The Dancing Bear

by Frances Faviell

  I was doubtful about the outcome. It seemed to me that Fritz would be the first to resist if anyone laid hands on him for something he hadn’t done.

  On the way back I went in to tell Frau Altmann not to worry too much. She was in tears, very agitated, and could not be coaxed to eat anything. Lilli was delighted with her ballet shoes and hugged them as a child would. They fitted her perfectly and she stood poised on one toe after she had “stuffed” them with the material from her old ones. I would love to have drawn her as she stood there in that dark room. She offered to pose for me on her next free morning, and thanked me again and again.

  Herr Altmann looked so cold in spite of a woollen scarf tied round his neck and pinned round his shoulders that his lips were blue and his hands dead. He was anxious about Fritz too; he didn’t like it at all. The police had been to the house about Ursula and now Fritz was actually in prison. The poor old man was almost in tears. Fritz, he said, was getting very odd. He was mixed up with all kinds of people—undesirable ones. He was actually beginning to talk about the Communists as if they were not such bad people. Fancy Fritz talking like that. “He has always been violently anti-communist, a very keen member of the Hitlerjugend, you know,” sighed old Oskar.

  I said that Fritz was very young, that we all go through these strange political convictions.

  “He’s old enough to have more sense,” said his father severely.

  I asked if Ursula had been at this fracas, but was told that she had not. Frau Altmann seemed astonished at the idea. Ursula, she reminded me, had to work late. I reflected that she knew nothing of the brother and sister’s activities together, and the slight smile on Lilli’s face showed that she was thinking this too.

  Frau Altmann was so confident that I would get her son out of prison for her that I was dismayed.

  “The British are very correct,” she said; “they will not hold Fritz if he is innocent. Everyone knows that the British are correct.” The major at Military Government House hadn’t been any too optimistic. It all depended on the charge against Fritz.

  When I was getting into the car, Lilli, who had accompanied me, to thank me again for her shoes, put a hand on my arm. The cold light fell on the pale shining hair and the blue veins in her childish high forehead.

  “It won’t do Fritz any harm to have a taste of prison,” she said looking straight at me. “He once sent someone we love terribly to prison. He’s not the good boy Mutti thinks he is.”

  I asked what she meant, but she would not say any more; merely repeating that I should not put myself out over him.

  I said that I was doing what I could because I admired her mother’s fight against such hopeless odds.

  “Yes,” said Lilli sadly, “Mutti tries to keep us all good, she tries to get us all to church on Sundays to make us keep up our old standards of honesty. She can’t bear it when we use slang or swear-words, and would be horrified if she knew . . .” she paused.

  “Yes?” I asked curiously.

  “Oh, nothing,” breathed Lilli quickly, shivering in the cold air.

  It was freezing hard and I told her to hurry in although the temperature indoors wasn’t much higher than that outside.

  Two days later Fritz was released. I rang up my friend at Military Government House to thank him, although I didn’t know if he had helped or not. He was very casual. There had been a bunch of three youths arrested, he said. The police had been perhaps a little over-zealous; there was no charge against Fritz, who strongly denied resisting arrest, and as no one had been found who had actually seen him do so, he had been released with a warning. If I had any influence with the lad, he ended, I should tell him to watch his step. He wouldn’t get off with a warning a second time.

  Fritz came to thank me immediately after his release. He arrived looking much tidier than usual and brought me a bunch of lilies-of-the-valley. Knowing that they had been bought with his Black Market earnings and had cost a small fortune, I accepted them reluctantly. The money could have been better spent on food. His face wore an aggressive, resentful air, in strong contrast to the resigned hopeless look on most Germans’ faces. I offered him some coffee which to my surprise he accepted.

  He began thanking me rather stiffly and stiltedly for having tried to help him, adding that he would have been released anyhow eventually, as he had not committed any crime and had been wrongfully imprisoned.

