Nights in Berlin Read online

  Which would have made sense, if there really had been a Society for Christian Europe instead of some gullible types back home who were trusting Uncle Lastings with contributions to fight the Reds. Another nice question was how he was going to profit from a bunch of street fighters who didn’t look like they had more than the clothes they stood up in.

  But if nothing else, Uncle Lastings kept, as he put it, a lot of irons in the fire. Besides his political thugs, he was always on the lookout for the wealthy and philanthropic, who were usually women of a certain age, girth, and income. As he told me more than once, Options are vital to strategy, and the nemesis of action is rigidity. Useful ideas, and he certainly lived by them. His plans were all improvised, and although we were still staying at the Adlon and hitting the best clubs, his strategy appeared more and more uncertain. At least to me.

  My uncle, however, returned from his trip to Bavaria in a buoyant mood. “It’s like a comic opera down there, my boy—matching shirts and military drills and slogans. The order for the flags alone would have made my fortune. Although a viable alternative to the Bolsheviks is what we need,” he said, pulling a long face and quoting one of the society’s pamphlets. “In the meantime, a chap has to make a living.” He threw back his head and laughed and treated me to a bottle of good champagne. I was developing a taste for that.

  So, as Nan would say, everything was lovely in the garden—until a week later when the gauleiter arrived. After considerable difficulties and a long wait, Uncle Lastings met with him and found him lacking. A miserable little cripple was his private judgment, an opinion that he soon had to revise, because within days, the city saw numerous brawls and street demonstrations, all provoked by fighters under the red-and-black National Socialist banners.

  Uncle Lastings began to look rather serious, even if he stayed out even later at the clubs, refusing, as he put it, to let private troubles interfere with pleasure. But one night he was clearly feeling uneasy about an appointment that I assumed must be with some of the new gauleiter’s men. My uncle told me to eat at the hotel and not to leave until he called me. This was unprecedented. Then he opened his case and took out the Webley.

  “Know anything about these?” he asked me. This was also unprecedented.

  I shook my head. Fortunately, Father was not particularly keen on shooting, so marching around the fields with guns has never been part of the program.

  “The safety,” Uncle Lastings said, pointing. “The trigger.”

  The weapon was heavy in my hand.

  “Put it here.” He opened the flat leather case that he used for carrying society documents. “If I call you, bring this. Get a cab no matter what the time. Understand?”

  I understood that my uncle was in deep water, but I nodded, and he proceeded to give me the most explicit directions imaginable. He’d be in a right-wing Lokal, a bar called the White Cat, and I was to tip the cabbie well to ensure that he would wait.

  “But only if I call you, which I’m sure I won’t. Excess of caution, my boy, that’s all.” He put his hat on his head and went to the door, where he said, “You’ll be tickety-boo, Francis, see if you’re not,” before he was off down the corridor.

  For some reason, that made me feel more unsettled than even the sight of the Webley, but I decided to follow Uncle Lastings’s line and put pleasure, in the form of a fine Adlon dinner, ahead of anxiety. I put on my evening jacket—Uncle Lastings was generous when it came to my appearance—and went downstairs. In the bar off the lobby, I had a glass of wine and chatted with Fritz and Una, he in soup and fish, she in mauve satin, and both looking respectable enough to stay at the hotel. In fact they were employees of a special nature, the Adlon paying them to offer private amusements of one sort or another for guests.

  In between times, they and their similarly handsome, similarly elegant colleagues lounged about the lobby or escorted clients to the dining salon. I was tempted to invite Fritz to dinner, but I was afraid Uncle’s call might deprive him of his fee.

  Too bad. I disliked eating alone, especially since I wasn’t as shy as I used to be, especially after a few glasses of wine. Still, I liked the hotel restaurant with its dark wood paneling and the heavy white damask on the round tables, the fine china and silver and the lavish menu. Because I was early and only a few of the older patrons were seated, I got the full treatment from the waiters. I knew most of them well enough to risk my uncertain and slangy German, which amused them a good deal.

