Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [282]
Usually an orderly people, they became enraged when the Russians saw fit to change the guard at a monument which sat just inside the British Sector. The Berliners called it “Tomb of the Unknown Raper.” A student climbed the flag pole on the Brandenburg Gate and ripped the hammer and sickle from its mast. Only courageous action of the British guards prevented a full-scale uprising.
It rained and they were drenched, but it did not seem to matter. One by one the leaders came to the rostrum and defied the Soviet Union.
The great figure of Ulrich Falkenstein, hatless and refusing the protection of an umbrella, faced this unprecedented sea of human wrath. He had kept his sacred word to General Hansen. The people had held.
“Berliners!” his voice echoed through them in the midst of their ruin. “I have said that you were never Nazis. And I say now: Berliners will never be Communists!”
Chapter Twenty-seven
SCOTT DAVIDSON HAD FALLEN upon hard times. First he ran into a new boss like Hiram Stonebraker. Now a rebuff by a German maid! ... No broad had ever called him dull!
Scott had accumulated four days’ leave. He and Nick went on an historic binge from Rüdesheim to Wiesbaden to Frankfurt to Mainz, which ended with Nick’s car sinking slowly in the Rhine River. And he had plenty of Schatzies ... six girls in four days.
But, as Hildegaard had suggested, they were rather easy. This annoyed Scott. He was going to show her! Actually, all he showed was a throbbing headache and a queasy stomach. It was a strange, unique, humiliating experience to be so bluntly rejected. Scott proved her contention that he was spoiled and immature. He was left with no choice but to strike his banners in defeat and forget her, but he couldn’t.
He was edgy for a week after his binge. Scott seemed disinterested even when Nick told him he had gotten a two-room flat in Frankfurt. Nick and Stan became worried. He had never acted like this before.
The Ring Church on Friedrichstrasse emptied of old aristocrats in threadbare finery who stopped for a word with the black robed minister. Hilde came from its confines with Tony and Lynn Loveless. They all thought it would be good for their German lessons to hear the sermon in the language.
She stepped into the sudden light, shading her eyes, a cameo in lace and white gloves. The Loveless children, scrubbed and polished, circled around her, running off their relief to be free from the confinement.
“Lovely sermon.”
Hilde turned and faced Scott Davidson.
“Hi kids,” Scott said, “how about a milk shake at the Eagle Club. I always like a milk shake after church.”
“I am afraid not. It will spoil their dinner.”
“Aw, Hilde,” Tony complained.
“I said, no.”
“Well, we got to listen to our Aunt Hilde,” Scott said. “Mind if I walk you home?”
“Otherwise you plan to make a scene here in front of the church,” she hissed in a low voice.
“Hey, you kids run on ahead. I’ll see if I can’t get Aunt Hilde to change her mind.”
Tony gave a sour “ugh, girls” look and trotted off with his sister.
Hilde looked beautiful; he offered her his arm but she ignored it.
“Wouldn’t like to see a dull, immature, spoiled flyer from time to time, would you?”
“Captain Davidson, the kind of friendship I am interested in goes against your manly nature.”
“I thought about that and I’d like to see you anyhow. Maybe I’m maturing?” He was eating crow now and there was no use rubbing it in.
“I accept your apology because I believe you mean it now. However, I do not wish to see you.”
Hilde did not believe in platonic relationships between men and women. It might begin that way with the best of intentions; sooner or later it would drift toward sex. With a man like the flyer, sooner. In Berlin, in the old days, she had been too self-centered to be excited by the beginning of a romance. Later, a deep hatred of men was born.
Some of it had mellowed in the home of Colonel Smith and of the Loveless family. Now wisdom told her that there were good men and there was good love