Berlin Blind

by Alan Scholefield

  ‘This is the part I do not understand.’

  ‘First of all, remember that a lot of strange things happened at that time. Remember Dresden had been bombed. Berlin had even more refugees than before. The whole city was collapsing.’ ‘Go on.’

  There was no escape from it now. ‘There was an organization called the Free Corps. The British Free Corps. Have you heard of it?’

  ‘No.’

  He explained as best he could but even so he could see she hardly understood. ‘But what did you have to do with them?’ ‘Bruno took me along. He thought I’d like to meet some Englishmen.’

  He remembered one evening with great clarity. It was very near the end. Astley and Richards were living in an alcoholic daze. The Russians were a hundred kilometres from the city and no one had time to worry about a few English traitors. But orders had been given for the men to be paid and with Teutonic thoroughness these orders were carried out, even in the last desperate days. They all had money for drink and women; there was Gotterdammerung in the air. Bruno was in a constant state of nervous excitement. Since the night he had come to Spencer’s bed they had been distant. So when one night Bruno said that they would go and see Asdey and Richards he had felt surprised and somewhat nervous.

  They had sat in the downstairs room of the Charlottenburg house drinking cheap wine. There were three girls this time and amid winks and nudges and changings of place Spencer found himself sitting next to one of them. And then, clearly according to some prearranged plan, they had grabbed him and held him on the floor and pulled his trousers down. One of the girls painted his genitals with blue ink. He fought and there were tears in his eyes and Astley had the grace to look embarrassed.

  ‘It’s just initiation, old chap,’ he said thickly.

  Then they went out drinking and left him alone with one of the girls.

  ‘You don’t have to do anything,’ she said indifferently. She pulled out some knitting and began to work at it. ‘For my friend,’ she said. ‘To keep him warm.’

  Spencer left before the others returned. It took him two days to get rid of the stain, two days before he could return to Annie.

  Lilo spent another half hour driving him up and down the streets of Charlottenburg, but he could not place the house. She took him back to the hotel and said, ‘I have calls to make. I will telephone you later.’

  He watched her drive down Kurfurstenstrasse in the direction of the centre of town, then turned away to enter the hotel. As he did so his eye caught another car. It passed the hotel, turned right and went out of sight. It was a blue Beetle and he was sure it contained the lunchtime lovers he had seen earlier.

  Thoughtfully, he crossed the lobby towards the elevators. A figure rose from a chair to his right and came towards him.

  ‘May I speak with you, please?’

  He turned and saw it was Willi. He was dressed in a suit and looked older and more self-possessed than he had the night before.

  Spencer pointed to the far corner of the lounge. ‘What about over there? Would you like something to drink?’

  ‘Coffee, perhaps.’

  He ordered two coffees and said, ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I followed you.’

  When?’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘Why?’

  Willi shrugged. ‘I thought we must do business some time.’

  ‘Aah,’ Spencer said. ‘I see.’ He looked at him carefully for the first time. The night before he had briefly absorbed him as a tall, reasonably good-looking, fair-skinned, fair-haired young man. Now on closer examination he saw that the eyes were close together and there was a pubescent moustache on his upper lip. The combination gave him a foxy look.

  The coffee arrived and Spencer poured it. When the waiter was out of earshot he said, ‘Tell me what business you think we have to transact.’

  Willi sipped his coffee then said, ‘First please let me explain something. The... business — ’

  ‘Let’s not call it business. Let’s call it by its real name: money.’ Willi shifted uneasily. ‘All right. If you wish it.’

  ‘Now you can explain.’

  ‘My parents died a long time ago. I have lived with my grandmother. She looked after me. Now she grows old and I must look after her.’

  ‘That’s the way it goes.’

  ‘I have nearly nineteen years, my grandmother has more than seventy. But she is strong. Paralysed in the legs, yes, but she is strong in the body. You see?’

