Cafe Babanussa

by Karen Hill

“Yeah, I know. It still is. And it’s awful, being so out of control. Never knowing who or what to believe. Being so angry when the happiness and energy disintegrate. Did you ever have delusions? My head was full of them.”

  Her mother paused before answering. “Aside from feeling like I had a godlike strength, no, I never got psychotic, if that’s what you mean. It was all rampant energy, feeling strong, creative and happy.”

  “But you were really cranky, too.”

  “You’re right. I was getting to that. I was edgy. I wanted my time all to myself and not to have to share it with anyone else.”

  “And then you crash . . .”

  “Yes, down, down, down.”

  “Do you remember when I came to see you in the hospital once?”

  Her mom shrugged. “Umm, I’m not sure. Which time?”

  Ruby leaned in towards her mother. “You hugged and kissed me all over. And then suddenly you jumped up out of bed and ran down the hall, yelling and crying.” Ruby sat back again.

  “I don’t remember that at all.” Her mom hunched over her martini.

  “I thought I’d done something wrong. I didn’t recognize you anymore. Who was this person? Not my mom.”

  Ruby’s mom scraped her chair back and sat straight, as if collecting herself. “I’m so sorry you went through all that. And maybe somehow, when you and Jessie were older, we should have tried to talk to you about it some more. But it’s not like other illnesses. It’s invisible. There’s no cure. There’s so much stigma. And after all, just what is a ‘broken’ brain? It manifests itself in so many different ways. Your experiences are so different from mine.”

  “I told them in the hospital that my mother was bipolar, but they preferred to treat it as a one-off situation rather than permanently diagnose me.”

  Her mother’s fingers tapped out a little song on the table. “I’m not sure if that’s wise or not. I needed a diagnosis in order to get proper help.”

  “But this way I’m not labelled for life. I can get on with things. I know I’ll only be on meds for a limited time.”

  “Ruby, I hate to say this, but don’t fool yourself. You may well get sick again, you just don’t know. And then you may need medication again.”

  “Yes, but maybe only temporarily, just like this time. Mom, what seems to bring it on for you?”

  Her mother smiled at her. “Plain and simple—stress and lack of sleep. Maybe there are other factors, but those are the two biggies for me. The latest episode was when I was up a number of nights worrying about you. I had to increase my medication and lay low for a while. What sets you off?”

  “I’d have to say the same. Stress. Troubles building in and out of my relationship with Werner. Other stuff.” Ruby couldn’t look her mother in the face. She was not about to tell her any details about Dom and her abortion, although she guessed that Jessie might have alluded to it already.

  “How were you managing your so-called open relationship with Werner? I’ll admit it’s not my cup of tea. It must have been rather trying.” Both women wriggled a little in their seats and glanced out the window. The final clouds had blown by and it was as if threads of gold were suspended along the lines of dampness still in the air.

  “Perhaps more so for him than for me in some ways. For Werner it was all theoretical, a way of asserting his authority, but I needed to feel free and took advantage of the deal. He couldn’t handle it.”

  Ruby’s mother drained the last drops from her glass. The women stood up and embraced for a long time, then Ruby went back to her parents’ room and lay down on the sofa for a nap. Such frank talks were rare between them, and exhausting. She thought of earlier days.

  Claude Gauthier, Claude Léveillée, Félix Leclerc. Ruby’s mother was playing the music of various chansonniers from Quebec, their haunting and mournful music filling the quiet Sunday afternoon air after brunch at the Edwards’ house. Music was blending with food, food with music.

  “Mommy, put on something French.”

  Her mom slipped a record on the stereo and sat down on the sofa with Ruby tucked neatly into her body. Her mom always smelled so good. Today she smelled of baked apples. Although Louise Edwards was not the housewifely type, she had a few tricks up her sleeve and today it was big Spy apples baked with cinnamon, brown sugar, butter and nuts. As Ruby uncurled herself after the song to look up at her mom, she saw eyes that glistened brightly as they drank in the music.

  “Mommy, are you okay?” Ruby asked breathily. For she too was transported by the music, the rich voices, even though she barely understood the words.

