Berlin Blind

by Alan Scholefield

  He dressed, put the gun in his coat pocket, covered it with his sheepskin, and went to an Italian restaurant almost directly opposite the hotel. He had a light meal and smoked a cigar with his coffee and thought of Lilo and her thin Dutch cheroots.

  He had planned to wait until the following day before he began his inquiries, but it was too early to go to bed so, after standing outside the restaurant for a few moments in the biting wind he put up his sheepskin collar and began to walk east. He turned into Schillerstrasse in the direction of the Tiergarten. He recognized nothing, but under the bright light he could follow his route on a street map and soon he came to the great dark area of the park itself. The streets were empty and even the traffic was light. He turned right and made his way along Tiergartenstrasse. On his left side were the dark trees, on his right... on his right there should have been streets and houses. Under the lights he could see streets neatly laid out; but there were no houses. It was like a housing project where the streets are laid down first while the lots are being sold. Then he realized he was in a kind of wasteland. These were bombed sites, like the ones he had seen in the fifties in the City of London. He could make out small piles of rubble, the bottom of a broken wall still with wallpaper clinging to it after all these years. Weeds had grown up, grass blew in the wind. He walked on and then he saw a metal sign which said Graf Speestrasse. Two houses still stood. One was almost completely cut off from the outside by shrubs and trees, the other seemed only habitable on the ground and basement floors; they stood there in derelict isolation, sole survivors of the bombing and shelling. He walked down the street a little way and stopped. Where the Gutmanns’ house must have been there was only a weed-grown empty lot. He remembered Bruno saying of the bombers, ‘They cannot hit us.’ But they had.

  He stepped off the kerb and into the weeds. His feet encountered loose bricks and pieces of plaster. He bent down and picked up a piece of wood and examined it under a street light. It could have come from anything, a joist, a rafter, a floorboard; he might once have walked on it. He shivered, but not with cold. In all the bright and shiny new city this was one place that still held its memories, one place that had not changed much.

  He heard footsteps and looked up as a man in a check coat and cap passed him, going down towards the canal. They did not look at each other. Spencer stared at the weeds and the rubble. There was nothing to be found here.

  Just then he heard a door open and close and he saw someone come up the basement steps of the partially habitable house. In the street lights he was casting a gigantic misshapen shadow. After a moment he saw that the distortion was caused because the person was carrying a heavy metal dustbin. There was a clang as the dustbin was put down ready for the morning collection and the figure turned to go down the steps.

  ‘Entschuldigen Sie, bitte,’ Spencer said.

  The figure paused, turned, and he saw he was talking to a youth of about eighteen. The youth looked at him inquiringly, his feet already on the steps, his body poised for quick retreat. Phrases had been racing through Spencer’s head, but none seemed to fit the occasion.

  ‘Bitte? the youth said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Spencer said. ‘Excuse me. Do you speak English?’

  ‘At school I am learning.’

  ‘Good. I have some questions.’

  ‘Ask, please.’

  ‘A long time ago, during the war, when I was about your age, I stayed in one of these houses.’

  ‘You lived here?’

  ‘In the war. I was in the Merchant Navy and my ship was sunk.’ He saw the youth begin to look confused.

  ‘You wish to know something?’ He was dressed in a thin shirt and was beginning to shiver.

  ‘The house was over there,’ Spencer said, pointing to a dark area of grass. ‘At least, I think so. A family named Gutmann.’

  ‘What is it you wish, please?’

  ‘I am here on holiday. I wanted to find out what had happened to them.’

  ‘Willi!’ a voice called from the house. ‘Was machst du?’

  ‘Eirt moment’ He turned to Spencer. ‘You wish to discover what happened to family Gutmann?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Come, please.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes, please. You must ask my grandmother.’

  Spencer looked at his watch. ‘I could come back in the morning.’

  ‘My grandmother sleeps in the morning. Please do not worry. Other people are coming to ask such things.’

  ‘About the Gutmanns?’

  ‘About many people.’

  ‘Willi!’

  ‘Ich komme!’ he shouted angrily. He beckoned Spencer to follow.