  After cutlets, roast vegetables, a tart with cream, and several more glasses of Rhine wine, I didn’t mind confinement in the hotel, although reading in the lobby proved to be a poor substitute for the films that I love. Just thinking about them made me restless: Garbo and Jannings and costume dramas; the wonders of Nosferatu and Metropolis; and, best of all, great Russian films like Battleship Potemkin. I could watch Potemkin once a week indefinitely, no matter what Uncle Lastings said about the Reds.

  Sometime after eleven, I returned to our room, convinced that my uncle had finished his meeting and would be rattling his key at any moment. I was taking off my shoes when the phone rang; the deskman told me, in careful English, to meet my uncle promptly. I ordered a cab and said I’d be right down, then caught a glimpse of myself in the large gilt mirror: Dinner attire would never do. I changed my starched shirt and tie for a sweater and my leather jacket. Then I grabbed the envelope heavy with the Webley, and feeling too nervous for the elevator, ran down the stairs and through the lobby to the street.

  The White Cat was up north in one of the poor, industrial sectors of the city, a place of smoky works and ancient tenements, a world away from the glittering center. The district was crowded with industries and the workers who ran them, along with the desperate unemployed, the shattered vets, and the war wounded, who emerged daily in the center city with their crutches and canes and ghastly mutilations, some fake but all too many genuine.

  The streetlights seemed dimmer once we left the luxury quarters, the streets themselves less crowded with cars and rimmed by gloomy buildings and impenetrable alleys. It seemed a long way before the cab pulled up in front of a low and dimly lit bar with a half-broken neon sign and a badly sketched poster of a naked dancer. I paid the driver, and as Uncle Lastings had instructed, tipped him generously and asked him to wait. He was clearly reluctant. I couldn’t blame him. The area felt at once deserted and ominous, with the faint breath of the White Cat’s sour music in the air.

  “I won’t be long,” I told him and, tucking the envelope under my arm, I went inside.

  Smoke like a London fog. A few lights swimming in the murk. A long bar with a dirty mirror behind, and a few tables to one side. As directed, I ordered a beer, set the envelope on the counter beside me, and scanned the room unobtrusively in the mirror. I did not see Uncle Lastings.

  What I saw instead was a room full of the thuggish types we’d seen on both sides of the Reds’ march, hungry-looking men, unshaven, half-drunk. If the clubs near the Adlon were all gaiety and excitement, the mood here was sullen. This was the city’s underbelly, suffering indigestion. I didn’t feel safe, and I wondered how long I was expected to wait. Had something happened to Uncle Lastings? Was my arrival just a feint, a piece of some obscure strategy, or was I waiting for someone else entirely?

  I ordered another beer, and I was considering a schnapps to warm me up, when my uncle suddenly sat down on the stool next to mine, met my eye, and gave his head a jerk toward the door. I didn’t hesitate. I stood up, and as I did, he slid his hand into the envelope. He had the Webley out and into his jacket in one smooth motion; I hadn’t credited him with such finesse.

  I went straight outside and signaled my nervous cab driver. The shots came as I was getting into the backseat: one, two, and, a second later, a third and a fourth. The cabbie hit the accelerator before I had the door rightly closed, and it took a good deal of shouting and the waving of a pound note to persuade him to circle
the block. I understood him say Politzei, and the prospect of police worried me, too, but Uncle Lastings had turned a probable ordeal into valuable experiences. I felt I owed him an exit if he needed one.

  At the cost of another pound, the cab driver made a second high-speed circuit down the dodgy little streets, squealing around the corners on two wheels, bouncing over the tram tracks, and squeezing past parked goods trucks. Then I saw a figure running. “Stop! Here! Halten!”

  A squawk from the brakes. I threw open the door. “Uncle Lastings!”

  He waved me away, and I hesitated, the door still open. Then he changed his mind, and with a lunge across the sidewalk, tumbled into the car. A burst of German, and we were away so fast that we were both flung back against the seats.

  I expected us to return to the Adlon, but Uncle Lastings had the cab pull up at the Hauptbahnhof and signaled for me to get out with him. “I’m sorry, Francis,” he said after he had paid the fare and the cabbie roared away, anxious to be rid of us both. “We can’t go back.” He pulled out a handful of marks and gave them to me. “I’m off. Berlin’s impossible for the moment. Do avoid the Adlon, my boy. They’ve been rather after me for the tab.”

