Ashes (14 page)

Corners and bookshelves dissolved into murky shadows. The only signs of life were in Ulla's bedroom. Clothes were tossed about carelessly. If Ulla was living here at all it must have been mostly in the bedroom, I thought. I went into the bathroom. Rosa came in a minute later.

“What are you staring at?” she asked

I looked around at her slowly. “He's spitting in our basin.”

“What are you talking about?” Rosa said, confusion swimming in her eyes.

I nodded toward a toothbrush I had never seen before. “That's his.”

“Whose? Karl's?” she asked.

“Yes, who else's?” I snapped. It was as if all the anger that had been pent up in me about Karl and Ulla suddenly sprang up.

I hadn't told Rosa yet about the beer garden. I was ashamed. At first I had wanted to tell her, but then I realized I didn't want anyone to know how I felt about what I saw, not even Rosa. It was one thing talking about them having sex, but the beer garden was something else. What if she didn't think it was so wrong that Karl joined in the singing? It was, in a way, a perfectly innocent song about a nation that had lost a war to its perpetual enemy, France, decades ago, merely vowing to keep a watchful eye on the Rhine. It was not a song of hatred. And yet just as the perfectly good word
Volk
had been transformed and begun to acquire a loaded meaning, so had the song “The Watch on the Rhine.” There were undercurrents of vengeance, a veiled threat of domination. Ulla had sung the song, too. But Ulla hadn't been standing on a bench like me. She had been too low to see the swastika on the young singer's sleeve. Maybe she hadn't really noticed that sparkle in Karl's eyes. And if she had, maybe she hadn't thought anything of it. But I had.

“Let's get out of here,” I said.

“Gaby, what is it?” Rosa asked.

“I don't want to talk about it.”

I went into the music room and got the books that Mama wanted. We left before I could even look for the turpentine.

 

 

We didn't talk all the way back to Rosa's apartment building. Then I began to feel a little guilty about my mood and how short I had been with her.

“Look,” I said, “why don't we go to the movies tonight.”

“Helmut doesn't work at the theater anymore.”

“Oh no! Too bad.” I noticed a funny look cross her face. “What is it?”

“I was going to tell you earlier but it seemed like you didn't want to talk about your sister.”

“What? Tell me.”

“He's working at that cabaret where she is the bookkeeper—the Chameleon.”

“You're kidding!”

“No! And he can get us in.”

“Into a cabaret?”

Rosa nodded.

“Oooh!”

“Want to go tonight? He said we can sit way in the back and watch the show. It's supposed to be very funny. We can go out late. Mama's staying over with grandma two floors above us. She will never know. They always are in bed sound asleep by ten.”

“I absolutely want to go! What'll we wear?” I knew that my beautiful new dresses were not right for a cabaret.

“Leave it to me, your fashion consultant. I'll figure out something.”

Do you know the land where cannons are in bloom?

You don't? You're going to!

- Erich Kästner,
“Do You Know the Land Where Cannons Are in Bloom”

 

 

 

 

“L
ook at her! Look at that skirt, it's so short. You can see her bottom,” Rosa said. It was Ulla's bottom!

“Nothing compared to what you're going to see onstage,” Helmut said. He was the maître d'. He wore a cutaway jacket much fancier than his usher outfit at the movie theater, and his job mainly was to seat people and direct a waiter to take their drink orders.

Rosa and I were tucked into a tiny table in the farthest corner of the Chameleon. We were both wearing dark berets, black stockings that Rosa had borrowed from her mother's bureau, and dark skirts of her mother's that, with the help of belts and pins Rosa had refashioned to make shorter and a bit tighter. Over this we wore long, loose, jacket-style sweaters that buttoned down the front. We didn't look exactly fashionable but we didn't look like schoolgirls, either. We dissolved into the shadows, and Helmut promised us that Ulla would not see us. But we certainly saw Ulla. She was dressed in a very short skirt with black net stockings. She wore a sparkling sequin halter top. Her hair was piled up high and had a white plumy feather sticking out. She wore absolutely tons of makeup.

“I wonder how she keeps the books in that getup!” I muttered. She, of course, was not keeping books at all. She was the cigarette girl, passing through the tables with a tray that was filled with packs of cigarettes to sell to the customers.

“She actually does do the bookkeeping in the morning.” Helmut seemed at pains to somehow show us that Ulla was more than a scantily clad purveyor of cigarettes.

I shrugged. “Makes no difference to me,” I said, trying to appear detached. But it was a little disturbing thinking about how she had lied to all of us. I mean, even if she really was keeping books, it was still a lie of omission. She conveniently left out the scanty costume part.

“And as I said, you'll soon see that there are many girls with less clothing,” Helmut said, perhaps trying to make me feel better about my half-naked sister.

I shrugged again but said nothing.

The lights dimmed now, and there was a metallic smear of cymbals crashing. A spotlight struck the center of the curtain. The master of ceremonies, Max Weltmann, peeked out from behind the curtain, almost shyly.

“This is his style,” Helmut leaned over and whispered to us. “He always delivers his opening monologue partially hidden. But he is very funny, quick . . . he has a sly wit.”

“Ladies and gentlemen—a poem, if you please, about the glories and glitter of lost wars, but triumphs none the less. This poem, set to music, is by Erich Kästner.”

“Erich Kästner?” I gasped. “The same?”

“Yes, the author of
Emil and the Detectives
!” Helmut replied.

This is going to be fun!
I thought. A clarinet began to play, and Max Weltmann's voice looped out into the smoke-curled darkness of the cabaret.

