Last Stop Vienna

by Andrew Nagorski

“Then scat.”

  When I remained frozen in place, she waved her arms: “Scat, scat, scat.” This time I managed to propel myself away and afterward was quick to avert my eyes whenever I thought a girl was about to confront me.

  On the Kurfürstendamm, which ran through the heart of the richer western part of the city, I was even more careful, not so much of the girls as the young boys with powdered faces who cruised the sidewalks hoping to snare customers.

  An older man in a charcoal-gray suit and bowler hat asked me for directions to an elegant restaurant whose classic facade exuded wealth and promised meals I couldn’t imagine. I pointed across the street. “It’s right there.”

  He smiled and raised his hat. “Of course. Strange I didn’t notice it. Would you care to join me for dinner?”

  I was ravenous, but even on an empty stomach, I realized that dinner wouldn’t come free. A wave of nausea came and quickly went. “No thanks,” I muttered.

  “Pity,” the older man said. But I could see his eyes already surveying the area for other boys.

  I kept wandering around the streets, but I felt out of place everywhere. I couldn’t blend in, and I couldn’t stay away. Not knowing what to do with myself, I took every political pamphlet that was thrust into my hands. The angrier their tone, the more I liked them.

  I took a pamphlet from a group that had emerged right after the founding of the Weimar Republic. All I had heard about it was that it was supposed to be full of intellectuals and artists. “Dada,” a bearded young man intoned as he handed the flyer to me. “Dada is the future.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but I liked what I read. “We shall blow Weimar sky-high,” the pamphlet proclaimed. “Berlin is the place . . . da . . . da . . . Nobody and nothing will be spared. Turn out in masses!” It was signed: “The Dadaist headquarters of World Revolution.” It announced a Dada International Exhibition. I stuffed it into my pocket, determined to check it out.

  Two days later, on opening day, I was in a cavernous hall in the midst of a rambunctious crowd. There were a lot of young people dressed in loose, flowing clothes, with couples and even threesomes holding each other, hands draped around waists and sometimes casually dropping lower, in a way that fascinated and excited me. There were also more conventional-looking middle-aged men and women who, like me, edged uncertainly forward.

  Suddenly, several of the young people laughed loudly and pointed upward. I followed the startled looks of the other spectators. A dummy dressed as a German general was hanging upside down from the ceiling. It took me a couple of seconds to register the fact that it had the head of a pig.

  I froze. How could anyone make something that grotesque? This wasn’t what Gerhard or Father had died for. I abruptly turned around and began shoving my way through the incoming visitors. A man grabbed me by the arm: “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” I punched him, catching the side of his face and knocking off his glasses. A woman next to him shrieked, and another man grabbed me by my shirt. I kicked him in the groin, and he doubled over. Before anyone could reach me, I was out the door, running. I heard shouts behind me, but I didn’t look back.

  It was this experience that first taught me a lot of so-called revolutionary intellectuals and artists were simply sick.

  No, I wasn’t going to go near anyone who might turn a general into a pig.

  —

  One afternoon as I was roaming the working-class streets of Neukölln, I ran into Jürgen, Peter and some other boys from school. I had always felt uneasy in their presence, envying their self-confidence and the way they joked among themselves, but I was happy to find company for a change. And even happier to feel accepted during the next several evenings.

  But when they began hanging around the girls who were looking for clients, I held back as far as I could without making it obvious. I was convinced that I was the only one of the group who had never been with a woman, which made me all the more anxious to talk as tough as they did so they wouldn’t find out.

  Jürgen was always teasing the girls and egging us to do the same. They’d tell us to get lost—sometimes angrily, sometimes laughingly, depending on their mood. If they thought we were keeping potential customers away, they really got mad. They were not amused by our boasts that we’d show them “the time of their lives” if they’d only forget about the money.

  On a dare from Jürgen, I sidled up to a blond girl with a thick layer of makeup that accentuated her young age; she couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen. I gave her a quick pat on the ass, not quite managing the squeeze that Jürgen had pushed for. She tossed me a look of utter contempt.

  Jürgen laughed. “You didn’t do it, Karl.”

  “Yes, I did,” I insisted lamely.

