Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [161]
“You need not worry about me, Elke,” she answered, both terrified and excited by it all.
The Paris Cabaret now stood in a cellar near Alexander Platz in Mitte Borough, Russian Sector, in the bashed-down heart of Berlin. Fritz Stumpf remained proprietor on a Russian license. Stumpf was wounded badly in the first days of the war. A crippled left arm returned him to Berlin for the duration.
In the good old days before and after the First World War, the Paris Cabaret belonged to his late, lamented father. It stood on the Friedrichstrasse in the middle of pulsating night life and was a meeting place for theater people and writers.
Berlin was a wonderful, wicked, wild city in those days. A bawdy bohemia of artists, free love, and sex. It was a pompous and proper place with the highest order of opera and concerts.
From here sprang the weird charm of a Mac the Knife and the husky voice of Marlene Dietrich told the world for the first time that she was, from head to toe, consumed with love. It was a Berlin of the immortal Elisabeth Bergner and Tilla Durieux. Negro bands and shimmy dancers and ponderous Wagnerian sopranos all made the magic blends of Berlin.
It was Käthe Gold and the miracle plays of Reinhardt. Fritz Stumpf remembered his father lamenting the departure of the Jews from the Berlin scene. All those magnificent impresarios and virtuosos and fiery journalists had gone. His father said the Jews gave Berlin much of its charm just as they had given Vienna its charm.
Nonetheless, one had to live with the times. By the time Fritz took over from his father the Paris Cabaret had changed to a rendezvous for Nazis who tried to elbow in on the old culture hoping some of it would rub off on them. They came from the ministries that lined the nearby Wilhelmstrasse ... and the old days died.
When he returned early in the war with his wound, Berlin, for the moment, caught the restless sensation-seeking beat of the twenties. Then the Paris Cabaret was bombed out as indeed all of Mitte Borough was, and Stumpf moved into the safer cellar location. The end of the war left the Paris Cabaret in a shambles, but Fritz Stumpf was a clever man and quickly adapted once more to the new masters.
He quickly contacted high-ranking Russian officers, obtained a license, and set his house in order. Three Russians of the rank of colonel were cut in in exchange for protection, an arrangement that worked well for everyone. In the Nazi era, he took care of the needs of Nazi officers. In these days, he took care of his Russian friends.
Fritz Stumpf’s girls were young and pleasing, for the competition to work in the Paris Cabaret was keen. It was cold outside and the Paris Cabaret was as warm as the beds and mansions of the occupation officers.
Elke Handfest retained a popularity for the fun she was, the experience she had, and the fact that she would go along with any party. When she approached Stumpf on the matter of Hildegaard, insisting she was extraordinary, he agreed to look her over.
The front door of the Paris Cabaret was flanked by a pair of American military police. A sign read: OFF LIMITS FOR AMERICAN MILITARY PERSONNEL. This was all part of a show for visiting dignitaries. In a day or so they would be gone, the sign would come down, and the MPs would go away. Colonel Hazzard would, once again, drop by for a late beer on the way home from the Russian parties.
Hildegaard walked down the ten steps into the depths of the cafe and was watched from all over the room as the new girl. The place was smoky and noisy and put together out of odd chairs and tables. The bar girls were tightly corseted to enhance their bosoms and the girls lined up on the other side of the bar jealously watched and feared this unpainted, angelic-looking competitor in their midst.
A musically uncoordinated band played a theater song of the twenties, adding to the discordance by the presence of a badly out-of-tune piano, and girls danced together waiting for dates.
Fritz Stumpf kept a private booth on a balcony a few steps over the main floor. They were ushered