by Pierre Frei
Marlene reverted to her native accent. 'I'm Marlene. Berlin born and bred.'
'Me too,' said her neighbour.
The general is greatly impressed by your story,' Armand told her. 'He'd like to know if there's anything that we can do for you.'
Marlene didn't even have to think about it. 'I want to go home.'
The DC3 with French markings on its fuselage and wings made a bumpy landing. There were great cracks in the runway and only some of the bomb craters had been filled. The Americans had occupied their sector of Berlin a few days earlier, taking over Tempelhof airport. As yet the French had no airfield in their sector.
Marlene climbed out of the plane. An elegant Spahi officer was waiting for her. 'Capitaine de Bertin, madame. I'm to look after you while you are here. We've put you up in the guest house at our headquarters, and you can decide when you want to return to Paris.' Capitaine de Bertin put her case in the big staff car.
'I don't want to go back to Paris. I want to go to RUbenstrasse.'
'What, madame?'
'RUbenstrasse, please.'
The captain was a veteran of many diplomatic missions, but this complicated task was executed only after much discussion with the driver, and with the aid of several German workers. At last they set off, passing ragged men and women making for unknown destinations. Others were busy clearing rubble. Children with hungry faces reached their hands out to the car. 'Chocolate,' they begged. 'Chocolate.' There were ruins everywhere.
Marlene wept. This was her city.
There was no Ri benstrasse any more, only a lunar landscape of broken bricks and rubble, with a single chimney rising from it three storeys high. Oh well, she thought, and wiped her tears away. 'Arretez, s'il vous plait.' They stopped. 'I must go on from here alone.'
Capitaine de Bertin gave her a card. 'You can reach me any time at this number.' He helped her out of the limousine and saluted. 'Goodbye, madame. You are a very brave woman.' The car disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Marlene took her case and set off. She knew she had made the right decision.
Only the entrance of the building in Schoneberg was left. 'The Reich family now in Lichtenrade,' someone had chalked on the charred wood of the door, adding the address. A dozen tenants had left similar information. Franz Giese was not among them.
Marlene clambered over the ruins to the place where the stairs had led up into his building. Dandelions grew among the rubble. Something glinted gold among the broken bricks and scraps of mortar. It was the rutting stag in the autumnal wood. She picked the last splinters of glass out of the frame and stuck the picture under her arm. Now what? Obvious. Look for Franz.
She slept in the park. She had a dried sausage in her case, and ate some of it for breakfast. A hydrant supplied washing water in the morning. 'Tastes horrible, but it's drinkable,' an old man told her, slurping it noisily from the hollow of his hand.
EMPLOYMENT OFFICE - the notice hung on a side door of the Schoneberg town hall which was still almost intact. She joined the end of the long queue. After two hours she reached a table.
'Name?'
'Kaschke, Marlene.'
'Papers?'
She gave the man her old passport, the one she had kept through the years.
'It's expired.'
'I'll get a new one before my next luxury trip round the world. Now I need work and somewhere to live.'
'The Housing Department deals with accommodation. I can register you as looking for work, but we don't have anything at the moment.'
'Do you speak English?' an elderly lady asked.
Marlene was surprised. A little. Why do you want to know?'
'You should try the American employment office in Lichterfelde. They wouldn't take me, I'm too old.'
'How old are you, Fraulein Kaschke?' The head of the German-American Employment Office could see it in her passport, but he was testing her English.
Marlene did her sums. 'I was born in 1912. Now we are in 1945. That makes me thirty-three years old, right?'
'Your English is OK. Let's see what we have for you. What are your legs like?'
'I beg your pardon?'
'Raise your skirt.' The man spoke German with a heavy American accent.
Anything else?' she asked indignantly. 'If you're looking for tarts for an army whorehouse you've come to the wrong address, mister.'
'Nonsense. The usherettes in the Uncle Tom cinema wear short dresses. Our boys like to see girls with pretty legs. Well, what about it?'
'Usherette? That's fantastic!' She couldn't raise her skirt fast enough.
