Nights in Berlin

by Janice Law

  “Schnell, schnell,” he said and waved us out front for the command performance—the highlight of the evening, the cost of my escape.

  I put on the mask, scratchy with buckram and glue. Lisl took my hand, and I stumbled after her, unable to see clearly behind the eyeholes. Fortunately, my dialogue was minimal, and I remembered it, announcing in intelligible German that it was time for her lesson. I turned to the assembled and rubbed my hands together like a villain in a kino.

  A ripple of excitement in response.

  “Nein,” said Lisl. Her voice was appropriately pathetic.

  “Ja,” said the schoolmaster, who grabbed her and set her on his knee. The lesson went downhill from there, and Lisl wound up pantaloon-free and face-down, being lambasted with the dog whip. Shades of my father, who had favored just such correction for me. The whole thing was bad, disgusting really, and the last thing in the world I’d ever want to do sexually.

  Still, credit where it’s due, I was pretty skillful. Without a drop of real blood in sight, Lisl’s back and bottom were soon a mesh of red slashes, an illusion promoted by her shrieks and pleas. She was so realistic that more than once I pulled my arm back in alarm, only to get a good pinch on the leg from my “victim.” She was a trooper—or more likely and depressingly—frightened of failure.

  Finally, various groans and gasps in the audience signaled satisfaction. I released my grasp, and Lisl bolted, half-naked, out of the room. I stood up, made a proper Prussian bow as instructed (a key thing according to Herr Schmitt) and followed her into the “dressing room,” where her father poured us each a small glass of schnapps and Frau Schmitt took a towel and began cleaning Lisl’s back. All in the family, indeed.

  I couldn’t wait to get out of there, but for safety’s sake I had to swallow the Schmitts’ compliments—many and fulsome—and their hints that I might be employed as an honorary member of the tribe. More agreeably, Herr Schmitt gave me twenty marks, which in the city counted as decent money. I lay on the floor of the children’s room, wide awake with Klaus snoring and snuffling and Lisl talking in her sleep, until near dawn, when I crept through to the front room, full of a stale and disagreeable stink, and checked the window. The sidewalk was empty. The sentry did not reappear once the sun came up.

  I hung the Leica over my shoulder, thanked the Schmitts, kissed Lisl’s cheek, and set out to escape Berlin.

  Chapter Six

  With my new wealth, I rode to the Alexanderplatz, crowded with buses and trams and busy with street work. Gaping holes in the road, pipes on the sidewalks, and boardwalks, noisy with pedestrian clatter, over newly made ditches. On every corner, men with picks and shovels were removing concrete and tarmac and loading earth into wheelbarrows to trundle to the waiting horse carts. I spent a quarter of an hour amid obstacles and detours before I spotted the Grünberg pawnshop. On the lowest floor of a massive soot-blackened apartment building, it was a low, dark store with an assortment of goods in the window: clothes, musical instruments, pots and pans, carpenter’s tools, a handsome armchair—a sad mix of modest luxuries and dire necessities.

  A bell jangled as I went in, and the tiny, white-haired man with thick glasses and a green clerk’s eyeshade straightened up from his high stool behind the counter. He looked dry and fragile and very old.

  “Guten Morgen,” I said and laid the camera case on the counter. “Do you handle cameras?”

  “I deal with everything but food and livestock.” His English was heavily accented but fluent. He took the Leica out of its case and turned it over in his hands carefully. “This is a fine camera, nearly new.” He gave me a questioning glance, his eyes sharp. I had no doubt he had already valued the Leica to the penny and made a guess as to how much—or how little—I would take.

  “It was my … late uncle’s.” I realized that, scruffy as I was, I must have looked dubious and added, “He died very suddenly as we were traveling together. Now I need money to get home.” Did that sound right? I probably should have said “to ship his body home” like a devoted nephew. But with Uncle Lastings on the run and probably as lively as ever, I wasn’t too concerned with his supposed corpse.

  “My condolences,” he said.

