Berlin: A Novel

'Frau Lohmann. My husband fell in the war.' That was close enough to the truth. Death by exploding gun barrel in Doberitz sounded a little banal.

'Can you please say that in English, Frau Loman?'

'My man is dead in the war.' She spoke rather broken English, but it was good enough for Mr Chalford.

'Have you got a profession?' he asked, still in English.

She was surprised to find how well she could understand him. 'I am a sister for children.'

'You mean a children's nurse? Excellent. And do you also know anything about housekeeping? Can you cook?'

I think so.'

'I believe I have something for you. Colonel Tucker and his family are looking for a housekeeper.' Chalford played with a pencil as he talked. He spoke halting German, with a heavy American accent. 'Mrs Tucker needs help, particularly to take care of her two boys. Their house is in Dahlem. Im Doi — funny kind of street name, don't you think? If Colonel and Mrs Tucker like you, you can have the job.' Helga looked at him with interest. She had never been so close to an American before. Chalford was a friendly man in his thirties with thinning fair hair, a round, rosy face, and pale-blue eyes. He seemed to be a pleasant human being. As a man he left her cold. 'You must have a medical first, of course,' he explained. 'We only want healthy people. And then we'll take a photo for our card index of employees. Where do you live?' Helga gave him her address in Sophie-Charlotte-Strasse. Chalford put the pencil down. 'Good luck, Frau Loman.' He winked encouragingly at her and began to read a file.

The T-Line bus wasn't back in service because of the fuel shortage. The Americans had started a bus line of their own, carrying GIs, US civilians, German employees of the army who held bus passes, and several clever Berlin lads who managed to persuade the naive German drivers that they were Americans by chewing gum and wearing garish ties.

Helga's journey took her a quarter of an hour, past Truman Hall, named after the new President, which housed the recently set up Post Exchange, as the US Army commissariat was traditionally known. An American could buy stuff in the PX that the Germans didn't even dream of — they had forgotten that such things existed. The engineers had unrolled a stretch of artificial turf outside this unattainable paradise and planted full-grown trees, which were supported by a framework for the first few months. At the same time, Berliners were cutting down the last fir trees in the Grunewald by night as firewood for the coming winter.

'Im Doi' was a quiet street of villas in Dahlem, evidence of the former prosperity of its inhabitants. The Tuckers' house stood at the very back of its plot of land, invisible from the street. Its rightful owner, a reclusive biochemist, had grown deadly bacterial cultures there for the Nazi regime. He was now continuing his work in a Moscow laboratory.

There was a blue Studebaker parked on the drive. A man in Yankee uniform dyed black was raking the lawn between the birch trees. He stopped work when he saw Helga. 'Yes?'

'I'm Frau Lohmann. Colonel and Mrs Tucker are expecting me. It's about the post as housekeeper.'

He looked condescendingly at Helga. 'You'll never get the job, darling,' he said, with offensive familiarity. 'Tucker likes 'em young.'

'Keep your opinion to yourself. And keep your "darling" for your own kind.' Helga snapped back.

'OK. Take a look through the kitchen window there.'

Tucker, in full uniform, was standing at the kitchen table between the naked thighs of a girl sitting on the edge of it. The girl was uttering small, rhythmic cries.

'Don't go away,' the colonel panted when he saw Helga. Obviously he enjoyed it twice as much with an audience. He stowed his prick back in his trousers. 'I suppose you're the housekeeper. Come on in.' The girl slipped off the table and buttoned up her smock. 'That's Rosie the housemaid,' Tucker said. 'Myra and the boys have gone shopping. They'll soon be back. Rosie, show her around the house.'

Rosie was seventeen, a little brunette with bright, brown eyes. 'What am Ito do?' she said to Helga, by way of excusing herself. 'If he fires me I'll have to go back to the East as a farm hand. What will you do if he gets fresh with you?'

'Get fired. Does Mrs Tucker know?'

'She looks the other way. In return he lets her drink in peace.'

'Who's that fellow in the garden?'

'Klatt. Gardener, sometimes chauffeur too. Steals like a magpie. Brings the colonel new girls, and worms his way into Mrs Tucker's good graces.'

There was a sudden loud noise outside. Two little boys in baseball kit stormed in. A youngish woman with a cigarette in her mouth followed. Klatt carried her shopping into the kitchen.

'Hi. I'm Myra Tucker. I suppose it's about the job as housekeeper?'

'Helga Lohmann,' Helga introduced herself.

'OK, come on, Helga, let's go into the study. Rosie, see to the twins, will you?' Mrs Tucker went ahead. The panelled study was the room where the former master of the house had worked. 'Like a drink?'

'No thank you, madam.'

'For heaven's sake call me Myra.' Mrs Tucker took a bottle of gin off the cocktail trolley and poured a lavish quantity into a large brandy balloon. 'Dry vermouth,' she said, spraying a little into her glass from an atomizer. She took a long gulp. 'I've given up the olives. You can't get the ready stoned sort in the PX. I like them stuffed with anchovies. Do you like olives, Helga?'

'I don't know. I've never eaten an olive.'

'Really? Well, never mind. OK, so you're here about the job. No problem. If you can cook and cope with the boys, it's yours.' Mrs Tucker emptied her glass and refilled it. She forgot about the vermouth this time. She laughed briefly. 'Thank goodness, you're too old for the colonel. Do you have any family?'

'My husband has been dead for some time. My son died in May.'

'Oh, I'm so, so sorry.' Myra Tucker looked at her, eyes swimming with tears. It was easy to guess that behind the gin bottle was a woman who sympathized because she'd been so deeply injured herself. 'Can you start tomorrow, please? That will give you and Rosie two days for the preparations. We're throwing a party on Saturday, OK?'

'OK.' Obeying an instinct, Helga carefully took her new employer's glass away from her. 'You don't need that any more, Myra. You have me now.' She took her hand. The American stiffened. A few seconds later she was just a child, seeking shelter in Helga's arms.

Colonel Harold Miles Tucker was a career soldier. He had commanded a battalion in the Airborne Division and fought his way from Normandy to the Elbe with his paratroopers. Service in Berlin was his first peacetime post. He had been assigned to the US city commandant as his adjutant, and it was on the commandant's instructions that he had sent for Myra and the twins. General Abbot expected his subordinates to set an example of family life, particularly to the Germans. It was all part of the 'democratic reeducation' of the conquered ordained by the State Department. Since the ban on fraternization had been lifted, contact with them was considered desirable. Helga learned this from Klatt, who admired the crew-cut Tucker, old warhorse and confirmed skirt-chaser.

She and Rosie had prepared platters of cold meats, salads, dishes of fruit and desserts — unknown delights, almost all out of cans. How astonished Karl would be, she thought, and felt a pang of melancholy.

The first guests arrived around eight. Tucker and his wife welcomed them at the front door: strong, healthy army and air force officers. Their wives were conventionally pretty, uttering crows of delight when they saw a girlfriend from the past — that was to say, someone last seen in the hairdresser's that afternoon. US civilian staff in their mock uniforms, a source of amusement to the military, loudly demanded whisky. A few hand-picked Germans were invited.

The city commandant, General Henry C. Abbot, a lean, grey-headed man with a weather-beaten face, came in a plain dark suit. Mrs Abbot was a silver-haired, grandmotherly woman. She asked after the Tucker twins, who were already in bed. The general was a Westpoint-trained army man from an old Boston family. He was an enthusiastic yachtsman, and engaged the mayor of Zehlendorf in conversation about sailing on the Wannsee. He and a couple of British officers had started the sport there again. Dr Struwe listened politely. He had other things on his mind.