  Spencer was not totally unfamiliar with the situation and he could find it in himself to sympathize with the boy. ‘What are you proposing to do about it?’

  ‘That is why I need money. There is a place for such people. Like apartments more than a hospital. You have a room and a bathroom and kitchen. There are nurses and doctors to look after you. But you must buy the apartment and it is very expensive. I have some money from my parents but I must have more.’

  ‘What about the house? The site alone must be worth a lot.’

  ‘Many times there have been people wishing to buy but she will not sell. She wishes to die in this house.’

  ‘So how will you get her to your hos — the apartment.’

  ‘There are ways,’ Willie said, and Spencer had a picture of ambulances and strait-jackets. But maybe it wasn’t like that; maybe things were ordered differently these days.

  ‘You say you want to do business, but that’s a trade; it depends what you have to trade.’

  ‘You are looking for someone.’

  ‘Bruno Gutmann.’

  ‘I can give you the name of the lady in the picture.’

  ‘His ex-wife?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘How much?’

  He had expected Willi to look embarrassed but the foxy face did not change. ‘Two thousand marks.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘How much will you pay?’ For the first time there was a touch of nervousness, a hint that he really was only eighteen.

  ‘A thousand.’

  Willi nodded. ‘All right.’

  He handed Spencer a piece of paper on which was written the name ‘Gerda Riesenfeld’.

  ‘Is that all? What about the address?’

  Willi smiled. ‘That will be extra.’

  ‘How much extra?’

  ‘Two thousand marks.’

  Spencer watched him leave the hotel. Was this how Bruno had started? Selling information? On an impulse he crossed to the public telephone and pulled out the directory. He paged over until he came to R. There it was: Riesenfeld, Gerda. He compared the address in Grunewald with the one Willi had sold him. They were identical. Perhaps this was all Willi had done for his two thousand marks, just opened the telephone book. He’d go far, Spencer thought.

  *

  It was dark when the taxi drew up at the house in Grunewald. Spencer asked the driver to wait and went up the steps. It was a large house which had been split up into several apartments and he found Gerda Riesenfeld’s name above a bell at the side of the house. He rang and as he did so he noticed that the door was partially open.

  ‘Is that you, Heinz?’ a woman’s voice called in German. ‘I’ve been waiting.’

  Spencer opened his mouth to explain and thought how ridiculous it would sound shouting in English, so he pushed the door and went into a carpeted hall.

  ‘Hurry!’ the woman shouted.

  He looked up and saw her standing at the banisters near the top of the stairs. The light was on above her and he could see her plainly while he himself remained in semi-darkness. She was in her late forties or early fifties and he knew, from the picture in the album, that once she had been beautiful. Now she was so thin she looked as though she had been mummified. The skin was stretched tight over her bones and her nose had hooked downwards. Her hair was jet black, she wore a black roll-neck sweater and black slacks and her face was dead white, as though she had covered it with rice powder.

  Spencer mounted the sta
irs towards her. She was scratching at her left forearm.

  ‘You are not Heinz,’ she said in German as he came up the stairs into the light. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I wanted to see Fraulein Riesenfeld.’

  ‘You cannot walk in to someone’s house.’ She, too, spoke in English, heavily accented but otherwise fluent.

  ‘The door was open.’

  ‘That does not give you permission.’

  While she spoke she looked past him to the open front door.

  ‘Forgive me. I didn’t mean to trespass. Are you Fraulein Riesenfeld?’

  She yawned and shivered slighdy. ‘I cannot see you now.’

  ‘It won’t take long.’

  He was standing half way up the staircase and she was above him. Suddenly she raised her arms and screeched at him and he was reminded of a large black bird about to take flight. ‘Can’t you hear? Have you no ears? I cannot see you I I do not wish to speak with you!’

  ‘Five minutes. I’ve come a long way. All the way from England. It’s about Bruno.’

  ‘Bruno?’ She looked at him owlishly.

