Read Online Cafe Babanussa by Karen Hill - Free Book Online

quizzed Werner about older buildings of interest in Berlin.
    â€œYou might try the Gloria Palast theatre. There’s not much left of it, but in its heyday it was supposed to have been marvellous and was a very popular place to go.”
    â€œWhere is it?”
    â€œOn Kurfürstenstrasse. From there you can easily walk to the gay village and take a look around. In fact, you mentioned the Eldorado nightclub. It used to be on Motzstrasse, right nearby. I’ll take you to the library and we’ll pull out a few books and maybe find an address. But you can visit the foyer of the theatre any day.”
    And indeed at the library they found many books withphotographs showcasing the theatre. It had been built in a Neo-baroque style, with a mirrored winter garden and writing rooms inside, marble steps, crystal chandeliers. She tried to imagine the elegance of it all. It was bombed in 1943, and now a new cinema stood in its place, still trying to be grand.
    â€œWho was this uncle of yours, anyway?”
    â€œGreat-uncle, on my father’s side. Don’t know much, except that he was gay and he studied here for a few years in the early thirties. When he returned home he and his German lover were practically driven into seclusion in his sister’s basement. He died young—of cirrhosis.”
    The next day, Ruby took a bus downtown to go looking for the theatre. She was minding her own business in the almost empty bus when three muscular young men lunged on board. Ruby noticed the emblem of the Berliner soccer team on their jackets. She suddenly wished she were invisible. She had heard from Werner about racist soccer fans. Hair shorn to within an inch of their scalps, the trio belched and swaggered their way to the back of the bus and slouched down on seats directly opposite Ruby, blocking her view out the window. Ruby crushed the bag of doner kebabs into her lap with tight fists. She scanned the ceiling, then decided that staring at her feet was safer.
    â€œI smell a Turk,” sneered the one in the middle, thumbing his nose.
    â€œSmell?” said the guy on his right. “I see a Turk.”
    The first guy snivelled, “ Verdammte Türke —smell, see, what does it matter? If you can’t see them, you smell them. If you can’t smell them, you see them.”
    The air burst with harsh laughter. Ruby looked up quickly towards the front of the bus. Just a few older women and a thick-set man, standing by the centre exit, his head turned away. No one who could help her. She took a deep breath and decided to stare them down. In their faces she saw grim mockery, eyes that avowed hatred for her and everyone like her. Ruby got up quickly, thinking, Move, just move .
    â€œ Kuck mal , Hans. Catch that, she walks. Scheisse , maybe she even dances. I like it when they dance.”
    Ruby whirled around and yelled, “You little Nazi piss-heads, what the fuck would you know about anything?”
    Swaying towards the front of the bus, she clamped a hand over her mouth, hoping to stop the surging of her stomach. The three punks erupted into a chorus, chanting, “ Deutschland, Deutschland über alles .”
    The driver looked up into the rear-view mirror and barked, “Quiet or you’re off the bus.”
    Ruby grabbed the pole next to the driver’s seat, the steel like ice in her hand. Next stop was hers. As the bus lurched to a halt, the driver apologized. She nodded bleakly and stepped off the stairs. She felt like throwing up and stood where she was for a few minutes, trying to calm herself down. There was a bench down the road and Ruby went to it and sat down. She pulled out a cigarette, placing it between her still-quivering lips. She drew in the smoke and held it for a long time, just sitting there. She had never been exposed to such blatant racism, not even in Toronto. She didn’t think this would have happened had she been with Werner. With him she was like anexotic