Cafe Babanussa (7 page)

“
Nein
. No fur . . .
Metall
,” said Ruby.

The clerk was unsure of what she meant. Ruby tried to pronounce the word
metal
like she imagined it would sound in German. It worked.

“Ach, vielleicht meinen Sie diese?” Maybe you mean these?
A little farther along the wall, below Ruby's sightline, hung some plain metal handcuffs.

Ruby grabbed a pair and smiled at the clerk.
“Ja, diese. Danke sehr!”

She kept poking around in the store. She heard two
women guffawing and she followed their voices so she could see what was so funny. The young women were comparing different types of Thai balls to put in your vagina. They came in several different sizes and materials. The women were holding a set of wooden balls. Ruby thought she understood one saying to the other, “These would get lost inside me, or maybe they'd just fall out.”

She reached in between the women and took a set of silver-coloured balls the size of large grapes. “You gotta squeeze really tight,” she said slowly in English, “walk around and exercise your muscles. Like Kegels.” She didn't know if she would be understood, but judging by the snorting and giggling that ensued, she had been.

Ruby was on a roll and so she looked around and found a small black leather whip, a chocolate-coloured vibrator and a butt plug. Thoroughly satisfied with her extravaganza, she left the store fantasizing about how she'd use these new acquisitions. Her uncle would be proud of her, exploring her sexuality. Werner wasn't home when she got there, so she got the Thai balls out of the bag and climbed up on the loft bed. She took off her jeans and popped one inside. She lay there for a few minutes just trying to see how it felt and if she could move it easily. She moved it up and down and then side to side. She popped another one in. Her body was getting tingly all over and she felt warm inside. She climbed down the ladder and stood doing Kegel exercises to hold the balls in. She was prancing around the room, bottomless, when Werner walked in. She stopped, let go, and the balls slid out.

“What the hell is that? What are you doing?” he yelped, a mixture of distress and bemusement on his face.

Ruby laughed. “Come on, baby, I have some presents for the two of us.”

Werner gave her a quizzical look. “Before you take one more step, tell me what those balls are and why they fell out of you.”

“They're Thai balls—good for exercising your pelvic muscles. I bought some fun things today for us. Come see.”

Werner approached her hesitantly.

She shook the bag of goodies in her hand. “Reach in there and pull something out.”

He took out the whip and cracked it in the air. “I see. So now you're my slave?”

“Don't even go there. No slaves here. We'll share it. Just fun. We'll alternate with spanking,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. Werner reached in again and pulled out the handcuffs. “Wow, you really went on a spree. Yeah, we can try these.”

Ruby slipped her hand into the bag. “Ta-da!” She waved the vibrator in the air.

Werner fell silent for a moment. “It's brown,” he finally ventured.

“Yup. So it is.”

“Do you have a problem with the colour of my dick?”

“Oh god, no, Werner. Of course not. This is just a little affirmative action at play.”

“What?”

“Oh, never mind,” said Ruby. “I thought it would be fun to have a Black penis to play with. It's just a toy.” She was
hoping he would just say “Whatever turns your crank” and get on with it.

“Well, as long as it doesn't take precedence over me . . . I guess,” he said.

The last item was the butt plug. Werner gasped in mock horror as he examined it and then said in a serious tone, “You are not putting that thing anywhere near me.”

“God, Werner, if you can put your thing up my ass, why can't I try this in yours? Affirmative action and sexual equality, that's what I want.”

“No, no, no. You'll have to tie me down.”

“Ooh, bad idea. I've got handcuffs right here.” She picked up the butt plug and pointed it his way, bobbing it up and down in front of him. He scrambled away, and she chased him around the room waving the handcuffs and butt plug in the air. Finally, Werner collapsed into a chair, and Ruby climbed on top of him. “Shall we start now? There's no time like the present.”

“Oh my god, you and your sayings.” Werner pulled her down and kissed her mouth. “Here's to expanding our sexual horizons,” he said.

Ruby clapped her hands in glee and twisted off her top. Werner, wriggling underneath her, did the same with his pants.

An hour or two later Ruby whispered in Werner's ear. “Do you know why I like you?”

“No, why?”

“Because you are funny. But mainly I know that you have a big heart, a good heart. I always think of little old
Frau Menzer. Almost every night you're out there helping her down the steps to the toilet. Or you're cleaning up after the drunks who piss by her door. Very gracious and thoughtful.”

“My parents taught me well.”

“I like you because you are articulate and intelligent and thoughtful.”

Ruby cared a lot for Werner and she knew that he looked after her well, despite his foibles. But was it love? She couldn't say for sure. Not yet. She would stick it out, though, and see how far and how long they could go.

