Cafe Babanussa by Karen Hill Read Free Book Online Page B

no sink. When they reached the third floor, she was out of breath. As Werner unlocked the door to his apartment, he apologized that there was no shower or hot water; they would have to go to the public bathhouse down the road to wash.
    â€œOf course I take sponge baths in the kitchen all the time, but every few days I go down the road and pay for a bath.”
    Ruby laughed and said, “I know a few people back home who would have a problem with that.”
    â€œYes, I’ve heard that Americans are really obsessed with being clean and take baths every day.”
    It occurred to Ruby that the meticulous, uptight German was just as much of a stereotype, yet she was too tired to ask whether that was just a myth. Inside the apartment, a short, dark hallway led to a kitchen barely wide enough for a table. From there, a door opened to a bed-sitting room with high ceilings. Werner had built a loft bed, leaving space below for a desk and sofa. Over the desk hung a print of Picasso’s Don Juan . In the corner stood a seven-foot-tall ceramic structure with two metal doors at the bottom and a third one in the middle. When Ruby touched it, the heat singed her fingers.
    â€œWhat’s this thing? An oven?”
    â€œThat’s what heats the rooms in most of the old buildings like this in Berlin. You put bricks of coal on the grate inside that second metal door, light them and let them heat through. The ashes fall down below and have to be scraped out into a pail. That’ll be your job.”
    â€œJesus H. Christ. Now I’m Cinderella. Just what I always dreamed of.”
    â€œActually, it’s a great way to heat the room, even if it is a bit messy. People used to bake things on the shelf inside that middle door. I’ll bake you into gingerbread in there if you misbehave.”
    â€œDon’t you be telling me how to behave, or else I’ll be the one shoving your head in there for some roasted Werner. Coal, huh? Is that what makes the air smell outside?”
    â€œYeah, this is mainly brown coal from East Germany, full of sulphur. You have to be careful when you light it that it burns properly, or you can generate poisonous gases.”
    â€œSo I might die while I’m sleeping?”
    â€œNot too likely, but it’s possible.”
    The rest of the walls in the flat were covered with shelves stuffed with hundreds of books. Most titles were German, but Ruby recognized the names of many authors, including a whole row of works by Marx and Engels and anarchist writers like Kropotkin and Malatesta. On the top of the shelves were several intriguing postcard-sized prints.
    Werner saw her studying them. “Those are reprints of woodcuts done by various artists,” he said.
    â€œWhat’s a woodcut?”
    Ruby’s parents were all about music and the civil and human rights movements. Their children had not been exposed to the fine arts very much, though Ruby had a flare for all sorts of crafts.
    â€œYou don’t know? Where have you been all these years? How could you be so uninformed?”
    â€œWerner, don’t be such a snob. Not everyone has had a chance to learn about and experience the arts in the same way.”
    Werner shrugged. “I am not a snob—it’s simply a special technique where you carve out a design on a block of wood and use it for making prints. I can show you in some of my encyclopedias. Or better yet, we can check some out at one of the museums.”
    â€œSounds good.”
    â€œSo, what do you think?” he asked, gesturing out into the room. “Does it measure up to your standards, my princess?”
    â€œIt’s fine. A little dark, maybe,” she said.
    â€œThe other buildings tend to block out the sun unless you live very high up or in the front house, facing out on the street.”
    It hadn’t escaped Ruby’s notice that he had been quick to close the blinds as soon as they arrived, leaving the flat very