Bill checked his watch. His head felt heavy, and his eyes were refusing to cooperate. The morning sun was creeping through the cityscape and dust haze. It was seven o’clock, but after the wine, before he fell asleep, it felt to Bill more like four. Wine had never agreed with him. He should know better by now.
He dragged himself away from the window and got dressed. He took his gun from under his pillow and put it in his coat pocket. He picked up his hat and slipped out the door into the long hallway. As quietly as possible, he crept down the stairs and headed towards the back door. Before he could reach it, the last door on the right swung open with a squeal of angry hinges.
“You ought to get those hinges oiled, Anna.”
Anna padded out into the hallway, barefoot and wearing a dress with a pale-blue lightweight jacket thrown on over the top. Her hair looked like it had been styled, in some haste, by a blind weaver with a bad case of the shakes.
“Good morning, Bill,” she cooed, “how was she?”
“It was strictly business.”
“Sure it was. Make the most of her. She won’t be around much longer.”
“Yes, I know.” Bill looked her up and down. She looked curiously feminine for a change.
“I wish you men would stop leaving at such strange hours. Especially your buddy. My room is right next to this back door, you know, and I am a very light sleeper. You can quit looking at me like that, too. You couldn’t afford me, even if I were for sale.”
“I just didn’t know what you looked like without the army chinos and the gun on your hip.”
“There’s never one far away.” She giggled as she let him have a peek of the little automatic she had in the pocket of her jacket. “I’d be naked without it,” she added.
“Which buddy, Jack? Has he left already?”
“No, but he woke me on my night off. It was the night before last. When the bar is open during business hours, customers always leave through the front door. I was having an early night, and he came blundering out this door.” She gestured over her shoulder. “Woke me up. I know it was him, as I looked out the window, ready to give him a piece of my mind!”
“The night of the twenty-sixth? What time was that?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I guess around eleven.”
“Did he return?”
“I don’t know. I slept through after that. He’s been here fairly regularly lately. She’s a Red, you know? She fought with the Partisans in the war. Very communistic tendencies.”
“Didn’t you fight with the Partisans, too?”
“Yes, but I never caught it. Are you heading out to get some breakfast?”
“I thought I might take an early walk and see what’s available.”
“Give me ten minutes, and I’ll join you. We can go to my regular place, but it ain’t going to be cheap.”
“It never is with you, Anna,” Bill muttered to himself.
Bill nodded hello to the Soviet officer sitting alone at a neighbouring table, reading a newspaper covered in what may as well have been hieroglyphics.
While most of Berlin suffered from shortages and squalor, the upper classes and those with money continued to live relatively well. The neon lights still glowed, and there were enough black marketeers to keep the hotels’ fridges well-stocked. Plus, wherever the various military forces frequented, the owners of those establishments always found a way around the lack of legitimate supply. It’s who you know. Or, Bill imagined, in Anna’s case, who you blow.
Bill had always had the benefit of the king’s bank account while he had been here, and never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, had exploited it at every opportunity. It was rarely an operational necessity, but he always thought better with decent tobacco, a good whisky and a belly full of decent food. With the stroke of luck finding the fat priest’s stash, he was able to continue this lifestyle. For now, at least.
“She had it hard, you know?” Anna said as she poked at a piece of sliced ham that was more fat than meat.
“Who?”
“Katya.”
“So I hear.”
“She arrived here pregnant. Most of the girls did. So I set up the bar at the end of 1945. I’m as disgusted as anyone at what the Russians did. I kept away from them as much as possible. My connections with the Polish Army kept me relatively safe. Not that I didn’t have to protect myself a couple of times. Let’s just say there were a few missing in action, telegrams sent to some Russian babushkas that weren’t the result of enemy action.”
“I hear they were not too pleasant to the locals around here.”
“After what those Szkop did to us? The men had it coming. Those poor girls, though. The Russians went through the city like rutting hogs. They did the world a favour by clearing out the Nazis, but the average Russian soldier is no different really. The fucking pigs. The officers should have shot the lot of them once the city was liberated.” Anna calmed her rage by stabbing a piece of cheese on her plate. It was so measly and thin that you could have used it as tracing paper. She continued, “One day, the river Spree will dry up, and do you know what they will find?”
Bill just stared at her, sipping at his pipe. There was no doubt that the Russian officers were complicit in mistreating the German women. He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and then simply shook his head.
“Bombs, bullets … and babies. Dozens of dead babies that met their watery end at the hands of young girls with eyes full of tears who had no idea what else they should do. Fucking men. It doesn’t matter where you are from. They are all pigs.”
Bill remained silent. This was not the time for some lame defence. Bill did not feel in the least bit offended by Anna’s misandry. It just so happened Bill felt very similar. Strong women had brought him up, but the war had been a bigger eye-opener than he could ever have imagined. Now he generally found it easier to distrust almost everyone, regardless of gender.
“Your friend Jack is becoming close friends with Fabian lately. They stayed up after hours the other night, drinking. Thinking about it, that would have been the night he’d disturbed me.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed the pair of them seem to like a chat. What night was that?” Bill asked, eager for proper confirmation.
