Deadfall in Berlin Read online

  I looked from her to Joe to Mother to Joe. That's right. People rushed to our underground bar for safety, for drinks that calmed nerves, for Mama's song that calmed souls as the sky fell and Berlin shook, collapsed, burned. Yes, while all this was happening above, the adults were wooping it up below, living, laughing, drinking, all for the mere price of a few cigarettes. Sticks of tobacco that Mother would then have me trade for whatever was wanted or needed, whatever her contacts had or whatever was found down at the train yards. Caviar or eau de cologne, occasionally potatoes.

  I sat forward. Press on, Joe, I thought, willed. There was more. The dangerous part.

  “But no one knows where she gets beer and schnapps,” I dared murmur.

  Joe grinned, slyly asked, “So where do you get it, Eva? That has to be the tricky part.”

  Embarrassed by this dirty corner of her life, she was on her feet and storming me within an instant. I knew what was going to happen, and I jumped from the settee, the plate crashing to pieces at my feet. I was ready to dart away, but then I stood still. I hadn't backed down from the Gestapo today. I wouldn't from my own mother.

  She grabbed my shoulder, pinched through my clothing, squeezed my skin. “I told you to be quiet!”

  I bit my lip, felt my anger at her bubbling just below the surface. I'd always done her errands, but no more. Why should I when she wouldn't even take us out of Berlin? In defiance, I slowly raised my right hand and open palm in a salute to my very own little Hitler.

  “Sieg Heil!”

  She blanched, froze, just as I'd planned. “Oh!”

  “Willi!” gasped Loremarie.

  I did it again, just for the shock of it. “Sieg Heil!”

  I expected to be slapped, but I didn't expect her fury. Suddenly my own mother was upon me, shaking me, screaming. Her frustrations came at me tanklike, rolling over me as she yelled and shoved me from side to side.

  “Stop it!” she shouted.

  Suddenly I started to crumble. Although my recently-recognized anger at my mother was real, my just-flexed strength was only pretend. I was trembling all over. Something struggled to the surface. A stretched wail, a huge sob. A man-child's plea. Erich hopped off the seat, limped over, reached out for me.

  “Don't!” Mother snapped at him. “Get away! He's got to learn to do as I say.”

  My weak defenses fell to the ground, and all my fears streaked forward, naked and shivering. Bomb, blast, fire had all taken a toll. And this was the real me: terrified to the inner core. Mother released me, and I stood there, crying out of anger at what had already been lost and what would never be.

  Head shaking in disgust, Mother turned away. Turned back to her chair and her silver flask of cognac, took a deep, ribbony gulp. Mother glared at me, looked at Loremarie and Joe. It's not my fault, she shrugged. Really, it's not. What did I do?

  I admitted defeat, took a weak step toward her. “Mama, Ma—”

  “Quiet, Willi.”

  “But—”

  “Quiet!”

  I melted into sniffles.

  “That's quite enough,” continued my triumphant mother between swigs two and three.

  With a long slide of my sleeve, I cleaned my nose and my eyes. I reined it all in, and I thought, Can't I be afraid just a bit?

  “Now come here,” commanded Mother.

  Arms at my side, face drooping with shameful tears, I inched toward her. I went to her, and she reached out and I flinched. But then her hard fingers went through my hair. Once. Twice. No, I thought. More. Give me more!

  “That's better,” she said. “That's my little soldier. I can't have two babies to take care of, can I?”

  I stood there, silent.

  “Answer me! Can I?”

  “Nee.”

  “Of course, I can't,” said Mother, patting me briefly on the back but keeping me at a distance. “There's just too much to do. We rely on you for so much. You have to be strong. We need a man in the house to protect us. And that's you, mein kleiner Soldat. Right?”

  Peep: “Ja.”

  “That's right. You have to take care of us. Now apologize to Loremarie and Joe for the scene you made.”

  Joe said, “That's not necessary.”

  Her neck stiffened as she cocked her head back. “This is none of your business.”

  “But—”

  “Don't you start, too!”

  Loremarie was up and bustling, soaking a cloth in a dish of water, rushing over and scrubbing my tear-soaked face. If only Adolf could be wiped away so easily. If only it weren't costing tens of millions of lives just take his.

