Berlin: A Novel (36 page)

As she was carrying a soup pan out to the men round their fire, Jurek grabbed her. He had been drinking with the soldiers. 'Come here, German whore!' he bellowed, dragging Detta away from the fire into the dark. His breath smelled of vodka. He let go of her behind the stables. 'You scream so they think I kill you,' he whispered.

Detta screamed until her throat hurt.

'I saddled Loschek. Get away quick, right?'

He had tied a blanket on the old horse's back with a girth. He helped her up. The night was cold and starry once again. She orientated herself by the Great Bear. Berlin, here I come, she thought. I'm repeating myself, she realized bitterly.

The Berlin city commandant looked up from his desk. 'Good morning, Curt.'

'Good morning, sir.' Curtis S. Chalford indicated his companion. 'Sir, this is Henriette von Aichborn.'

The general shook hands with Detta. 'Glad to meet you, Miss von Aichborn. I am Henry Abbot. We're all here to find out whether you'd like to become my German liaison.' Abbot was a lean, grey-haired man with a weathered face. He had the clipped, dry accent typical of New England aristocracy. Detta liked him at once, and the feeling seemed to be reciprocated.

'That's entirely up to you, General Abbot. But why don't we give it a try?' she said.

A trial period, excellent,' Chalford agreed. Detta had gone to see him at the German-American Employment office, and he had suggested her for the post - the applicant spoke fluent English, was a real lady, and had that certain something that you couldn't learn but were born with.

Detta would have taken almost any job. She wanted just one thing - to immerse herself in work and to forget it all; her wild flight from Aichborn, first on horseback and then on foot, after hungry, homeless people had killed the old nag. She had hidden from the marauding liberators in the undergrowth or in barns by day, taking remote paths through the woods and fields by night, then spent the following weeks with the Glasers in Mahlow on the outskirts of Berlin - the fact that a woman Red Army major was billeted on them meant that they escaped the worst. News came from the faithful Bensing, by roundabout ways, that her mother had been released, but her father was in the NKVD camp at Buchenwald.

After the Western Allies had entered the capital, Detta ventured to the Steubenplatz, which was in the British sector. Her apartment was occupied. A family who had survived the trek from East Prussia had been quartered there. She was able to retrieve a few things from her wardrobe, though where she would take them she didn't know.

At the Housing Department, where she stood in line for hours on end, someone spoke to her. 'It's Fraulein von Aichborn, isn't it?' The woman wore a once elegant, foal-skin coat and a headscarf. 'Elisabeth Mohr. You visited us once at Horn's fashion house on the Kurfdrstendamm, with Fraulein Goldberg. It must have been in about 1935.'

'Frau Mohr, yes, I remember.'

Frau Mohr had to give up a room in her apartment. 'I'd rather find a tenant for myself than have someone billeted on me.' So Detta and her few things found a place to live in Waltraudstrasse on the Fischtal park, and had the benefit of Frau Mohr's good advice, too. 'If you speak any English, you could try getting work with the Yanks. They pay in Allimarks, but most important of all, they give you something to eat.'

And now she was in the process of taking up one of the most important posts open to a German at this time: advising the US city commandant and liaising between him and the people of Berlin. But she felt no pleasure or satisfaction. She felt empty and alone.

The arrival of her mother was an unexpected gleam of light. The Baroness had made her way to Berlin on foot and on the roofs of overcrowded freight trains. Fanselow and his Red friends were ravaging Aichborn. They had looted the schloss and expropriated the land.

The Baroness smiled painfully. 'Bensing had to go through a session of self-criticism as a "minion of the Junkers". He insisted on staying. Someone must be at Aichborn when Father comes home, he says. Oh, Detta, I have so little hope. I hear that conditions in the camp at Buchenwald are even worse under our new masters than before.'

From then on mother and daughter shared the same bed. Frau von Aichborn was not a refugee and had no right to accommodation in Berlin. She lived like a shadow, spending her days reading or going for long walks in the Fischtal. A pretty park,' she said. 'Did you know that the name Fischtal has nothing to do with fish? The farmers of Zehlendorf used to call the pastures there the "Viehstall", the "cowshed". A man out walking told me that.'

