Judgment in Berlin: A Spy Story

by Noel Hynd

  “Mmmm,” she said again. “It’s not every day one of my old gentleman friends comes back to see me, you know,” she said. “What should I call you this time?”

  “William,” he said.

  “William,” she repeated. “William of the World War. William the Wonder of the World. Ha, listen, Herr William. I’ve had many casual friends. When I was an innocent girl I was the good time who was had by all. Berlin in the twenties and early thirties, you know. The world that recreates itself here behind heavy doors. Everyone was twenty years old and ready to play.”

  “You spoke of it when I visited five years ago,” he said.

  “Of course I did. Can’t take away someone’s memories, can you? Though there’s people who’ll try. I had two great loves, though. Just two.”

  He let her unwind.

  “One was my husband, bless his Saxon soul. Killed by the filthy French. Then my Horst who got me through the second war.”

  Cochrane shook his memory while his gaze slid sideways again to the bar. Roth was doing fine and staying out of trouble. He was chatting with a flapper, which allowed him to blend in. But if he disappeared with the girl, Cochrane was going to give him holy hell. Then again, if Roth had any kind of future in this sort of business, he would have his ears open, also. Maybe he would take a turn with the flapper girl on the Russian’s shoulders and come back with a useful tidbit. But Roth stayed where he was assigned, which was the best option.

  “I don’t think I met Horst when Frieda and I stayed with you,” Cochrane said, reckoning that if Horst was real, he was the man, the lover Bettina had, that Anna had referenced.

  “You didn’t meet him,” Bettina said. “I made sure of that.”

  She raised her battered right arm, arranged her fingers in a strained pattern, and took the cigarette from her mouth, holding it down in the joint between two fleshy fingers. She laughed, a cloud of smoke rolled out of her mouth, followed by a cough.

  “How the devil did you find me?” she asked, her thoughts jumping through smoke rings. “You’re a digger, I know, so it wasn’t just luck. Do tell.”

  “I started at the medical facility where you used to work. A trail that led me here.”

  “Ha!” she said. “That’s Germany since the war,” she said. “Either you can’t disappear at all, or you disappear completely. Oh! Shame on me for not asking right away.”

  Ever watchful, Cochrane’s eyes drifted. They had a visitor whom Cochrane recognized.

  Anna. She had climbed a metal set of steps halfway down the corridor and now approached the table where Cochrane sat with Bettina. She gave him a faint smile: half-friendly, half of recognition. She went to Bettina, placed a hand on her shoulder, leaned into her, and whispered something in the older woman’s ear.

  Bettina gave a slight nod. Anna straightened up again and stepped back. Her eyes found Cochrane’s. She extended a hand to him and placed it on his shoulder, as if to affirm that he was okay with her. Before he could say anything, she departed in the same direction from which she had come. Her appearance had been almost ghostly. She vanished in the space of ninety seconds.

  Bettina paused for a moment. Her brow furrowed. Then she collected her thoughts.

  “That girl you escorted to the United States. Pretty Frieda. She arrived safely I do hope? That’s what I hear, but I want to hear it from you. All confirmed?”

  “I’m happy to say that, yes, she arrived there safely. Frieda went to live with her extended family. Far out in the middle of America.”

  “She sends you love and penny-postcards, I hope.”

  “I haven’t heard from her for five years now. There’s no reason I would.”

  “No reason? You escorted her to safety. At no small peril to yourself.”

  “I wish I did hear from her, but I don’t. Any news of her father?” Cochrane asked, changing the flow of the topic.

  “Der Ubercommandant?” she answered. She shook her head sadly. “Poor man. If you want to feel sorry for a sour old Nazi, there’s one worthy of your sympathy. He was arrested after the war. Sent to a Soviet labor camp. That was the solution for any male prisoner they decided not to hang. Somewhere out near Murmansk, I hear. They work you to death, then just before you die, they shoot you. Wonderful folks, our Russian occupiers.”

  “Bettina, listen,” Cochrane began. “I do not have all the time in the world, and we need to talk about something.”

