Nights in Berlin

by Janice Law

  “The embassy has been helpful,” I said. “My new passport is promised any day now.”

  “But you will not be leaving the city,” the detective said. It was not a question.

  “Certainly not!” I tried for indignation but just missed it. “Belinda was my friend. I’ll do whatever I can to help.” I wiped my eyes again, making a fine mess of my face so that when my interview was finished, I excused myself to visit the Eldorado WC—not the staff dump but the one for paying customers—to repair my makeup.

  I was busy with my eyes—a little green, a little lavender—when Sabine came in. She leaned against one of the sinks and lit a cigarette. She was wearing a black-feathered hat that fit close to her head with a plume sticking up like a Valkyrie’s helmet. Sabine favored dead white makeup à la the famous Anita Berger, plus maroon lipstick, eye shadow, and nail polish, none of which could diminish her large Roman nose and heavy brow ridge. Reflected in the mirror, she looked like a falcon on a bad night, but maybe my eye was influenced by the nastiness of the whole situation. Belinda’s death changed the way I looked at everything.

  “So,” said Sabine. “The Queen is dead. Long Live the Queen! Isn’t that what you English say?”

  “We have a king at the moment.”

  “The treacherous cousin of our former Kaiser. That whole family is rotten to the core.”

  “Speak of your own royals. We have rather a better set.” I’m hardly a monarchist, but Sabine put my hackles up. We weren’t the ones who’d attacked Belgium, after all.

  “Kings and all that: kaput,” she said. Despite full drag, she was sounding less like Sabine and more like Sigi.

  I shrugged. “Maybe this is not the night for politics.”

  She grabbed my arm. “Then why the hell did you mention Oskar’s name?”

  “Oskar? Who is this Oskar?”

  “I heard you. ‘A perfect Apollo.’ They’ll question him now.”

  “Too bad. I needed a witness. He was it. They won’t arrest him over a few decks of snow.”

  Sabine drew on the cigarette and blew smoke in my face, then turned to check her makeup in the mirror. She was heavy-handed with the paints, and her features always resembled a mask. “It is not good to be known to the police.” She met my eyes in the mirror and gave me a calculating look. “You admire Oskar?”

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  “You must meet him, but outside working hours. Oskar is not really the Eldorado type.”

  This was an interesting development. Oskar looked like a prince, but instinct told me to stay away from Sabine.

  “I’d like that. In happier times.” I moved to leave the WC. We’d been told we could go once our interviews were over. I needed a drink, and I wanted out of Dolly’s shoes.

  Sabine put her hand on my arm again. “Sundays. We meet at the Zoo Station at nine A.M. and go for training out in the country. That’s what Oskar likes.”

  What a ghastly prospect. I associate the countryside with pollen and animals and asthma attacks. The Germans seemed sold on cavorting in the open air, nude by preference, which did increase my interest. But was anyone, even the beautiful Oskar, worth the dreaded pine woods they went on about? “Fresh air and clean living?” I joked.

  “The renewal of Germany depends on soil and blood,” she said stiffly.

  Some of Uncle Lastings’s contacts had spouted a similar line. I thought that the last thing I wanted to do was to wander about the Wald with Sabine, especially Sabine in his Sigi mode. I was about to say something along those lines, to be Dolly and amusing and invent a fear of spiders or snakes.

  Then I thought that, taken together with her comments in the taxi, Sabine’s remarks might cast a different light altogether on Belinda’s death. Could it really have been an inside job? Could one of the staff be the guilty party? And could I convince Mac and Harold that present danger required me to leave the Eldorado and get out of Berlin immediately? Perhaps via something clandestine, something that would be amusing later in a letter to Nan? It was worth a try.