  I reminded him that under the Nazi regime it hadn’t been necessary to have committed any crime to be thrown into prison and that he should know that. He was silent and I asked him if he missed his Hitlerjugend. His face lit up and lost its sullenness as he admitted that he missed it and had loved it. One had felt important, needed, respected, and of use. Now no one wanted him. There was no work except clearing away débris and even that was hard to get. No one respected him although he was anxious to get work and be of some use.

  “Use to whom?” I asked.

  “To Germany,” he said in surprise.

  His English was good but he would not work for the British, saying with an apologetic smile that he didn’t like what he had seen of us, excepting present company. I understood that he had no cause to love us, but I liked his honesty and asked him to tell me what he disliked in us so much.

  He said, “I don’t like you politically. First I find you all hypocrites. You don’t practice what you preach, and then look how you treated Mr Churchill. That great man! If he had been a German and had won the war for us he would have been showered with honours. Even as an enemy we admire him enormously, but what have you British done? You have turned him out of office—refused to have him as Prime Minister. It’s unbelievable! No one can trust a nation who behaves like that.”

  Now, many Germans had remarked on this to me and I found it very difficult to answer.

  We talked, and he was less resentful after he had eaten several large Naafi buns. The gauntness of his tall frame was terrible. He seemed to me to be looking for something to hold on to—some reed to grasp in the slough of despond into which he had fallen.

  I remembered what his father had said about Communism. He was the sort of boy who filled one with despair—the kind who would snatch at any new and attractive proposition regardless of its consequences.

  I asked him if the police had questioned him about his Black Market activities while he was in prison. He said scornfully that they had not. They knew all right, he said, for he and his gang had been waiting for some of the stuff to come through the Tor from the Russian Zone when the police had made their raid, mistaking some of the Social Democrats and Communists for the Black Marketeers. Most of them shut their eyes to the deals, or insisted on a cut themselves.

  I warned him to be careful, telling him what the British major had said.

  “Everybody does it,” he said scornfully. “How could we live if we didn’t?”

  IX

  THE term at the British School would soon be ending. In the kindergarten which John attended Frau Pfeiffer had made a charming “crib” for the children. Each child had taken a toy or some small part of the whole which they had helped to build.

  I had been astonished, when giving my senior drawing class the Nativity as a subject, to find that out of eighteen children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen only seven knew the story of the birth of Christ. The Major was not so astonished—he had thirty Servicemen who could not read or write.

  Rules about not being friendly with the Germans were being relaxed now in so far as the children were concerned, and our authorities told us to try and help in arranging Christmas parties for German children. It was hoped that every German child in Berlin would get an invitation to an Allied Christmas party. Members of Military Government and the Control Commission alike were saving their sweet and chocolate rations to give those hungry mites an afternoon that they would remember.

  I had written to the Daily Telegraph telling of the plight of the babies in Berlin, for I had been shown hundreds of them wrapped only in newspapers, and D
r. Gaupp of the Berlin Städtische Kinderklinik had taken me round ward after ward of children suffering from malnutrition and hunger œdema.

  The response from this letter had been amazing. I had asked for old woollies and old linen for bandages, but the hundreds of parcels which began arriving through the Field Post contained all kinds of other things as well. Several British women friends willingly came and helped regularly to sort and mend the mass of clothes in these parcels, as did Frau Altmann and Frau Pfeiffer. Nothing was too much trouble for them to patch, darn and reshape. Frau Altmann indeed and Lotte, my housekeeper, were two of my staunchest helpers in this unending work.

  There were enough baby clothes in the parcels to enable us to give every child at Dr Annemarie’s Fürsorge some, and we distributed them at a party to which the mothers brought them, and for which Stampie provided toys which he had bought with the sale of all his schnapps. When I remonstrated with him about this he replied, “Look—if I like to give up drinking my spirit ration and sell it—and it fetches a packet now that it’s Christmas time—and with the proceeds buy some toys for these poor little blighters, well, what the hell?” And he provided a toy for every child at the party.

