Deadfall in Berlin

by Robert Alexander

  Her schnapps eyes snapped open. “What?”

  “They were there—with guns! And they fired at us and they tried to kill us!”

  She trembled, paled with fear. Her body tried to fight off the truth. But couldn't. I stared up at her and realized what it meant. She knew. A part of her knew.

  As meanly as I could, I accused her, saying, “It was you who turned Joe in, wasn't it?”

  Drunken, appleish gasp. Cloud of disgusting perfume. Hand pulled back ready to bat my face. A swing… And I caught my mother's wrist and squeezed. I wasn't so young, so little. Not any more. And I could, I sensed, just snap that bone, break it like a dried branch.

  “Himmelkreuzdonnerwetter!” she cursed, twisting free. “You little bastard, I didn't tell anyone!”

  But I saw a flicker in her eyes. There was more. Of course there was. I wanted to strike her, to knock her down. To hit her for every man she'd caressed under the table, for every stranger she'd met under the sheets.

  “Then how did they know?”

  Switching course, she screamed, “Mein Gott, you've no idea what I've been through!”

  Of course I did. I did because she'd pulled me through the deepest of the muck. That's why I hated her so. Oh, yes. I'd seen it all, often better than she because she always had brandy or schnapps to blind her while I had nothing.

  I yelled, “Joe says we should leave Berlin as soon as possible. I think so, too.”

  “What?” she gasped. “You're just a child, a boy, you don't know what's best. I'm your mother and you'll do as I say!”

  “But Joe says—”

  “You think you know everything? Do you remember two years ago when they took Erich from us and put him in that home for the handicapped? Then they started to evacuate it, planned to take all the crippled children up to some castle in the mountains. Nice and healthy. And do you know what goes on up there? Well, do you?”

  My eyes fell to the ground. “Nee.”

  “Of course you don't. But I did. The papers have been filled for years with excessive obituaries. Of course Erich wouldn't have come back.” She stared at me, eyes viperish. “So I rescued him. He has a bad leg, that's all. I won't tell you how, but I paid dearly for him. And he's here and hasn't been out of my sight since.”

  “Mama…”

  Her voice rising, screeching, she added, “And do you know they wanted to take you last year?”

  “What?”

  “That's right, they wanted to take you to dig trenches in Alsace. But even though you're big for your age, you're just a child. A child. I couldn't let you go, and besides I needed your help here with Erich and everything. And so I paid for you too, Willi.”

  “What does this tell you?”

  Perhaps I didn't know everything. Perhaps I was just a boy. I wanted to cry, to melt back into my childhood. And I felt guilty for never having realized that my mother had done something for me, for never having believed that she loved me.

  “I pay—over and over and over again—to keep that bar of ours,” she screeched on. “It should have been closed as superfluous to the war effort, but because of my so-called payments, it's viewed not as a bar, but a safe bunker for Berliners. And so it stays open and so we eat.” She shook her head in disgust. “You naive little boy. We can't possibly leave. I have connections here, contacts. Do you understand? Do you? I can get anything we need, anything we want. I know how to keep us alive here in Berlin!”

  Her face was streaked with black tears. She was right. I knew nothing. Understood nothing. I reached out, begged for her arms around me again.

  “Mama…”

  “Nee!”

  Repulsed, she jerked away from me and buried her face in her hands and sobbed and sobbed. Disgusted with myself, I stood there, a boy-island stranded off the coast of his mother. My fingers crept over my own face and hid it, blackening the very sight of me.

  Leather slid over bits of rock. I looked through my fingers. Joe. He was standing in what had been the doorway to the Kneipe. I was on my feet, running at him, hurling myself into his strong embrace. He wrapped a single arm around me, only one arm because Mother rushed to him, too, and he held her against him and against me. Then I felt fingers stroking my head, combing my hair, and I was happy. I clung to her hand as it curled around my neck, and I hung on to Joe. Never had I felt so secure.

  “Remember this, Willi. Remember how warm and loving this feels, for this family portrait will be your anchor forever and ever.”

  I cried, wishing only that Joe and Mother could lift us all out of Berlin, could take us far away. Then something broke it all.

  “Hey!” cried a small voice.