“Must have been the day before yesterday. He had been with Apolonia all afternoon and into the evening and disturbed me as he headed out the back. Then, when you called to speak to her in the morning, she told me he had returned to her unannounced in the early hours, having been let in by Fabian. The pair of them had been drinking, apparently.”
“I see. Does Fabian often hang around after hours to let customers in?” Bill asked, mulling over the revelations in his mind. That was the night that Irene was murdered.
“Not usually, but, as I say, they seem to be friends these days, and perhaps they’d made an arrangement. I don’t really mind, as he paid the night in full and left a hefty tip.” Anna shrugged and sipped her coffee. “I guess I feel sorry for Jack, as he seems a bit lonely. Apolonia is good for him, I think. Sometimes they just talk. Is a girl waiting for you back home, Bill?”
“No. There was someone … but no.”
“You surprise me. A handsome, polite man like you. Your heart is too big for this dump. What are you hanging around Berlin for anyway?”
“Just a sucker for punishment, I suppose.” He blew out a cloud of blue smoke and tried to glance surreptitiously over at the Russian reading the paper. He seemed too engrossed in his gibberish to be paying them much attention.
“I don’t mind it here. Maybe I’m doing some good, too. The girls are better off with me and a roof over their heads.”
“As long as they keep the money rolling in.”
“It’s not a charity, Bill. If word got out I was running some kind of a refuge, I’d have girls queuing around the block. The street is the only place for most of them. A few marks for a knee-trembler with one of the Ivans is all they are likely to get. I only take the best-looking ones. Besides, I have to keep the Russians happy. I’m in their sector, and they keep the cops looking the other way. What I run is not exactly … legal.” She ate the last morsel from her plate and turned and waved her empty coffee cup at the waitress. Turning back around, she smiled as Bill emptied his own cup and said, “The coffee is good here, right?”
“Not bad at all,” Bill replied, placing the cup on the table between them.
Anna smiled and pulled out a pack of Belomors. She removed one of the sticks, balanced it between her pink lips and leaned forward for Bill to offer her a light. That odd lipstick shade never did look right on her.
“You aren’t seriously going to smoke that thing, are you? Here in polite company?”
“Where?” she asked, emphasising a mocking look around the room.
“I think I’ll die of asphyxiation the moment that thing catches a flame.”
“Ha ha,” she feigned, “just hurry up and light me, you prat.”
Bill ignited the foul-smelling cigarette. It almost crackled as it came to life. It had a smell of damp dung. Russian smokes were notoriously strong and were usually too dry or too moist to burn consistently. Even the black market had no real desire for them. Cigarettes were often the most valued currency on the bombed streets and among the city’s refugees. But you’d be lucky to swap a single American cigarette for a whole pack of Belomors. Bill winced as the smell engulfed him.
“I’m used to them. You take whatever you can get out in the field. I think I would have died without a steady supply of these things.”
“Death seems rather more appealing, to be honest.” Bill chuckled, tamped down the contents of the bowl, and relit his dying pipe. “Did you get much grief from the bulls over our dead friend?”
Anna inhaled deeply on the appalling stick in her mouth. “They came in, of course, and asked a few questions, but a few complimentary vodkas, and date each with the girls, and they soon went on their way with a smile on their faces.”
She checked the cigarette in her hand, sucked the smoke from the last of the tobacco, and then dropped the flattened empty tube end into the ashtray. Those things were only good for about five drags.
“The bulls have enough on their hands. They have no desire to look too deeply into a street killing, as they never know who they might piss off. Who was he? You came looking for him. Who wanted him dead?”
“He was just someone I wanted to question about some black market dealings,” he lied.
“I see. Well, whatever it was he was into, other than young boys, I guess he won’t be into anymore.”
“Quite.”
Anna checked her watch. “Fabian usually picks me up on his way through to the bar. Do you need a lift back?”
“I think I’ll take a slow walk back.” Then he added, “Fabian drives? That’s pretty rare these days.”
“Yes. He has a motorcar that he liberated from somewhere. You know how it is.”
“Yes. A swap here, a bullet there, and suddenly you have a vehicle. Where is he getting fuel for it?”
“Who knows? I never ask.” She stood up and pulled out some marks.
Bill rose too. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve got this.”
“Ah! The perfect gentleman. Take care of yourself, Bill, whatever it is you are mixed up with. There are precious few real gentlemen left in this shithole of a city.”
Bill paid up as Anna shimmied out of the front door. He collected his hat and coat and made his way out into the cold, amber-lit morning. He adjusted his hat and tied his scarf as he walked back in the direction of the bar. Suddenly he caught sight of something that made him halt in his tracks. He moved into the nearest doorway as casually as possible and pretended to search for something in his pockets.
He squinted into the near distance at Anna climbing into Fabian’s motorcar. A motorcar he had seen before. A couple of nights back. The night he could not shake. It was that night.
On the street side of the car, Anna greeted Fabian through the glass, then clambered into a pristine, dark red, pre-war BMW roadster. The driver’s door was painted black, the same colour as the canvas roof.