David Gillham - City of Women

“Very well, Frau Schröder,” the woman calls after her with an arch tone. “I shouldn’t want to delay you. But be aware. This isn’t just about a few old coats. The Party pays very close attention to the proper expression of the National Socialist spirit. Do you hear me, Frau Schröder? Very close attention .”

Outside, Sigrid must pass Mundt’s husband, sporting his dung brown SA kepi and greatcoat, which bulges at the belly as he piles another stack of coats onto the bed of a three-wheeled lorry. He gives her a gusty whistle. “So, she reamed you good, did she?” he says, and grins. Sigrid frowns and does not answer, causing the paunchy old hog to snort. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure she simmers down. No trouble. Just remember that your old Uncle Mundt always takes care of his pretty ones.” He winks and then cackles, showing a mouthful of brown teeth.

MOST BERLIN DISPLAY WINDOWS are filled with empty boxes now. The signs above them read DECORATION ONLY. “Nur Antrappen” is how it is worded. Berlin has nothing left to sell. It has been reduced by the years of war to grinding coffee from acorns, to drinking wood alcohol mixed with chemical syrup, and to filling up shop windows with nothing but “Nur Antrappen.” The dairy shop’s window is lined with milk bottles, filled with salt. Inside, maybe a few liters of actual milk will be available for those who queue up early enough. Not whole milk, of course, but skim, a thin, bluish white fluid. By the time Sigrid gets there, the sign has already been put out. NO MORE TODAY. So much for that. Now she must hurry over to the greengrocer’s, hoping to pick up a few green onions plus a questionable cabbage head and three and a half kilos of graying potatoes. That will be dinner for the week, plus the few kilos of war bread that her red paper ration cards will allow. But before she steps into the grocer’s she sees someone stepping out. The young Fräulein Kohl, still with her wool beret stuffed over her soot-colored hair. On one side she carries a shopping sack sagging with the weight of produce, and on the other, tucked under her arm, a striped dress box from Tempelhof’s secured with twine, and two coats. A gray-blue houndstooth and a long black wool cape. Sigrid stops dead. Fräulein Kohl, she starts to call out, but then swallows it. Some instinct is at work she cannot quite name. The girl continues her striding progress. Sigrid hesitates for an instant longer. Glances from side to side. Then falls in a discreet distance behind, and follows the girl’s eastwardly march.

The march ends two blocks farther, a short stretch of unremarkable pavement, at a spot where the street curves around the tall Litfass column smothered with tattered advertisements for products no longer available: Miele vacuums, Miele-Ideal, RM 58, and Miele L, RM 90. Dralle’s Birch Hair Water. The pretty blond Fräulein leans, smiling, against a birch tree trunk. Afri-Cola, with a palm tree on the bottle. Good and German!

The building is an old double-story gray brick monstrosity from the previous century. The street-level windows off the tobacconist’s are grimed with dust. Their display cases empty. The light-bleached sign on the glass reads CLOSED FOR INVENTORY. The top-floor windows are boarded up, and the bricks blackened by smoke.

Sigrid watches the girl set down her burdens long enough to unlock a door tucked beside the shop. Then she gathers it all back up and vanishes inside.

So what is it? A black market in used clothes? Maybe so. Certainly there’s a market for everything in Berlin these days. Sigrid looks around and goes into a small Konditorei at the corner, where she orders a cup of coffee too tasteless to finish, and watches from the window. Maybe half an hour passes before the girl reappears on the street, without the dress box or coats, and with the contents of her shopping sack substantially reduced.

Sigrid stands, digs a few groschen from her coin purse, and drops them on the tabletop.

“SOMETHING ODD IS GOING ON in my building.”

Renate is smoking a cigarette. She holds it in a confidential manner, like a film star, close to her lips. “Odd? In what way odd?”

Sigrid hesitates. Perhaps she’s making a mistake. She may use the intimate form of address with Renate, but just how far does that go? Renate cocks her head to one side at Sigrid’s silence, puffing languidly. “What is it, strudel?” she inquires.

“There’s a girl, on her duty year, come to work for Frau Granzinger. Helping her with the children.”

“And you’ve fallen in love with her?”

“No. What? ” It takes Sigrid a moment to hear that. She shakes the question off with impatience. “Renate, please, for once no jokes.”

“Well, what is a person supposed to think,” Renate replies, slightly bemused as she expels smoke. “You look so painfully serious. What else could it be but love?”

“She’s involved in something. I don’t know what. But something illegal.”

“ So? Half of Berlin is involved in something illegal, and the other half wishes it was. It’s how to survive.”

“No, I don’t mean stoop transactions at the greengrocer’s. I mean something…” She does not quite have the nerve to speak the word.

But Renate, it appears, does not flinch. “ Political ,” she says with a direct gaze.

Sigrid breathes in. Looks back toward the flow of the canal. They are sitting on a bench, wrapped against the cold. “We had put out some clothing. You know. For our men in the East. Old coats, gloves, and things of that sort. But before the Hausobman came to collect, the girl made off with the lot of it.”

“You mean she stole it? How do you know this?”

“I saw her in the street. She took it all to an address in Moabit. Also food from her shopping sack.”

“Well, then, she’s hiding somebody,” Renate announces flatly.

Sigrid gives her a slightly uncomfortable look, as if she is experiencing an unexpected pain in an unexpected place. “Yes. I think probably so.”

“You think ? What else could it be? A boyfriend would be my guess, trying to dodge the army. Or maybe he’s deserted.”

“But what would a boyfriend do with a lady’s winter cape?”

“I don’t know. What is the army going to do with my fitch fur jacket? I didn’t ask. They wanted it, so I gave it to them. Who knows? Maybe the boyfriend likes to dress like a girlfriend. It could be his disguise.”

“Very unlikely,” Sigrid says. She is watching the wands of the willow tree float mournfully on the dark surface of the canal.

“Did you have any trouble with your Hausobman over the clothes?”

Sigrid blinks. Glances back at her. “No. A little with his wife. Nothing too serious.”

Renate exhales a breath. “Then forget about it,” she advises. “What’s she to you, anyway?”

Sigrid exhales stiffly. Rewraps her half-eaten sandwich in its crinkled wax paper, and says, “I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose.”

“So mind your own business, dumpling.” Renate says this with a smile, but her eyes mean it. “Anyway, this is all far too serious. Let’s leave such silly Quatsch behind. I have a gift.”

Sigrid blinks. “A gift,” she starts to protest, but Renate raises her palm.

“Not for you . For your dear Mother Schröder. This should make your life easier,” Renate says, and slips a packet of cigarettes into the pocket of Sigrid’s coat, giving it a pat. “Bulgarian. Real tobacco, sugar cured. She’ll love you for it.”

Sigrid releases a small, restless laugh. “No. She’ll hate me for it. But you’re right. She’ll take them,” she says. “It seems I’m always thanking you.”