Cafe Babanussa

by Karen Hill

  Werner interrupted her daydreaming and said, “How’d you like that?”

  “It was fine, but . . .”

  “But what? What’s wrong?”

  “I would have liked some warm-up exercises first.”

  “Warm-up exercises? What on earth do you mean?”

  “Most women need a little more time and maybe even a few props to get going.”

  “Ruby, I didn’t sign up for a cooking course, I signed up for you!”

  “Well, you did such a good job on my toes before, I had different expectations of you. But we’re still just getting to know each other. Anyway, keep your mind open for me.”

  Werner smiled. “Then, keep yours open for me as well. Just because you’re here doesn’t mean I won’t see other women.”

  Ruby raised her eyebrow as she looked at him.

  “I mean I have other friends. Women friends. We go out, and sometimes we sleep together, and I expect to be able to continue. Not that you can’t come along sometimes . . . I do want you to meet my friends. Anyway, the whole thing could be fun for both of us.”

  “Well, thanks a lot! What you mean is we’re going to have an open relationship. Do I get to come along for the sex?” She laughed. “It sounds a little risqué, but I’m not really the possessive type and I’m pretty open-minded.” She was already having more of an adventure than she’d anticipated. “All right, let’s try it. Should we set out some rules?”

  “Yes. We remain primary partners and we don’t bring anybody home with us.”

  “You sound as if you’ve done this before. What happens if we fall for someone else?”

  “No falling in love. This is strictly for fun.”

  “It’s hardly something you can decide arbitrarily!”

  “Do your best. I don’t mean that we’ll be out sexing every person we meet, but we shouldn’t have to turn down an exciting opportunity.”

  “Right. I’m all for exciting opportunities. But do you really think this will work in the long run?”

  “Of course. Just remember not to bring anyone here,” he insisted. “I need my privacy.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I’m serious. Don’t try to mix with the people here in the building and don’t hang around in the courtyard. The landlord is a fascist pig and there are quotas for foreigners in this part of Berlin.”

  “Are you telling me I have to hide? I didn’t come here to be holed up in some shitty flat.”

  “You should be okay because you’re Canadian. Even so, you look more like a Turk, and they’re the ones who have a lot of problems. The landlord treats the Turkish tenants like they’re ignorant, filthy children. Just try not to get involved with anyone. Anyway, I’m looking for a new flat, so maybe we’ll be out of here soon.”

  Ruby mulled over the idea of an open relationship. Could she share Werner without getting jealous? Would he really let her wander, too? It would probably be harder in reality but she was willing to give it a go. This is what she had wanted, after all: to be free and have adventures.

  Two days later, as they were heading out into the city, they met the landlord huffing and puffing up the steps, his fat cheeks bulging out of a purply-red face.

  “Und wer is denn das mit Ihnen?” Who have you got with you here?

  Werner smiled coolly. “Just a friend visiting from Canada.”

  He said something, plainly rude. Ruby nudged Werner, who translated under his breath. “Since when did they make them like that in Canada?”

  Ruby squirmed under the gaze of the landlord’s wormy eyes.

  “Never mind, excuse us please. We’re on our way out.”

  “Canada. Not likely,” the man harrumphed, squeezing his bulbous body flat against the dingy brown walls to let them pass into the courtyard.

  “Whew. So that was him, huh?” Ruby said.

  “Yeah, don’t worry. He can’t touch you. Just stay out of his way.”

  “Damn right I will.”

  They strolled through the side streets of Moabit and along the River Spree, passing countless buildings with banners hanging from them. Angry words were scrawled in red and black, punctuated at either end with an encircled capital A. Werner explained that the A stood for anarchy and that these abandoned buildings, marked for demolition, had been taken over by squatters. A massive housing shortage plagued West Berlin; many building owners wanted to renovate, and the ensuing increase in rents forced tenants out. People were rising up in protest.

