Reese’s Restaurant
Reese’s Restaurant is awash in red light. All the lamps have deep red paper napkins thrown over their shoulders like cloaks, and there’s a band on stage, and the clientele is somewhat more refined. Reese’s is an establishment you visit. The others are bars you drop in. When you go to Reese’s, you first take a deep breath. And generally you go after 8 p.m. And the band is called “orchestra.”
Also, you can take your hat off at Reese’s without the risk of anyone staring. From time to time, descending from westerly spheres, a card sharp will put in an appearance. And it’s not Kirsch who’ll pass the hat around for the musicians, but a man armed with little green numbered boxes. That’s how they do things at Reese’s.
At Reese’s the guests may be “politely requested to pay their reckoning promptly,” but the waiter is well bred enough to take himself off if it doesn’t happen that way. At Reese’s you wear an outfit if you’re a lady, and the waiter may even occasionally say, “The lady, please!” But the lady will address the waiter by his first name. New stockings are no rarity at Reese’s.
Plus you can go up three steps to the back room, where they play skat. That young reprobate actor who’s quite talented is a regular here. He’s getting together a foursome for skat.
Sometimes politics and crime mix at Reese’s. I saw Kern again here. I’d last seen him in Vienna and Budapest. Those were revolutionary times; I found myself behind bars once in Hungary. . At Reese’s the band plays without a break, and they are all in black. They don’t have a bandleader, but the violinist keeps them in good order by looking at them. They play well.
From time to time there’s even a little scandal at Reese’s. Always a matter of honor. Never money, just women.
That’s Reese’s Restaurant for you.
Albert’s Cellar
By contrast Albert’s Cellar in Weinmeisterstrasse is quiet, no music, no red lights. The owner is a Romanian immigrant by the name of Albert. Albert’s Cellar is an easy name to remember.
Albert’s Cellar has regulars of such fixed habits that they even have their mail sent there. Certain aspects of Albert’s Cellar are reminiscent of a writer’s café. For instance, it is possible to sleep away an entire afternoon in Albert’s Cellar. Paul was just embarking on his fourth hour when we arrived. He lay with his head slumped on the table, as though he were trying to saw through the fake marble with his nose. Beside him Regine, resplendent in her fake diamonds, was watching over his sleep. Paula was there with her pimp. He drank a glass of beer, slapped her on the back, and said: “Good luck then, girl.” She sat in a dirty blouse, with spongy, droopy breasts, and drank up my friend’s coffee. The day before yesterday she’d been at a fancy place on Hirtenstrasse where they had good coffee. She didn’t like the coffee here at all, Yuck! Another girl was leaning against the iron stove. She was shivering quietly, and when she spoke (only to say, “How’s it going?”), you saw that she didn’t have any teeth. Her Rudolf had a mouth full of fillings — a treasure chest, not a mouth.
Therese is a peroxide blond, and I walk her over to her turf on Alexanderplatz. She’s in a crisis just now. Rudolf’s girl was locked up, and since he was on his own, he took on Therese. But then the original girl was let out (after just a week), and she had more experience and a better figure. So Rudolf was dumping Therese. She’s looking for support. “He’s got no character, Rudolf,” she says. “He could have discussed it with me.”
Yes, I quite agree, Rudolf’s got no character. How can you be so unprincipled as always to put your business first?!
I cross my fingers for Therese so that she’ll find someone. And then she’ll be happy. I think she has character.
The Cigar Box
Even the world of dives has its symbols and its holy signs. A drum, for instance, is the emblem for a stout, respectable club with gold lace. And the sign of a burglar is a cigar box.
The cigar box contains not Dutch cigars but, arranged by size: “rippers” and “jacks” and “little aldermen.” Or: “jimmies” and “claw-jimmies.”
Because in the world of dives, even housebreakers’ tools have their nicknames. A picklock is a little alderman, a crowbar is a jimmy, and a drilling tool — which admittedly has become almost obsolete as a tool of civilization — is a ripper. A man who works with rippers cannot gain my respect. He’s a dinosaur. A self-respecting man earns his living with explosives, oxygen and dynamite. A ripper — get away!
The cigar box also contains a few S-hooks. S-hooks are so called because they have the shape of a roman S. An S-hook is enough to take care of your average apartment door. Franz, though, never carries any S-hooks. He opens apartment doors that get in his way with his penknife. Franz is a skilled operator!
Franz always keeps his cigar box in his jacket pocket, but he’s not one for symbols. He doesn’t need any cigar box. After all, he’s Franz!. .
A cigar box — it needs to be old and battered, and to have a warped lid straining against the hinges — that’s the trademark and the emblem. It can’t be any old box! — not a cigarette box, for sure! It needs to be an honest-to-God cigar box.
You see: A man who crosses the threshold without a cigar box — what can he be? A pimp at best! The owner of the dive will say, “Well, how’s business?” with a measure of condescension, as though patting the new arrival on the back with each syllable. Whereas a man who walks in with a cigar box will find the way opening up before him, and riffraff like pimps will give him a wide berth. That’s the aura of the cigar box. You wouldn’t believe what a humble cigar box is capable of. It’s an emblem of authority, and for every uninitiated new arrival in the world of dives, it’s like a case in which he carries his field marshal’s staff. All honor to the cigar box!
On Mulackstrasse
Eleven at night, and Mulackstrasse looks like part of an archaeological site. A streetlight on the corner of Schönhauser Strasse squinnies across at it apprehensively. A girl patrols up and down, like a pendulum in her regular unceasing motion, as if she’d been set going by some invisible clockwork.
On the opposite corner is Willy’s bodega. Hans, Willy’s assistant, is there too. He has the most exquisitely parted and Brylcreemed and innocently styled hair. And Gustav, the lithographer, feels utterly at home. He wears soft felt slippers, and his face is like a stubble field in autumn.
Willy is a bookie. Once, a couple of officers came his way, who shouldn’t really have had any business dealing with bookies. Willy was just greeting a friend getting out of a car. The car impressed the officers. They concluded that a bookie who had a friend who owned a car couldn’t really be a bookie. They left Willy some money. An awful lot of money. And then Willy scrammed.
“Long Hermann” rolls up at about half past eleven. He has a very placid, broad face. His eyes are tiny and unfocused; it’s as though they were hiding behind a soft veil of tears, to see without being seen.
And just then Gustav disappears. I don’t know what Gustav gets up to in the cellar.