Berlin after dark

ANDRÉ BEUCLER

In Berlin, going out at night, in search of amusement, is a kind of moral necessity. It is a necessity which is experienced, after a certain hour, not only by Berliners of every class, but also by the visitor, be he dissipated or prudent. There, the air one breathes has in it something that savors of adventure —folly, drinking, dancing or indulging one's romantic impulses.

"So you're going to Berlin?" people say. "Well, you'll have some wonderful nights there." For it is now generally admitted—the whole of Europe knows it—that Berlin nights, by reason of their color, emotion, unexpectedness and gaiety, are more intense, more "modern", than the nights of Paris, Madrid or London. Why?

One night, when I could not manage to close my eyes in the hotel in Unter den Linden where 1 had to spend a few weeks, I lifted the receiver and called up one of the friends I had made during a brief business visit to Berlin, a woman who l had heard was particularly familiar with the night life of Berlin. The maid who answered my call informed me that her mistress had gone out and gave me the addresses of four cabarets where 1 might find her. I then telephoned the cabarets, where, I suspected, she was well known. For half an hour, over the telephone, the night life of Berlin passed before my ears. 1 heard the murmur of the Tyrolese Bar, the distinguished orchestra at the Jockey and the blues at the Casanova. At the Haus Vaterland, the telephone boy asked me to wait a moment and soon connected me with Hertha, my friend.

"I am bored," 1 said. "What am I to do?

"Put on your dinner jacket and come here.'

"Hertha, your tone is authoritative. I hardly recognize you. '

"After eleven o'clock at night I am a different person. So is Berlin—you will like it. "What then?"

"Come along."

"Are you alone?"

"I shall expect you at Haus Vaterland in half an hour—ask for me at the door."

"But . . ."

But Hertha, who is not a German, was no longer listening. The telephone boy rang off.

Hertha was right, and all of the people were right who argued with me that the huge city has a particularly captivating charm once the midnight lights are lit. Temptation, in Berlin, takes hold of people and increases at every step. The faces of the women are brighter. Nobody hesitates as to which direction to take. The night absorbs them and the air seems full of promises. Imperceptible waves of music soothe you. To the sky-signs of shipping companies and cigarette manufacturers are added the signs of dance halls and night restaurants. V here does this street, bespattered with electricity, lead? In the direction of pleasure!

White dresses, bare shoulders and stiff shirt fronts are borne away in long-bodied motors into the shadows of the Tiergarten or the bright lights of the Kurfürstendamm. Berlin relaxes, becomes intoxicated, falls in love. A general agitation, spontaneous, amounting almost to a frenzy, makes the entire capital vibrate. High-pitched klaxons emit joyous salvos. The tumult fills out certain quarters: the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, the Potsdamerplatz, the Tauentzienstrasse. Following, by a curious coincidence, the route of the invasions along the Spree, assuming a thousand shapes, taking on a thousand aspects, debauch travels from East to West, from the lesser to the greater, from the vulgar to the refined, from the past to the future, ffom the unhealthy quarters of old Berlin to the dazzling night clubs of the new city.

Haus Vaterland, which stands beside the Potsdamer Bahnhof, with all the majesty of a bank and the dimensions of a warehouse, may be regarded as the international cabaret museum. It is a permanent exhibition of dance halls and bars, constructed according to the formulae which have conquered the world in this field. Every floor of this palace of pleasure is given over to a particular country or idea. Every nation can find its own tastes, its drinks, its dances: Mexicanische Wildwest Bar, Türkisches Café, Spanische Bodega, Italienische Osteria, Wiener Heuriger, etc. V hen one goes from Spain to the Orient, from the Rhineland to the tzigane regions, one meets, on the stairs, battalions of girls with powerful legs, going from one theatre to another, like wandering tribes, changing their costumes and adapting themselves successively to the nations that accumulate each night in the Vaterland. They triumph finally in the Palmensaal, where the dancing and singing revue of this giant establishment can be applauded every day, and the elevators plunge up and down like bottle-imps. The joy of dancing a waltz here, a rhumba there and a paso doble elsewhere, is pure and honest. The most wellbehaved Berliners meet at the Vaterland and enjoy themselves naïvely and noisily.

I found Hertha in the hall at Haus Vaterland. She was so deeply moved by the pleasures of Berlin that she was almost weeping into her champagne. Later, in the presence of a motley and meditative crowd which had invaded the terrace, the artificial cardboard and canvas Rhine began to move with a verisimilitude which was theatrical and charming. Little waves formed on the surface and the sky grew dark. Suddenly the storm burst and the first strokes of lightning gave us the cold shivers. Hertha, who was born of Hungarian parents at Johannisberg (where the actual granddaughter of Metternich lived until a few years ago), could hardly restrain her tears. I stood beside her without saying a word. When the rainbow finally appeared above the now calm river, she smiled at me. We went out, but, before definitely leaving this delightful place, Hertha wanted me to see the masterpiece from top to bottom, and see, in their respective settings—surrounded by their props—the cowboys, the Neapolitan tenors and the dervishes.

After we had left, she said, '"Let us look in at the Jockey. There I'll show you some worthy princes who are ruined and who wash cars from nine till six, but who are the most distinguished people in the world, at night."

