Deadfall in Berlin

by Robert Alexander

  Mother sobbed, “Opa Wilhelm threw you on the first train, then he dumped me here at this Pension. He barely spoke to me again!” With venomous words, she hissed, “I've never left this God-damned place or what remains of it. All these years I've never left because of you!”

  I understood and wanted to die right there outside the door. Wasn't my mother really saying she'd never left because of me? Wasn't she really saying she hated me, that it was my fault she'd ended up at this dump instead of on the stage or the screen as the next Marlene? Of course she was because there'd never been a romance with a Wehrmacht captain. That man who was killed by a pothole in Poland was just someone my mother had married in desperation.

  And she was telling Joe all this because he was my father.

  A huge thing came flying at me. It was Dieter, catapulting himself at me on his crutches. I cowered, bent over, tried to shield myself from the expected blow to the head. Instead, he flew right past, blasted open the closed door.

  “Get him out of here!” he said, aiming a crutch at Joe. “There are two Gestapo men up on the street, and they're on their way down here. They've been asking about an American pilot—I told you you were crazy to keep him here!”

  “Oh, Scheissdreck!” Shit, said Mother. “I didn't mention this to anyone, did you?”

  He stared at Joe, simply saying, “Nee.”

  The next instant the little room exploded with confusion as Mother swigged away the last of her brandy. Dieter twirled around and hurled himself out, then I hurried in. Rushed in and just stood there, staring at Joe, who was now sitting on the edge of the cot. And suddenly I was in his arms. Mister Joe, my American relative, held me and rocked me and squeezed me and kissed the top of my head. So I was right. I could feel it in his tight arms that seemed to want to squeeze me into him. And I hugged back, clung to this man as if I were resurrecting an abandoned wish.

  Claws sunk into my shoulder, pulled me back, ripped me out of Joe's embrace.

  “Stop it!” ordered my mother. “Joe, you've got to get out of here right now! Willi, take him through the tunnel, show him where to wait.” She straightened her dress. “I'll go out and stall them.”

  I didn't care that the Gestapo was stalking us. I wanted to ask her. I needed to know. But when I looked up into her eyes, her searing glare cauterized my question, sealed it in place. Never, but never was this subject to surface.

  She lifted her finger at Joe, dropping her words into a threat. “Not a word of this!”

  She stormed out just as Erich, who was as equally well trained as I, scurried in, dragging his bad leg. Wordless, he closed the door behind him, then grabbed the coffee cup out of Joe's hands and lunged for the bed. He took the plate, smeared his lips with the last of the potatoes and goose drippings, next pulled the blanket over him. A smile on his mouth, he looked up. This, his little face said, is a child's room. The child is a little sick. This room is not to be disturbed by anyone, not even the Gestapo.

  Erich looked at me, and frowned. “Go, Willi!”

  I jumped. Hurrying to the rear of the room, I remembered that wishes and hopes didn't exist in Berlin. I put my shoulder against a heavy wooden dresser, but it barely budged. I looked at Joe. He's just someone, I thought, who fell from the moon.

  “Help me, Mister!” I said to Joe.

  The chest was supposed to be hard to move because it covered a window of opportunity: a hole. We nudged the dresser back, then dropped behind it and crawled through the opening, Joe disappearing first into the black circle. As I followed, I called out to my little brother.

  “Don't be afraid!”

  “I won't you grosser, grosser Affe!”

  Then Joe and I grabbed two handles that Dieter had bolted onto the back of the chest. Yanking and pulling, we dragged it back over the opening. Only a bit of light seeped through the cracks.

  Joe's ghostly shape said, “Willi—”

  “Sh!”

  I jabbed a fat candle into his hands, then scratched a match to life, sparked the air, lit his wick. Like a big old lost priest, Joe came to life before me. Me, the littlest boss, brought my finger to my lips. We have to be very quiet, I gestured. And as much as I wanted to reach out and embrace him, I didn't, not out of fear of the truth, but fear of being wrong. I wanted Joe to be my father. I wanted that very, very much.

