The Berlin Connection

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  "Yes," I said. "I think I must." We drove back then. Natasha's time was limited. She still had patients to see that afternoon. Hamburg was in the grip of an influenza epidemic. She promised again to write to Professor Ponte-vivo that night and then added shyly, "If you would like to . . . will you come for tea tomorrow?"

  I nodded and kissed her hand. Unaccountably, I was in tears again. I cried easily these days, without immediate reason. Embarrassed, I left them quickly.

  In my room in the dark I sat by the window looking out, drinking. Snow was again falling steadily. I drank, I thought and I held Shirley's little golden cross in my hand.

  16

  Sunday morning Schauberg again "washed" my blood.

  In the afternoon I drank tea with Natasha and Misha and we again Ustened to Russian records. Tired, I did not stay long.

  At the hotel Schauberg examined me once more. I told

  him that my last close-ups were scheduled. Not before time. The rash was spreadmg to my face but make-up would possibly conceal it for another two days.

  The atmosphere at the studio, characteristic for studios when a film is drawing to an end, was one of irritability. People who had worked together for so many weeks were now nervous, exhausted, at odds with each other. My part in the film came to an end Tuesday. The others had another nine days to go. In between came Christmas and New Year.

  Monday evening Schauberg again 'Vashed" my blood. ^ The close-ups had been an extreme strain for me. On • several occasions I had been asked if I were ilL One more day. One more day of close-ups!

  'Well repeat this treatment in the morning," said Schauberg as I gave him his last check.

  "In case something happens to me.'*

  "Nothing is going to happen to you."

  *Td rather give you the check now."

  He took it, thanked me and asked if Fd heard anything from my wife.

  "I caUed a good friend. He is having her watched. She has not left her house since she arrived."

  "What did I teU you!"

  "But lawyers come to see her."

  "That's perfectly understandable." He shrugged his shoulders. ''You are going to enter a clinic now."

  I told him about Professor Pontevivo.

  "He is excellent. His clinic is the best place for you."

  "When are you disappearing?"

  "Thursday. We have wonderful false passports and other official papers." He became embarrassed.

  "What is it?"

  "I feel so straight-laced. Kathe asked me to invite you."

  "When?"

  "Wednesday. At Madam Misere's. We will have the drawing room to ourselves. Kathe would like the three of

  us to have dinner. She would like to say good-by and to thank you^..."

  "That's not really necessary.!'

  "... and I would like that too. No one knows what will become of us, right? And we did get along quite well. Will you come?"

  "Fd like to. Thank you."

  After Schauberg had left, Natasha called to tell me that she had received a telegram from Rome. "The professor is expecting you December twenty-fifth. That would l)e Friday."

  "Thank you very much, Natasha."

  "Would you hke to go for a walk with me later on?"

  "I am very tired."

  "Shall I come to you?"

  "No. I'd like to be alone."

  "Is there anything I can do for you, Peter?"

  "No," I said. "There is nothing you can do."

  Fortunately I had two bottles of whisky, water and ice in my room. That night I first dreamed of Shirley coming to my bungalow as she once had, and we loved one another as we once had. Then I dreamed the dream of the elevator. I awakened, drenched in perspiration, needing whisky.

  17

  I finished my last scene on the afternoon of December twenty-second.

  I don't think anybody even noticed me as I left the set. Work was going on as usual for the others. Scene shifters removed a wall. Thornton Seaton explained the next scene to Henry Wallace and two German actors. Mr. Al-brecht was arguing about money which had been spent on fresh flowers. Artificial flowers would have done just as

  well. "The vase is in the background! Nobody would have noticed the diJSerence!"

  I went to my dressing room and changed. I tipped Harry and he wished me luck. "It's been a pleasure working for you, Mr. Jordan. I say that quite honestly."

  Perhaps he did. Perhaps he said the same to others. A wardrobe assistant works for many stars. Why should not other stars be nice to work for too. I did not say good-by to others because I intended to return tomorrow. It was not to be. Wednesday I was invited to Kathe and Walter Schauberg's. Thornton Seaton, Belinda King, Henry Wallace and I were to spend Christmas Eve at Kostasch's. I didn't know on Tuesday that I was not to see them any more . . .

