Wild Lavender

by Belinda Alexandra

  I sat up again and flipped through the room service menu. I can eat something now and eat again with André later, I thought. I picked up the telephone receiver but before I could say anything a gentleman speaking French with a German accent wished me good morning by name and asked me what I would like for breakfast.

  ‘Guten Morgen,’ I said, keen to use at least one of the phrases André had taught me on the train. I ordered some rolls with honey and jam. Kira jumped from the windowsill into my lap. ‘And some herrings and a saucer of milk,’ I added.

  I was drying my hair when the waiter arrived at the door with a trolley. While he set the breakfast table, Kira lifted her nose to the air then manoeuvred herself as close as possible to the table by sliding her bottom along the windowsill. When she was parallel to the table, she crouched, her tail swishing. I caught her as she leapt.

  ‘Danke schön,’ I said to the waiter, bouncing Kira in my arms.

  ‘You are welcome, Mademoiselle,’ he said, eyeing the thwarted kitten. ‘Have a pleasant meal.’

  I ate the rolls then glanced at my watch. It was only seven o’clock. I opened the door to my room and looked down the hall. André’s shoes had been polished and placed outside his door. There was no light coming through the jamb and I assumed that he was still asleep. I returned to my room and slipped on my shoes. Kira had finished eating her herrings and lay on the sofa, licking her paws.

  ‘I am going for a walk,’ I told her. ‘If I find something nice, I will bring it back for you.’

  I passed the dining room where the waiters were busy setting out the plates and cutlery for breakfast. The aroma of brewing coffee mingled with the sweet scent of melting butter and fresh toast. The combination had such a cheering effect that I felt as if I were walking on my toes.

  ‘Guten Morgen,’ the concierge greeted me when I reached the front entrance. ‘May I get you a taxi?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, thank you. I am going for a walk.’

  He lifted his eyebrows but then nodded and smiled. ‘To see the Brandenburg Gate, ja? If you can wait until after breakfast, the hotel guide or Madame Adlon can take you.’

  I was keen to explore the street on my own and the awkwardness of being accompanied by Herr Adlon’s wife didn’t appeal to me any more than a guide. I thanked him and walked out the door. Was going for an early morning stroll such an unusual thing for a guest at the Adlon to do?

  The air was fresh and cool. It had been a long time since I had smelt the air at the beginning of the day. By the time I ventured into it on my way home, my nose was too besieged by tobacco smoke and dressing room dust to notice.

  As soon as I stepped onto the Unter den Linden, I realised that Berlin could not be mistaken for Paris at all. Although some of the buildings were from similar eras, those in Paris, with their ironwork and curvaceous roofs, seemed to have been fashioned to delight, while their counterparts in Berlin, with their sharp angles, Prussian statues and domes, had been built to command. I walked past the British Embassy and shops selling hand-painted music boxes and filigreed picture frames. I read the signs above the stores, trying to work out what they meant. But Bank and Schuhladen were the only ones I was sure about. Bank because it sounded so similar to the French word, and Schuhladen because the only things on display in the store’s window were shoes. I stopped to admire the goods in the window of a store for gentlemen: jade letter openers, shagreen pencil cases, leather wallets and even a cuckoo clock.

  ‘Laden, Laden, Laden.’ I repeated the German word for ‘store’, trying to memorise it. My education had been sporadic to say the least, but I loved learning languages. My English had progressed almost by osmosis rather than conscious effort, thanks to Eugene and the clientele at the Café des Singes. From Rivarola I had learnt more than a smattering of Spanish, albeit most of it how to express displeasure. But German was so different to French—so precise, so definite, so many impossibly long words—that I was determined to learn as much as I could of it while we were in Berlin.