  Clothes. Furs. Bottles. The spoils of early victories were stashed all around us. Against one crude wall were stacked a dozen or so oil paintings. Against another two crates of potatoes. And then three cases of red wine. Two of brandy. Four of schnapps. An entire crate of eau de cologne, enough to scent the entire Schöneberg district, enough to fuel our spirit stove for months. And crystal and china and marmalade and coffee beans. Cigarettes, too, of course. Cartons and cartons of Lucky Strikes and Camels.

  “Shit,” laughed Joe in a whisper, “this is the A&P of Berlin.”

  That was right. The black market's supermarket. No ersatz anything here. Using the booze that she'd stockpiled, Mother had been trading and dealing for years, hamstering all the time. The Queen Hamster, and I her dutiful knight who traveled far and wide to carry out her wishes.

  I took a candle, lit it, then started out, Joe following close behind. We passed through another chamber, this one smaller and filled with several valises stuffed with furs and silver, then down a passage. I knew just where to turn, where to head. When to duck.

  “Ow!” cried Joe, clutching his forehead.

  “Oh,” I said, trying not to laugh, “I forgot to tell you to bend over.”

  He looked at me, took advantage of the moment to offer, “Willi, I'm… I'm very happy that we've met.”

  I was speechless.

  “No you aren't.”

  “Me, too.”

  My ears pricked up, focused on the passage behind us. I'd heard voices, but no one was coming. No one had found the hole. We were safe. Right now.

  “Come on,” I whispered, a big grin on my face because I couldn't contain my happiness.

  I traipsed along, and in a faint voice sang, “No butter with our eats, Our pants have no seats, Not even paper in the loo, Yet Führer—we follow you!”

  Joe was amused, amazed, impressed. He was all that I know because I was again his little saviour, leading him to safety. Doing things he could not. That made me proud of myself, made me certain that he liked me. Yes, I thought. He'd hugged me so tightly.

  Bearing our candles, we emerged into a big tunnel, a sewer, filled with a rich, thick smell that made nausea tickle the back of my throat. Wetness seeped through my leather shoes. I looked down, held the candle low. I saw not water—not even murky brown water—but something rich and dark and red. My stomach turned. Joe and I were standing nearly ankle deep in blood. Instantly I pictured a building collapsing on a cellar full of folk and pressing the juice of life out of them. Human cider, I thought, as the two of us bolted across the little stream and rushed to the far wall. I gasped for breath, heard Joe gag, cough, nearly vomit.

  I reached up and over, grabbed him by the arm, smelled biley coffee and greasy potatoes on his breath. Pulling him along, I directed Joe along a dry strip until we came to a ladder that led up and up. At the top I saw a gray patch of light. I dropped my candle to the ground, clambered hand over fist, bloody shoe over bloody shoe, up toward fresh air. Behind me, Joe began to climb, though slower, more weakly. Up above a building had caved in, and soon the ladder ended and we were stumbling over brick and rock and brick, through another hole, into a burned-out cellar, past a charred body and up the remnants of a staircase. I twisted my feet in the blasted, grimy dirt and watched as the dust caked onto my red-wet shoes.

  Once I found my bearings, I darted through the ruins, went right up to a wall. I plastered my eye to a crack. We were across the street and down a ways. But there they were, standing in front of our ruined Pension. Two men. No, three, the third in a long leather coat with his back to us.

  In a whisper, I said, “Look, that's them!”

  Joe came
up behind me, peered through another crack. “Who?”

  “The Gestapo. I bet you it was those two big guys who went down to the bar. They've come poking around before.” I added, “A lady who used to come down to our bar all the time disappeared last week. She got drunk and was complaining about the war and saying how we were going to lose. Everyone thinks these two hauled her away.”

  The two tall guys. One with brown hair and a moustache, the other bald and brutally strong. Both in dark jackets. Both in dark wool pants. So the goons had searched the bar. They had come on a tip, again found nothing but some Berliners drinking their way through the war's last gasp. And one tin plate of fried potatoes. A plate too big for the little boy who held it.

  Then the third man, the obvious boss, turned around, exposing a face that was long and narrow with a tapered nose and slitty eyes and pinkish skin. And tall leather boots that matched the sheen of his leather coat. I'd seen him in our bar, hated the way his eyes never left my mother.