  ‘Bruno Gutmann. Perhaps you knew him under another name. I’m talking about your former husband.’

  She went quite still. ‘What do you know of Bruno?’

  ‘That is what I want to ask you. But not here, shouting at each other on the staircase.’

  She scratched at her arm again. ‘You have come from England to talk about Bruno? Is he dead? Has he left me his money?’ She gave a nervous, rasping laugh.

  She walked through a doorway to her left. Spencer went up the stairs and followed her. It was a small sitting-room. An attempt had been made to furnish it elegantly. There were one or two good antique chairs and a low coffee table. In one corner was a divan with a rug thrown back and a pillow still bearing the indentation of a head. The room was squalid: coffee cups were scattered about on every available flat surface. Cigarettes had been stubbed out in the ashtrays and when these had filled up, in the stale fluid in the cups. Magazines were scattered about. There were newspapers on the floor. Part of a half-eaten sandwich had been thrown on the carpet. The room had not been dusted for weeks and the heavy curtains looked as though they were permanently drawn.

  She waved vaguely at the mess. ‘The maid did not come today.’ She lit a cigarette and stood in the middle of the room scratching her elbow. Now, closer to her, Spencer could see that her skin had a slight blue tinge.

  ‘I give you two minutes,’ she said.

  ‘It’s quite simple. I’m looking for Bruno.’

  Again she gave that harsh rasping laugh, the air hissing out between her teeth, sending jets of smoke into the room. ‘You are looking for Bruno. That is good. Why?’

  ‘It’s a long story and you said only two minutes.’

  ‘Make it short.’

  ‘I was in Berlin at the end of the war. I knew Bruno then. And his mother. I thought I’d like to make contact again. Find out what’s happened in these years.’

  ‘You wish me to believe that? You come to my house in the night to ask questions. You have my address, why do you not use the telephone?’ He had considered the telephone, but rejected it. It was too easy to refuse information on the telephone.

  He caught a slight sound in the hall outside. She heard it, too. She had been listening with her whole body like some feeding antelope that senses danger in the nearby bush.

  ‘It is someone I must see. Please wait here.’

  She went out and closed the door. Spencer could hear a man’s voice. It sounded angry. Then he heard the woman’s. It started off on a pleading note and rose almost to a point of hysteria. They seemed to argue for some minutes then the front door slammed and he heard her feet on the staircase. She closed the door of a room nearby and there was silence for a while. Spencer stood uneasily, waiting. He picked up a magazine. It was the American edition of Harper’s Bazaar. He looked more closely at the cover. The picture was of Fraulein Riesenfeld modelling a fur coat. The date was Christmas, 1965. He picked up one or two magazines. There was a Vogue also dating from 1965 and a Marie Claire from 1966. She was on the covers of both.

  He was still holding one when she came back. She had a vacant look on her face, as though she was drowsy from a long sleep. She walked past him and lit another cigarette. ‘I was beautiful, no?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Bruno thought so too. But for him I was beautiful like Ming. Do not touch, eh? Only young boys.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘You, too?’

  ‘No, not me.’

  She lay down on the divan and pulled the blanket up over her legs. ‘So,’ she said. ‘You want to know where Bruno is.’ Her voice was thick and warm.

  ‘Yes.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Everybody wants to know where Bruno is. Even the police.’

  She closed her eyes. He knew that she’d had her fix and that she was going to sleep and there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it. She was snoring by the time he left.

  He was in his hotel room having a whisky when Lilo phoned. ‘You were not asleep?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I telephoned before.’

  ‘I went for a walk.’ He thought her voice sounded suspicious. There is some news. I think I have found Lange.’

  ‘Lange!’

  ‘Yes, it is good, not so?’

  ‘Where are you? Can we meet?’

  ‘It is late.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  She hesitated, then said, ‘All right. The restaurant where we had lunch.’