  Louise hugged her daughter. “It’s just so beautiful,” she murmured as she collected herself. They listened to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and hugged each other knowingly as the songs reached their denouement.

  “Mommy, is he leaving her?”

  “Yes, he’s going to war.”

  Ruby picked out bits and pieces of the lyrics.

  “Mommy, Mommy. He’s going to wait for her. But she can’t wait for him.”

  “No, sweetie, he says that he will think only of her and that he knows that she will wait for him.”

  “Mon amour, je t’aime. Je t’aimerai jusqu’à la fin de ma vie.”

  Ruby smiled at the memory. She would always remember those dreamlike afternoons under the spell of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

  Ruby told her mother she was going for a walk but instead went back to the restaurant and took a seat near the bar. She ordered a drink and took a pen and some paper out of her handbag, intending to record some of her thoughts while they were still clear. As she began scribbling notes to herself, a shadow loomed over her page. She looked up to see the waiter who had served her earlier. He handed Ruby her drink and sat down beside her. Broken English and German spilled forth. His name was Hans. They asked each other the usual questions. She felt the pressure of his hand on hers.

  “Fräulein, we go get drink at another bar?” The restaurant was closing.

  She nodded and emptied her glass, unable, as usual, to resist distraction. Unable to resist any man’s interest in her. Crossing the street, Ruby turned to look up tentatively at the hotel windows behind her. Inside the new bar, the air was murky with smoke. The customers, mainly men, stared at them as they passed by. An hour later, back at the hotel, they rode the elevator to the top floor and stepped out, arm in arm. Hans unlocked the door to the restaurant and fumbled with a boom box behind the bar. Ruby’s body jerked as Europop bounced off the walls and lights flooded the room, hurling throbbing streaks of red, blue and green around her head. Hans grabbed her hand and pulled her across the floor. She moved reluctantly at first, pushing the sounds away. Slowly she let go. They began circling each other. Ruby was losing herself to the music, but kept breaking the grip of his arms trying to direct her on the floor. The circles grew tighter and tighter, her body feeling freer, more fluid, more giving.

  Ruby was downstairs in full regalia, standing in front of a crowd of her parents’ friends. “Okay, Ruby, sing it!” yelled her dad, and the room became quiet.

  With eyes closed, she listened to Louis blow his magic horn. Sweet, sweet horn. She stepped into the middle of the living room, puckered her mouth and started to growl, “Well, hello, Dolly . . .”

  The grown-ups broke out into hoots and howls. When she finished singing, she took a deep bow and then ran over and dove into her father’s lap. She buried her flushed cheeks into his chest. The world spun around her as she heard the people clapping. Her father hugged her with his big arms and planted a slobbery kiss on her forehead. “You were wonderful, honeybunch. You sounded just like Satchmo.”

  A door slammed. A tall, imposing shadow stormed over to where Ruby lay entangled with her lover.

  “Get up off that floor, girl!”

  A large brown hand grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. Hans melted swiftly into oblivion. Curse that old bear paw, she thought to herself, not yet daring to look into her father’s eyes. She heard him shout: “Godda
mmit, there you go again!”

  He pulled her into the elevator, and Ruby stared numbly at the numbers on the panel.

  Back in the room, she found her mother in a distraught state. Ruby pressed her cheek into her mother’s lily-white face and they hugged each other fiercely. “I tried to stop him,” she whispered. “He couldn’t reach you by phone at home, so went to look around the hotel for you in case you were still here.”

  Then she turned to her husband and said, “How dare you stalk your daughter like that. Surely it would have come to no harm. She’s twenty-four years old. She has a right to have a life. What on earth were you thinking?”

  Ruby decided it was time to go home. She said goodbye to her mom and ignored her father, who was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, his eyes on the floor. Ruby didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But already she envisioned sharing this story with her sister and enjoying the bittersweet mirth it would cause. She knew she would laugh, and then nod knowingly. Only Dad could pull off such a thing.

  The next few days saw Ruby escorting her parents to various tourist attractions around town. Their mood was tense, and Ruby didn’t speak much with her dad. On the weekend they went to the zoo and then wandered through the Tiergarten till they came upon the flea market, where Ruby wanted to look around. As the people crowded around the stalls, Ruby noticed a familiar figure a few steps ahead. She tried to turn around and shuffle her parents along another lane, but it was too late.