  “Jesus Christ,” muttered Joe in English.

  I glanced at Joe, then the man out there. “You know him?”

  “I… I…” Joe was silent for too long. “No. Nothing. He…he just looks like someone I met before the war.”

  Adults and their secrets, I thought, as this third man started barking orders, a fusillade of syllables pounding out of his mouth like flak: ack-ack, ack-ack. The two tall ones stood stern, determined. The muscular one nodded, ran his hand over his smooth scalp, and then he and the other tall guy took off, running down the street. The eely one, their boss, lit a cigarette and sucked a deep drag. A man of big power, I knew, and hated him.

  I nudged Joe, the tip of my elbow poking him in the hip. I gave him the all-clear smile, and we plowed onward through a building, a hole, a shattered skeleton of twisted steel. We were like worms crawling through a skeleton, in and out and up and around and through a mass of mayhem that was randomly rearranged by every bombing. I knew the way, of course. After every raid I went out to see what new pile, tunnel, crater had been created. This was my playground, with colorized photos of Uncle Otto and Aunt Frieda still hanging on that remnant of a wall over there, and that twisted bed up ahead. I was a great explorer, and this was my realm.

  We passed into an alley, and I found myself in a warm spotlight of sunshine. Stopping, I looked up. Brilliant blue winter sky. Chilled and clear like Mother's schnapps. No clouds. Führer weather again. And as I admired the cloudless heavens, I wondered what the night would bring. A clear midnight-blue sky adorned by a full white moon? The thought of it made me shiver. But why? Why was this vision again soaking my mind, leaving a bad taste, filling me with dread?

  As we hurried along, Joe grabbed me by the sleeve, and I looked up and into the face of the man I was sure had created me. Is this indeed, I wondered, what I will look like?

  He said, “Willi, you have to leave Berlin.”

  “What?”

  “There's going to be a major raid. The worst of any.”

  He proceeded to tell me that on the night of the next full moon there would be an air attack that would make Hamburg and Cologne look like a carnival. A joint British-American raid to end all raids and maybe even the war. All this he'd learned before he'd left his base in England.

  “When you go back you have to tell your mother to start packing.”

  I shrugged, glanced away. “We're going to lose the war, aren't we?”

  “Yes,” he said with the utmost certainty.

  “But what about the secret weapon? There's supposed to be a secret weapon that'll turn back the Red Army and—”

  “Willi, Cologne has almost fallen and the Americans are preparing for a breakthrough. Dear Lord, the Russians are about to cross the Oder—the frontal attack on Berlin could begin any day now. They're on their way. There's nothing that's going to stop them. Nothing. And they'll destroy what's left of Berlin as they take it.” With a frown he pleaded, “Willi, you and your mother and brother have to leave. Right away. Berlin is about to be flattened. You have to leave, go to the west. Go to a village that'll be taken by the Americans.”

  “I've told Mama that lots of times,” I said, quite proud of myself. “I don't know why she won't go—she's so afraid of the Bolsheviks.”

  I'd asked and begged, even invoked images of big red Ivans stomping all over her. But nothing worked. Mother was determined to stay in Berlin.

  “Yes, you'd warned her.”

  I shrugged, started on. “Come on, we're almost there.”

  But I should do more, I thought as I walked. Perhaps I should kidnap Erich and the two of us should escape.

  “You can only do so much, Willi. A boy can't do it all.”

  Maybe Joe could help. He was right. A smothering gag of death was about to be tossed over our little bunker bar. And after that the battle for Berlin would begin, which even I knew would be the bloodiest battle yet. So maybe the two of us could convince Mother to leave. If there really was a godly order to the world, then perhaps that's why Joe had been shot down over Berlin. His mission: to rescue Mother and Erich and me, his bastard son.

  My mind was tripping over itself, trying to formulate our westward journey, when I stopped in my tracks. Up there on that wall was a tiny ledge. On that ledge clung an upright piano. We'd nearly reached our destination because this shell of a place was the remains of Opa Wilhelm's apartment house. I looked down into the mound of bricks and boards beneath my feet. Klaus and Konrad were right down there.