  Behind us, leaning on his little crutch, stood Erich, having snuck out of the bar. He was never supposed to leave without Mother or me, but obviously he'd grown tired of waiting.

  “What about the zoo, Mutti? You promised!”

  She hurried to him, grabbed him and buttoned up his little wool coat.

  “Of course, my Mäuschen!” My little mouse, she said, bundling him.

  “Willi, too?” he asked.

  I nodded and smiled, went over, and said, “I'm sorry, Mama.”

  Without looking at me, she quite soberly said, “War makes us all crazy.”

  Joe said, “Eva, did Willi tell you? There were two guys waiting for us.”

  She nodded. “It's not good. None of it.”

  What was she still holding back? There was something. I knew it. Was it connected to the black market and her source of liquor? Perhaps to the man with all those American dollars?

  “Mama,” I ventured, “Joe needs papers. If they stop him and he doesn't have anything they'll shoot him as a deserter.”

  Mother nodded and agreed. “Come on,” she said, her voice dry. “Willi's right, Joe. You can't go wandering around without identification. We have to get you at least a ration card. I promised Erich the zoo—he hasn't been out in days—but this we'll do first.”

  She grasped Erich by one hand, and we all started out into the street. And there I stopped. High in the sky, against the day's chilly blue sky, hung a pale white moon. I shaded my eyes against the sunlight, stared up at the bizarre thing hanging there. Tonight it would be a big bomber's moon, but not quite the full one that Joe had talked about. Not yet. It still had a bit of a bite chomped out of it. In a day or two, though, Joe's raid would take place. Was that enough time to talk my mother out of Berlin? Would that ever be possible?

  Joe reached down and scooped up Erich and plopped him down on his shoulders. I rushed after them all, jumped up and tweeked Erich on the butt. He shrieked a laugh, swatted at me. I leapt up again, this time striking the metal hardness of his leather-covered brace.

  “Eva,” asked Joe, “where are we going?”

  “To get you papers, of course.”

  Mother said it as if it were as easy as picking up the evening paper. Then again, she could chip coffee beans from bricks, squeeze schnapps from bombs.

  “But—”

  “It's not too far. Up near the Tiergarten. We'll drop you off and then wait for you at the zoo.”

  “Drop me off?” said Joe, unable to hide his puzzlement. “Where?”

  “At Loremarie's,” I chimed.

  Erich whispered, “She's a countess and she has a special secret.”

  Chapter 13

  She was a real Brünnhilde. Big, plump, pointed breasts that had always amazed me. Beautiful large face with high cheek bones that dominated, overshadowed green eyes—eyes that seemed buried with distrust. Complexion: Alpine rosy. Lots of dairy. White teeth. Good white teeth. Good skull, and the great facial proportions I'd been taught when I'd last attended school—small mouth, narrow nose. Motherly broad pelvis. A prime example of an Aryan Fräulein from toe to top and hip to hip. Just missing the dirndl.

  Whenever I saw her I thought of pure German blood, ancient blood, and the Kaiser and Wagner and Prussian estates. Sometimes I feared her. In fact, I was sure she would attack Joe, the enemy, an
d when Mother led us up to the remains of the once stately house not far from the Tiergarten—a house that had no windows, only holes; no stucco, only blast-beveled brick—when Mother, Erich-on-Joe's-back, and I crossed the shattered walk, then continued between two burned columns, and through a rectangular hole, into the shell, to the left, around where the upper three floors lay now compressed in the salon, and back to the small room. When Mother walked in and we found Loremarie eating a hard roll and pale ersatz eggs that had been cooked on a little burner until they'd curdled into rubbery bits, Mother blurted out:

  “Hallo, this is my amerikanischer cousin.”

  Well, that's when I nearly lost it. For a handful of seconds, I watched as Loremarie studied Joe, ran those deep greens of hers over him like an x-ray, and I thought: This is it. Over. Kaput. She's going to turn all of us in. No, first she's going to shoot him, then us.

