Leaving Berlin: A Novel Page 6

  “The Nazis changed the name. Herrenclub, I think, but it was the same people. Landowners. Old money. Funny it should be here, the Kulturbund.”

  “Funny?”

  “Culture was the last thing on their minds.” Nodding over papers in the library. Playing cards in one of the private rooms. Buying each other drinks in the bar, maybe even where Fritz had arranged the favor for him, Oranienburg for a price.

  “Then it’s good, yes? Better.”

  “The waiters had tailcoats, I remember,” Alex said.

  “Yes,” Martin said, uncomfortable.

  “Still?” Alex said, amused. “So. Socialist tailcoats.”

  Martin looked away, not sure how to answer.

  Inside they could hear tinkling glasses and voices floating down the marble staircase.

  “I thought we’d be early,” Alex said, giving up his coat.

  “Everyone is anxious to meet you,” Martin said, leading the way. “Goethe.” He pointed to the portrait on the landing.

  At the top they were met by a huddle of men, all wearing lapel pins with the SED handshake.

  “Such an honor. Your trip was comfortable?”

  One polite question after another until they blended into one, the usual official welcome. Alex nodded and smiled, automatic responses. No one knew.

  There were two dining rooms, one with walnut paneling and the other, where the party was, with a burgundy satin brocade, the long members’ table now pushed against the wall for a buffet spread. He smiled to himself. Anxious to meet him, but already filling plates, the eager freeloading of any faculty lounge. Someone handed him a glass of sweet champagne. The room looked neglected, the brass railings dull and the carpet tired, but it was otherwise much as he remembered, plush furniture and heavy drapes, like a room in the von Bernuth house. Was she already here?

  “So, my friend. Ruth told me she saw you.” Brecht, grasping his arm as he shook his hand, the stub of a cigar smoldering in his mouth.

  “Yes, she’s here?”

  “Still in Leipzig. She likes to make these little trips. I said, send a letter. But, well, Ruth. So, you’re here. All the little birds returning to the nest. And Feuchtwanger was sorry to see you go, yes? Always sorry, but he stays. How is it there now?”

  “Still warm and sunny.”

  Brecht shrugged. “So, sun. But now everyone’s here. Speaking German again.” He waved his hand to the room, and, as if in response, the sound rose, lapping at them, the comfortable babble of one’s own language. “There’s a spirit, you can feel it.”

  “I hear they’re giving you a theater.” Making conversation, sleepwalking. Had the British soldiers seen anything?

  Another shrug. “People come up to you in the street. They know who you are. In California, who do they know? So it’s flattering. But the work we can do now. Not Quatsch for some studio. Wait till you seen Helene. Magnificent. You’re at the Adlon too, Ruth said? It’s comfortable. Better than a house, while this is going on.” A finger to the ceiling, the unseen stream of planes. “They won’t sell us coal, so it’s a problem.” Martin’s explanation, what everybody knew.

  Alex looked over Brecht’s shoulder. The room was filling up, men in old suits and women without makeup in wool skirts and thin shapeless cardigans.

  “You know who’s also here? Zweig. Soon everybody. Except Saint Thomas maybe. The bourgeois comforts, very important to him. A Biedermeier soul, Herr Mann. Biedermeier prose too,” he said, a small twinkle, having fun. “A stuffed sofa, with tassels. In his case maybe Switzerland would be better.”

  “Why should he go anywhere?”

  “He can’t stay there. It’s starting again. He thinks the Nobel will protect him? Not if they—well, you know this. Who better? I congratulate you, by the way. I didn’t know—forgive me—you had such strong—” He paused, peering at Alex. “A dark horse. All the time—I didn’t know you were even in the Party.”

  “I’m not. Other people were. But that was their business. Most of them left anyway. After ’39.”

  Brecht looked around, hesitant. “Well, that time. It’s not so well understood here. How people felt. To them, you know, it was a kind of disloyalty. Not to follow the Party.”

  “And be nice to Hitler. But of course Stalin knew what he was doing all along.”

  A flicker of caution, then a small smile, unable to resist. “He usually did,” Brecht said, a boy being naughty. He looked at Alex. “They’ll ask you to join now. Just tell them you’re not a joiner. No organizations. A writer works alone.”

