by Leo Kessler
Otto ducked hastily and said, ‘For God’s sake, put on a dress, will you! Any minute now you’re going to dangle a tit in my beer.’
‘You’re not very grateful to your old mother, I must say,’ she grumbled sulkily and got up to put on a dress.
‘But you take after your father. Not only in looks, he was mean too.’
‘How would you know?’ Otto quipped. ‘You only ever saw him once – and that was in the dark.’
Dutifully she pulled the dress over her head and made herself another enormous bowl of Berliner Weisser, a mixture of beer, lemonade and raspberry juice, while the Count breathed a sigh of relief that this extraordinary woman, whom Otto called mother, and who was going to shelter them in Berlin, was dressed again.
‘What you going to do?’ Otto asked, ‘drink it or have a bath in it? And come to think of it, that wouldn’t be a bad idea. There’s a terrible pong in here.’
‘Don’t begrudge your poor old mother a little pleasure,’ the Witch answered and, lifting the bowl with both claws, drained a litre in one go. She gasped and wiped the foam off her wrinkled lips. ‘Ah, that’s better!’ she said business like now. ‘Now then, what do you want the Witch to do for you, Otto – and of course your nice friend?’ She ogled the Count, naked lechery in her ancient eyes, and the Count shuddered.
‘Stop that carry-on!’ Otto said sharply. ‘I need your broomstick. I want to get out of the Reich, at least for the time being. I think the Gestapo is after us, and the Army is anyway, as you’ve just heard.’
‘The Gestapo – that bunch of barn shitters,’ she said contemptuously. ‘I wouldn’t worry about them much, Otto.’
‘You wouldn’t. You’d frighten even Himmler out of his drawers!’
She cackled, ‘That’s a good one, Otto.’
‘But if they catch me and my comrade here, we’re for the chop. Turnip off!’ He made a slicing gesture with his extended hand. Next to him on the couch, the Count blanched.
‘“The guillotine is a machine which takes off the head in a flash”,’ the Witch said in an affected, upper-class accent, ‘“so that the victim feels nothing – save a pleasant sense of coolness around the neck region.” That’s what the judge said to your grandfather,’ she continued relapsing into her normal, thick Berlin working-class dialect. ‘Maternal of course, before he ordered him to have his turnip sliced off. I was only a slip of a girl at the time but I remember it as if it was yesterday. Things like that stay with you, don’t they, err Count?’ She smiled winningly at him.
‘Yes, yes, Madame Stahl,’ he stuttered hurriedly.
‘In three devils’ name, change the subject, will you!’ Otto said in exasperation. ‘Now who do you know who can help us? … Silly old bag.’
Thoughtfully the Witch nibbled at her nails, pausing occasionally to spit out the din that lay there, muttering to herself at intervals, then shaking her head, as if she were rejecting whoever had just come into her mind. Finally she looked up and said: ‘Fanhmann.’
‘I beg your pardon, Madame Stahl?’ the Count exclaimed.
She ignored him. ‘Frieda Fanhmann, Otto. She’s your woman.’
‘That crooked old bitch!’ Otto said. He remembered his mother’s old crony from his boyhood. They had pounded the pavements together for years, but Frieda had always been an enterprising little crook on the side too. He recalled the times she had trapped the sparrows in the Tiergarten, painted them yellow, and sold them to gullible middle-class housewives in Berlin-Dahlem as canaries. Then she’d done quite well smuggling drugs, tobacco and the like into the wealthier prisoners in Spandau Jail by means of the silver cassiber she kept hidden in a more intimate portion of her anatomy. Until one day a whole kilo of cigarette tobacco hidden in the tube had disappeared – with disastrous results. The local ‘angel-maker’ had been forced to get it out with his scalpel. Since then she had walked in a strange open-legged gait that had drawn catcalls and cries from fellow pavement-pounders of ‘Where you lost your nag, Frieda?’ – And worse.
‘She’s in the big time now, since she had her accident and got that fancy compensation.’
‘Accident … compensation?’
‘Yes. Last Christmas she took on a whole company of the Leibstandarte.’
‘What?’ Otto cried incredulously. ‘Don’t tell me she’s still doing the mattress polka? It must have been a couple of centuries ago since she could lift her flipper high enough for a quick knee-trembler in some doorway!’
