Berlin: A Novel

by Pierre Frei

  A tall, lanky captain bought two bags of popcorn and gave one to the woman with him. Marlene showed them to their seats. The captain thanked her with a smile, which his companion didn't seem to like at all. Don't worry, I'm not aiming to take him away from you, thought Marlene in high spirits.

  She had pocketed a chocolate bar from her tray. It would buy her a couple of briquettes from the fuel merchant who supplied the shopping street and the cinema. She put them in the bathroom stove late on Sunday morning, and soon it was bubbling comfortably away. The Camay soap came from the cinema toilets. It smelled divine and foamed wonderfully.

  A bottle of sparkling wine was cooling under running water. It had cost most of her half of a CARE parcel, but would go very well with the army ration of canned bacon. She had wrapped the bacon around prunes from an earlier distribution. Crackers and peanuts completed the luxurious tidbits.

  She put on Madame Schiaparelli's diaphanous underwear and the expensive silk stockings. She'd quite forgotten that she had a good figure and long, slender legs. The high-heeled shoes set them off beautifully. The elegant Printemps dress was as good as new. Parisian chic in Onkel Toms Hiitte. How Franz would stare!

  The clock showed four on the dot when he knocked. With every step to the door, her anticipation grew. She slowly opened it. He had a pot of geraniums under his arm, and swallowed with embarrassment.

  'So there you are.'

  'Good day, Fraulein Lene,' he said stiffly. 'How are you?'

  'Fine, thanks. Now, let's forget the formalities. Come on in.'

  He put the pot of geraniums down. 'Pretty place here.'

  'Yours in Schoneberg was prettier. Well, we can make up for all that. We're still young, aren't we?' She poured the sparkling wine. 'Cheers, Franz.'

  'Cheers, Lene.' His awkwardness was melting away. He sat down. 'I still can't believe the two of us are here.'

  'The three of us.' She pointed at the rutting stag over the chest of drawers. He looked at the picture as if he were seeing it for the first time. She drank in the sight of him. He had rounded out a little, and it suited him. The dimple in his chin was slightly deeper. His hairline had receded a bit. His brown eyes were the same as ever. They bent a calm and honest gaze on the world.

  'It's been a while, hasn't it,' she said.

  'You came to me because you wanted to get away from that man Fredie, and I took you to the Pension Wolke. That's the last time I saw you.' He bent his head. 'But I told them where you were. It was cowardly of me, but I was scared. It's a funny thing, I never understood why they suddenly left me alone. Most people would have ended up in a camp. Did they leave you alone too?'

  'Of course,' she lied. 'We were both lucky, that's what.' She moved to face him. 'Stand up, Franz, and kiss me properly at last.' She pulled him up by his dyed British uniform tunic until their faces were very close. Then they were just a man and a woman, and everything was clear between them.

  He was large, and hard. Her moistness made him a supple messenger of love. The afternoon wasn't enough for him, or the evening either. They didn't talk much as they rested in between times, probably because there was too much to say.

  Just before ten he got dressed, so as not to miss the last U-Bahn train before curfew. She took one of the flickering candles off the chest of drawers. 'So you don't fall down the stairs.' They said no elaborate goodbyes. He'd be back tomorrow.

  And then we'll talk about the future,' he promised.

  'The future,' she repeated, because at last she had one.

  Elated, she went into the bathroom. The stove was still warm. The fine spray of the shower set off an indescribably sensuous tingling of her skin. She directed the hand-held jet on her mount of Venus, and came to climax at once. It was like the full stop to a wonderful first chapter.

  She was just wrapping herself in her dressing gown when she heard a faint knocking. She tied the belt and took her torch from the wardrobe in the corridor. 'Franz?' Had he missed his train? Outside stood a figure in goggles and a leather cap. It held a clinking chain between two raised gauntlets. 'Here, what's the idea?' she said angrily.

  She had no time to feel afraid. The figure forced her back into the apartment. Cold metal went around her throat and cut off her artery. The lack of oxygen to her brain set off euphoria.

  A heavenly peace filled her, peace that no earthly pain could penetrate. She was floating weightlessly towards a sunny Riibenstrasse, full of bright houses and happy people, with a laughing Franz leading them all.