  “Is that what you said?”

  “It’s enough discipline with Helene,” he said, waving the cigar, then lowered his voice. “Then you’re not obliged—to do what they say. A little independence. They have to work with you. Push-pull. And they will. It’s a new start here.” He cocked his head west. “Over there, business as usual. It doesn’t change. Nazis. The Americans don’t care, as long as they’re not Communists. Like the committee. But here there’s a chance.” Believing it, like Martin. “But first, bread. They’re reissuing your books?”

  Alex nodded. “All of them. Even Notes in Exile. Pieces.”

  “Make sure they pay. They can afford it. They get a subsidy. It’s a priority with the Russians, culture. Coal not so much,” he said, another wry shrug. “You’ve met Dymshits?”

  “Not yet.”

  “A lover of German literature—Goethe, by heart. There he is. Sasha,” he said, approaching a slight man with dark hair and glasses, eyes slightly watery. “Meet our guest of honor. Major Dymshits.”

  “I’m so pleased,” he said, taking Alex’s hand. Another face from the faculty lounge, bookish, an eager smile. “Welcome.”

  “I gather you’re responsible for bringing me here.”

  “Your talent brings you here,” he said with a quiet flourish, his German precise but accented.

  Alex nodded, a court gesture. “My thanks in any case. And for this reception. So much—”

  “My advice is have some ham now. It always goes first.” A polite joke, the smile in place again. “Artists are always hungry, it seems. There is so much I want to ask you. The scene in The Last Fence when the shirt catches on the barbed wire— Perhaps a lunch one day, if you would like that?”

  “Of course,” Alex said. That easy. Just as Willy had hoped. When that was all they’d wanted.

  People were still coming in, more men than women, none with her blond hair. She wouldn’t stay in a corner, she’d come up to him. Almost family. How would she look? Fifteen years.

  “This is your publisher,” Dymshits was saying. “Aaron Stein. Aaron will be taking care of you at Aufbau.”

  “An honor,” Stein said, bowing, a younger version of Dymshits, the same glasses and gentle Semitic face. “We’re so pleased. I hope you will come to the offices, meet everyone. We’re just down the street. Notes in Exile—”

  “Of course it’s a favorite with him,” Dymshits said. “Both of you exiles. Aaron was in Mexico City with Janka and Anna Seghers.”

  “Mexico. What was that like?”

  “All right,” Aaron said tentatively. “Of course, foreign. Walter had a little Spanish, from his time in Spain, you know, but most of us—so we had each other. Los Angeles was better, I think. Anyway we used to think so. Everyone wanted to go to America.”

  “Even those of us who were already there,” Brecht said, a growl in his voice. “Where was it, this America we’d heard about? In Burbank? Culver City? No, not possible. So maybe nowhere. No such place.”

  “Like Mahagonny,” Dymshits said.

  Brecht ignored this, taking a drink instead.

  “Here’s Colonel Tulpanov,” Dymshits said, standing straighter. “He very rarely comes, so you see how popular you are.”

  “His boss,” Brecht said.

  Dymshits shot him a glance, pretending not to be annoyed.

  Tulpanov, in military uniform and short-cropped hair, had none of Dymshits’s easy manner. There was an awkward
exchange, welcome and thank you, then a blank pause, waiting for Dymshits to fill it with small talk.

  “You know where they are?” Brecht said, a nod to Tulpanov. “The Information Administration? Goebbels’s old offices.”

  “The building doesn’t matter,” Dymshits said quickly, before Tulpanov could decide whether to take offense. “It’s what we do inside. Anyway, there were not so many buildings left standing. In those days you took what you could get. You know, we had a theater open that first month. Then more.” This directly to Brecht. “Newspapers. Film licenses. So Berlin would have a life again. Ah, Bernhard, come and meet our guest.”

  After that it was a succession of handshakes, a blur of introductions. Brecht had drifted away to provoke someone else, and Tulpanov held court by the drinks table, obviously just waiting to leave. Dymshits gave a formal toast, welcoming Alex home to build the new Germany. “As we know,” he said, “politics follows culture,” and people nodded as if it made sense to them. Alex looked at their bright, attentive faces, Brecht’s cynicism as out of place here as it had been in California, and for the first time felt the hope that warmed the room. Shabby suits and no stockings, but they had survived, waited in hiding or miraculously escaped, for this new chance, the idea the Nazis hadn’t managed to kill.

