouldn’t like a more intimate service.

  I said no and glared at the waiter who had tried to pimp him. I left feeling worried for the boy and the life he was leading and anger for the smirking waiter. I found another bar a couple of streets away. Die Begrüßungsbar was more like it. It was a family type of place. I performed the newspaper routine again and in no time men and women nodded and smiled, and asked me if I was an overseas visitor in Berlin for the Olympics.

  I told them I was the sports journalist for The Times newspaper in England, which sounded impressive and was half true.

  Some people told me where they came from in Germany. A couple spoke English. One chap said he worked for Mercedes Benz and had been to England several times on business. He was a Berliner, although he spoke English better than some English people do.

  I left the café and strolled through the streets. I shivered. Not from the cold - it was still July - but from seeing fear on the faces of people I passed. There was a disturbing, sinister, feel to Berlin now. People went about their business as they always had. But instead of looking up and smiling, they kept their heads down, afraid to make eye contact with someone. These days they didn’t know who that someone might be.

  A sudden feeling of horror engulfed me. Hundreds of blood red flags lined Pariser Platz. The Nazi flag flew from every shop doorway and upstairs window. Dense white circles with black swastikas at the centre, like the wings of vampire bats, hung from municipal buildings. They stole the sunlight from the windows of office workers. And they stole my love for Berlin.

  The Nazi emblem, once an ancient Indian symbol of spirituality, was for us in the west a symbol of good luck until in the 1930s the Nazis took it as the symbol of their Aryan race identity. I can’t remember the last time I cried, but today I cried for this magnificent city that I had once called my home.

  I got back to the hotel in time to have a quick wash and change my clothes. My suit had been pressed and the shirt I’d travelled in had been laundered. I washed and dressed with time to spare before I needed to be in the foyer to meet Walter and Frieda.

  I looked out of my bedroom window. Dusk was falling. Lights twinkled as they came on one at a time in the city’s Mitte district. I looked to my left, to where beyond the rooftops was the Brandenburg Gate and Pariser Platz. My heart grew heavy thinking of the time in 1933 when the Nazis had burned books they had banned because they considered them degenerate. Someone had laid ashes in the same spot today. I wondered whether they had been put there by Nazis to make sure the citizens of Berlin toed the line, or by students in protest of what happened in ’33 - and to remind the good people of Berlin if they didn’t sit up and take notice, it could happen again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  KABARET - WHAT A NIGHT

  I am writing this entry of my journal twenty-four hours after the event. I was in no fit state to write a shopping list when Walter and Frieda brought me back to the hotel last night.

  They picked me up at seven; Walter looking magnificent in a black suit, white shirt with a stiff collar and dicky-bow, and Frieda in a petrol blue silk dress that didn’t so much hug, but slid over her slender figure so closely a chap daren’t look.

  The name of the club we went to was Unterwelt. The band played Hot Jazz, the latest music craze to come out of France - and before France, America.

  ‘Uneducated Berliners,’ Walter scoffed, motioning to people dancing. ‘They are calling this jazz the essence of the era’s modernism, a move towards equality and emancipation.’

  ‘You don’t look happy about that,’ I said.

  ‘A passing phase,’ he sneered. ‘It will end, as all meaningless pastimes end, when the Chancellor has this club and all the others like it burned down.’

  ‘Ouch. That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?’ I challenged. Walter ignored me. The look on his face as he watched the dancers having fun was one of disgust. Was Walter showing his true colours at last?

  The band played traditional jazz peppered with swing and blues with the occasional 1920s rag-time song thrown in - and the dance floor heaved with bodies dancing a kind of freestyle.

  Frieda was swaying to the saxophone and tapping her feet to the beat of the drum so I plucked up the courage and asked her to dance.

  Walter immediately stepped between us. I thought he was going to hit me. Instead he grabbed Frieda by the arm and said she was not going to dance to such unsavoury music. The two of them left and I followed.

  When we got to the car Frieda shrugged her shoulders in a devil may care way. I pretended I hadn’t seen her and opened the passenger door of Walter’s car for her to get in. She raised her eyebrows and smiled at me. ‘Coward,’ she whispered, as she rubbed against me to lower herself onto the seat. I shut the door on her teasing laughter.

  I was first to the bar when we got to a club called, Stiefel und Kabarett. Walter wanted a large bier and Frieda asked for wine before leaving to find a table.

  Walter came with me to the bar and carried his own beer across the smoke-filled room to where Frieda sat talking to two rather flamboyantly dressed men and a woman.

  ‘Come,’ she shouted, ‘there is plenty of room.’