  Through the snow-cleared streets I drove to the cemetery in Ohlsdorf. The gates were still open. The guard told me, "We're closing in a half hour." I nodded. A few people passed me as I walked to Shirley's grave. It was dusk now. Snow covered the grave and only our wreath on the black wooden cross rose above it I read the inscription on the white bow.

  SHIRLEY BROMFIELD

  BORN 11. 17. 1939 IN LOS ANGELES

  DIED 12. 10. 1959 IN HAMBURG

  REST IN PEACE

  I Spoke aloud. "If You exist, God, give her peace. She was good. She was so young. She was rarely happy."

  Silently I communed with Shirley about my completed fOm, my plans of leaving for Rome to enter a clinic, and that I would probably never return to this grave, to this piece of sheltering earth with which she would sometime blend.

  I thought: she cannot hear me; she already knows; she knows everything or nothing. I left the snow-covered grave and walked toward the exit. The beU of the small chapel tinkled vigorously.

  The few people who had visited the cemetery were on their slow way to the exit. I saw an old couple. She was crying and he was comforting her and I thought how many more old than young people there were, especially in Germany. Then the thought of the black bag in my car made me quicken my steps. I overtook a man in a blue overcoat who was carrying a small package under his arm.

  "Good evening," said the man as I passed him. I stopped and looked at his jaundiced, unhealthy skin, sunken cheeks, eyes filled with six thousand years of sadness. I recognized him at once, this former lawyer who had asked me to drink with him in that bar where I had gone to read the letter Schauberg had left me for self-treatment after his arrest.

  "You don't want to drink with me, eh?"

  He had pushed up his sleeve. On the inside of his wrist I had seen a tattooed number preceded by a letter.

  The man from Auschwitz, always carrying a pair of children's shoes he had picked from a pile he had found in a field behind a barrack. The man who carried those shoes from bar to bar, to show them and to talk of his wife and little daughter. This haggard Jew of whom people in bars said that he was crazy. There he was.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked.

  "I come here often. Almost every day."

  "Do you have relatives buried here?"

  "No. But here are so many dead. Divided into religious denominations. There is also a Jewish section. I was born in Hamburg, you know. If my wife and Monika had not died in Auschwitz they would have been buried here too."

  "But they are not buried here!"

  "No," he said. "They're somewhere. The ashes were usually thrown into rivers. Perhaps they are in some ocean . . ."

  "Then what are you doing here?"

  "Way back in the cemetery is a section for suicides and

  people who have been fished out of the Elbe. There are many headstones without names. I picked out two, one for my wife and one for my daughter. That's where I always go. Crazy, isn't it?*'

  I was silent.

  "Well, I am crazy."

  "You are nott"

  "People say I am.'*

  "They are crazy, not you."

  We had left the cemetery
and had reached my car.

  "I'll drive you back to the city."

  "No, thank you. I'll walk a Uttle and take the bus."

  **Would you like a drink?" His eyes lit up. "Whisky?"

  "You have whisky? Here?'*

  "In the car. Would you like a drink?"

  Softly he said, "I don't want to bother you.*'

  I unlocked the Mercedes and he sat in the front seat next to me as I opened the black bag.

  "You look troubled. You must have loved the one you visited here very much."

  "Neat?"

  "On the rocks."

  "For me too," I said.

  It was very dark now. At the entrance to the cemetery two lights went on. The guard locked the wrought-iron gate.

  "We can stay here a little longer and drink," I said.

  "Yes," he said. "We don't bother anyone here.'*

  18

  I remember everything clearly up this point. I had not felt well on that evening. I ought to have driven back to the hotel and called Schauberg. Everything might have been all right

  But I did not drive back to my hotel. I and the old man from Auschwitz sat in my car near the cemetery entrance; we talked and we drank. It was a mistake which was to be decisive. Since my blood was being "washed" I had lost my capacity to drink. Only I did not know that.