  “Hush, hush!” she said sharply. “In here my name is Ilse. And everything waits right now. This is my favorite part of the evening. Be quiet and enjoy die hübschen damen, the pretty ladies. Play your cards right and maybe you can take one to the alley out back and be pleasured.”

  On the small platform that passed for a stage, a spotlight found its proper place. A thin man in a black suit stepped into it. He was the emcee. Behind him was a beige curtain with a Soviet hammer and sickle upon it, a bizarre makeshift seal of approval, red and gold like the flag, and like all the military ribbons and insignias in the bar. From the uniformed Russians in the audience, there was a round of heavy applause for the Soviet Union.

  The emcee delivered a short introduction in German and Russian, saying that now that the Fascists were gone, Berliners could enjoy artistic performances again, much as they had in the naughty, debauched years before 1933.

  “Much praise to our Russian Socialist friends who now make this possible!” the emcee exclaimed in German. “Those of us in the elite, we can again partake in our sins! And not just to be naughty! Our depravity is charming, is it not?”

  With his gloved hands, he milked his audience for applause.

  The audience rewarded him with shouts, whoops, and rhythmic handclapping.

  “Ah, Berlin!” he exclaimed next. “As great a Slavic city as Moscow! In Berlin, all the lustful desires of Europe can be displayed on our humble stage! And tonight, all of our secret desires will be displayed, my Russian and German friends! The power of the proletariat will now be shown to the guardians of such in this room. May every man enjoy himself and indulge in dirty, disgraceful sordid bygone Berlin!”

  And so the show began.

  Chapter 56

  Berlin – July 1948

  There was scattered applause around the room as the lights went low, then faded to nothing. The curtain drew away, opening to the sides, revealing a small, cramped stage about fifteen meters across.

  Gypsy music began from a single violin player, a very pretty girl in her mid-teens. Cochrane looked more closely and realized it was the girl who had bumped into him, but she had changed into something more sheer and revealing.

  A line of six young women entered. They crossed the stage in a waltz step. A rose-tinted light illuminated them. They wore short transparent dresses. They floated languidly across the performance space, then at a furious pace as the tempo of the music spiked. When the five- minute display was over, their bodies froze, silhouetted against the background of the rear curtain.

  A piano interlude followed. The room lights remained low. The only movements were the waitresses, naked from the waist up, going from table to table selling drinks and cigarettes.

  Then the dark stage became faintly light again. Four of the previous dancers reappeared, plus two new ones, both blonde. All six girls were barefoot in the garb of young peasant girls, each with one breast bare. They danced in homage to a wooden representation of a Soviet tank – Red star at the center, the barrel of its cannon protruding like a giant penis.

  With a tumbling sensation in his gut, Cochrane recognized Anna as one of the new girls. The dance had no purpose or theme, other than titillation, but in that aspect, it succeeded with the audience. There were little klatches of men crowding closer so they could see better. From what Cochrane could observe, they were divided by tribes: Russians and Germans. Some of the Germans wore uniforms and when Cochrane looked closer, he determined that the German military stayed together and the police did, also.

  This was followed by an interlude with more pi
ano music. But the emcee appeared again after several minutes and held aloft a sign that said, Opium-Fantasie. There was some applause after the sign appeared as if this were the featured event.

  When the lights came up again, a male actor was on stage, slumped to the floorboards of the stage. He wore heavy, crude make-up designed to make him look Chinese. He was smoking a pipe. After half a minute, as Cochrane watched with morbid fascination, there was a crude lighting shift as the lead female dancer reappeared. It was Anna again. Now she was crudely done up to like Marlene Dietrich in Die Blau Engel.

  She went through her motions, more than she danced. As she moved around the stage, she seductively ensnared the “Chinese” opium smoker, first with her legs prominent through a slit in her gown, then with her full body as she ordered him to unzip the back of her gown and the gown slid off, effecting a complete striptease.