  The men pushed and shoved each other, giggling, and Walter and I sat down in a space that was hardly big enough for one, let alone two people. The woman stood up, kissed Frieda, and said she must go because she was the next act.

  Frieda leaned into me, her lips close to my ear, her breath warm on my neck. ‘You’ll love Tilly’s act. She is very good,’ she purred.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled. There was t
hat perfume again. ‘Oh, good,’ I said, lifting my glass to my mouth and taking a drink. My mind wasn’t on Tilly or her act at that moment, it was on Frieda, her perfume, and the seductive way she rubbed against me when she whispered in my ear.

  Slowly the lights went down until the room was in darkness. There was silence. Then, as the curtains in front of the stage started to open, a spotlight shone on the lovely Tilly singing Marlene Dietrich’s, Ich Bin Die Fesche Lola.

  When her set came to an end, Tilly stepped daintily from the stage helped by two male dancers who looked more like all-in wrestlers. Letting go of their hands and shooing them away - all part of the act - she sashayed over to where we were sitting. She was humming a tune that I didn’t recognise adding words like liebe, liebling, and then, nehmen Sie mich. Love and darling are words used in most love songs, but not take me.

  ‘I dedicate my next song to this wonderful Englishman,’ she shouted, her arms outstretched towards me while looking around the room. The audience applauded her, she called for a spotlight, and a beam of light picked me out of the gloom and cigarette smoke. She ordered me to stand up, which I did. Unable to look into the light I raised my right arm and waved to what was now my audience. Then the spotlight left me and settled on Tilly. I sat down and Tilly began to sing a Marlene Dietrich song called, In Liebe Fallen.

  When she finished singing, Tilly lifted up her numerous skirts to show a pair of bright red satin cami knickers, stockings and garters. She turned round and with the microphone between her legs she wriggled and writhed. The audience went wild. She then swung back to me, took my beer out of my hand, put it on the table and straddled me.

  Leaning backwards, she shimmied and arched her back like a limbo dancer until her head was almost touching the floor - and all the while she sang, Falling In Love Again. I grabbed her hips for fear gravity would get the better of her and she would slip and crack her head on the ground. After the first verse she pulled herself up until she was sitting. With practiced movements, slow and suggestive, she stood up. Her legs still gripping my thighs, she put the microphone on the table next to my drink, took my hands and thrust them at her crotch.

  Leaning over me she growled, ‘Do you want this, Sidney?’

  To my surprise, I felt a bulge beneath her satin knickers that a rugby player would have been proud of. I say to my surprise. I was surprised that this particularly beautiful creature was a man, not that the act was erotic. I’d known about places like this since adolescence. Hard to avoid when you go to an all-boys boarding school.

  I pulled my hands from between her legs and in the spirit of the show threw my head back and laughed.

  ‘Hey!’ I shielded my eyes, as the stark blue light from the flash bulb of a camera exploded so close to my face it temporarily blinded me. ‘Don’t waste your bulbs on me. Save them for someone prettier, like this beautiful lady,’ I said, as the androgynous Tilly, who looked like Greta Garbo but had the thighs of Herbert Runge, extracted her long legs from mine.

  I shot Walter a worried look and flicked my head in the direction of the chap with the camera who was high-tailing it across the dance floor. I didn’t want to see my ugly mug plastered all over the Berliner Morgenpost or the Zeitung in the morning. Nor did I want some bloke following me back to the hotel one day, knocking on my door, and blackmailing me. I’d probably have to pay him a fortune to stop him flogging the photograph to an English paper. There were so many British reporters in Berlin covering the Olympics he would be spoiled for choice.

  Walter returned with the film. ‘He is what we call a chancer. He takes photographs of people in clubs and bars, and tells them for five Reichmarks he’ll develop the photograph for them. Tourists are often eager to take home a memento of their night out in the seedier side of Berlin and as it costs so little they hand the money over. The photographer asks for an address to deliver the photograph and by the time the person gets home, or back to their hotel, they have been burgled. In this man’s case, he was happy to take twenty Reichmarks for the film and move to another bar.’

  Walter unwound the length of film and let it snake to the floor. I picked it up from among the dog ends and stuffed it into my jacket pocket. The photographer may have taken chances, but I wasn’t going to take any.

  We laughed and carried on drinking, and in the morning I met Highsmith for breakfast. I told him about Walter’s outburst and I agreed that I would learn more about National Socialism and Nazism by spending my evenings with him and Frieda than I would trying to make new friends, which, with the exception of the guy who worked for Mercedes Benz, had only got me into trouble.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  THE 11th OLYMPIC GAMES, AUGUST 1, 1936

  Sidney Parfitt, The Times.