  “You know what I’d have her do to me?”

  “The Ulrike treatment,” I replied, alluding to his graphic description of how Ulrike, one of the girls in our class who had also dropped out, had allegedly warmed up for night work by “servicing” him. Since none of us had seen Ulrike for months, there was no one around to dispute his claims.

  “What about you, Karl?” Peter demanded. “What would you do with that blonde we just saw?”

  I paused. “The Erika treatment.”

  “Who the hell is that?”

  “Oh, just someone I know,” I said, trying to sound coy. “Someone I know very well.” I made a pumping motion with my fist. “From the inside out, as it were.”

  “Yeah, right,” Jürgen jumped in. “You’re full of it.”

  “I mean it.”

  “Sure you do.”

  After that I was usually out on my own again. I wanted their company but feared their mockery, wishing there were some way I could be as sure of myself—and believable—as they were.

  Late one of those evenings, I started to head home down a quiet side street. I heard a commotion behind me and a shout: “Stop, thief!” I wheeled around and saw a dark figure, his coat flying, running straight at me.

  I pulled back, then, catching a glimpse of the uniformed figure chasing him, put out my foot to trip the thief. In a flash, though, he hurdled past me, and the cop and I collided, both of us crashing to the pavement.

  Shakily, I stood up. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .”

  Gathering himself up as well, brushing off his uniform and shaking his head, the cop looked toward where the guy had disappeared into the darkness. “Plain bad luck. I saw you try to get him. Another one of those damned pickpockets. Thanks—not many people try to help us these days.”

  The cop shook my hand and turned back. As I walked off, the thought flashed through my mind: Why had I tried to help him? But before I could find an answer, I heard a whisper from a doorway. “Psst, over here.”

  A young man in a long dark overcoat stepped partly out of the shadows, but I still couldn’t see his face clearly. “I loved the way you nailed him. I owe you one.”

  “N-not at all,” I stuttered.

  “Don’t be so modest, for Christ’s sake.” He paused and scanned the street. “The coast is clear. Come on, I owe you a drink.”

  “No, really . . .”

  Before I knew it, he was steering me a short way to another small street and a doorway that led to a bar. Or, more accurately, a dingy room that smelled of beer, cigarettes and piss. The walls and ceiling were a muddy brown color, which failed to cover the large stains of moisture that formed a hodgepodge of creepy patterns. My companion looked totally at home and, spotting someone he knew, led me to his table.

  “I’m Hans,” he said, extending his hand. Pointing to the other man, he added: “And this is Konrad.”

  “Karl,” I replied as he ordered a round of beers from a morose waiter with a filthy apron.

  Hans turned toward Konrad. “Shit, you won’t believe this kid. He sent that cop sprawling and made it look like he was trying to help him.” He paused. “You got it, right?”

  Konrad nodded, patting his pocket.

>   In the dim light, Hans examined my face. “Haven’t I seen you someplace before?”

  I saw that his face was familiar, but I wasn’t sure from where. He was in his late teens, and he looked very pleased with himself.

  He drew himself up. “I know—you’re a friend of Jürgen’s, aren’t you?”

  “Jürgen Majewski?”

  He nodded. “I knew it. Jürgen’s brother is in the same business. We work together sometimes. I remember seeing you.”

  We drank our beers, and I tried to sort out what this meant. It might come out all right, after all. Jürgen and Peter would be impressed with what I had done, or what Hans thought I had done.

  The door swung open, bringing in a gust of cold, wet air and two girls, making almost all the heads in the male crowd turn. They were probably about nineteen or twenty. One was short and stocky, with long dark hair, brown eyes and a broad nose; the other was taller, with light brown hair, but so thin that you could see her bones poking out through her skin. Her angular face, framed by a boyishly short haircut, was attractive, but her expression was cold, a warning that she was definitely off duty. “Two beers over here, now,” she ordered in a husky voice. I tried to pull my eyes away from her.

  “Hey, Karl.” Hans nudged me. “You like?”

  “She’s all right.”

  “Would you like to . . . you know?”

  “Sure, but she’s not the kind to just do it for free.”

