A Trace of Smoke (Hannah Vogel)

by Cantrell, Rebecca

  Inside, the coat-check girl wore a short black skirt that showed well-turned ankles, but the hands that took my coat were large.

  “The tables are through the curtains, madame,” said a deep, sultry voice.

  “Thank you, mademoiselle,” I rejoined, and he flashed me a coy smile. Fooling me was his job, after all, and I could not let on that he had not fooled me.

  I pushed through deep red curtains, inhaling their musty, smoky smell. They kept noise from filtering into the street and trapped heat in the winter.

  Half of the tables contained groups of revelers sitting around a festive silver bucket holding a green bottle of Champagne. White El Dorado balloons floated above the buckets, anchored by the handles. Most of the guests were dressed as women, but how many were actually female was anyone’s guess.

  I headed to the corner of the long teak bar, near the sink, the place where bartenders can stand a minute and talk while they wash glasses. Oliver kept everything spotless. He spent a good deal of his time at the sink. I’d only been here a few times, but Oliver might remember me.

  The smoke thickened, and I stifled a cough as I climbed onto a bar stool designed to hold someone a few centimeters taller than me, so that men could perch on them without wrinkling their evening dresses. Oliver sauntered over in his dapper bartender’s jacket. He might look like a panda bear with his black beard and white jacket, but Ernst said he was an accomplished street fighter who threw out the most unruly drunks himself. He’d once ejected an entire gang of Nazi hooligans who’d tried to destroy the place.

  “Fraulein?” he asked.

  “A Berliner weisse with a shot,” I said. “Green.”

  He poured a quick flash of woodruff syrup into a glass, then flipped the top off a bottle of wheat beer and added the beer to the glass with the syrup. It was beer for children and tourists, but I loved it anyway.

  I slipped his payment across the counter with a hefty tip. “It’s good,” I said when he tried to hand me change. “I am looking for my brother.”

  “Aren’t we all?” he said, with a booming laugh. He poured a clear liquid into ten shot glasses lined up on a tray.

  “His name is Ernst Vogel, and he sings here.”

  “The little songbird?” He wiped down the spotless bar. “You are sister to the Nightingale?”

  “Hannah Vogel.” I reached my hand out to him. Ernst had loved it when people called him the Nightingale.

  “Hannah,” he said, shaking it. His grip was firm and damp from the towel. “I remember you now. Haven’t seen you in a long time.”

  I nodded. “Is Ernst here tonight?”

  Oliver shook his head. “And Winnie is furious. Excuse me.”

  Oliver carried the tray of full shot glasses to a table of businessmen. At least they looked like men. Oliver bowed and handed out drinks. Although each glass was filled to the brim, he did not spill a drop.

  I stirred green syrup into my golden beer.

  Oliver returned with a tray of empty glasses and began washing them in the sink. Steam rose off the water.

  “When did you see him last?”

  “After his performance Friday.” Oliver wiped the back of his hand across his brow. “He missed all his weekend performances.”

  I choked on a lump in my throat and pretended that was the reason for my sudden tears.

  “Are you well?” Oliver asked with concern.

  I coughed a few more times and then said, “Perfectly. What was Ernst doing Friday?”

  “He and Rudolf argued about the little Nazi boy.”

  “Nazi boy?” I took a sip of my beer. I loved the way that the bitter beer mixed with the sweet tang of the woodruff syrup, turning the adult brew into candy.

  Oliver pointed with his sudsy thumb. I turned to see a teenage boy with blond hair sitting at a table next to the stage. His carefully pressed Nazi uniform was the brown of fallen autumn leaves. “Rudolf and Ernst argued about it, but Ernst left with the boy in the end. The boy is smitten with your brother. He walked right over to him when he came off stage, and they kissed as if they’d been separated for years.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Wilhelm.”

  “What’s his last name?” He looked familiar.

  “Don’t know his last name.” Oliver looked down at the glasses he washed. “Don’t know anybody’s last name.”

  “Mine’s Vogel.”

  “Forgotten it already.” He rinsed off glasses and dried them with a snowy white towel.

  I dropped a few coins onto the bar with a clatter. “Buy the boy a drink from me.”