She revived when she was allowed to start teaching a Spanish course at a new adult education centre. And she was finally allotted a room too, in the basement of a villa in Katharinenstrasse, quite close to Detta. A photograph on the chest of drawers showed the Baron in gumboots inspecting a breeding bull. Both the Baron and the bull looked happy.

The way to work wasn't far: over the Waltraudbriicke to Argentinische Allee and then to Oskar-Helene-Heim U-Bahn station. Opposite stood the buildings of what had been the Luftgaukommando, which the Americans had made their Berlin headquarters, and by virtue of their liking for absurd acronyms called oMGUS, 'Office of the Military Government of the United States'. The sandstone facades of the Third Reich were intact and the same as ever. The smell of Nescafe and Virginia cigarettes in the polished corridors was new.

Detta went that way every day, and every day the blind man met her. He was a youngish man, small, with dark glasses and a white stick, wearing a uniform mended in several places and bearing the outline of a Luftwaffe eagle that had been removed from its breast. She supposed he lived somewhere nearby.

She felt sorry for him. But it would have gone no further - she was in no mood to make new acquaintances - if he hadn't almost walked into the path of a car one morning. She grabbed his sleeve and held him back. He was alarmed, then understood and thanked her. 'I know you. I know your footsteps. We meet here every morning, don't we? I'm taking my daily constitutional, so as not to get old before my time.'

'Come on.' Detta took his arm and led him across the street. 'Have a good morning,' she wished him on the other side. He walked away, his footsteps sure. He obviously knew every paving stone.

Her new daily routine began as she showed her pass to the guard at the entrance. Lieutenant Anny Randolph, personal assistant to the city commandant, was waiting for her in the outer office with a black coffee. It had taken a little while for Detta to get used to it: the Americans boiled their coffee instead of brewing it. 'Hi, Detta, how are you this morning?'

'Thanks, Anny, swell,' said Detta, imitating the lively New Yorker's speech. 'What's on?'

'The boss wants to see you. The people wanting a newspaper licence have an appointment at eleven.'

A normal working day began. Colonel Tucker, adjutant to the city commandant, looked in briefly, but there was nothing for him. Mr Gold, the inscrutable representative of the State Department, who apparently didn't speak a word of German although he came from Frankfurt am Main, brought the city commandant an envelope with 'Confidential' stamped on it, and Anny Randolph gave him a receipt. Herr Bongarts did his weekly round with his little bottle and brush, disinfecting the four hundred phones in OMGUS. The Americans feared germs even more than Communism.

Henry Abbot rose courteously when Detta entered his office, and pointed to one of the armchairs. 'Do sit down, Henriette.'

'Thank you, sir. It's about the licence to publish a new Berlin newspaper, isn't it?'

'My press officer Major Landon has checked up on the applicants. He has no reservations about them, but I'd like you to see them both. I rely a great deal on your understanding of human nature.'

'Only a bit of common sense, General,' said Detta.

The German visitors were punctual. Detta introduced them to the general. Hermann Lbttge was a printer and had the necessary machinery. He didn't say much, but his partner talked enough for two. 'I shall look after the publishing side. I've had years of organizational experience in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, entirely apolitical, as you can see from my files. My school friend Leo Wolf will be editor-in-chief and put the editorial team together. He was in a concentration camp,' he concluded on a triumphant note.

Detta interpreted. Henry Abbot listened attentively. 'Does having been in a concentration camp automatically qualify you for the post of editor-inchief?'

'Oh, please, commandant! The man is Jewish, of course. They're the cleverest folk you can find. Apropos of which, I would just like to say that I helped many of my Jewish fellow countrymen. I can prove it.'

The Goldbergs, for instance, thought Detta. She had recognized former Under-Secretary Aribert Karch at once. He obviously didn't know what to make of her. 'For a moment I thought we'd met before,' he said when they were back in the outer office.

'You thought correctly, Herr Karch. At Miriam Goldberg's farewell party in Gumbinner Allee. You were generously helping her and her family to get out of the country at the time. I'll write to her in America. I'm sure she'll support your application for a licence. By the way, do you still belong to the Circle of Friends of the Reichsfiihrer SS?'