He inspected her legs. All right, they're in order. We pay a hundred and twenty marks a week. You get army food and half a CARE parcel a month. Now go for your medical. Your address, please.'
'Third bench in the park. Just back from the East. I was working on the land there,' she lied. 'My apartment's gone.'
'Sorry, no job without an address.' The American wrote something on a piece of paper and rubber-stamped it. 'Take this to the Zehlendorf Housing Department office.'
Is he doing this because he wants to get me into bed? Marlene wondered. But Mr Chalford took no more notice of her, just lovingly stroked the black marble obelisk on his desk. 'Looks like a big toothpick,' she said.
'That,' Mr Chalford told her, sounding offended, 'is a genuine Barlach.'
A British bomb had torn away a third of the front of Number 198 Argentinische Allee. The bizarre cross-section of floors was reminiscent of a doll's house. The bedroom, kitchen and bathroom in the third-floor apartment on the left were intact, including the furniture. The door to the living room went nowhere. One step through it and you were on the brink of the abyss. Marlene unpacked her few things. She put the cross of the Legion d'Honneur on the chest of drawers, with the rutting stag behind it.
'Pretty picture.' She swung round, startled. The man in the doorway had plastered his yellowish strands of hair across his skull, and wore shabby trousers and check slippers. 'The name's Muhlberger. I live next door. My wife's in the West.' He scratched his crotch. And you are ... ?'
'Marlene Kaschke. They've allotted me this place. And next time you call please knock or ring, Herr Miihlberger, or better still don't call at all.'
'Oh, hoity-toity. are we? Well, if the lady thinks she can manage without masculine protection ... a woman's not safe around here, so they say now, specially at night.'
'I don't think there'll be a problem - so long as I don't come across you,' she shot straight back at him. With a dirty laugh, he disappeared.
She found a hammer and nails in the kitchen and hung the stag above the chest of drawers. She knew Franz would be glad she'd found the picture. Her face cleared. 'Now for the cinema.'
It was like a dream. The dimly lit auditorium with the curving rows of seats. The heavy, silvery blue curtain that would open any minute for Hans Albers, Willy Fritsch or Heinz Riihmann. First the man who played the Wurlitzer would climb out of the depths and accompany the colourful slides of advertisements with his magical, swelling organ music. Marlene remembered every detail of her past visit to the Onkel Tom cinema.
The manager was a pale corporal called Pringle, who was sitting in the office drinking coffee with his pallid German boyfriend. 'There'll be no playing around with the boys. Gisela will get your dress.'
Gisela was a strong-minded redhead who advised her, 'Do as I do, wear four pairs of panties on top of each other. They're always bloody pinching your arse. Here, this should fit.' She helped Marlene into the short lilac taffeta dress with its frilled sleeves and tied a large bow, also lilac, in her hair. Then she steered Marlene to the mirror and stood beside her. 'Designed and made by Corporal Pringle. The taffeta cost him four cartons of Chesterfields. He and Detlev just love to sew. Well, at least those two don't pinch you, the little darlings.' The two young women looked at each other and spluttered with laughter.
Marlene was given a torch and a tray slung around her with chocolate bars, bags of popcorn and a small chilled
container for ices on a stick. Her territory was the left-hand aisle. A doll-faced, black-haired girl paraded up and down the right-hand aisle, and Gisela took the middle one.
There was no Wurlitzer now, there were no ads, there was no documentary. The loudspeakers played swing, while slides warned you about sexually transmitted diseases. Instead of the screen heroes of the pre-war UfA, Terra and Tobis studios, the cinema was showing a Metro-Goldwyn Mayer movie with Clark Gable. Admission was from eight, and the movie began at twenty to nine.
All went smoothly. She managed to elude the bottom-pinching to some extent. Clark Gable radiated raw masculinity, and predictably won Loretta Young. The cinema closed at eleven, and the girls changed. 'Never, for heaven's sake, forget your Yank pass,' Gisela warned. 'Or they'll take you in for being out after curfew.'
'Got it here.' Marlene slapped her shoulder bag with the flat of her hand.
