“Hail the conquering hero,” he said with acid in his voice. “What a damned mess this place is. But don’t fret, Erna. We will have those days again and the next time we won’t make the same errors.”
“There won’t be any next time, Gerd.”
“Of course there will.”
“Do you know what happened to us at Stalingrad?”
“A strategic blunder.”
“Do you know what happened to Berlin in the last hundred days?”
“It won’t happen again.”
“Gerd! Hilde and mother and I were violated by Russian soldiers. We have all had enough.”
Gerd’s lips narrowed. “That is why there will be a next time. Only we will choose better allies than those sniveling Italian bastards. The Amis will be on our side. They are strong but they are also naive. We will control the alliance.”
“Gerd! Germans have to change their ways!”
“How, Erna? Do you believe a doddering old fool like Uncle Ulrich can lead the German people? Do you believe the German people will be kept down? We have energy and brains. We are not nigger slaves or wailing Jews.” He laughed with irony. “Even this destruction will have its compensations. Homes and factories have to be built and we need machinery and guns. This will bring Germany jobs and prosperity. Total destruction means total reconstruction.”
“For God’s sake! Don’t you know about Auschwitz?”
“Of course. In the prison camp the Amis held classes called reorientation to democracy. We were told at great length about our wicked ways. It was a joke among the prisoners.”
“You feel no shame?”
“Why should I? What did I do? Besides, let us not pretend we suddenly love the Jews because we lost the war. I think it’s a pity we didn’t kill all of them.”
Ernestine jumped off the boulder. Gerd reached for her. She stiffened at his touch. “Dietrich Rascher always told me you took things too seriously.”
Hilde was getting more nervous around Elke Handfest. Elke’s hand was constantly touching her, squeezing her leg, brushing her bosom. One night she asked Fritz Stumpf not to give her any more dates with Elke.
But she was no longer in a position to make demands. Her day as queen bee was over. Berlin swarmed with beehives and queen bees. Women came in too many varieties and men were too fickle. It was an echo of the orgy running wild all over Germany.
Hilde began to suspect that Fritz Stumpf was deliberately withholding dates from her. Evening after evening now she sat alone in a booth at the Paris Cabaret. She looked bitterly at the new girls, listened to the same tired songs, heard the same complaints. Her dates were with lower-ranking officers and enlisted men, fewer Amis, more Russians. She became fearful that she was losing her beauty. She needed a drink to keep her composure.
When a good date came it always was double with Elke. That made her nervous and she needed a few drinks before leaving the Cabaret.
Hilde toyed with the idea of leaving the Paris. But she knew that all similar places with good connections cooperated with each other. And what if she went out on her own and contracted gonorrhea again. Only someone like Stumpf would be able to supply penicillin.
Trying to leave could bring the risk of blackmail against Uncle Ulrich, or worse, physical harm to herself. Fritz Stumpf had a few more around like the ex-pug, Hippold. There was talk that Hippold had a specialty of using a knife to scar a girl’s face and body. The thought of mutilation of her beautiful body began to bring her to nightmares like Ernestine used to have. In these dreams glass cut her and animals’ teeth ripped her.
She knew now about the velvet room in Stumpf s apartment. The war wound had left him impotent. His pleasure was watching women with each other in the velvet room while a trio played Bach and an ancient actor read the poetry of Schiller and Heine. She cringed with fear now, as Stumpf would often summon a half-dozen girls without dates to come to his apartment.
Gerd’s homecoming set off problems. She remembered Ernestine’s warnings that she was killing a chance for a normal life with a German boy. Chances were slipping that an Ami would have her.
In the days after Gerd’s arrival Hilde began drinking heavily. Sometimes her date found her angry and other times found her remorseful and complaining about her terrible situation. She had started along the path that Elke had warned her against in the very beginning.
“Herr Stumpf wants to see you,” Hippold said.
Fritz Stumpf was no longer gentle or elegant to her. “Hilde,” he said, “your bar bill is growing too large. Last week you drank more than you earned.”
The girl was still beautiful, but the childish charm had hardened and she no longer played at innocence.
“You do not get enough dates for me.”
“There are over a quarter of a million lovely girls in Berlin. Thousands of them would change places with you in a moment. Do you need a drink now, Hilde?”
“Yes.”
She used both hands to steady her glass.
The chanteuse sang the old Kurt Weill Berlin theater song:
“Oh, the shark’s teeth,
How they bite....”
“We are having a little party at my apartment later,” Fritz Stumpf said. “Some of your friends will be there. Elke asked me particularly to invite you. You might be surprised. Things could become better for you again. Shall you be there, Hilde?”
She closed her eyes and nodded ... yes.
Chapter Twenty
A WEEK BEFORE THE elections the weather began to be cold.
In the Potsdam palace of Commissar V. V. Azov, Rudi Wöhlman and Heinrich Hirsch went over final campaign plans.
“It is time for the American radio,” Azov said. He turned the power on and dialed RIAS, paced in a slow gait, hands clasped behind him, eyes on the floor.
“This is the Voice of Freedom.”
Rudi Wöhlman laughed. A slight twitch developed on the right side of the commissar’s face. Heinrich Hirsch prepared to scribble notes.
This is RIAS, Radio in the American Sector. The next voice you hear will be Colonel Neal Hazzard, commandant of the American Sector.”
Azov stopped his pacing and hovered over the radio.
“My friends. In keeping with American policy of bringing the truth to the people of Berlin, I will debunk the latest lie written in the Soviet newspaper, Täglische Rundschau, yesterday. The article by Heinrich Hirsch gave false figures on the contributions of the four occupation powers in the feeding of Berlin. Soviet contributions have amounted to 10 per cent of the total although a third of the population is in the Soviet Sector. Furthermore, this food has been taken entirely from the economy of the Russian Zone of Germany. The United States has spent sixty million dollars of the American people’s money to bring food to this city in the first year of occupation ...”
Azov snapped the radio off, returned to his desk, drummed his fingers. The portrait of Comrade Stalin seemed to glower at him.
Wöhlman wiped his glasses, replaced them. “RIAS has some nuisance value. It will have no effect on the election.”
Wöhlman had reasons to be cocksure. He had engineered a classical campaign mixing inducements with threats. Feed them with the right hand, hold a club with the left.
“Let us continue,” Azov said testily.
Heinrich Hirsch had plotted a whirlwind campaign finish. The usual demonstrations, speeches, and inundation of literature. “In addition, we have the special events. Four days before elections a fifteen-car trainload of wheat and potatoes will arrive and be distributed with extraordinary news coverage.”
There was more. Ten thousand tons of Polish Silesian coal would arrive for the winter.
The final coup would take place two days before the election. Five Democratic candidates for assemblyman had been “persuaded” by Schatz’s SND to join the anti-Fascist front, legal only in the Russian Sector. They would make their announcements at almost poll time.