Berlin: A Novel

by Pierre Frei

  'I don't want to read the damn thing. I need a handsome edition for the desk in my new legal offices.'

  'Of course, as a good German and an upright National Comrade one likes to have the great work of our Fiihrer and Reich Chancellor always to hand.' Diana Gerold's mouth twisted in a mocking smile.

  He gave Jutta his card. 'For when the order arrives.' He was Dr Rainer Jordan, a lawyer. She could tell that he liked her. As I said, I'm new around here, and a bachelor. Would you think it too forward of me to ask you to drink a glass of wine with me after work?'

  'Not at all forward, Dr Jordan, I take it as a compliment. But I already have a date this evening.'

  'Well, anyway, I hope you have a good day.' He raised his hat.

  'Congratulations, an admirer,' said Frau Gerold from the back of the shop.

  And a very nice one too,' said Jutta happily. putting Sanders of the River back in its place. She thought of Jochen.

  On the dot of seven, when the shop had shut, she was up at the public clock. She could hear the hammering of the engine from a long way off. The little Hanomag, called the Loaf of Bread by the people of Berlin for its shape, turned the corner, hiccuped and stopped. Jochen's hair was untidy as usual, and his tie was crooked as usual too. 'Hello, bookworm,' he cried cheerfully.

  'Good evening, teacher, sir!'

  Isabel was sitting beside him. Isabel Severin, dark-blonde, grey eyes, tall, slim. She and Jochen were soon to take the state examination, Jochen as a future public-school teacher of German, English and history, while Isabel was going to teach French and geography at the Lyceum.

  Never a day without Isabel, thought Jutta crossly. 'Move up a bit.' She squeezed in. 'How was the uni today?'

  Jochen started up. 'My viva is going to be about the Merovingians. Isabel winkled that out of Professor Gabler's assistant.'

  'I showed him a bit of knee and he turned talkative.' Isabel had legs well worth seeing. 'Will you drive me home?' She sub-let a room in Lynarstrasse. Her mother had died when Isabel was born, her father had married again and gave her an adequate allowance. Apart from that he took no notice of her, and she had no other family, and this was why she had attached herself to Jochen and Jutta. Attached herself rather too closely for Jutta's liking.

  She was relieved when Isabel got out. Now she could look forward to the evening with Jochen in his unusual home in an old railway car.

  'I'll look in on you two later,' said Isabel, casting a damper on her anticipation. 'I'll bring the transcript of Gabler's lecture on the new national awareness of history. You should slip a little of it into your viva, Jochen. That'll flatter him.'

  'Can't we ever be on our own any more?' Jutta complained later.

  'Working with her matters to me. She gives good advice.'

  'Next thing we know she'll be sitting on the bed with us giving good advice.'

  'She sacrifices a lot of time for me, so don't be so touchy.'

  'Oh, take me to the S-Bahn, please. I'm going home. Have fun with Isabel,' she said sharply.

  The de luxe edition of Mein Kampf was delivered on Friday morning, along with several cookery books and the threatened fifty copies of Beumelburg. 'Put one of them in the window,' said Frau Gerold. 'You can hide it behind French Cuisine.' The telephone rang. 'Your fiance.' She handed the receiver to Jutta.

  'Hello, bookworm, how's the printed word today?'

  'You read it and you wonder at all the heroic garbage that gets published.'

  'That's the trend of modern times.' He sounded perfectly at ease.

  She had made up her mind not to bear a grudge. 'Will you collect me at seven this evening?'

  'That's why I was calling. The state library stays open late this evening.

  Isabel and I can look up a lot of material there. Then we're working right through Saturday and Sunday at my place. I'll pick you up as usual on Monday.'

  'Well, I do hope you have a really nice weekend.' She tried to sound superior, but succeeded only in conveying a miserable acknowledgement of her jealousy.

  'Isabel is fabulous at testing me on the right questions.' It was meant to be both an explanation and an apology.

  'Fabulous in other ways too?'

  'Don't talk nonsense. We keep going by dosing ourselves with Pervitin.'

  'They say that's a stimulant,' she said. It was a snide remark, but he had already hung up.

  'Get us a bag of cherries for lunchtime, would you?' her boss asked.