Perhaps it is at the Jockey that the anxious and frivolous Germany is most perfectly revealed. Small, closed in, in fact, inconvenient —which adds an additional charm—less sparkling than the Königin, where the waltz is danced in gala dress, the Jockey in Lutherstrasse is, with Johnny's Night Club, one of the most original cabarets in Berlin. Diplomats meet dancers, actresses smile at financiers and at those elegant international adventurers who are known in the cloak room of every bar in Europe. Hertha wanted to dance.

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"Hold me as close as you like," she said, as we tried, in spite of the crowd, to dance a tango. "Hold me as close as you like this evening, act as if everything were permitted, and then forget me until tomorrow evening. In the daytime I am another woman, a serious, hard-working assistant director of a clinic, and 1 think only of my work."

Half an hour later, we had left the Jockey and were dancing against the red background of the Eden Hotel, the most up-to-date and best situated hotel in Berlin, and the richest in pretty women and stage stars. This is where aviators, dressmakers, and celebrities of both continents meet every night. Ministers, foreign authors, and the prettiest wives in the diplomatic corps are equally represented. At the moment, it is the place where one must almost necessarily be seen after the theatre, if only for an instant.

It is one of Berlin's more conservative dancing places with a strong foreign clientèle. Somewhat contrasted to it are the Casanova (now very fashionable) and the Cascade, Rio Rita, Quartier Latin, Cheri, etc. At the Femina and Resi—those huge cabarets furnished with telephones and speaking tubes for the customers, one of the great Berlin inventions— the attendance is almost exclusively German. Here the most innocent young girls, beneath the surveillance of their parents, grand-parents, or older and more serious sisters, mingle with the demi-mondaines attached to the establishment, and in an atmosphere of real understanding, be it noted. Here one meets those stout, paternal, debonair Germans who are the living images of the brilliant figures of George Grosz. As far as that is concerned, all this Germany which wildly spends at night what it earns with great difficulty during the day; this Germany which loves the night, peoples the night, and nightly pours into its mysterious and comfortable capital, pleasure-lovers, foreigners, diplomats, men and women of the most decadent natures, demi-mondaines; this Germany, overflowing with bars and Tanz-Kabaretts and myriad restaurants; this Germany resembles at every point the stories, the accusations, the poems which it inspires.

"That is why one cannot help liking it," said Hertha, whose eyes were beginning to look red. whose slender ankles were aching, but who dragged me, nevertheless, amidst a crowd which turned Berlin into the capital of night, into a dive for servant girls, where rouged and gay domestics pleasantly augment their wages and remain faithful until dawn to the gentleman of their choice, even if he is an ex-Civil servant, not anxious to spend too much money.

On my last night, Hertha came to get me. She was wearing a simple blue dress, excessively décolleté, but somehow excessively respectable. She was rather silent. In three weeks 1 had become a confirmed Berlin night bird, and nothing now astonished me.

This evening Hertha showed me an imitation of Montparnasse: the bal musette where Kiki, the Parisienne, sang; also the Eldorado, the place where one is expected to wear full evening dress in order to watch the naked dancers. 1 drank a subtle Rhine wine at the Alexanderplatz, where, on the stroke of eleven, the women escaped from their partners and put on bathing suits.

We also spent a part of the night at Luna Park, on the shores of the Wellenbad, whose artificial waves caress a happy throng which does not know whether it is dancing or swimming. A German invention, German in spirit, Berlin's Luna Park has always been counted amongst the marvels of the modern world, with its lotteries, railways, swimming pool, bars, games, electric lakes, its human and mechanical inventions and every form of amusement.

At three o'clock, Hertha put me in a taxi and drove me in the darkness to a strange region of Berlin. The taxi stopped in front of what looked like a garage in the process of construction. Hertha got out first and led me into a long damp corridor where 1 was surprised to find an elevator. We went up to the third floor with some people in evening clothes. When we reached a low door, further concealed by variegated curtains, I observed that Hertha had disappeared, but not until she had uttered the "pass word" for me, at which the doorman allowed me to enter the hall.

There were not more than twentyfive men in dress shirts. In addition, I counted in the stifling room, into which we were led, about ten men in ordinary clothes and perhaps twenty-five women, all pretty, as if they had been specially selected. There was little conversation. Each person indulged her or his favorite pastime—baccarat, alcohol, dancing or women.

hen the night wore on, the crowd grew until one could hardly move. Clever waiters, as adroit as acrobats, kept our glasses filled with champagne. Suddenly I recognized Hertha! She had just stood up in the middle of the floor, white, dazzling, naked. Was she dancing? Was she showing herself off for the pure pleasure of it? I do not know. It was perhaps the drinks which I had taken during the evening that prevented me from raising my hand or from leaving my seat. For a long time I thought I was dreaming, especially when I saw a dozen or more pretty girls in the crowd who were also slowly undressing. However, I finally succeeded in pointing out Hertha to my neighbor, who informed me, casually, that my charming friend danced there quite often, in the same manner, amongst her comrades.

The next day I awoke rather late in my hotel bedroom. I was lying in my dinner jacket on the bed. At noon I left Berlin.