  “Thanks. I’ll let you know,” I said. “But I’m much too upset tonight to think straight. And the questioning! That detective with the piercing eyes—didn’t he have me half-scared.” I was about to add that I needed a drink, but suddenly I had a very strong urge to leave the premises—and definitely without Sabine’s company.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sometimes you’re too clever by half, Francis. That’s what Nan used to tell me, and I must admit that the night I returned from the Eldorado, full of ideas about why I should be whisked from Berlin to London, was one of those times. I mentioned Sabine’s unexpected invitation to training in the country. “Sabine spouted off like one of Uncle Lastings’s right-wing contacts,” I told Miss Fallowfield. “She was jealous of Belinda and resented her as foreign­ competition.”

  Miss Fallowfield was skeptical. “This Sabine managed to shoot someone just off a busy street and dispose of the weapon in between dances?”

  I didn’t point out that was what the Kripos suspected I’d done. “I didn’t mean she did it herself. I mean that she wouldn’t have hesitated to point Belinda out to some fanatic. But I only know them from the Eldorado. Who else Belinda knew or who Sabine knows, all the rest of their lives, I have no idea.”

  “Now you have an opportunity to learn something about Sabine’s life after hours, don’t you?”

  “Oh, no. Running around the Grünewald in lederhosen with flags and insignia? Not for me.”

  “If you are right, and you might be, you would be safest to feign an interest.”

  “I would be safest leaving the Eldorado and never going back.”

  “I’m not sure that’s advisable.” She drew me over to the window. “The police have followed you here. That’s a sure sign of interest and most unfortunate.”

  “I had to give an address.”

  “Nonetheless, we will all be compromised if you should disappear. Flight suggests guilt. There would be serious questions.”

  “For you, not for me,” I said. But without a passport or money or useful knowledge of border crossings, I was stuck. Instead of introducing me to the delights of nighttime Berlin, Uncle Lastings might better have coached me on evading passport controls and faking documents. I thought this over and sulked for a bit while Miss Fallowfield smoked impassively. Then I thought about Oskar. Could he possibly be detached from the excursion? Did my charm extend that far? It might be worth a try. “Sunday, I’ll go as far as the station,” I said, “and check the lay of the land.”

  “Excellent. Your uncle would be proud of you.”

  This was going too far. “My uncle would think I was a damn fool,” I said, and I would have canceled the whole deal if she hadn’t come up with money for a night out. I kicked off my heels, abandoned Dolly’s frock and makeup and her ridiculous hat, put on my leather jacket, and set a course toward the Eldorado. There would be police in the area, but I took a circuitous route, and either I was lucky or the cops were taking shelter from the damp, because I found Oskar without being spotted.

  The dealer was standing near a streetlight, his blond hair white-gold in the light and glistening with moisture from the mist that was rapidly turning to a cold rain. You can take my word for it, this romantic vision not only sent a little ripple of excitement to my nether regions, but also made me think that romping in the woods could not be all bad.

  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Francis. I strolled up and observed that it was a dark, raw night. He didn’t seem to recognize me as a regular purchaser. That was good, as he had never shown the slightest interest in Dolly, the popular hatcheck girl.

  “What’ll you have?” he asked.

  “I like champagne, myself.”

  “Expensive tastes.” And he gave me a look. I hoped he liked what he saw; he really was breathtakingly handsome.

  “Tonight I ca
n indulge,” I said, “provided I have company.”

  He looked around, but the few people about where huddled under umbrellas or scurrying for the nearest bar. Oskar turned up his collar against the drizzle and shrugged. “Nobody much buys on lousy nights.”

  “You’d think the public would need cheering up.”

  “You’d be wrong.” He closed his satchel and slung it over his shoulder. “Lead on. Somewhere warm,” he added. “I’m about frozen.”

  I knew a boy bar close by that fit the bill. The room was low and dark, with photos of boxers and football players and marchers with obscure flags and mysterious intentions, but the ceramic stove was big and hot and, despite the fog of coal smoke and cigarettes, both the wine and beer were good. Oskar found a place near the stove, and I set myself to be charming. It’s not often that duty and pleasure coincide so neatly.

  We had a bottle of wine and pea soup and sausages, two helpings each, and it was just a damn shame that Miss Fallowfield’s largesse did not extend as far as a room, because a few moments in the alley, clothes rumpled, cold hands on hot skin, an ecstatic wrestle against the bricks, could not quite erase the discomfort of rain above, garbage below, and slime underfoot. I don’t mind squalor and I adore risk, but even Apollo loses a little when speed is a necessity and cold water is running down my neck.