They spent much of their free time walking across town to weekend flea markets and checking out the plentiful all-day and all-night repertory cinemas where popcorn was replaced by beer and boisterous crowds. The crowd seemed to be there as much for the infamous Marlboro Man cigarette ads as for the movies. The ads played before each screening, and sometimes there was the Camel guy, too. One always seemed to be trying to best the other with new and ever more dangerous escapades. As the audience watched the Marlboro Man gallop across canyon floors, muscles always bulging and ten-gallon hat on tight, they whistled and howled and chortled loudly. Ruby was surprised at the intensity of their hilarity, but it was clear that to them this was merely yet another representation of American society—modern, macho cowboys hustling after the American Dream.

The weeks flew by and became months, until suddenly
it was December. Ruby's first Christmas Eve away from home was spent sloshing back a tall bottle of yeasty beer while watching flesh-eating zombies feast away in
Night of the Living Dead
. Christmas Day she wrote a long letter to her parents, telling them how much she was enjoying Berlin. She didn't linger too much on the fact that the weather was so grey and depressing, or that she missed them. Then she took her collection of coins to the phone booth down the road and called them.

“Mom? Put Dad on the extension. Dad? Merry Christmas! I love you and I love Berlin, too. It's fantastic here, so full of history. I've met a man. I think you'd like him. He's very sweet.”

“That's wonderful, Ruby,” said her mom.

“When will you bring him here?” asked her dad.

“Well, I don't have money for more travelling just yet. I hope to find a job soon.”

“What will you do there?” her father asked.

“Oh, there's all kinds of odd jobs to be done. I'll find something.”

“I miss you, Ruby,” said her mom. “So does your dad.”

“I miss you, too. I just wrote you a long letter. Write me back. Gotta go, my change is running out. Love you.”

She hung up and was surprised to feel a tear trickle down her cheek. They were so far away and she missed them more than she had expected.

Ruby's German was quickly improving under the tutelage of her charming night school teacher, so she felt confident
enough to look for work. She had no official visa, so whatever she did would have to be paid for under the table. Scanning the ads in the city's newspapers, she found the most common unskilled labour for women was cleaning houses or apartments. Within a few days she found a cleaning job.

Her employer, a wiry woman of seventy-six with a voice as deep as Marlene Dietrich's, lived in a grand old home in the southern reaches of the city, replete with an indoor winter garden, a library and a huge kitchen with a walk-in pantry. This was a Berlin full of old women, their men lost to the ravages of two wars, and Frau Herzog was no exception. Ruby could tell that she had been a beauty, despite the wrinkles that now crisscrossed her face. She dressed stylishly and she seemed friendly; however, suspicious whether a young Canadian could keep up with German expectations of cleanliness, she gave Ruby specific orders and closely monitored her work. Windows were to be cleaned with rags soaked in vinegar and water and dried with newspaper and then again with soft leather cloths so no streaks marred the ingress of sunshine.

Ruby loved the winter garden. She had never seen anything quite so big. The room was wide and very long and on three sides it was glassed in, ceiling to floor. Plants of all species, sizes and colours covered much of the floor, with two pathways dividing the room. There were philodendrons, jades, crotons, ficus, pineapples and all manner of ferns, with their gentle tendrils swirling every which way. The different shades and hues of green held her fascination. But most of all
she loved the flowering plants—bougainvillea, hibiscus, azalea, amaryllis and wonderful orchids galore. It was basically a greenhouse within a house—it reminded her of watching her mother's svelte body bend and swivel in her garden back home, and she felt happy in there as she washed the cool ceramic floors and the windows. The air felt humid and lush. She hummed her mother's favourite songs and sang to the plants as she dusted their leaves and spritzed them and checked the soil. One time she was singing “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” her voice growing louder and louder without her noticing. Suddenly Frau Herzog stood in front of her, arms crossed.

“Ruby, what are you doing?”

“Oh! Oh, I'm sorry, Frau Herzog, I just got carried away.”

“My dear, you have a fine voice, but we're not in the theatre and I didn't hire you to sing for me. There's no need to bellow. Please, just pay attention to your work.”

“Yes, of course,” Ruby mumbled.

She had gotten off lightly that time.

Week after week, Ruby mopped floors, cleared and dusted attics and picked cherries from atop unsteady ladders. Then one day, Frau Herzog ordered her to climb out the window of a third-floor sitting room onto the roof and scoop the leaves from the eavestroughs.

