The Dancing Bear

by Frances Faviell

  When at last they obeyed, Stampie and the policeman were almost sick. On the floor amidst the shambles of furniture lay a horse. It was in a ghastly state, lying in a pool of blood, an agonized expression in its eyes. It was so emaciated that its ribs stuck through its skin. The owners had used it for fetching vegetables from the market but now there were no vegetables to fetch, and nothing on which to feed the poor brute. They had no weapons, and no knives, and so they had taken the poor creature to their room so that no one should see them bludgeon it to death with chair legs.

  The Military policeman was so horrified that he put a bullet through its head to end its misery. He said he would love to have put one through the couple who had done this. He and Stampie had been obliged to go outside and vomit—the mess and stench in that room were so frightful.

  Nothing, said Stampie, would induce him to go near the place again. The girl, he said, knew about it, and the price of her silence had been the promise of a piece of horsemeat.

  As the horrible tale came to an end I saw that Frau Altmann had come to the doorway. She shuddered as Stampie finished, but remarked that hunger did terrible things to men. I noticed that Lilli’s pallor was increasing, but Ursula had gone on steadily eating her pie throughout.

  “Ursula, you will go and sit with your father,” said Frau Altmann. “And Lilli is to go to bed. She sat with him all the afternoon.”

  Ursula got up without a word, taking her pie with her.

  “You will finish your food before you go to your father’s bedside,” said her mother sharply. “Have you no respect for the sick?”

  “Poor kid! She can’t do anything right in her mother’s eyes,” said Stampie as we went home. “The old boy is unconscious. What difference could it have made to him if she finished her food there?”

  “In her mother’s eyes she is the cause of her father’s stroke,” I said, “but she can take it—it’s Lilli who can’t.”

  “I could have kicked myself for telling that story of the horse while she was eating her pie,” groaned Stampie; “I’m a thick-headed fool!”

  I didn’t think that I would be able to eat my dinner that evening either, but it would have been heaping coals of fire on his head to have told him so.

  Herr Altmann died early next morning. Frau Altmann who had taken the late night watch had dozed off in her chair and woke suddenly to find that her husband had opened his eyes.

  He had roused, tried to smile, and his lips had formed the name “Maria” before he lapsed into the coma which had ended in his death.

  Stampie came to tell me, but Ursula had already telephoned me the news.

  “It’s a good thing the old boy has gone,” said Stampie. “How could they have nursed him for long in that icy house?” He sat down heavily—he was upset at the news—but more worried at the trouble there was going to be to bury the old man. The ground was too frozen to dig graves, and Frau Altmann was absolutely determined to have her husband buried in the family plot they had bought. It might be weeks or even months before any graves could be dug if the present temperatures continued. I asked him if anyone was with the widow and if she had anyone to see to such matters for her. The pastor was there, said Stampie, and Hermann was doing all he could. His brother’s death had shocked and sobered him.

  Funeral arrangements seemed to have broken down completely. There were no hearses, no cars, no transport of any kind, and no mortuary space for the dead at present. Not, said Stampie, that a mortuary was necessary for Herr Altmann—the house itself being as cold as a morgue! How to get Herr Altmann to his last resting place was the problem.

  Was there any news of Fritz? I asked, not having liked to upset Frau Altmann the previous evening by mentioning him.

  “None,” said Stampie. “He’s well away by now—I don’t believe he’s still in Berlin, although his mother does.”

  XIV

  STAMPIE’S fears proved only too true. Coffins were terribly expensive and very difficult to obtain. Wood was at a premium for fuel. Many people had burned pieces of furniture and torn up their parquet flooring to get a little warmth.

  No one could be found with either the strength or the will to dig graves, until the thaw set in. Short of blasting the ground for a grave, Stampie said, there was no means of getting one. There were some mass graves which the Allies had ordered to be dug in case of epidemics the previous year and the suggestion was to bury Herr Altmann in one of these and transfer him later on to his own plot.