Karch winced as if he had toothache. 'We all had to move with the times.'

And some of us moved further than others.'

'I don't understand a word of this,' said the printer.

'It does you credit, Herr Luttge. Goodbye, gentlemen.'

'Herr Karch has withdrawn his application,' she told the general.

'Couldn't he have done so a little earlier?' growled Henry Abbot, annoyed.

'He needed a little coaching.'

The blind man moved away from the street light on the corner of Waltraudstrasse and fell into step with Detta. 'I heard you coming a long way off. How are you this morning? I've been thinking of you all night. You are beautiful. A real lady. I can tell from your voice. I once knew many beautiful women. None of them have any time for me today. But you're different.'

Detta bristled. The fact that she had kept him from an accident yesterday gave him no right to take liberties. 'Excuse me. I'm in a hurry.'

She walked faster, but he was not to be shaken off. His stick kept time with her footsteps. It somehow sounded threatening. 'You work for the Americans, don't you? You'll be showing them what German punctuality is like. Unfortunately none of that concerns me now, out of service as I am. Who'd be interested in whether I arrived late or indeed at all?'

The guard would stop him following her in. She wasn't in the mood for this chatter. He took her silence as interest. 'Not so long ago it was different. The ground crew welcomed me back with a bottle of bubbly for every victory in the air. I got the Knight's Cross after the twenty-fifth.'

Thank goodness, the guard. 'I'm afraid you can't come any further. Goodbye.'

'Brandenburg, Captain Jurgen Brandenburg, Richthofen Fighter Squadron,' he called after her.

The city commandant was in unusually high spirits. 'Guess what, Henriette, I found a completely intact, seaworthy yacht in the Wannsee wharf. All mahogany and teak. A fine boat. The old boat builder there says it will take him a month to strip the Astra down. He'll do it for a few cartons of cigarettes. And then Colonel Hastings of Transport Command will take her to Bremerhaven for me, and we'll ship her home. Six weeks in the shipyard and she'll be like new.'

'What about the owner?'

'Some German.'

Detta was indignant. 'I am "some German" too, General Abbot. Unfortunately I don't have anything you can take away from me and ship home. If you'd excuse me. . .'

'One moment, Henriette.'

He's going to fire me, she thought.

'The owner of the yacht is called Erpenborg, a stamp dealer. A nice old fellow who doesn't sail any more. We agreed that I'd send the estimated value in dollars to his sister's account in Rio. She'll use it for her children there.'

'Will you accept my apology, sir?'

'Only if you'll come to dinner with us this evening. We have a surprise for you. Lucy likes you very much. So do I.' Embarrassed, he looked at the floor. Then he was the correct West Point officer again. 'Well, now to work. What do we have?'

The Evangelical Bishop of Berlin had a request. Curtis S. Chalford put his rosy face round the door. He had a proposal for regulating the working hours of German employees of the army. The city commandant saw a group of district council members from Schoneberg. Then it was lunchtime.

Detta could have gone to eat lunch in the Harnack House. She had a special permit, making her the only German woman there. But it went against her deep-rooted Prussian principles to accept favours from the victor. She saw her own dilemma clearly: on the one hand, she was grateful to the liberators who had freed her from the yoke of the oppressor: on the other, she still saw them as the enemy.

There was a stretch of woodland behind Truman Hall. The pine trees here were young, and so far had escaped the attentions of the black-market woodcutters. Soon they would be uprooted and a housing estate would be built on the sandy site; there had been plans before the war to erect one for the growing population of Berlin, and now it was to be built for the Americans. She sat down on the warm ground, which was cushioned with pine needles, and closed her eyes. Ever since Henry Abbot had mentioned the yacht and the Wannsee she had been thinking about David and the motorboat Bertie. It was ten years ago, yet those ten years seemed an eternity. She imagined his freckled face over her, grave and concentrated, concerned rather than passionate, as he tried to penetrate her without hurting her. She couldn't help laughing, and it did her good.