  Cochrane could feel the spectators watching and leering with a special intensity. His gaze shifted to Bettina. She watched intently also, but he saw definite sadness in her eyes. She had given up on the booze and was drinking from a glass filled from a carafe of water.

  Several lewd and degrading skits followed between the “Chinaman” and his seductive blonde muse until the opium smoker overexerted as he tried to keep a sexual pace with her in an exotic dance. In the final gasp of the skit, he lunged for her naked body, missed, tried again, and clutched his chest. He staggered and fell hard as he pursued her.

  She disappeared through a black curtain as he hit the floor. She was gone, and he was presumably dead on the floor of the stage.

  There followed another show called Wild West where a female marshal wearing something faintly resembling the garb of the American West captured three female outlaws in something that aspired to be a ballet, but which was actually another tacky strip show.

  It had a “final act” feel to it and that’s what it was. The audience again watched with fascination as the three female dancers were led to bars descending from a curtain, meant to represent a cell. Again, other than to arouse a repressed audience, the episode was pointless.

  Cochrane was relieved when it was over and the lights went up. The applause was enthusiastic. There was a rush to the bar. There was no shortage of cash being transacted over black-market liquor, beer, pretzels, and women.

  Cochrane was astonished at how many uniforms he now saw. German police and Soviet army made up about half the audience. Cochrane managed a glance to the bar. Roth and his hat signaled that everything was still okay. Even so, Cochrane was anxious to get out of there and, for that matter, to get Bettina to London.

  “So what did you think?” Bettina asked.

  “Simply wonderful,” Cochrane said.

  She laughed. “Ha! Of course,” she said.

  She either missed his sarcasm or chose to ignore it. More likely, they both knew it came up short of wonderful even if it had been bizarrely entertaining.

  “I suppose it’s not for everyone,” she said. “Another beer?” she asked. “On the house.”

  “Sure. Then we should talk.”

  She made a gesture with her disfigured hand. A waiter appeared. There was a brief parade before Bettina of men and woman who worked there, about half a dozen, who turned over invoices in paper to Bettina. They addressed her as “Frau Groening” and were respectful.

  “Is this the way you remember those places during Weimar?” Cochrane asked. “The ones where you worked?”

  “Hardly. Those were happy places, happy times, even with what came after them in 1933. The world was joyous. Did I ever mention that I had a small role in Brecht’s Die Dreigroschenoper when it first opened at Berlin’s Theater am Schiffbauerdamm?” She paused. “Nineteen twenty-eight, I think it was. I played a whore. Well, all the girls were whores. Had six lines and got to wear a shameless outfit. What fun!”

  “At the clubs, did you keep the accounting ledgers books back then?”

  “Sometimes. I made myself useful in every way.”

  “I arrived in Berlin for the first time after the Nazis had taken over,” Cochrane said. “Then I didn’t return till ’43. I recall the great bars and clubs only by hearsay and reputation. At which places did you work?”

  “Verona Lounge on Kleinstrasse. Topkeller on Schweinstrasse. Weisse Maus. Kakadu Café. Haus Vaterland.” She laughed. “I started on stage and met some men. I escorted. Tourists, you know. I was a dancing, bare-breasted Rhine Maiden at ‘Vaterland’ for a year. Helped relieve the tourist boys of their money. But I later took care of the books,” she said, “the finances. That’s when I met Horst, my second love. Not as much fun, the bookkeeping, but safer and cleaner, and Horst wanted me to himself, which I liked. I watched the budgets. That’s what I do here. I keep accounts. The waiters write checks for the liquor and cigarettes served. The money goes into a locked box behind the counter. After the show, someone independent, a Russian, does the final accounting. The figures better match or someone on the floor is going to get shot. Then the hoods skim every mark that they can. That’s what hasn’t changed. The clubs in Weimar days were run by gangsters.”

  “And this one?”

  “Same.”

  “German?”

  She laughed. “Russian. You knew that, correct? You just wanted to hear me say it?”

  “I knew it. I’m just surprised that they got to Berlin so fast with the army here.”

