The Dancing Bear Read online

  Frances Faviell

  The Dancing Bear

  ‘You don’t want to mind about any of this,’ said the driver, waving a hand at the grey ruins and the greyer dust. ‘In a few days you’ll be so used to it that you’ll like them. Berlin’s a grand place! I’d rather be here than anywhere else in the world, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘No more perceptive portrait of Germany in defeat has been etched in word than Frances Faviell’s first book, The Dancing Bear, which made so powerful an impact upon me that I read it in a single sitting.’ Guy Ramsey, Daily Telegraph

  ‘Berlin during the decisive years from 1946 to 1949. … The prostitution which paid so handsomely; the black market which brought in rich rewards, although it meant that the Berliners had to part with treasured possessions; the night clubs which catered for still baser tastes; the impoverished intellectuals and the starving professors and the poor who had only their wits with which to eke out a bare sustenance—all this and much else the author describes with insight, incisiveness, and realism.’ Times Literary Supplement

  ‘There is great charity in this book; there is the sharp, limpid eye of the artist; there is sound realism; and there is an unswerving, passionate desire to tell the truth.” John Connell, Evening News

  ‘They were hard and terrible times, and brilliantly does Frances Faviell describe them for us. We meet the Altmann family and follow their joys and troubles. … The book is a brilliant pen-picture of the post-war years. We have British, French, American and Russian characters, but the background is always Berlin, and the strange tunes to which its bear danced.’ Liverpool Daily Post

  This new edition of The Dancing Bear includes an afterword by Frances Faviell’s son, John Parker, and additional supplementary material.

  FM5

  FOR MY HUSBAND

  and for all my friends in Berlin

  especially Lotte

  and Dr Annemarie Nitze

  “Poor bear,” they said;

  “he must dance to every tune.”

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page/About the Book

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Contents

  Frontispiece (Lilli Altmann)

  AUTUMN 1946

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  Spring 1948

  Autumn 1948

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  Spring 1949

  Autumn 1949

  Epilogue – Autumn 1953

  Artwork by Frances Faviell

  Afterword by John Parker

  About the Author

  Furrowed Middlebrow Titles

  A House on the Rhine – Title Page

  A House on the Rhine – Chapter I

  Copyright

  AUTUMN

  1946

  I

  IT was at the roundabout juncture of Reichsstrasse and Kaiserdamm that I first saw Frau Altmann.

  Among a traffic jam of all kinds of vehicles, from Occupational cars with the British, American, French and Russian markings, to miserable horses drawing heavy wagons, the old lady was pushing a handcart. On it were piled a small wardrobe, a desk and a sewing machine. She was absurdly frail to be handling such an unwieldy thing, and her short tired legs were fighting an uneven battle with the wheels of the cart on the slight slope.

  Our car was held up in the traffic, and I let down the window to see her better, for one of those sudden fogs was creeping over the whole Charlottenburg area and blotting out the gaping ruins. I noticed her distressed face, and the sweat running down it in spite of the chilly air.

  When the traffic began moving again at the policeman’s signal, she resumed pushing her cart, but her legs suddenly slid away under her, and the cart toppled its pyramid of furniture into the very middle of the traffic.

  Picking herself up immediately she ascertained that her goods were still intact, and began trying helplessly to lift the heavy articles. Passers-by stopped to gaze curiously at her, vehicles held up by the furniture in their path began a crescendo of hooting horns and klaxons, shouts and jeers were hurled at her from every side, but no one attempted to help her as she tugged unavailingly at the sewing machine.

  Our own British driver, Stampie, was not with me, the car being driven by a German who was rocking with laughter at this spectacle. Sliding back the panel of glass which separated us I said furiously, “Why don’t you help her instead of laughing?”

  “I!” spluttered the man, “I? Why should I help her?”

  I was too angry to argue with one of a race whose complete disregard for each other shocked me, so I got out and went to the old woman’s assistance.

  The traffic policeman, seeing the Union Jack on the car, immediately came over, saluted me and shouted to some onlookers to lend a hand. My driver had rather shamefacedly rushed after me, imploring me not to lift anything, and eagerly took my place. Soon there were too many helpers, and the things were piled neatly again on the cart.

  I looked at the woman’s face. She wasn’t really so old when one was close to her, but there was a weary droop to her thin shoulders and she was breathing now in great painful gasps as she wiped her face.

  She began thanking me in astonishingly good English and I asked, “Can’t you get anyone to help you with these things? They are far too heavy for you.”

  “My son was to have come—” looking round vaguely, “I can’t think what has happened to him. Fritz is a good boy.”

  She said this last rather defiantly as if to reassure herself, and broke off with a smile as tall lanky youth, with long untidy hair and a thin sullen race, came hurrying up. With a muttered greeting he pushed his mother aside and took the shafts of the cart.

