‘How’s your ankle?’ she asked later. You know what it’s like when two people have so large an area of their skins touching that you feel like one creature.
‘I don’t know. I can’t feel it . . . the only part of me I can feel tells me I want you again: you’re amazing.’
‘I think you’re mad,’ she told me. But she was smiling, so maybe she didn’t mind my kind of madness.
When we got up at mid-morning we were starving, but we shared a bath before we dressed, and that took longer than I anticipated. The black bread dipped in coffee seemed like the finest food I had eaten. Sometimes I reached across the small breakfast table to touch her hand. And we smiled a lot, and didn’t stop looking at each other.
She observed, ‘You were late last night. I thought that you were not coming home.’ Home was a strange word in Berlin, but it seemed to fit.
‘I thought you’d flown to England with Halton. I expected to be alone. On the way here I took the wrong road, and was saved by some street kids. So I saved them in return. They had picked up a newborn baby.’
‘How many did you save?’
‘Six or seven. Does it matter?’
‘No. One would have been enough.’ She let that odd thought hang in the air between us for a minute before she asked, ‘What did you do for them?’
‘I sent them to Fergal.’
‘He might not be so pleased: more mouths to feed.’
‘He won’t turn them away; besides he has us on his side now.’ I telephoned the bar and Marthe answered. Russian Greg was still out of town. I told her that I had a private parcel for the Red but hadn’t the transport to get it out to them – Bozey needed my Merc. She said that she would make arrangements, and that she missed me. There is a definition of contrary in there somewhere. An hour later Hanna showed a postman in: he was moonlighting of course.
Every time I looked at Frieda I found she was looking at me. The last time I had felt like this I was ten years old, with half a crown in my hand, standing in front of a sweet-shop window. That night we slept: facing each other, with one of her legs hooked over mine. We were still joined at the hip. It was the first time I understood what that really meant.
Chapter Twenty-two
We left the apartment late: almost dusk, and got a beat-up cab to a place, near Tegel in the French sector, which Frieda knew. That was one thing about Berlin: you could always get a cab if you had the moolah in your pocket. She didn’t say much on the way there: she seemed to have gone back into herself. Most of the folk in the joint knew her as well. She made it plain that I would have to pay because she was short of dollars. We shared an immense dish of marinated sliced cabbage bleached almost white, and washed it down with a cheap white wine for which I had to pay top dollar. Guys would call out, ‘Ho, Frieda!’ as they walked past our table, and she would wave back – sometimes reach out and squeeze their hand . . . but she didn’t stop eating.
A caricature Frenchman played sad songs on a squeeze box. He wore a blue and white striped vest, and a pencil moustache. His waiflike singer was a girl in tight black trousers and a black sweater: she looked young and serious, like a university student. She had long straight black hair and a very pale face: no make-up. Her clothes clung to her like a second skin, and all of the men gave her rapt attention as soon as she began to move. When she opened her mouth her voice was a million years old, and deep. You could catch the vibration of her low notes on your diaphragm.
‘Interesting, isn’t she?’ Frieda said. ‘Wouldn’t you rather sleep with her?’
‘No.’
‘Idiot. She’s rather good.’
‘How do you know?’
She waved her fork dismissively. A piece of anaemic cabbage caught on its tines waved like a banner. ‘Someone must have told me. Geoffrey brings me here.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Julie something or other. Do you need to know a woman’s name before you sleep with her?’ The question threw me. There was an edge in Frieda: I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve it.
‘Stop it, Frieda.’
‘Stop what?’ She stopped eating. That wasn’t what I meant.
‘Stop sounding as if you want to pick a fight.’
‘No, Charlie: I pick a fight if I want to.’
‘. . . are you punishing me for something?’
‘No. If I wanted to punish you I would sleep with that Frenchman: there – the tall good-looking one at a table on his own . . . over there.’ She used a fork full of cabbage to indicate the guy. He was in washed-out pale blue overalls, and had a sheepskin jacket draped around his chair. Pilots get all the luck. Then she said, ‘In fact, I think I will.’ She pushed the plate of food towards me, stood up, walked over to the Frenchy’s table and pulled him up to dance. The song was a groany chanson about lost love, and they danced slowly. Her eyes were closed.