  I continued along the boulevard to Pariser Platz and the Brandenburg Gate, stopping to admire the gate’s towering series of columns, which I had read had been built to evoke the Acropolis in Athens. I gazed up at the bronze Goddess of Peace driving forth her chariot of four horses. There were a few people wandering around the Platz: a woman pushing a wheelbarrow; a young man sitting on a bench, sketching the gate into his notebook; and a couple of soldiers in uniform. I was careful not to stare at them as I passed for they were both in wheelchairs, their empty trouser legs pinned as far as their thighs. One had lost an arm as well and was using a mechanical claw to steady his chair.

  I crossed the Platz and found myself facing the French Embassy with its red, white and blue flag drifting in the breeze. I remembered my father’s horrific injuries and the stone in our village that commemorated the war dead. What was the use of it all? I wondered. What did the Great War achieve?

  I shrugged off my sudden melancholy and continued my stroll along the opposite side of the Unter den Linden. There were more stores selling German luxury items, and some food shops whose traders were rolling up their grilles. I turned a corner and found myself standing in front of a toy shop, its window display a feast for the eyes: teddy bears, gingerbread houses, hand-painted building blocks, dolls in Bavarian dress and with eyes that opened and closed. There was a basket of brightly coloured balls inside the door. I glanced at the opening hours and decided to come back later to buy some for Kira. Madame Ducroix had said that Russian Blues were good at entertaining themselves, but I thought that now Kira was a first-class international traveller staying at the Adlon, it was time for her to move up from bits of screwed-up newspaper and balls of wool.

  Something tugged my arm. I looked down and jumped back with fright. A face stared up at me but it took me a moment to realise that the creature touching me was a child. Her eyes bulged like a frog’s under her puffed forehead. The rest of her was skin and bones. A pair of rickety legs poked out from her ragged dress. She slipped her hand into mine.

  I glanced up and down the street to see where she had come from. I didn’t have far to look: there was a woman lying in a doorway on the opposite side of the street, between two boarded-up shops. She was clutching another child, miserably swaddled in rags, to her chest. I had seen poverty before but theirs was far more misery than I had seen in my life. They weren’t just poor, they were dying of starvation. I hadn’t brought many marks with me because I didn’t think there would be anything open, but I was determined to give them whatever I had. I opened my handbag and rummaged for my purse, but in the instant I grabbed it I felt more eyes on me.

  Two youths came out of the doorway where the woman was lying. One of them stepped over her body as if she were no more than a sack of flour and stood staring at me with his hands on his hips. A vicious smile slashed across his face like a rip in his skin. If I give the woman money, I thought, he’ll just take it from her. I had seen enough of the pimps in Montmartre to know how those types worked.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ I said to the girl. ‘I will come back with food. Wait for me.’

  She shook her head and clutched my skirt, begging me with her eyes to stay. ‘I’ll be back,’ I said, pulling her fingers gently from me. From the desperate look on her face, I saw that she didn’t understand.

  Ignoring the youths, I ran down the street and back onto the Unter den Linden. I tried to remember how far along the bakery I passed earlier had been. ‘Bäckerei, Bäckerei,’ I repeated to myself, squinting at the windows, although deep down I knew that all the bread in the world couldn’t save that girl and her family. They needed to be cared for in a hospital. Mine was the ineffective gesture of someone who had no idea what to do when faced with so much human misery, but hoped that doing something was somehow better than not doing anything at all.

  I found the bakery and rushed inside. There were two customers ahead of me, but when they saw me pointing like a mad woman to the bread and emptying my purse onto the
counter, the women stepped aside, hoping that the sooner the shop assistant dealt with the crazy foreigner, the sooner she would be on her way. I had heard that German bread was nutritious, and could even replace vegetables in winter, so I pointed to every variety available—black, brown and white—and left the store with two armfuls of loaves.

  I ran back down the Unter den Linden to the street where the toy shop was located. The doorway where the mother had been lying was empty. I looked up and down the street but couldn’t see her or the girl anywhere. They couldn’t have gone far, I thought, not in that condition. I was tempted to call out but was afraid that would only bring the two youths out again. I walked up and down the street in both directions, then put the bread in the doorway where the woman had been lying and rubbed my hand across my eyes. I could not get the tortured expression on the child’s face out of my mind. She must have thought I was running away from her.

