Armageddon (56 page)

In one of the desperation measures, the Kommandatura gave permission for Berliners to cut down their forests for use as firewood. This became the most terrible symbol of the defeat. They trudged in the face of a frigid death from their hovels to gather armloads of kindling.

In the Western Sectors the Grunewald and Tegel forest heard the ring of the ax as did the woods bordering the medieval section of the city at Spandau. In the Russian Sector the great State Forest on the Müggel toppled to the same fate.

When the Falkensteins were not at work they huddled around a single unit of warmth, a wood-kindled kitchen stove from turn of the century vintage, or they lay bundled beneath stacks of covering.

Ernestine was able to use her former legal training in obtaining a position in the Magistrat in the reorganization of the laws and courts. She worked for American jurists in the military government, which also kept her out of the physical cold a part of the day.

At home she tried in vain to bring her family back together. Hildegaard preyed on her mind always. She remained a regular at the Paris Cabaret, taking that sordid life as against the risks of the bitter weather and life outside. Hilde had a third case of gonorrhea and an abortion. Ernestine saw the arrogance fade from her sister. Hilde was the chattel of Stumpf, the mistress of Elke Handfest. Yet, despite it, the girl went into her twenty-first birthday with much of her early beauty.

Ernestine was unable to bear it any longer. Talks with Hilde had no effect. She went to her mother.

“I have suspected Hilde’s activities for a long time,” Herta said.

“Why in the name of God haven’t you done something?” Ernestine demanded.

“I tried to speak to her, but she will admit to nothing. She passes me off. Besides, in these times who is to say she is wrong? It will all pass in a few years.”

“Mother, we must do something for Hilde now. We can’t wait. She must be sent out of Berlin.”

“That is not possible without your father knowing why.”

“Of course, he will be told.”

Herta stood fast. “Your father must not know. He has enough troubles.”

Gerd Falkenstein proved to be energetic, industrious, and ingenious. These were the traits, he boasted, that had made the German people superior and God’s chosen.

With an old comrade and money from his father’s savings, Gerd was able to buy up several thousand surplus gas masks and convert the metal casings into pans and ladles. As his parents worked to support his enterprise, he received a license to reclaim rubble and with his partner rigged a device to resurface bricks and stone into standard sizes. Their operation was carried on in a patched-up shell of a small, bombed-out factory in Schöneberg Borough in the Ami Sector. He boasted openly that the family would stop working one day and return to the old standard of living.

While his ambition was commendable, Ernestine feared his other attitudes. One of his workers was found to be an ex-Nazi in the Waffen SS and she knew that Gerd had helped him escape to the British Zone of Germany, which was the most lax on de-Nazification.

There was more that worried Ernestine. Gerd tried to obtain a license to form a veterans’ organization, and when this was unsuccessful he continued to have weekly gatherings at his factory, where the old songs were sometimes sung and the exploits of the war recounted.

“There’s nothing wrong with getting together with a few old friends,” he told his sister. “Don’t take it so seriously.’’

Lieutenant Oakley Oakes of Frog Creek, Missouri, was one of the most anonymous and at the same time obnoxious officers in military government. He had not come out correctly. Oakley stood an insignificant five feet, five inches tall, had wiry hair, and a pocked face. His personality was equally homely. His singular achievement was matriculation at a university where he joined the ROTC and this eventually brought him a commission in the Army.

He worked in the ration-control section of the Steglitz Borough and, as such, gained a running knowledge of many German families.

As a social failure back home, he luxuriated in his new status in Berlin, bragging constantly about his “exploits,” to the boredom of fellow officers.

One day, in the winter of 1946, a new officer named Tom Jones was assigned to his section. Tom Jones, a few months out of college, was awed by the sophistication of the “old-timer” and his apparently limitless connections with German girls. He accepted Oakley Oakes’ offer to “show him Berlin.”

They started in Zehlendorf, near Headquarters, drinking at their own club, then working up toward Wedding Borough in the French Sector where Oakes assured Tom Jones he knew a Frenchy joint with the best poon in Berlin.

Oakley Oakes and companion burst into the French garrison’s Bier Garten, a big noisy room that smelled of malt and hops and sauerkraut and pungent sausages. He waved and loudly greeted real and imaginary acquaintances as though he were part owner and certainly the most popular man in the city.

