Samson 05 - Hope, page 21
‘It wasn’t like that, Bruno,’ I said. ‘Your father wanted to help.’
Bruno Forster looked around to be sure we weren’t being overheard. He had come through to the West on his S-Bahn train and I suppose they would ask him to account for every minute of his time. The S-Bahn management made sure their staff weren’t wandering around in the Western Sector of the city, for the managers were also vetted and kept under the strict scrutiny of the Stasi. That’s how the system worked.
‘Open your present,’ he said.
‘How is your mother?’ I could feel the medal through its wrapping but I didn’t open the envelope. It was as if by accepting the legacy I would be hastening poor Theo’s demise.
‘My mother won’t talk to me. I talk to her but she looks at me and doesn’t reply.’
‘She loves your Dad.’
‘She blames me.’ He gave a short angry laugh. ‘They both do.’ His indignation came out with a rush. ‘You come along, and you tear the family apart. You tell them about the West. You tell them freedom is everything. You encourage the old man to help these maniacs who want to overthrow the State. I warned him over and over again. My mother takes him along to the Church and involves him and then, when he’s in trouble, who do they blame? Not themselves or you. They blame me!’
I fingered the envelope and I could feel the ribbon to which the medal was attached. Alone of all the Nazi medals it was worn on the right breast pocket, its ribbon threaded through the buttonhole.
‘I’m a socialist,’ said Bruno. ‘I’m loyal to my country. The DDR is a good place to live. They try. We have proper medical care and jobs for life. No crime, none of the perversion and hell you’ve made in the West. I tell my DDR friends that if they came over here and saw it for themselves they’d see the filth and the misery. They’d see how brainwashed your wretched workers are. They’d see the people living on the streets, the drugs and the horrors …’
‘But they can’t,’ I said. ‘They can’t come over here and see anything. You built the Wall.’
‘I’ve got to go back to work. I haven’t got time to argue.’
‘No, well maybe I’ve been brainwashed into thinking freedom is everything,’ I said. I restrained the desire to tell him that it was the filthy pollution and the appalling working conditions at the government-owned cycle factory-that had brought his father prematurely to the point of death.
‘Open it up.’ He tapped the envelope. ‘Dad made me promise to give it to you. He told me over and over. I don’t know why you’d want it.’ As he looked around another thought struck him. ‘How did he know you’d be here? And how did you know I’d come?’
‘I guessed you might look in here. A lot of the S-Bahn workers look in here for a schnapps or a coffee.’
But he wasn’t to be fooled. ‘This place is a drop, isn’t it? Your bloody spy system! Is this how Dad’s network communicated with you? Is that how you told them you were coming? The S-Bahn?’
‘Don’t even start thinking about it, Bruno. You live in a place where even thoughts can be severely punished.’
Perhaps he was persuaded by that argument, for as he got to his feet he repeated his Party line about the West’s exploited workers and about me in particular. ‘You are a hyena, Samson,’ he said softly, so that his voice was almost a hiss. ‘You live on the corpses of good people who believe your damned fairy tales.’
‘Perhaps you are right, Bruno,’ I said. I’d known him since he was an infant in knitted hats and waving a rattle. I remember crossing Checkpoint Charlie bringing him a pushchair from the Ka-De-We department store. It only just fitted into the back of my car, and the frontier police were about to seize it from me until I gave them four cartons of American cigarettes. It was a foolish risk, for in those days the guards would sometimes react fiercely to any sort of attempted bribery.
‘You couldn’t leave him in peace could you? Not even when he was sick.’ He took a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. ‘You call yourself his friend?’
I recognized his ranting for what it was: grief at the prospect of losing his Dad, and regret that his ill will had meant missing so many precious years with his parents. I didn’t answer.
‘A Nazi medal,’ said Bruno. ‘It’s an appropriate gift. I’m glad I gave it to you in person.’
I knew he wouldn’t stay more than a few minutes; his masters became suspicious of prolonged delays in the West.
9
Hennig Hotel, West Berlin.