“Here, we'll just tie some rope around your waist and attach the other end to the tree trunk over there. Don't worry, I know my knots,” she said, smiling at the dismay that crossed Ruby's face.

Despite the trunk's apparent sturdiness, Ruby had visions of crashing through the window, flattened like a coyote in a
Road Runner
cartoon. Nonetheless, out the window she went, and she inched around the roof's edge, trying not to peek at the ground far below, grabbing and bagging leaves and cursing her inability to speak up for herself. She needed the money, and as an illegal worker she felt she had no rights.

The following week, Frau Herzog insisted she clean the living room windows from the outside. She tied Ruby to a chair in the dining room, from which she was to climb out onto a ledge that overlooked the driveway two storeys below. But the chair was not anchored to anything, and again it seemed she was placing her life in the hands of Frau Herzog.

When Ruby told Werner about her day at work, he exploded.

“How could you let yourself be treated that way? You have absolutely no insurance, nothing to protect you if anything happens. You're such a fool!”

“Maybe so, but she can be like a Nazi sometimes . . . Is that it? Are all older Germans former Nazis?”

“Well, many were at least part of Hitler's machinery. But you know, many Germans did not want to fight a war, but they felt there was no choice. People did fight against the Nazis, in the resistance. Still, in the end many became enmeshed in the regime.”

Listening to Werner, she thought of her own parents, and what they would think of her job. Her father would say of her time in Berlin that she was aimless, rather than getting a global
education. She was simply sponging up all that the city and Werner had to offer. But it was all so new and different and exhilarating. Work was difficult, but she knew she would eventually find something better. Her uncle was with her in spirit, and he was right: there was something special about this city, and she wanted to open herself up to it. It was as if within the Wall someone had put a 33 LP on and then changed the speed to 45 rpm. Everyone was dancing to a song that had no end while the rest of the world looked on. She wondered about life on the other side.

As the day receded into the blackness of night, she dreamed of walking the length of the enormous wall that enclosed the city, climbing to the top, stumbling along its concrete edges, discovering how it felt to balance West against East.

A
T THE
N
ATIONAL
G
ALLERY,
R
UBY FOUND HERSELF
standing in front of Fernand L
é
ger's “The City.” The primary colours vibrated off the canvas; bold, cubist shapes that only vaguely resembled a skyline. She had been in Berlin for over a year and was thinking it was time to make some changes—to find a better job, for starters. She and Werner had moved to Wedding in the summer, where they had two similar flats in the same building complex. Ruby lived on the third floor of the first backhouse and Werner was on the fourth floor of the second backhouse. This arrangement was working out well, as they could choose to enjoy some freedom from each other or, conversely, spend as much time together as they wanted.

While Ruby was standing in front of the painting, thinking about her situation, she felt a sharp pang in her abdomen that took her breath away. The cramps worsened until finally she was crouched on her knees, head hanging forward. As she moved to stand up again, a guard came up to her. “Miss, are you all right? Can I help you?”

“I just need to find a washroom and then call a taxi.”

He walked with her to the washroom, holding her arm ever so lightly. He told her to come see him about the taxi when she was ready. Ruby felt as if a knife was slicing through her abdomen. She stayed, doubled up, in the washroom for half an hour, and when she came out she found the guard, who called a taxi to take her home. She spent the night in the bathroom, alternating between vomiting and diarrhea. Werner fixed her pots of chamomile tea, which she disliked intensely, but she knew it was good for her. It made her think of Beatrix Potter and the stories of Peter Rabbit.

Over the next three weeks her symptoms didn't let up much.

“Werner, what am I going to do? I'm really scared—I've lost twenty pounds now.”

“I don't know what to suggest, but you're not getting much help here.”

Werner talked to his father, who suggested that she come to Stuttgart, where he had connections to one of the hospitals and she could get some tests done. Ruby had met Werner's parents in Stuttgart over the Easter holidays. Werner's mother, Heike, was a sculptor and his father, Hermann, was a graphic designer. She knew that his father was an ethnic German who had come to Germany after being expelled by the Russians from his home in Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia. She also knew that his parents were disaffected Communists.

Werner suggested she leave on the weekend, but said that he wouldn't be able to accompany her. He would come a few
days later. Ruby was terrified about making this ten-hour trip on her own in her state. But Werner was busy with his studies. She packed a small bag, and on Sunday they went down to the train station. Ruby found herself a seat in a compartment with two other people—a woman in her forties and a young guy. The man was flipping through a magazine, and the woman, who was at the window, was deep into a book. Ruby sat on the same side as the woman, but up against the door. People were still milling around on the platform, but Werner had already gone. Just like him to leave her without a reassuring word.