They plopped into heavily hewn chairs. Oakes smacked a pack of American cigarettes on the table and pointed to the bar lined with waiting girls. “There’s the poon.”

Tom Jones had been impassioned by the long evening of drinking and urged Lieutenant Oakes to make a connection quickly.

“Man, you acting like a boar hog in stud. Take it easy, man. Berlin’s just one big poon town.”

Oakley drank two large mugs of dark beer while playing out the role of complete nonchalance. He began to remember why he really wanted to come to the Wedding Bier Garden and remembering through the alcoholic haze turned him into a mean mood.

“How about the redhead?” Tom Jones panted.

“Nothing ... she ain’t nothing.”

“That’s nothing!”

“Stick with me, kid. I’m gonna get you laid good.”

A third mug of beer made him fuzzy and thick-tongued and his posture decomposed. He turned bleary-eyed, opened his blouse and tie to get air. Cigar ashes dripped down his shirt. He remembered the Paris Cabaret and the humiliation of a week before. He was very drunk then, too, and tried to get a date with one of the girls; they hustled him out into the street and told him not to return, and the MPs drove him back to the American Sector.

“Son of a bitch,” he mumbled.

“What you talking about, Mr. Oakes?”

“Can’t fool this old boy. No, sir, not Oakley Oakes. Man, I know every goddam ration book in Steglitz Borough. I know that broad. I seen her up there for her book. She’s the one that turned me down at the Paris ...”

He put two fingers in his mouth and blasted out a whistle. “Hey, you, boy!” He snapped his fingers at Bruno Falkenstein. “That’s how you gotta treat these kraut bastards.”

Bruno stood before his table and bowed.

“I’m interested in some tail.”

Bruno reddened and squelched his anger. This little sandy-haired wart had always been a troublemaker.

“Elsa will be in soon.”

“She’s a pig.”

Tom Jones was getting sick.

“I will do what I can, Herr Lieutenant,” Bruno said, hoping the damned Ami would pass out. He bowed again and tried to take leave but Oakes grabbed his sleeve.

“I want me Hilde Diehl.”

“Diehl? But sir, I know of no Hilde Diehl.”

Oakes’ face wrinkled and he snarled. “Hilde from the Paris Cabaret.”

“I am sorry, Herr Lieutenant. I do not know anyone from the Paris Cabaret.”

“Bullshit.”

“Hey, leave him alone, Mr. Oakes,” Tom Jones pleaded.

“Don’t you lie to me, boy. I said I want me Hilde Diehl.”

“Herr Lieutenant, I swear to you, I know no one by that name.”

“You know her you kraut pimp. She’s your daughter.”

Hilde’s screams brought Ernestine running up the stairs past the open doors of the neighbors. She broke into the room. Her mother was at the table, head buried and weeping, and Gerd stood immobile in a corner.

Hildegaard cringed on the floor. Bruno stood above her, flailing both fists on her back as though he was wielding a sledge hammer.

“Pig! Slut!”

The veins of his neck and face throbbed with rushing blood. His color was as purple as his rage and the sweat poured from the exertion. He kicked his daughter in the ribs. “Pig! Pig! Pig!”

Hildegaard shrieked. As Ernestine tried to get to her, Gerd blocked her way and grabbed her arms. “Leave him alone.”

She tore out of her brother’s grip and flung herself on the floor as a shield to receive the last blows of his strength. Bruno gasped, reeled around the room, fell onto his cot, and groaned between curses.

“Shhh ... shhh ... shhh ... he won’t touch you any more ... Ernestine is here ... Ernestine is here ...”

She struggled to her feet and got Hilde upright somehow.
Gerd walked toward them, menacingly. Ernestine backed Hilde into a corner and stood between them.

Gerd stopped and smiled cruelly.

“Oh God in heaven!” Ernestine cried in anguish. “Look at what has become of us! This is our victory!” She turned to her beaten sister, took off her own coat and put it over Hilde’s shoulders, and wiped at the blood spurting from the girl’s nose and mouth. She held her tightly in her own thin arms and braced her to walk slowly over the room.

Her mother looked up. “Where are you taking her?”

“Away from here! Away from you!”

“I forbid it!” Bruno rasped. “I forbid it!”