  “Take a good look at yourself, Willi. Step away and tell me what you notice?”

  Everything seemed to freeze, caught in that particular moment. And while I found myself unable to move, an invisible part of me separated, floated upward and around like a ghost. I hovered behind myself, and as if my own head were a simple clock that had been opened, I could see in clearly, perfectly. And all the strange workings now made sense. I'd been forced into adulthood, I realized, but I wasn't mature. I was ahead of my time but I was still a kid. I had all the ammo but none of the means to handle it. Yes, I understood. My mother needed me and my brother needed me, and I was trying so hard to serve them. But I needed help, too. I was carrying a burden too great for my tender years. I just needed what we all did: an untorn place to grow.

  “Exactly.”

  It was that simple, and I could now see it all and had to communicate it all. Mother had to know. She was too overwhelmed with the war to see. So I had to tell her, because if she knew, she'd understand. And make everything right. I needed that.

  Suddenly the scene resumed, snapped back into motion by Joe.

  “Eva,” he said, as if he'd heard all my thoughts, “he's only ten. He's only a boy. He's afraid. We're all afraid.”

  “That's right,” she barked. “We're all afraid. So we all have to rise to the situation. We all have to be more, do more. Isn't that right, Willi?”

  Why couldn't I say all that I felt? Why did I have the ability to see everything, feel everything, but lack virtually all of the means to express it? The dichotomy of youth. It was so tortuous. As if I were casting out a lifeline, I turned to Joe for help.

  He said, “Give the kid a break. He's—”

  “Enough!” pronounced Mother.

  She stared at me, burned me with her eyes. Forced me to squelch my anger, confusion.

  Loremarie again broke the war, suggesting, “We'd better get to work.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Joe.

  Quite queenly lest we forget to whom we were all beholden, Mother said, “Your documents, Joe.” She stood and held out her hand. “Come along, Erich. Let's go to the zoo while they do their business.”

  I was staring at the floor, mesmerized by the swirl of red and blue flowers of the oriental carpet. I was drifting away when I felt a little hand brush my own. I looked into my little brother's eyes, and I realized there was something this very tiny child understood about me that I would never understand. Something about the guilt I experienced for not taking up even more of the slack, the slack that curled at my feet, and sometimes tripped me. Oh, and how I admired the early dignity that Erich's handicap had led him to, a dignity that I could never claim. Already my life was soiled. Always I would be on a stage of war.

  Mother was holding out a hand, and Erich smiled at me, then limped over to her. Mother fastened his coat, her own, then started out. On the edge of the hallway, Mother turned but did not look at me. Was it because she truly didn't care for me? Or couldn't she bear looking at her shame?

  “Willi, be a dear,” she said, “and bring Joe to the zoo in, say, an hour. We'll meet by the elephant pen. All right?”

  “Ja.”

  Mother and Erich left, plodding their way through the ruins of Loremarie's once fashionable house where actors and artists and aristos had vented and drank.

  As soon as she was gone, Joe turned to Loremarie, and said, “She's c
hanged.”

  Beautiful Brünnhilde motioned out to a hole, to a crater, to the moonlike city, and laughed, “So has Berlin.” Then a hiss of frustrated air whistled over her lips, and she admitted, “You know, she's never been the Kinder, Kirche, Küche type. And that's why I've always loved my dear Evchen. She blazes the way for the rest of us. But you're right.” Glancing at me, she hesitated, then added, “Ja, Eva's… Eva's different now.”

  I turned away from Loremarie, stepped into the hallway, looked up at the cascade of shattered boards and beams. Wiping my face, I thought how it really didn't matter whether or not Mother had changed. Not now. What mattered was getting out of here. Mother had said we needed to stay in Berlin because she knew how to stay alive in this place, but didn't she see, wasn't it obvious that Berlin was dying and that this great metropolis would take her and everything else with it to the grave?

  I heard Loremarie and Joe whispering behind me. I didn't know what they were saying exactly, but I sensed pity, worry. I was a magnet. Or a big ear. At the same time, I didn't realize how tired I was. No matter what, though, this I had to do, push for. I spun back into the dining room.

  “We have to leave the city,” I blurted.