  “Not your type, sweetie,” Oliver said with a smile. “But he’s all the rage here. He’s almost as big as Ernst was, once upon a time. Before he got old.”

  “Ernst is only twenty!”

  “Don’t look so shocked. The men who come here like them young.”

  I remembered when Ernst had visited me a year ago. He’d come to my apartment at seven that morning and had not been to bed yet. He still wore his dress, and his eye makeup was smudged at the corners.

  I was dressed and ready to leave, but I’d made him tea while he complained about work.

  “I’m positively ancient.” He pulled at the corners of his fresh young eyes, studying them in his compact mirror.

  I’d laughed. “You are not even twenty. I am in my thirties and even I am not truly old yet.”

  “Maybe for your world,” he said, his crimson lips pursed. “But now all those rich beautiful men have turned their attention to the next big thing. Or rather the next little thing with a big thing, if you know what I mean.”

  “What about all that lovely jewelry? Isn’t that from admirers?”

  “It’s not real,” he said. “No one gives me real stuff anymore.”

  I had shaken my head and hurried out the door to catch my bus, telling him that he was exaggerating. But he had been correct.

  Oliver cleared his throat, and I dropped my eyes down to my beer. “Please buy the boy a drink from me.”

  I pretended to study an El Dorado beer coaster while Oliver carried a shot of whiskey to the boy. The coaster was creamy white and had “Here, it is right!” printed on it in a flowery script.

  After Oliver took Wilhelm the drink, I walked to his table and sat down without being invited. Wilhelm lifted his tortoiseshell cigarette holder to his sensuous lips and took a drag of the cigarette. Atikah, Turkish tobacco. Ernst had smoked it once too.

  “Good evening,” I said. He turned startled blue eyes to me. Had he mistaken me for a man from across the room?

  “Hello.” He tapped his cigarette ashes into the silver ashtray. “Thank you for the whiskey.”

  “I’m looking for someone,” I began.

  “I am not interested,” he interrupted, without meeting my eyes. “I don’t do girls, not even for money, no matter how much.”

  “I’m looking for Ernst Vogel,” I continued, wondering why he would not look at me.

  The boy sat ramrod straight in his chair. I saw his Nazi bearing, was aware now of his youth and strength, and knew I must be careful. “I’m looking for him too. He said he’d stop by but he never did, so I’ve been here every night since Saturday, waiting.” His words tumbled over each other. “And waiting.”

  “When did you see him last?” Before he could answer, someone struck a gong, and the band launched into “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” an old favorite. Wilhelm clapped time. His hands were too large for his body and finely formed, like Michelangelo’s David.

  I let him sing for a few moments, then picked up the closed bottle of Champagne from the center of the table and used it to strike the gong. The band immediately stopped and started playing a different song. Wilhelm stopped clapping and turned to me.

  “Saturday morning early,” he said. “He climbed out my window so my father wouldn’t see, and he said he’d meet me that night at the club, but he wasn’t here. I waited all night.”

  Oh God, Ernst, I thought. Wilhelm st
ill lives with his parents. Just as you lived with me until you met Rudolf. I took a deep swallow of beer and steadied my voice. “You waited here all Saturday night?”

  “And Sunday and Monday,” he said. “Over three days, in case you’re counting, which I am.”

  Behind his head, Rudolf entered the room, alone in his trademark gray suit. He strode to the bar without looking right or left. I turned my back to him. I did not want him to know that I was asking around about Ernst, verifying what Rudolf had told me. What if he was the killer? I watched his reflection in the Champagne bucket, and hoped he would not recognize the back of my head.

  “How old are you?” I asked Wilhelm, keeping my voice level with great effort.

  “Seventeen. How old are you?” He took another puff of his cigarette and stuck out his chin.

  “Thirty-two.” I ran my finger along the cool edge of my beer glass and watched Rudolf’s reflection check his watch.

  Wilhelm blew out his smoke in surprise. “That old?”

  In spite of my worry about Rudolf, I smiled. “My name is Hannah Vogel.” I held out my hand.

  “Wilhelm,” he said, shaking it firmly. “Wilhelm Lehmann.”