  “Ach! Here is Fritz! What happened to you? I was getting quite worried.”

  He answered sulkily, “I was kept late; why couldn’t you have waited for me? You knew I would come—but no! You must go without me, and so cause all this commotion. You will be ill again, and I shall be blamed for it.” He blurted this out with his face averted as if he didn’t want to see me.

  His mother, who had introduced herself as Frau Maria Altmann, turned to me, holding out her hand.

  “Now all will be well, nicht wahr? My son will manage. Thank you a thousand times for your kind help.”

  “Frau Altmann,” I said quietly, “you are very exhausted; let your son see to these things. Get in the car and let me drive you to your home.”

  As his mother hesitated the youth said firmly, “Germans are forbidden to ride in Occupational cars—the gnädige Frau will get into trouble.” There was the faintest sneer in his voice although his eyes met mine squarely now.

  Frau Altmann looked longingly at the car; she was trembling; the incident had unnerved her.

  She said firmly, “Thank you, we haven’t far to go. I will accompany Fritz, but I very much appreciate your kindness.”

  They went off and I got into the car again. The driver said deferentially, “Do we proceed to the Reichsstrasse now?”

  “No. Follow the old lady and her son.”

  “Follow the old lady and her son?” he repeated maddeningly, “But why? The gnädige Frau will be late for her class.”

  “Follow them!” I said, cutting him short.

  He shut the door of the car with a gesture which, al
though perfectly polite, showed me that in his opinion all the British were mad, and we followed the old lady and her son.

  I was on my way to the Forces’ Study Centre in Reichsstrasse where I was helping at the improvised school run for the British children by British Troops Berlin, and it was too early for the class which I was to take there. The face of Frau Altmann attracted me in a way I could not explain. I wanted to see more of her, and I did.

  We had not gone more than two hundred metres or so when the little figure in its much too thin coat crumpled in a heap on the roadway, and this time she didn’t pick herself up. My driver was out of the car as quickly as I was, the son made little objection when I told them to lift her into the car.

  He gave me their address, which was quite near, and said he hoped his father would be in to admit us. He couldn’t accompany us, as if he were to leave the handcart unattended for even a few minutes, everything would be stolen.

  “Does your mother often faint?” I asked, for Frau Altmann was quite unconscious. He nodded. Apparently she had collapsed several times recently.

  “She’s not really ill,” he said shortly; “she’s hungry. She gives all the food to us—she won’t eat herself.”

  We drove to the address he had given me. Number thirteen seemed an impossible dwelling at first sight. It was a large ruined house standing in what had once been a garden. The entire upper storeys had disappeared, and twisted iron girders stuck up grotesquely and helplessly against the sky. The ground floor seemed fairly intact, although it looked very shaky and the windows were covered with cardboard and the door repaired with all kinds of odd pieces of wood. It bore the number 13 clearly, and the name ALTMANN.

  There was no bell, and I knocked twice. An elderly man with a calm gentle face and silver-white hair opened the door.

  “Herr Altmann?”

  He bowed courteously in the stiff military manner of pre-Hitler days and a look of acute anxiety came over his face when I told him that his wife was outside in my car, and could we carry her in.

  “She has only fainted.” I assured him, hoping that this really was the case, as we laid her on a bed in a small dark room. “It’s terribly cold in here. Haven’t you a stove anywhere?” I asked him as I chafed her icy hands.

  I was sorry that I had asked it. I should have remembered that there was no fuel except for the Occupation before he gently told me that they had none. We covered her with some blankets and I returned to the car for my brandy flask. It was becoming all too common to see people collapsing in the streets from hunger and I always carried brandy.

  She was coming to, and we poured some of the spirit between her blue lips. Presently she struggled up, protesting that she was quite all right, and trying to thank me. Her smile was the best thing I had seen on this grey and cheerless day.

  I asked Fritz, who arrived with the handcart as I was about to leave, if they had anything hot to give his mother. He said that they had no fuel, but that he would go to the Grunewald and try to find some wood to light the stove.

  She took both my hands in hers when I said goodbye. “Gott wird Dick belohnen!” she said.

  I could not get her out of my mind as we drove to the Study Centre where a sergeant was waiting for me to take over his class of older boys. There appeared to be a great commotion going on in the classroom. “Shall I sit outside the door in case you want me, Ma’am?” he asked. I inquired why he thought I should need him. “They’re pretty tough!” he said glumly. “Most of ’em have never had a proper tanning.”

  The sergeant was right. They were tough. And with no books, equipment or materials of any kind it taxed one’s resources to keep them interested. They had arrived before the Education Authorities had made any proper arrangements for them, and the Army with a commendable lack of red tape had improvised this school for them. They came from every type of home and from various types of schools. There was only one thing they all knew, the sergeant told me, and that was father’s rank.

  They stood there staring curiously at me. They knew me by sight from seeing me about the school. This was the first time I had taught them.