  Frau Altmann was horrified; she could not bear the idea; to her it was heathenish. Ursula, when I saw her the following morning, told me bluntly that she was sick of the whole question, and considered her mother most unreasonable. “She just won’t realize that times are not normal,” she complained. “Pappi is dead, and really it’s better for him. He could not get accustomed to this new way of life—he was too old and tired. What does it matter where he is buried? He is out of it all.”

  She was impatient at all the fuss going on at home. Her Aunt Luise was with her mother and several friends. They did nothing but talk and weep. She was tired of it. Pappi had been dead for three days now and still there was nothing settled about the funeral, but she and Lilli had to go on working and the household had to go on running.

  Ursula looked extremely attractive on this winter morning. As her mother had said, the cold seemed to suit her. She hadn’t the same flawless skin as her sister Lilli and her mother had, but a film of make-up did wonders for her. She wore a black coat which looked new, but which she told me was her aunt’s, and her hair curling all up over her cap seemed alive with vitality. The cold light from the snow which was not flattering to most women did lovely things to Ursula. The colour in her high cheekbones may have come from Max Factor or from nature, the long lashes had been darkened and swept disturbingly over them. Her wide mouth was painted a dark crimson. She was amazingly attractive. The Allied influence on the German women, who had not been encouraged to use cosmetics before, was already visible, and these commodities were fetching fantastic prices on the Black Market.

  I inquired how Lilli was. I knew that she had taken her father’s death very hard. She was his favourite. She was disturbingly quiet, said Ursula. Her mother, she thought, was grieving just as much about Fritz as about her father—and please wouldn’t I come and see her?

  They missed Fritz, she admitted. He had been a nuisance and he ate a great deal, but he was provocative. One had never been dull when he was around.

  She looked anything but dull herself. I found her extraordinarily interesting and I asked how Joe was. He was, she said, tossing her lovely hair out of her eyes, absolutely crazy about her now—and becoming very jealous. It seemed to amuse her. There was no longer any question of her having to earn cigarettes from anyone else. He supplied all her needs. “In fact I’ve got me a regular,” she said laughing.

  I said it must be much easier and pleasanter that way and I was glad. Did she care at all for Joe?

  She thought for a minute, then said quickly, “No. But he’s such a good guy.”

  The accent was so exactly that of Joe himself that I couldn’t help laughing. Her eyes crinkled up and her wide mouth opened to show her fine strong teeth as she threw back her head and laughed too. She had a laugh which rippled up and down—charming—and a contrast to the usual harsh German laugh. Then, suddenly remembering her black clothes and the bereavement, she stopped, saying, “How can I laugh with Pappi still lying unburied?” and rushed off, saying she was late for her work.

  It was one of the very darkest afternoons of the whole winter when I called on Frau Altmann. We have many such in London and they never fail to give me the feeling that at any minute the end of the world may come. There was a fog covering half the city.

  I was shown into the sitting-room by Frau Luise, Hermann’s wife, and found it quite unrecognizable. Black drapes covered the pictures and the doorways. Great wreaths of evergreens were hung with black and purple ribbons, and at the table a group of black-rob
ed women were writing black-edged cards.

  Lilli was at a rehearsal, said her mother, after I had been greeted in muted tones. Frau Altmann was paler than usual, but she held her head in its usual high proud poise.

  I thought how fine was her profile against the black drapes. In the strange half-light of the room the group of women reminded me of a Rembrandt painting, their sombre clothes melting away into the shadows, and the pale luminosity of their faces and hands giving the scene that sense of drama peculiar to him. I thought of the room as I had so often seen it—with the pink lamp glowing and the family sitting round the stove quarrelling as to who should sit on the wooden box. It was quite alien now.