‘Well, anyway she did. Those boys of the SS aren’t so fussy you know. They put her in a bath-chair, but they all had to club up one week’s pay to compensate her. That’s when she went into business. Now she’s a lady, got people working for her and everything. She’s gone international too.’
‘International – what do you mean, you old bag?’
But for once the Witch was silent…
…Berlin’s Kurfurstendamm sparkled in the sun. Everywhere the elegant outdoor cafes were packed with well-dressed women in floral dresses and hats and veils, talking animatedly over their champagne with attentive handsome officers, hung like Christmas trees with the new decorations won in Poland and the West. Smartly dressed soldiers of the garrison strode back and forth in pairs, trying to pick up the shop girls and the little secretaries who were everywhere, saluting officers and barking military greetings to and fro. Somewhere an Army band played, all crashing cymbals and blaring brass. The very air seemed heavy with victory.
Feeling shabby and out of place in such surroundings, the only civilian there save the supercilious waiters, Otto nursed his cold coffee and wondered if it wouldn’t have been better to meet Frau Direktor Farthmann (as she now called herself) back at the Witch’s flat. But the Witch would have none of it.
‘She’s far too grand these days to come here. Besides,’ she had added, ‘it would be bad for business for her to be seen in Berlin-Wedding, a real working-class place like this!’ And so Otto had been forced to make the rendezvous the Kurfurstendamm, leaving a worried, very nervous Count with the Witch, who had been growing more and more amorous by the second.
Time passed leadenly and Otto started to wonder if Frau Direktor Farthmann had not stood him up. An arrogant waiter strolled by and looked pointedly at his cup. ‘Not finished yet?’ he said.
‘I suppose this place is so posh,’ Otto sneered, ‘that you waiters tip each other.’ He stuck out his foot and the arrogant waiter could only save himself from falling by grabbing the next table, thus unfortunately spilling a pot of coffee over the lap of the elegant woman in silk who sat there. Next to her, her companion, a dashing Luftwaffe pilot, the Knight’s Cross dangling at his neck, withdrew his scalded hand hastily and cursed the waiter.
Otto grinned.
It was just about then that the bath-chair made its appearance in front of the cafe, pushed by a too-hand-some young officer, dressed in a uniform that Otto could not recognise, his olive-skinned face decorated by a thin jet-black moustache which looked as if he might well pencil it on every morning in front of his shaving mirror.
But it was not the young lieutenant who caught and held Otto’s attention at that moment, as everywhere awed waiters and officers dashed to move the tables apart to allow the bath-chair to enter.
It was the woman sitting in it. Her demeanour was so regal that she might well have been the old Queen of Prussia sitting in her state carriage, with her silver hair piled up like a pagoda. For one long moment an awed Otto could not believe that this was the mother’s old crony of her pavement-
pounder days, but then that leathery face on which you could have cracked rocks on easily formed a smile of recognition and Frieda Farthmann said, ‘Hello Otto, got your dong in the old wringer, again eh…Abroad, eh?’ Frau Direktor Farthmann mused thoughtfully, while the waiters hurried back and forth and Lieutenant Mikos, of the Hungarian Hussars, argued hotly with the waiters about the brand of champagne they were attempting to serve them – for some reason, unknown to Otto, speaking French. 'Non, n
on pas brut. Madame la Directice, ne boit pas brut. Jamais!’
‘I could set you up in a little thing I’ve got going in Rumania, Otto,’ she said. ‘Catholic country. Hence no Parisians. Tremendous market for French ticklers or Berliner Bear hugs - created that one myself,’ she added proudly, ‘in Bucharest. Cost a bit though,’ she continued, shooting Otto a sharp look. Otto shook his head dubiously. ‘No, Frieda, I can’t really see myself flogging rubbers to Rumanians somehow.’
‘You must realise, Otto,’ Frieda lectured, while the waiters finally started to pour the French champagne which Mikos had ordered. ‘We Germans control the whole Continent from the Channel to the Vistula, and even these garlic-gobblers like that piece of Hungarian goulash,’ she indicated Mikos with her be-ringed finger and the lieutenant, who did not speak a word of German, beamed back at her, ‘are well and truly in our sphere of influence. Europe is Germany’s oyster now and Frieda Farthmann is gonna grab as many pearls as she can before the market goes bust.’ She took a swig of her champagne as if it were the beer she had drunk in her old days as a five-mark pavement-pounder. ‘Take my advice, Otto, do the same.’ She drained the glass, belched, and held it out for the Hungarian to fill it again.
