The Auslander

by Paul Dowswell

  She’d obviously done this before, thought Peter. Finding the station was easy enough but getting the volume was difficult. It was either too quiet to hear properly, or would leap out loud enough for the neighbours to hear.

  The signal was being blocked too, with a piercing whistling noise that rose and fell to make it difficult to hear what was being said. ‘They always do that – Vati says it’s called jamming,’ said Anna. ‘To put people off listening.’

  ‘Why would the BBC want to do that?’ said Peter.

  She batted him round the head, and grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

  ‘Not them, dummkopf!’ she laughed. ‘It’s our lot that does the jamming.’

  Peter felt a bit foolish but he liked the way her hand lingered on his shoulder.

  ‘Vati would know how to fix the radio,’ said Anna. ‘Not that I’d tell him about this. He’d be furious if he knew.’

  Eventually, with much crackling and trial and error they settled down to listen. The radio was loud enough to hear the programme beneath the whistle, but probably not loud enough to be heard in the next apartment. They caught the end of a music programme, Aus der Freien Welt – From the Free World, playing swing and ‘hot jazz’ – music that was banned in Germany because most of the people who played it were black or Jewish. The music sounded exciting, but it was difficult to really enjoy it with that undulating whistle. Then it was time for the news.

  The newsreader was a British man who introduced himself as Lindley Fraser. He spoke German very well and with only a slight accent, and announced that American troops were arriving in great numbers in Britain.

  This surprised Peter. Professor Kaltenbach had told him the Americans wouldn’t be interested in fighting the Nazis – just the Japanese. He wanted to say something but Anna was concentrating so hard he did not want to interrupt. They both listened in silence. It seemed extraordinary, to be hearing someone else’s idea of what was happening in the world.

  When the news finished there was more dance music and they listened with great sloppy grins on their faces, shoulders twitching to the rhythms. Peter was enjoying being this close to Anna. Their heads pressed together against the radio speaker, he could feel the warmth of her body and the moistness of her breath. She shifted her legs a little, then slipped her hand over his. Peter’s heart lurched in his chest.

  .

  Anna introduced him to her parents a couple of days later, when she invited him round for dinner. Peter found them rather intimidating. Colonel Otto Reiter was a large, imposing man with a steely gaze and brusque manner. Ula Reiter was chic and beautiful, and bristled with a formidable ‘can do’ confidence.

  But they did their best to make him feel at ease. As they sat round the dining table, he noticed how both of them spoke plainly about the war. It was not that they said anything ‘treasonable’, but it was obvious they spoke their own mind rather than the official Party line. When Peter asked them how their son Stefan was getting on in Ostland, the Colonel replied, ‘I worry about Stefan every day of my life.’ There was a long pause, then he said, ‘Napoleon invaded Russia a hundred and twenty-three years ago, almost on the exact day we did. He even managed to capture Moscow. Maybe we will too, eventually. But after that, who knows what will happen . . .’

  They were fairly frank about the demands of the Nazi Party on their everyday lives. When Hitler’s birthday came on 20th April Ula forgot to hang swastika flags from the window. Peter was there when Herr Pfister, the block warden, knocked on the door to demand she put them out. After he’d gone Ula grinned and said, ‘We forgot to do that when France fell, too. Pfister was livid. Two hours he gave us, to find a flag to put out, before he reported us to the Gestapo.’

  For Frau Kaltenbach this would be a matter of deep shame. For Frau Reiter, it was something to laugh about. Peter got the impression these weren’t deliberate acts of defiance. The Reiters just didn’t care enough about these Nazi rituals and the obligation to remember them all.

  Now, when Peter sat around the dining table with the Kaltenbachs, he wished he could speak more freely with them. These thoughts made him feel guilty and ungrateful and he tried to banish them from his mind.

  .

  Listening to the BBC became a shared secret for Anna and Peter. Sometimes they would do it together after school, when they were sure Anna’s parents were away or would be back late. ‘Best not do it too often,’ said Anna. ‘If Frau Brenner knew you were here when Mutti and Vati were out, she’d tell them for sure.’

  ‘Why don’t you admit to listening? You know they do too,’ said Peter.

