Michael Moorcock - The Brothel in Rosenstrasse

She produces a notebook. ‘Some names and addresses?’

Lady Diana makes an awkward, affectionate gesture. She frowns and then spells in English. When she has finished she says: ‘If anything else comes to mind I’ll let you know. You wish your daughter to leave soon?’

‘Oh, yes, soon.’ Frau Schmetterling’s large bosom rises and falls. ‘I must stay with my girls. Elvira’

‘We’ll see that’s she’s safe,’ says Diana. ‘I promise.’ Her voice is soft and comforting. It has lost most of that inflexion which makes almost every word seem sardonic. She squeezes Frau Schmetterling’s shoulder. The madam sighs. ‘Thank you, Lady Cromach.’

Our band has begun to play again in the salon. Presumably Captain Kolovrat has decided this will improve morale. The staccato, nervous quality of the tune becomes increasingly intrusive as we sit in silence round Frau Schmetterling’s table, drinking spiced grog and getting a little drunk. The steady thumping of the guns, the shrieks and explosions, seem preferable to the music. Eventually, Frau Schmetterling rises and says she must speak to Ulric about lunch. She rings for the cook. He comes striding in, grinning widely. His leather apron is covered in blood. He bows to us. I envy him his insouciance as much as I envy him his sinewy arms, the strong veins standing out from the hard muscle. As we three leave the kitchen and return upstairs Diana remarks that I seem in unusually good spirits. We reach my door. Alice is sitting in the easy chair, reading a magazine. She kisses us, one by one. There is an air of excitement about her which amuses us all, even Clara. ‘The shock has worn off as quickly as it came,’ says my Rose.

‘That, I suppose, is the nature of such complaints. Particularly in the very young.’ Lady Diana thoughtfully strokes Alice’s hair. Alice puts lips to her wrist. We decide we shall all lunch together so that Alice can meet the new Captain. ‘That’s splendid!’ exclaims Alice. At lunch Rakanaspya and Count Belozerski eat in silence, perhaps in mourning for Van Geest. Caroline Vacarescu hangs on Count Stefanik’s arm but at the same time spares a bright smile for Captain Kolovrat and another for Captain Mencken, both of whom dine with us. Trudi is helped at the table by a young, red-faced military orderly who sweats visibly and whose smell is almost as vile as the meat we are eating. Egon Wilke, at Frau Schmetterling’s elbow, has an embarrassed air about him. He is presumably not comfortable sitting down to eat with so much Authority on either side of him. Kolovrat attempts to make a joke across the table, addressing Mencken. ‘Well, here we are, the two oldest professions in the world sharing a table. I suppose that is only proper. What would you rather be, Frau Schmetterling, a whore or a soldier?’

‘As a matter of fact, monsieur,’ she says in French, ‘I am neither. But I think I should rather be a whore. I see it as a superior calling.’

Kolovrat pretends to be amused, again seeking to catch Mencken’s eye and being baffled by the expressionless smoked glasses. ‘What? Why so, madame?’

‘I think there is a considerable difference,’ she says coolly, ‘between those of us who kill for a living and those of us who fuck for a living.’

Frau Schmetterling has never used such a word in public before. But Kolovrat is the only one who does not realise it. Presumably he thinks the proprietress of a brothel capable of any language.

‘In the first place,’ he says, ‘we do not willingly kill for a living. We are protecting the citizens of Mirenburg. And in the second place, what is sold here, surely is not honest fornication. This,’ he waves a fork, ‘this is death. This is corruption. The destruction of all true feeling. What has it to do with love? All you women have diseases. They kill my men, do they not? And turn them mad first, eh? Madame, I would prefer a bayonet in the stomach. That’s a better death than one you purchase at a whorehouse!’

Frau Schmetterling is calm. ‘The only death you will find here is the death of sentimental illusion. But even that...’

‘There is a corpse still upstairs awaiting collection!’ He laughs and chews the butcher’s latest prize. ‘That’s what I call death. And I say again: I’d rather have a bayonet in the stomach.’

Her smile is almost sweet. I have never seen her in this terrible, baiting mood, but Wilke, plainly, knows it well. He is privately amused. ‘Monsieur,’ she says, ‘there is a wide variety of alternatives. One does not necessarily have a disease and one may not go so far as to stab or be stabbed in the stomach. The soldier takes risks with his life. So do we. But we do not set out to kill or to enforce our wills upon others. I believe that our profession is the better of the two and can more easily be justified in moral terms. I do not wish to kill you, monsieur. I would wish, if I were a whore, merely to satisfy your lust in exchange for a crown or two.’ She stares directly into his little eyes and he again looks to Mencken, then frowns. Alice snorts behind her hand. Lady Cromach smiles and tries to silence her. The two of them are like older and younger sister today. I suddenly regret that our time together is over. I shall miss Diana almost as much as I shall my Rose. As we are finishing lunch, Albert Jirichek, a journalist for the Weekly Gazette, is granted a brief interview with Captain Kolovrat who is reluctant to speak in anything but the vaguest terms. It is true Holzhammer is in the Moravia, but it is not true he is making steady inroads. ‘Our armour is keeping him pinned down and there is every chance he will be defeated by tomorrow.’ As Kolovrat continues to speak, Jirichek opens his notebook and begins to scribble rapidly in shorthand. This causes Captain Mencken some amusement. ‘Are you unaware, Herr Jirichek, that the Gazette was blown apart by shell-fire this morning? I doubt very much if we shall see another edition within the next few days.’ It is evident he has no liking for the journal, which takes a mildly left-wing bias. Jirichek has not heard the news. He closes his notebook. He lifts his hand to one and all and departs the room in silence. Most of us laugh at this. I am relaxed, unwilling to leave the company too soon. I know I shall never experience this kind of comradeship again. By tomorrow Alice and I will be far away from the main fighting. By the day after we should have crossed the border into Saxony. From there it will be an easy matter to take the train to Paris. In less than three days we should have new wardrobes, a comfortable hotel and (delightful anticipation!) the finest food in the world. Alice and Diana decide to return upstairs because Alice says she feels faint. I am generous enough to want them to spend what time together they can. I tell myself that jealousy would be petty. Clara and I remain at the table, drinking brandy. Captain Kolovrat watches Alice leave. I feel sudden hatred of him. He begins to court me, because he desires her. His eyes follow her as he speaks to us. ‘Yesterday was hard work. The Vlodinya prison was shelled. In the confusion half the jailbirds escaped. We did our best to round them up; we herded them like wild cows but a few honest people got mixed in with them. It was a relief to be sent here. I don’t know why they wanted to escape. Those bastards were better off where they were!’ He is pleased with his joke and repeats it.

Frau Schmetterling, still intent on baiting him, leans towards him. ‘Have you ever been to prison, Captain Kolovrat?’

‘Of course not, madame.’

‘Has anyone else here been to prison?’ Wilke alone lowers his eyes. The rest of us shake our heads.

‘It destroys your personality,’ she says. ‘To maintain your morale you have to become a Top Dog. That means accepting all the ruthless conditions of prison life. You pay a high price by becoming inhuman and coarse. But if you do not become a hardened prisoner you go back into the world with no belief in yourself whatsoever. Prisons have little social benefit, Captain Kolovrat, save to lock a criminal away for a while. Their main task is to make us passive and malleable: whereupon they return us to persuasive friends who are usually outside the law and glad to suggest ways to easy wealth… Destroying the human spirit is not merely immoral. It is anti-social!’