St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(106)

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’ Berlin’s response in English left the stallholder equally confused. He had just taken the German-English dictionary out of his pocket when a woman tapped him on the shoulder.

‘He asks if you have smaller money, perhaps?’

Berlin stared at her. She was his age. Had she been here during the war? Did she know Berlin had tried to kill her more than once? He took off his glove and pulled more notes from his pocket, offering them to the woman. She selected one and handed it to the stall holder. The man grunted and handed over the change in coins.

Berlin tucked the money back in his pocket and smiled at the woman. ‘Dankesch?n.’

‘You are English, sir, is that so?’

Berlin shook his head. ‘Nein, Australian.’

The woman beamed. ‘Kangaroo?’ she said and then laughed.

‘Ja, kangaroo.’

‘Enjoy our little city, please, while you stay,’ she said

Charlie Berlin, Terrorflieger, destroyer of cities and indiscriminate killer of men, women and children, lifted his hat and dropped his head in a quick, polite bow.

He took off both his gloves to eat, the heat from the paper-wrapped roll feeling good on his hands. The bread roll was painted with yellow mustard, the sausage was spicy and delicious and when he finished he rejoined the queue for a second helping. The sausage seller smiled at the smaller note offered this time and used his prongs to suggest a different sausage. ‘Das ist gut,’ he said. And it was good.

A young man on a bicycle directed him to the hotel and Berlin wondered if his German was improving or if ‘Hilton’ was now part of a universal language. Rebecca was just collecting the key and his note from the front desk when he arrived. She was wearing a new overcoat too, and a cap. The Nikon was on a strap over her shoulder and there was a shopping bag beside her with an Agfa label on it. She turned around before he caught up with her and she smiled.

‘Whoever gave you wardrobe advice, Mr Berlin, did an excellent job. And I see you also found something to eat, going by that spot of mustard on your scarf.’

He kissed her and told her that he loved her, not caring that they were in a busy hotel lobby.

They had dinner in the coffee shop rather than the hotel restaurant or from room service. Rebecca ignored the German specialities on the menu and ordered a club sandwich. Berlin asked for coffee. When he saw the price of the club sandwich and Rebecca did a quick conversion from US dollars for him, he was glad that he had eaten that second sausage. When she calculated what his coat, scarf and gloves had cost he decided to order a slice of chocolate cake to go with his coffee.

Back in their room after dinner Berlin carefully hung up his new overcoat in the wardrobe and sponged the spot of mustard off his scarf in the bathroom. He put on his pyjamas and cleaned his teeth while Rebecca sat on the bed, sorting through the rolls of film she had taken on her walk. He heard a noise from the bedroom when he turned off the tap and when he walked back into the room Rebecca looked up from the neat groupings of exposed and unexposed film cassettes.

‘Is something funny, Charlie? You’re smiling.’

‘You were humming.’

She looked at him. ‘Was I?’

In bed he held her close till she fell asleep. They were much gentler with each other now, he realised, more careful with words and touch. She was broken like he was and he understood how hard it must have been for her over the last twenty years, coping with his loss. This loss was different, of course; it was one they shared, and though they were both broken as individuals he understood clearly after her words on the hotel balcony in Israel that it would never break them as a couple.





FIFTY-FOUR


Most of the tables and booths were already occupied in the hotel coffee shop when they came down for breakfast. There was an extensive hot buffet, mostly aimed at Americans, it seemed to Berlin, though there was also a range of cold meats and cheeses and different kinds of bread and rolls. Sarah would love this, he thought. Sarah was a real breakfast girl. On summer weekends he would cook up freshly picked tomatoes from the garden while she hovered at his elbow. When she was older he put her in charge of making toast, challenging her to have it hot and buttered at the exact moment the tomatoes were done.

He had lost weight in Israel, according to Rebecca, and she suggested the cold weather was as good an excuse as any for a big breakfast. The coffee shop staff were friendly and helpful like the people he had encountered the night before and he found himself relaxing, even smiling. They helped him load his plate with eggs and sausages and bacon and sautéed mushrooms. He paused in front of a tray of r?sti, golden brown cakes of fried shredded potato, and the flashback to starving men gnawing at raw potatoes was brief and then gone.

Back at their table, Rebecca was talking to someone from reception. The conversation was in German and he heard the name Peter mentioned but Rebecca was smiling and nodding so he knew it wasn’t anything bad. The man from reception dropped his head in a quick bow before he turned and walked away. Berlin sat down at the table.

‘Everything okay?’

‘Apart from the fact you appear to have decimated the breakfast buffet, everything is fine. Peter just called from Duntroon, but we must have been in the elevator on the way down so we missed him. He just wanted to make sure we were okay.’

Berlin was still in wonder at the transformation of the boy, not just physically but also in maturity and in terms of the caring and compassion that had been such a part of his sister’s personality. They had persuaded him to take up the offered commission and he had gone from Melbourne to Canberra rather than straight back to South Vietnam and the jungle.