  Nothing was being asked of him. He acknowledged the toast with a few words of appreciation, thanking everybody for the welcome, but no one expected a speech. It was enough that he was here. Dymshits wanted lunch, some literary conversation. Aaron Stein hoped that he would help Aufbau by giving an opinion now and then on an English book. Martin wanted him to make the Kulturbund a kind of second home. But all he really had to do was collect his stipend and work as he pleased. In America there had never been enough. Without Marjorie’s paycheck, how would they have managed? And now here in the Soviet zone, of all places, he was comfortable, even prized. Everyone seemed oddly grateful that he had come. There were polite questions about America, whether he thought they would accept a neutral Germany or try to rearm their zone, asked hesitantly, fearing the answer, and it occurred to him, an unexpected irony, that despite the blockade it was they who felt besieged, that his welcome was that of a soldier who’d managed to get through the lines and rejoin his unit.

  “I hope you won’t mind.” Someone speaking English. “I just wanted to tell you I think it was great what you did, standing up to them. It’s about time.” A woman holding a plate heaped with salami and potato salad, the voice New York quick. “I’m Roberta Kleinbard,” she said, motioning with the plate as a substitute for a handshake. “God, it’s such a relief to speak English. You don’t mind, do you? Herb says I’ll never learn German if I keep falling back on it. But it’s hard. You read the papers and that’s all right and then somebody wants to really talk and half of it just sails over your head.”

  “You’re living here?”

  She nodded. “We figured it was just a matter of time back home. You know, like you with the committee. Herb was in the Party. Nobody’s going to hire him once that comes out.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Architect. And what’s an architect supposed to do if he can’t do that? Work at Schrafft’s?” She waved her hand in dismissal. “They won’t be satisfied till they hunt us all down. It’s not illegal, but tell that to the boss. The client. Anyway, he was from here originally and God knows they could use architects.” She cocked her head to the invisible ruins outside. “So I thought, it’s better than sitting around waiting for some subpoena. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction.”

  “And how has it been? For you, I mean.”

  “Well, it’s not New York, let’s face it. Try and get a decent lipstick. They’re going through a rough time. You know, just keeping warm. But Herb’s working. He’s not sitting in some jail for taking the Fifth. He likes it. And the plans they’re working on—like starting over. But this time you build it the way you want it to look. You’re not going to do that in New York. So it’s good for him.” She looked around. “I know he’s dying to meet you. He wanted—did you know Neutra? Out in California? Neutra’s like a god to him.”

  “No, never met him.”

  “But you were in Los Angeles, right? I just thought, you know, Germans, they’d naturally know each other.”

  “Neutra’s been there a long time. He probably thinks of himself as American. Anyway, he was Austrian. Vienna, I think.”

  “And not German, there’s a difference, and everybody here would know that, right? And there’s me with my foot in my mouth again.” She rolled her eyes.

  Alex smiled. “Only the Austrians care. So you’re mostly right. Anyway, never met him. What about you? What do you do while your husband’s building Berlin?”

  “Well, they’re not building it yet, so I’m still helping him with the drawings. That’s how we met. I was a draftsman. And there’s Richie to look after.”

  “Your son?” he said, a sudden drop in his stomach, unexpected.

  “Mm. But he’s in school now, so he’s gone most of the day.” She looked away, following her thought. “You do get homesick sometimes. And some of the ideas they have. About the States. All we do is beat up people on picket lines and lynch Negroes. Not that things are so wonderful but—”

  “They really say that?”

  “Well, the Russians. But you see things in Richie’s books now, so you wonder what they’re getting in the schools. The evils of capitalism, all right, fine, plenty of those to go around, I agree, but lynching—are we talking about the same place?” She looked back. “But it’s better than having his father in jail. And things’ll improve.”

  “They might even have lipstick soon,” he said lightly.

  She flushed, as if she’d been caught at something. “I can’t believe I said that. Lipstick when—”

  “No, it’s nice to see a woman looking her best. Even Socialist ones,” he said, harmless party talk, then saw that she had taken it as a pass, her eyes moving to the room.

