He dragged her down the alleyway and out onto a wider street, where there was even more commotion.
“Oh no,” she said when they emerged. There was a line of men, more SA in disguise, advancing up the street. Richard looked back the way they had come. He could see the burly, silhouetted shoulders of the mob coming after them. Further up the street was a line of mounted police, fat truncheons in their hands.
“Why don’t those police do anything?” Aubrey cried.
“They will. They’ll arrest you after you get beaten up.”
There was another group of ordinary citizens being pushed down the street by the advancing line of attackers. Some of them brave, maybe stupid, stopped and tried to throw fists at the men with clubs. They were set upon and quickly disappeared into the throng.
A man was on the ground bleeding badly. Aubrey broke away from Richard to try and help the poor man up.
“Aubrey, no—leave him.”
The surge of men trying to escape the mob swept past her, carrying Richard with them. The crowd was being pressed in on all sides. Bottles and rocks soared in every direction overhead. She turned to the man she was trying to help, saw the curly locks of a Hassidic Jew hanging over his ears.
“You must go,” the man said in a hoarse gurgle. But it was too late: the goons were on them. They separated Aubrey from the man and dragged her away. She saw the Jewish man take a solid blow to the face; his teeth were dashed out onto the street.
Then she was swallowed up by the SA, who called her all manner of nasty things. She couldn’t take it all in. She was swirled around and punched solidly in the stomach. It knocked the wind out of her and she collapsed to her knees. A kick to her side and she fell onto the street. The mob continued on, trampling over her. There was the shrieking of police whistles; she smelled the scent of something bitter, and it burned her eyes. Then there was a horse above her; the rider was a policeman wearing a gas mask. He pointed his truncheon at her, spouted something horrific in German, and more police surrounded her. They hauled her to her feet and pinned her hands behind her. She was stuffed in the back of a van, and the door slammed shut.
18
The damp cell held four other women besides Aubrey. One was sobbing incessantly. Another woman, dressed in the garish costume of a prostitute, her face red from drink, shouted at her to stop. The crying woman ceased and rubbed tears away from her eyes. Then her head fell back into her hands and the sobbing resumed.
Aubrey sat next to her on the metal bench, the only one in the squat cell, and put her arm around her. The crying woman jumped and shrank away from her touch. Aubrey got up and went to the bars. She winced when she stood up; there was a sharp pain under her rib cage. She probed it with her fingers and felt the tender spot where the punch had landed, but she didn’t think her ribs were busted. She must have a hell of a bruise there. The woman with the red face spoke to her.
“You’re American.”
Aubrey nodded.
“I heard them say they had a foreigner in the round-up.”
“I tried to help someone. My friend and I were separated.”
The woman came over. “My name is Helene.”
Aubrey introduced herself, just her first name.
“What are you doing in Berlin?”
“I’m doing a story on the state exhibition for aeronautics.”
“And you got caught up in the riots, how?”
“I was out seeing the sights. Wrong place, wrong time.”
“I know the feeling.” The woman burped and Aubrey smelled a disgusting mixture of cabbage and gin. She almost vomited.
The woman had a large belly and was wearing a soiled, frilly nightdress. “I was having a gay old time. I woke up here. They’ll let me go soon. They always do.”
Aubrey sighed and pushed her face between the bars.
“Don’t worry,” Helene said. “They won’t hold an American long. You’ll write bad things about them. They don’t want that.” She laughed. “Carl,” she called, “come let my new friend out. But don’t expect a blow job.” There was the sound of shuffling footsteps somewhere out of sight.
There had been more women in the cramped cell when Aubrey had first arrived, but steadily, one by one they had been taken out and did not return.
“Where are we?”
“SiPo.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sicherheitspolizei, the security police. SiPo.”
“They brought… someone like you… here with the others.”
“You mean a whore? It’s because I am a bad influence. They want to give me another lecture. Send me underground. What they don’t know is that their senior officers are my best customers.” She grabbed one of her sagging breasts and hefted it up.
“Carl!” Helene shouted again.
Carl, still unseen, shouted back, “Shut up, Helene. Or you’ll get a beating.”
There was the clang of a metal doorway and the sound of a stool being knocked over. Carl must have jumped to attention. Two men came into view. They wore the black uniform of the SS and were followed by a man in a police uniform. He was shaking in fear.
“Oh, no, my dear,” Helene whispered. “The SD.”
One of the men spoke to Carl. He did indeed have that little diamond patch on his sleeve with SD stitched inside of it. “We are taking possession of the American.” He handed a piece of paper over to Carl. “Unlock the cell and take her out.”
Carl fumbled with the keys and got the cell open. Aubrey stepped out. She was marched out of the district SiPo building and put in the back of a large black car. An SS man rode beside her for the short journey across Berlin to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. She remembered Hewitt Purnsley mentioning that street name, and the building that resided there.
The car descended into an underground parking garage. There