  ‘I know,’ said Anna. ‘It’s silly. I just think it would be something else for them to worry about.’

  Although the news was the important thing, they both enjoyed listening to comedies the BBC put out on their German radio programmes. There was the Berlin charwoman Frau Wernicke, and her grumbling about life under the Nazis. And there was Gefreiter Hirnschall – Corporal Numbskull – the reluctant soldier and the letters he wrote home to his wife. ‘They’re clever, the British,’ said Anna. ‘These characters, they’re not stupid. They’re quite sympathetic. It’s like the British are saying “We know what it’s like for you.”’

  She had a good point. Peter liked the way the announcers always spoke in calm, matter-of-fact voices. Not like the hectoring tone of the German announcers. It made what they said seem more believable. It was clever, too, he realised, for them to use a British man who spoke German well, rather than a German exile. People didn’t warm to traitors.

  That spring, the news was good and it was bad. Japan was still on the march in the Pacific, winning a stunning victory in Singapore. The German army were still making deep inroads into Soviet Russia. General Erwin Rommel – the ‘Desert Fox’ – and his Afrika-Korps were fighting with great success against the British in North Africa. All these things they had heard on their own radio news, and Peter and Anna were both surprised to hear the British announcer reporting them too. It made the rest of what they said more believable. But there was a quiet confidence in the BBC broadcasts. They seem to be saying, ‘We know you’re doing all right at the moment, but one day the tide will turn.’

  Peter had powerfully mixed feelings listening to the BBC. He liked the way the German radio made him feel the war was nearly over and a great victory was almost at hand. That way he could imagine it was unlikely he and Segur and the other boys would ever be called up to fight. But the BBC made him feel it was inevitable. Especially with all those Americans flooding into Britain. The Nazis had stirred up a hornet’s nest, and one day he might be one of the boys who would have to take the consequences.

  .

  CHAPTER 17

  September 1942

  .

  When spring turned to summer in 1942, the war was still going Germany’s way. Sirens occasionally sounded in Berlin, but no aircraft came to bomb the city. Peter and Anna continued to see each other whenever they could, and Peter always enjoyed his visits for tea with the Reiters.

  Although he still liked his Onkel Franz, Peter was beginning to find some of Professor Kaltenbach’s opinions preposterous – particularly compared to the measured outlook of Colonel Reiter. He seemed to notice this especially when Anna made one of her infrequent visits. She always felt uncomfortable at the Kaltenbachs’ and Peter would be on tenterhooks wondering what she might say. Although conversation never rose above polite formality, she would occasionally make a withering remark which the Kaltenbachs seemed oblivious to. ‘What an inspirational painting,’ she said as she looked at the print of Hermann Otto Hoyer’s In the beginning was the word, which hung in the hall. It showed Hitler preaching to early Nazi converts. ‘How well the artist has captured the adoration of the people. It reminds me almost of a Holbein or a Cranach.’

  Peter would notice at once, and be torn between shrinking in horror and laughing up his sleeve. Sometimes Elsbeth would give her a sharp look but she never said anything.

  Franz and Liese Kal
tenbach hinted that they would like to meet Anna’s parents. Liese had read Ula’s articles in Frauenwarte and both of them thought the Colonel a very glamorous figure. Peter and Anna knew such a meeting would be excruciating and although Anna always promised she would ask her parents she always came back with an excuse – usually to do with their work commitments.

  Anna had joined them for dinner one early autumn evening when Kaltenbach began to splutter about a news report he had just read concerning a group of youths who had been arrested in a Berlin Dance Hall. ‘Swing Youth, they call them. They wear their hair long, the boys – what soft eggs – and loud suits and scarves . . . and the girls, they wear their hair down and paint their faces. The Jezebels.

  ‘The music – that awful jazz or “Swing”, whatever it’s called – what an unholy culture the Yankees have cooked up in that cesspit nation of theirs. This is what happens when you mix the races with such carelessness. And worst of all is the dancing. It’s just degenerate. The boys and girls cavort together, shaking their bodies in a frenzy. Sometimes the girls whirl around in their skirts so everyone can see their underclothes. It’s sheer pornography.’

