“Wanna buy some Eastmarks?” Slight but obvious accent. I'd been had twice already, once in Bremen the very day I landed and once in Hamburg, so I was wary. "How'd you know I spoke English?"

He shrugged. "Doesn't everybody?"

"Not in Berlin. How come you speak it?"

"I listen to the Armed Forces radio, and sometimes people throw away a copy of the Herald Tribune..."

I looked him over. Half a head shorter than me, gray suit, hat, necktie, clean shave, clean shirt, in sharp contrast to most of the scrubby characters loitering around the cavernous Hauptbahnhof. Surely a gyp artist, but I took a chance.

"You must've read my mind. How much?"

He smiled. "Three Ostmarks for one West, or twelve for a dollar."

Ostmarks, Eastmarks—I'd heard the going rate was three-and-a-half, but what the hell, first time in Berlin I'd been spoken to. "Wanna talk over a cup of coffee?"

"You buy, okay?" "Okay." I bought the coffees, and we drank them standing at one of those unfriendly chest-high tables. Starved for English conversation, I tried to think of how to re-start it.

What was I doing in Berlin? Three months earlier travel was furthest from my mind. But then this girl Terry—who's not part of the story, so I won't mention her again—sold me her $40 down payment on a freighter trip to Europe, because she'd changed her mind and was going off to Mexico with a new boyfriend.

I'd been in the Navy during the war and seen a lot of the South Pacific and the Philippines, but I'd never been to Europe. I made a quick decision, and paid the balance of the fare, $100. Back then, you could take a freighter across the Atlantic for only $140, can you believe it? I quit my job, withdrew my meagre savings, sold my car, kissed my then girl friend goodbye, and bussed to Norfolk, Virginia, where I boarded the Jugoslavian rustbucket Crna Gora, bound for Bremerhaven, Germany.

I was armed with the bible of the frugal American tourist, Europe on 5 Dollars a Day, and knew a couple of hundred words of high-school German, enough to rent a room, eat, and ask questions, although I didn't always understand the answers. As my German slowly improved, I managed to travel, eat and sleep without getting mugged or arrested. I explored Germany, Austria, and German-speaking Switzerland for almost three months before venturing to travel to Berlin, that Western oasis in the heart of Enemyland. It was 1961; the Cold War was still on.

"I can get better than three for one."

"Depends how much you wanna change, and—uh, you got dollars? Pounds?"

"Twenty dollars, and I want 300 Ostmarks for it. What's your name?"

He hesitated. "Give you 280. You can call me Harry."

The Westmark was four for a dollar, so that figured. Still alert for a scam, I counted and examined the 280 carefully and stashed it away before I pulled the folded twenty out of my shirt pocket, handed it to him, and turned to go. Harry took hold of my sleeve. "What's the hurry? We could talk a little. I can tell you a few things you oughta know." I shook off his hand, but didn't walk away.

"Like what?" We found a bench and sat down.

"Easy to tell that you just got here. If you wanna roam around East Berlin, those Ostmarks won't do you much good."

"Whaddya mean? Why'd you sell 'em to me, then?"

"Listen, I'll tell you a what a Westerner can buy with that money."

"Can't I buy everything?" I asked. Harry snorted. "Cigarettes, newspapers and magazines, stamps and postcards, travel souvenirs, tram, bus, and U-Bahn fares, and maybe a cuppa coffee. That's about it."

"But what about meals, movies, a pair of shoes, groceries, a screwdriver? They must have all those things over there!"

"Yeah, they do, but not for you, only for East Germans. You gotta show an I.D, an Ausweis, every time you pay with Ostmarks. Sure, they'll take your Westmarks for anything they're not short of, but no groceries, clothes, tools, stuff like that. And you gotta pay one-for-one. The Communists like to make everybody think an Ostmark equals a Westmark, but everybody knows that's a lie." Without missing a beat, he went on, "What's your name, anyway? I told you mine."

"Dean." That wasn't my name, but his probably wasn't Harry, either. He said he hung around the Hauptbahnhof a lot; I could find him there if I needed any more Ostmarks, which he doubted. I left, and set out to explore the whole city.

There was lots to learn, and lots to see. The saturation-bombing in the closing war years was still evident, but while Berlin-West was pretty much rebuilt, East Berlin, the former Russian Sector and now the Capital of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, had many block-square expanses of rubble. Uniforms of all four of the former occupying forces could be seen occasionally, but strangely, although there was a demarcation line between East and West Berlin, crossing it seemed to present no difficulty. There was no Checkpoint Charlie, not yet.

In fact, it appeared that anyone from East or West could cross from one side to the other by private car, tram, bus or subway, or just simply walk across. Me, I was seldom asked to show identification, and if I crossed by U-Bahn, never. And I never saw anybody refused entry or exit, nor did I see body or baggage searches. It was as if the division didn't exist. Most foot traffic was at the Brandenburg Gate, but one could cross anywhere.

CONTINUED > Part 2

© 2003 David Koblick

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