  “Ruby, stop. Come here.” Werner approached Ruby and her parents. “I’m glad to see you again. But I must tell you your daughter has been awful to me. She refuses to even speak with me.”

  “Werner, you should know by now that Ruby has a mind of her own,” said her mom. “There’s no point trying to force her to do anything.”

  “Maybe we could go for coffee somewhere and talk a little more,” said Werner.

  Ruby turned to him to speak but her father beat her to it. “Young man, we only have a few days to spend here and I’d rather spend them with my daughter. Thank you for all you’ve done for her in the past. It was nice seeing you, but we have to go.”

  “Thanks, Dad. I really appreciated that,” said Ruby.

  But as the Edwards clan walked back towards downtown, Ruby realized that maybe her parents weren’t so wrong after all. Ruby had come to Berlin to find herself, but instead she had lost herself in the process.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Café Babanussa

  AFTER DOM’S DEATH, MEAN’S REPUTATION AS A haven for hard-drug users got it closed down quickly. Emma, Jack, Smithie and the gang needed a new place to go to. Tucked away in a far-flung corner of Moabit, yet still within walking distance of their flats, was Café Babanussa. The best falafel in town, and plenty of joints and parties that lasted till dawn. Emma persuaded Ruby to come along one Thursday night. “You’ll meet the best guys in town here,” she had gushed, brushing wisps of hair back from her face. “Just your type.”

  They met on the subway platform at Turmstrasse. Emma’s long legs covered in fishnet stockings thrust out from under a miniskirt that hugged her ass, visible under the worn leather jacket. The jacket hung open, revealing a lacy corset and a gap of soft pink-white flesh between it and her skirt.

  Ruby looked down at her loose-flowing pantaloons upon which black Egyptian hieroglyphics were scattered over shiny, lemon-yellow cloth. She had topped them with a black silk blouse she’d found at the flea market a few weeks earlier. The silk had lost its sheen, but Ruby was attracted to the elegance of the high collar and the small, round buttons of carved ebony that ran up the front of the blouse. It seemed to wink out at her from a heap of old clothes, and she wondered who it had belonged to.

  She had spent hours getting ready, mixing and matching practically every piece of clothing she owned. She had toyed with putting on something daring, knowing the way Emma dressed, but letting her breasts hang freely underneath the silk blouse was as risqué as she would get. Still, “You’re looking bloody all right, aren’t ya now!” her friend had said, and this cheered her up.

  Chattering aimlessly, they strolled past shops and sports bars, past snack stands that boasted bratwurst with curry ketchup, with schnapps or beer to chase down the inevitable grease, and headed into the café. A young guy was working the bar. Thin, dark dreadlocks fell around his face, and a red-and-white kaffiyeh draped his shoulders. As he argued with some men at the bar, his voice fought to compete with Dissidenten’s “Sahara Elektrik” blasting from the stereo behind the bar. The men seemed impatient with him as they stood shaking their heads.

  “Ciao, bella,” he had said to Ruby when she came in that first night. He had one of the sexiest smiles she’d ever seen. “Emma, Emma, Emma!” he called out as they drifted by. “Who’s your friend?”

  Ruby looked him up and down. “My name’s Ruby. And you?”

  “Hey, I’m the barman,” he said.

  “Yeah, I kinda guessed that.”

  He grinned. “My name’s Issam. What are you drinking?”

  Ruby and Emma looked at each other.

  “You got enough money?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  “Weizenbier,” they said in chorus.

  Issam turned to get the bottles. Ruby and Emma wandered over to the back room and sat down at a small, round table. Issam brought over two tall, narrow glasses with a thick, frothy head on them and plunked them down on the table. Then he sat down with them.

  “Na, Emma, wie geht’s dir? How’ve you been?”

  “Okay. Yourself?”

  “Pretty busy. Ali should be here soon, then I’ll get a break.”

  “Ali owns the place,” Emma informed Ruby.