  I left the bread in the doorway, although I didn’t know who it would benefit there apart from the mice. I thought of the rolls I had ordered for breakfast that morning, and the pieces I had left unfinished on my plate, and felt guilty. I turned to walk back down the street and found myself face to face with one of the youths, the one with the vicious smile. He looked even worse up close. The whites of his eyes were glazed, like those of a dead man, and he stank of tobacco and sweat. Before I could move he grabbed my arm.

  ‘Française?’ he demanded, pressing his fingers into my skin. ‘Are you French?’ He didn’t wait for me to answer before he spat into my face. His spittle had an acidic sting to it and was enough to shock me into action. I tugged away from him and ran up the street. I had passed a policeman on my way back from the bakery. He wouldn’t be far up the boulevard if I needed to scream for help.

  But the youth didn’t pursue me onto the boulevard. He stopped at the corner and began singing what sounded like a war song. ‘Siegreich wollen wir Frankreich schlagen…’

  I was still running, but everything drifted into slow motion. What is he singing? I thought. He is younger than me. He was never in the war. I reached the next corner and turned around to see if he was following me. The youth shouted out in French for my benefit. ‘We will defeat France! We will drive her to the ground! There will be no more France! No more French! We will spit on her like a used whore!’

  SEVENTEEN

  André, dressed in a shirt and trousers with a robe over the top, opened the door to his room and beamed at me. ‘Bonjour, Simone!’ he said, putting his cologne-scented cheek to mine. ‘How are you this morning?’ We had dropped the formality of ‘Monsieur’ and ‘Mademoiselle’ the previous night, comfortable enough together now to use each other’s first names.

  Before I could answer, he had picked up his shoes from the doormat, placed his hand on my shoulder and was leading me into his room. ‘I’ve just finished shaving,’ he said, clearing the morning newspapers from the sofa and gesturing for me to sit down. ‘I didn’t expect you to be up for hours yet.’

  He dropped his shoes to the floor and glanced about for his jacket and tie, which he found hanging on a suit rack near the armoire in his bedroom. He returned to the drawing room and laid the articles of clothing over the back of a chair. ‘I thought I had a whole morning to catch up on the news and write some letters. Was I wrong in thinking that show business people never get out of bed before noon?’

  When I didn’t answer he looked at me more closely. I could feel my eyes brimming with tears. This was not what I had planned. Before knocking on his door, I had washed my face and changed my dress. But all my music hall bravado couldn’t stop the ache in my heart caused by the sight of the starving child and her family.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ André asked.

  A hot tear rolled down my cheek. I tried to speak but all that came out was a rasp.

  ‘Simone,’ he said, rushing towards me. He sat down next to me on the sofa. Before I knew what I was doing, I leaned my head against his chest. I could smell the citrus scent of his shirt and feel the warmth of his skin beneath the material. It wasn’t until I told him about the starving girl and her family that I was aware of his arm around me.

  ‘How awful!’ he said, squeezing his arm tighter around my waist. ‘If there is one thing to be grateful for, it is that starving children are less common a sight in Berlin than they used to be.’

  I glanced at him.

  ‘France held the blockade against Germany for months after the armistice was signed and hundreds of thousands of people died of cold and starvation. It is seven years since the war, but in many ways Germany is still a mess.’

  I shuddered. The sight of one tormented child was enough for me, let alone thousands. André removed his arm from my waist and reached for his shoes. I watched him yank up the tongues before slipping the shoes on and tying the laces. What had I been thinking in letting him hold me?

  ‘I am going downstairs to talk to the manager,’ André said. ‘The concierge shouldn’t have let you go out alone. Something dreadful could have happened.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ I said, patting my eyes with the back of my hand. ‘It’s not the concierge’s fault. He suggested I take a guide.’

  ‘Take a guide?’ said André. ‘He should have warned you.’

  ‘Warned me about what?’