  Suddenly I froze, nearly paralyzed. Something terrible was about to take place. In a matter of moments there would be gruesome death.

  “Don't worry, Willi. It's not the night of the full moon yet and your mother is not here. You'll survive whatever is about to happen.”

  Even though there was a terrible sense lurking about this place, I forced myself on. I led Joe around and through some ruins just behind the building, on toward another. We trudged around a corner of rubble, and finally reached the remains of a collapsed three-story building that had belonged to a friend of my mother's. A man who'd owned a clothing store and who'd been killed at sea several years earlier. It was in the obscure and hidden cellar of this building that Mother kept a rucksack of supplies. Our secret place, known only to Dieter, Mother, Erich and me. Should we be forced to flee either the Gestapo or the bombs, this is where we were to rendezvous.

  Reaching the entrance, I rolled back a sheet of metal, pushed it aside as if I were spinning through the revolving door at the Romanische Cafe. I took a step in, entered this dark little hole, and immediately smelled something. Sensed something. Burning tobacco. The real, genuine stuff. Pure not coarse. My eyes searched, could see no glow of ash. I tensed, froze. Joe came in right after me.

  “Joe,” I said, “we're not alone.”

  “What?”

  The darkness laughed. It chuckled with deviousness, first low and then high. Something scratched, once, twice, and then a match sparked and lit a lamp. First I noticed a stick of tobacco, squished on the floor, its scent of death still hanging in the air. Then I raised my head only to see two large men, one with a moustache and the other quite strong, standing before Joe and me. And aiming terribly black pistols directly at us.

  Joe settled his hand on my collar, pulled me closer. These two goons had come straight here from the bar. They'd been waiting, smoking away their time.

  “Your papers!” demanded the moustached one.

  Chapter 11

  My mind clinked along, struggled to find an escape. Joe and I stood there, the pistols aimed at us, and each second that ticked by seemed like an hour.

  Finally, I blurted: “My father and I don't have any papers.”

  I regretted it as soon as I said it of course. The father part. My veins burned with embarrassment. But how else was I supposed to make them think that Joe was German?

  I looked up at Joe, whose entire being was fixed on me in shock. This was as close as we would ever come to speaking about our connection, and it had taken
the threat of guns to push us this close. If only we could have shoved those Gestapo jerks out of there just so we could talk father-to-son.

  Trying to dig my way out, my mouth began flapping full speed: “We were bombed out last night. This… this land mine came down and blew everything apart. A really big, huge one. And then there was a fire in the cellar and we just barely made it out.” I choked. “Papa's… Papa's uniform was all burned and everything. He's in the Luftwaffe, you see, and his uniform was in pieces. So I found him these coat and pants, and now we have to get bombed-out certificates and he has to return to Templehof.”

  “You're pretty smart, aren't you? You can really think and act quickly. It takes a lot of guts to stand up to those guts, doesn't it?”

  “Ja, ja, ja” I muttered, taking sudden pride in my resourcefulness, “our house was totally demolished. Someone gave me these clothes.”

  Staring at me as if those guys didn't even exist, as if time would forever be suspended, Joe said, “Thank God my little boy is alive.”

  The Gestapo men grinned. A clever response. The response of a Steppke, a street urchin, their amused expressions said, and a spy, who spoke German well enough and who looked both blond and blue. But not clever enough. After all, if Joe was German, then what was he, a perfectly healthy forty-year-old man, doing wandering around without an insignia, badge, or even a gun? Bombs or no bombs, they said, Joe should have something that identified his military association. Totaler Krieg, Total War, Goebbels had decried already two years ago—total mobilization, total effort to save the Vaterland!

  They descended upon Joe and me, pushing us with the nozzles of their guns, prodding us along like cattle. Since they didn't shoot Joe on the spot, it was quite apparent they intended to drag us down to Gestapo headquarters at Prinz Albrechstrasse where rubber hoses, little knives, whips, and electrical wires awaited. I'd heard all about that in bits and whispers in and around stories about what was happening to the Juden.

  A cold metal barrel jabbed into my ribs. “Auch!” I blurted.

  “Hands up, you little piece of shit!” shouted the bald, muscular one. “Out!”