  “Sit down!” I said with more firmness than I felt. To my astonishment they sat.

  I was still thinking of Frau Altmann when the sergeant told me after the class that, the Major wanted to see me in his study, and over tea I told him of the incident. He said that as I had been so impressed with her English and her face, it was possible that he could find her some teaching.

  “That is, of course, providing that she wasn’t an active member of the Nazi party,” he added.

  Somehow I didn’t think Frau Altmann had been a member of any party—but one never knew. I was already learning to my surprise that there had apparently been very few Nazis anywhere. They just did not exist. If it was pointed out to the Germans that the Allies had a complete list of the party members in their possession, they would shrug their shoulders and say glibly that of course they had to belong, but, of course, yes, that just didn’t mean a thing.

  The study centre was a welcome relief from the horror of the dead ruin which was now Berlin. Troops were passing to and from classes, from the libraries, from music rooms and class rooms. They were young, healthy and astonishingly alive after the yellow-grey despairing faces in the streets. When I remarked on this to the Major he told me that few people realized what a splendid job the troops had done in Berlin during the past year.

  The Berliners, having been looted, starved, cowed and raped by the Mongol Russians’ conquering army, had been astounded that with the arrival of the British and Americans there had been no sackings, no shootings and no raping. Instead they had been made to help in the appalling and dreary task of restoring plumbing and drainage, and clearing up the debris left after the Battle of Berlin. The troops had worked with them, and with such a will that they had accomplished little short of miracles in the devastated city. The town was still one huge ruin—but it was now an orderly ruin, with the sewers working, the water supply restored and the lighting gradually coming back. Although it was still inadvisable to go out alone after dark, it was far safer than one could have imagined it would be a year ago.

  The troops had built the large Naafi building which contained not only the shop, but various clubs and offices, as well as Military Government House on the shell of old bombed-out buildings. The U.S. troops had built the magnificent Allied Commandatura Building where Germany was now governed by the four Occupying Powers. My husband had taken me to see this, and shown me the four flag-poles with the four flags fluttering—and in the restaurant the menu in four languages, including American.

  The German children, who had been little starving savages, roaming in hordes in the ruins, were now becoming human again, and this, said the Major, was also largely due to our troops who were wonderful with them. The children could be seen everywhere with the men, hanging onto their arms, riding on their backs, munching their chocolate and chewing their gum, and showing not the slightest fear, but rather a great trust in the British and American soldiers.

  II

  THE complete and utter devastation of Berlin had shaken me profoundly. Nothing, not even the nightmare journey from Cuxhaven across the areas of blackened and desolated towns and villages, shattered railway stations and the twisted relics of battle, had prepared one for the dead horror of this city.

  As we approached the environments of Berlin our train was held up alongside a Russian one. The trucks were piled high with metal—wheels of every type—and bicycles, even children’s, taps and pipes and every kind of scrap. On top of each truck sat Soviet soldiers—short stocky little Mongolian-looking men; they were peeling potatoes and with the knives occasionally scraping dirt from their filthy arms.

  “All loot!” said the German train attendant dourly. “You won’t see a piece of metal left in Berlin.”

  I reminded him of the looting Germany had done in Russia and asked if he had been in any of the German-occupied countries. He had been in Norway and in
Holland, and had sent home a few things, furs and clothes, to his family.

  “But that’s different.” he said firmly.

  My little son called out to the Russian soldiers and threw some chocolate to them. They were delighted and laughingly shouted “spasibo—spasibo!” waving their potato knives at him.

  Round Potsdam the aftermath of war was so appalling that we had coaxed our children away from the windows as we approached Berlin and the M.T.O. had come breezily down the train.

  “Your journey’s nearly over.” he had called, “and all your good men will be waiting at Charlottenburg.”

  There was not a pane of glass left in the huge station from which I had been waved off by a group of gay friends in ’38. Open to the rains and winds of heaven, it presented a sorry and melancholy spectacle as our train drew in. I purposely shut my eyes to the grim streets with their huge mountains of rubble and mile upon mile of yawning open ruins. Our overnight halt in Hanover, where the same appalling devastation had been made worse by the silent sullen people watching without a flicker of visible emotion the arrival in an armed convoy of the first British families, had already sickened me.

  The man who drove the huge car which had met us at Charlottenburg, and whom my husband had introduced to us as “Stampie”, noticed this.

  “You don’t want to mind about any of this,” he said, waving a hand at the grey ruins and the greyer dust. “In a few days you’ll be so used to it that you’ll like them. Berlin’s a grand place! I’d rather be here than anywhere else in the world, and that’s a fact.”

  My husband had told me a lot about Stampie in his letters and on my arrival that gentleman had regarded me with a speculative eye. His look said plainly that I was on trial. Was this to be the end of good times—or was I the sort who would turn a blind eye and take him as I found him?