  It was cold and there were few people about. There was only one table occupied in the restaurant and the bar was empty. A waitress stood at the mouth of the corridor that led to the kitchens, obviously waiting for the last diners to finish so they could close. Spencer sat on a bar stool and ordered schnapps and a packet of Villigers. The taste of schnapps was Berlin to him. The first time he had ever had it had been at the Charlottenburg house. He kept turning towards the street until he realized there was a mirror above the bar in which he could watch the door. It reminded him of the mirror which the furniture van had formed when they had been lunching there, and how he had seen Lilo at the telephone. Had she lied then? Not necessarily. She had decided to make a telephone call, that was all. But if that was all, why had she pretended to go to the lavatory?

  There was a movement in the mirror and he watched the door open and saw her come in with that long-legged, swinging stride. He found himself unfamiliarly disturbed. They took their drinks to a booth under the frowning gaze of the waitress and Lilo sipped hers nervously. It was apparent that she was in a highly excited state.

  ‘I never thought you’d find Lange,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why. It just never occurred to me. You’ve done well.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where is he? How do I get in touch with him?’

  ‘Wait. There are problems.’

  He offered her one of his cigars but she took out her own packet and lit one. ‘We’re lucky,’ she said.

  ‘How is that?’

  ‘I mean, to have found him. At first I had no luck. In each of our administrative districts during the war there was a Vermissten-Nachweis. You would call it a Bureau of Missing Persons. The names were given by the relatives or neighbours. But there was no Gutmann or Lange in that area. So I went to look at the records of the Vermissten-Nachweis Zentrale where there is an Abteilung Tote — a Dead Person’s Department.’

  She went on to describe the operation of the various official bodies that had tried to keep records in a Berlin where everything was being ripped to pieces by bombs and shells: the Sicherheits und Hilfsdienst, the Repair Service that recovered the bodies. She told him how the dead were lined up on the pavements; how all valuables, including jewellery, papers, letters and rings were placed in separate envelopes on which was written the place, the date of discovery, the body’s sex and, if known,
the person’s name.

  ‘And the names weren’t there?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But you found Lange. Where the hell is he? I thought he’d be dead by now.’

  ‘You’re going too fast.’

  He realized she was going to tell it in her own way. ‘I’m sorry. Go on.’

  ‘I was looking for some record of one of them. You know Berlin was, how do you say it, “chaos” ...’

  ‘Chaotic.’

  ‘...chaotic at the end of the war. I think maybe it is easier to trace dead people. There are lists, names. But living people who do not have houses any more, that is more difficult.’

  ‘So...’

  ‘So I remembered that you said Lange worked for the Rund-funk. I have a contact there. They still have all the files of their employees. Lange lives now in the East Zone.’

  He felt some of the excitement drain away. ‘You mean in East Germany?’

  ‘No, here in the city, but in the east, beyond the Wall.’

  ‘Beyond the Wall!’ They sat looking at each other and then he said, ‘Have another?’

  She shook her head. ‘Come, let us go. They want to close.’ The other diners had left and the waitress was hovering.

  They stood outside on the pavement. ‘The hotel is just around the corner,’ he said. ‘Let me give you a drink there.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  But the lounge was dark so they went up to his room and he gave her a whisky in one of the tooth glasses.

  ‘How do I get to him?’ he said.

  She was sitting on the one comfortable chair in the room and he stood at the window looking out at the lights. Suddenly a flash of memory came to him of his own study in Hampstead where he so often looked down on the lights of London.

  ‘There is a possibility that something can be done. I have made some telephone calls. I have relatives in the East Zone, it is not so difficult. People go backwards and forwards all the time.’

  ‘So you can get messages through?’

  ‘Sometimes. Tomorrow you must take the afternoon tour of East Berlin. The buses leave from the top of the Kurfursten-damm. If anything can be done I will let you know. If not, then at least you will see East Berlin.’ She finished her whisky. ‘I must leave now.’