  'Right, then I can take Dr Jordan his order at the same time,' she said very casually, earning herself a long look from Diana.

  It was only a little way, out of the back of the shop, up the alley which gave delivery vans access to the shops, and into Wilskistrasse. A brass plate on Number 47 said: DR. JUR. RAINER JORDAN, ATTORNEY. The buzzer on the door let Jutta in. The legal offices were to the right on the ground floor, and Jordan opened the door himself. 'My secretaries are out at lunch. Do come into my office.'

  'I brought your order. The invoice is in with it.' Jutta put the parcel down on his desk. Dozens of legal works covered the wall behind it. She didn't take her eyes off him as he unwrapped the book. There was something about him that for safety's sake she ignored, because she knew just how humiliatingly fast she might fall for it. On the other hand, it was an alluring thought, and set off a tingling below her navel. Typewriters started clattering next door. A telephone rang, and she heard a woman's voice.

  Ah, the ladies are back.'

  'I won't keep you any longer, Dr Jordan. You're obviously extremely busy.'

  'You noticed?' He sounded pleased. 'Come and take a look.'

  The three doors in the outer office were labelled WAITING ROOM - SECRETARY'S OFFICE 1 --SECRETARY'S OFFICE 2. Jordan opened them one by one. Behind the opaque-glass door of the 'waiting room' was a kitchen. 'Secretary's Office I' was the bathroom, and 'Secretary's Office 2' was empty but for a gramophone which stood on the floor, playing a recording of the staccato sound of a typewriter, the ringing of a telephone bell and busy voices talking.

  'Was one of your ancestors by any chance called Potemkin?'

  Advertising is all part of the trade. If a client really does find his way to me then I'm a very busy lawyer. So far I've had only a plumber who wants me to sue for payment of his invoice. Otherwise I live like most beginners in my line, on meagre fees from providing legal aid.' His glance rested on her sky-blue pullover. 'Would I get the brush-off again if I invited you to a glass of wine this evening?'

  She thought of Jochen and Isabel. 'You would not.'

  'Seven o'clock at Brumm's?'

  'Ten past seven, if that's all right.'

  'On that note I shall take my well-deserved siesta.' He folded down the wall of books behind the desk, and not a single volume fell out - they were the spines of books glued to the partition. An unmade bed appeared.

  As soon as I'm a successful lawyer representing prominent people, as I fully intend to be, I shall have offices in the best location and a Kurfirstendamm apartment. May I pay for Mein Kampf next week? I'm a bit short of cash for the moment.'

  'I'm sure my boss won't object. Have a nice siesta.'

  She bought cherries from Frowein's fruit and vegetable shop, plump, red and yellow fruit grown in Werder, and ate them with Frau Gerold in the back room of the bookshop. 'He has a bed behind a partition with the spines of books glued to it, and a gramophone in another room instead of a typist,' she told her boss. 'Didn't you mention that you sometimes need a lawyer?'

  'Not at the moment, though.' The bookseller put an arm round Jutta's shoulders. 'You like him, don't you? Watch out, things might get complicated.'

  Brumm's was right opposite the U-Bahn station. In the bar on the left, the clerks and minor civil servants of the quarter drank beer and played skat. In the middle was the bakery and cake shop. On the right was the caferestaurant. The young lime trees in the front garden glowed gold in the evening sun.

  Rainer Jordan was there already. He pulled a chair out for her. 'How a
bout a Mosel? It would go well with fresh zander from the Havel. The plumber called in this afternoon - his customer knuckled under when he got my letter, and I've been paid my fee.'

  'Which is no reason for throwing money around.' In her mind, she totted up her ready cash. It would just about stretch. And in the last resort she could turn to her father. 'I'm going Dutch.'

  'You're very generous.'

  'Just practical.'

  Annie!' He waved to the waitress, a pretty blonde with blue eyes. 'We'll have the zander and a bottle of Mosel.'

  'Two zanders, one Mosel. At once, doctor.'

  'So you've made friends around here already?'

  'Only as a paying customer. But it's a fact that some men come just because of Annie. You know Kalkfurth Sausages? The owner's son sits over there for hours every Sunday, ordering endless portions of coffee and cake.' He grinned. 'The boy should try his luck with a few of the family products as a sign of his devotion. Waitresses like good hearty fare.'