Ruby felt faint. Her head ached, and her abdomen was cramping again. Although she had brought along a couple of magazines, she didn't feel well enough to read. She pushed herself into the corner of her seat, which looked out onto the corridor. She rested her head against the metal and glass. Beyond the window, the light was spreading barren, grey, indifferent. Ruby could feel her heart pounding as the pain sliced through her stomach.

Just before the train left the station, another man, balding and bulging at the waist, took a seat across from her, next to the young man. An elderly woman squeezed in next to Ruby, sandwiching her rail-thin body between the window and door seats. Ruby watched the man on the other side as he took out a wooden box and placed it on the seat beside him. He opened the box and took out a knife, a napkin, some bread, a piece of cheese and an apple. He spread the napkin on his lap and placed the bread there. After watching him dig into his piece
of bread and passing a cursory smile, Ruby closed her eyes, trying to shut out the light and distraction.

The woman sitting next to her gave her a nudge. “Young lady, do you know what time it is?”

Ruby opened her eyes a little and responded that it was noon. She continued, “Do you know what time we arrive?”

“Uh, I'm not sure. Evening, I suppose.”

The man with the lunch spoke up. “We arrive at ten p.m. on the dot.”

“Thank you,
mein Herr. Danke
.”

Ruby tried to go to sleep but was haunted by her thoughts. Her mind swirled around, trying to imagine what was wrong with her. Maybe it was all in her head. But she didn't think that losing twenty pounds in three weeks could be all in her head. Werner had been concerned but was often short with her—he too was baffled.

The little old lady poked at her again. “My dear, where are you from?” She spoke in a low, clear German that Ruby could understand easily.

Ruby sighed. “Canada.”

“Then I bet you don't know much about this trip you're making. We will be travelling through the eastern corridor. Ever heard of that?”

Ruby nodded in silence. A sense of panic began to spread slowly through her body and she wondered what awaited her at the hospital in Stuttgart. Why had Werner left her to make this trip on her own?

“Those nasty East Germans. They have ruined everything.
Do you know that my youngest son is stuck in the East? Do you know what that feels like? I've lost him to the Communists. Young lady, you're not listening to me.”

Ruby felt a tightening wind its way like a vise around her throat. If she was just imagining things, why did she feel so awful?

“Are you all right, missy?” said the man across the aisle.

She shook her head. Her heart began to race. She twisted and turned in her seat, but tried to keep her face turned away from the other passengers so they wouldn't see her fear. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

The little old lady shook her arm this time. “Why, whatever is wrong? Why are you crying? You're not all right, are you?”

Ruby sniffled and turned to her, and without being able to say a word she broke down into sobs. Her abdomen was pounding; she felt as if it were on fire. The woman rubbed her arm gently and asked if there was anything she could do. Ruby shook her head listlessly. She bunched herself up in the corner again. She could barely breathe. She started gasping as she became more and more agitated. Her heart was bruising her chest with its mad strumming. She wanted to get off the train. What was going to happen to her at the other end? She didn't know Werner's parents that well. What could they do? She tried to stand up but crumpled back down on the seat.

The young woman stood up. “I'm going to find someone to help you. Hang on there.”

It felt like quite a while before the woman returned with a conductor. They hadn't been able to find a doctor on the train.

The man bent down and said, “Miss, what's wrong?”

Ruby could barely open her mouth but managed to squeak out, “I don't know what's wrong, but it hurts terribly.”

The man told the younger woman to stay in the compartment with Ruby. Ruby felt like an hour passed as she quivered and turned in her seat. Then the train began slowing down, the wheels finally grinding to a complete standstill in the middle of nowhere. Outside were empty fields, no houses. Everything looked like a wasteland.

Everybody in the compartment was looking at each other. They were not yet near the border.

“What's going on?” the fat man grumbled. “I feel bad for her, but do we really have to stop here?”

Eventually a woman and a man arrived at their compartment and asked the other travellers to leave. They bent down by Ruby, who was still huddled against the wall. “Ma'am, we're with the Red Cross and we hear you're having some trouble. We'd like to try to help you. Can you tell us what's wrong?”

Ruby couldn't stop hyperventilating. The woman kept tapping her hand gently, but Ruby couldn't revive herself enough to speak. Gentle, probing fingers directed a stethoscope to Ruby's heart, then took her blood pressure. Shaking violently, she was on the verge of passing out from the unforgiving pain.

“Miss, you are obviously in great distress, but we can't really tell what's going on. Tell us a little more about your condition.”