  Oscar was maybe thinking along the same lines because, walking to the tram stop, he said, “A gang of us are going out to the Grünewald on Sunday. A bit of hiking, maybe some music. Why don’t you come?”

  “I’d like that,” I said. “Though I’m not so good at hiking.” I tapped my chest. Asthma might not be a strong enough excuse, but consumption was still common in Berlin.

  “We don’t have to walk the whole way. The forest is truly lovely.”

  “All right.” I put my arms around him and kissed him. He really had the most beautiful round backside, and he smelled of smoke and sausages and the fine camel hair of his old coat. Oskar was a professor’s son who had known better days with a nice wardrobe, a future, and respectability. Maybe not the package for my deepest, darkest tastes, which I was slowly coming to understand, but his eyes were a gorgeous blue, and he had strong, even features and a mouth so crisply defined that it might have been carved. Plus he was blond. I suspected that blonds might be my weakness.

  “Sunday,” he called as he stepped onto the tram.

  “Sunday it is!” I walked home, fizzy with lust and light of heart, until I spotted someone loitering near the front of our building. Could he be loitering with intent, as Nan’s crime stories so often had it? Maybe. Or a Kripo plainclothesman? Or one of the street fighters who had visited me at Fritz’s? I was accumulating possibilities at an alarming rate.

  Over on the darker side of the street, I walked straight past Miss Fallowfield’s. At the next side street, I risked a look. He was still loitering with a vengeance, the smoke of his pipe mixing with the fog. I went three blocks out of my way, crossed the street again, and took a circuitous route to the back of Miss Fallowfield’s building. I hoped that no one was watching there, as I didn’t fancy a rough night’s sleep. But either I’d been needlessly alarmed or the spies were lazy. No one saw me squeeze past the alley garbage cans and scramble over the rickety wall into what had once been the garden.

  With the townhouse’s conversion into flats, this space was now taken up with several WCs of an unwholesome character, Miss Fallowfield having secured the only indoor plumbing in the building. And wouldn’t you know it, I had no sooner begun wading through the weeds and nettles that edged the wall than I heard one of the WC doors open. I froze against the wall.

  “That you, Hermann?” a woman called in German. She sounded anxious, and she had a flashlight. I hoped that she would not think to run it along the wall, because one good shriek could alert the whole building. Then something moved farther down the yard. It was one of the large skinny cats that haunted the neighborhood, and for once the animal kingdom was on my side. Satisfied about the source of the noise, the woman went into the WC and closed the door.

  And kept it closed. Was she ill? A closet smoker? A consumer of illicit drugs or dirty magazines? While I stood in the drizzle, she could have knocked off a few chapters of War and Peace. I was nearly soaked through before I heard the door open and saw a dim figure moving back toward the building.

  Dazed by nicotine or some other potion, might she leave the house unlocked? I gave the door a try, but such carelessness was too much to expect. Berliners had learned caution where personal security was concerned. No, my only hope looked to be the fire escape, a rusty contraption that ran straight past Miss Fallowfield’s flat. She kept a couple of pots of geraniums on the landing.

  The trick would be to get up to where the steps started, and that meant pulling down the ladder that allowed access to the ground. The last rung was well above my head. At school I used to cut gym class whenever I could and, doubtless as a consequence, my vertical jump was disappointing. When I failed to reach the ladder after several tries, I climbed back over the wall and hoisted the least full of the garbage cans into the garden. Once the can was under the ladder, I clambered onto the top and, with the extra height and a great feat of balance, managed to get my hands around the last rung. I gave a tug and nearly lost my footing. Gave another and got a handful of rust. Finally, clutching the rung, I jumped off the garbage can.