  Ruby and Werner crossed over the river and entered the Tiergarten, a vast park in the middle of the city with wide, rolling lawns, plenty of beautiful old trees and bike paths galore. They threaded through the English Gardens and then the Hansaviertel, a little community built around a square in the late 1950s that featured buildings by Le Corbusier, Gropius and Mies van der Rohe. Continuing along the path of the Strassenbahn tracks that passed overhead, they reached the Saturday flea market on Strasse des 17 Juni. As they passed stalls selling bratwurst and knackers on buns with hot mustard, the smell of cinnamon and other spices wafted through the air. Well-dressed people slurped hot mulled wine, taking a break from the crush of the crowd.

  “This is the market that all the American tourists and soldiers come to and that’s why the prices are inflated,” Werner explained. “They don’t realize that what they are buying isn’t as antique as they believe.”

  After much poking around, Ruby found some nice earrings.

  “They’re lovely,” Werner said. “Do you like them? Here, I’ll buy them for you.”

  She was pleased and put them on immediately. They stopped to get some mulled wine and she felt its warm spiciness flush her face. As they strolled arm in arm towards the end of the market, Ruby said, “What a beautiful day.” It was still early in the afternoon, so Werner suggested they head over to another market near Potsdamer Platz. They doubled back into the Tiergarten. Werner moved quickly, and Ruby struggled to keep up with him.

  “We could have taken the U-Bahn,” he said, “but in this city you’ll learn to walk a lot with me. My father used to take my sister and me out hiking in the hills every Sunday for miles on end, so I’m used to it.” Twenty minutes later, they arrived at a circular intersection in the park marked by a large golden statue of a man riding a horse. Four wide avenues branched off from the circle.

  “That is the symbol of Bismarck defeating the French during the Franco-Prussian War, which happened on June 17,” Werner explained. “That’s the name of the avenue that the flea market was on.”

  For a moment, Ruby felt she was being lectured by her father.

  They continued through the park. Not even the Bois de Boulogne in Paris felt this big. After another thirty minutes, they came out of the park and walked along the Landwehrkanal. They left behind the trees of the park and approached a flat and dusty square filled with merchants. Turkish music blasted from tape decks as tattooed and pierced punks flogged metal-studded leatherwear and long-haired hippies offered flowing skirts and beaded chains.

  Mixed among the punks and the Turks, Ruby noticed, were people milling around in red and orange garb topped by long necklaces. The necklaces held a picture of a man with frizzy grey hair worn down past his shoulders and an even longer beard. Henna-haired women wore skirts that reached the ground, while the men had matching flowing pants.

  “Who are those people?” Ruby asked.

  Werner laughed dismissively. “My god, haven’t you seen them before? How could you not know? They’re all over the place. The Bhagwan nuts. Followers of an Indian guru named Bhagwan Rajneesh who sucks their wallets dry.”

  “Werner, would you stop talking to me like this? You’re treating me like a child. I’ve only been here a short while. I can’t know or have seen everything.” She doubled back towards where they’d come from. When she arrived at the park entrance she was unsure which way to go—it was all so foreign to her with streets that turned every which way, and they all looked so similar. She started down the road to her right
and figured she’d ask some other pedestrian for help. But she knew it had been a convoluted walk they had taken.

  Before long Werner had caught up with her. “I’m sorry, Ruby. I didn’t mean to be patronizing. I just feel like I have to look out for you. Berlin is a big city and it can be dangerous. Also you don’t speak any German—yet.”

  “Werner, I’m a big girl. I don’t need another father. And it’s so hypocritical. One moment you’re suggesting a relationship without restraints, and the next, you’re trying to control me.”

  “I will try to let go. I’m just a little protective, I guess. I’ll work on it, I promise. Now let’s go grab a Kaffee und Kuchen somewhere.” At Ruby’s look, he laughed. “Sorry, some coffee and cake.”

  Ruby allowed a small smile in return, and as they walked down the street he began again to explain the sights along the way.

  In those first days, Ruby felt as though she had stepped back into the early seventies. While most of the men she had known back home had already cut their hair short, so many men and women in Berlin still sported the long-haired hippie look. But she had to admit, she had also never seen so many punks, skinheads and new wavers colliding in one place.