  'Speaking from practical experience, doctor?' she teased him.

  'Modesty forbids me to say more. How definitely are you going steady?'

  'Why are you interested?'

  'Because I like you a lot.' He skilfully dissected his fish.

  It was beginning to get dark. The gas lamps along the street flared on. A Line-T bus puffed diesel vapour out from the nearby bus stop. Some of the passengers got out to hurry home or change to the U-Bahn. 'What about you, Dr Jordan?'

  'Bachelor with a bit of a past. Marion was very chic, very spoilt. A manufacturer's daughter. She liked to keep a poverty-stricken student as a lapdog. When he took her to expensive restaurants she'd hand him her purse under the table. A point came when she tired of him and said goodbye with a pair of sinfully expensive cufflinks. He sold them to finance the rest of his studies. Since then, well, it's been a couple of fleeting relationships, if you really want to know.'

  She watched him as he spoke. She liked his frank face; when he raised his eyebrows he reminded her of a clumsy puppy. She felt that tingling below the navel again, and relished it without shame.

  'Unattached, then. Shall we have an ice for dessert?'

  'Two ices, please, Annie.'

  And the bill,' she added. 'Half and half, remember.'

  'My uncle is going to find me a job at the UfA studios. He's a movie director. Theodor Alberti. Maybe you've heard of him?'

  'I'm afraid not.'

  'Never mind. Uncle Theo thinks I should try the legal department of a big film studio. After one or two years I could set up on my own with a lucrative clientele from the movie world and earn a lot of money. I'll invite you out properly then. Shall I take you to the bus stop or the U-Bahn?'

  Jutta spooned up her ice. Isabel and Jochen would be sitting bent over great fat books, quite close together, of course. How far would they go? And how far would she go?

  'Coffee?' she suggested.

  He raised his hand. Annie!'

  'I meant at your place.'

  She enjoyed his surprise, and was equally surprised herself.

  'Coffee at my place then. With pleasure, but I'm afraid I don't have any milk and sugar.'

  'The pleasure will do.' She was enjoying this more and more. She was just going to take things as they came - there'd be time for remorse later. At least. if there was anything to feel remorseful about, she told herself.

  A car with dipped headlights was waiting by the pavement outside Number 47 Wilskistrasse. A uniformed man got out. 'Dr Jordan?'

  'Yes, that's me.'

  'Police Superintendent Kuhlmann. It's about your client Paul Belzig. He's hanged himself in remand custody. We need you as a witness. Someone from the public prosecutor's office is on his way already. Purely a matter of form, doctor.'

  'Oh, how dreadful,' Jutta exclaimed.

  A small-time burglar,' said Jordan. 'Offended for the sixth time. According to the new guidelines that makes him what they call a danger to national morale, and after serving his sentence he was likely to be sent to a camp for preventive detention. These days that means for life. A life that he's now cut short.' She sensed his anger. He controlled himself. 'I'm really sorry our evening has to end like this.'

  'Not your fault.' She gave him her hand. 'Goodnight.' The rear lights of the car disappeared around the corner, and with them the answer to an unspoken question.

  It was too late to go home now. She had keys to the bookshop. In the back room, she got out the folding bed that Frau Gerold sometimes used for her siesta. Is Isabel sleeping with him? she wondered, surprised to find how she could ask herself that question with such objectivity.

  On Saturdays the shops closed at one. Anja Schmitt came to collect Diana Gerold. Anja was a graceful, ash-blonde woman with cropped hair. Today she wore a tennis dress. The two women were going to play in a match at the club. It had taken some time for it to dawn on Jutta that they lived together as a couple.

  'Doing anything interesting this weekend, Fraulein Reimann?' Anja asked politely.

  'Weeding the garden in Kopenick. My parents don't have time for it, with all the customers they get in their bar these days. And my fiance is busy studying for his exam, so he doesn't want me hanging around.'

  The emblematic bird of Brandenburg shone in the sun over the door. Jutta's great-grandparents had opened the Red Eagle in 1871. At the time, the little town of Kopenick was not yet part of Berlin, and the cobbler Wilhelm Voigt had knocked back his beer there long before he became world famous as the impostor Captain of Kopenick.