  Hans took a swig of beer, wiped away the foam with the back of his hand and shot Konrad a look across the table. “We got enough for the two of them?”

  “We could do them a few times over. It’s a juicy wallet.”

  Before I could say anything, Hans was stepping over to the women. At first they looked irritated by the intrusion, but Hans kept talking. I couldn’t hear what he was saying because of the other loud conversations, or mostly curses, around me; but the tall woman turned her head, and her eyes briefly held mine before focusing back on Hans. Although I had been drinking beer, my throat suddenly felt dry, and I wanted nothing more than to be out of there.

  Hans came back triumphant. “Done deal, Karl. Let’s go.”

  “Where?” My voice came out in a low whisper.

  “You’ll get the tall one all to yourself. The other one has agreed to take care of Konrad and me.” He punched me lightly on the arm. “Relax, enjoy it. I said I owed you.”

  Before I could think of what to say, the five of us stumbled out of the bar and started walking down the street. “In here,” the shorter woman said, pointing to the entrance of a building with a battered wooden door that creaked loudly as we pushed our way through. Once inside, she pulled out a key and opened the door to a ground-floor room. Turning to her friend, she said, “You take the pretty boy, and I’ll go upstairs.”

  Pretty boy, I thought. No one had ever called me that.

  “Come on,” the tall woman told me. “This is it.”

  The room was tiny, with just enough space for a cot, a washbasin and a stool. A musty odor emanated from the walls, contributing to my sense of claustrophobia. The woman began unbuttoning her blouse and loosening her long skirt in quick, no-nonsense movements. I stood there, unsure where to look.

  “What’s your name?” I croaked.

  She shrugged. “What do you want it to be?”

  “Ulrike,” I blurted out, surprising myself.

  “So who’s Ulrike? Your sweetheart?”

  “No one, no one at all.”

  “It’s all the same to me,” she said, by now half undressed. As she leaned over to pull off her skirt the rest of the way, her blouse opened, and I caught a glimpse of dark nipples. She straightened up. “Yes, they’re tits. Now, don’t just stand there: You’re pretty, like my friend said, but let’s get on with it.”

  With that, she reached for my pants. Startled, I backed away.

  “I haven’t got all day, you know,” she said and took a step forward that backed me against the wall. I felt her bony body against mine and reached up to tentatively cup my hands over her breasts. They were tiny but softer than I expected, and the nipples made my palms tingle. At the same moment, her hand plunged into my pants, grasping its target. I felt the surge.

  “Wow,” she scoffed, letting go of my already withering and soggy manhood. “That’s it? What a hotshot! Sure makes my job easy.”

  I struggled to rebutton my clammy pants and pushed by her, heading right back out the door where I dumbly looked up and down the street.

  “Hey, it’s all right,” she called after me, her voice dissolving into laughter mixed with a rasping cough. “Just think,” she added, “you broke all the records.”

  Praying that Hans and Konrad were still busy upstairs, I fled. This time I wanted not just to flee but to disappear, evaporate, vaporize. At least from all the places in Berlin where I might be recognized, from anywhere I could be chased by the laughter of those who would quickly hear about my humiliation.

  —

  In the days and weeks that followed, I stayed well away from my usual haunts and ventured home to get something to eat or to change clothes only when I was sure my mother wasn’t there. The last thing I wanted was to see the inevitable disappointment in her face, and I certainly didn’t want to—or know how to—explain anything to her. I could wear the two shirts and loose overcoat Gerhard had left behind, which doubled my wardrobe. Clearly my mother knew I was dropping in, which accounted for whatever food she managed to put out on the table. But I never thanked her or even allowed her to catch sight of me. When I think about this today, I’m ashamed. But back then I was obsessed with another sense of shame. Hans would have told Jürgen’s brother, I was convinced, and that meant that Jürgen, Peter and everybody else would know about what had happened. They might even know that I had asked the whore to call herself Ulrike.

  I slept again in stairways and cellars, huddled up in both Gerhard’s and my coats. During those days and evenings, I found myself drawn to the groups of Free Corps men, the returning soldiers who had no intention of laying down their arms. Their pamphlets promised to restore order, pride and might. They called for the support of everyone who believed that the sacrifices of so many Germans on the battlefield should not be in vain, and they vowed to destroy those who had betrayed their cause by accepting defeat.

