St Kilda Blues (Charlie Berlin #3)(108)
‘Friedrichstrasse, Checkpoint Charlie.’
Berlin held out a handful of notes and the driver selected one and then, to Berlin’s surprise, tried to hand back several coins as change. The driver nodded as Berlin held up a hand to indicate it wasn’t necessary.
He watched as his taxi drove away and then he walked with his head down and overcoat collar up towards Checkpoint Charlie. The Russians who had freed him from the camp in ‘45 wore a fur-lined cap called an ushanka that folded down over the ears and neck, and right now he wouldn’t have minded one. At least the rain had stopped for the moment.
There were taxis and some private cars about, and military and police vehicles, but not as many as he expected. As he approached the checkpoint the only vehicles in sight were US military jeeps and police cars. From a distance he could make out a signboard reading ‘Allied Checkpoint’ with British, French and American flags painted underneath it.
The checkpoint was just a white-painted shed in the middle of the wide roadway, shielded at either end by a low wall of sandbags. The shed had several powerful spotlights mounted on the roof and the stars and stripes flying from a flagpole above it. Red and white-striped boom barriers just beyond it blocked the road, and further on there were more barriers across a wide open space before you came to the Russian sector. A jeep parked by the checkpoint had ‘Military Police’ painted under the windshield and the soldiers he could see inside the checkpoint building were wearing MP armbands.
Past the checkpoint, men with rifles or sub machine guns slung over their shoulders were stationed at intervals. Some were stamping their feet or clapping gloved hands together to stay warm. Closer to the Russian side the uniforms changed from a blue or grey colour to a dirty brown. Barbed wire was strung from V-shaped metal supports above roughly built stone walls and there were long meandering lines of rusting Czech hedgehogs, tank traps made from sections of old steel railway line welded together.
Beyond the wire and walls and tank traps he could see observation points and watchtowers, and when the sun briefly broke through the overcast sky, glints of light reflected off binoculars or weapons. There appeared to have been much less repair and reconstruction in the Russian sector, with huge empty spaces visible between buildings. Turning away from the checkpoint, he noticed he was being watched from a second-floor window of a building directly opposite him and suddenly he wanted very much to be somewhere else.
He would walk as long as the rain held off, he decided, and then figure out what to do. He followed the line of the wall, walking in a westerly direction, and found himself in a run-down neighbourhood with very little pedestrian traffic. The signs of the final battle for Berlin that he had seen from the taxi on their ride in from the airport were much more visible to a man on foot; the chips and scars and gouges and craters made by the exchange of bullets and mortars and artillery shells as the two sides fought out the final bloody days of the war street by street and house by house.
He kept the wall on his left, watching as it changed in height and construction. In some places it crossed empty lots to connect tall buildings with roughly bricked-in windows and doorways. There was always barbed wire and in some places the top of the wall sparkled from shards of broken glass set into a thick layer of concrete. Crossing a wide, empty street he walked over two double lines, steel tram tracks that stopped abruptly where the barrier wall sliced across the thoroughfare, cutting right over the top of them. The tracks were a reddish brown, rusty from disuse, weeds growing in the dirt caught in the gaps beside them.
At intervals there were wooden observation platforms where people could look over the wall into the Russian zone. He climbed up on one and it was like looking into his POW camp from the outside. Between the wall and the rows of hedgehog tank traps was a smooth, open area, which he guessed was under observation from the guard towers day and night and most probably sown with mines. It was an odd feeling to be here, with his former rescuers now his captors in one sense. He was both a free man and a prisoner at the same time. He was glad when it began to rain so that he had an excuse to find shelter.
In the fading grey afternoon light the warm yellow glow from the low-wattage bulbs in the café was a welcoming sight. He shook the water out of his hair as he entered. The place was empty apart from a man behind the bar and a table of four at the rear who glanced briefly in his direction. Two of the four were black men in civilian clothes, obviously off-duty US soldiers, and the others were a couple of local hippies, a boy and girl in their late teens, both with long hair. There was a loud, sustained metallic guitar sound from the jukebox and Berlin heard the words, ‘Light my fire’. Besides cooking fat he could also smell marijuana.
The place was as run-down as the neighbourhood it serviced, with dirty curtains in the window and tables and chairs that had seen better days. He chose a table away from the group, but this put him close to the jukebox. There were hooks on the wall behind the table and he hung up his coat and scarf with his gloves in the pocket. The man behind the bar brought him a menu and Berlin ordered coffee, shaking his head at the offer of schnapps. Even though he was getting hungry he glanced at the menu and decided not to eat. He could guess what Koteletts were and figured that Wildschweinbratten might be pork of some kind, but the creased, grease-stained menu didn’t inspire confidence. The coffee when it came was good though, and he ordered a second cup.
The song on the jukebox ended and he could hear a radio playing from somewhere behind a dirty curtain that may have led to the kitchen. The girl at the table of four called out something to him in German and he shook his head. She giggled and almost fell off her chair.