  I thanked him. “My sole inheritance.” I nodded toward the camera.

  He scribbled some figures on a slip of paper. “One hundred and fifty marks,” he said with an eloquent shrug. “Is worth more, but few can afford to buy such things today.”

  I was pleasantly surprised, and a little puzzled that my uncle, who had not been interested in the tourist sights and who hadn’t taken a single picture that I knew of, should have had such a valuable camera.

  The pawnbroker wrote out a ticket and told me not to lose it. “No ticket, no camera,” he said. “Remember whoever holds the ticket gets the item.”

  I nodded.

  “Sehr gut. No other way to do business.” He went to his cash drawer and counted out the marks. Enough, I was sure, to get me out of Germany. I put the cash and the ticket into my wallet, and I was turning to leave when he said, “You are forgetting the film.”

  So I had. “I don’t know what I’d do with it,” I said.

  “Perhaps there are some souvenir photos you might like.” He turned a knob, opened the camera, and handed me the film cassette. “There is a camera shop on the next block that will develop the pictures for you.”

  And what might they be? Boys cheap and pretty? Portly widows with good bank accounts? Or some other enthusiasm? I wasn’t interested, but to be polite, I stuck the cartridge in my pocket and forgot about it. I was leaving Berlin, and I was excited to go. From one of the street vendors, I bought a secondhand knapsack, a shirt, some socks, and a soft workman’s cap—a lame idea of a disguise as it turned out—and hurried to the main station.

  At the big board of arrivals and departures, I studied the cities: Vienna, Brussels, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest. Leaving Ireland to live alone in London had been a great adventure, but here was all the world with connections via Hamburg to New York and even Buenos Aires. The letters and numbers on the board rattled and reassembled every few seconds as trains arrived at the various platforms. Where to go? What to see?

  Everything seemed so enticing that it was a few minutes before I remembered my situation. The romance of travel was fine and good, but I’d be safer back on British soil. What I needed was a through train connecting via the Channel ferry all the way to Victoria Station and available for boarding within the hour. I settled for a second-class seat to Cologne, leaving in twenty minutes. With a little luck, I could make my way from there in stages, as I reckoned I was too insignificant to attract interest outside Berlin.

  I took my seat. Across from me were two nuns in their black habits and what I recognized as a sporting type with plus fours, red whiskers, and a discontented expression. Should I give him the eye as a possible source of financial support? I thought not. He was more likely a turf accountant who’d taken a loss at the recent meeting. I knew those types from my father. I nodded to him and smiled at the nuns.

  We were soon joined by a thin and anxious-looking young woman in a worn coat with a black mourning band on the arm. She came equipped with a suitcase so enormous that it took both me and Whiskers to put it onto the rack for her. She thanked us and slumped in the seat, eyes streaming, and sniffled into her handkerchief.

  Nuns and a mourner were hardly good omens, especially since the weeping lady was doused in a rose-scented perfume that set my nose itching. The final passenger for our compartment arrived after we had pulled away from the station. He rattled the door open and, swaying with the accelerating train, stepped inside. He was fair and exceptionally tall with a lot of curly hair, and he was wearing a fine English pinstriped suit. When he wished us Guten Tag, I heard his accent. Fancy businessman? Something with our embassy? A well-heeled tourist traveling for his health? All possible. If I hadn’t been so excited about traveling and s
o nervous about being stopped, I’d have asked myself what he was doing in second class with his fancy suit and expensive shoes.

  He dropped into the seat beside me, put his attaché case on the floor between his feet, and straightened his jacket with very white, very well-kept hands. “Stopping at Cologne?” he asked me after a few minutes.

  “Not for long.”

  “Make time to see the Dom; the cathedral is famous.”

  I said I would and wondered if I might be lucky. He looked like money, and he looked interested. I stood up, collected my knapsack, and went to change my filthy shirt in the loo. I washed my face, combed my hair as best I could, then stood at the window out in the corridor, enjoying some air and making myself available for a private chat. I watched the ticket taker approaching from the next car. When he arrived, brisk and official, he punched my ticket without giving me a second glance, a minor triumph.