  To get to the startlingly modern Olympic stadium, the 325 acre sports complex five miles west of Berlin, meant me getting up so early there was little point in me going to bed. It also meant I couldn’t have my usual meeting with Highsmith over a leisurely breakfast. Instead, I gabbled what I’d learned the night before while eating a piece of dark rye bread.

  I set off early to find my seat in the press area and was in good time to see Chancellor Hitler and his top Nazis arrive. Word that Hitler was in sight rippled through 110,000 spectators already seated.

  Men, women and children had been herded into the stadium like cattle and ordered to take their seats well in advance of Hitler’s arrival. Head held high, giving his trademark straight armed salute and looking ahead, Chancellor Hitler arrived standing up in the front of a large black open-top Mercedes. An entourage of dozens of military cars with faithful Nazi party members followed.

  Highsmith was at the Brandenburg Gate and told me later that Hitler had stood, statuesque with his arm out straight from the shoulder, all the way to the stadium. Highsmith lost him after Pariser Platz but there were a couple of reporters stationed en route, and I was at the stadium to report on his arrival.

  Hitler arrived to thousands of people screaming and chanting his name. It was incredible to see. Officials opened hundreds of cages and thousands of homing pigeons flew free. Before he mounted a raised seating area built specially for the Chancellor and other dignitaries, a small blonde-haired child - chosen for her Nordic looks no doubt - toddled up to Hitler holding a bouquet of flowers, handed them to him and curtsied.

  August 2nd was Highsmith’s turn to cover the Olympics. It was my day for frequenting bars and cafés to see what I could learn. After an early lunch in the city, I took a short cut to a quaint coffee house that I’d spotted earlier in the week. As soon as I opened the door I was overwhelmed by the rich, slightly smoky, invigorating aroma of freshly made Berlin-style coffee. The tables were covered in embroidered cloths, there were fresh flowers in the window and at the end of the counter, and a pretty dark haired woman in her middle years greeted me with a welcoming smile as I entered.

  I ordered coffee and ogled a glass cabinet where a dozen cakes and pastries were displayed on white doilies, and asked for a slice of strudel.

  When the woman brought my coffee and cake, I said, ‘I am surprised you are not busier, with so many tourists in Berlin for the Olympics.’

  ‘We are a little off the beaten track here,’ she said, pouring my coffee.

  I expect she was right. But I still thought it strange that a café as pleasant as this one didn’t have any customers. ‘Do you not have a local clientele?’

  The woman suddenly looked terrified. ‘Are you from the authorities, sir?’

  ‘Me? No,’ I said, wondering what on earth had given her that idea.

  ‘Then why do you ask such questions?’ The woman had changed from being friendly and welcoming to guarded and almost hostile.

  Not wanting to offend the woman, I took my ID and press pass from the inside pocket of my jacket and showed them to her. I told her I was a journalist and I was here to cover the Olympics for an English newspaper called The Times.

  She looked at my ID, nodded and apologised, before leaving me to my r
efreshment.

  I sipped my coffee and picked at the edge of the pastry with the fork. I’d lost my appetite, but I ate the delicious sweet for fear of offending the woman further. I looked across the room to where she was standing. She was behind the counter gazing out of the window. I could sense this woman’s pain. Something was very wrong. I finished my coffee and wandered over to her.

  ‘I would like another cup of your delicious coffee, madam.’

  ‘Of course!’ She turned her back on me and stepped further along the counter to the stove where a pot of fresh coffee was percolating. ‘If you go back to your table, I will bring it to you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I did as she said and from a distance watched her wipe tears from her eyes. When she picked up the coffee pot, I picked up my pen and pretended to make notes. ‘It is good coffee,’ I said when she arrived at my table.

  She smiled and nodded. ‘Thank you.’ Her eyes were still moist. Without realising it I had upset this woman. ‘If I have offended you, madam, it was not intentional.’

  She shook her head. ‘You have not, sir.’ She took a deep breath, looked at me but didn’t speak.

  I started to get up and she stepped back, so I sat down. ‘What is it, madam?’

  ‘I should not be speaking to you; to a stranger. These days a misinterpreted word, a word that is misunderstood, or said without thought can get a person… killed.’ She looked at me, her eyes dark with fear searched mine, as if she was looking into my soul. ‘If you were working for the Nazis you would have arrested me by now, marched me out of here for all my neighbours to see, and I would be on my way to prison. She dropped into the chair opposite. ‘Frankly,’ she said, her sad eyes brimming with tears, ‘I do not care anymore.’ But she did care because she looked over her shoulder at the door.

  ‘Would you like me to lock it, madam?’