Hurriedly he did so, attempting to kiss her hand covered with large brown liver spots as he did so.
She withdrew hastily, crying, ‘Get off, you filthy shit! God only knows where you had those lips an hour ago.’ She winked knowingly at Otto.
Desperately Otto tried to get the raddled, old ex-whore back to the subject of discussion. ‘Frieda, I’m out of place here and I think I’d be out of place in … err big business. All this,’ he waved a hand somewhat helplessly around at the elegant crowd, ‘is not my style. Can’t you find me something nice and humble abroad where I don’t have to tackle this sort of thing?’
Frieda looked at him sternly. ‘Otto, don’t underestimate yourself, ever! Don’t you know by now that the Devil always shits on the biggest heap? … All right, how much have you got?’ She extended a powdered claw, as if she were back in the Tiergarten haggling with some drunken customer about the price of her services against the nearest tree. ‘The Marie … How much?’
Otto told her.
She sniffed. ‘Otto, these days, that kind of cabbage doesn’t even pay my weekly champus bill. But no matter. I’ve known your since your was as high as three cheeses. I’ll help you.’
‘Thanks!’ Otto breathed happily, confident now that a transformed Frieda Farthmann would be able to pull it off successfully for him and the Count. ‘Where … and what?’
‘France, Otto,’ she declared.
‘Oh la, la!’ Mikes simpered, obviously understanding the German word. He touched his manicured, lacquered fingers to his lips and said, ‘sucre!’
‘You’re gonna get yourself a nasty disease doing that one of these days,’ Frieda commented obscurely and added, ‘I’ll let you have one of my Mobile Troop Social. They are establishments, officially approved by the German Red Cross, Union of German Mothers, as well as the Winter Relief.’ She frowned, ‘Of course the territory isn’t the best. Just outside Dijon in Occupied France. Country area with a few small towns. But what can you expect, Otto, for that kind of cabbage.’
Otto opened his mouth to speak, but already she was off again.
‘But it’s nicely out of the way for somebody like you wanting to take a dive. There are enough stubble-hoppers down there to keep you busy and make a few coins – by the way no Frogs. Our rules don’t allow it – and I imagine it’ll be your kind of social class, you’ll be mixing with. Hairy-arsed, working-class squaddies!’
‘But what is it, Frieda?’ Otto broke in at last.
‘Don’t you know?’
He shook his head.
‘I thought everyone knew what Frieda Farthmann’s Mobile Troop Social and Welfare establishments were,’ she declared in amazement. ‘Had’ ‘em running all over the Reich and German-Occupied Europe since the early summer. Last week the Führer himself inspected the one we’ve got going in the Berchtesgaden area and gave it his official approval.’
‘Shit on the shingle, Frieda!’ Otto cried, exasperated beyond measure. ‘Will you just tell me what it is I’m getting into?’
Frau Direktor Farthmann gave Otto the full benefit of her false-toothed smile. ‘Why Otto, my darling, a knocking shop on wheels!’
ENVOI.
‘Panziena,’ cried Angelo. ‘We have stood up to a great deal, we can stand what is still to come, whether it’s poverty or plenty. For we have learnt the most useful of all accomplishments, which is to survive.’
Eric Linklater: Private Angelo, 1946
‘A pimp!" the Count had exclaimed when Otto had first related to him the outcome of his discussions withdraw Direktor Frieda Farthmann. ‘But my dear boy, you can’t expect a von der Weide to pimp!’
But when he had seen the great lumbering converted furniture van, pulled by eight dray horses from a Berlin brewery, its sides decorated with suitably patriotic slogans such as ‘Everything for the Führer’ and ‘Our Wheels Roll For Victory’, he had become a little less aggrieved.
He had condescended to examine the interior, divided up into four little cubicles, containing a cot, a wash-basin, and six hundred-piece cartons of contraceptives, type ‘Volcano’, for which Frau Direktor Farthmann had demanded the concession. ‘Best German workmanship, Otto. Nothing ersatz about those rubbers, the real stuff. Got to look after our brave boys, you know.’