Ruby stammered on about the events of the past three weeks as best she could. She explained that she had terrible pain in her abdomen. As the paramedic kneaded her abdomen, she sucked in her breath. “Get me out of here! I can't breathe.”

“We're going to give you some painkillers and a sedative till you get to hospital.”

Ruby accepted their offer gladly. Only then did she notice the grey East German Red Cross uniforms; only then did she fully realize that the train had indeed stopped for her deep in the narrow Communist corridor, West Berlin's umbilical cord to the free world.

The others were allowed back into the compartment. Back in her seat, the little old lady took her hand. “Now, now, my dear. They're gone. Everything will be fine. Ach, especially since the East Germans were here. Bastards!” The other woman hushed her. As the drugs kicked in, Ruby began to relax a little. In a short while, her eyes drooped shut and she managed to sleep through the last hours of the trip to Stuttgart.

When she got off the train, Werner's father was waiting for her. They took a taxi home, to a row of studio-houses built by the city for artists.

“
Komm doch essen
. Come have some food. There's plenty of it.” And indeed the table was laden with meat, potatoes and salads.

“Thank you very much, but I'm really not at all hungry,” Ruby said, worried about how her stomach would react.

“How about a cup of tea, then?” said Heike. “Peppermint tea might do you some good.”

Ruby said she'd try some. Hermann motioned to her to take a seat wherever she liked, and she chose to sit on the sofa. He sat down next to her.

“I hope this isn't anything serious,” he said in halting English. “Let's wait to see what the doctors have to say.”

Heike brought her tea in a beautiful old cup with matching saucer. She placed it on a rickety little side table that sat next to the sofa. “You mustn't worry,” she said, her English much better than her husband's. She pulled a chair over from the dining room table and sat down in front of the sofa. “You're probably just going through an adjustment phase, living in Berlin and all. Where is your family? Are you in touch with them?” Her tone was bright and cheery, and she leaned over and placed a hand on Ruby's arm. “You must make sure you can see them soon. They can always stay with us if they come by this way.”

Ruby said that she hoped to see her parents when she was back in Berlin. Soon after, she lay down on the sofa and Heike covered her up with a blanket. Before long, her heart was racing once again and she began to feel very agitated. She jumped up from the sofa and paced around, not able to slow herself down. Soon the driving pain was back and she crumpled to the floor.

Werner's parents took her to the emergency room right away. Hermann had a chance to talk to the nurse on duty, and only a few minutes later several doctors arrived and Ruby was taken away for tests. A few hours later she was in a room with one other patient. The doctors didn't say much to her, and this compounded her embarrassment at succumbing to such
fits of anxiety. She was asked to remain in bed and was told that she had been put on a diet of watery oatmeal, rusks and chamomile tea.

Ruby spent the next ten days being tested for all manner of things and generally resting up. The doctors could find nothing wrong with her. Looking up at the doctor one day, Ruby said to him, “I feel like the rest has finally restored my body.”

The doctor nodded. “Sometimes nature does the best job of healing. You will be released to go home tomorrow. Just watch your diet for the next little while.”

Werner came in that day. “Why don't you spend the next couple of weeks with my parents? You know, just to make sure you're really better. It'll be Christmas in a few weeks and we would have come down for the holidays anyway.” That was the one and only day that she was allowed to choose something to eat different from her prescribed menu. Spaetzle, served with mushrooms. She enjoyed it so much, Werner promised to take her on a mushroom-picking expedition in the neighbouring forest when spring came. At the family home, Werner's mother and sister hovered over her, lavishing her with food and warmth. Now that she was able to eat again, Ruby wondered why her gut had caused her so much pain. She thought about Heike's earlier comments about adjusting to life in Berlin. Was that it? The change of cuisine, a new language and culture to learn, abysmally dark and wet winters and living with a partner for the first time?

Ruby joined Heike in the kitchen, where they baked cookies and stollen and made mulled wine to get ready for the
holidays. She remembered Christmas at home with her own family and all the baking she did with her mother. She felt a little twinge of regret and she knew that she was missing her folks back home. Ruby watched with wonder as the family clipped real candles onto the Christmas tree branches and lit them. Everything on the tree was handmade, topped off by garlands of cookies. The house smelled of pfeffernüsse, and Ruby added to the German traditions by baking sugar cookies, shortbread, tea balls and a Christmas cake topped with rolled-out marzipan.

“You're supposed to be watching your diet and here you are going crazy in the kitchen,” scolded Werner.

“Oh, leave the girl alone!” his mother replied. “She's having so much fun and it's all so good. Besides, she's not eating much of it. We're saving it for the visitors.”