They continued toward the door. Herta climbed clumsily to her feet, knuckles on the table. “Obey your father!” the mother commanded.

“I forbid! I ... forbid!”

“Go to hell, Father,” Ernestine said.

“I won’t stand for you to talk to Father like that!” Gerd roared.

“My father,” Ernestine whispered. She spat on the floor and led her sister.

“Stop them! I demand it! Stop them!”

Gerd blocked the doorway. He saw in Ernestine’s eyes something more intense than the frenzy of a Nazi mob, more bitter than enemy soldier to enemy soldier. He stepped aside. “Let the little whore go.”

Ulrich Falkenstein set his book down, shuffling to the door in response to the urgent knocking.

“My God!” he cried at the sight of Hildegaard.

Ernestine held her hands open desperately. “We have been walking for hours all over Berlin. It is cold. We have no place to go. She is sick. Please help us ...”

Ulrich stood at the door of the bedroom watching Ernestine at her sister’s bedside. She was like an angel, speaking softly, giving warmth.

Hilde’s cheekbone had been fractured and several ribs broken. Her face was puffed and discolored, but the pain was now blocked by a wall of drugs.

“Ernestine. You are so good! I love you. Oh, Ernestine ... you are all that is left of us that is decent...”

“Please rest ...”

“You tried to tell me what a fool I am...”

“Don’t go back there ... ever!”

“Russian officers are in back of Stumpf ... Hippold ... they may kill me.”

“I’ll get you out of Berlin, I swear it.”

“Oh, God, Erna ... I’d give anything . .. anything . ..”

Hilde’s eyelids became heavy and she passed into sleep begging her sister not to leave her. Ernestine held her hand for an hour, and at last Ulrich took her back to his study.

She painfully told her uncle the story of Hilde’s downfall and of Gerd and her parents.

“I am the worst of them all,” she said. “I did not help her. But I wonder, Uncle ... do we deserve better?” And then Ernestine began to cry softly. “I have turned on my own father.”

She felt Ulrich’s hand on her shoulder. “It is high time some German sons and daughters do that.”

“There is good in Hilde. I swear I’ll do anything if she is given another chance.”

“First, she must mend. And then she will leave Berlin. There are friends in the Western Zones who will take her.”

It had been a long, long time since Ernestine felt the warmth of another human being. She knelt before her uncle’s chair and laid her head on his lap and let herself be comforted. “You are so kind,” she said.

“And you, my child, what of you? You cannot go back there.”

“I don’t know.”

“This is a lonesome place for an old man,” he said.

She looked up at the scholarly, slovenly room filled with books he had not been able to read and music he had not heard.

“Would you share this place with me, Ernestine?”

Perhaps, she thought, I can help him too. We do need each other. I will take care of him.

“You will stay?”

“I love you, Uncle Ulrich ... and I have been so cold for so long ...”

Chapter Twenty-four

B
LESSING COVERED THE DOOR
opening with his hulk, leaned against the frame, and chewed on a strip of beef jerky, which Lil always sent in the packages. Bo Bolinski finished packing, wordlessly.

Bo lay the last three khaki shirts in a battered canvas officer’s bag, buckled it shut, set it alongside his foot locker, and looked about the room.

“I guess that’s everything,” he said, looking at his watch. Two hours to traintime. Bo sat on the locker and lit a cigarette. His unhappiness was apparent. “We’ve been together a long time, Bless. The major and you and me. London, France, Rombaden.”

“We’re all that’s left of the team,” Bless said.

The captains and the kings depart.”

Bo had received an excellent opportunity from a large and important law firm in Chicago. Its attorneys and most of its clients were Polish-Americans. At the end of the war the firm became flooded by those trying to re-establish contact with lost relatives or claim lost fortunes.

It was a natural situation for Bolinski. He was a good lawyer, experienced in displaced persons work, spoke fluent Polish and English, was an expert on indemnification and restitutions, and had built up contacts. It was the time and place for a young man to go far.

Bo sent Major O’Sullivan his request to resign from the Army. In a few months he would have been eligible for discharge, anyway, and Sean pushed it through.

Somehow the return to the States did not bring him the expected exaltation ... not leaving Berlin or even the anticipation of the reunion with his wife and children. He had convinced himself he had done enough and was entitled to leave. Yet ...