I got up and walked out.
It was a clear night, but not freezing. The street had huge paving stones, but they had been cracked and tilted where armoured vehicles had stood on them. I had to watch my step. She caught up with me, running, after I’d gone less than fifty yards. She was still pulling on the coat she had worn to the funeral. I stopped and turned as she grabbed my arm. The Frenchy was silhouetted in the light spilling out from the club doorway. He raised an uncertain wave as I looked. I waved limply back. Frieda didn’t even look at him.
‘He had an erection like a donkey,’ she said.
‘I thought that’s what you wanted.’
‘No. I wanted you. We should get a taxi or a lift, it’s dangerous out here.’
‘You can. I’m going to walk.’ I was still stung.
‘Then I’ll walk too. It will take us more than an hour you know.’
It took us longer because my damned ankle started to ache. What was good was that I could do more on it each day: nearly back to normal. Eventually I saw a cabbie in an elderly DKW putting off a passenger at a roofless building on a corner, and waved him over. In the back of the cab Frieda wanted to be affectionate, but I couldn’t throw off my anger so we sat apart. The driver took us a longer route than strictly necessary, avoiding a bad district, and I paid over the odds.
We sat on the outside steps and watched the stars. I ticked off the stars and constellations I knew and pointed them out to her. Then she pointed out even more to me. We spoke quietly. She smoked one of her cigarettes. I filled and lit a pipe. I had thought that after I had had her once I would be in charge. That’s how things with women had always worked for me in the past. After that I could take it or leave it. I was wrong, of course – story of my life. I said, ‘You don’t like men much, do you, Frieda?’
‘They’re OK.’ She blew out a stream of smoke. It drifted away on a breeze. ‘Ask me about people instead.’
‘Then you don’t like people much, do you?’
‘No.’
I decided to challenge that, instead of asking why. ‘In a way that surprises me. Mr Halton gives you his house, and his money . . . and a Russian friend I’m going to take you to will take a big chance to show you the things you want to see. They’re both people, and they seem to be on your side.’ I had carefully not included myself among her benefactors.
‘You mean I should be grateful?’ She whispered it, almost a hint of amusement in her voice.
That embarrassed me. It wasn’t exactly what I meant, but maybe it was close.
‘Why not? It doesn’t cost you anything.’
‘How would you know?’
‘I’m going in, and going to bed,’ I told her. ‘But before I do I’ll tell you this. I’ve never had more joy of anyone in my whole life than I’ve had from you in the last twenty-four hours . . . but it doesn’t matter, and I don’t care if you believe me or not. You don’t have to do it again.’
I went up and left her sitting there. Back to my first bedroom where I slept as alone as if I was a stranger. That was the point she was making, of course. I was a stranger; so was every other man in the wo
rld. She had already gone out by the time I surfaced in the morning, but I didn’t breakfast alone because there wasn’t a scrap of food left in the place to eat. I went down to Hanna, who lived in the basement. She gave me half a glass of precious milk and a couple of small pancakes made from flour and water. I promised to get her some jam for them. I waited until the telephone was on, phoned Bozey, and told him to come and collect me.
He skilfully steered our small Merc around a pothole in the cobbles. The potholes were no longer being repaired, and people were stealing the cobbles to repair their houses and shelters. A yellow-thatched mangy dog crossed the road in front of us, running for its life. It was being pursued by at least a dozen feral cats. I didn’t give much for the dog’s chances: it was missing a back leg. Bozey steered the Merc between them and the cats scattered, screeching with frustrated anger. I hadn’t heard that before.
I can’t explain what I said next. ‘Stop near the dog.’