  “The little boy from school?” I asked, surprised. More than five years ago, Ernst had brought an awkward twelve-year-old boy to our apartment. Now that I knew what to look for, I saw the ghost of the boy in the young man’s face. Obviously thrilled by the attention, Ernst claimed that Wilhelm followed him around like a puppy. I bet Ernst had been even more flattered now that Wilhelm was all grown-up and filled out.

  Wilhelm nodded. “Back then he always tried to talk me out of loving him.”

  “He did?” I’d not seen this side of Ernst. I’d never known him to turn down love or adoration. He never got enough of it.

  “He said to find a nice girl. Said I was too young. But not last Friday when I showed up at the club. That night he knew I was a man. They all knew.” Wilhelm knocked back his whiskey like Tom Mix, the western star. He clunked his shot glass back on the table. “I could have had any of them. I picked Ernst, because I thought he cared.”

  “Oh,” I said, my usual comment when at a loss for words. Wilhelm was now a man, and a Nazi. He’d been a gentle boy, good with Mitzi. Now his mission was to beat up Communists and Jews.

  “But then Ernst vanished. Without a single word to me. He didn’t come to work.” Wilhelm slumped in his chair, and his lower lip stuck out ever so slightly. He did not look manly anymore. “I don’t know, but I think he ran off with that rich soldier he was talking about.”

  “A soldier?” I leaned forward. “What was his name?”

  “Somebody famous. Somebody more important than me.”

  I suppressed an impatient sigh. “Do you know anything else about him?”

  Wilhelm furrowed his brow. “Ernst said that he was scared of him, but he liked it.”

  I’d never known Ernst to be afraid of anyone, even when he should have been. “Why was he scared?”

  “He said it like it was a big joke, but I think he meant it.” He glared at me. “But who knows what he means when he says things.”

  “And you have heard nothing from him since?” I stole a quick glance toward the bar. Rudolf leaned toward Oliver, who shrugged and pointed to the stage door. Was Rudolf asking about Ernst? If so, Oliver was not telling him Ernst wasn’t there.

  “No, but I am not the only one looking for him either. A pair of SA officers came to the bar yesterday. I told them I had not seen him in days, but they just kept asking and asking.”

  Why were members of the Sturm Abteilung, Hitler’s burgeoning private army of storm troopers, interested in Ernst? Rudolf stalked to the backstage door, and I turned my chair so that Wilhelm sat between me and the stage. It was the best I could do without running away. “Did they say why they wanted to find him?”

  Wilhelm shook his head. “Maybe he is hiding from them. Or maybe he’s hiding from me,” Wilhelm said, suddenly sad. He pulled a red silk handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed his eyes. The kind of dabbing expressly forbidden under the Code of Manliness, a series of rules I’d invented for Ernst, to protect him.

  Wilhelm ran his hand absently along his cheek. He tucked the red silk neatly into the pocket of his brown shirt so that not the tiniest glimpse was visible. “Do you think Ernst couldn’t bring himself to tell me that he hates me after all? That he’s hiding so he doesn’t have to face me?”

  Ernst was not hiding from Wilhelm, but I was hiding from Rudolf. What if he found me here? If he’d killed Ernst, whom he’d loved, he’d have no trouble dispatching me, whom he loathed. The hair raised on the back of my neck.

  “I do not think he would hide from you,” I told Wilhelm, trying to be reassuring.

  “Only cowards hide,” Wilhelm said angrily. “Papi says . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “What does your father think of your new friends?” Ernst had long ago told me that Wilhelm and his father did not get along.

  “Papi?” Wilhelm took a long drag of his cigarette. “He fixes me up with girls. He hates what I am.”

  “What are you?”

  “Queer. He doesn’t like queer men. Says we’re a blight on the race. He says Hitler thinks it too. That one day Hitler will round us all up and kill us. But he’s wrong about that. Isn’t Hitler’s best friend Röhm? Röhm is as queer as me, and nobody’s rounding him up.”

  “What if something happened to Röhm?” I took the last sip of beer, sweeter than the others, mostly syrup. I placed my glass softly on the wooden table.

  “Hitler can’t afford to lose him. They’ll protect him all right. He’s the only one who can handle the storm troopers. That’s why Hitler begged him to come back from Bolivia.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Hitler was not the begging type.