  The ladder rattled down. Nicely done, if I hadn’t awakened the whole building. I dragged the garbage can back to the wall and returned it to the alley—not exactly a silent job, either. I waited for a few moments in the dark garden, but apparently no one was curious enough to investigate. I climbed to the first level and hauled the ladder up after me, an operation that made a fine screech and just about took my arms from their sockets. I’d really expected better from German manufacturing, and figuring that half the building’s tenants would be at their windows, I crouched on the wet iron grate of the fire escape.

  A third-floor window opened, a scare that nearly launched me into wheezing. After a moment, the sash closed, but I waited some more, figuring I could hardly be any wetter. When there were no other sounds except the pattering rain and a distant train whistle, I edged past two windows, one partly open, and made my way up to the second story where a little glimmer of light ran between the heavy drapes of one room. I tapped on the glass and waited. Tapped again, harder. I was about to call out, when the drapes parted. Miss Fallowfield stood holding a revolver that looked a good deal like Uncle Lastings’s Webley. She set it down when she saw me and lifted the sash.

  “What on earth are you doing?” She did not seem impressed by my initiative, and I sensed that she was sorry I had seen the revolver.

  “There was a man outside.”

  “No matter. Didn’t he see you leave earlier?”

  “No, he wasn’t there when I left. The police must have been satisfied that I’d given the proper address.” Uninvited, I sat down in one of her big armchairs. I was cold, wet, and tired, and my hands were full of little pieces of rusted iron.

  “Possibly,” she said and added in a more conciliatory tone. “Very good, Francis.” More to the point, she poured me a decent tot of her good whiskey. “And your Sunday excursion? Is that still on?”

  “Very much so,” I said and winked. Let her think that over!

  Sunday was fine. The cold rain off the Baltic had disappeared, and the Grünewald sounded lovely—if you had a taste for trees. I didn’t, but the moment I saw Oskar lounging at the station with his comrades, I knew that I would go, even if I got a smirk from Sigi and many sly references to the charms of the new hatcheck girl. I just closed my ears, because if ever there was a boy built for lederhosen, it was Oskar.

  In their gray-green shirts and shorts and patterned neckerchiefs, Sigi and the others looked like the pupils of some horrid physical culture class. But even in short pants and what looked to be a combat league shirt
, Oskar was still a prince. I had to keep myself from throwing my arms around his neck. Easy, Francis!

  Onto the train and off to the woods. Jolly singing seemed to be on the program and, as threatened, one of the comrades was carrying a violin. The railroad conductors prevented an impromptu concert on the train, but when we reached the woods, music broke out, aided and abetted by other youth group comrades. One squad provided a drum, and another had a member packing a trumpet. Once we were assembled, a good few dozen strong, the plan was a vigorous march down a track in the Grünewald, violin squawking, drum thumping, and trumpet heralding our every step.

  The only songs I know are “God Save the Queen,” which I thought unsuitable in present company, and “Watch on the Rhine,” which I know by heart and in tune, thanks to gloomy hours listening to Fritz’s father. My efforts at this were appreciated, and we stamped along hollering and working up a thirst all the way to a little tavern, which I suspected had been the destination all along. Beer, black bread, cheese, and wurst. All good, while the fiddle and the trumpet took turns amusing the patrons and were successful enough to pay for our meal. The German passion for music is one of many mysteries, along with their appetite for marching in the woods.

  After this welcome break, the plan was for the keener members to engage in what Heinz, who seemed to be the leader of the outfit, called military preparedness. As far as I could see, this was going to consist of clambering over rocks and fallen trees while carrying the wooden rifles that had appeared from the back of the tavern. There would be military marching drills, and I believe that something with mock bayonets was to be what Uncle Lastings would call the pièce de résistance. Thank you, Uncle Lastings.

  I was afraid that Oskar might be tempted by these delights, but when the others assembled, he waved them off. He wanted another beer, he said, and he would keep me company since I was not physically fit. A humiliating reason, and I was almost vain enough to say, “Let’s go. I’ll be fine.” Almost, but not quite. At the very least, I expected sniggers and complaints and heavy teasing, but they accepted this without question. Beauty as spectacular as Oskar’s apparently has its privileges.