Read Online Cafe Babanussa by Karen Hill - Free Book Online Page A

appendage, to be stared at but not approached. Ruby sighed and tossed the cigarette butt to the ground. She still felt unsteady but got up anyway and set about on her way to the theatre.
    There was not much left of the original building at all, but the facade and foyer had been maintained. She thought of the photos she had seen and imagined her uncle streaming in among all the others to see Germany’s first major talkie, The Blue Angel by Joseph von Sternberg, or René Clair’s Sous les Toits de Paris . Next she found the building where the Eldorado used to be. There was nothing there to suggest the hub it once was. But Ruby fancied watching her uncle come out of the club with his friends. He would have stood out with his brown skin, and Ruby wondered what tips he could have had for her about being a foreigner among Germans. She wondered if he, too, had been spat at and yelled at like she had and what he had done. She wished she could turn to him for answers.
    When Ruby got home that afternoon, she was still feeling shaky.
    â€œHow’d it go?” Werner asked.
    â€œWell, that depends on what you mean. The theatre was fine, but . . .” Ruby slumped into a chair and told him her story.
    â€œI can’t believe that actually happened. That’s awful! But I told you that you’d meet all types here. There are lots of neo-Nazis floating around, so you better get used to it. That wouldn’t have happened if you’d been with me.”
    â€œIs that all you can say?” Ruby stuttered. “Just ‘Get used to it’? Those guys almost trampled all over me. Don’t you have any kind of office where you can report racist incidents? Like a human rights commission or something?”
    Werner laughed and shook his head. “Nothing like that here,” he said.
    It was Ruby’s turn to express disbelief. Maybe there would be some agency working with foreigners and newcomers that knew about these kinds of things. She would have to find out.
    Ruby enrolled in night school language classes, hoping not just to improve her German but to make some friends. Her German teacher was a laid-back young guy with cascading brown hair who wore flowing pants and loose cotton shirts. On the first night, she met Emma, a young British woman with spiky, copper-coloured hair who lived in the same neighbourhood. They chatted as they ambled back home after class. The next week, Ruby went home with her and met several Brits who were hanging out in her apartment. The place reeked of stale beer, curry and dope, but the conversation was sharp and cutting. Punk music rocked the air waves with an occasional interlude by Lee “Scratch” Perry and other reggae dub masters. She met Emma’s neighbours, two men, Smithie and Jack, who ran a bar nearby. She met Lina, decidedly waifish, with raven hair and black clothes to match.
    â€œThe most important thing you need to know about me,” Lina told her, “I think in Italian, I dream in Italian, I eat inItalian, but I love the words of Apollinaire. The second most important thing—I am a follower of Leon Trotsky. Are you a capitalist? I am not. If you understand this, Miss Canadian, we can be friends.”
    Despite the mournful clothes, her liveliness was a welcome relief from the uncommonly morbid and sarcastic quips swirling out of the mouths of the others. The unfamiliar humour seemed raw, but Ruby soon grew comfortable among her new British friends.
    It was not as simple with Werner. Ruby knew that he was attracted to her because of her biracial background, and she resented his tendency to patronize her, often downplaying her experiences and those of her family. Despite growing up in white-bread Don Mills, she had been schooled in Black American literature and the politicians, activists and leaders of the civil rights movement. And jazz music flowed like a river through their house. But outside of family and friends, there was little