Armageddon (48 page)

When the Amis dispossessed the Falkenstein family from their Dahlem home, chance placed them near where Elke lived with her aged and helpless parents.

At first meeting Elke was excited by Hilde’s beauty and encouraged a renewal of their friendship. Little by little, Elke revealed tangible evidences of good fortune.

“Elke! Where did you get this Ami cigarette?”

“Just enjoy it.”

“I insist on knowing.”

“Where does anyone get anything these days?”

The black market?”

“No. More of an exchange market.”

“Elke, stop teasing me. I’ve smelled your perfume and I’ve drunk real coffee and tasted real butter.”

“I have good friends. Perhaps some day I will introduce you to them.”

“Today.”

“You were always jealous of anyone having anyone or anything you didn’t.”

“It’s been so long, Elke.”

Maybe long enough, Elke thought. Maybe she is hungry enough to want these things. “I must think about it, Hilde. Why don’t we visit in a few days and I’ll let you know.”

Hildegaard thought of it too; she thought of little else ... cigarettes, coffee, silk underwear. Elke’s luxuries gnawed at her innards.

Elke, too, thought of little else. She appraised her own situation with murderous objectivity. She was neither as beautiful as Hilde nor even very pretty. The competition among women in Berlin was growing unbelievable. The first harbingers of winter pushed more and more out on the streets. Elke wondered how long she could last under the competition.

The physical beauty of Hilde thrilled her, but she knew she had to approach that with care. First, she had to let Hilde’s greed trap her. Then she would train Hilde carefully.

With a partner like Hildegaard Falkenstein and her own connections she could make her life last much longer. Her fulfillment with Hilde would come later.

“So, you are still interested in knowing my friends? “

“Yes.”

“It is a matter of taking dates with occupation soldiers.”

“You mean, sleep with them.”

Elke shrugged. “It is better than working on a rubble pile. Besides, I have my parents to keep alive.”

“Do you ... walk the streets?”

“Of course not. That is for the old hens. I have one of the best connections in Berlin to arrange my dates.”

Hildegaard pondered it for days. Elke Handfest lived well under the circumstances, better than her own struggling family, even with Uncle Ulrich’s help. A few times Hilde tried to work but found it dreary and impossible.

Elke’s proposition presented moral aspects against her teaching, but morality in such times was a flexible item. Almost everyone was doing something to live that they would not do in normal times. Hilde rationalized that having dates arranged with occupation soldiers was not the same as being a common whore. It even had a ring of respectability. And, if Elke did well, she could do better.

Hilde remembered her own experiences before the Mongol soldiers raped her. The first time she had sex, she was just fifteen. It was encouraged in Hitler Youth as not only honorable but a highly patriotic duty to bear a baby. Illegitimacy did not exist in the Third Reich. In this intense nationalistic atmosphere she and a boy, whose name and face she could hardly recall, decided to try it out with each other.

There was a week-long encampment of Hitler Youth in the Berlin State Forest on the Müggel Lake. They arranged a rendezvous in the woods in much the same way as dozens of other couples.

The boy was awkward and fumbling and caused her pain. He cried afterward because he had done so badly. All she got from it was disgust and anger. He was a stupid clod, like most men.

There was a second experience during the war when Hildegaard realized true womanhood. Berlin, before the big bombings, was a place of gaiety and excitement and a bit of madness. A young submarine officer on leave, named Sigi, pursued her with wild, heady abandon and made her forget the other unpleasant experience.

Hilde cared for him ... well, for a while, anyhow. When his leave was over and he returned to his submarine she forgot him almost completely ... at once. His whining letters annoyed her. Although she had enjoyed Sigi, the affair revealed to her many things. What Hilde craved from him most in those fifteen crazy days were those moments he was unable to restrain himself at the sight of her loveliness, when he lost control simply by touching her. The supreme thrill came when he was in a state of utter exhaustion and unable to function.

When Sigi left, Hilde decided that falling in love so intensely again was a bother and took too much out of her. She saw the example of her sister immersed in misery and pity with Dietrich Rascher, saw her tear herself to bits. No man was worth what Ernestine went through.