After my bruising encounter with Theo’s son I went to Tante Lisl’s hotel. The room I used was under the roof, reached by a steep flight of narrow wooden stairs originally intended only for the use of servants. It was midday. I closed the curtains against the daylight, undressed and went to bed. I needed sleep but sleep did not come easily; the cramped little room held vivid memories for me, not only of my school days with Theo but of my father and of the day he died. Exhaustion finally claimed me and I did not wake up until late afternoon. I remained in bed for another half hour or so, hoping that someone would appear with comforts like broth and Bratwurst, but no one came. When I phoned the office to be sure no new emergency had developed Lida told me that her attempts to reach me had been met with someone telling her that I needed rest. Fortunately she had handled the office routine without my assistance.
Lida showed a disconcerting insight into everything that went on in the office. She told me that a query had arisen concerning someone who had checked out a BMW motorcycle the previous evening without entering into the book the required details of the driving license and authorization code. In a voice devoid of any emotion she reported having told the motor pool to mark it ‘special arrangement for Mr. Harrington.’ That meant that she could just nod it through without it attracting further attention. Lida was a treasure.
My head ached, my eyes were difficult to open fully, and my mouth was dry. I pulled on an old roll-neck sweater and corduroy pants and picked my way down the creaking little staircase, along the landing, and downstairs to find something to eat. There was no one about; this was not the time of year for tourists, and businessmen found reasons to stay home when the Christmas season approached. From now onwards there was a slack period until the Berlin Film Festival in February. Lisl prospered in the Festival: her hotel had a reputation for being lucky. Directors, producers and even well-known actors and actresses thronged here because over the years so many of her guests had won the Silver Bear and all sorts of other awards. The two big expensive suites on the first floor were particularly lucky ones, so she said, although I’d noticed that when anyone asked which winners had slept in them, and won which prize at which Festival, Lisl always became somewhat vague.
At the bottom of the lovely old marble staircase, with the polished wooden rail that I liked to slide down when a child, I found Lisl Hennig in her room. Its door was wide open, for Lisl liked to be able to see what was going on in her domain, but now her eyes were closed and she appeared to be sound asleep. A plate was on the floor beside her, its contents a half-eaten apple, a segment of cheese and two water biscuits scattered across the carpet. I stood there for a moment, looking into her darkened study. The way the overhead reading light made a marble-like shine on her dress, the lock of hair falling forward on her forehead, the way her arms rested along the thronelike seat, the newspapers and abandoned lunch around her, made a scene that suggested a litter-strewn Lincoln. Memorial.
This was her den, into which only the privileged were invited and where only her intimates were permitted to sit down. The big ornate clock stood at three-thirty and Wilhelm II waved his sword and scowled menacingly at me. The only incongruity came from a newly installed desktop computer on the side table. Like some sort of contrived comparison the dark screen and keyboard stood alongside the old mechanical adding machine with which Lisl had always calculated the guests’ bills. Pinned on the wall behind the table there was a page carelessly torn from a newspaper; a six-column-wide colored reproduction of the Van Gogh Irisesthat had been recently auctioned at Sotheby’s for a record bid of fifty-three million dollars. This news item had commanded worldwide interest; proving, by quantifying the priceless, that everything was possible.
Suddenly Lisl gave a snort and came awake. ‘Bernd, darling! Come and give your poor old Lisl a big kiss.’ As usual she was instantly awake, and unwilling to admit to having dozed off.
Her name was Liese-Lotte, but as a girl she’d adopted the more germütlich Viennese form of Lisl, and that touch of kitsch suited her. I went and kissed her carefully so as not to disturb the lipstick and the carefully rouged and powdered face. She twisted her head to accept a kiss on each cheek.
‘Let me look at you, darling.’ She twisted the table light so that, it floodlit me and I stood obediently, feeling an absolute fool, while she scrutinized me from head to toe. She was not admiring me. ‘You are ill. You must see a doctor.’
‘I’m just hungry,’ I said.
‘You need proper food. Berlin food. Tonight: Schlachtplatte!’
‘That sounds wonderful,’ I said and meant it. The huge plate of mixed boiled meats and sausages was something for which I had yearned for a long time.
‘I still say you should see a doctor, Bernd. I know when you are ill; I’ve known you all my life haven’t I?’
‘I’m okay.’