  Spencer went down the basement steps at his heels. Willi stood aside and he stepped into the room. What he saw was like a physical blow. He was transported back in time to 1944, standing in the Gutmanns’ sitting-room with Mrs Gutmann talking about the bombing. The big room was an almost exact replica of the Gutmanns’ room, even to the baulks of timber along one wall that supported the ceiling and the floor above. There was the same heavy, ornate furniture, the same overstuffed look where pieces seemed to vie with each other for space. In one comer was a large black wardrobe which reminded Spencer of the one in Bruno’s bedroom, the one behind which he had kept his shoe-box containing the gold objects.

  In front of him, seated at a dining-room table, or what looked like a dining-room table, for it was so heavily covered in newspapers he could not see its surface, sat an elderly woman in a wheel-chair. She was large and her flesh hung loosely on her; she had white hair and a high colouring. She was looking at Spencer in surprise.

  ‘I found him outside,’ Willi said.

  ‘Who is he?’ They spoke rapidly in German and Spencer had difficulty in following.

  ‘He has questions about the street.’

  ‘At this hour?’

  ‘You said I must always tell you.’

  ‘Tell me, yes, but you can see I’m working.’ She indicated the newspapers in front of her. Spencer saw scissors and a pot of glue. He also noticed that piles of newspaper, some cut and some uncut, stood around the walls.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s only a question or two.’

  ‘Ah, so, English,’ the old woman said. Then to Willi, ‘You didn’t tell me he was English.’ She turned back to Spencer and said, labouring in the unfamiliar language, ‘I have your family.’ He raised his eyebrows and fixed a smile on his face. ‘I show you.’

  She turned her wheel-chair and propelled herself to the other side of the room where there were several shelves packed with large volumes. She pulled out one and brought it back to the table. The speed with which she moved made Spencer think this was a manoeuvre which she had carried out many times before. She placed the book on the table and opened it. ‘Come,’ she said. He found himself looking down at a wedding picture of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh.

  ‘Your family,’ the old woman said.

  The entire scrapbook was given over to newspaper cuttings and pictures of the British Royal Family. She turned back and showed him the first picture in the book; it was of Princess Elizabeth leaning over a high verandah in what seemed a tropical country. Then he recognized it: it was one of the photographs taken at Treetops Hotel in Kenya in 1952. In the background he could see elephants drinking at a waterhole.

  ‘She is there,’ the old woman said, tapping the picture, Svhen King of England dies.’ She turned the pages: there they all were, the Queen, the Duke, the Prince of Wales, Princess Anne, Buckingham Palace, Windsor, Balmoral, tartans, kilts, the corgis. Finally she closed the book and put it away.

  ‘What does he want?’ she asked Willi abruptly.

  ‘It is about the street. The family Gutmann.’

  She looked quickly at Spencer and then away. ‘Tell him I’m tired,’ she said. But Willi’s curiosity had been stimulated for he said, ‘My grandmother takes much interest in the street. She has lived since the war always in th
e same place. It is from the Russian guns she was paralysed in the legs. She is the only one left from the people who lived here. Sometimes persons like yourself come to ask questions to try and find relatives.’

  ‘Tell him to go away,’ she said. She had begun to cut and paste in a kind of fury.

  Willi turned to her. ‘He used to live with the Gutmanns in the war.’

  She stopped her work and stared at Spencer. ‘I heard there was an Englishman there. A boy. But I didn’t see him.’

  Willi translated. The old woman was clearly tired and would not speak English. ‘He wishes to know what happened to the family,’ Willi said.

  She went on working furiously for a moment and then abruptly she threw down the scissors and paste and propelled herself back to the shelves and returned with another volume.

  ‘This is the one of the people in the street,’ Willi said. ‘She knew most by their names. Many were killed in the bombings. But she has kept, how do you say it, trace...’

  ‘Track.’

  ‘Track of some of them.’

  She opened the volume and Spencer could see short paragraphs cut from newspapers and an occasional picture. Her finger stabbed down on one page, and she began to speak.

