Any Survivors (2008) (5 page)

The hotel in Kiel was no marble palace with endless columned halls and multiple floors, but instead was a narrow two-storey building, bourgeois and dignified. I was happy to see that there was only one counter. At least they wouldn't send me from one to the next – a favourite pastime of those in public buildings with multiple counters, whether a railway station or unemployment office. I am convinced that if there are counters at the gates of heaven then the waiting souls will be sent back and forth endlessly. The hotelier, the porter and the room waiter, all three no longer in the prime of their youth, sprang to attention and started clucking like hens to receive me with full honour. I immediately began to recite my little saying about the holy German language because everyone was attempting to extend their welcome in various languages I could not understand. When they proceeded to speak to me in German, I had to pretend I could understand only snippets of their ramblings. The hotelier, who also happened to be the chief receptionist, asked me how he could help me. Although my arrival was not unexpected, they had not made a firm reservation because they had so many vacant rooms. I could choose between a single room with running water, a double bedroom with street-facing balcony or an apartment with an en-suite bathroom. I took my time, leafing carefully through the language section of my Baedeker and responded with feigned concentration and some mispronunciation: ‘Without doubt,
mein Herr
, I prefer the latter.’ The clucking increased, as did their activity and they began to tread on each other's toes. To be more precise, the hotel manager took advantage of his position as an entrepreneur by treading repeatedly on his employees’ toes without once apologising. It became apparent to me within a few minutes in the society of the new regime that their maxim of transcending class barriers was a myth. In the most convoluted way I could manage and in my very best German I asked the porter, who was also my room waiter, to take my luggage into my suite. I then went out into the blacked-out night to buy a beer.

My first outing was not particularly successful: I had to turn back. I would advise you not to go for a walk at night in a city you have not seen in daylight, especially if there is a blackout; and under no circumstances if you are on a secret mission and carrying a forged passport. At every street corner I bumped into a constable, and if it wasn't the police then it was the SA or a sailor. Seven times they aimed a full torch beam in my face and three times they asked for my passport. I was not lying when I said I had to leave it at the hotel reception for security purposes. In the end I had to ask a policeman to take me back to the hotel. Luckily no one asked my name because it had completely slipped my mind – all the more reason to head back and take a close look at the visitors’ book. I was also curious about my en-suite apartment, the likes of which I had only seen in films, where they usually had three marble steps leading up to the bath and a 2m-high dressing-room mirror with plush fur carpets up to the ankles. Not that I was expecting such luxury. I wasn't in Miami Beach or Trouville, but in a small German port city in the middle of a war.

The reception was colder than when I left, by around 2½°C perhaps. The manservant who was also the porter spoke in a slightly aggrieved tone: ‘Good evening, Herr Andersen.’ Thank goodness, I knew what my name was again. ‘We have moved your things into a different room. We would have liked to accommodate you but the council prescribes certain minimum room rates and we must comply. You are now in Room 21 instead of the apartment, also a very nice and comfortable room. Why did you take the trouble to telephone us when it was a matter of half an hour?’

I had telephoned? That was new to me. It must have been the
Geheime Macht
! It was an insult really to the hotel staff's intelligence. How on earth could I, as a complete stranger in a blacked-out city, have made this telephone call in a blacked-out telephone kiosk dealing with unfamiliar apparatus? All this so the
Geheime Macht
could save a few marks a day while I was risking my life for them. That's all the thanks I got. I exchanged the sadly unused apartment key for one with a bigger number which also had the disadvantage of being constructed in a way that made it impossible to put in one's pocket. A heavy chain was connected to a spiky ball, like a medium-sized magnetic sea mine – I could only hope it wasn't loaded.

