Pierre Frei - Berlin - A Novel

'You'll help us get that dough, won't you, darling?' he whispered in her ear.

She didn't answer, but moved slightly away from him. Narrowing her eyes, she thought hard for a minute or so. Then she sat up abruptly. 'Right, then. So where's this bloke who's a friend of yours live?'

'Herr Hildebrand — Fraulein Kaschke,' Fredie introduced them at the door, and made himself scarce. Herr Hildebrand was a coal merchant. 'Wholesale,' he liked to emphasize.

His men delivered fuel from the warehouse beneath the arches of the S-Bahn station to the entire west of the capital. The central heating systems of the blocks where the gentry lived in their grand apartments devoured coke by the ton. Hildebrand was forty, neatly dressed, with sparse hair. He hid his shyness behind a stiffly waxed moustache and a punctilious, genteel manner.

'Delighted to meet you, Fraulein Kaschke, do come right in.' Hildebrand ushered her into the drawing room, where they sat on hard chairs in silence. May I offer you some refreshment?' he finally managed to say.

'Ooh, yes,' Lene graciously agreed, and was given a seltzer water with lemon, which she sucked up noisily through a straw.

A fine day,' said Hildebrand, trying to keep the conversation going. Lene replied with a nod as she went on sucking through the straw with rapt concentration, wondering how he would broach the subject. 'Such a nice day for sunbathing,' Hildebrand continued. 'Would you like to see?'

'See the sun?' Lene was puzzled.

'My balcony.' Hildebrand opened the glass doors. 'South-facing, Fraulein Kaschke. And not overlooked at all.'

Lene went out. A half-lowered awning, a sun lounger, both of them in red-striped fabric… gradually it dawned on her. Herr Hildebrand fancied doing it in the open air. 'Then I guess I'll undress and sunbathe,' she announced, and lay down. Herr Hildebrand's eyes followed her, delighted. 'Suppose you undressed too, then we could both sunbathe,' she encouraged him.

Herr Hildebrand withdrew and came back in a dressing gown. Lene spluttered. He had protected his Wilhelm the Second moustache against immoderate outbursts of passion with a broad tape to hold it in place. 'Come here, darling,' she called from the lounger, spreading her thighs.

Herr Hildebrand reached his goal with deliberate, measured movements. The whole business was not unpleasant to her, but she felt nothing at all. He wrapped the dressing gown around his arms, legs and torso and hurried off to get dressed. Lene made herself respectable too.

'With your permission, a little present, Fraulein Kaschke, in the hope that I shall see you again soon.' Hildebrand indicated the small table in the sitting room. Four ten-mark notes lay beside the empty lemonade glass. She put them in her bag, stuffing one down so deep that it wouldn't come to light even when she counted them out for Fredie, who was waiting downstairs.

`Thirty marks, not bad for a start.' Fredie was pleased. 'One of the tens is for you, one for me, the rest for our payments. What will you do with your money?'

Lene was quick at sums. 'Save nine-seventy, buy thirty-pfennigs worth of ground beef with the rest.'

A little more Beluga. my dear?' Eulenfels dipped the silver spoon into the crystal bowl and piled gleaming grey caviar on Marlene's plate.

'Thank you, Ferdinand.' The downy fair hair on her bare arms shimmered seductively in the candlelight. Eighteen-year-old Marlene smiled at him. She knew the effect she had on men.

'Do you know, they're making a talkie of Dr Mann's novel! That raises an interesting question of copyright, since the movie is based on a book. I shall have to discuss it with our legal experts. The actors will speak and sing just like actors on stage. By the way, the leading lady is called Marlene, like you.'

Ferdinand Eulenfels liked delivering little monologues on subjects related to his profession as a publisher. He owned the most important newspapers and magazines of Berlin, but his real love was books. His authors included several great names and many lesser ones. Eulenfels had invented the idea of the 'One-Mark Book', and was very successful in selling works of light entertainment.

Marlene looked out of the window. Moonlight glittered on the snowladen trees. The publisher's hunting lodge lay an hour's drive east of Berlin. Eulenfels used it for discreet rendezvous. She had stumbled into his arms at the press ball at the Esplanade, spilling a little champagne on his starched shirt-front, a scene cleverly staged by Fredie. His mature widows were a thing of the past; he now devoted himself entirely to promoting his protegee. He had taught her to speak educated German and eat properly with a knife and fork. Marlene was a good pupil, and lapsed into the language of Riibenstrasse only when she was upset or taken by surprise. French and English were on her educational programme too, and her pretty, youthful looks did the rest.

She quickly understood what was wanted by her clients, rich men in the prime of life who paid generously for the satisfaction of their usually modest desires. Fredie used those desires to finance their apartment in the new Westend district and good clothes for both of them. 'You don't get anywhere without white tie and tails these days,' he had said.

'You mean actors can really speak and sing on screen?' Marlene asked Eulenfels in amazement.

'Yes, indeed. Although I don't really know what the point of it is.' Eulenfels poured more champagne.

'Let's drink this next door.' She picked up her glass and went into the bedroom. When he joined her she had taken off her dress and was standing in her diaphanous lingerie.

'Enchanting.' He kissed her hand. She emptied her glass in a single draught and flung it recklessly into the flickering flames on the hearth. He kissed her shoulder, and she began to breathe heavily. That excited him, something she'd known ever since they first had sex. The rest was routine. She let him do as he liked and uttered little sobs and cries, giving the sixtyyear-old man the impression that he was an overpoweringly wonderful lover. It was all over after ten minutes.

As she was leaving he gave her a paperback with a red cover. 'Vicki Baum's latest novel. Do tell me what you think of it.' He escorted her through the snow to the high-built, chestnut-brown Mercedes. The driving seat of the old-fashioned car was exposed to the elements. The chauffeur closed the passenger door and got behind the wheel. Marlene, looking through the glass pane from the comfortable warmth of the back, saw the heavy fabric of his coat, the turned-up collar, the gloves and earmuffs under the peaked cap as they drove through the winter night to Berlin. On the way she opened the book, and a hundred-mark note fell out.

'You must be absolutely frozen. Come in with me and get warm,' she said to the chauffeur when they had reached the apartment.

'That's very kind of you, miss, but it's getting late.'

'Oh, come on.' She switched on the light. Fredie would be at some gentlemen's club or other, hunting for potential clients. He always took photographs of his supposed ex-fiancee with him. She let her Persian lamb coat drop. Fredie had hired it from the Jewish furrier on Spittelmarkt. 'Take your coat off and I'll make you a hot grog.' When she came back with the steaming glasses, he was waiting bareheaded in his grey chauffeur's uniform and shiny black leather gaiters. He was of medium height, with a friendly, round, boyish face, a dimpled chin, and carefully combed, nutbrown hair. He was twenty-eight, she learned later.

Hesitantly, he sat down and blew on the hot drink 'You're very kind. Some of your sort are really stuck-up.' He reddened. 'Sorry, didn't mean it that way.'

'Oh, nonsense!' she said, lapsing into her old Riibenstrasse accent. 'It's no secret what I do. What's your name?'