  There were Christmas trees in almost every window; they had not been bought, but ruthlessly cut down from the lovely woods round Gatow. The Altmanns had a Christmas tree, a small one. I saw it when I called there with some gifts on my way to the Berlin Städtische Kinderklinik on Christmas Eve, or Heiligeabend as the Germans call it.

  John had made friends with two little Scottish boys in our block and was now very much happier. The three of them and the two puppies had wonderful games. I dropped the three little boys at a party on my way to the Altmanns.

  They were all at home and asked at once for John, who sometimes visited them with me. They wanted him to see their tree and I promised to bring him next time.

  Ursula, to her mother’s distress, was going out dancing with her American friend later in the evening. One didn’t go out on Christmas Eve, said Frau Altmann; it was a very holy evening and one should spend it at church and in the family circle. Ursula made no comment on this. She wore a dress of a curious grey shot taffeta in which she looked extraordinarily attractive. The one lamp in the room had a pink shade and its light fell on the changing colours of the silk, so that one moment she was in rose and the next in dark blue-grey. Her mouth was painted with a gay lipstick, her nails to match. She wore nylons now and very pretty new shoes.

  Lilli was huddled near the stove with an old pink woollen shawl pinned round her shoulders. She was doing nothing, and her father sat idly near her. He explained to me in his courteous way that he could not read by the very poor light. The radio was playing Christmas carols and they had all been listening—except Fritz, who was deep in a book.

  Frau Altmann was concocting something on the stove, which for once was burning brightly. In spite of this the room was terribly cold. The Christmas tree was in the window on a small table; on the dining table was the Adventskranz. Red candles were burning on both.

  I made my small gifts, which were placed carefully under the tree. Later on in the evening there would be the usual customary ceremony of giving and receiving, at which, said Frau Altmann pointedly, Ursula would not be present.

  They had something for John and for me, said Herr Altmann; they had given the parcel to Mr Stamp, knowing that in England we usually have our presents on Christmas morning.

  There was, I felt, some dissension in the air, and looking at Ursula I could see that this time it was caused by her and not by Fritz. They would be leaving the house shortly for church, said Frau Altmann, and would I accompany them? I thanked her but explained that I was on my way to the children’s hospital, having promised Dr Gaupp to be present at their service that evening.

  “That will be very lovely,” smiled Frau Altmann; “it would have given me so much pleasure if you could have accompanied us—but you will-love the hospital service. Christmas is the most beautiful festival of the year—you love it in England as much as we do here.”

  I thought of those wards of sick children, that long queue of grey hollow-faced babies waiting for Dr Annemarie at her clinic, and of the poor wretches who came continually to our door for scraps, and I couldn’t see that there was any joy in this Christmas. Thousands of mothers would not be able to give their children a present this year—even more would not even have a meal. What was the use of people saying that it served them right? These were not those who had made the war—one could not blame unborn babies and helpless old folk.

  Perhaps Frau Altmann sensed what I was thinking, for she said, “Times are very hard for everyone—but one gets real comfort and strength from church—don’t you feel that?”

  There was a little silence, then Ursula said that she was not going to church—she was going out.

  “But you can come to church first,” said her mother. “You are not going out until later.”

  “What! Church before Bobbie’s Bar?” jeered Fritz, looking up from his book. “I am no longer a Christian—but I draw the line at that.”

  “We’re not going to Bobbie’s Bar,” said Ursula angrily; “we’re going to a private party.”

  “Fritz is coming to church with us—if you come too, Ursula, we shall all be together—except for Kurt.” Frau Altmann’s voice trembled as she mentioned her firstborn in Russia.

  “I am going to please you, my dear Mutti, although you know very well that I am no longer a Christian,” sighed Fritz.

  “He’s a Communist now! That’s the latest!” cried Lilli contemptuously.