  André didn’t answer. His expression was drawn, no longer the happy face that had greeted me at the door. I wished I hadn’t said anything and had kept the incident to myself.

  ‘In a way, you can’t blame France for wanting to cripple Germany so that it couldn’t attack us again,’ he said. ‘But can we blame them for hating us?’

  ‘I am more upset about the girl than I am about the youth,’ I told him. ‘She was pitiful. He was just your usual thug, the kind you meet anywhere.’

  It was true that I had been more shocked by the state of the child and her family than by the youth, but I knew he was more than just another thug. I remembered the hate in his voice when he belted out his war cry. No, he was something much more menacing than that.

  André shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I should have warned you that Berlin has some extreme types. I didn’t expect you to get up so early, let alone to go off unaccompanied.’

  André’s emphasis on the last word unsettled me. I sat up. ‘Unaccompanied?’ I repeated.

  André glanced at me; I still had no idea what he’d meant. ‘What are you talking about “unaccompanied”?’ I asked. ‘How do you think I get around Paris?’

  But as soon as I had spoken, I realised what he had meant. And I could see by the way his gaze shifted from me to his lap that he had realised too. Women of André’s class did not go anywhere without some sort of escort, even if it was only their maid or their chauffeur. It was protection against the ‘corrupting’ things that could happen to a woman if she went wandering about on her own. Had he forgotten what I was—a showgirl? Although I had never danced naked, many of my colleagues danced bare-breasted and sometimes completely nude. What kind of corrupting thing could happen to me?

  ‘If I had to wait around for someone to accompany me, I would never go anywhere,’ I told him. It amused me to think that Mademoiselle Canier and her friends might be shocked at the idea of a young woman travelling around Paris on the métro or going to Pigalle on her own.

  André’s face broke into a smile. He glanced at me then looked back at his lap. ‘I guess sometimes I forget that there are women and then there are independent women,’ he said.

  ‘Which sort do you like better?’

  ‘Oh, the independent ones, definitely,’ he answered.

  We both laughed at that.

  André and I strolled along the paths by the lakes of the Tiergarten and past statues of famous Germans like Goethe and Bach, trying to find an antidote to the morning’s unpleasantness. The weather was sunny but cool and the Berliners were out in force, walking in groups or in solitary contemplation. As a race, Germans were taller than most French people, with a sternness about their expressions
that was different to the Gallic vivacity or Mediterranean hot-bloodedness that I knew. They were not all blond and blue-eyed, however; like French people, they came in many colours. The variety of appearances was further magnified by the many foreigners enjoying the park: Russian families stretched out on picnic blankets; two Italian ladies speaking by a fountain; a flank of American students riding bicycles and calling out to each other in their strident accents.

  We reached the Zoological Gardens and selected a restaurant whose terrace was shaded by birch trees. André ordered an ice called cassata for me. It arrived in a crystal glass and tasted like champagne sorbet.

  Despite the peaceful surroundings, the wasted body of the starving girl remained in my mind. But my distress made me more open to André: I wanted him to comfort me. And because of that, I began to see beyond his dazzling exterior and really look at him. He had told me that he knew a woman who worked with the poor in Berlin and that he would make enquiries about the girl and her family through her and see what could be done to help. That simple offer meant more to me that morning than if he had told me he adored me.

  ‘The French economy almost collapsed too,’ André said, continuing our conversation about the state of Germany. ‘But the French took the wrong path if they wanted peace.’

  I remembered my father’s bandaged face, the way he looked when my mother brought him home from the military hospital. A few years later, I had heard him tell her that the man who had been in the bed next to him had lost his entire face to burns. He had no eyes, no nose, no lips and no tongue. He suffered so much that two nurses held a pillow over his face until he ceased breathing. No one stopped them. In those days, the French prime minister’s catch cry had been: ‘There are twenty million Germans too many’. Even as a child I had felt the rage against their race burn within me. But who could hate all Germans when they looked into the face of that starving girl?