  I also remember my long conversation with Doctor Goldstein. His wife Lizzy and his daughter Monika had first been taken to Bergen-Belsen and Theresienstadt before coming to Auschwitz. Goldstein told me of their suffering.

  After the Red Army had liberated Goldstein and he was searching for his wife and daughter in Auschwitz he soon met some women who told him that both of them had been gassed. One of the women told him about the game the children had played the day before they had been killed. They played What Would I Like to Be Most? Little Monika had said, "I'd most like to be a dog because the guards like dogs ..."

  Goldstein told me many such stories and I poured^ another drink for him and for me too. That was my mistake. I stayed too long and I drank too much.

  I was already drunk when I finally started the car. I don't remember what time it was. My head ached and I dreaded my return to the hotel. Making the movie had vitalized me. Now the movie was finished. There was nothing now to sustain me.

  Had I had less to drink I might have telephoned and asked Professor Pontevivo to take me sooner. I would have booked a seat on the next plane to Rome. Had I been sober I might have been sensible. But I was neither when I drove back to Hamburg with Goldstein. I remember that I was afraid to hurt his feelings if I left him abruptly. He had been drinking my whisky. Did I not have to accept his invitation to a drink?

  Goldstein apparently was known in the first bar we entered. People greeted him. We drank whisky with others and then drove to another bar. It was crowded. It must

  have been late by then. Perhaps nine o'clock. They were not serving whisky in this bar and we drank beer and cognac. That finished me off. I don't remember what Goldstein was saying. He was talking continually, happy to have found someone willing to hsten to liim. Every time I said I had to go home because I did not feel well he said, "Just another little one, you'll feel better then."

  When we left the second bar I drove only to the next block. I was afraid of causing an accident. I was quite drunk.."Let's walk," said Goldstein. "I know a nice place near here. We can talk in peace there."

  I hoped that a walk would make me sober. Instead the cold of this December night made me still worse. I don't remember where we went. I don't remember the bar either. I know it was not the last one for I remember that one perfectly!

  It was a dreary place. Wood walls, a long bar, pictures of nudes on the walls. Red-shaded lighted lamps on small tables. The only bartender stood behind the bar. A jukebox blared out music. The bar and the dozen-or-so guests too looked a bit shabby. But they served whisky here which encouraged me. I still felt sick from the cognac.

  Goldstein and I sat at the bar. By then I think we were already on famihar terms, making promises the way drunks do.

  Then I wanted to telephone. I called my hotel and had them put me through to the garage where I asked for Schauberg. I wanted to ask him to pick me up here.

  As soon as I heard his voice my drunkenness overpowered me. I could not talk, I could only mumble some nonsense. I did not know the name of the bar, not the location or street and I heard Schauberg call repeatedly, "Come to the hotel, good God! Come to the hotel at once, you fool!" When he called me a fool I became so infuriated that I hung up. I wanted to call Natasha then

  but the names in the telephone book blurred before my eyes and I gave that up.

  I went to the bathroom and splashed my face with cold water. I suddenly realized that I had never been this drunk. I knew that I had to get to the hotel immediately or there would be a catastrophe.

  Strange: that there would be a disaster. I knew the moment I returned to the bar to ask the bartender to call me a taxi. I did not have the time to do that.

  I saw a large, muscular, bull-necked man in a gray suit push the haggard little Goldstein off his bar stool. Goldstein's face was very pale and he looked as if he were going to cry.

  "That's mean," he cried. "Give them back to me!"

  A few guests laughed but most were silent. The jukebox had stopped. The bartender tried to pacify the man. - A girl called, "Give him back the shoes, fatso!"

  The shoes!

  The fat man held the shoes Goldstein had found fifteen years ago in Auschwitz.

  He must have unwrapped them to retell his story while I had been telephoning. His tormentor held them aloft; Goldstein, so much shorter, could not reach them. He jumped for them a few times. The man holding them, as drunk as Goldstein, not as drunk as I, merely laughed. His face was rosy-cheeked, not brutal but rather a pleasant, good-natured face. He was obviously enjoying himself by annoying a little, unhappy man.