  “Ursula, liebling, you will come?” Frau Altmann changed the subject hastily—politics on Christmas Eve would be the last straw.

  “I’m sorry, Mutti, but it’s impossible.”

  Two red spots burned in the old lady’s cheeks. “It is Heiligeabend,” she said quietly, “and I am not going to spoil it by quarrelling, Ursula, but you have grieved me very much. Oskar,” turning to Herr Altmann, “I think it is time you asserted your authority with your daughter.”

  The old man looked miserable. He adored his two girls, Lilli especially—but perhaps he realized more than his wife did that it was Ursula who kept the home going now. Herr Altmann’s mind wandered a little at times, but he could still see disconcertingly clearly on occasions like this.

  “Maria,” he began hesitatingly, “if Ursula does not want to go to church, what is the good of worrying her? They are no longer children. Ursula is the breadwinner now—she has the right to do as she likes about it.”

  I said hastily that it was bitterly cold tonight with a heavy frost and that the churches were unheated, it would surely be madness to allow Lilli and her father to sit in an icy building when they could stay by a warm stove—a luxury which they so seldom enjoyed nowadays.

  Frau Altmann looked at me as if I did not understand. “We always go to church on Christmas Eve,” she said gently. “For you it is different, but neither Pappi nor Lilli would stay away because it is cold.”

  Lilli and Fritz came to the door to see me off. Fritz was strangely silent, but Lilli seemed unnaturally gay this evening. One would have thought that she was going out, not Ursula. She stood on her toes and pirouetted round the car, then suddenly kissed me shyly as I took her hand.

  “Happy Christmas!” she said.

  The kiss was so spontaneous that it moved me strangely. It was the first kiss I had received from a German since we came to Berlin.

  Fritz was holding the car door open for me. The book he had been reading slipped from under his arm. I picked it up. It was a copy of Das Kapital by Karl Marx.

  At the hospital in Wilmersdorf the great hall was softly lit by the candles of the huge Christmas tree. The nurses were assembled with several little convalescent patients in their arms. The hospital committee were all there with the doctors.

  Gerhard, my favourite little patient, was sitting up in bed, his parents on either side of him, his eyes fixed on the shining Ch
ristmas tree adorned with the stars he had made. I remarked that he looked better.

  “He is dying,” said the doctor. “I doubt if he will be with us more than another week or so—but at least he has tonight with his tree and his parents.”

  Every ward had its little tree, and I never saw a prettier sight anywhere than those little faces lit with the candlelight, and the faces of the nurses lit by their lanterns as they sang to them from the doorways.

  “O Tannenbaum! O Tannenbaum! Wie grün sind deine Blätter!” rang in my ears as I hurried home to my own family.

  It was snowing hard when I came out of the hospital—the grim ruins were already covered. Berlin lay under a white blanket.

  When I was almost home I found that I had left my notebook, with the list of families we helped regularly now, at the Altmanns’. It was still quite early, and Stampie suggested that we go home via their house as I needed the book.

  The door was opened by Ursula. The others had gone to church. She asked me if I had time for a cigarette, offering me a packet of Lucky Strike. I said I had ten minutes before collecting John from his party—there were several things I wanted to ask her before Stampie came in to hurry me.

  How was it, I asked her, that if she and Fritz were doing Black Market deals on a larger and larger scale, her mother had fainted from hunger the first time I had met her?

  There had been debts, she explained—huge debts. They had not been “operating” for long—in fact only since she had obtained the position with the four Americans. They had suggested that she should be the “contact” for disposing of their stuff. Household jobs with the Allies, she pointed out, were much sought after for this reason now.

  “I had to do it!” she said fiercely. “How would you like to have to watch your parents grow thinner and thinner and see them pretend they were not hungry so that you could eat yourself? Fritz had no work—we hadn’t a penny—we were in debt to Uncle Hermann. We had been living on nothing but bread and potatoes for months. There comes a time when the stomach refuses them.”