  “Is your wife here?”

  “No, she’s—in the States. We’re separated.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it. “Because of this—you coming here?”

  “Because of a lot of things.”

  “They never talk about that, the strain it puts on people. Do you testify? Do you cooperate? What it does to the families. Always wondering. Are they watching? Friends of ours, they’d see a car parked outside—so, FBI? How do you know? It’s the strain.”

  He looked at her, at a loss, not what he had meant, but now Martin joined them, slightly shiny from the wine.

  “There you are. I have to steal him for a few minutes. You don’t mind? Anna’s here,” he said, lowering his voice.

  He led Alex across the room, his bad leg skipping over the floor, to a woman talking to a small circle of men. Anna Seghers was shorter than Alex had expected but otherwise the same woman he’d seen in jacket photos for years. Her hair was white now, pulled back around her head, a halo effect that made her seem radiant. Martin, clearly dazzled, presented Alex as if she were granting him an audience, a gnädige Frau. Alex dipped his head as he took her hand.

  “Oh, I’m not as grand as that,” she said easily. “Or as old. How nice to meet you finally. Not just in your books. Welcome home.”

  “And you not just in yours.”

  “Tell me, did you have anything to do with the film they made of The Seventh Cross? They said every German in Hollywood had a hand in the script.”

  “Not this one,” Alex said, holding his hands up. “All clean.”

  Seghers laughed. “Good. Now we can be friends. But I suppose I shouldn’t complain. It was very nice to have the money. Even in Mexico money doesn’t go very far. So, a godsend. And how are you getting on here?”

  “I’ve just arrived. Literally. Last night.”

  “The first few days, it’s difficult,” she said, her voice warm, confiding. “When you see Berlin now. The trick is to see what it’s going to be. Germany
without Fascism. Sometimes I thought I would never see that. I hoped, but— And now it’s here. So never mind the mess, you can always clear bricks away. Fascists were a little harder, no?”

  “You sure they’re all gone?”

  “Well, it’s like weeds, always there. So you get new soil, not so good for them. Change the economic system and they don’t grow so well.”

  “Maybe they become something else.”

  She looked at him, interested. “Maybe. Let’s talk about this. Not here. You have to meet a hundred people. Say nice things. The same nice things. I know how it is. But maybe you’ll come see me? Come for tea and we can talk all afternoon. About what the Fascists become. Martin, you’ll tell him where?” Meeting everyone, just as Willy said. A true believer, used for ribbon cutting.

  Martin nodded, impressed, the invitation clearly an honor.

  “Ach, there’s Brecht,” she said, noticing him across the room. “Poking, poking with the finger. More mischief. He thinks he’s eighteen years old still. Well, maybe that’s the answer, he is. You knew him in America?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not a happy time for him. He says. Imagine what it was for Helene. But of course he doesn’t. Imagine it. And now making everyone dance. First this, then that. Now he wants a car and a driver. When everything is so difficult for people, scarcely enough to go around, he wants a car and a driver. Like a—” She searched for the word.

  “Great dramatist.”

  Now it was Seghers who smiled. “I look forward to our tea. Come this week. You’re free?”

  Alex opened his hands.

  “We have a few things scheduled,” Martin said, playing secretary.

  “The Kulturbund,” Seghers said, an indulgent glance to Martin. “They hate to see us actually write. Fill the days, fill the days.”

  “It’s lunch with Dymshits.”

  “Well, then you must go. Our masters.” She put a hand on Alex’s arm. “It won’t always be like this. An occupied country. Now they can do what they like—take away factories, anything. Well, so it’s the spoils. It’s difficult for the German Party, people think we’re lackeys, but what else can we do? Wait. And one day, it’s a German government. And at least when they leave, they leave a workers’ state. A German idea. Marx always had Germany in mind. I often wonder, how would it have been if it had happened here, not Russia. Well, we’ll see.” She stopped, cutting herself off. Did Campbell, anyone, really want to hear all this? Just static in the air. “Go have your lunch with Dymshits. He’s a cultivated man. Brecht says he reminds him of Irving Thalberg.”