  Frau Altmann drew me to a chair which was strange to me. It was, I found, lent with several others by her sister-in-law. I had time to notice the new lines of grief in her face, the scrupulous neatness of her hair and the immaculate tiny white edge to her high-necked black dress. The girls were both working—jobs were hard to get, and there was always a list of people waiting to step into one’s shoes if one stayed away too long. They would both have to ask for time off for the funeral, she said, when they had arranged the date, and here she burst into tears and drew me into the discussion over the grave. She was a woman who believed absolutely in all the teachings of the Church, and I knew that here one must tread very warily so as not to offend or give a wrong impression.

  Didn’t I think it would be against the teaching of the Church to disturb a soul from his eternal rest by changing his grave? Had I heard what an infamous thing was proposed? They had paid good money for the family plot. How could they have foreseen that one of them would need the grave before the thaw set in? The undertaker and the cemetery authorities seemed to think that people were ghouls and should anticipate such events which were in the hands of God alone.

  The other women to whom she introduced me between her tears agreed with her. Their clothes stank of mothballs, and with the smoke from the stove the room was overpowering. Her husband, bless his dear soul, was in the next room. Ursula was now sleeping on the couch in here and Frau Altmann was sharing Lilli’s room.

  They had managed to get a coffin at last and the funeral would take place as soon as this trouble over the grave was settled. Wouldn’t I like to come and look at Oskar? I dared not say that I would rather not. I had learned that it was customary here for all friends to look at the corpse, and I went with her into the bedroom. The peace on the old man’s face was quite lovely. He had a dignity far above all this petty bickering going on over the place where his body should rest.

  At last came the dreaded question, put directly to me, what were my views about the grave? I stalled. What did the Herr Pastor think? He had been upset too, but he had said that there was nothing to be done except to bury Herr Altmann in one of the graves already dug. What did I myself think? I said firmly that the Pastor was right. She must abide by his decision. What could it matter where the body was buried? The soul, once it had left the body, could not be affected by any such thing.

  It seemed to me that this was the time to produce the coffee and cakes which I had brought. The atmosphere was gloomy and lachrymose in the extreme. It was fantastic that this group of black-robed women should be sitting on this winter afternoon solemnly debating whether or not the enforced temporary grave of Herr Altmann could in any way disturb his soul’s rest. Only eighteen months ago they had witnessed scenes of bloody violence in the streets and seen their fellow Berliners trampled on by the victorious Red Army and buried in mass graves. Had they already forgotten it? Had they also forgotten that thousands of bodies still lay in the unhallowed ruins here in Berlin? Why, then, all this fuss about the disposal of one? Ursula, with the terrifyingly clear vision of a too rapidly achieved maturity, had seen it in this way, and was impatient, but these women clung, in spite of all the horrors they had undergone, to the conventional—or was it that they thought their only safety lay in the resumption of the conventional pattern of life?

  When I said that I had seen Ursula that morning, a fresh trouble was apparent. Frau Altmann’s placid control again left her as she gave way to her feelings about her daughter. Ursula was not improving. She was painted up like any street girl. She used horrible American slang. She smoked, and was forever swaying about and jiggling her body to the rhythm of the newest dance tunes. She kept horribly late hours, and she told her mother nothing of her doings.

  The coffee restored her somewhat and she busied herself serving her guests with the cakes. It was true that the influence of America was very noticeable in the regions where the U.S. troops were stationed, and the transformation of Ursula into a hard-boiled imitation of a Middle West girl was not so surprising. There were thousands of others changing in the same way. She was trying to be the sort of girl Joe would have if he were back home.

  I had now resumed teaching again at the British school—the new term had begun, and no teachers had yet arrived from England. They were due at any time now, but the Brigadier in his letter of thanks for my help had asked me to continue a little longer. The A.T.S. took some of my time now too, as their sergeant who taught them cooking had fallen out of a window and broken her arms, and the Major had induced me to take over her cookery classes. They were taking a Housewifery Course; who could be better, he said, than a housewife to teach them?