  But then Erich wiggled down, dropped to the floor, and threw himself fearlessly at this real countess named Loremarie—actually Tante Lore to Erich and me for she was a Nenntante, an aunt of affection—and she burst out laughing and giggling. And that's when I was sure once and for all that the good side in her had won. When I saw her face light with life, her lips pucker with love for my little brother, I charged her, too, for obviously she had won the battle against evil many, many years ago. I threw myself at her, clutched her big waist, and she kissed Erich and me, poked at us mercilessly until we both cried out in a chorus of giggles.

  Then she turned to Joe and in perfect English said: “Where the hell you been all my life?” She sloughed off Erich and me, steamed right over to him, smooched him on the cheek and bellowed, “Welcome to beautiful Berlin.”

  “Danke, it's a pleasure to meet you,” the stunned Joe managed to stammer in German.

  She roared. She threw her plump hand to her mouth as great balls of laughter shot out like cannon balls. “A Berlin accent! A pure Berlin accent!”

  Joe looked at Mother for help. Is this lady, his eyes said, for real? Can I trust her?

  Mother nodded, proudly said, “His parents were Berliners, you know, and he grew up speaking German at home.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” Joe added.

  She quizzed: “Say d-a-s.”

  Joe said it the only way I knew how to pronounce it, nice and hard: “Dat.”

  “Say w-a-s!”

  “Wat.”

  “I-c-h!”

  “Ick.”

  She screamed a laugh. “Wunderbar—a Berlin accent! I can't believe it. There's something a little odd about it—a tinge foreign perhaps—but that's it! Thick and coarse. Amazing!”

  Smothering arms, hefty embrace. Erich and I watched as Loremarie nearly squeezed the air out of Joe. Obviously he'd passed the acid test.

  Mother settled into a chair. “He has no papers. Can you help us?”

  Silence. She studied him, bit her lower lip. Her hand on his chin, twist: right profile. Twist of the chin again: left profile. She was pensive. Joe was obviously worried. Finally, her smile.

  “Ja, ja ja.”

  “How soon?” asked Mother.

  “No problem. He won't have any trouble doing one for a German face like that.”

  No, I thought. Loremarie's special secret wouldn't have any trouble with Joe. I'd seen what he could do. Even I knew this would be a snap.

  I looked around. There was the little wooden table Loremarie had been seated at eating her ersatz eggs, a ratty couch with a blanket that doubled as a bed, a cracked mirror on a pale blue wall. A dresser. No, none of this furniture belonged in here. What belonged in this expansive room with its elegant molding and white burst of plaster in the middle of the high ceiling was a huge plane of wood. A dinner table. Yes, this had been the dining room of a fancy city home. Aristocrats from all across the continent, she'd told me any number of times, had dined here. Aristos from Germany, Russia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland.

  An instant of old Berlin shot through my head. Civilized, cultivated, orderly Berlin, the one that had been recounted to me like a beautiful fable. The artistic mecca of Europe where all were accepted, tolerated. I looked at the dusty floor, saw an oriental carpet and a little packed suitcase and a thermos flask. And now this is where Loremarie lived and was ever-ready for the next raid. Ja, ja, ja, as she would say, her little empire had been reduced to these few square meters.

  Mother plunked herself down at the rough wooden table and pulled out her sterling silver flask that was always filled with Hennessy cognac. I stared: Do you have to? Loremarie stared: Now?

  “Well, just don't stand there, Willi,” Mother barked. “Get us some glasses.”

  With a sit, sit, sit, Loremarie instead banished Erich and me to a wobbly settee, pulled a chair for Joe, then bustled over to a little wooden cabinet. Over her shoulder, she asked a double-loaded question.

  “No one else coming?”

  “What?” asked Mother.

  Bluntly: “No one followed you?”

  Mother's face flushed, fell. Followed? Us?

  From the sidelines, I blurted, “Nee” for my eyeballs had lingered behind us several times.

  Joe said, “I didn't see anyone either.”

  “Gut.”

  Loremarie put exactly four biscuits on a plate, handed the dish to me. All at once Erich was slathering over me like an eager puppy, hands poking, voice whining.

  “Don't wet your pants!” I ordered.

  He snatched two of the precious things, one in each hand, and immediately started stuffing his face. I rolled my eyes. He was dropping more crumbs on his trousers than he was cramming into his mouth. I was sure I'd never been such a slob.