  "Give him back the shoes," ordered the bartender. "That's nothing to joke about!"

  Goldstein, still jumping, still trying to reach the shoes fell. A few people laughed. The bartender said, "That's not funny! Give him back the shoes!"

  But the fat man held them high.

  He jumped back and forth, from side to side, before Goldstein who slowly got up. Goldstein followed him,

  stumbling, crying, "Please . . . give back ... give back . ., please..."

  A girl got up and said to the man at her table, "If you think that's nice—I don't." She extended her leg. The fat man tripped but did not fall. He crashed agamst a wall, then gave the girl two resounding slaps.

  "You bastard!"

  "That's enough now!" the man at her table said, got up and slammed his fist into the trouble-maker's face. He laughed at that and kicked his opponent who fell to his knees and groaned. He had been kicked in the groin.

  Now the friends of this man leapt at the fat man who laughed at that and kicked his opponent who fell to his fight the four men. The giris screamed. The bartender ran to the telephone. Goldstein had caught one of the shoes, the other was lying on the floor near me.

  I picked it up while I heard the bartender call, "Police patrol.. . God Almighty, come quickly ..."

  I held the shoe close to my eyes and stared at it. In faint golden letters the brand name was still visible:

  BREITSPRECHER BERLIN.

  Breitsprecher, Berlia.

  I seemed to hear Wanda's voice. "My pretty shoes ... broke the heel... made for me ... by Breitsprecher ..."

  The waitresses were screaming. Glasses broke. The bar was demolished. The brutal drunk seemed to have gone berserk. Men shrank back. The bartender hurried over.

  "The police ... they'll be here in a moment!"

  Guests grabbed their coats, threw money on the tables and hurried out.

  Breitsprecher, Berlin.

  I was still staring at the little shoe. Blind rage rose in me, overpowered me, robbed me of my senses.

  Breitsprecher, Berlin.

  Goldstein
screamed. I looked up. The fat man had kicked him. Now h6 was beating him. "Judenschwein," he

  said quietly. He had just beaten up four men but his breath was even. "You dirty, little Jew ..."

  "No .. . don't . . . don't ..." Goldstein whimpered trying to protect his head with his hands. The fat man was hitting him, pushing back the men who were trying to restrain him,

  "I sit here quietly and peaceful and somebody like you comes. They forgot to send you to the gas ovens."

  By now all the people left in the bar were trying to help Goldstein but the fat man was invincible. He shook off his adversaries with ease. Again and again he hit Goldstein.

  "Six million—don't make me laugh! Two million at the most!"

  Everything began to revolve around me. I saw Wanda, Hintze-Schon, my mother, Kostasch, Seaton, directors I had worked with twenty-five years ago, Joan, Schauberg, Natasha, all of them revolving, confused, above and below each other; I heard voices, boisterous singing, shouting; a voice screamed, "Peter! Peter! Help me . .."

  Faces. Flames. The sounds of breaking glass. The clanging of fire-engine bells.

  "Die Fahne hoch, die Reihen fest geschlossen ..."

  "Peter! Peter!" That was Goldstein.

  "Scene 321. Take eleven!"

  The voices grew louder and louder, the images turned faster and faster. Something narrow and long flashed, blinded me.. ."^

  "Peter!"

  A siren. Steps. Voices. Screams. Many screams.

  Then I recognized the narrow, shiny object: an ice pick, on a wooden board behind the bar.

  I grabbed it.

  I lunged. *

  Breitsprecher, Berlin.

  Even the men who were trying to separate the fat man from Goldstein shrank back from me. This surprised him;

  he lost his balance. He fell on Goldstein who groaned and I fell on the man's gross body. The images before my eyes moved quickly, out of focus.

  I raised the arm holding the ice pick. I plunged it between the man's shoulder blades. The gray fabric of his suit quickly turned red. Somebody hit the back of my head with a heavy object and I lost consciousness.

  19

  **To the shelters! To the shelters! Enemy planes advancing on Berlin!" The voice jarred. Metal scraped on metal. A clamor of frantic voices.