  The Kaltenbach girls, all three of them, looked suitably shocked.

  Peter couldn’t believe it. ‘WHERE is it happening?’ he was bursting to say. ‘It sounds marvellous.’ He didn’t dare look at Anna in case he gave away his thoughts.

  Anna spoke up. ‘They must be French or Russian workers,’ she said with a straight face. ‘Surely German boys and girls would not behave like that?’

  Kaltenbach ploughed on, venting his disgust. ‘Some of them are only fourteen or fifteen.’ Bits of food were flying everywhere.

  Anna said, ‘It is almost unbelievable that some of our young people, all of them brought up in the spirit of National Socialism, have been drawn to behaviour that is so un-Germanic. I cannot imagine anyone I know behaving like that.’

  Everyone agreed that this was deeply shocking, but they were lost for an explanation. Peter, in turn, was lost in admiration at Anna’s performance.

  As he walked her home, she said, ‘Mutti told me about the Swing Youth last week. I told her it sounded fantastic. All those people rejecting their Nazi teaching. But Mutti wasn’t so impressed. She said, from what she’d heard, they weren’t rejecting anything. They just liked a good time. They’re all kids like us. Well-to-do parents. They just want to forget about the war.’ Then she said, ‘Don’t you go getting mixed up with them though.’ The Gestapo and the Hitler-Jugend security squads, they all go out looking for them.’

  They walked along in silence, arms entwined. It was one of those lovely crisp autumn evenings when the stars sparkled cold white in the velvet sky. Then Anna giggled and drew Peter’s arm tighter to her side. ‘Wouldn’t it be good to be free to go to a dance like that?’ she said wistfully.

  Peter saw Segur the next day at school and told him about it. ‘It sounds thoroughly disgusting,’ he said. ‘Especially the dancing. All those flashing legs and knickers and all that shaking it all about. Imagine. People enjoying themselves, while our brave troops make so many sacrifices at the front. It’s not very patriotic, is it.’

  A few days later Segur said he knew someone, a boy in his block called Dieter, who hung around at a café on Bülowstrasse. There were boys and girls there who looked like the ones the newspaper had described. ‘Long hair. Flashy clothes. Girls who look like tarts. Only you know they’re not. Too well-dressed. Too rich-looking. They’re swing kids, aren’t they! Dieter says they greet each other with “Swing Heil!”’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Peter. ‘I’ll ask Anna.’

  She reluctantly agreed. ‘It sounds good, but let’s not get ourselves arrested.’

  ‘It’s not a dance,’ said Peter. ‘Just a café. We can hang around with other people who aren’t all hundred-percenters. And if it starts getting too raucous we can make our excuses and leave.’

  The three of them went the next week. They all told their parents they were going to a Winter Relief collection meeting.

  The place was called Café Lebensart and it did a fine line in cakes and coffee. No beer or wine. At least that was what the menu on the door said. The sign above it read ‘The German greeting is Heil Hitler!’

  Although the place was crowded and buzzing with conversation, the door was locked. Peter knocked, not expecting to be heard. An elderly man, short and stubby, made his way to let them in. He greeted them with a smile and a twinkle in his eye, and showed them to a table.

  A gramophone behind the counter began to play the most exciting music. Peter had heard something similar on the BBC but now he could hear it properly without the whistling. The music was a little like the sort of upbeat dance-band songs you heard on the request programmes for soldiers at the front. Only it was twice as fast and played with twice the passion. Saxophones or clarinets would take wild excursions over the melody and it was impossible to hear without grinning and tapping your feet.

  The owner, who had let them in, was an Italian called Bernardo. He kept a close eye on who came and went, turning the music down to nothing whenever anyone new came to the door.

  ‘So what is this we’re listening to?’ said Peter, when Bernardo came to take their order.

  ‘It’s the trumpet and drum brigade of the Munich Hitler-Jugend,’ he said with a wink. Some boy behind them, who had overheard, turned and said, ‘Benny Goodman. He’s just the coolest!’

  Coolest? That was a new one to Peter. He supposed it meant good. It was certainly said with enthusiasm.