  “Oh, Willichen, of course we do,” said Loremarie, coming up to me and wrapping a hand around my head. “Everyone's nerves are shot. This is especially no place for children.”

  I gazed up at her. “Tante Lore, I don't want the Russians to get my mother!”

  “Of course not.” Loremarie looked at Joe. “The Reds are killing and raping everyone, you know. They're taking the most disgusting revenge for Stalingrad and Leningrad.”

  “I've heard rumors.”

  “It's true, Joe, it is,” I said somewhat desperately. “Herr Lichter—he lives down the street—said they made his brother watch as ten Russians raped his wife.”

  “Willi!” gasped Loremarie.

  “Herr Lichter told me himself! It was in Silesia. And then… then they nailed her to a barn door and made her watch as they cut open her husband.”

  “Oh!”

  Joe said, “Loremarie, there's got to be a way to get out of Berlin. We have to go west and meet up with the Americans.”

  “Ja, ja!” I shouted. “We could leave tonight!”

  Disturbed, Loremarie started bustling about. She gathered cups and glasses, straightened up dirt over debris that would undoubtedly be entirely shifted, dusted, destroyed after the next raid.

  “We've… we've been working on something, you know,” she said. “But it takes time. Travel is very difficult now—there are so many check points and the trains are barely running. And then there's the strafing.” She stared at Joe. “Thousands of people have been killed by your low-flying planes, you know. I just hope it isn't too late.”

  Too late? No. No! It was never too late. My mother was just mixed up. Confused. She'd been under too much pressure. She'd been struggling so hard and for so long just to stay alive and feed herself and Erich and me and her soul, and this wasn't right. She shouldn't even be here, buried in Berlin. No, Mother's rightful place in the world was on a star, singing, enchanting. There was still time. The full moon wouldn't arrive for another day or so.

  “We can make it!” I insisted.

  “Perhaps.” Loremarie's feet crunched over bits of carved ceiling plaster. “Well, let's get to work. We haven't much time.”

  “Much time for what?” asked Joe.

  I replied, “For Anton to do his work.”

  Chapter 14

  “Who's Anton?”

  “A special friend,” I said as we headed out of the room. After all, he was even closer than a Nennonkel, which was why Erich and I called him by his first name. Anton. Just Anton who made us things. “An artist.”

  Ahead of us I saw Loremarie glance back, her face blush red. He was her very good, very close friend.

  “He'll do papers for you, Joe,” I continued.

  Loremarie said, “Actually, he's doing papers for all of us. Me, him, Eva, the boys. Dieter.”

  Dieter. My one-legged, would-be uncle. What should I do? Should I tell Joe that it might have been Dieter who'd directed the Gestapo to us? Then something else struck me. If he wanted Joe dead and perhaps me, what about Mother?

  “What kind of papers?” asked Joe.

  Ones that would lead us to Switzerland or at least as far as Yankee territory, she said. Of course we had to get out of here. With the Ivans nearing and the Führer about to go into his final throes, Berlin would be sucked down in a whirlpool of blood.

  Switzerland, I thought. Good. Out of here. Away. Now. I pictured Erich and me in that mountain-studded fairyland, Erich's cheeks out all bright and rosy. I tried to imagine a night without bombs.

  We made our way back through the ruins, from the once fashionable dining room, down a broad hall that was littered with wood splinters and pebbles of glass. Our special friend, Anton, was no less than a troll. A troll who hid in the bowels of this house and who painted and drew with anything on anything. Still lifes and forged papers.

  “So where's this Anton?” asked Joe.

  “Just wait,” I said. “It's the best hiding spot.”

  This had been a beautiful place, Loremarie told Joe as she crunched through her home, leading us across a soggy red carpet, over boards and debris. A glorious house, just a block from the Tiergarten. A city residence for an old family whose seat was a modest Schloss, castle, in Silesia that had been in the family for over four centuries. Now the castle was gone, or at least gobbled up by the Ivans, who had ground up her two brothers during the crushing defeat of Operation Zitadelle—our last big offensive in the east. Her mother had died before the war, and her father? She didn't know. They hadn't spoken in years. He was a staunch supporter of all the Hitlers, little and big, and he'd outfitted them with their favorite uniforms from his vast mills. In a way, she mused, she hoped he was dead so he wouldn't see what had happened to his beloved Vaterland, wouldn't become aware of her activities that had made it impossible for father and daughter to ever again speak. It would hurt him less to be killed than to spit fires of hatred at his only surviving child.