Hilde decided that the next affair would be approached with cold calculation with someone who could help her with her ambition to gain lazy comfort. Hilde was self-centered enough to deny herself the giving of love. She pampered her beauty for the right moment, and as a woman of twenty she was an enormously handsome woman in a classical German sense.

The horrors of Berlin told her that the old life was gone. The chances to fill her ambitions were also gone. In this tomb she could not understand how they could not be gone forever. Yet, her craving for things that Elke Handfest had attained began to overpower her.

When she saw Elke again, she said, straight-out, “I would like to try a date with you.”

Elke was pleased that Hildegaard had taken the first step. “I will see what can be arranged.”

“Of course, I would prefer an Ami officer.”

Elke laughed. “You will have to take what is arranged.”

“Do you mean ... I might have to accept a Russian?”

“Some of them are quite nice, Hilde. Being a beautiful creature does not mean everything. You must please the men you are with. If you don’t, you’ll wash out quickly.”

Elke tutored her on the rest of it Never tell a soldier your troubles. He doesn’t give a damn about your crippled mother or the hole you live in. Too many girls spend their evenings boring a man. A man wants a stupid, happy girl who can make love like an animal, laugh at his jokes, allow herself to be possessed. Don’t drink, Elke warned. A girl needs her wits; stupid girls drink. Forget modesty.

“And don’t fall in love, Hilde. But of course, you will never fall in love. You love yourself too much for that.”

“You need not worry about me, Elke,” she answered, both terrified and excited by it all.

The Paris Cabaret now stood in a cellar near Alexander Platz in Mitte Borough, Russian Sector, in the bashed-down heart of Berlin. Fritz Stumpf remained proprietor on a Russian license. Stumpf was wounded badly in the first days of the war. A crippled left arm returned him to Berlin for the duration.

In the good old days before and after the First World War, the Paris Cabaret belonged to his late, lamented father. It stood on the Friedrichstrasse in the middle of pulsating night life and was a meeting place for theater people and writers.

Berlin was a wonderful, wicked, wild city in those days. A bawdy bohemia of artists, free love, and sex. It was a pompous and proper place with the highest order of opera and concerts.

From here sprang the weird charm of a Mac the Knife and the husky voice of Marlene Dietrich told the world for the first time that she was, from head to toe, consumed with love. It was a Berlin of the immortal Elisabeth Bergner and Tilla Durieux. Negro bands and shimmy dancers and ponderous Wagnerian sopranos all made the magic blends of Berlin.

It was Käthe Gold and the miracle plays of Reinhardt. Fritz Stumpf remembered his father lamenting the departure of the Jews from the Berlin scene. All those magnificent impresarios and virtuosos and fiery journalists had gone. His father said the Jews gave Berlin much of its charm just as they had given Vienna its charm.

Nonetheless, one had to live with the times. By the time Fritz took over from his father the Paris Cabaret had changed to a rendezvous for Nazis who tried to elbow in on the old culture hoping some of it would rub off on them. They came from the ministries that lined the nearby Wilhelmstrasse ... and the old days died.

When he returned early in the war with his wound, Berlin, for the moment, caught the restless sensation-seeking beat of the twenties. Then the Paris Cabaret was bombed out as indeed all of Mitte Borough was, and Stumpf moved into the safer cellar location. The end of the war left the Paris Cabaret in a shambles, but Fritz Stumpf was a clever man and quickly adapted once more to the new masters.

He quickly contacted high-ranking Russian officers, obtained a license, and set his house in order. Three Russians of the rank of colonel were cut in in exchange for protection, an arrangement that worked well for everyone. In the Nazi era, he took care of the needs of Nazi officers. In these days, he took care of his Russian friends.

Fritz Stumpf’s girls were young and pleasing, for the competition to work in the Paris Cabaret was keen. It was cold outside and the Paris Cabaret was as warm as the beds and mansions of the occupation officers.

Elke Handfest retained a popularity for the fun she was, the experience she had, and the fact that she would go along with any party. When she approached Stumpf on the matter of Hildegaard, insisting she was extraordinary, he agreed to look her over.