I glanced again at the visitors’ book which revealed my name really was Andersen – Wilhelm Andersen – and I was the first civilian guest since 3 September. Sea officers stayed frequently but were not required to sign in. The book had a printed reservation page for every day of the week, showing the numbers 1 to 21. These were all the rooms the hotel had. Until the start of the war the pages were full of Müllers, Meiers and Schulzes, but from then on only blank pages. Although this may seem to make no sense, the lift was not in use and I was too lazy to walk up the stairs and go to bed, even though I was very tired. Not that I was feeling adventurous either. The long journey meant that I had not changed my clothes for three days, nor had I washed and shaved. My stomach was feeling a little uneasy as a result of keeping up with the miserable Dane who used my travel allowance to continuously eat, drink and smoke.

The room servant who was also the porter looked at his watch, disappeared for a moment and returned wearing a cap with the words ‘night porter’. With the cap he had also changed his character. He was no longer busily excited. He was now patronisingly smug. ‘We switch off the lights in the hall at 10 p.m. Would you not like to retire upstairs to bed?’

I did indeed but the night was still young. Even though it was not possible to see into the hall from the stairs, there was a thin wall so that every sound could be heard. I had just reached the first floor when I noticed there was something going on downstairs. I stopped to listen. A taxi had pulled up; the door bell rang. Then loud steps hurried into the hall, accompanied by voices, a rumbling, the sound of a heavy suitcase being dragged across the linoleum and then the full gamut of female laughter. I could hear quite clearly what they were saying:

‘I would rather have Room 20,’ said the crystal-clear female voice with a southern German accent. ‘One of my friends stayed there and had a very nice time.’ I could hear how the chauffeur had to be persuaded to help carry up her luggage. Then the footsteps got nearer. It wouldn't have done to be discovered eavesdropping on the stairway so I hurried up the last steps and disappeared into my room.

Number 21 was the last one on the left. As I made my way with my torch, I had only just managed to open the door with the chained convict of a key when the nightly procession arrived in the hallway. In London, where I had been in a relatively peaceful environment, I would have told myself to stop playing Cowboys and Indians, but here, in these dangerous circumstances and on enemy territory, I felt I was right to behave with militant care. I sneaked inside quietly, pulling the door gently behind me, and lay on my stomach in the dark with my ears to the ground. The steps were getting very close to my room, the heavy steps of what must have been the chauffeur, the slightly lighter steps of the porter with the suitcase dragging between them. Then the light steps of the female, her springy step like Victoria leading her chariot, followed by four tiny light steps. Then I heard the door opposite me opening, and the suitcase was dragged in. The male voices departed and everything was silent. Slightly disappointed, I stood up to investigate my new realm and looked for the light switch with the glow of my torch, which was getting fainter by the minute. There wasn't much to see. It was narrow, dull and not especially comfortable. I was disappointed that I would never discover what the apartment looked like. The shoes were to be left outside the door, the rules of the house on the door instructed, so that was what I did. I had already taken them off. When I opened the door ajar to put my very dusty shoes in the hallway, I could see the door opposite opening for a second. I had a brief glimpse of a woman's arm, long and white with flourishing curves. The arm deposited a pair of shoes, invisible as they were outside the beam of light. She disappeared behind the closed door and left a whiff of
Echt Kölnish Wasser
cologne.

I had little experience in matters of the heart but I knew this could be the beginning of an amorous adventure. In a hotel in a port city every pretty young lady, or those who thought they were, would be expected to lock up their doors, but the failure to do so appeared to signal: ‘Hello there, come on in!’

What should I do? Was it now not up to me to make the next move? I had not shaved and was only half-dressed. Should I put my clothes back on and knock gently on the door? But then my reason and caution gained the upper hand. Perhaps the lady was tired from her long journey like me and forgot to lock the door? She would be scared witless and scream for help if a man opened her door in his nightshirt and an overcoat, or in whichever way I decided to present myself. Then there would be a huge commotion resulting in the police being called. I would be arrested and they would study my papers more closely than I wished, and my cover would be blown before I even got started. No. No adventures for me tonight!

