to bed with no more spirit than if I had been driven from among men to eat grass like an ox.
3
I awoke to the sound of a distant explosion. They were always dynamiting dangerous ruins, A wolf’s howl of wind whipped against the window and I pressed myself closer to Kirsten’s warm body while my mind slowly decoded the clues that led me back into the dark labyrinth of doubt: the scent on her neck, the cigarette smoke sticking to her hair.
I had not heard her come to bed.
Gradually a duet of pain between my right leg and my head began to make itself felt, and closing my eyes again I groaned and rolled wearily on to my back, remembering the awful events of the previous night. I had killed a man. Worst of all I had killed a Russian soldier. That I had acted in self-defence would, I knew, be a matter of very little consequence to a Soviet appointed court. There was only one penalty for killing soldiers of the Red Army.
Now I asked myself how many people might have seen me walking from Potsdamer Railway Station with the hands and face of a South American headhunter. I resolved that, for several months at least, it might be better if I were to stay out of the Eastern Zone. But staring at the bomb-damaged ceiling of the bedroom I was reminded of the possibility that the Zone might choose to come to me: there was Berlin, an open patch of lathing on an otherwise immaculate expanse of plasterwork, while in the corner of the bedroom was the bag of black-market builder’s gypsum with which I was one day intending to cover it over. There were few people, myself included, who did not believe that Stalin was intent on a similar mission to cover over the small bare patch of freedom that was Berlin.
I rose from my side of the bed, washed at the ewer, dressed, and went into the kitchen to find some breakfast.
On the table were several grocery items that had not been there the night before: coffee, butter, a tin of condensed milk and a couple of bars of chocolate – all from the Post Exchange, or PX, the only shops with anything in them, and shops that were restricted to American servicemen. Rationing meant that the German shops were emptied almost as soon as the supplies came in.
Any food was welcome: with cards totalling less than 3,500 calories a day between Kirsten and me, we often went hungry -I had lost more than fifteen kilos since the end of the war. At the same time I had my doubts about Kirsten’s method of obtaining these extra supplies. But for the moment I put away my suspicions and fried a few potatoes with ersatz coffee-grounds to give them some taste.
Summoned by the smell of cooking Kirsten appeared in the kitchen doorway.
‘Enough there for two?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ I said, and set a plate in front of her. Now she noticed the bruise on my face.
‘My god, Bernie, what the hell happened to you?’
‘I had a run-in with an Ivan last night.’ I let her touch my face and demonstrate her concern for a brief moment before sitting down to eat my breakfast. ‘Bastard tried to rob me. We slugged it out for a minute and then he took off. I think he must have had a busy evening. He left some watches behind.’ I wasn’t going to tell her that he was dead. There was no sense in us both feeling anxious.
‘I saw them. They look nice. Must be a couple of thousand dollars’ worth there.’
‘I’ll go up to the Reichstag this morning and see if I can’t find some Ivans to buy them.’
‘Be careful he doesn’t come there looking for you.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll be all right.’ I forked some potatoes into my mouth, picked up the tin of American coffee and stared at it impassively. ‘A bit late last night, weren’t you?’
‘You were sleeping like a baby when I got home.’ Kirsten checked her hair with the flat of her hand and added, ‘We were very busy yesterday. One of the Yanks took the place over for his birthday party.’
‘I see.’
My wife was a schoolteacher, but worked as a waitress at an American bar in Zehlendorf which was open to American servicemen only. Underneath the overcoat which the cold obliged her to wear about our apartment, she was already dressed in the red chintz frock and tiny frilled apron that was her uniform.
I weighed the coffee in my hand. ‘Did you steal this lot?’
She nodded, avoiding my eye.
‘I don’t know how you get away with it,’ I said. ‘Don’t they bother to search any of you? Don’t they notice a shortage in the store-room?’
She laughed. ‘You’ve no idea how much food there is in that place. Those Yanks are on over 4,000 calories a day. A GI eats your monthly meat ration in just one night, and still has room for ice-cream.’ She finished her breakfast and produced a packet of Lucky Strike from her coat pocket. ‘Want one?’
‘Did you steal those as well?’ But I took one anyway and bowed my head to the match she was striking.
‘Always the detective,’ she muttered, adding, rather more irritatedly, ‘As a matter of fact these were a present, from one of the Yanks. Some of them are just boys, you know. They can be very kind.“
‘I’ll bet they can,’ I heard myself growl.
‘They like to talk, that’s all.’
‘I’m sure your English must be improving.’ I smiled broadly to defuse any sarcasm that was in my voice. This was not the time. Not yet anyway. I wondered if she would say anything about the bottle of Chanel that I had recently found hidden in one of her drawers. But she did not mention it.
Long after Kirsten had gone to the snack bar there was a knock at the door. Still nervous about the death of the Ivan I put his automatic in my jacket pocket before going to answer it.
‘Who’s there?’
‘Dr Novak.’
Our business was swiftly concluded. I explained that my informer from the headquarters of the GSOV had confirmed with one telephone call on the landline to the police in Magdeburg, which was the nearest city in the Zone to Wernigerode, that Frau Novak was indeed being held in ‘protective custody’ by the MVD. Upon Novak’s return home both he and his wife were to be deported immediately for ‘work vital to the interests of the peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ to the city of Kharkov in the Ukraine.
Novak nodded grimly. ‘That would follow,’ he sighed. ‘Most of their metallurgical research is centred there.’
‘What will you do now?’ I asked.
He shook his head with such a look of despondency that I felt quite sorry for him. But not as sorry as I felt for Frau Novak. She was stuck.
‘Well, you know where to find me if I can be of any further service to you.’
Novak nodded at the bag of coal I had helped him carry up from his taxi and said, ‘From the look of your face, I should imagine that you earned that coal.’
‘Let’s just say that burning it all at once wouldn’t make this room half as hot.’ I paused. ‘It’s none of my business Dr Novak, but will you go back?’
‘You’re right, it’s none of your business.’
I wished him luck anyway, and when he was gone carried a shovelful of coal into the sitting-room, and with a care that was only disturbed by my growing anticipation of being once more warm in my home, I built and lit a fire in the stove.
I spent a pleasant morning laid up on the couch, and was almost inclined to stay at home for the rest of the day. But in the afternoon I found a walking-stick in the cupboard and limped up to the Kurfurstendamm where, after queuing for at least half an hour, I caught a tram eastwards.
‘Black market,’ shouted the conductor when we came within sight of the old ruined Reichstag, and the tram emptied itself.
No German, however respectable, considered himself to be above a little black-marketeering now and again, and with an average weekly income of about 200 marks – enough to buy a packet of cigarettes – even legitimate businesses had plenty of occasions to rely on black-market commodities to pay employees. People used their