  “You’ll meet him soon. He always comes around to talk to everybody.”

  “Where are you from, anyway?” Issam asked Ruby.

  “Canada,” she replied matter-of-factly.

  Issam eyeballed her and said, “Echt? Really? How come you speak such good German?”

  “You think Canadians only speak English?”

  “Well, yeah. English and French, I guess.”

  “Well, you’re wrong.” Ruby looked at his wide-open eyes and relented. “I’ve been here for two years now, and I lived with a German guy for a while.”

  “That’ll do it. Well, if you stick around long enough, you can catch some late-night fun here.”

  Ruby looked at Emma, her eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah,” Emma said. “Sometimes they lock the doors around two or three, bring out the joints, and everybody who’s left in the place gets pretty tight.”

  Ruby didn’t smoke much dope but was thinking that a puff might not be so bad. Blow those thoughts of Werner to kingdom come.

  Issam stood up and excused himself. A couple of customers had been trying to catch his attention. “Gotta get back to the bar. See ya.”

  Ruby’s gaze followed his lithe form as he left the room, and then she looked at Emma. “He seems nice enough.”

  Emma laughed and said, “Watch out for Issam!”

  “Oh, piss off, would ya!” Ruby snapped. “I’m supposed to be enjoying myself, aren’t I?”

  Within a short time, the café had filled up. Ruby glanced around and noted that there were a lot of Africans milling around. “Do you know any of these people?” she asked Emma.

  “A couple. A lot of the guys are from Ghana, Sudan and Ethiopia. Plus the whole Turkish and Arabic crowd. And the Germans, of course. Then there’s us lot of strays from everywhere else. Makes for a good mix.”

  “I’ll say,” agreed Ruby.

  Two German guys had just finished a raucous rendition of part of Brecht’s Threepenny Opera at the piano, and people were still clapping their hands and laughing when the sounds of Om Kalthoum came over the speakers in the front. The voice of Egypt’s famous songstress flooded the room, and for a moment the café seemed almost quiet. Ruby wiggled her shoulders and grinned mischievously at Emma and Lina, who had just joined them at their table. Ruby stood up
and beckoned to them, saying, “Hey, it’s time to practise those new moves.”

  Ruby was thoroughly pissed and stoned. Emma shook her head, but Lina got up to follow Ruby to the front room. The two of them had been taking belly-dancing lessons on Friday afternoons for a month or two. Ali and Issam were busy handing plates of falafel over the counter, doling out cups of coffee and selling booze.

  Ruby stood still for a moment, eyes closed, waiting to tune in to the rhythms at the right moment. Slowly she began to swivel her hips, marking wide figure-eights in the air around her. As she worked her body into the momentum of the music, she added a little shimmy, shaking her ass quickly while her hips still swirled in slow circles. She kept her eyes closed; if she opened them too soon, she felt she might get shaken by the burning gazes of the men watching her and lose control. She heard Issam whooping from behind the counter and opened her eyes; she saw Lina sensuously twisting her svelte arms and wrists in different directions, drawing hands up over her face and out, as if to unveil it.

  Issam whipped his kaffiyeh over the counter to Ruby, who caught it and pulled it tightly between her two hands. She slipped her right foot in front of her left, heel up off the ground, leaned backwards and began shimmying her whole body very quickly from side to side. Issam had now jumped from behind the counter to join the two women, gyrating up to both of them in turn while the others in the room clapped them on. When the song was over, the three of them fell into each other’s arms, laughing and panting.

  Two hours later Ruby and Issam stumbled out into the grey light of the early autumn morning, leaving only Ali and a few desperate hangers-on to close up the place. Ruby wanted to trace with her fingers the capacious smile that brightened Issam’s face. She was taken by his funky, artsy look and she loved the air of light that he had about him. She was aching to be with a black man again and wondered what would develop out of this encounter.

  They headed towards the all-night bus stop down the road and hopped onto a bus packed with late-night partiers. At each stop, more people pushed their way onto the steps leading up to the second deck when there was no more sitting or standing space below. The bus driver drove carelessly, seeming as drunk as the passengers. At each turn, Ruby and Issam careened into each other with the swaying of the bus.