  I liked the way they still wore their army uniforms and now looked more defiant than defeated. In a group, they exuded a raw male strength and confidence that I envied. If only I could be like them, I thought. Probably that, more than their talk of defending German honor and traditions, accounted for my tagging behind them whenever I could.

  The Free Corps had already proved its ability to fight. I could make little sense of the constant street battles and coups and counter-coups, but I did know that the army veterans’ prime enemy were the Spartacists, as the communists called themselves. They were led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Bloody Rosa, as her enemies called her. The Spartacists launched an uprising that was supposed to usher in the proletarian state, whatever that meant. The veterans in the Free Corps cursed the communist Jews, who they said were trying to destroy everything they had tried to protect. And it was thanks to their decision to fight alongside regular troops that the government was able to crush the big Spartacist revolt.

  Tracked down in the Wilmersdorf section of the city, Liebknecht and Luxemburg were marched off by government troops to army headquarters in the Eden Hotel. I heard later that they were tortured there, before they were ostensibly sent to Moabit Prison. Neither made it that far. Free Corps troops laughed about the fact that Liebknecht was found with a bullet in his head in the Tiergarten. Luxemburg, they added gleefully, had gone for a swim in one of the canals. Her bloated, disfigured body was fished out much later.

  I had been a bystander, eagerly gobbling up whatever details I could of the confusing battles. But the deaths of Liebknecht and Luxemburg didn’t put an immediate end to the Spartacist threat. As strikes kept breaking out, the kil
ling continued.

  One evening I was trailing along behind a cluster of Free Corps men when they stopped and pointed to three dark shapes on the pavement. It took me a moment to realize what they were: bodies, each one wearing the uniform of government troops and lying in a puddle of dark fluid. The Free Corps men turned them over and stepped back quickly. I could see that each of the soldiers had his throat cut. I felt giddy, nauseated, but couldn’t tear my eyes away.

  A couple of shots whizzed over the heads of the Free Corps men. “Over there,” I shouted from behind, pointing to two men sprinting into the gate of a nearby building. They rushed into the courtyard after them, and I followed at a short distance. Within seconds, both of the Spartacists were sprawled on the ground, their guns kicked away and then pointed at them.

  “Don’t shoot,” one of them pleaded.

  I stood transfixed, my blood pumping so hard that it took all my strength just to stand still. In quick succession, both guns went off, and the heads of the men exploded in blood.

  “Nice job,” one of the executioners said, standing in front of me and holding his gun, which was still emitting a thin wisp of smoke. “It had to be done. Look at it this way: That’s two less bastards in the world, two less enemies trying to destroy us and everything Germany stands for.” He grinned. “I’ve seen you hanging around. So, you want to be one of us?”

  “Yes,” I managed to say. “I mean, if you’ll have me.”

  “What do you think?” he asked the others. “Sure, why not? What’s your name?”

  “Karl Naumann.”

  “Hermann Hardtke.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “You’ll need some new clothes, but that can be arranged. A uniform. You’re small, but so were some of our buddies who were killed by these bastards. By the way, you ever fired a gun before?”

  “Not really.”

  “No matter, you’ll learn. I bet you already know how to use your fists.”

  “Sure do,” I said, finding my trembling gone.

  “Good, you’ll need them.”

  —

  Hermann took me under his wing. It was rare for the Free Corps to accept someone who hadn’t served in the war, but he saw to it that no one bothered me. He found me the basic gear: army shirt, pants and boots that were a fairly decent if loose fit, although I had to pull my belt tight to keep my pants from falling off and to stuff paper into the toes of my boots to fill them out. I suppose I looked a bit comical, a boy trying hard to be a man, and I suspect many of Hermann’s friends saw me as a mascot. But at the time I wasn’t aware of that. I knew only that the men I had so admired had accepted me, that I was wearing the same uniform, that Hermann was teaching me how to fight with my fists or a knife and how to shoot a gun. Puffed up with a sense of belonging, I wasn’t about to question their mission or why such methods were necessary. Whatever they said I took as gospel.