The man on duty at the turnstile to the Grunewald railway yard greeted them. They climbed over rusty rails and clinker with thistles growing in it. Their destination was an old saloon car, out of service and in the sidings, which the Mitropa rail company rented out cheap. Jochen had made himself comfortable here with his books, a spirit stove for cooking and a paraffin stove for heating. Jutta enjoyed this idyll two or three times a week.
She wound up the portable gramophone and put a record on. '1 don't have a car or a manor house, I'm not rich. ' The hit of the season echoed from the box, which was covered with black artificial leather.
'Where are we off to today, then?' Jochen inquired.
'The Riviera. We'll ride from Menton to San Remo and on to Genoa.' She went into the sleeping compartment. He followed her soon afterwards. She leaned out of the window. 'How blue the sea is! Oh, look at that big white ship!' she cried, inventing scenery for them to pass. She was still wearing her blouse, but from the waist down she was naked. She cried out with delight as he entered her. They called this 'going on our travels', and it was their favourite game.
Isabel came picking her way across the tracks with two bottles of sparkling wine in a net bag. She looked up with interest at Jutta, whose flushed face spoke volumes.
The gramophone was idling to a halt as they went to the front of the saloon car. Jochen switched it off. Isabel was lounging on an upholstered seat. 'Hello, you two,' she murmured lazily.
Jutta put water on. She had wrapped herself in her dressing gown. When the water came to the boil she turned the flame down and put half a pea sausage in the pan. 'Something hot every day, that's what my mother insists on. And there's sliced meat too.'
Jochen sawed slices of bread off a loaf and unwrapped the yellow butter from its greaseproof paper. The smell of pea soup rose from the pan. 'Pea sausage,' he told them. 'Steamed pea-meal mixed with fat, salt and spices and pressed into a sausage shape. The recipe was developed for the Prussian Army during the Franco-Prussian war to save on weight for transporting supplies, and to enhance its keeping quality.'
'The things you know,' said Isabel admiringly.
He spread pate on some slices of bread and put cooked ham on the rest. He opened a bottle of sparkling wine and poured three glasses.
Jutta handed Isabel a cup of soup. 'Did you pass too?'
Not as brilliantly as your fiance.'
Jochen indicated the letter beside his plate. 'Mail from Africa. My parents send their love. They'd come and meet you if it wasn't so far from Windhoek.' Jochen's grandparents had emigrated from Mecklenburg to German South West Africa at the end of the last century, to raise cattle. His parents had remained there, breeding cattle even after the end of German colonial rule. They sent their younger son to school back in the home country, so Jochen had grown up with relations in Naumburg.
'Why not go there on honeymoon?' Isabel suggested.
And of course you'll come too,' Jutta said mockingly.
'If you like.' There was no throwing Isabel off balance. She took a good bite of her bread.
After supper, they listened to the Berlin Philharmonic under Furt- wangler. The programme included Mendelssohn's Fifth Symphony. 'Better push the window up,' Isabel warned them. 'The composer's just been banned.'
'Do you seriously think anyone over in the signal box can tell Felix Mendelssohn from Paul Lincke? And what if it turns out that Lincke has a Jewish great-grandmother? Will his "Little Glow-worms" be banned too? Do we really have to go along with this idiocy?' Jutta was furious.
Jochen kept calm. 'Don't get so worked up, bookworm. We're not the ones who make the rules.'
'We keep them, though, like a flock of sheep.' Jutta tucked her knees under her chin and immersed herself in French Cuisine; she had asked her boss to let her borrow the book. 'Did you know that they put fox meat in a real daube provencale? They wrap a piece in muslin and add it for the flavour.'
'No. I didn't know.' He yawned. 'We'll drink the second bottle another time.'
'Fine. Goodnight, lovebirds.' Isabel disappeared into the dark.
Jutta sighed. A little less Isabel would be a little more welcome.'
'She doesn't have anyone else.'
She slept nestling close to Jochen. Even the storm didn't wake her. In the small hours she dreamed of riding through Africa by train. Rainer Jordan sat beside her. He was wearing a topi and looked very handsome. She enjoyed the rhythm of the wheels on the tracks and the characteristic smell of soot and steam which, to her, meant the glamour of distant places. Just before Windhoek the locomotive whistled so shrilly that she woke with a start. It was early, not yet six in the morning. Outside, the signal box that had always stood at the far end of the railway yard was gliding past. They stopped with a jolt. 'What's going on?' Jochen was still half asleep.
Jutta got into her dressing gown and leaned out of the window. Down below stood men in railway uniforms. 'Hey — what d'you think you're doing in there?' one of them barked up at her. He had silver braid on his cap.
'We were sleeping peacefully until a moment ago. Now we're going to make breakfast, if you don't mind.'
Evidently the man with the silver braid did mind. He stormed into the old railway car. 'This is no place for the homeless,' he shouted at them.
Jochen got to his feet. 'I don't like your manner, sir. May I ask what you want?'
'I'm Reich Rail Officer Schmitz,' barked the man with the silver braid. 'You'll have to clear out of here. This carriage has been handed over to the Grunewald SA as a meeting place.'
'But I'm the legal tenant.' Jochen searched his case. 'Here's my rental agreement with Mitropa. Here's the police registration. My fiancee Fraulein Reimann is visiting me.'
'This car has been transferred to us by Mitropa, so the Reichsbahn is now its owner. We're not interested in your agreement. You'll have to be out by the end of the week. Heil Hitler.'
'Same to you,' Jochen snapped back. 'Darling, what are we going to do? Apartments are very hard to find.'
'we'll have breakfast first,' said Jutta. 'Then we'll go and see our lawyer.'
'I didn't know we had one,' he said in surprise.
The ubiquitous Isabel was already sitting in the Hanomag. 'You'll take me with you, won't you?' She didn't seem to mind where they were going. Normally Jutta would have minded a great deal, but today it suited her plans nicely. 'We're calling on Dr Jordan. An interesting man and a lawyer. He's going to sort out Jochen's rights to his place. You can come and listen.'
She enjoyed Isabel's reaction when she introduced her to Jordan. Isabel was cool, but never took her eyes off him. Jochen explained the situation to the lawyer. 'If the Reichsbahn throw me out I'm homeless. Of course I could go to my fiancee and her parents in Kopenick, but that's not a permanent solution, particularly in the eyes of the school board which is my future employer. I'm starting as a teacher at the Arndt Gymnasium in Dahlem after the summer holidays.'
Rainer Jordan was in good spirits. 'Fraulein Reimann, Herr Weber, you've come at just the right moment. No need for any argument with the Reichsbahn. I'm starting in the legal department of UfA next week, and moving to Babelsberg to be near the film studios. Why don't you just take over this apartment? I believe you're soon getting married, and I'm sure a married schoolmaster will be welcome as a tenant to the owners — they're a big real estate company. I'll be happy to introduce you to the property manager. Bring the necessary documents with you.'
'Can we look round?' Jochen asked.
'By all means. Two rooms, kitchen, bathroom, if that's enough for you.'