  With that, he stalked into the station, leaving me on the sidewalk.

  I was alone in Berlin with a couple of pounds, a handful of marks, and the clothes I was wearing. I was also, though it didn’t register right away, involved in a shooting. With a cabbie who would certainly remember he’d collected me at the Adlon. Whose angry manager would know my name as well as Uncle Lastings’s.

  I was in what Nan would call a pickle.

  Chapter Three

  I shivered in the damp breeze, which carried the oily smell of engine smoke. Everything I owned was back at the Adlon, and despite Uncle Lastings’s warning, I was tempted to return. On the other hand, those had been real shots, and my uncle’s schemes, which had seemed light-hearted if not exactly harmless, now appeared sinister. I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting the police—or, maybe worse, Uncle Lastings’s mysterious enemies. Should one or both of them find me, I’d be sunk.

  The hotel was another danger, although I wasn’t clear what they did to people who couldn’t pay for a room. Potato peeling, some other onerous kitchen duty, a quick trip to jail? On the other hand, loitering in the Hauptbahnhof was suspicious, too. I wouldn’t care to pick up a soliciting charge on my very first night of independence. No indeed, especially when the clientele at that time of night was dubious. When a large man with a mutilated nose and sores on his face grabbed my arm and started whispering, I hightailed it for the door.

  There were cabs at the curb, and telling myself that no one at the hotel could yet know my uncle had vanished, I held up my hand. At the Adlon, I caught my breath and walked in boldly. “Gute Nacht, Herr Bacon.” That was Albert on the desk, elderly but still stout and handsome in his jacket with the gold braid.

  “Gute Nacht, Albert,” I said and collected my key. All normal. The lobby was as luxurious and smart, the elevators as smooth, the carpeting as rich, the decor as heavy with gilt. With a little effort, I could almost imagine that I’d been asleep in the big four-poster all night and that my rascally uncle was off courting some rich woman or propositioning some pretty boy instead of fleeing a murder charge. Not to mention leaving me penniless and probably implicated. Whoever had shot or been shot, I’d almost certainly delivered the weapon.

  Upstairs, the smoke from his cigars lingered along with the fading smell of good breakfasts and furniture polish, but I wasn’t feeling sentimental. I immediately turned out his pants and jacket pockets for small change and collected the several pairs of gold cufflinks that were in his case. Other useful advice from Uncle Lastings: Carry gold. There’s always a pawnshop. He had some silver-mounted brushes, too, and I put them into my own case and threw in my clothes.

  What else, what else? Camera. He had a camera, and I found it. A decent Leica. Valuable. I hung its case around my neck. What else? Some documents from the society and a few pamphlets—no profit there. An extra pair of shoes that I was tempted to take for the secondhand market, but no. Safest to leave Uncle Lastings’s clothes, suitcase, and shaving stuff. The longer the hotel thought that he was coming back, the safer I’d be. I glanced at the bed, warm and comfortable and full of pleasant memories. I could sleep til dawn, I thought, and no one would be the wiser. But no. To leave at dawn would be suspicious. To leave now was by no means unprecedented.

  The only problem was my case. I could not possibly get it past the eagle-eyed Albert. Could I count on Fritz, my favorite among the hall boys? Fritz, whom I’d given little treats of one sort or another? Maybe, but Fritz was low in the hotel hierarchy. He wouldn’t have room keys. Out to the hall. Other valuable advice from Uncle: Know your terrain and always reconnoiter. My present terrain was the luxurious hallway of the Adlon. Naturally, the supply closet was locked, to be opened only by the cleaner’s big official key. The decorative niche with the oversized vase was not deep enough for a case. That left the hallway windows, flanked on both sides by heavy silk panels. Possible? I thought so.

  I fetched my case and, by setting it on end, managed to hide it behind the drapes. Then I put on my jacket and went into the night. It was not too late to find some company, and as luck would have it, I was spotted by a business type, complete with homburg and cane. He had patent leather shoes and wore too much cologne, but his hotel room was comfortable, and by leaving before dawn, I had enough time to catch my friend Fritz.