I was much too excited to go straight to sleep. I unpacked my suitcase – I had already taken out my things for the night and found my flute. With my knees pulled up in my nightshirt and my overcoat, I began to play the
Leichte Kavallerie
(
Light Cavalry
) by Franz von Suppe, very quietly, so the lady opposite could not hear me. And just in case she heard me and took the sounds of the
Cavalry
for an invitation, I locked the door.

Early in the morning, after a comfortable sleep, I had it. I now realised what had been missing the night before. Here the films I had watched when I was younger helped me out. What I was lacking was a proper dressing gown! My travel kit did not even stretch to pyjamas, containing as it did only two nightshirts. It wouldn't do to throw my chances away by being insufficiently dressed for a chivalric adventure in a hotel at night. It was time to treat myself with the crisp new bills of Reichsmark.

The sink in my room had two taps and the words:
chaud
,
heiß
. Hot was written clearly and in three languages, regrettably, however, only cold water came out of both taps. So I went to look for a bathroom. Desperately longing for the object of the morning's important mission (a dressing gown), I made my way out of my room dressed in my nightshirt, trousers and bare feet. It was quite simply impossible to walk past the room opposite without stealing a glance inside – the door was ajar. The mistress had flown out and had left such a mess as I had not seen before. In the middle of the bed, the little Pekinese was panting for air. The bed was not mussed up in such a way that one would expect from a person with a light sleep and of an excitable nature. No, it was obvious that the lady and her pet had spent a good hour or so playing catch under the covers. I realised now that that was the noise that had woken me up. This is why the little Pekinese was now gasping for air and not able to do his normal duty of barking at a stranger as I passed the room in my bare feet. The communal bathroom was not difficult to find as it was on the same floor. The door was wide open, the splashing noises an indication of what was inside. But the anticipated shave was no easy feat. An array of washing lines covered in pants, stockings and shirts obscured the view of the bath from which hot steam was rising in thick clouds. Two white female legs could be seen through the curtain of ladies’ underwear, one up to the middle of her calf, the other almost to the knee. These shapely legs undoubtedly belonged to the same lady I had seen glimpses of the night before. I recognised the pearly tone of her skin and noticed the well-formed shape of her calves. This lovely lady was making herself known to me in instalments; perhaps fate did not want to give too much away. I was, after all, still very young and impressionable. The girl could not have heard me amongst the splashes and sound of running water and intense concentration. She was singing to the tune
Fuchs du hast die Ganz gestohlen
with her own lyrics. It sounded something like ‘I would do anything for a proper bar of soap’.

I felt the strong urge to go back to my room and bring her the large bar of soap that I had in my suitcase. But again, I held back. This time it was out of a sense of moral seemliness. The two naked legs did not give any indication of whether she was wearing any of the items of clothing that one might expect in a communal area. Perhaps this was the one day she had decided, in the resoluteness of her youth and beauty, to handwash all her clothes so as to take full advantage of the washing and drying capacity of the room. I decided not to risk it and went back to my room to have a cold shave.

It was quite late by the time I was ready to go out. The porter assured me that I would find what I was looking for at the department store Loewenstein & Kohn, but he was wrong. The shop was now called German-Aryan Mens’ Fashion House and had been completely ‘aryanised’. The dressing gown I was shown was red, gold and black and not quite what I was looking for. All the same, I thought, it was better to have an imperfect one, and it wasn't even my own money. After I had paid, he demanded a textile-rationing coupon which I didn't have, so it was unpacked and put back on the rail. Naturally I wanted my money back but he replied that it wasn't quite so simple. He had to get approval from the
Reichsbank
in Kiel as I was a foreigner and required authorisation for payments in Reichsmark. He wasn't sure if this situation represented an exception as he was, after all, a salesman and not an accountant. Thank goodness two sailors entered the shop who came to my defence. They held the shopkeeper long enough for me to retrieve my money from the till and run off. I was out of danger but felt the morning had been wasted. I went back to the hotel, and was looking forward to the peace and quiet but I was soon to be disappointed again.