Pierre Frei - Berlin - A Novel

'This is your housemaid Jana,' Fredie introduced her. 'If you need more domestic staff, let me know. I don't want the housekeeping to be a burden on you.'

He had been acting in a very civilized way these last few days. It was probably to do with his new post. If only this goes on, she thought hopefully. Jana held the flowers out to her. 'Thank you, how nice.' She took the bouquet. 'I'm sure you know where we can find a vase.' She used the polite Sie pronoun to address the girl.

'Jana is nineteen and used to being called du,' her husband corrected her. 'I have to go for a meeting in the office building now. It's over there.' He pointed to the tall, impenetrable yew hedge and a grey, corrugated-iron roof just above it. 'Jana will show you the house. We are expecting a few of my staff to dinner this evening. Don't worry, the girl can cook.' He moved quickly away over the crunching gravel.

'Shall we go in, Jana?' The driver had put her cases in the yellow-tiled hall. 'Show me the kitchen first.'

'Yes, Frau Obersturmbannf.ihrer.' Jana stumbled over the pronunciation of the long title.

'You just forget about all that!' Marlene told her firmly. 'I'm Frau Neubert, right?'

'Yes, Frau Ober… Frau Neubert.'

'Good. Now for the kitchen.'

'Yes, Frau Neubert.'

Blue and white tiles on the floor and walls, a black, cast-iron coalburning stove with shiny brass fittings, a large fridge made of white wood and lined with zinc. It had a nickel-plated tap at the front to drain off the melted ice water. A pantry beside the cellar steps.

The dining room next to it and the living room contained the familiar, pale-wood furniture from the Kleiner Wannsee house. Upstairs there were three bedrooms and two bathrooms. From up here you had a view of old fruit trees and a neatly raked lawn. A wall covered with climbing roses divided the garden from the road. It was a spacious and idyllic property.

'1 think I shall like this place. Have you been here long, Jana?'

'One year five months.'

And before that?'

'Everywhere.' Jana couldn't be induced to say more.

Marlene's neighbour at table was a thin man in his mid-thirties with dark hair and, despite careful shaving, a trace of five o'clock shadow. 'Our medicine man, Sturmbannfiihrer Dr Alwin Engel.' Fredie had introduced him. Marlene found him interesting, because he talked about literature. He had read Erwin Kastner, which gave her an opportunity to show off her own knowledge. 'His children's books are little masterpieces. More for adults really, don't you agree?'

Engel didn't seem to have heard her. He was watching Jana as she brought in the starter: smoked herring fillets on lettuce, with grated horseradish. He took hold of the girl's chin and turned her face to him as she served him. 'What pretty black eyes you have,' he said, smiling. Jana vanished into the kitchen. 'Purely professional interest,' he said apologetically.

Marlene was understanding. 'Jana is a pretty girl, though not very communicative, I'm afraid. I asked where she'd been before, and couldn't get anything out of her except "Everywhere".'

Engel smiled. 'Well, of course Jana has been everywhere, up hill and down dale with her people in their caravan. My dear lady, the girl's a gypsy, didn't you know?' Jana served the main course. Engel raised a piece of meat from the platter with his fork and examined it critically from all sides. 'I do hope you haven't palmed us off with roast hedgehog.' Everyone laughed.

'No, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer.'

'This is roast duck from our own farm. Like the vegetables and the cream for the sauce. We are self-sufficient here, Dr Engel,' a tall woman of around forty answered him. She had penetrating blue eyes and heavy fair hair worn in a chignon, and she alone hadn't joined in the merriment.

Marlene had noted down the names of the guests on her napkin, so she knew that this woman, seated opposite her, was Gertrud Werner. Frau Werner had high cheekbones and regular features, very much in line with the new Germanic ideal of womanhood. She was wearing a long, dark-blue velvet dress with a white collar fastened high at the neck, and her healthy complexion showed that she spent a good deal of time out of doors. She had glanced disapprovingly at her hostess's fashionable make-up and modish Berlin outfit. Marlene instinctively disliked the woman, but she didn't show it. 'You really must show me round, dear Frau Werner. Perhaps I can even help a little on the farm?' she asked, feigning interest.

'My women do that themselves,' said Gertrud Werner coolly.

'Now, don't be stern with our city girl, Frau Hauptsturmfdhrerin; said Dr Noack, smoothing things over. So Frau Werner held SS rank in her own right. Noack had arrived only a few minutes earlier from Berlin, with a large bouquet of tea roses for Marlene and a bottle of cognac for Fredie.

'I'd be happy to show you round, Frau Neubert,' the guest to her right offered.

Marlene consulted her napkin. 'That's very kind of you, Herr Schafer.'

'Nothing here works without Oberscharfahrer Schafer. He's our real boss.' announced Fredie good-humouredly, eliciting an awkward grin from the heavy-set man with bristly grey hair.

'Don't let his better half hear that,' the young man next to Frau Werner joked.

'Untersturmfdhrer Siebert runs our laboratory,' Fredie told his wife. Marlene's head was swimming with all these elaborate ranks and titles; the napkin was no help there. 'Siebert is a bachelor and very popular with the girls.'

'How interesting.'

'That I'm a bachelor or that I run the laboratory?' Siebert winked at her.

As a happily married woman, I mean the latter. What delicious things do you brew up in your witches' kitchen, Herr Siebert?'

'We're doing research work.'

The telephone rang. Fredie picked it up and listened briefly. 'Doctor, it's Raab. His circulation is going crazy.'

Engel leaped to his feet. 'I'll see to him at once.'

'Don't let anything go wrong,' Noack told him. 'Reichsfiihrer Himmler takes a personal interest in him.'

The doctor returned during the dessert course. 'His circulation has stabilized. Would you excuse me, ladies and gentleman? I have to be up quite early tomorrow.'

'Time we all went our separate ways,' Noack said. 'Thank you very much, dear Frau Marlene, a delicious meal. It deserves a special reward.' She knew what he meant.

Fredie and Noack were waiting for her in the drawing room. Fredie seized her and took her on the floor, while Noack watched avidly. Then Fredie forced her down between his mentor's knees.

Years earlier, just once, she had said it out loud. Now she repeated it over and over in her mind. One of these days I'll kill you, Fredie.

Her husband had already left by the time Marlene woke. She took a bath and dressed. Jana was waiting for her in the kitchen with steaming white coffee and fresh croissants. The sun filtered through the leaves of the fruit trees, casting bright patterns on the table. The world was all right again.

'Sit down, have a coffee with me. Would you like a croissant?' The girl shook her head vigorously, making her short black hair fly. 'Oh well, if you don't want to… You've been here eighteen months, you said? Wouldn't you rather be with your family?'

That silent shake of the head again, a gesture that might mean no, or denote fear or incomprehension. Marlene couldn't make the girl out. Perhaps gypsies just reacted differently from normal people. Although gypsies were really normal people too — only a little different from normal people.

'Is there a basket around?' She shook off these complicated thoughts. 'We'll go and ask Frau Werner for some vegetables. I'm sure you'll know where we can find her.'

Jana found a large basket in the larder. They went from the kitchen to the garden, and crossed the forecourt to the yew hedge. A green tunnel led through it to a corrugated iron door at the far end. Jana pulled the bell beside the door. It clanged, and a flap in the door was raised. 'Open up for the Frau Commandant.' Jana obviously enjoyed giving an order.