In fact he stopped alongside the dog. It was a small one, and wouldn’t have made much of a meal anyway. I leaned over behind him, and opened the car’s rear door. The dog sat on the road looking exhausted. It panted, and its pink tongue lolled from the side of its mouth. It looked like a pretty old dog to me. Someone would eat it this winter, no mistake. The cats hadn’t given up altogether: they had spread out and were waiting for us to leave. You could almost hear the dog’s thought processes: it looked around at the cats, and then up at us. It made eye contact with me before it made up its mind. Then it hopped in the car and I pulled the door shut.
Bozey asked, ‘What do you want with an old dog?’
‘I dunno. Maybe someone will give me a leg-up one day, when I’m an old dog.’
Bozey laughed. I suppose the idea of giving a three-legged dog a leg-up could have been funny. As we pulled into the queue for the Gatow gate he told me, ‘Those cats are a problem. Someone told me they stole a baby a few days ago.’
I thought about the abandoned newborns the Canadian had told me about, and shuddered at their fates.
The yellow dog hopped after us into the small office, and sat under Bozey’s chair. It had the gait of a demented grasshopper. Every time it pushed off on its back leg the torque threw its rear end sideways, and it had to correct before opening up with its forelegs again. It whined so we fetched it a saucer of water. It drank the water and whined again, so Bozey fetched it a saucer of milk. It drank the milk and then went to sleep under him.
‘I think you made a friend,’ I said.
‘What we gonna do with a three-legged dog, boss?’
‘Mascot. A three-legged dog for a three-legged airline. What are we going to call it?’
‘If you don’t mind my saying so, boss,’ Bozey told me, ‘you’re in a very odd mood today.’
‘I know. Sorry . . .’
I must have stared off into space. He continued to talk to me, but I didn’t hear him. When I came out of my daydream I told him, ‘We could call it Just Like That! That comedian is always saying it.’
‘It’s a silly name, boss.’
‘Three words for three legs.’
‘It’s still a silly name.’
‘. . . Spartacus, then. Someone was telling me about Spartacus recently.’
‘Wasn’t he a fighter? This dog just runs away.’
‘This dog’s too bright to stick around and fight . . . Spartacus will do. Put him on the payroll.’ My instinct had told me that it was masculine: I hadn’t checked yet.
‘Where’s he going to live?’
‘Dunno. Here if you like . . .’
Bozey was right. I was in a strange spiky mood. One of the duty officers dropped in to see us. He had his nose in the air, and stood at the door as if he expected us to spring to attention. Spartacus slightly lifted his only rear leg in his sleep, and farted. It was atrocious. I thought of Mortensen for the first time in days, and I knew I’d picked a good dog. The duty officer – he was a squadron leader – turned his head away. Bozey said, ‘Sorry about that, chum. What can we do you for?’
Our visitor visibly winced at the word chum, but knew he couldn’t do anything about it.
‘Are you Bassett?’ he asked me.
‘Yes, Squadron Leader. What’s the problem?’
‘Nothing, Mr Bassett. Quite the contrary really – you know that your mob is putting in about ten per cent more flying hours than we’d counted on?’
‘No. Is that good?’
‘Matter of fact it is. Corridor Controller has been able to use you to fill the gaps when other kites go tech.’
‘So we get paid more?’
‘Expect you do: not my department. What I came to tell you is that your damaged Dak is ready to go again, but it’s your call. Be grateful if you could tell us when she’s available to call forward.’
‘That’s a pity; I was hoping I could write her off and throw her away. I hate that bloody crate.’
‘Don’t worry, chum,’ Borland told him. ‘The boss is in a funny mood this morning. I’ll handle it.’
The D O actually saluted before he left: almost as if he couldn’t stop himself.
‘You know these bastards are in awe of you?’ Bozey asked me. ‘You really ought to be pleasanter to them. Your reputation scares them to death.’
‘There’s nothing to be in awe of,’ I replied grumpily – although I was secretly pleased.
‘You may know that, boss, and I may know it, but they don’t . . . we might as well get what we can out of it while we can.’
‘Such as?’
‘Free dog food from the kitchens perhaps, now that you’ve landed us with this horrible thing.’ Spartacus let out a great snort in his sleep. He and Borland were definitely on the same wavelength.
