Michael Moorcock - The Brothel in Rosenstrasse

The shell falls not far from Rosenstrasse. Out of the dusty debris comes galloping a column of flying artillery. It stops in a flurry of hooves and steel on the embankment. The soldiers rush to position their guns so they point across the river at the Moravia. I slip back to the brothel and return to Clara. She stirs in her sleep. I am not sure she has noticed my absence. Since we all three take turns sitting with Alice Clara has become used to frequent comings and goings. Later that morning we both get dressed and go to see how the child is. To our considerable surprise she is not only up, she is eating cheese and drinking watered wine. Diana is full of joy. ‘What a wonderful recovery.’ Clara frowns.

I do my best to disguise my pleasure. Alice must be ready to travel. When Clara and Diana go downstairs together I hug my little girl. ‘Are you ready for our next adventure?’

‘Oh, yes!’ she grins at me, a conspiratorial innocent. ‘What’s the plan?’

I tell her we shall leave separately tonight. I will wait for her at midnight in Papensgasse, round the corner from the archway. ‘It might be easier than I thought. They’ve moved our guns up to the river. That probably means Holzhammer has broken through the defences and is in the Moravia already. We’ll come out well behind his main lines. I’ll buy horses, then it’s a clear ride to the border and a train.’ We hear sounds in the corridor. She says gently, with hesitant fingers on my arm:

‘You don’t think you’d be happier going with Clara?’ I am taken aback. My heart sinks. ‘Of course not. Why?’ She makes a little movement with her lovely shoulders. ‘Nothing.’ The door opens. ‘I’ll be there.’

Clara enters. She seems distressed. Has she guessed? ‘It’s Van Geest,’ she says. ‘He’s shot himself. God knows why. Downstairs is full of police and soldiers. They don’t seriously think it’s murder. But the building’s now officially occupied. Soldiers are being billeted here. Temporarily, they say, because of the ‘new emergency’, whatever that is.’ I return to the ground floor with her, so she will not get suspicious. I blow my smiling Alice a kiss as we leave. The vestibule is still hung with its many portraits of the French emperor whom Frau Schmetterling adored and who, some say, was her first lover. The soldiers show distaste for these pictures and seem discomfited by them. The officer in charge, Captain Kolovrat, attempts to order them removed from the walls. This Frau Schmetterling firmly refuses. She is the only one of us with any authority to resist them; my own choice is to pretend respect and to avoid them as much as I can. Unlike Mencken, these men are used to power and know how to gain it. A soldier must be broken in such a way as to make him wholly reliant upon his superiors, otherwise he cannot be controlled in battle. Most officers employ this knowledge in their dealings with women, first destroying their confidence, then supplying it themselves so that those they would command become entirely dependant upon them. I must admit to being nervous. They remind me of well-trained hounds: their natural ferocity, their terror of their own madness, contained and controlled almost entirely by their wills. Such personalities yearn for uniforms, for rituals. They demand them in others, for they must order a world they fear and thus will simplify themselves and those around them as much as they can. Captain Mencken is in conversation with a police inspector wearing a kepi and gold epaulettes on his maroon uniform. Captain Kolovrat, presumably senior to Mencken, struts about the salon inspecting its contents as if he were kicking his heels in a provincial art-gallery. He has a Prussian-style helmet decorated in gold and silver, a black and white uniform, and a variety of medals. His hand sticks his sword out behind him like the extended tail of a scorpion. His little fat face is embellished by a waxed moustache and a monocle. He wheels around and marches towards me to be introduced by a defeated Frau Schmetterling, whose only victory has been the pictures. He salutes me. I bow my head. He clicks his heels and says: ‘You must understand, sir, that every resident is now under military discipline. Your privileges, I regret, are at an end.’

‘They were over when ‘Mister’ died,’ says Frau Schmetterling softly. And then, to him: ‘I hope you don’t expect to find supplies here, Captain Kolovrat. We were living hand to mouth as it was.’

‘We shall see,’ he says. ‘I shall want inventories. Anything we use will, of course, receive a receipt and you can claim full payment from the government after the War. Mencken? Inspector Serval?’

‘Suicide without doubt,’ says Serval. ‘He was probably suffering from some form of delirium. Maybe bad meat, maybe drink, maybe a disease. The doctor will let us know. But he shot himself through the temple with his own revolver. A familiar situation at present.’

‘Disease,’ says Kolovrat, rubbing at his chubby chin. He rolls the word on his tongue and seems about to spit it out. ‘Of course. There must be a medical inspection. I shall send to headquarters.’

Frau Schmetterling is offended. ‘I assure you that the likelihood;’

‘The likelihood is what a soldier must consider, madame.’ He is fastidious and condescending. She falls silent, reconciled for the time being to this man’s swaggering rudeness. Mencken seems embarrassed and apologetic. Clara, Diana and I go with the others, girls and clients, into the salon. Alice is mentioned and excused because she is unwell. I present her papers. Kolovrat has had a bureau placed in the middle of the floor. He sits at this now, making up a register. One by one we give our names and nationalities, showing him our identification cards. We are allowed to sit or to stand around the walls of the salon. Outside, the shells are constant and from time to time the whole building shakes or more glass crashes to the floor. Kolovrat’s inquisition is frequently punctuated by the chiming of the chandelier over his head. One series of shots seems closer: I realise it is our own artillery, firing across the river. Kolovrat knows the sound, too, and looks up. I fail to read his fat little face. Eventually we are dismissed. Young soldiers stand to attention everywhere. Clara, Diana and myself are asked by Frau Schmetterling to accompany her to her kitchen. Whenever a shell lands nearby she jumps and looks at her shivering dresser, at her wonderful, rattling china. So far nothing is damaged. ‘I am worried,’ she says, ‘about my daughter. With ‘Mister’ gone Elvira has no-one but me… She sits down at her long table. Trudi, smiling in the background, makes us something to drink. Outside, there is a lull in the bombardment and we can hear Herr Ulric the butcher-cook in the courtyard. His loud healthy voice rings and echoes. He is arguing with a young cavalryman: ‘The horse is no good to you and no good to itself. It is dying of starvation!’ The soldier is passionate. ‘We shall die together!’ he shouts. The butcher is reasonable: ‘Go inside and fuck one of the girls. While you’re at it I’ll deal with the horse.’

‘You are disgusting!’

The butcher drops his voice and so does the cavalryman. We hear no more and soon the shells are landing again. The building is scarcely ever still. It is as if an earthquake perpetually shakes it. Frau Schmetterling says to Lady Cromach: ‘You have connections, I presume, in England. Could you get Elvira to school there? If anything happens to me.’

‘Nothing will happen to you, Frau Schmetterling, and of course I’ll do whatever I can. Do you wish me to recommend some schools, somewhere where Elvira could stay? I have an old nanny who still lives in London.’

‘Yes,’ says Frau Schmetterling. ‘That’s the sort of thing.’