‘It’s only you I’m thinking of.’ She phoned the kitchen and ordered a snack for me. When she’d done that she picked up a newspaper that was folded into a small bundle to expose the crossword puzzle. ‘You have come just at the right moment. I’ve started doing the crosswords in the English newspapers every day. It is good for my English.’ She said this in German, which made me believe that her desire to master English was not a top priority. ‘A Christian kingdom ruled by a General? Seven letters ending T H O.’
‘Lesotho,’ I said.
‘There is such a country?’
‘In Africa.’
‘You have saved my life, darling. You are a wonderful darling, a genius. I was driven almost insane. Lesotho. Ah! That makes sixteen down STOIC. The rest are easy. I will complete it later. Good.’ With a sigh of relief she put the newspaper aside and turned to me. ‘Now, Bernd. What have you done to poor Werner?’
‘Done to him? I haven’t seen him for ages. Is he here?’
‘You haven’t argued again with that wife of his?’
‘Zena do you mean?’ Zena was Werner’s diminutive and combative first wife, to whom he’d recently returned for no reason that I could fathom.
‘Yes, Zena,’ said Lisl. ‘You don’t like her. She is …’ Lisl’s arthritic fingers played a remarkably nimble trill in the air as she searched for a word that was both appropriate to Zena’s nature and repeatable to Werner. ‘ … touchy. Yes, touchy sometimes, I know.’
‘Werner’s private life is nothing to do with me,’ I said.
Perhaps I put a little too much feeling into this reply, for Lisl said, ‘Is this to say I am an interfering old woman?’
‘No, Lisl darling,’ I said hastily. ‘Of course you aren’t.’
She looked at me under lowered eyelids while deciding to accept my cowardly assurance. ‘It’s a pity you didn’t find some nice German girl, I’ve often thought that.’ She had often said it too. Werner’s marriage and mine were topics she could discuss at length, and about which she could become very emotional. Lisl had been an aunt to me, but for Werner after his Jewish parents died she had been a mother. And yet Werner’s marriage to the pugnacious Zena had not troubled Lisl as much as my marriage to Fiona. Of course Lisl never criticized Fiona. Her old-fashioned respect for the institution of marriage ruled out destructive criticism. But I knew Lisl very well indeed, and I knew she secretly saw Fiona as a cold and remote foreign woman who had intruded into our cozy family circle.
Lisl was as different to Fiona as anyone could possibly be. Born into a wealthy Berlin family, her girlhood spent in a formal and exclusive world, Lisl had nevertheless inherited the fearless vulgarity and tenacious sense of humor that is the hallmark of the Berliner. Her innate toughness had made her unhesitatingly offer shelter to Werner’s parents at a time when hiding Jews usually brought a one-way ticket to a concentration camp. Lisl was generous to a fault, but she was also narrow-minded, chauvinistic and selfish. ‘A nice German girl,’ she mused. ‘And you could have lived here in the city, and got a proper job.’ Lisl was fishing for news of my domestic life. I could tell by the look on her face.
‘I have a job,’ I reminded her. ‘And now I’m living in the city too.’
‘You always have an answer, don’t you, Bernd? A still tongue makes a wise head. Have you heard that saying, Bernd?’
I didn’t answer; I just smiled.
But you couldn’t win with Lisl. ‘It struck home did it, my little remark? A nice German girl. Someone who kept your shirts nice, looked after the children and cooked you proper meals.’
I was working all night,’ I said. ‘I haven’t shaved yet. I put on this old sweater and came down because I was hungry.’
‘Don’t complain, Bernd. The girl in the kitchen is working as fast as she can.’
‘I know, Tante Lisl.’ I looked around. ‘The hotel is very quiet.’
‘We’ll be full for the Festival,’ she said. ‘The best suite is already booked. We’ll be turning people away, you just see. Will you be here for Christmas?’
‘It seems likely.’
She looked at, me, sniffed loudly and reverted to the subject of wives. ‘A warm-blooded German girl would have been better for you. A German girl knows how to keep her man.’
‘I’m happily married,’ I protested.
‘Uggh!’ She challenged my claim with a rude sound. ‘I know all about that,’ she said, pressing a forefinger against the side of her nose in a promise of confidentiality. ‘I know all about your ungarische Hure… Do you think I have not heard about your adventures living with the Gloria woman?’