  Vati was carefully drawing off beer into glass jugs behind the counter. His face showed contentment. He nodded to his daughter without stopping what he was doing, and jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen. Her mother was frying dozens of meatballs in a huge, black, cast-iron pan. 'Drain those eggs, would you?' she told Jutta by way of greeting. Jutta took the pan off the stove and carried it over to the sink. Steam rose as she poured the boiling water away. She turned the brass tap on and ran cold water over the eggs before shelling them one by one, twenty in all. They joined the meatballs under a protective mesh cover on the counter of the bar.

  She spent all afternoon weeding the vegetable beds and tipping the weeds off the wheelbarrow on to the compost heap by the fence. She couldn't help thinking about Jochen Weber, Rainer Jordan, and the inevitable Isabel Severin. She had to talk to someone.

  Professor Georg Raab was a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts and professor of art history at the university. He and his wife lived in a large, comfortable villa dating from the 1870s in the Wendenschloss district. Now and then he came into the Red Eagle for a couple of glasses of wine. Jutta had known him since childhood.

  Roses were wafting their soft scent in the front garden. On the slate slabs of the path leading from the wrought-iron gate to the villa, a long-haired, slender Borzoi leaped to meet her. All right. Igor, stop that.' she said, fending him off, and climbed the steps to the front door.

  It was opened by Professor Raab's wife Mascha, a beautiful woman of forty with slender hands and dark, velvety eyes. 'Jutta, how nice. My husband will be so pleased. He's in the studio, just go down.'

  She had been the same way countless times. Through the spacious hall, past the massive refectory table which always had fresh flowers glowing on it, straight to the dark oak panelling at the side of the steps, from which a door led down.

  The bright basement room was both workshop and studio. In the middle of it there was a printing press with a huge spindle. Shelves filled with dozens of different kinds of paper rose along the walls. The sturdy workbench, bearing the traces of decades of work. stood at one of the two barred windows through which you saw the garden at eye level. There was a charcoal sketch of Igor on the easel beside it.

  The professor was bending over a block of wood, carving fine shavings from its smooth surface with a tiny knife. 'This one's going to be a Diirer woodcut. Still life with cabbage and potatoes, supposed to be a previously unknown work by the master. I shall
print it off on paper of the period. I've bet Max Liebermann that the new curator of the national gallery here will fall for it twice over. First he'll miss the fact that it's a forgery at all, second he'll fail to notice that potatoes didn't reach Germany until a hundred years after Diirer. So far the good curator has put his limited knowledge of his subject to hunting for "degenerate art". Liebermann's masterpieces, which all the world admires, fall into that category.' The professor chuckled like a naughty schoolboy. 'Know what the curator said? "1 can't eat as much of it as I'd like to throw up again."' He went on working with the knife. 'I expect to be thrown out of the academy any day and fired from the university. All of a sudden we Jews aren't German enough. Well, Mascha's looking forward to my early retirement. She hopes she'll have more of me to herself. And how are you, Jutta, my dear?'

  'Very well, professor.'

  'But not as well as you'd like to be.' The stout little man with the wreath of grey hair put his knife down. 'You're prettier than ever, and you've grown up since our last sitting. There must be more than one man interested in you, and that's why you're here.'

  'I don't know what I should do. I'm engaged to Jochen. But this girl Isabel keeps coming between us, and now I've met an interesting young lawyer. I think he likes me.'

  'You mean you like him. As much as your Jochen? Better? Or as an instrument of sweet revenge?'

  She hadn't seen it as clearly as that. 'I think because of the revenge.' She pouted. 'But not entirely.'

  Raab sat down on the stool by the window and propped a large sketchpad on his knee. 'Will you get undressed?'

  'Of course.' Unselfconsciously, she stripped.

  'Last time you were sixteen, and before that fourteen.' The professor began working with a soft pencil. 'Do you remember our very first sitting?'

  Mascha appeared with a tray of lemonade. 'She was five then. You insisted that her mother must come too. How is she?'

  'Thank you for asking. Mutti has the house and kitchen well in hand.'