Free Berlin: A Novel by Pierre Frei Page B

'Yes, please.' She took one.
He gave her a light. 'The first few days will be the worst,' he said, apologetically. After that things will gradually calm down.'
'You speak German,' she cried in surprise, and coughed. She had only just registered his fluent, educated German.
'You're not used to smoking. I guess?' He laughed. 'We people from the Baltic speak many languages. Pure self-defence. I'm Major Maxim Petrovich Berkov.'
'Karin Rembach.'
'Nazi?'
'I'm an actress. I'm not a Party member, if that's what you mean.'
'We Russians like art and artists. Will you wait a moment? I have bread, sausage and vodka in the vehicle. Close the door behind me.'

When he came back she was wearing a lightweight if crumpled summer dress, much more suitable for this warm May day than her tracksuit. His glance penetrated the thin material. With an unexpected, quick movement he drew her close to him and raised the skirt of the dress. Then he had the little pistol in his hand. Karin had put it in the elastic waistband of her panties. 'Better this way, I think.' He smoothed her dress down again. 'Nasdrovye.' He handed her the vodka bottle.
She drank only a little, but devoured the smoked sausage and coarse wholemeal bread. She hadn't had anything proper to eat for days.
'You'll stay with me,' he said suddenly. 'I like you.'
His decision matched her own wishes. She needed a protector, and this one had made a civilized impression on her. Karin was a realist. He could have taken her by force and then left her to his men. The question wasn't whether she wanted him but whether she could keep him long enough, until the worst was over.
'Come here, Maxim Petrovich.' Her voice promised him what he was waiting for.
It was a sensible arrangement, and the whole building profited by it, although some of the women sniffed in a superior way. The major was interpreter to General Bersarin, who had just been appointed city commandant. He stationed a tanker of drinking water and two guards outside the corner house of Karin's street. He brought food, which Karin shared with the other people in the building, and had glass put into the windows of her apartment. He was a passionate and a thoughtful lover.
On 1 July 1945 the Western Allies moved into Berlin. There was water in the mains again, although it was highly chlorinated, the transport system was more or less up and running, and the theatres were putting on more and better performances than they had for the last twelve years. The building on the Hohenzollerndamm on the corner of Mansfelder Strasse was now part of West Berlin. Maxim Petrovich Berkov did not come back.
The tribunal for artists of stage and screen met in a classroom. Its chairman was an old Communist whom the Russians had freed from a concentration camp. He tried hard to be objective, and listened to all Karin had to say.
'It is true that I made three films with Conrad Jung. Queen Louise was suppressed by Goebbels, Midsummer Night was a love story from a Scandinavian novella, and St Elmo's Fire was the tragedy of a seaman's wife in the last century. Working with Jung was very important to me. He is a director of high standing.'

'Note that the defendant calls the maker of the propaganda film The Wandering Jew a director of high standing,' said the tribunal member on the left, a stout woman in her fifties, who disliked Karin for her youth and beauty.
'Did you act in that film?' asked the chairman.
'No, I was shooting a comedy in Prague at the time, and then a harmless love story for UfA, with Erik de Winter, directed by Theodor Alberti. The Russians interrupted our location shots on the banks of the Havel.'
'Thank you for your full account.' The chairman turned to the other members of the tribunal. 'The defendant's professional opinion of the director Conrad Jung and the fact that he made an anti-Semitic film should not influence our ruling.' He leafed through his papers before going on. 'Frau Rembach, we now come to a very grave charge.'
Karin bowed her