  “Röhm is much tougher than Hitler. Men followed him into battle in the war, paid with their lives in Verdun, and still more followed him.” Wilhelm’s eyes shone, and he ran his index finger across his lips.

  “Does that say more about him, or the men who followed him?”

  Wilhelm shook his blond head. “Röhm’s a hero. Once he marched sixty-five French prisoners back from the front lines. He had been shot in the chest. It grazed his lung. But he took them back to the base, stumbling along with three other wounded German soldiers. His authority was so strong that none of the prisoners ran, even though Röhm and his men had only Röhm’s service revolver, with only six shots.”

  “And how do you know about this feat of valor?” Behind Wilhelm the musicians took a break, putting down their shiny instruments and waddling up to the bar like penguins.

  “My father told me and he should know because he’s Röhm’s top lieutenant in Berlin.”

  “Does it bother him that Röhm’s queer?”

  Wilhelm laughed incredulously. “He worships Röhm. It’s fine for Röhm to do whatever he wants. It’s just not fine for me. Plus I don’t act manly enough.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Ernst used to coach me on ways to act manly around my father.”

  I winced. Ernst certainly had experience in that.

  “He called it the Code of Manliness. You should know all about it. He said you made it up.”

  “I did, to keep him safe from our father.”

  “The tyrant.”

  “Is that what Ernst called him?”

  “That was the nicest thing Ernst called him.” Wilhelm laughed. “I’d have to apologize to say what he said in front of a lady.”

  “That sounds like Ernst,” I said, smiling.

  A tall, overweight man dressed in a badly tailored flapper dress with black fringe wobbled over to our table. He looked like a circus tent about to unravel. “Hi, darling,” he said, to Wilhelm. I remembered him from my previous visit to El Dorado. Lola.

  Wilhelm pulled out a chair and watched the man with calculating eyes.

  “Nice falsies,” the man said to me, through his garish coral lipstick. “
You’re a convincing woman.”

  “And you are a convincing man,” I said, “which I’m guessing was not your intention.”

  He blushed and gave me a genuine smile. I smelled the floral odor of Vasenol body powder. “I’m sorry, esteemed lady,” he said. “My vision isn’t so good and I thought you were, well, you know.”

  I laughed. “Hannah.” I stuck out my hand.

  He took my hand in his moist hairy one. “I’m Lovely Lola.”

  “Please, sit down.” I gestured to the empty chair.

  The man shook his head, and the black hair in his wig swung from side to side. “I came to invite your friend . . .” He pointed one coral fingernail at three small doors along the back wall. The wall, and the doors, were painted with a mural of a Chinese harbor. The doors were invisible, unless you knew what to look for.

  Wilhelm started to shake his head, but then looked over at me defiantly. “I’d love to go into the dark room with you. And you, Hannah, be sure to tell Ernst that when you see him.”

  Wilhelm stood and shook my hand. His grip was firm and dry; the grip of a young man afraid of nothing. “It was wonderful seeing you, Hannah. If you see Ernst, please tell him I’m looking for him. I miss him so and I want to make it right, whatever he’s upset about. I can do anything that soldier will do, and better.”

  Lovely Lola smiled.

  I turned over one of the El Dorado beer coasters and wrote my name and the telephone number at the newspaper on the back using my jade-green fountain pen. “Call me if you see him.”

  He wrote an address on his own beer coaster and handed it me. “We don’t have a telephone, but here’s our address. It’s by the bottle factory.”

  “Thank you.” I glanced at his messy handwriting before tucking the coaster into my purse.

  “Tell him to stop by and say hello. Or anything. Anytime. And that I’m not waiting for him. Not really.”

  Wilhelm took Lovely Lola’s hand and led him back to the door on the far left. From Ernst, I knew that those doors contained little rooms with only a wooden bench in them, for bracing oneself against while . . . while one was intimate with a companion. If one could call it that. I shuddered and left the table. I knew I was a dreadful prude, but I could not bear to think of fresh-faced Wilhelm and that old transvestite in that little room. I did not want to see them again when they came out, flushed and sweaty like the men I’d seen emerge from those rooms in the past.