The Girl Behind The Curtain (Hidden Women) (8 page)

‘For goodness’ sake,’ she said when we were closing the club tonight. ‘I wish you would both stop being so coy and get on with it.’

Otto is very shy, she’s right. He is such a strange creature. On the one hand, he is rather straight. He is training to be a lawyer, after all, and his manners are absolutely impeccable. He is exactly the kind of young man my father would call ‘solid’. He still lives at home with his widowed mother and two siblings. But he is working at the Boom Boom. That’s a little odd, don’t you think? I am sure he could have got himself a position at a more respectable establishment. He is easily as good as the pianist at the Adlon, so why did he not try to land a job somewhere like that?

I suppose I should just be glad that he didn’t and that fate has decreed that we should wash up in the dodgy old Boom Boom together. A little flirtation certainly helps the evenings fly by. I live to see those heavenly blue eyes!

Berlin,

Friday 1st July 1932

Well, it happened at last! Tonight Otto offered to walk me home. Of course, I leapt at the chance to spend a little time on my own with him. When Marlene saw him helping me put on my coat, she gave me a very knowing look and stuck her tongue in the side of her cheek in a horrible lewd gesture. I shook my head at her, furious that she could try to spoil such a romantic moment with her crassness.

Otto, thankfully, didn’t see her. He was too busy being a gentleman.

As we left the club together, he offered me his arm. I took it gratefully. My new shoes are still not terribly comfortable. And though Otto is very much taller than me, we soon fell into step. It was exciting to be so close to him. His arm felt firm and strong through his jacket. I leaned on him rather heavily as an excuse to snuggle up and get a sniff of him. He smells of soap and sandalwood.

It was a changeable sort of evening. It had been warm all day but now it threatened rain. I prayed it would hold off just for me. I wanted everything to be perfect. There have been nights this past week when the walk home from the club seemed very long indeed, but tonight it passed much too quickly. Perhaps it’s because I was matching Otto’s purposeful stride. Papa always used to complain I was a dawdler. Keeping up with Otto soon changed that. We got to the Hotel Frankfort in five minutes.

‘This is where I live,’ I said.

Otto frowned up at the crumbling façade, which threatens to drop a windowsill on the head of anyone who slams the door on their way out. ‘But it’s not a good place,’ he said.

‘Oh, it’s not so bad,’ I told him. ‘Enno the manager looks after me. He’s given me the best room in the house on the very lowest rate and he told me about the job at the Boom Boom.’

‘Then I’m very grateful to him for that. But why are you here? How does an English girl like you, obviously from a good family, end up living in this part of Berlin? How could your family let you be here in this nasty hotel? How could they let you work in a nightclub?’

‘They don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘They don’t know where I am at all! Well, they know I’m in Berlin because I’ve written to them at least twice a week since I got here, but last time I wrote I told my mother that I was about to move into an apartment with a nice girl called Hildebrand who found me a job as a bilingual secretary. I thought it might stop Mummy worrying. I thought the bit about the job might impress my father into sending me a little bonus.’

Otto laughed. ‘Your German’s not good enough to be a bilingual secretary,’ he said, with typical Teutonic bluntness.

‘Your English isn’t so hot either,’ I said.

‘Well, in that case, perhaps we should both learn sign language so we can communicate properly.’

‘Start with this,’ I said, poking out my tongue.

‘Why! You!’ Otto pretended to make a grab for me. I darted out of the way. But not too far out of the way. I let him catch me. He did. For a moment we were pressed together and both breathing rather heavily but then he let me go again. I was very disappointed.

