Anna and Evi are pacing back and forth on the Waidmannslust platform, behind several people burdened with backpacks and bundles.
The train is taking an awfully long time this morning, or so it seems. Two men who welcome the delay are busy on opposite sides of the station carrying long sticks with sharp nails driven through at a slight angle on the end. The men, wearing an odd assembly of uniform pieces, and in shoddy boots, walk close to the edge eyeing the tracks. Now and again they bend over the side to scrutinize the
space directly below the edge and may spear a cigarette butt blown over by the wind or dropped from the platform by someone about to enter an arriving train. The retrieved treasure is dropped into a small linen sack worn around the neck.
No Smoking signs don’t mean anything in these times, people pay little attention to rules and regulations, or social conventions for that matter. Too tired, too hungry, too resentful to care.
Those smoking inside the trains are more likely to be accosted by someone standing next to them, asking for a cigarette, or for that matter, just a drag on the one in evidence. “It’s my last one,” doesn’t usually cut it. And packs must be well hidden in loose clothing, or a handbag, seeing that tobacco and coffee are the new hard currency.
The post-war Reichsmark isn’t worth the paper on which it is printed. Cigarettes are best, the very best, a ticket to riches not to be found in the stores nor mentioned on ration cards.
Out here in the northern suburbs the butt retrieved with the sharp nail is most likely to be a Gauloise, the dark harsh smelling type preferred by the French military. It is far less harmful to the lungs than the much-coveted Pall Malls or Lucky Strikes, smokers are to be told many years later, but who cares now? This is 1945 and the future has arrived and it’s lousy.
Anna and Evi stand back as the train pulls in and notice, looking along the platform, that the butt picker is about to enter as well. He’ll likely get off at the next station and do a careful, slow grazing on his side, and may dare a quick sweep on the opposite platform, provided no one has beaten him to it. When done he’ll take the next train.
There are far better pickings in the south-western suburbs of the city, near the PX, the American car parks and their office buildings. The ‘Amis’ smoke a lot and don’t finish their cigs, toss them out half-smoked much of the time. But that territory is taken by other pickers, the lucky ones living closer to the source. The real winners are those having access to the administration buildings and barracks themselves, can get beyond the ‘off limits’ signs for a quick early morning sweep. They really clean up big time, Anna has heard. Fortunately, no one smokes in her family, so going without tobacco is easy. Not much else is these days. “They’ve found a way to get by,” Anna says, grinning. Evi nods.
“Good luck to them. Berlin is becoming one white cloud of smoke once again.” That was the slogan, the famous ad for Juno, on the double decker buses, Berlin’s preferred brand way back in the nineteen thirties.