  They ordered their coffee and cakes and sat there enjoying the feeling that they were doing something forbidden. From then on, the three of them managed to visit the café at least once a week. They became familiar faces and one day one of the girls took Anna aside and told her they were organising a dance in the basement of Café Berta, over by Hackescher Markt.

  Anna returned to tell the boys. ‘We’ve got to go,’ said Segur. He turned to Anna. ‘Maybe you can bring a girl for me?’

  Anna looked doubtful. ‘Is it worth it? This seems harmless enough,’ she gestured around her, ‘but a swing dance . . . we could end up in prison. Let’s think about it.’

  Peter grabbed her arm. ‘No. Let’s go! We’ve been coming here for a while now, and there’s never been any trouble. Come on. Let’s have a bit of fun.’

  Anna still wasn’t convinced.

  The next time he saw her, Anna told Peter she had a present for him. ‘Unwrap it in secret when you get home. I found it in an old junk shop.’

  It was a tie – with a red, yellow and white palm leaf motif on it. The pattern was stupendously vulgar and guaranteed to give Professor Kaltenbach apoplexy if he ever saw it. There was only one place in Berlin Peter could imagine wearing it.

  .

  Sneaking out with overcoats over the brightest clothes they could find, Peter, Anna and Segur made their way to the seedy backstreet café where the party was to take place. Segur pretended to be disappointed with Anna. ‘I thought you’d find a friend for me!’ he chided.

  Anna brushed him off with a laugh. ‘I don’t know any girls disreputable enough to come to such a gathering, or to go out with an oaf like you!’

  They started to punch each other on the arm. Segur said, ‘Hey, Bruck, you’re going out with a hussy. And a violent one at that.’

  Anna said, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find you a girl at the dance.’

  She was in high spirits. The train was crowded and they all stood close to the carriage door. When they stopped at Tiergarten Station, she noticed an HJ group leader with a small squad of younger boys standing on the platform. ‘He looks very pleased with himself,’ she whispered to Peter. Just as the train began to move off she looked him straight in the eye and tapped the side of her head. The boys in his squad noticed and some started to giggle. Enraged, he walked down the platform with the train, shouting and banging on the window.

  Everyone in the carriage was looking at them. ‘Just an old boy
friend,’ announced Anna casually. ‘He never forgave me for dumping him.’

  They walked into a narrow courtyard off Oranienburger Strasse. Café Berta needed a lick of paint and the tables were sticky. A few others had already gathered there, drinking coffee, eating cakes. They fell into conversation with one lad who wore his hair long at the front, so it flapped over his eye.

  ‘How did you manage to grow your hair so long?’ said Peter in admiration.

  The boy grinned. ‘I wear a hat.’

  After a while, when he was sure they were safe, and not Hitler-Jugend spies, the lad said, ‘I’m Karl. The party will be in the basement. It’ll get going when a few more of us arrive.’

  Peter had expected to see one or two familiar faces from Café Lebensart. But there was no one here he knew. Anna and Segur said the same thing. ‘We’re a rare breed,’ said Segur. ‘The rest of them are all polishing their jackboots or sewing combat proficiency badges on to their HJ jackets.’

  It was then that Peter realised how right Anna had been not to bring anyone else. There was no one, apart from Segur, that they could be sure to trust.

  Eventually, they were called downstairs, where there was a basement bar. They piled chairs and tables in one corner to make space in the middle of the room for dancing. Cobwebs and dust covered the place. ‘Good thing the light is so low,’ said Segur. ‘I’d prefer not to see what I’m sitting on!’

  Someone had pinned up a big American movie poster – The Jazz Age – showing a bright young couple kissing in front of a montage of frantic dancing and a huge bottle of gin. Anna translated the movie slogan for Peter. There were lots of words she could guess but only half understand. An older girl helped her with some of the words. ‘A scathing indictment of the bewildered children of pleasure . . . Riding the gilded Juggernaut of Jazz and Gin!!!’

  ‘That certainly sounds very silly,’ said Anna. ‘I wonder what it means.’

  ‘It means have a shot of this,’ said their new friend Karl, who had smuggled in a bottle of gin. They all had a nip and gradually began to feel less nervous.