William Boyd - The New Confessions

As we drove back into the city I sensed my guilt and awkwardness receding. I went back to her room for sex. The ruined city, I can see, is the true context of our relationship. But why do I want her to be at least fond of me?

I took the U-bahn back to FSR-4. It started to rain as I walked the few blocks to the house and I smelled the corpses. Most of the dead beneath the rubble have decomposed completely by now, but a shower of rain seems to call forth a final ghostly reek of putrefaction .

Back at Frau H.’s, a man I knew vaguely from Reuters — just arrived — asked me if I know a Monroe Smee. I had forgotten all about Smee. I said I knew him in Hollywood before the war. Why? “I was in L.A.,” this man said, “and I met him. He was very curious to hear what had become of you. ”

Tomorrow I go to Stralauer Allee. Frau H. serves up an interesting dinner. Two small carp and a sauce made from black bread, beer, onions, carrots and gingerbread seasoning .

Berlin in those days was one huge noticeboard. On every available surface were nailed, pinned or stuck printed notices and handbills. Most sought news of people who had at one time occupied the now-ruined houses, but there were also want ads and for-sale signs. Someone in our street, for example, wanted to buy a pair of skis. I wrote out my own notice in red ink asking for information about the whereabouts of Karl-Heinz Kornfeld, former occupant of 129B, and, armed with hammer and nails, set off.

The block was almost completely destroyed and the nearby Spree smelled particularly purulent. I hammered the notice on the doorjamb and stood back. What could make Karl-Heinz want to return to this ruin? Sentiment? Very unlikely.… Spring was well advanced and the piles of masonry were green with weeds. I felt a sudden helplessness. Henni had told me that twenty-five thousand refugees arrived in Berlin each day at the moment. How was I going to find Karl-Heinz among all these people? I realized I should have gone at once to the missing persons agencies that Frau Hanf had told me about. I was irritated by my procrastination. My Berlin aimlessness had cost me several weeks. I looked at my notice stuck to the door. The street had several of these requests for information. Did anybody ever read these things, or was it just a typical Berliner illusion of getting something done? I went back to PSR-4 without much confidence.

However, I resolved to make one final effort. With Frau Hanf’s help I discovered the names and addresses of two agencies and approached them with Karl-Heinz’s details. They were not sanguine. They hinted that he might not even be in Berlin anymore. Four million German refugees, they told me, had fled westwards or had been expelled from Russian-occupied countries since the war had ended. Perhaps Herr Kornfeld had gone with them? They would see what they could do.

About a week after these visits I went to see Meine Frau die Hexe at the cinema. I’m not sure what stimulated my memory — I think one of the extras reminded me of his secretary — but I thought suddenly of Eugen P. Eugen. Was he still alive? He might be worth trying. I thought of our earlier encounters. The man was tenacious, there was no denying that, and unscrupulous. Conceivably, he might be more efficient than the harassed agencies.

The building that had contained Eugen’s offices had been completely destroyed, along with the rest of Fehmarnstrasse. Indeed the street had not yet been cleared; only a meandering path ran through the rubble hills. I knew I was in the right place because I could see the burned and shattered blocks of the infectious-diseases hospital a few hundred yards away. Then as I walked back to Putlitzstrasse Station I had an idea. Ten minutes’ further searching uncovered the small café where Eugen used to lunch. What had he been eating that day when he told me Sonia had beaten him up? Cucumbers? Cabbage? Sausage?… Yes, it was cabbage — I remembered the smell.

The cellar café still existed and was open. Above it teetered the facade of a house, shored up with wooden buttresses. Somehow I knew Eugen would be there.

Of course, he wasn’t. Life is rarely that accommodating, but the proprietor said there was a good chance he would be in that evening.

When I returned at seven, half a dozen people sat in silence staring at watery beers in front of them and trying not to look at a small man eating avidly and noisily in a corner. I knew it was Eugen, though I would scarcely have recognized him. He was gaunt and his blond hair was gone. He wore a collarless gray-flannel shirt and a green uniform jacket. On his bald pate were three large scabs. I sat down opposite him.

“Herr Eugen?”

He looked up.

“My name is Todd. You did a job for me, a long time ago, 1928.…”

He stared at me and frowned.

“My God,” he said. “My God, yes. And then we met again in Switzerland. With Miss Bogan.”

We shook hands.

“How is Miss Bogan?”

“She’s fine.”

“Good, good. I am a great admirer.”

Neither of us seemed to want to reminisce about our last encounter. I told him what I required of him. He screwed up his face.

“Difficult. Almost impossible.” He paused. “Have you got a cigarette? You’re sure he’s in Berlin?”

We discussed the problems, then his fee. We settled on five hundred cigarettes. Somehow the transaction seemed to rejuvenate him. I could see the tiny dapper blond man in him again, like his soul.

“Can I offer you some food? They say these are rabbit rissoles. It may not be rabbit, but there is certainly a minimum of sawdust.”

I declined politely. We were awkward with each other. Two decades intervened.

“It’s strange to meet again,” he said. “I can’t tell you how distressed I was — the last time. I felt most embarrassed.” He laughed. “Which is most unusual in my trade. Not like me at all.”

He then embarked upon a long angry complaint about a burned-out tank that still hadn’t been removed from the end of the street where he lived. I commiserated with him.

“What do you think of our wonderful city?” he said with sudden bitterness.

“It’s terrible,” I said. “I couldn’t believe it, at first.”

“Can you imagine London, Paris, so totally destroyed?”

I thought about it. Buckingham Palace razed, Nelson’s Column toppled, Sacré-Coeur a heap of white rubble, all the bridges gone across the Thames and the Seine, the Grand Palais open to the sky …

“It’s hard,” I admitted. I was about to remind him who had started the destruction business off, but I changed the subject. I asked him where he would start looking for Karl-Heinz.

“Berlin is full of gangs,” he said, “deserters, displaced persons, refugees. They live in holes in the ground. I’ll make some inquiries with the police.” He smiled proudly. “I still have my contacts there.”

April 23, 1946. Interminable press conference at Lancaster House — British HQ — announcing the failure of discussions for pooling food supplies in the four sectors. Talk to a British soldier who says the officers “are living like gods” in Berlin while the other ranks are confined to barracks. Everywhere is out of bounds to the British enlisted man. “We are an army of gentlemen and floor wipers,” he says. It is not like this in the American sector .

To the Dandy Bar. Henni tells me she had the chance of a job in Hamburg teaching music in a school. She thinks she should get her mother out of Berlin. I encourage her. To her room for one hour, then back to PSR-4 in time for a late supper. I think Frau Hanf has developed a soft spot for me; she remembers seeing Julie. I tell her what has become of Doon .

April 24, 1946. Saw a film poster today —Der Ausgleicher, a Western. I almost walked past it until I translated the title and saw “ein Film von J. J. Todd.” Word soon got out in the WarCorrMess and I find I am something of a celebrity. Two of my colleagues interview me. Curious to have a film playing in Berlin again .