Pierre Frei - Berlin - A Novel

'The Housing Department deals with accommodation. I can register you as looking for work, but we don't have anything at the moment.'

'Do you speak English?' an elderly lady asked.

Marlene was surprised. A little. Why do you want to know?'

'You should try the American employment office in Lichterfelde. They wouldn't take me, I'm too old.'

'How old are you, Fraulein Kaschke?' The head of the German-American Employment Office could see it in her passport, but he was testing her English.

Marlene did her sums. 'I was born in 1912. Now we are in 1945. That makes me thirty-three years old, right?'

'Your English is OK. Let's see what we have for you. What are your legs like?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Raise your skirt.' The man spoke German with a heavy American accent.

Anything else?' she asked indignantly. 'If you're looking for tarts for an army whorehouse you've come to the wrong address, mister.'

'Nonsense. The usherettes in the Uncle Tom cinema wear short dresses. Our boys like to see girls with pretty legs. Well, what about it?'

'Usherette? That's fantastic!' She couldn't raise her skirt fast enough.

He inspected her legs. All right, they're in order. We pay a hundred and twenty marks a week. You get army food and half a CARE parcel a month. Now go for your medical. Your address, please.'

'Third bench in the park. Just back from the East. I was working on the land there,' she lied. 'My apartment's gone.'

'Sorry, no job without an address.' The American wrote something on a piece of paper and rubber-stamped it. 'Take this to the Zehlendorf Housing Department office.'

Is he doing this because he wants to get me into bed? Marlene wondered. But Mr Chalford took no more notice of her, just lovingly stroked the black marble obelisk on his desk. 'Looks like a big toothpick,' she said.

'That,' Mr Chalford told her, sounding offended, 'is a genuine Barlach.'

A British bomb had torn away a third of the front of Number 198 Argentinische Allee. The bizarre cross-section of floors was reminiscent of a doll's house. The bedroom, kitchen and bathroom in the third-floor apartment on the left were intact, including the furniture. The door to the living room went nowhere. One step through it and you were on the brink of the abyss. Marlene unpacked her few things. She put the cross of the Legion d'Honneur on the chest of drawers, with the rutting stag behind it.

'Pretty picture.' She swung round, startled. The man in the doorway had plastered his yellowish strands of hair across his skull, and wore shabby trousers and check slippers. 'The name's Muhlberger. I live next door. My wife's in the West.' He scratched his crotch. And you are…?'

'Marlene Kaschke. They've allotted me this place. And next time you call please knock or ring, Herr Miihlberger, or better still don't call at all.'

'Oh, hoity-toity. are we? Well, if the lady thinks she can manage without masculine protection… a woman's not safe around here, so they say now, specially at night.'

'I don't think there'll be a problem — so long as I don't come across you,' she shot straight back at him. With a dirty laugh, he disappeared.

She found a hammer and nails in the kitchen and hung the stag above the chest of drawers. She knew Franz would be glad she'd found the picture. Her face cleared. 'Now for the cinema.'

It was like a dream. The dimly lit auditorium with the curving rows of seats. The heavy, silvery blue curtain that would open any minute for Hans Albers, Willy Fritsch or Heinz Riihmann. First the man who played the Wurlitzer would climb out of the depths and accompany the colourful slides of advertisements with his magical, swelling organ music. Marlene remembered every detail of her past visit to the Onkel Tom cinema.

The manager was a pale corporal called Pringle, who was sitting in the office drinking coffee with his pallid German boyfriend. 'There'll be no playing around with the boys. Gisela will get your dress.'

Gisela was a strong-minded redhead who advised her, 'Do as I do, wear four pairs of panties on top of each other. They're always bloody pinching your arse. Here, this should fit.' She helped Marlene into the short lilac taffeta dress with its frilled sleeves and tied a large bow, also lilac, in her hair. Then she steered Marlene to the mirror and stood beside her. 'Designed and made by Corporal Pringle. The taffeta cost him four cartons of Chesterfields. He and Detlev just love to sew. Well, at least those two don't pinch you, the little darlings.' The two young women looked at each other and spluttered with laughter.

Marlene was given a torch and a tray slung around her with chocolate bars, bags of popcorn and a small chilled container for ices on a stick. Her territory was the left-hand aisle. A doll-faced, black-haired girl paraded up and down the right-hand aisle, and Gisela took the middle one.

There was no Wurlitzer now, there were no ads, there was no documentary. The loudspeakers played swing, while slides warned you about sexually transmitted diseases. Instead of the screen heroes of the pre-war UfA, Terra and Tobis studios, the cinema was showing a Metro-Goldwyn Mayer movie with Clark Gable. Admission was from eight, and the movie began at twenty to nine.

All went smoothly. She managed to elude the bottom-pinching to some extent. Clark Gable radiated raw masculinity, and predictably won Loretta Young. The cinema closed at eleven, and the girls changed. 'Never, for heaven's sake, forget your Yank pass,' Gisela warned. 'Or they'll take you in for being out after curfew.'

'Got it here.' Marlene slapped her shoulder bag with the flat of her hand.

'Hey, there's a hole in your bag. Listen, my Erich works with leather goods. Bet you he's got a patch of leather somewhere he could mend it with for you.'

'No, I want to leave the bag like that, as a memento. But thanks for the offer. See you tomorrow.'

She didn't have far to go: past the Yank guard, out of the prohibited zone, right into Argentinische Allee. The war meant that the second carriageway had never been built, and so a broad strip of sand overgrown with weeds ran parallel to the street. She crossed it to reach the buildings on the other side, and had to be careful not to stumble in a rabbit hole.

A motorbike came rattling through the dark. Right in front of her, its headlight flared. She swerved aside just in time. 'You lunatic,' she swore as the rider moved away. The headlight was switched off. The motorbike turned. She could hear it coming back towards her. This time it roared past without any light on, only just missing her.

She didn't wait for it to turn again, but raced over the pavement to the nearest building. The front door was not locked. Gasping, she leaned against it from the inside. She gradually calmed down, and became aware that someone else was breathing heavily. She switched on her torch. An American soldier and his girl were standing on the stairs. The girl was a step above the man, leaning against the wall. She had pulled up her dress and wrapped one bare leg around his hip. She was moaning in time to his movements.

'Sorry.' Marlene made her escape. All was quiet outside now. She reached the door of her building unmolested, and opened it.

'Rather late home, lady.'

She jumped. She knew that voice. Quickly, she climbed the stairs. He followed her. It seemed an eternity before she got the door of the apartment open. 'Goodnight, Herr Muhlberger.' She slammed it shut. In the bathroom, she ran water into the washbasin — thanks to the Americans, the water mains were functioning in the Onkel Tom quarter — and dipped her face into it. The chorine stung her eyes.

She fell asleep, exhausted. She dreamed. Franz had put a protective arm around her. 'Go ahead…' she murmured happily.