I sat at the bar at the Klapperschlange. I was the only un-American in the place. Tommo had rented it out to the US Navy for the night. They were staging a men’s thing for about fifty senior rankers, and the joint was crowded. He’d borrowed people from the Leihhaus to do the catering and Magda and Marthe to serve. That was as well as his local staff. He was in his Casablanca outfit.
I said, ‘This place is looking good.’
Alice was close by and must have recognized my voice; she lifted her tail into the air and gave us a quick rattle. I said, ‘Hello, Alice,’ but a couple of guys in Navy whites took a couple of steps away from her.
Tommo slipped back through the bead curtain to the small space from which they were producing an improbable feast.
‘. . . be a minute.’
They were playing Shanghai Sailors’ Golf at the other end of the narrow bar. Three small tables had been pushed into line, and one of Tommo’s girls stood at the end of them. She was only clothed from the waist up. The sailors roll coins along the tables and bet on how many she could catch. That wasn’t with her hands. Tommo nodded at her and said, ‘Good, ain’t she?’
‘I’ve heard of that game, Tommo, but never seen it before. Make sure none of the Mateys holds his coin over a lighter before he bowls it.’
‘Make no difference; she’s made of asbestos, that one.’ The girl was about thirty I’d guess, tall and severely beautiful. She had long straight blonde hair, and a bakelite emotionless smile. ‘I brought her along from Poland.’ He might as well have been speaking of a side of pork.
‘Have you been off buying diamonds again?’
‘Don’t believe all you hear,’ he told me. His mouth had set in a straight line. He didn’t like people knowing his business.
When I left half an hour later he was outside, smoking a cigar and sheltering from the nine o’clock evening drizzle under the bar door’s small awning. I paused, and didn’t ask, but he told me anyway. He said, ‘Could be I’m wrong, but I seem to remember you stayed up later than this. You gettin’ old?’ He was right. Something was the matter with me, but I was damned if I knew what.
The only difference from the morning was that there was some food in the kitchen. A box on the table contained some bread, and some of her bla
ck bread, a couple of PX tins of bully, a tin marked coffee, with the name of some Arctic expedition stencilled on it, and a dozen eggs. I wondered where those had come from. I still hadn’t a key so I had to get Hanna to let me into Halton’s apartment. She smelt the brimstone in the air and didn’t follow me, but curtsied when I gave her the big tin of raspberry jam I had wheedled out of the kitchen at Gatow. I had promised the quartermaster a couple of pairs of woollen socks from my next run back, in return.
The jamjar with its stub of candle was still outside the small room’s door, but the candle had burned out the night before: there was nothing left. That might have been a metaphor. I opened the door. The room was in darkness, but it wasn’t cold. That meant that the stove had been on for a while during the evening. If I strained I could just hear her steady breathing in the darkness. I don’t know how long I stood there; it seemed like hours. Her low voice when it came was still shockingly loud.
‘Did you see your Russian?’
‘What Russian?’ Then I closed the door. Bit bloody cruel of me I expect. I wondered how long it would take for her to have second thoughts and become Little Miss Sunshine again.
I should have realized that the sort of bird I knocked about with never had second thoughts. She had already left when I awoke. I stole one of the eggs, and had it boiled for breakfast: Berlin black bread makes acceptable soldiers . . . then I mooched about waiting for the phone to come on. I was going to phone Bozey again. The phone actually beat me to it. I answered it because I thought it might have been Old Man Halton. It wasn’t: it was Russian Greg. His voice had that laughing quality that said he was on top of his game. He spoke English.
‘Good morning, English. I wake you up?’
‘No, Greg. I’ve been up a couple of hours. I was getting ready to go out. How did you get this number?’
‘I’m an Intelligence Officer, Charlie.’ His voice expressed sad outrage.
‘Now tell me the truth.’
‘A little bird tol’ me.’ I didn’t respond, so he said, ‘Ask me what kind of little bird.’
‘What kind of little bird, Greg?’
The Hidden War Page 32