Pierre Frei - Berlin - A Novel

Jutta sighed. A little less Isabel would be a little more welcome.'

'She doesn't have anyone else.'

She slept nestling close to Jochen. Even the storm didn't wake her. In the small hours she dreamed of riding through Africa by train. Rainer Jordan sat beside her. He was wearing a topi and looked very handsome. She enjoyed the rhythm of the wheels on the tracks and the characteristic smell of soot and steam which, to her, meant the glamour of distant places. Just before Windhoek the locomotive whistled so shrilly that she woke with a start. It was early, not yet six in the morning. Outside, the signal box that had always stood at the far end of the railway yard was gliding past. They stopped with a jolt. 'What's going on?' Jochen was still half asleep.

Jutta got into her dressing gown and leaned out of the window. Down below stood men in railway uniforms. 'Hey — what d'you think you're doing in there?' one of them barked up at her. He had silver braid on his cap.

'We were sleeping peacefully until a moment ago. Now we're going to make breakfast, if you don't mind.'

Evidently the man with the silver braid did mind. He stormed into the old railway car. 'This is no place for the homeless,' he shouted at them.

Jochen got to his feet. 'I don't like your manner, sir. May I ask what you want?'

'I'm Reich Rail Officer Schmitz,' barked the man with the silver braid. 'You'll have to clear out of here. This carriage has been handed over to the Grunewald SA as a meeting place.'

'But I'm the legal tenant.' Jochen searched his case. 'Here's my rental agreement with Mitropa. Here's the police registration. My fiancee Fraulein Reimann is visiting me.'

'This car has been transferred to us by Mitropa, so the Reichsbahn is now its owner. We're not interested in your agreement. You'll have to be out by the end of the week. Heil Hitler.'

'Same to you,' Jochen snapped back. 'Darling, what are we going to do? Apartments are very hard to find.'

'we'll have breakfast first,' said Jutta. 'Then we'll go and see our lawyer.'

'I didn't know we had one,' he said in surprise.

The ubiquitous Isabel was already sitting in the Hanomag. 'You'll take me with you, won't you?' She didn't seem to mind where they were going. Normally Jutta would have minded a great deal, but today it suited her plans nicely. 'We're calling on Dr Jordan. An interesting man and a lawyer. He's going to sort out Jochen's rights to his place. You can come and listen.'

She enjoyed Isabel's reaction when she introduced her to Jordan. Isabel was cool, but never took her eyes off him. Jochen explained the situation to the lawyer. 'If the Reichsbahn throw me out I'm homeless. Of course I could go to my fiancee and her parents in Kopenick, but that's not a permanent solution, particularly in the eyes of the school board which is my future employer. I'm starting as a teacher at the Arndt Gymnasium in Dahlem after the summer holidays.'

Rainer Jordan was in good spirits. 'Fraulein Reimann, Herr Weber, you've come at just the right moment. No need for any argument with the Reichsbahn. I'm starting in the legal department of UfA next week, and moving to Babelsberg to be near the film studios. Why don't you just take over this apartment? I believe you're soon getting married, and I'm sure a married schoolmaster will be welcome as a tenant to the owners — they're a big real estate company. I'll be happy to introduce you to the property manager. Bring the necessary documents with you.'

'Can we look round?' Jochen asked.

'By all means. Two rooms, kitchen, bathroom, if that's enough for you.'

As they walked around the apartment, Jutta heard Rainer Jordan making a date with Isabel. She smiled quietly to herself.

The tiny, modern kitchen was all electric, a rarity in the Berlin of 1935. There was even an electric water heater. Jutta used it every day. The toaster, however, a construction of Bakelite, heated wires and tin that was apt to burn your fingers when you opened its side flaps, was plugged in only on Sundays. It was a wedding present from Rainer and Isabel Jordan. They had managed to get married before Jochen and Jutta.

Outside, a rainy November day was dawning. Water dripped from the bare branches of the acacias beside the road. A wet mongrel dog was lapping water from a puddle on the pavement. 'Filthy weather. I'll take the bus.' Jochen usually cycled to school. 'When we have a car again…' he daydreamed out loud. The Hanomag had died of old age.

'With a chauffeur, of course,' she teased.

A car's not as far beyond our reach as you may think,' he told her. 'You save five Reichsmarks a week, and if you do that for three years you can order the car. Then you pay the remaining two hundred and seventy-five marks on delivery.'

Jutta did some quick mental arithmetic. A car for a thousand marks? You don't believe that yourself.'

'The Fiihrer guarantees the price. The first Volkswagens will be delivered next year.'

'Five marks a week is twenty marks a month, and they have to be earned first.' Jutta was a realist.

'Drechsel gives private maths coaching. He's recommended me to the parents of a pupil who needs coaching in English. It was very kind of him.'

'You think so?' Jutta disliked Jochen's colleague as much as ever. 'We could do with the money, of course,' she conceded. 'Listen, I found a furniture store in Klein Machnow. All modern pieces from the People's Workshops. They'd be just what we want.'

'We have all we need.'

'Oh, do we?' She pointed to the sideboard, dining table with six chairs and bookcase, all in ugly walnut veneer. There were two worn, leather club chairs too. Parents and friends had equipped the young couple. She hated the furnishings, including the heavy green velour curtains. So far their combined salaries had run only to bedroom furniture in pale birch. Jochen's desk was in the bedroom too; there wasn't room for it in the living room.

Two marks per coaching session. Two or three pupils a week. That'll get us the car. I'll make sure we have the savings book for it, anyway.'

She cleared the breakfast table. 'Would you bring me up some coke?' He carried a scuttle of coke up from the cellar and filled the boiler in the kitchen that piped heating to the four radiators. If you turned the air supply right down it would last until evening. They hugged and kissed. Only Jutta's reminder, 'Take your umbrella,' kept them from a passionate return to bed which would have made them both late. At five to nine she closed the door of the apartment behind her. Herr Vollmer was just opening up the apartment next door. 'Good morning, Frau Weber.' He politely raised his hat.

'Morning, Herr Vollmer. Any air raids likely soon?' Jutta mocked gently.

The Reich Air-Raid Defence League had rented the apartment next door as its Zehlendorf office. It was run by Herr Vollmer, a friendly man of fifty who didn't really know why they were supposed to be defending themselves from enemy planes when there was no war in sight. 'You'd have to ask Hermann Goring. I'm just responsible for collecting the contributions of our National Comrades. I wish you a pleasant morning.'

It passed quickly, what with sorting out the card index for the lending library and drinking coffee in the back room. There was a light on to cheer up the grey day. Frau Gerold was cross because of some official letter she'd had. 'Today's my afternoon off,' Jutta reminded her. Once a month, Jutta had the afternoon off to do her housework.

'That's fine. There's not much going on in this weather anyway.'

She changed the bed, dusted and washed the dishes. Then she took a long bath. At three the doorbell rang. A boy was standing outside. He stared. Jutta quickly closed her dressing gown, which had been flapping wide open. 'Sorry, I was still in the tub,' she apologized. 'I'm Frau Weber. Come on in.'