  As I defended the last biscuit—my second one—from a brotherly raid, I ate my first slowly and adultlike, not enjoying it, I realized, nearly as much as I would have otherwise. Then again, they were weak, watery war biscuits. And as I chewed, I watched Loremarie take out a cracked glass, a china cup with little roses on it, and another china cup with little chips flaked from its rim. She handed the nicest one to Joe. Our guest, I thought. Our hero?

  “Sorry,” said Loremarie. “We used to have a lot of nice things.”

  She looked upward. Not to God. Not to the Heavens. To the triangles in the sky. Yes, she used to have a lot of nice things before the bombs fell. All this she said with her eyes, a little shrug.

  “Sorry about this place,” she also said. She started laughing and shaking like a big bowl of gelatin. “It used to have windows!”

  “So what? This city used to have fantastic cabarets and wonderful jazz.” Mother poured them cognac and proposed a toast: “To a speedy end!”

  Loremarie giggled, glanced through her holey house to make sure no one was peeping in, listening in, ready to shoot us all for defeatism. She then leaned forward with a Flüsterwitz, a whispered joke, which calloused Berliners had always excelled at. She even motioned at Erich and me, eager for us boys to hear as well.

  “You see,” she began, glancing at Joe, wanting his approval, “there were three good fairies right there at Hitler's birth. The first decreed that every German be intelligent, the second wished that every German be honest, and the third that every German should be a National Socialist. Then came along this bad fairy who said every German could possess only two of these three things. Hence we have intelligent Nazis who are not honest, honest Nazis who are not intelligent, and honest, intelligent Germans,” she blurted, banging her chest with a pointed finger, “who aren't Nazis!”

  The humor primed their throats for cognac and the cognac primed their laughter. Erich and I followed suit, chuckled with crumbs on our lips, laughed loudly to make sure they heard us, to make sure they understood we understood. Beneath us, the settee wiggled, and Erich crammed one of his biscuits into his mouth, then snatched my last one from the plate. I swatted him, weaseled it back, careful lest Mother should see us struggling. Someone, she would scream, is going to get hurt!

  “Eva, this is great cognac,” Joe said, a w
arm glow coming over his face. “Where did you get it?”

  “Oh, Evchen,” quipped Loremarie, “can get anything. Anything. She knows how to get by, this one. And thank God.”

  “What's their relationship like?”

  “I can't imagine a better friend,” said Loremarie, her appreciation so strong that she sounded sad. “I truly don't know how we'd have made it this far without her.”

  Coy as the cabaret singer she'd always wanted to be, Mother poured herself more and said, “I have my contacts.”

  And her little people, I thought, to do her errands. I was Mama's little delivery boy. Go ahead, Joe, I thought. Ask her. Push. Learn it all. I wanted him to have the full picture of this wartime woman.

  “What kind of contacts?” he asked naively.

  Loremarie blurted, “Every kind! Eva knows everyone in Berlin.”

  “Ja, Tante Lore's right!” I chirped.

  So many contacts that I couldn't keep track of them all. So many dealings that I was out and about every day.

  Mother stared at Loremarie, face stern, then turned to me. Silence, you little brat, her eyes burned. I smiled. Forget it.

  “Really?” said Joe, not at all surprised. “So what do you do with these contacts?”

  Tension pulsed the air. Shot through. The black market was part of our gene pool. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and Goddamnit, I'm going to make it thought this shit. Yes, good for Mother. She was—with my nimble help—keeping us alive. But Joe had to know more. I wanted that because I saw a halo of darkness hovering over Mother's head. And I wanted him to dust it aside. I wanted him to protect her.

  Chewing my biscuit, I casually cracked the stalemate. “First she was dealing with ration cards, then coffee and French perfume. But now it's cigarettes for drinks, isn't it, Mother?”

  “Willi!” she snapped.

  Erich, who was licking crumbs from his fingers, looked up and matter-of-factly said, “We sell beer for cigarettes.”

  “You boys be quiet! Both of you!” she ordered, then quickly took a gulp of cognac.

  “Really, Eva,” said Loremarie, “I think it's interesting for him.” She turned to Joe, and added, “You see, whatever's hard to obtain is the new currency here in Berlin.”