  'Watch out, everyone, here comes Lene!' she cried happily.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE DISTRICT COUNCILLOR'S large, walnut-veneered Superhet radio had survived air raids, Russians, and Inge Dietrich's pressing requests to let her exchange it for food at Frau Molch's. Not even the prospect of a few packets of Yugoslav Drinas, more affordable than American cigarettes, could make Dr Hellbich change his mind. 'One has to know what's going on in the world,' he stated, and he listened to the news when the power was on.

  There was a good deal going on in the world during that early autumn of 1945. Japan had surrendered in the face of America's atom bombs, and was allowed to keep its Emperor. A largely unknown British general had fired the equally unknown new mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, for incompetence. In Hollywood, Greta Garbo was making her fourteenth movie. The Scotsman Alexander Fleming won the Nobel Prize for discovering some kind of miracle medication.

  'Made of mould, would you believe it?' commented Hellbich.

  'Can we listen to AFN?' asked Ralf, when the news was over and the announcer was threatening to play merry operetta tunes.

  'You can do that when I'm not home.' His grandfather hated the 'tuneless tootling' of the American Forces Network.

  The radio had a graduated tuning scale which glowed a mysterious green and bore names like Tripoli, Hilversum and Brindisi. They appealed to Ben's dreams of distant places, not that he really wanted to go anywhere except perhaps America, where the longest cars and the sharpest gentlemen's fashions were to be found. A GI had left the latest issue of Esquire lying in the U-Bahn. Ben leafed through its sterile world of sexless glamour and deceptive glossy advertising, where a bottle of Johnnie Walker was praised to the skies as if it were holy water. At the back of the magazine he found a coloured ad for the Buick Eight. This quality limousine was still top of his list. Its driver was leaning casually against the radiator, wearing a doublebreasted suit. which presented Ben with a dilemma. Would it be better to opt for a button at pocket level, as shown here, which would mean he could have longer lapels, or was the waist-level button which he had hitherto favoured the only real thing? He'd have to discuss it with Rodel. After all, the master tailor was an authority in the field.

  Above all, however, he must get twenty cartons of Yankee cigarettes out of Clarence C. Brubaker by playing on his hopes for the greatest journalistic scoop of modern times. Only then would the coveted suit and suede shoes be within his reach. The Fdhrer's right-hand man would be a help. Ben grinned happily to himself, because now he knew how to bring it off.

  That afternoon he was trotting along the villa-lined streets behind US headquarters. Brubaker's car was in the drive. The aspirant to the Pulitzer Prize had had his Ford sent over from Hackensack at US government expense.

  Ben did not press the doorbell as usual, but walked round the side of the house and tapped softly at a window pane. Brubaker was hunched over the sheet of paper in his Remington. With a conspiratorial air, Ben signalled for him to open the back door.

  Brubaker opened it. 'What's happening?' he asked in surprise.

  'I've been followed. But I managed to shake them off.' Ben injected a touch of Humphrey Bogart into the part he was playing. He had just seen The Maltese Falcon.

  Hackensack's star reporter didn't understand. 'Who followed you?'

  'Them, of course. They got wind of it. We must hurry. He's waiting for you. Do you have the cigarettes?'

  'Fifteen cartons. I knew you'd do it.' Brubaker was o
bviously pleased.

  'Chesterfields?' Ben checked, and wondered how he could raise the price to twenty. After all, this wasn't just some ordinary Nazi like friendly little Herr Adler, who crept round his own former premises with his head hung low, as if he were a war criminal. And all he'd done was run the National Socialist People's Welfare Office for the Onkel Tom area, giving the housewives who were always short of ration coupons a few extra on the sly. No, this was a top quality Nazi, and as such he had his price.

  'Lucky Strikes,' said Brubaker apologetically. 'Chesterfields were sold out.'

  Ben saw his chance. 'Well, I don't know. He usually only smokes Chesterfields. Perhaps he'll make an exception for you if you add another five cartons.'

  'Five cartons of Philip Morris, my own stock,' agreed Clarence P That made sure of the crepe-soled suede shoes. 'Where do I meet him?'

  'He's going to a secret meeting of the Werewolves today.'

  Brubaker was delighted. 'Dick Draycott of United Press was saying recently - and rather condescendingly too - that the Werewolves were only the brainchild of small provincial reporters, mainly from Hackensack, New Jersey. This'll show him, the arrogant bastard! So the Hitler Youth is still alive and kicking?'