'Hey, there's a hole in your bag. Listen, my Erich works with leather goods. Bet you he's got a patch of leather somewhere he could mend it with for you.'
'No, I want to leave the bag like that, as a memento. But thanks for the offer. See you tomorrow.'
She didn't have far to go: past the Yank guard, out of the prohibited zone, right into Argentinische Allee. The war meant that the second carriageway had never been built, and so a broad strip of sand overgrown with weeds ran parallel to the street. She crossed it to reach the buildings on the other side, and had to be careful not to stumble in a rabbit hole.
A motorbike came rattling through the dark. Right in front of her, its headlight flared. She swerved aside just in time. 'You lunatic,' she swore as the rider moved away. The headlight was switched off. The motorbike turned. She could hear it coming back towards her. This time it roared past without any light on, only just missing her.
She didn't wait for it to turn again, but raced over the pavement to the nearest building. The front door was not locked. Gasping, she leaned against it from the inside. She gradually calmed down, and became aware that someone else was breathing heavily. She switched on her torch. An American soldier and his girl were standing on the stairs. The girl was a step above the man, leaning against the wall. She had pulled up her dress and wrapped one bare leg around his hip. She was moaning in time to his movements.
'Sorry.' Marlene made her escape. All was quiet outside now. She reached the door of her building unmolested, and opened it.
'Rather late home, lady.'
She jumped. She knew that voice. Quickly, she climbed the stairs. He followed her. It seemed an eternity before she got the door of the apartment open. 'Goodnight, Herr Muhlberger.' She slammed it shut. In the bathroom, she ran water into the washbasin - thanks to the Americans, the water mains were functioning in the Onkel Tom quarter - and dipped her face into it. The chorine stung her eyes.
She fell asleep, exhausted. She dreamed. Franz had put a protective arm around her. 'Go ahead ...' she murmured happily.
Muhlberger seemed to guess her comings and goings. He always happened to be in the stairwell, scratching his crotch and making suggestive remarks. And so little to say for himself when his wife's around!' Frau Muller from the second floor showed a tiny gap between thumb and forefinger. All the same - don't you have anyone to look after you?'
Of course I do.'
'Mine's in Russia.' Frau Muller didn't expect an answer.
Was Franz in Russia too? She remembered how she had last seen him, tied to a post in the cellar, being tortured by the Gestapo. She didn't like to think of it.
'Franz Giese: please get in touch. Lene is living in Onkel Toms Hutte, 198 Argentinische Allee, 3rd floor,' she wrote on the once-white lid of a shoebox. She fixed it to the entrance of the apartment building where he'd lived.
The lid of the shoebox followed her into her dreams. Suppose Franz didn't pass the door of his old building any more because he'd long ago found another place to live? Or suppose someone had torn the message down? Rain could have washed the writing off. Wind could have blown the cardboard away.
Every other day she set off for Schoneberg. The message still hung in its place, unchanged and obviously unread. Her secret hope of finding a note stuck behind it with his answer, with a brief explanation of why he hadn't been able to visit her yet, began to fade.
On Wednesday, yet again, she went home disappointed. The tram was overcrowded, as usual. The man behind her was rubbing his penis against her hip. She turned round, which wasn't easy. 'Here you are, then.' She rammed her knee into his crotch. His face went pale with the pain.
A woman got in at the next stop. She had hollow cheeks and wore a headscarf. Her eyes wandered over Marlene and the other passengers, and then, incredulous, returned to Marlene. Her voice was quiet and hesitant at first, as if she had to convince herself. 'Frau Camp Commandant Neubert, isn't it? What a surprise!' The voice grew louder. 'So where's your riding crop, Frau camp commandant?'
Marlene understood. The woman was mixing her up with Gertrud Werner, the appalling Hauptsturmfiihrerin. In her tormented memory, the similarities between them were blurred. For her, Marlene and Frau Werner were one and the same person. Assurances and explanations would do no good. She'd get out at the next stop.
Accusingly, the woman turned to them all. She used to beat you mercilessly until you couldn't even whimper.'