  ‘Fleischman. Professor. Doktor. J. Number 7. Died in Heidelberg in 1958. Wife had an affair with Herr Schalk who lived in number 42. They were divorced.’ She turned over a few pages and stabbed down again. ‘Family Neibuhr. Husband, wife, two daughters killed by the Russians in 1945. They lived at number 16.’ Another page, another stabbing finger ‘Knopf. Number 23. He fell under the S-bahn in 1962. His wife had died from cancer. No one knows if he fell or threw himself.’ She turned several pages. ‘Here. Family Gutmann. Frau Gutmann had an affair with a lodger, Herr Lange. They disappeared in 1945.’

  She was about to close the book when Spencer said, ‘There are other cuttings there,’ and he moved to her side. He put his hand between the pages to keep it open. In the centre of one page was a picture from a glossy magazine of a beautiful fashion model. She had long dark hair, a wide mouth and high cheek bones, a Slavic face.

  ‘Who is she?’ he said.

  She tried to close the book but he kept his hand there firmly. ‘She’s frightened,’ Willi said, and it was apparent that he was enjoying his grandmother’s discomfiture. Spencer wondered if they lived together without other family; he wondered what hatreds lay just beneath the skin of their relationship.

  The old woman turned and looked up at him and he could see the anxiety in her eyes.

  Brutally he said, ‘Tell her I won’t leave until she tells me.’ She and Willi spoke rapidly and angrily to each other. Finally she broke off the conversation and sat with her head bowed. Willi said, ‘She is the wife of the son. Her name is Gerda.’

  ‘The wife? Of Bruno?’

  He nodded. ‘My grandmother is afraid of him. During the war, in the bombing, he came in and robbed her. He told her he would kill her if she spoke of it. She had always been afraid since then.’

  ‘Ask her to tell me about him now. I won’t mention her.’

  The old woman shook her head. Then she said slowly in English, ‘They are divorced. Long ago. That is all I know.’

  She took Spencer’s hand from the book, closed it, returned it to the shelves and sat facing the wall.

  ‘You must go now,’ Willi said.

  ‘I have some more questions.’

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘Tomorrow, then.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Spencer went down Graf Speestrasse in the direction of the canal. He wondered if the old woman knew more than she was saying. She had clearly been frightened. He would find out in the morning.

  He stopped on Bendlers Bridge and stared down at the water. In the lights the trees were faintly reflected. It looked cold, but clear, very different from the last time he had stood there. Then he and Bruno had been coming home from an evening with Astley and Richards and they’d had to make a detour because some of the streets were closed from the bombing. They were being bombed almost every night of clear weather by Pathfinder Groups followed by thousand-bomber formations. The canal had been choked with rubble; the bush and grass had been neglected and had overgrown both banks.

  They had stopped on the bridge and Bruno had said, ‘They say there are snakes here, pythons and God knows what, and crocodiles from the Zoo.’ The Zoo had been bombed the day before and dozens of animals were said to have escaped. ‘Never mind,’ Bruno said, putting an arm around his shoulders. ‘Not to worry.’

  ‘Lange says a tiger escaped and went into the Cafe Filz and ate some pastry and fell down dead.’

  ‘Another of his jokes.’

  Spencer moved out of his encircling arm. ‘He says the owners had a post mortem done to prove it wasn’t their cakes.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘He swears it’s true.’

  ‘Listen, Johnnie, you must be careful of Lange. He’s not one of us, you know. He’s different. Always sneering and laughing up his sleeve.’ He had moved closer.

  ‘He says Germany is going to lose the war,’ Spencer said. It was said to shock and Bruno took a step backwards. Spencer had expected anger but instead there was a look of sly acknowledgement in his eyes. ‘What does it matter for us? If the Allies win we will be all right. I have a British passport. I was brought over here by my mother. No one can say anything against me.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘We’ll stick together. Don’t worry, Johnnie.’

  Mrs Gutmann was in the shelter under the house and Lange was at work when they got home. They went into the kitchen and Bruno said, ‘Look what I’ve got.’ From one of his coat pockets he pulled out a packet containing real coffee. It was the first coffee Spencer had seen since leaving England. Bruno made them each a mug and they sat down at the table to drink it.