  I stopped at a bakery then waited at the alley beside the hotel until I saw him hurrying in the chilly fog, his hands in the pockets of his thin livery jacket, his face white with cold. I whistled to him, and when he stepped into the alley I, handed him a couple of rolls. “Frühstück,” I said.

  “Danke. But what are you doing out here, Francis?”

  “A long, sad story.” I gave him the short version and explained that my uncle had become a runner. “Left me a note, don’t you know,” I said before I caught myself. Uncle’s turns of phrase were infectious.

  “The management will not be happy.” Fritz’s face was serious, yet I could see that he was not entirely shocked. The workers are Red to a man, Uncle Lastings had said, and I hoped to turn that to account.

  “No, so I won’t be able to collect my case.” I gave him a hopeful look.

  Fritz shook his head. “Caught in your room, I lose my job. I am so sorry.”

  “It’s not in the room. I put it behind the drapes at the north window,” I said and held out half of one of Uncle’s gold cufflink sets.

  Fritz closed his hand around it. “I know a place. But case out today. No later.”

  “As soon as I find a room. I need somewhere cheap out of this district.”

  Fritz held out his hand for the other cufflink. “Come at six and I take you home with me,” he said.

  Dear Nan,

  No more letters to the Adlon. Poste Restante will be the way to go for the near future. Do not worry, I have gotten a room—really much better than the hotel—

  That was an exaggeration. Fritz’s room was up five flights to the top floor of a once-handsome terraced house. There was a pervasive stink of cabbage soup, fatty sausages, and the overused and seldom cleaned communal WC. The air was thick with coal smoke from the works. We got the fumes without any compensating heat, and the little warmth the flat’s ceramic stove produced was absorbed by Fritz’s father, a massive man with a square, scarred face, who sat beside it, wrapped up in an old horse blanket.

  Being candid, I added, except for my friend’s father, who occupies the front room. He is a war vet, both eastern and western fronts, and is very lame.

  Also, though I didn’t add it yet, very nasty and rather dirty, with perpetual beard stubble, a sullen glance, and a vile temper. A former joiner, he was ruined, Fritz said, in the postwar inflation. Although he still seemed to have some mysterious
business going on, poor Fritz, thin and slight, worked day and night to pay the bills while his father drank anything he could get his hands on. In the morning, he was quiet, slyly thinking how he would get alcohol for the day. Once he got it, he was a regular roaring boy, and we’d all be in danger from the bayonet that he kept behind the stove—if he hadn’t been hampered by a missing foot and two crutches.

  We’ve had some interesting discussions, as you can imagine. You were certainly right that travel is an education.

  That the father lived almost entirely by the stove is both good and bad. There was no getting near the heat—or the kitchen—without passing his lair. On the good side, he slept by his stove like a hibernating bear, leaving a bedroom, not much bigger than a closet, for Fritz and me. The bedroom floor was hard, my blanket—newly acquired from a secondhand stall—was thin and dirty and, yet, once the chair was hooked under the door handle—a precaution against, as Fritz puts it, Papa wandering in the trenches—I could honestly tell Nan that the room was quite safe.

  Safer than the Adlon, I could honestly have written, for although my new lodging was in a seedy and unfashionable section of the city, it had the great advantage of not being near any of the establishments that now know all about Uncle Lastings. And me, too. Though I didn’t want to worry Nan, I was on my way to being notorious.

  This was a gradual process, you understand. Even though the criminal police were supposedly efficient, things were so quiet for so long that I thought Uncle Lastings had panicked unnecessarily. No one seemed concerned that some street-fighting, gun- or drug-dealing malcontent had been shot, a situation that suited me fine.

  I hid out for a couple of days, keeping a watchful eye on the courtyard and on the tailor’s shop and the secondhand furniture dealer that occupied the ground floor and getting to know Fritz’s moody and dangerous parent. I saw few of the other tenants, some of whom departed for early jobs as I returned in the morning. The exception was Lisl, who lived three flights down. She was forever in the hall or the courtyard, playing with a ball or a jump rope—a thin, rickety-looking child with a great taste for chocolate, which I supplied in return for gossip about the rest of the building.