  Ruby’s explorations of the city were haphazard in those first few weeks. She was somewhat intimidated by her lack of German and spent as much time lying around and reading books as she did wandering the streets. Her great-uncle was ever-present in her mind when she was out wandering. She thought to be gay in the twenties and thirties must have been very difficult. Berlin, with its sexual openness, would have seemed very welcoming. Had any of the places she passed by been there at that time? She promised herself she’d find the places her uncle had mentioned in his letters. She quizzed Werner about older buildings of interest in Berlin.

  “You might try the Gloria Palast theatre. There’s not much left of it, but in its heyday it was supposed to have been marvellous and was a very popular place to go.”

  “Where is it?”

  “On Kurfürstenstrasse. From there you can easily walk to the gay village and take a look around. In fact, you mentioned the Eldorado nightclub. It used to be on Motzstrasse, right nearby. I’ll take you to the library and we’ll pull out a few books and maybe find an address. But you can visit the foyer of the theatre any day.”

  And indeed at the library they found many books with photographs showcasing the theatre. It had been built in a Neo-baroque style, with a mirrored winter garden and writing rooms inside, marble steps, crystal chandeliers. She tried to imagine the elegance of it all. It was bombed in 1943, and now a new cinema stood in its place, still trying to be grand.

  “Who was this uncle of yours, anyway?”

  “Great-uncle, on my father’s side. Don’t know much, except that he was gay and he studied here for a few years in the early thirties. When he returned home he and his German lover were practically driven into seclusion in his sister’s basement. He died young—of cirrhosis.”

  The next day, Ruby took a bus downtown to go looking for the theatre. She was minding her own business in the almost empty bus when three muscular young men lunged on board. Ruby noticed the emblem of the Berliner soccer team on their jackets. She suddenly wished she were invisible. She had heard from Werner about racist soccer fans. Hair shorn to within an inch of their scalps, the trio belched and swaggered their way to the back of the bus and slouched down on seats directly opposite Ruby, blocking her view out the window. Ruby crushed the bag of doner kebabs into her lap with tight fists. She scanned the ceiling, then decided that staring at her feet was safer.

  “I smell a Turk,” sneered the one in the middle, thumbing his nose.

  “Smell?” said the guy on his right. “I see a Turk.”

  The first guy snivelled, “Verdammte Türke—smell, see, what does it matter? If you can’t see them, you smell them. If you can’t smell them, you see them.”

  The air burst with harsh laughter. Ruby looked up quickly towards the front of the bus. Just a few older women and a thick-set man, standing by the centre exit, his head turned away. No one who could help her. She took a deep breath and decided to stare them down. In their faces she saw grim mockery, eyes that avowed hatred for her and everyone like her. Ruby got up quickly, thinking, Move, just move.

  “Kuck mal, Hans. Catch that, she walks. Scheisse, maybe she even dances. I like it when they dance.”

  Ruby whirled around and yelled, “You little Nazi piss-heads, what the fuck would you know about anything?”

  Swaying towards the front of the bus, she clamped a hand over her mouth, hoping to stop the surging of her stomach. The three punks erupted into a chorus, chanting, “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles.”

  The driver looked up into the rear-view mirror and barked, “Quiet or you’re off the bus.”

  Ruby grabbed the pole next to the driver’s seat, the steel like ice in her hand. Next stop was hers. As the bus lurched to a halt, the driver apologized. She nodded bleakly and stepped off the stairs. She felt like throwing up and stood where she was for a few minutes, trying to calm herself down. There was a bench down the road and Ruby went to it and sat down. She pulled out a cigarette, placing it between her still-quivering lips. She drew in the smoke and held it for a long time, just sitting there. She had never been exposed to such blatant racism, not even in Toronto. She didn’t think this would have happened had she been with Werner. With him she was like an exotic appendage, to be stared at but not approached. Ruby sighed and tossed the cigarette butt to the ground. She still felt unsteady but got up anyway and set about on her way to the theatre.