  ‘Astley and Richards are disgusting,’ Bruno said. ‘I hate the way they paw these women, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was true, he did hate it. He hated being with them, hated it when they got drunk. He remembered what Lange had said about the Germans using people like Astley and Richards to boost civilian morale. Of late he had begun to understand what Lange had meant.

  ‘Do you have a girlfriend back home?’ Bruno looked up at him from under his eyebrows.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Women are all right, but you cannot be friends with them. Not the son of friendship that men have. There is a nobility in the friendship between two men that can never be between a man and a woman. Don’t you think so, Johnnie?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Look at us two. We are friends, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And we are in danger. But we don’t worry because we have each other. Whoever wins this war, it won’t matter to us. In my school there was a big stained-glass window showing two soldiers in the first war. One of them had died trying to save the other. The words under the picture said, “Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for his friend.” That is what it is like between men, Johnnie.’

  They finished their coffee and Bruno said, ‘I’m going to sleep upstairs tonight. It’s cloudy, there won’t be a raid. Keep me company?’

  ‘All right.’

  In the early hours of the morning Spencer woke. Someone was kneeling on his bed.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘It’s me, Johnnie,’ Bruno whispered.

  What do you want?’

  ‘Can’t we be friends?’

  ‘You’re heavy.’

  ‘Give me your hand. Take it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Take it.’

  Spencer felt something hot and hard against his cheek. He fought as he had fought Campbell.

  ‘It’s all right, Johnnie. It’s all right.’

  One of Spencer’s arms was caught under the blankets and Bruno had the other. Bruno bent over his face. Spencer felt he was being suffocated. He shouted and pushed, as hard as he coul
d. Bruno fell sideways to the floor and then the light was on and Lange was standing in the doorway. He stood there for some seconds taking in the scene and his mouth twisted downwards in disgust; then he switched out the light and closed the door.

  The next morning at breakfast Bruno had described the incident as their ‘wrestling match’ and had tried to laugh about it, but Lange had looked across the table at him and the disgust was still clear in his eyes. That was the last time Bruno referred to it. From then it was as though a wall had come between him and Spencer. Most days he left for the house in Charlottenburg or, at least, it was where he said he was going. He infrequently suggested now that Spencer should come with him. Once he took him to a barracks in Spandau where he said they were to learn drill. But when they got there they found they were the only ones and after standing about on the icy parade-ground for more than an hour Bruno said, ‘You’d better go back to the house,’ and left Spencer to get there as best he could. Later, Spencer was to learn that part of the Free Corps had been sent to help in Dresden, which had just been devastated by bombing.

  It was a strange, dream-like time. Berlin was in chaos, every day saw major electricity failures, the trams were not running half the time, nor was the S-bahn; there were gas fires all over the city. The bombers droned in day after day to dump their loads. Thousands of refugees from the East lived in the bomb shelters, making it impossible for some Berliners to take shelter in a raid.

  Bruno came and went from the house. He was employed by the Foreign Office and it was Spencer’s impression that he was one of several young Germans whose job it was to look after members of the Free Corps. Often when Bruno came home he would go up to the bedroom and lock himself in. Spencer knew there were now two shoe boxes under the wardrobe but he was too scared to touch them.

  He spent much of his time in the villa. He watched the romance between Frau Gutmann and Lange bud and flower. It was clear that she was mothering him with those reserves of maternal feeling untapped by Bruno. She brought him little delicacies, bits of cheese, a slice or two of smoked sausage, a little coffee, when such things were almost as valuable as diamonds. Much of her day was spent standing in food queues, and since Lange worked shifts at the Rundfunk he and Spencer were thrown together. Lange told him at great length about Africa, about the great Namib Desert and the fringes of the Kalahari where the sands were a deep russet red. He also taught him chess. He was an excellent player and was far too good for Spencer but he played without his queen which made the games more interesting. For the rest, Spencer would walk around the shattered streets, careful now not to wear his uniform. It was on one of these walks that he met Annie. Her real name was Anna but after they had got to know each other she had asked him to call her Annie. She said it reminded her of her girlhood.