“There’s a waiter at the club,” she said, “who’d disagree with you. He’s a former POW, too. He came home last year, still a rabid Nazi. Hates the Bolsheviks.” She smiled wryly. “I’m none too fond of them myself, of course. Well, you remember what it was like when the Red Army turned up in Berlin with a hard-on for German women.” She paused for a moment. “I had a baby. Did I ever tell you that?”
“No.”
“Well, he—the baby—died, so it didn’t seem important, I guess. He got influenza meningitis, and the penicillin they used to treat it turned out to be fake. That was—God, February 1946. They got the men who sold the stuff, I’m happy to say. Not that it really matters. Made in France, it was. Glucose and face powder dissolved in genuine penicillin vials. Of course, by the time anyone knew it was fake it was too late.” She shook her head. “It’s hard to remember what it was like back then. People would do or sell anything to make money.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, darling. It was a long time ago. Besides, even after I had it, the baby, I was never really sure I wanted it.”
“Under the circumstances, that’s hardly surprising,” I said. “You never told me this before.”
“Well, you had your own problems, didn’t you?” She shrugged. “And that, of course, is the real reason I never sold my body to the Amis, of course. Gang rape. It tends to take away your sexual appetite for quite a while. By the time I did start feeling inclined that way again, it was too late. I was on the shelf, more or less.”
“Nonsense.”
“Too late to find a husband, anyway. German men are still in rather short supply, in case you hadn’t noticed. Most of the good ones were in Soviet POW camps. Or Cuba.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. You’re a fine-looking woman, Elisabeth.”
She took my hand and squeezed.
“Do you really think so, Bernie?”
“Of course I do.”
“Oh, there have been men, all right. I’m not completely clapped out, it’s true. But it’s not like it used to be. Nothing ever is, of course. But…There was an American who worked for the U.S. State Department at HICOG, in the Headquarters Compound on Saargemünder Strasse. But he went home to his wife and children in Wichita. And there was a guy, a sergeant, who ran Club 48—that’s the U.S. Army’s NCO club. It was him who helped me to get the job at The Queen. Before he went home, too. That was six months ago. My life.” She shrugged. “It’s not exactly Effi Briest, is it. Oh, I do okay at the club. Pays well. The customers behave. Good tippers, I’ll say that for the Amis. At least they show their appreciation. Not like the British. Worst tippers in the world. Hell, even the French tip better than the British. You wouldn’t think they’d won the war, they’re so tight with their money. They say that even the mousetraps are empty in the British sector. I tell you, this fellow Nasser, I’m on his side. And when Uruguay beat England, I think I was even more happy than I was when West Germany won the actual trophy.”
“Talking of West Germany, Elisabeth, do you go there ever?”
“No. I’d have to cross the Green Border. And I don’t like to do that. I did it once. I felt like a criminal in my own country.”
“And East Berlin. Do you ever go there?”
“Sometimes. But there’s less and less cause to go. There’s not much there for those of us who live in West Berlin. Just before Jimmy—my American sergeant—went back to America, we took a trip around old Berlin. He wanted to buy a camera, and you can still get a good one for not much money in East Berlin. We got a camera, too, but not in a shop. On the black market. The only shop we visited, a department store the communists call H.O., had very little in it. And as soon as I saw it, I realized why so many East Germans turned up here last year to get a food parcel. And why quite a few of them never went back.”
“But you wouldn’t say it was dangerous.”
“For someone like me? No. You read about the odd person getting snatched by the Soviets. Injected with something and then bundled into a car. Well, I suppose if you were important, that might happen. But then, you wouldn’t go there in the first place if you were someone like that, would you? All the same, I wouldn’t have thought you would want to go across to the Russian sector. You having escaped from a POW camp and all.”
“Look, Elisabeth, there’s nobody left in Berlin I can really trust. If it comes to that, there’s no one left I even know. And I need a favor. If there was anyone else I could ask, I would.”
“Go ahead and ask.”
I handed her an envelope. “I was hoping I could ask you to deliver this. I’m afraid I don’t know the correct address, and I thought—well, I thought you might help. For old times’ sake.”
She looked at the name on the envelope and was silent for a moment.
“You don’t have to,” I said. “But it would help me a lot.”
“Of course I’ll do it. Without you, without that money you sent, I don’t know how I’d ever have hung on to this place. Really I don’t.”
I finished my coffee and then my cigarette. I must have looked as if I was about to leave, because she said, “Will I see you again?”
“Yes. Only, I’m not sure when. I’m not living in Berlin at the moment. For the foreseeable future, I’ll be staying in Göttingen.” She looked puzzled at that. So I explained: “With the VdH? Göttingen is near the Friedland Transit Camp for returning POWs. They’re there for only a couple of weeks, during which time they receive food, clothing, and medical aid. They’re also given army-discharge certificates, which they need to obtain a residency permit, a food-ration card, and a travel warrant to get home.”
“Poor devils,” she said. “How bad was it, really?”
“I’m not about to sit here and tell any woman from Berlin about suffering,” I said. “But maybe, because of it, we’ll know how and where to find each other.”
“I’d like that.”
“Do you have a telephone?”
“Not here. If I want to make a call, I always use the telephone at the club. If you ever need to get in contact with me, that’s the best place to do it. If I’m not there, they’ll take a message.” She found a pencil and paper and scribbled down the number: 24-38-93.
I put the number in my empty wallet.
“Or you could write to me here, of course. You should have written before to let me know you were coming. I’d have prepared something. A cake. I wouldn’t have been in my dressing gown. And you should have sent me an address in Cuba. So that I could have written back to thank you.”
“That might have been a little difficult,” I confessed. “I was living there under a false name.”
“Oh,” she said, as if such an idea had never occurred to her. “You’re not in any trouble, are you, Bernie?”
“Trouble?” I smiled ruefully. “Life is trouble. Only the naïve and the young imagine that it’s anything else. It’s only trouble that finds out if we’re up to the task of staying alive.”
“Because if you are in trouble…”
“I hate to ask you another favor….”
She took my hand and kissed the fingers, one by one. “When are you going to get it through your thick Prussian head,” she said. “I’ll help you in any way I can.”
“All right.” I thought for a moment and then, taking her pencil and paper, I started to write. “When you get to the club, I want you to make a call to this number in Munich. Ask for a Mr. Kramden. If Mr. Kramden isn’t there, tell whoever it is that you will call back in two hours. Don’t leave your name and number, just tell them that you want to leave a message from Carlos. When you get to speak to Kramden, tell him I’ll be staying with my uncle François in Göttingen for the next few weeks at the Pension Esebeck, until I’ve met Monsieur Voltaire off the train from the Cherry Orchard. Tell Mr. Kramden that if he and his friends need to contact me I’ll be going to the St. Jacobi Church each day I’m in Göttingen, at around six or seven o’clock in the evening, and to look for a message under the front pew.”