The front door of the Paris Cabaret was flanked by a pair of American military police. A sign read:
OFF LIMITS FOR AMERICAN MILITARY PERSONNEL
. This was all part of a show for visiting dignitaries. In a day or so they would be gone, the sign would come down, and the MPs would go away. Colonel Hazzard would, once again, drop by for a late beer on the way home from the Russian parties.

Hildegaard walked down the ten steps into the depths of the cafe and was watched from all over the room as the new girl. The place was smoky and noisy and put together out of odd chairs and tables. The bar girls were tightly corseted to enhance their bosoms and the girls lined up on the other side of the bar jealously watched and feared this unpainted, angelic-looking competitor in their midst.

A musically uncoordinated band played a theater song of the twenties, adding to the discordance by the presence of a badly out-of-tune piano, and girls danced together waiting for dates.

Fritz Stumpf kept a private booth on a balcony a few steps over the main floor. They were ushered to the booth by Hippold, Stumpf s bodyguard and an ex-middleweight champion of Germany.

Stumpf arose, took Hildegaard’s hand, kissed it, and asked her to be seated. She saw in traditional pinstripe a maitre d’ of the old school. He was monocled and wore a pearl stickpin. His withered left arm was permanently held against his body, the hand covered by a black leather glove and on its second finger an outlandish diamond ring, a mark of either great vanity or great hurt.

He spoke softly, questioned her carefully, and Hilde answered well. She was obviously from a good family, was well groomed, well mannered, well schooled. Her body appeared to be as lovely as her face. The only question was her ability to handle men. Elke assured him that, if they worked as a team, she would train Hilde.

As they spoke, Hippold, the bodyguard, palmed Stumpf several notes. There were already a half-dozen requests around the room to meet Hilde.

A drum rolled, an excited master of ceremonies introduced Renate, an immaculately groomed chanteuse who looked with moony eyes over the tarnished place and sobbed:

“Berlin, Berlin, I hardly recognize you,

Where is your reckless light heart? Where are the good old songs

You seem sad and lost ...”

Elke nodded to Hilde and they excused themselves and retreated to the temporary sanctity of the women’s room, sat side by side and repaired their makeup.

Hilde was baffled. She fully expected Stumpf, as “master,” to try out the new girl first.

“He is a fascinating man,” Hilde said cautiously.

“The old-school charm.”

“Is he involved with a woman?”

“He has many.”

“I have a feeling he does not like me.”

“Part of his arm was not all that was shot away during the war.”

Hilde changed the subject. “I take it we have dates.”

“Yes.”

“What about our pay?”

“Don’t get greedy, Hilde. You have been accepted on Herr Stumpf’s payroll as a hostess. He takes care of his girls. Remember, he does not deal with money and it is just as well we don’t get involved in the transactions. Besides, if you are a good girl, the soldiers will be generous with their tips.”

The thought disgusted Hilde. She was thankful Elke was with her to ease things. Elke bussed her, with a bit too much affection. “Come on.”

They were led to a table toward two British officers.

“Berlin, Berlin I could cry for you,

The most beautiful city in the world you once were.”

The sentiment struck deep. Renate continued with another verse on the demise of the beloved city.

The two British officers stood. Elke was impressed by Hilde’s quick adaptation. The British major made a sweeping gesture in offering Hilde a seat. She smiled as though she were a very little girl and someone had given her a big, beautiful doll.

“How nice to ask us over,” she said in English. “My name is Hilde ... Hilde Diehl.”

Fritz Stumpf watched the scene with a never-ending fascination. It was the endless game he and his father had watched played a thousand times. A new queen bee was in the hive to start a short and fruitless reign. In a small time she will be in such demand she will be heady with success. She will be a favorite of colonels and generals. But, in these days, there were no mistresses in the grand style, only prostitutes. She will become greedy and start making arrangements for herself. They always try.

Stumpf desired her for himself, but in a new girl there is always a certain amount of pride and temper. She could not be degraded immediately. That was a way to ruin a good race horse. Sooner or later she would degenerate by herself. He would be patient until the facts of life softened her up.