The song went on to describe business executives in their fine suits, but beneath, they wore soldiers' armor. To me, it all seemed to be a sly reference to the growing belligerence and military spirit in Germany.

When he finished singing the crowd roared its approval. But I was astonished. I looked at Helmut.

“You're right. He is sly. That was . . .”

“Subversive? Is that the word you're looking for?”

“I guess so.” For the whole poem that Max Weltmann had sung was a parody of one of the most famous poems in the German language that everyone knew, a song sung by Goethe's Mignon. To use these almost sacred lines as a humorous ditty sung in a cabaret was truly subversive!

I thought back on my last three days in Berlin: There were the two SA men at the department store, then the “empress” at the countess's reception who was said to contribute money to the Nazi Party, followed by Count Helldorf at the tea, and finally the thugs painting the swastika outside Dr. Feininger's office. I glanced over at Ulla. She was on the other side of the room. Suddenly her risqué costume didn't bother me in the least, nor the fact that she had lied about parts of her job. In fact, it seemed rather courageous of her to be working in this subversive club.

“Do SA officers come here?” I asked Helmut.

“Not very often. And if they do, half the time they don't get what Max is saying.”

“Oh good lord, look at that!” Rosa nudged me. The curtain had risen to reveal a dazzling human replica of the Brandenburg Gate, Germany's patriotic symbol, which was located just west of Berlin's center and one block south of the Reichstag, at the beginning of the avenue Unter den Linden. The gate seethed triumph and was the embodiment of all that was glorious in German history. On its top was the quadriga, the four-horse chariot that was raced in the ancient Olympic Games, with the goddess of victory driving it.

The replica also had a quadriga, but there was one difference: The goddess driving it was completely naked, as were her attendants, except for a few strategically placed leaves below their waists. Helmut had been right. Ulla in comparison was as well clad as an Eskimo on a dogsled run.

Though this was my first-ever cabaret experience, I had a feeling that what Rosa and I were seeing was the most slyly anti-patriotic show in Berlin. One didn't have to listen that carefully to the lyrics of the song to see that they mocked Germany's obsession with military power. And the words certainly hinted at the mounting militarism with that line about the land where the cannons bloom. I looked over at Ulla, who was just now selling a pack of cigarettes to a bearded gentleman. As she walked away from him, I could see her face quite clearly. I could see creases at the corners of her mouth as she smiled. Little crinkles of pleasure at her new independence perhaps, her new daring life in this subversive café? A small curved line punctuated each corner of her mouth like quotation marks. But Ulla, unlike the Empress Hermine, was no quotation girl. I felt a sudden twinge—pride. I was proud of her working here. But did everyone realize how subversive this was? Did Karl?

 

 

We didn't stay long. But part of me wanted to remain, wanted to tell Ulla that I thought her working here was not bad even if she wore a skimpy costume and did more than just keep the books. I wanted her to know that I understood the sophisticated humor of Max Weltmann. But I thought, not now. Later. Her boss might get angry that her little sister and her little sister's friend were hanging about. So Rosa and I walked out into the night. Although it was late, it was not very dark. It was the kind of night filled with the fuzzy gray light that Papa found maddening. Warm and humid rags of mist floated up from the river Spree.

We had turned down an alley when suddenly Rosa grabbed my arm. Directly ahead was a gang of young men with paintbrushes.

“Another painting squad!” I whispered. We turned to go the other way, but now behind us, seemingly out of that gray mist, three more figures appeared.

“Hello, Fräulein.” One boy had already dipped his brush into a bucket he had set down, and he began painting the first arm of the swastika on a brick wall. “Want to help?”

We shook our heads. “We have to get home,” Rosa whispered hoarsely.

“
Nein
, sister,” another boy said, coming up and pulling on a curl of Rosa's that stuck out from under her beret. “You ain't going no place. I think you need to help the Führer.”

“He doesn't need our help,” I said softly.

Yet another boy came up, a taller one. “Come on, Egon. Let 'em go. They're just kids. We got a lot more work tonight.”

Egon took a step closer. His eyes were like blue slits. His skin was as gray as the night air. His face looked like a mask, the mouth a slot. It was as if there might be another face behind this one. “Say it, sister.”

“Say what?” I asked.

“Say it!” The others pressed in on us.

The slot opened to reveal square yellow teeth with large spaces between them. And then the arm shot out, the palm flat. “Heil Hitler!” The two words tore the darkness. Rosa's arm and mine immediately sprang upward.

“Heil Hitler,” we called. The words stumbled out of our mouths. And we ran into fog-thick air of the Berlin night.

That was morality; things that made you disgusted afterward. No, that must be immorality.

-Ernest Hemingway,
The Sun Also Rises

 

 

 

 

“
Meine Auge
, my eye,
meine Auge
, my eye.
Meine Glasauge
! My glass eye!” The mask contorts in fear, not rage. Like a baby it wails. I want to comfort it as one would a toddler with a broken toy. I want to pick it up and cuddle and kiss it. I am so ashamed.

 

 

I woke up from my nightmare shocked and trembling. I looked over at the twin bed where Rosa slept. I hoped I had not cried out. I wondered if Rosa was having nightmares too. We had not talked about the incident in the alley when we got home, and except for one time, neither Rosa nor I would ever mention that night again.

We had taken baths when we returned to Rosa's apartment. Luckily there was no sign of her mother. She was still upstairs at Rosa's grandmother's apartment. But now I wanted to take another one. I felt dirty. I wondered if it would wake Rosa up if I ran the water. The bathroom was down the hall. She might not hear it. I decided to try.