  “Ha! The hoodlums came with the army. They are the Red Army. Take a look around.”

  She indicated the lower level.

  Cochrane’s eyes drifted down to the main floor. In any room or setting like this, there was a power table, the place from which a manager or boss or whatever such a person is called, sits, simmers, shows off, flexes his power, and keeps track of the proceedings.

  In places where he had been in New York or Chicago or San Francisco, sometimes the location was hidden; it was an unseen room behind a wall where the watchers kept a few eyes on the place through slits or via two-way mirrors. But that was far too sophisticated for a bombed-out warehouse and “Club Weimar” was not much more than that, plus girls, plus muscle at the door, plus a booming illegal bar, plus all the soldiers and police.

  The spot here was a corner table, Cochrane saw. There were two men in coats and a gaggle of young girls – five of them, Cochrane counted – who looked to be later teens or early twenties. They still had some innocence to them. They were dressed as flappers, plenty of low necklines, plenty of legs, plenty of strands of fake pearls.

  Par for the course, Cochrane concluded. Degenerate Western culture, not for the masses, but for the ruling elite: the party faithful. Far-right or hard-left, the men who ruled wanted their women served up sexy, servile, and compliant. Cochrane took the measure of the table. The two males with their backs to the wall were clean-cut and clean-shaven. They looked more military than traditional gangsters. The women formed a ring around them. One looked German, one looked Russian. The Russian had his arm around a girl, with a hand on her right breast.

  The German looked to be keeping his paws to himself. Cochrane noted that there was some space between the girls and beyond that, there were four more men. Security types, Cochrane assessed quickly. They had their backs or sides to the table and watched the floor. They had drinks but weren’t bothering much with them. The two on the Russian side looked Russian, the two on the German side looked Aryan. Germans probably, Poles maybe. Big and dumb, Cochrane guessed, probably armed to the teeth, not that their arms and fists couldn’t solve most problems they would face in this place.

  A man would have to be crazy to start trouble in here. Crazy. It made Cochrane wonder again why he was here. Then his eyes shifted again and crashed into Bettina’s pinkish gaze.

  “What are you watching, dear William?” Bettina asked.

  “I’m watching the man in the corner with the five girls,” he said. He continued to watch as the man received salutes from Russian officers in uniform as they passed.

  “Don’t play around with
that boy,” she said.

  “Who are they?”

  “Who is anyone these days? The question is impertinent. And dangerous.”

  “Tell me anyway,” he said.

  “Like hell, I will,” she laughed, taking another sip of water.

  Cochrane took a casual glance over his shoulder and saw Roth at the bar.

  Roth adjusted his hat but kept it on his head to indicate that things were okay from his perspective. Then he turned away so as not to be overly obvious with his signal. Roth was growing on him. He was already displaying a flair for this line of work. He hoped that Kern in the car was staying out of trouble with the same skill. He also hoped that Roth, faced with all these Soviets in uniform, could keep his cool. There was never a shortage of hypothetical disasters to worry about.

  “You picked a strange night to wander into this place,” Bettina said when Cochrane turned back to her and their gazes locked again. “One of the girls got herself murdered a few days ago.”

  “Is that right?” he asked. “That’s horrible. A girl who worked here?”

  “Yes. And you’re telling me you didn’t know?” she asked. “That’s a laugh.”

  “I just arrived in Berlin,” he said, sidestepping an outright lie. “If you want to know the truth, I’m more concerned with the Luftbruecke than the crime reports.”

  “You’d be wise to keep it that way. Keep your eyes on the clouds, not the gutter.”

  “You’re sounding like the Delphic Oracle,” he said.

  She laughed. “Good one, sir. I always appreciated you as a man of culture.” She paused, gave him a long, thoughtful look, and spoke again. “Just so you don’t go nosing around the wrong places tonight and getting your nose shot off, I’ll tell you what you’re wondering, partly because I like you and partly because I know you’re wondering.” She gave a little beckoning motion with her good forefinger, the left one, indicating that he should lean forward to hear above the rattle of music.