  I’d purchased a ticket. I’d gotten it punched. I was safe, I thought, until the border, where my passport would be examined. Tricky to be sure, but my success thus far gave me confidence. With my knapsack slung over my shoulder, I leaned against the wall and watched the flat countryside roll by. When the man in the pinstriped suit emerged from our compartment to stand beside me, I was able to give him a friendly, casual smile.

  “Don’t look around,” he said in a low voice. “Just follow me.”

  All right!

  Through our carriage and through the next two. I had visions of a late lunch, of beer and schnapps—or better, some pale German wine. But my companion had other ideas. He stopped at the exit steps of the car. “The train reaches the first station in two minutes. We get off then.”

  High romance but no thank you. “I’ve a ticket to Cologne,” I said. “I fancy seeing that cathedral you recommended.”

  “Take my advice or what you’ll see is the inside of a Prussian reform school—if you’re lucky. There are two plainclothes Kripos right behind us with that railway policeman.”

  My stomach dropped and rebounded into the back of my throat. “What of it?” I said as boldly as I could manage. “They’re nothing to me.”

  “Oh, but they will be, Herr Bacon.” He knew my name, and that alone gave him credibility. I looked back through the doors to the next compartment and caught a glimpse of the high-peaked cap of a railroad cop. My would-be rescuer in the fancy suit might be telling the truth. When the train slowed down with wheezing brakes and a rush of steam, he opened the exit door and I jumped down after him. We stepped onto the platform, half-stumbling, half-running, and made it to the stairs and down to the street before we could be followed. Partway along the block, he indicated a dark saloon car and a bulky red-faced driver who reminded me of some of my father’s squad. Ex-military­, I guessed.

  My acquaintance from the train was something else, and when he ordered me into the car, I hesitated. I wanted to know who he was and where he was from, but he produced a revolver from his elegant case. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as Uncle Lastings’s Webley, but it was awfully close to me, and I obeyed.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as we pulled away from the curb. “You’ve cost me a ticket to Cologne.”

  “Your wallet, please,” he said in reply.

  I fished it out of my pocket.

  “Your uncle left you with a bit of cash, I see.” He turned over my remaining marks.

  “My uncle left me broke.” I realized instantly I’d been foolish to tell him anything.

  “But you are nothing if not resourceful,” he remarked. “Eluding the police, obtaining funds for a journey. A young man of parts, as they used to say. Ah,” he said, lifting the pawn ticket. “Grünberg’s, the pawnshop of choice. Let me guess. A new Leica?”

  He had the ticket; there was no point in lying. I nodded. He put the pawn ticket into his own wallet and returned mine with the cash. “To the Alexanderplatz,” he told the driver.

  “So who are you?” I asked.

  “You can call me Harold, and I’ve just saved you from arrest.”

  “So you say.”

  “Show him, Mac.”

  The driver picked up the newspaper on the front seat and passed it back. It was folded to an interior page with a police drawing and the headline, Youth Sought in White Cat Shooting. I could just about translate the first line of the story: Criminal police wish to question English tourist, Francis Bacon, age 17, about the recent murder of …

  “It’s not a very good likeness,” I said, although I knew that didn’t matter. The Germans liked paperwork. They enjoyed demanding one’s papers, recording one’s name, checking one’s passport. I’d met any number of nice boys who lacked the right documents and had to keep a weather eye out for the police.

  “So if you want to see London again anytime soon, you’ll be a good boy and do what I tell you.”

  I wondered if he was propositioning me, but even that idea did not cheer me up. I slumped back in the seat and said nothing. It was entirely possible that my next letter would begin, Dear Nan, I am writing you from a Prussian reformatory. Please don’t worry too much, but thanks to Uncle Lastings, I have been charged with murder. …

  An exaggeration, Francis; Nan used to warn me of that. I think the real charge would be accessory before the fact. I know that, thanks to Nan. Because she is a great fan of murder cases, both real and fictional, I did not need Harold to tell me that I was in serious trouble.