  On the way to school next day, Stampie was very preoccupied. I asked him what was wrong. It was, he explained, the problem of getting Herr Altmann to his grave. No transport of any kind could be found to bear the old man’s coffin. The undertaker hadn’t a single horse, and there was no petrol for the one hearse available. There was, he said, nothing to be done but for the family to do what other mourners were forced to do if they wanted their dead buried—to take the coffin on a handcart.

  The ground was appallingly slippery and I had a vision of Frau Altmann as I had first seen her at the roundabout junction, with the cart running away from her, only this time it would be the coffin falling on to the glassy road.

  Stampie looked at me and I looked at him. Neither of us had any need to say what was in our minds. I had already made my apologies to the Altmanns about not being able to attend the funeral. It was at three o’clock and my cooking class was at two.

  I had a pretty shrewd idea where Stampie would be while I was teaching those young women to cook.

  It began to snow again during the afternoon, and as I watched the huge flakes falling I had a picture in my mind of a little party pushing that handcart. German coffins are made of solid oak and terribly heavy. My husband had told me this after he had twice acted as pall-bearer for British colleagues. I hoped that Stampie would be helping. Hermann wouldn’t be much use, and the women were too frail. Stampie was as hard and tough as possible. He often surprised me when he swung John about.

  The girls round the large kitchen table were taking down recipes from me. Looking over the shoulder of one I was astonished to see the spelling: “Take ten ounsses of flower, and five ounsses of buter and rub the fat into the flower and need to a dow with a littel water.” The girl who was writing this was, she told me, twenty-three, and already had one stripe. Afterwards when checking the recipes in their notebooks I found that the standard of spelling was appallingly low, and none of them except one had ever done any cooking at all. Mum, they said, would not risk the rations. The one who had cooked had been married for a time to a Canadian. She had found that he was a two-timer with a wife and children in Canada. Pity the cooking didn’t kill him, she said bluntly.

  The snow fell steadily while the cakes baked in the ovens, and the Major paid us a brief but very interested visit. When fifteen cakes of varying quality were turned out safely by the proud cooks, there was Stampie waiting for me, looking like Father Christmas. The car was covered in snow, and he was shaking it out of his greatcoat as a retriever dog does.

  “Like Siberia up at that cemetery,” he observed, brushing vigorously at his cap while the snowflakes fell on his well-oiled hair. “Never was in a
more desolate place in my life.”

  “Is poor old Herr Altmann safely buried at last?” I asked.

  He nodded. “We didn’t need any loose earth—the snow covered him.” Then he added thoughtfully, “Funny thing. This old car always did remind me of a hearse.”

  If I had made any comment he would probably have told me that although we were forbidden to carry live Germans in our cars, there was no regulation that he knew of against carrying dead ones. He was an old soldier and knew the regulations on every point.

  I remarked that it must have been a bit bumpy as the springs were none too good.

  “Less bumpy than a handcart with several spills on the way,” he chuckled. “Although, for that matter ...” A grin passed over his face and he stopped.

  “What if you’d been challenged by the Military Police?” I said, for we were often stopped and checked by them.

  “I covered the coffin with that rug of yours. He was small—and if they’d asked—well, I was delivering your wreath. It was there on top of the rug.”

  I wondered that this man who had gone through such a lot in the war should have been willing to take such a risk for a dead German.

  “He reminded me of my old Dad,” he said, as if answering my unspoken question; “a nice gentle old boy—wouldn’t have hurt a fly. Shouldn’t have liked my old Dad to have gone to his grave on a handcart. You’d better tuck that rug round you, M’m, it’ll keep you warmer than it did him. It’s perishing today.”

  We stopped to give a lift to some friends of mine, and I had to wait until the evening for the whole story.

  The coffin had been so heavy and the ground so slippery that progress had been agonizingly painful. The undertaker and his men had helped him load it into the car, but he dared not take them with him, or any member of the family. The Military Police were always on the look-out to see that we did not give lifts to Germans. The widow and the two girls set off by the U-bahn with Hermann and the mourners.