The other passengers pricked up their ears. A few showed signs of sympathy. Most turned away. They didn't want anything to do with this kind of thing. But they were all listening.
'She enjoyed strapping you into a chair, then her doctor colleague could root about until your insides burned like fire. She'd lever your teeth apart and pour chemicals down your throat so that her criminal friend with his doctorate could study their effects. If you were lucky you didn't die, you just developed a few harmless symptoms.' The woman tore the scarf off her head. Her skull was bald and fiery red. Allow me to introduce myself, ladies and gentlemen,' she cried. 'Lilo Goldblatt, doctor of medicine, formerly a guinea pig in Blumenau concentration camp. Do you remember me, Frau camp commandant?'
'Ought to be hanged!' trumpeted the man who had been molesting Marlene. 'Turn her in to the police!' shouted someone else.
I have to get out of here, thought Marlene -- how many times in her life had she told herself that? She took a deep breath and jumped from the moving tram. The hedge between the tracks and the pavement cushioned her fall. She picked herself up and ran as she used to run in Rubenstrasse, when you had to be first to the corner to get a bit of bread from the Salvation Army's barrow. She'd been eight then. She noticed her breath coming faster and her legs moving more slowly. She was thirty-three now.
When she saw the cemetery gate she put on a final spurt. She came to a halt in the middle of a company of mourners beside an open grave, and smiled apologetically at the pastor. She had nearly knocked him into it. The man of God bowed his head with Christian forgiveness, and continued his sermon.
For the moment, she was safe from her pursuers. But now what? She considered her position. Suppose they went on looking for her, and ended up finding her? She'd have to offer long explanations. She didn't need to explain anything in Paris. A call to Capitaine de Bertin would be enough. But you can't do that to Franz, an inner voice told her.
The pastor was holding the Bible before him in both hands, praising the character of the dear departed, while Marlene looked around. She seemed to be in the clear. The word Fiihrer kept coming up in the priest's address. 'One of our very best ... always on the alert, ready to make decisions ... always keeping his eye open for signals ... now let us pray . . .' But Fiihrer, of course, her confused mind registered, meant all sorts of other things, including a train driver, and this was a train driver's funeral. As the mourners left the cemetery an old gentleman, taking her for one of the party, shook her hand with fervour. 'One of the best engine drivers we ever had.'
Marlene shook his hand vigorously in return. 'He was indeed. Listen, how do I get back from here to Onkel Tom?' She was given a long descr
iption, with many alternatives, and chose the simplest.
There was a letter waiting for her at home. The postal service had been running again for the last few days. When she saw the sturdy handwriting on the envelope she uttered a cry of joy. She tore it open, took out the sheet of lined paper, and read:
Dear Fraulein Lene
I found your message and now I am answering it. So we are both still alive, which is more than can be said for many. I was a soldier in the war in Denmark, except that it wasn't really a war there, which was fine by me, I had quite enough of war with the first one. After a few weeks as prisoners they let us go, and now I'm in Berlin again, in Ruhleben, I'm working as a driver for the British. I will come and see you on Sunday. Is four o'clock all right for you?
With warm regards
Franz Giese
She laughed and wept, because he was alive and coming to see her on Sunday, and he was the only person she really knew, none of the others counted. She thought of the haulage business with the three-wheeled van, and maybe a bigger truck later. It's going to be all right, she thought.
'Good news?' asked Gisela on Saturday as they were getting into their lilac taffeta dresses and fixing the horrible bows in their hair.
'Very good,' Marlene beamed. 'He's coming tomorrow afternoon. Do me a favour? Ask Rita to take my shift.'
'OK, lover.' Gisela had picked that up from Mae West.
'Corporal Pringle doesn't have to know that I'm playing hooky on Sunday.'
'Don't you worry. He's got eyes only for Detlev and the new knitting pattern.'
Marlene put the sling of the refreshments tray around her shoulders. This was her turn for the centre aisle, which meant twice the work, because she had to show the audience in on both sides, left and right. She put up with a couple of pinches. Nothing could trouble her today.