  'You bet,' Ben assured him, squinting at the cartons of cigarettes piled high on the table.

  'I suppose you don't happen to know just what they do in more detail?'

  'They sing,' said Ben, drawing on personal experience.

  'Nazi songs?'

  'Sure.'

  'Do you know any?'

  'Hoch auf dern gelben Wagen,' remembered Ben, although he was not quite sure whether this ditty was tainted by the past like poor Herr Adler. 'High on the yellow car,' he translated to the best of his ability. Brubaker faithfully wrote it down. '. . . I sit in front with my brother-in-law,' Ben continued, and the man from the Hackensack Herald noted that the words were an expression of typical German family feeling. 'I can sing it if you like,' offered Ben, unfolding the potato sack he had brought with him to hold the cigarettes.

  'Some other time. Let's go,' urged Brubaker.

  'We must leave the cigarettes in his hideout first or he won't agree to talk to you.' Ben was anxious to make sure he had them. He hid his treasure in the shed behind his grandparents' house, under cartons full of empty preserving jars, and shrugged off any vague feelings of guilt. It wasn't his fault if the Yank was such a fool, was it?

  'No one's following us,' he announced as they went on. Brubaker was driving the Ford in the happy expectation of his secret meeting. There was a journalistic sensation in the offing.

  At Ben's command, he left the car in an unused driveway, and followed him by tortuous routes leading, as he failed to notice, several times around the same corners. After the third circuit Ben raised a hand to halt him and crept through a gap in the hedge, going ahead. From there they went on over six plots of land and twelve fences. They could easily have reached their destination from the road, but for twenty cartons of cigarettes the man had earned the right to a dramatic scene. Ben ducked down behind a laurel bush. Brubaker got into cover too. He considered giving an owl's hoot by way of camouflage - he had learned this trick years ago in the Hackensack Boy Scouts - but first, owls don't hoot in daylight, and second, Ben had laid a warning finger on his lips before wriggling the last few metres to the back of the Zehlendorf GYA Club on his stomach. Clarence the Boy Scout imitated him. He was tingling unbearably, although that had less to do with suspense than with the ants in the garden.

  Ben had worked it all out precisely. Sergeant Allen would be reporting to the Signal Corps colonel, Corporal Kauwe would be helping the girls with their doll's house. The coast was clear. He pushed Brubaker towards the cellar door. You could get a good view of the drama group's rehearsal stage through its barred window. The timing was perfect. The 'robbers' were just singing, at the top of their voices, 'We live a life of liberty'.

  'The Werewolves' battle song,' whispered Ben. 'They sing it before any major operation. Better not go so close to the window. They shoot on sight. See that man under the stairs? That's him.' Ben pointed to the caretaker.

  'Hitler's right-hand man,' murmured Brubaker, much impressed.

  Appel was emptying a couple of mousetraps. 'We beat the drum, we all rejoice, to hear the weeping maiden's voice,' sang the robbers' chorus, while Herr Appel set his traps, this time with popcorn. Heidi Rodel was sitting on the front of the platform swinging her bare legs and watching with a bored expression.

  'They have girls in the Werewolves?' said Brubaker, surprised. And very pretty girls too.'

  'That's Dynamite Heidi. She carries out special operations.' Ben cheerfully continued to spin his yarn. He was enjoying this more and more.

  'Can I speak to him now?'

  Ben had thought this out carefully in advance. 'Slink over to that garden summerhouse, keeping under cover, and wait for us there.' He watched with interest as Brubaker wriggled his way from shrub to shrub in his best Boy Scout manner, and covered the open stretch of lawn between the last forsythia and the summerhouse with a racing dive, making use of his training in the Hackensack High School baseball team. His body was much quicker off the mark than his brain.

  Ben went into the cellar. Heidi was still dangling her legs. You didn't come the other evening.' She pushed herself slightly forward on the edge of the stage, and her dress rucked up a little further.

  'What, skinny-dipping with the entire bunch?' Ben snorted with derision.

  'What about with just me?'

  'Dunno.' He looked at her brown thighs and wondered what they felt like.

  Gert Schlomm clapped his hands. 'We're going back two pages. Moor kills Amalie. Come on, Heidi, and die a bit more slowly this time.'