  “Oh, but such times we had here before politics became more important than people.” She let loose a big whipping-cream laugh. “So many people. They came every night and stayed all night. My parents entertained the continent.”

  With that Loremarie started disappearing down a steep narrow passage that was melting into stairs that were dripping into a cellar. Gray into black. Nowhere into nowhere. I clambered after her, knowing the way because I'd been down here a lot. Erich and I loved to visit Anton, and we could only see him in his hidden chamber.

  “It's not much farther,” she called back to Joe and me.

  I hit a board, banging my shin. Auch! Black. Oh, it was black, and I half-slid, half-crawled down remnant stairs, heard dripping water. One soggy, slurpy step. Another. From the other side came a teeny little splash, then teeny desperate thrashing. Blech. A rat, I assumed, making its way through the underground seas of Berlin, where new waters emerged constantly from all the broken pipes. I took a step down. My socks and shoes were like sponges. It was water, wasn't it? Please let it be clear, please let it be murky if not clear. Just don't let it be beet red.

  “Willi?”

  “Joe?” I responded. Better yet: “Tante Lore?”

  “Shh,” hissed the darkness.

  Tap-tap. Pause. Tap-tap-tap. Pause. Tap-tap. From behind something came movement, then creaking, groaning. LIGHT! A heavy door was thrown back and the flooded basement was flooded with brightness.

  “Oh,” I said, squinting. “Hallo.”

  Joe and I were not too far apart, ankle deep in brownish—thank God, brownish—water, and Loremarie and Anton were up a foot on dry concrete. Anton the troll, thin, smiling, who had something special to do with papers and was hidden down here and might actually have the wherewithal to get us all to Swiss land.

  “Hallo” he echoed as he held out a hand,
beckoned us into his underground chamber.

  Loremarie explained Joe's presence, his family ties to Eva, and Anton nodded and nodded, his face blooming with a huge grin. Then Joe and I stepped up to dry land and into a studio. Yes. An artist's studio, full of easels, countless canvases painted countless times, brushes, oils, a table covered with official papers, a radio, a huge map. Turning around, I looked at Anton: dark hair and eyes, faint moustache set against the palest skin I'd ever seen. Face: long with a broad smile and a narrow chin. He was a U-boat. One of the chosen people who'd been forced with that menorah over there to submerge down into this submarine pen. Amazing. A sinker sunk, hidden beneath the surface of Berlin.

  “How long you been down here?” Joe asked.

  “Since September 1942.”

  He grinned. A smile as white as his skin though brighter. A happy face. He reached over and embraced Loremarie and they kissed and they grinned. Yes, in love. He was a U-boat and she was his lifeline and his everything else. And he was her everything else as well. Their aura flashed: We are to be married when all of this is over.

  Anton hugged me and told me he had a new picture for Erich and me, a painting of the zoo. Then he turned on Joe, the-enemy-who-was-really-one-of-the-good-guys, and machine-gunned him with his own past.

  “Before all this my family had a wonderful apartment on Holsteiner Ufer overlooking the Spree, just by the Moabiter Bridge.”

  “Wie bitte?” said Joe, unable to take it as fast as he was getting it.

  “You know, the bridge with the bears on it. And my father had an art gallery just off the Hansaplatz on the other side of the Tiergarten. It was the best in Berlin, and he sent me to art school.”

  “Ah,” said Joe sadly, as if he were forming an image of Anton's previous life.

  Then, not quite ten years ago, he continued, they'd been forced to sell the gallery so it could be “Aryanized.” Anton said it like they'd taken the place to the cleaners. Whatever. It had been lost, wasted, never returned. Anton painted on. They'd lost their large apartment overlooking the river. But Anton still painted. Then his parents and sister were rounded up, hauled away for resettlement in the east, while Anton was herded into a place here in Berlin. Anton the budding painter was caught by—oi, yoi, yoi—the Ministry of Propaganda and put to work.