But we were still standing on the street and Otto seemed in no hurry to leave me. I toyed with the idea of inviting Otto in. Enno wouldn’t care, I was sure. There were always twice as many people staying at the Frankfort as appeared on the official register. But I had the sudden thought that Otto would mind. He certainly wouldn’t accept the invitation and, once I’d made it and he’d refused it, the evening would have come to an end. Worse still, he might think me too forward. Not the kind of girl who needed to be walked home again. So, instead, we stood on the pavement outside the hotel door, chatting about nothing in particular. Otto went into a long, rambling description of how he had come to learn his English. He asked how I had come to learn my German. I told him a bit about the finishing school in Munich. I’m afraid I might have given him the impression that my time at the finishing school finished properly. I certainly didn’t mention that utter swine Cord Von Cord. I sensed that Otto would not approve of my ending up in Berlin because I’d followed a boy there. Especially not a boy who was engaged to someone else.

We stood on the pavement outside the hotel for the best part of an hour. In the end we had to make a decision because Otto spotted a policeman in the distance. Apparently there have been more policemen around lately and they are definitely a little stricter than they used to be. Of course, we weren’t actually doing anything illegal, but neither of us wanted to have to explain ourselves if they assumed we were negotiating a price to spend the night together, rather than talking about the differences between German and English grammar.

‘I think it’s time for you to go inside,’ said Otto.

I nodded my agreement. ‘I think it is.’

‘But first . . .’

He hesitated.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘I have to do something.’

My eyes grew wide. Otto took me by the shoulders. I assumed he was going to kiss me goodbye in the usual way: three kisses on the cheek. But instead he planted a smacker right on my mouth!

It was a good job he was holding me up because my knees buckled the moment his mouth touched mine.

It was a brief kiss – the policeman was getting closer – but oh such a wonderful one. He tasted of white wine and peppermint.

‘Goodnight, sweet English rose,’ he said as he let me go. He looked at me so intently. His eyes had gone a much darker blue. His gaze made my insides positively liquid.

And then the policeman was close enough that we could see he was reaching for his whistle.

‘Go inside.’ Otto gave me a little shove in the direction of the hotel door. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

I cannot wait until tomorrow! What a magical night. What a fabulous kiss!

Forget Cord Von Cord. The beast. Now that I have kissed Otto, I can hardly believe that I was ever interested in such a pompous donkey. My knees never buckled when Cord kissed me goodnight. I never felt my heart beat so hard I thought it might burst out of my chest. Tonight’s kiss was so different from any kiss I’ve had before. It’s a sign that Otto and I are meant to be together. I’m sure of it. I can’t wait to go in to work again!

Chapter 10

Berlin, last September

During my first term in Berlin, I would be taking eight students for English lessons. They were mostly postgraduate students, who were writing their theses in English with the hope of applying to work at American or Canadian universities later on. Anna Fischer was soon my favourite. She didn’t need much help when it came to spoken English, but she wanted me to help polish her written work. She was doing her dissertation on Helmut Newton, the German photographer especially famous for his nudes. I knew a little bit about the photographs, but Anna was a fanatic.

‘There is always such strength in his models,’ she assured me. ‘I like that. The women in
Big Nudes
are Amazons. But he also picked women off the street. He chose models that no traditional fashion photographer would use. He could find the beauty in anyone.’

She showed me a couple of her own pictures. Self-portraits in Newton’s style.

‘I try to be like one of Helmut’s models every day. I’m not going to hide. If people don’t like the way I look, that’s their problem.’

She had blue-dyed hair but as far as I could see, Anna Fischer didn’t have any reason to hide herself away. She was beautiful on anybody’s scale.

‘But your exterior reflects your interior,’ she said. ‘You’re happy. You look it. You’re mean. You look that way too. Or so we think. Not looking normal,’ she made inverted commas around the word, ‘can be a life sentence.’

She packed her photographs away. The bell rang and she was gone.

That evening, I got back to my building on the Hufelandstrasse at around six o’clock. Herr Schmidt had his window open and, as usual, classical music drifted out. Not Chopin this time but Schubert. His piano sonata in D major. A very mournful piece. Anyway, Herr Schmidt must have seen me pass his window on my way to the front door because by the time I let myself into the hall, he’d stopped playing and was coming out of the door to his apartment.

