Pierre Frei - Berlin - A Novel

'You'll stay with me,' he said suddenly. 'I like you.'

His decision matched her own wishes. She needed a protector, and this one had made a civilized impression on her. Karin was a realist. He could have taken her by force and then left her to his men. The question wasn't whether she wanted him but whether she could keep him long enough, until the worst was over.

'Come here, Maxim Petrovich.' Her voice promised him what he was waiting for.

It was a sensible arrangement, and the whole building profited by it, although some of the women sniffed in a superior way. The major was interpreter to General Bersarin, who had just been appointed city commandant. He stationed a tanker of drinking water and two guards outside the corner house of Karin's street. He brought food, which Karin shared with the other people in the building, and had glass put into the windows of her apartment. He was a passionate and a thoughtful lover.

On 1 July 1945 the Western Allies moved into Berlin. There was water in the mains again, although it was highly chlorinated, the transport system was more or less up and running, and the theatres were putting on more and better performances than they had for the last twelve years. The building on the Hohenzollerndamm on the corner of Mansfelder Strasse was now part of West Berlin. Maxim Petrovich Berkov did not come back.

The tribunal for artists of stage and screen met in a classroom. Its chairman was an old Communist whom the Russians had freed from a concentration camp. He tried hard to be objective, and listened to all Karin had to say.

'It is true that I made three films with Conrad Jung. Queen Louise was suppressed by Goebbels, Midsummer Night was a love story from a Scandinavian novella, and St Elmo's Fire was the tragedy of a seaman's wife in the last century. Working with Jung was very important to me. He is a director of high standing.'

'Note that the defendant calls the maker of the propaganda film The Wandering Jew a director of high standing,' said the tribunal member on the left, a stout woman in her fifties, who disliked Karin for her youth and beauty.

'Did you act in that film?' asked the chairman.

'No, I was shooting a comedy in Prague at the time, and then a harmless love story for UfA, with Erik de Winter, directed by Theodor Alberti. The Russians interrupted our location shots on the banks of the Havel.'

'Thank you for your full account.' The chairman turned to the other members of the tribunal. 'The defendant's professional opinion of the director Conrad Jung and the fact that he made an anti-Semitic film should not influence our ruling.' He leafed through his papers before going on. 'Frau Rembach, we now come to a very grave charge.'

Karin bowed her head. She spoke in a low voice. 'My patron and friend Nadja Horn, to whom I owe everything, and whom I carelessly and unthinkingly destroyed.' She looked up. 'I did not intend to do it, Mr Chairman, but it will haunt me all my life.'

'Didn't intend to do it? That's an outright lie,' said the woman tribunal member. 'We have before us the text of your evidence, given in court, which sent Nadja Horn to her death.'

'But we also have the decision of the present public prosecutor's office,' said Dr Jordan. Karin had asked him to speak for her. 'The case against Frau Karin Rembach, known as Verena van Bergen, was dropped a few days ago. I myself heard Lore Bruck admit that she told the Gestapo about Verena van Bergen's thoughtless repetition to her of Nadja Horn's opinion that the war was lost. It was not Verena van Bergen who denounced Nadja Horn, but Lore Bruck. Unfortunately we can't call her to account for it now. She died in an air raid.'

'We're concerned here not with the criminal but with the human aspect of the case,' the stout woman insisted. 'The accused profited by her good relations with the Nazi regime and caused the death of a colleague, at least through negligence.'

'Is there anything else you would like to say about this, Frau van Bergen?' Karin shook her head, hating the whole episode.

After a short consultation, the tribunal delivered its ruling: a three-year ban on working in her profession.

And what am I going to live on meanwhile?' she challenged them.

'Try the Labour Office,' they suggested, indifferent to her plight.

The Labour Office had nothing for her, but a helpful official told her: 'If you happen to know a little English, the Yanks are looking for people to work for them.'

Her father had spoken English to her before he went to the Far East and never came back. That was twelve years earlier, but a little of it had stuck. 'I want work' sounded all right. There was a nameplate on the desk in front of her: cuRTIs s. CHALFORD. The man behind the desk was friendly, in his thirties, with thinning fair hair, a round, rosy face, and pale-blue eyes. Mr Chalford was head of the German-American Employment Office in Lichterfelde.

Washington had advertised positions in occupied Germany. Applications came in from people all over the United States who were unemployed or hoped to improve their prospects — the adventurous, the curious, many emigrants. It was not always the creme de la creme who were sent off to the defeated enemy country without much in the way of examinations. They were all put in uniform, darker than an officer's US Army uniform but of the same cut, and with a triangular badge bearing the inscription us CIVILIAN on the upper left sleeve.

Mr Chalford was obviously one of the better sort. 'Well, Fraulein Rembach, let's see what we can do for you.' He opened a file and slowly turned the pages. 'Housekeeper for Major Kelly? Waitress at the Harnack House? Cleaning lady in the Telefunken Building?' He spoke German with a heavy American accent. 'No, all gone already.'

Curiously, Karin looked at the little black marble obelisk garlanded with barbed wire. A genuine Barlach,' explained Mr Chalford proudly, noticing her interest. 'Considered "degenerate art" by you people until recently. Spent the Hitler years in a pigeon loft. I managed to acquire it for a few cartons of Chesterfields. Now, about you, Fraulein Rembach. I think I have something for you. Our dry cleaners' shop at Uncle Tom's needs staff. Sergeant Chang will show you the ropes. A hundred and twenty marks a week, army food, half a CARE parcel a month. Girls who smile at the customers sometimes get given a few cigarettes too. OK?'

She didn't need to think about it long. Army food and the coveted foodstuffs from a CARE parcel made up her mind. Mr Chalford nodded, satisfied. Now, off you go to the photographer and for a medical examination. We don't want any TB or VD brought in.'

Sergeant Chang was a friendly Chinese man from San Francisco who tried in vain to initiate Karin into the mysteries of several dozen little bottles for treating fruit, wine, grass, grease and various other stains before the item of clothing was put into the big, chemical dry-cleaning machine. Karin got the tinctures hopelessly confused, and from then on Sergeant Chang employed her at the desk, taking in and returning the garments.

Mr Chalford's prediction had been correct — a smile often brought her chocolate or cigarettes from the customers. Some of them also wanted a date. Karin made her American boyfriend an excuse for declining. A young soldier in the Signal Corps was just what she needed. Dennis Morgan was a harmless boy from Connecticut. He invited her to Club 48 and gave her nylons and shoes from the PX. She had enough clothes; her wardrobe had survived the chaos. She was nice to Dennis, no more. He was satisfied with being envied by his friends for his beautiful German Fraulein.

Less agreeable was Otto Ziesel, the German driver from the motor pool who collected the garbage in an army truck and emptied the big garbage bins behind the shops. He wore GI clothes died black, and was a repulsive creature. He called Karin and the other women in the dry cleaners' Yankee floozies.