  There was not much left of the original building at all, but the facade and foyer had been maintained. She thought of the photos she had seen and imagined her uncle streaming in among all the others to see Germany’s first major talkie, The Blue Angel by Joseph von Sternberg, or René Clair’s Sous les Toits de Paris. Next she found the building where the Eldorado used to be. There was nothing there to suggest the hub it once was. But Ruby fancied watching her uncle come out of the club with his friends. He would have stood out with his brown skin, and Ruby wondered what tips he could have had for her about being a foreigner among Germans. She wondered if he, too, had been spat at and yelled at like she had and what he had done. She wished she could turn to him for answers.

  When Ruby got home that afternoon, she was still feeling shaky.

  “How’d it go?” Werner asked.

  “Well, that depends on what you mean. The theatre was fine, but . . .” Ruby slumped into a chair and told him her story.

  “I can’t believe that actually happened. That’s awful! But I told you that you’d meet all types here. There are lots of neo-Nazis floating around, so you better get used to it. That wouldn’t have happened if you’d been with me.”

  “Is that all you can say?” Ruby stuttered. “Just ‘Get used to it’? Those guys almost trampled all over me. Don’t you have any kind of office where you can report racist incidents? Like a human rights commission or something?”

  Werner laughed and shook his head. “Nothing like that here,” he said.

  It was Ruby’s turn to express disbelief. Maybe there would be some agency working with foreigners and newcomers that knew about these kinds of things. She would have to find out.

  Ruby enrolled in night school language classes, hoping not just to improve her German but to make some friends. Her German teacher was a laid-back young guy with cascading brown hair who wore flowing pants and loose cotton shirts. On the first night, she met Emma, a young British woman with spiky, copper-coloured hair who lived in the same neighbourhood. They chatted as they ambled back home after class. The next week, Ruby went home with her and met several Brits who were hanging out in her apartment. The place reeked of stale beer, curry and dope, but the conversation was sharp and cutting. Punk music rocked the air waves with an occasional interlude by Lee “Scratch” Perry and other reggae dub masters. She met Emma’s neighbours, two men, Smithie and Jack, who ran a bar
nearby. She met Lina, decidedly waifish, with raven hair and black clothes to match.

  “The most important thing you need to know about me,” Lina told her, “I think in Italian, I dream in Italian, I eat in Italian, but I love the words of Apollinaire. The second most important thing—I am a follower of Leon Trotsky. Are you a capitalist? I am not. If you understand this, Miss Canadian, we can be friends.”

  Despite the mournful clothes, her liveliness was a welcome relief from the uncommonly morbid and sarcastic quips swirling out of the mouths of the others. The unfamiliar humour seemed raw, but Ruby soon grew comfortable among her new British friends.

  It was not as simple with Werner. Ruby knew that he was attracted to her because of her biracial background, and she resented his tendency to patronize her, often downplaying her experiences and those of her family. Despite growing up in white-bread Don Mills, she had been schooled in Black American literature and the politicians, activists and leaders of the civil rights movement. And jazz music flowed like a river through their house. But outside of family and friends, there was little tangible exposure to Black people beyond books and discussions. She had always related more to the Black side of her “split identity.” Yet here she was, out of sync with her raciality, slowly fading and subverting itself as she steeped herself in the Berliner culture and her relationship with Werner.

  One day when he caught her humming a Marvin Gaye tune, he shrieked: “Oh my god, you don’t like that Motown stuff, do you? It’s not the real thing!”

  “What on earth is, then, the real thing?”

  “More obscure stuff than that. Like Stax. Motown was all just commercial trash.”

  Ruby wondered why there couldn’t be a lot of “real things,” and knew at the same time that he was expecting her to know about all other artists out there. He seemed to have studied Black music and literature, but when Ruby asked him if he knew any actual Black people besides her, he shook his head uncomfortably. Ruby stopped singing Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell or the Four Tops in front of him, but carried on just the same when she was on her own.