The ‘girls’ themselves had done the trick finally. They were all well advanced into middle age, save Sissi, who coughed a lot and was incredibly skinny and was affectionately named ‘Miss Skimmed Milk’ by the others, who mothered her, on account of her non-existent breasts.
Of the other three, only Trina stood out on account of her infectious laugh, expensive gold molars and red silk knickers, trimmed with black lace, of which she was inordinately proud and displayed at every available occasion, appropriate or otherwise. ‘The real thing,’ she would proclaim, when asked. ‘Genuine Brussels lace. Brought back from Belgium for me by an old playmate from Berlin. Died in the saddle, he did, but his last words to me were, ‘It’s been worth it, Trina!’ and off she would go in peals of beery laughter.
‘The best pieces, kilo for kilo, at the best price you can get in the whole of Berlin, Count,’ Otto had said proudly.
The Count had agreed, beaming now. ‘Yes, a fine body of women, Otto. Patriotic, too, leaving their families and homes like this to serve our brave boys abroad, in spite of the dangers.’ He had sighed and said sadly, ‘I wish I were ten years younger, but alas the spirit is willing, but the flesh.’ He had given a little shrug.
Trina had flashed those famous red knickers of hers and given him a gold-toothed seductive smile so that he had brightened up immediately, tugging at the tie of his new ‘business suit’, saying gruffly, ‘Who knows, Otto, while there’s life, there’s hope. As the old Arab proverb has it, “I cried because I had no boots until I saw a man with no feet”.’ And with that enigmatic statement, they had commenced their long, slow journey to the frontier with Occupied France.
At the frontier Otto half-expected some sort of trouble. But the ancient, green-clad border guards had only been curious about the mobile brothel and the girls, muttering as they stalked about it, while Otto and the Count waited nervously for permission to move on. ‘If we’d only had something like this in the old war, we’d have shown the buck-teethed Tommies in 1918’ and ‘Progress, aint it marvellous! Gash on wheels, what will they think of next up there in Berlin?’
It was just about then that Trina had flashed those famous red drawers of hers. Some of the old men had flushed and lowered their gazes hastily. Others had applauded politely, while the NCO in charge had hurried inside his hut to present the girls with two bottles of confiscated Pernod, bowing slightly and saying, ‘Keep up the good work, young ladies!’ A few moments later a couple of them had raised the red-and-white striped pole that marked the new
German frontier and they were on their way.
Now they rested the sweating, gleaming horses at the top of the long incline which led from German-held Metz, far down below behind them in the valley.
‘La belle France!’ the Count exclaimed expansively, stretching out his arms dramatically, as if he wished to embrace the rolling green Lorraine countryside, dozing in the soft September sunshine. ‘The country of my misspent youth. Then I came as a visitor, Otto, my boy. Alas now I come as a conqueror.’ He sighed.
Otto shook his head firmly. ‘No, Count, we don’t. We come as humble purveyors of female entrées. Entertainers, if you wish?’
The Count beamed at him. ‘Well-put Otto, well-put indeed!’
For a few minutes they sat there on the cab in silence, listening to the sound of the wind over the lonely heights of Gravellotte and the drunken little shrieks and giggles of the girls in the back. Undoubtedly they were well into the second bottle of Pernod by this time.
Otto stared out at the faint smudge of the Verdun hills, set against a perfect deep-blue autumn sky and breathed out a sigh of relief. They had done it! At last he was free of that flashy, triumphant Germany with its vulgar brown-shirted, black-booted, brutal confidence.
Now he could submerge himself in a new life and a new country, the war forgotten, concerned solely with the business of making money and not the bloody horror of killing on the battlefield. Abruptly he felt almost lightheaded with happiness. ‘Count,’ he cried gaily, flicking his whip against the slick rump of the lead horse to get it moving once more, ‘to use an old German phrase – from now onwards, we’re going to live like the king in France!’
The Count’s eyes sparkled, infected by Otto’s sudden enthusiasm, as the mobile brothel started to creak forward once more. ‘By God, you’re right, Otto,’ he agreed. ‘Of course, live like the king in France!’