‘Good evening, Fräulein Thomson,’ he said.

‘Good evening, Herr Schmidt.’ I gave a little nod. Sometimes it was all I could do not to curtsey to my distinguished landlord.

‘I am wondering if you are finding your accommodations comfortable?’ he asked, in his curious, mannered English.

‘Oh yes,’ I assured him. ‘Everything is just perfect. I’m very happy indeed.’

‘I wonder also,’ he asked, looking a little embarrassed this time, ‘if I might ask you for a favour.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘How can I help you?’

‘My Internet does not seem to be working correctly,’ he said. ‘But perhaps it is I who do not know how to make it work correctly. Would you please take a look and see if you know how to restart it?’

I followed Herr Schmidt into his flat. The smart new laptop his great-nephew had bought for him was on the table in the dining room. I set about checking the laptop’s settings. Everything seemed to be in order. I got down on my hands and knees and looked for the wireless modem hidden beneath the stiff-backed sofa. Of course, there was no dust under there. A cleaner came three times a week. I pulled the modem out. The light that should have indicated that broadband was available was red rather than blue.

‘I think it may be a problem with the supplier rather than with your machine,’ I informed Herr Schmidt. I went upstairs to check my own modem. Same red lights. Same problem. I came back downstairs. ‘Hopefully, it will come back on soon enough, but if not, you’ll have to telephone customer support. I’d do it for you but I’m afraid my German isn’t up to it.’

‘Your German is already much improved,’ said Herr Schmidt.

‘Thank you,’ I said, though I thought he was being generous.

‘Well, I . . .’ I turned to go back upstairs to my own room.

‘Will you join me for some supper?’ Herr Schmidt asked. ‘I have made too much.’

‘Why not?’ I said. I had planned to spend the evening watching British TV streamed over my laptop. That wasn’t going to happen while the Internet was down.

‘I have cooked some
sauerbraten
,’ he said.

I racked my brains for a translation. Was that cabbage? I couldn’t smell cabbage.

‘Beef. A pot roast,’ he helped me out.

Herr Schmidt was a good cook and he was also very interesting company. He had a wide knowledge of current affairs. What he knew about British politics put me to shame. I wasn’t half as interested as he seemed to be in what went on in Westminster. I definitely wasn’t as interested in Brussels and the EU. When I saw reports on the economic crisis, my response was to stick my fingers in my ears and go ‘la la la’.

‘You must pay more attention,’ Herr Schmidt admonished me gently. ‘The decisions these people make affect real lives. Yours and mine.’

He also asked me lots of questions about my work. Fortunately, this was a topic on which I could hold my own. I told him how I had been getting on so far in the vast archives of the university.

‘But this subject has been covered so many times before,’ I said. ‘I’m hoping to find something new. Something that really brings the period to life. Like a diary written at the time, rather than a memoir. Memoir is so different, you see. When people look back after any significant period of time has passed, they try to find meaning in everything that happened and imbue it with a proper narrative. Fiction can’t help but creep in. With a diary, written as events unfold, the writer doesn’t know how it will all end and so they don’t try to make the facts fit. You get a much truer representation.’

Herr Schmidt looked deep in thought for a moment. I wondered what I’d said to make him so.

‘I think I may have something for you,’ he said. ‘Please, wait there.’

I remained at the table, with my fingers curled around the small glass of red wine I had been nursing throughout dinner. While Herr Schmidt was out of the room, I gazed around his elegant home, so oddly frozen in time. I tried to guess the age of the furniture. Perhaps it was as old as nineteen-thirties. The piano was even older: an upright carved out of oak stained so dark it was almost black. My attempts to guess Herr Schmidt’s age continued. Listening to some of his memories, it seemed he was possibly closer to a hundred than ninety years old. I hoped I would be half as energetic if I got to such an age.