It was of course a shot in the dark; an artful ploy calculated to make me protest, and in protesting provide her with more information about both Fiona and Gloria, and my relations with them. I suppose she was puzzled that I’d come to Berlin without my wife. I didn’t reply, except to yawn and rub my face wearily.
She didn’t leave it at that. ‘Your Gloria is staying here in town with her new friend Mr. Rensselaer. Together. Did you know that?’
‘I don’t think so, Lisl,’ I said patiently.
‘And I say yes. At that flashy new American hotel in Wilmersdorfer Strasse. Red shutters and flower boxes,’ she said disparagingly, as if such trappings were self-evident signs that it would encourage the illicit sharing of bedrooms.
I smiled.
‘This hotel isn’t good enough for them, I suppose.’
So that was the affront. It wasn’t Gloria or Bret, or the rumor of them sharing a bed, that had annoyed Lisl; it was the idea that they might have preferred another hotel to hers. I didn’t dwell upon it; Lisl loved rumors and she always got them wrong. Soon a tray arrived with broth and Bratwurst and warm potato salad, with a slice of the sort of Roggenbrot that I remembered from my childhood snacks when I came home from school and helped myself to such good dark bread from the hotel kitchen.
‘What have you done to Werner?’ she said again.
‘Nothing. Where is he?’ I said between mouthfuls of soup.
‘Eat! Eat’ Don’t talk to Werner until he’s finished decorating my tree. He’s gone to buy more colored lights.’
‘What did he say I’d done to him?’
‘Good sausage? I have a new butcher. You should see the Eisbein he sends me. And the Bockwurst: real Berlin style.’ She watched me while I ate some more. ‘Whatever you did to Werner, you’ve upset him.’ Despite her love for me she loved to jolt me with disturbing news. ‘Two wasted lives you and Werner. What prospects do either of you have?’
‘Werner is making a fortune,’ I said.
‘What’s wrong with your broth? Why haven’t you finished it? I have a new cook; just to do the lunches. He’s a Schwab, a nice boy. Can you taste the goose gravy in it? That’s how he gives it that lovely color.’ She sniffed. ‘Yes, Werner is always telling me he is doing well. But if he was really doing well would he still be working for you British?’
‘He’s not working for us,’ I said.
‘How do you know?’
‘I’m Frank’s Deputy.’
‘Eat your bread. Is there too much garlic in the potato salad? Eat it then. Frank’s Deputy? Ummm. That’s not so bad then. Will you get allowances, car and driver, and all the trimmings?’
‘I suppose so.’ I finished the last morsel of potato salad. ‘But the government in London is cutting back.’
‘It’s a family matter.’ I looked up and she met my eyes. ‘Whatever you’ve done to Werner … it’s about your family; he said that it was. It’s none of my business of course, so I don’t expect him to confide in me about it. I told him that. I said, if it’s something concerning only you and Bernd, it’s private. It’s better I don’t know about it.’
‘I can’t imagine what it might be.’
‘I’ve never interfered with you, Bernd. I’ve always let you live your own life in your own way. Even when I could see you were making that terrible mistake …’ She fixed me with a stare and nodded to be sure I understood that this referred to my marriage to Fiona. ‘I never interfered. I never commented. I never criticized. When your father died God bless his soul I told him that you would always have a home to come to here. But your life is your own, Bernd. Whatever you and Werner have to discuss, I don’t want to know about it.’
‘I respect that wish, Tante Lisl,’ I said, not without a shade of Schadenfreude. ‘And I’ll see Werner keeps to it.’
Her eyes narrowed. She felt her parental role in my life entitled her to full and frank disclosure, the way all parents feel. ‘He’s back upstairs now, doing the tree. I heard the upstairs door bang. Keep where you are, I’ll send for coffee. It’s better Werner finishes doing the tree first. I’m determined to have the tree decorated and lit up early this Christmas. Trees are so expensive this year, and a Christmassy look brings in casual customers to drink at the bar.’ As I kissed her goodbye she was still complaining that I wouldn’t go and see a doctor.‘Dr. Litzmann is a wonderful doctor; I wouldn’t be here today without him.’