  He read the paper on the drive back to Berlin, throwing out occasional comments, which I ignored. Near the Alexanderplatz, we were caught in the confusion of street work, pedestrians, horse carts, and trams. It was slow going, and when our driver cut off one of the trucks, we got a burst of angry German from its driver and shouts from the gang of men in the back. One word rang a bell: diplomat. How would they know that? The car must have diplomatic plates. I was in the hands of His Majesty’s government.

  Was that a cause for celebration—or alarm? Anyone born in Ireland must have doubts.

  Harold gave the street address for Grünberg’s, and his driver squeezed the big car between the tram tracks and the construction and into the side street for the pawnshop. The pavement was narrow, and there were some mounds of earth that almost blocked the sidewalk.

  Would he of the pistol and the fine suit really help me? Could he get me out of Germany? Would he? The Leica, I realized, had been my only card, and as I leaned back against the seat miserably, I saw nothing else that made me valuable. My nose began to itch as it did sometimes when I was anxious and my asthma was thinking of kicking up. I reached for my handkerchief and touched the film cassette in my jacket pocket.

  Of course! Thank you, Herr Grünberg! In that instant, I threw off despair and struggled to keep from smiling. Surely it wasn’t the camera Harold wanted. Even a new Leica was not valuable enough to send a diplomat jumping from trains and waving a pistol.

  For some inconceivable reason, he must want the film. But if I gave it to him, my usefulness would be at an end, and my chest tightened up at the thought. What then? Nothing good. By the time Mac found a place to idle the car, I had made up my mind. Harold got out, warning me to stay where I was. I waited until Grünberg’s door closed behind him, then unlocked my side and dived into the street.

  Mac gave a shout, but I ran into the path of a cyclist with a big market basket, causing him to brake to avoid the open door of the saloon car. Around the piles of earth, past a vendor selling lengths of cloth, down the first alley, and back onto the main Platz, where an incoming tram was slowing. I hopped onto the back platform and pushed forward to grab a seat.

  I changed trams twice and got out in an unfamiliar working-class district, where I loitered away the afternoon at a boy bar. It was dingy but warm with a coal stove and seemed as much a clubhouse as a watering hole. Promising customers were apparently few and far between, for the boys were playing cards and gossiping over glasses of Schul
theiss-Patzenhofer and the fumes of the inevitable Salem Aleikum cigarettes.

  As scruffy as I looked, I didn’t get a second glance. Perhaps just as well; I still didn’t know if there would be money in turning me in. I drank a couple of beers and worried about my situation. I had something Harold wanted, and he had the very thing I needed—an exit from Deutschland. We could do a swap, if only I had a safe way to meet him—not the easiest thing when I had little money and bad papers. With my face in the news, the popular cafés were going to be a danger. And while quiet and deserted places might be safer in one way, they would leave me at the mercy of Harold’s revolver and the capable and muscular Mac.

  No, I had to meet him somewhere public, preferably respectable, and count on an English dislike of making a scene to keep me safe. I tried to plan without much success, until I realized I could understand snatches of the conversation at the next table. One boy was complaining with eloquent gestures that his best girl, one Erika—of an abundant superstructure and spectacular legs—was crazy about clothes.

  Not normally an interest of mine, but at that moment a light went on. Thank you, Erika, whoever you may be. That night, quite late, I made my way back to the alley beside the vaudeville hall to wait for my friend Muriel, the dancer.

  Chapter Seven

  A clatter of heels on the steps—one, two, three tall women with feathers in their hats and smart coats. “Toodle-oo!” one called, and they tripped away laughing. Could I have come too late? Could I have missed Muriel?

  The door opened again, and there she was, a vaudeville goddess, tall and handsome, wrapped in a fox stole. “I see someone’s made a killing,” I said.

  “Francis! You like?” She did a pirouette. “He’s short, ugly, and rich. Quite the man of my dreams. But fancy seeing you here!”