  Ben did not wait for the deadly blow, but strolled back to the caretaker between the improvised rows of seats. 'Hi, Herr Appel. Do you have a moment? There's a Yank out there, he's a newspaper reporter and he wants to write something about German allotment gardeners.'

  An American taking an interest in Appel's kohlrabi! The caretaker hid his delight behind a reluctant, 'S'pose I can take a look at him.' He did not stop to wonder just how the man from overseas knew about him and his allotment. 'Does he speak German?'

  'Not a word of it, but I can interpret.' Ben steered him into the summerhouse. 'This is Herr Appel.'

  Brubaker had his pencil and notepad ready. 'The Fiihrer's right-hand man, is that correct?'

  Although Herr Appel spoke no English, he would certainly understand the word 'Fiihrer'. Ben reacted like lightning. 'Is it true that the Fiihrer took a great interest in German allotment gardeners?'

  Herr Appel's eyes bulged a little more. 'Could be. Him being a vegetarian and all, he only ate vegetables. But I can't say any more for sure. I was never in the Party, I'd like to say that loud and clear.'

  'I was always at his side,' translated Ben.

  'Where is he now?' Brubaker was trying to make these earth-shattering questions sound casual.

  'What's your own favourite vegetable?' Ben interpreted.

  'Cauliflower. Brassica oleracea argentinensis, the Argentinian variety. Grows almost of its own accord, delicious with black butter. Ha, butter, did I say?' Herr Appel gave a brief bark of laughter.

  'Dead. Or maybe in Argentina. Or both,' Ben translated the gardener's culinary observations.

  'If he's alive, would you by any chance know his address?' Brubaker persisted.

  'Baked with a topping of breadcrumbs?'

  'No,' said Herr Appel.

  'No.'

  Outside, a whistle was blown. Sergeant Allen was back, and summoning his baseball team. 'Got to get back to work,' Herr Appel grunted. 'Don't forget to write how difficult it is for us German allotment gardeners to protect our crops from thieves these days. Only last week, for instance ...'

  'The alarm signal. They've got wind of our meeting. I have to leave at once,' Ben translated, pushing the Fiihrer's right-hand man out of the summerhouse door.

&nb
sp; Another verse of the robbers' song drifted over from the building. 'Mercury's the god for us, a trickster, he was ever thus ...'

  'Inspector Dietrich with his witness, sir,' Gertrud Olsen told her boss. 'To look at the card index.'

  Curtis S. Chalford glanced out at the corridor. The visitors were waiting at the end of it. 'I'm busy. You see to it, Gertrud. Show them the card index and then get them out of here. We really do have better ways to spend our time.' He shut his office door.

  Gertrud put two boxes of index cards on the table in the outside office. 'There you are, gentlemen. Hurry up, please. Mr Chalford's not in a very good temper. All the same - would you like a coffee?'

  'No thank you, Frau Olsen,' said Dietrich, much to Miihlberger's disappointment. 'We don't want to strain Mr Chalford's temper unduly.' They went through the card index. Miihlberger proudly pointed to his own photograph, and Dietrich also recognized the picture of Ziesel the garbage truck driver. But he was out of contention as the murderer now.

  The inspector pulled the card index of women employees towards him, although it was not really of any interest in this context. Under A he found Henriette von Aichborn's card. There was a black t after the name. 'The boss marked the other four with a cross too. He's very meticulous that way.' explained Gertrud Olsen, noticing Dietrich's surprise.

  'Respectful sort of fellow.' said Miihlberger with heavy irony. 'Can we go now?'

  'I'll drive you home.'

  Chalford, watching from his office window, saw the wood-gas Opel lumber into motion. 'What is it, Gertrud?'

  'Frau Weber is here.'

  'Show her in.'

  Jutta entered the office. 'Good morning, Mr Chalford. You sent for me?'

  'Yes, it's some time since we saw each other.'

  'Not since you hired me, in fact.'

  'Sit down, please.' Chalford indicated a chair and got back behind his desk. 'I hear that Sergeant Panelli is very pleased with you. He praises you a lot, says you're a damned good cook, Frau Weber.' He stroked back his thin fair hair. 'I'm always happy when an arrangement I've made proves successful.' When he moved from English to German, his heavy American accent made his German seem clumsier than it really was. 'So what delicacy are you serving for lunch today?'