I checked my old university satchel at my feet. Managed to pack a nightshirt and some bathroom things in it. Only one night. And then it hit me. Only one night for sure but it was the first night I had spent away from Etta since … since ever. Since we lived together. I had our telephone number pencilled on a ripped envelope in my wallet. I would call from Dresden.
The road became longer. Distant as I thought on Etta being alone, as I looked through the glass at the infinity of the lane stretching to the horizon of mountains. And an infinity of it already behind me. Taking me further away from her. From our locked door. The anxieties I thought gone with the security of my first salary back in a rush of blood to my ears. To be paid meant trust, meant security. Going to Auschwitz. And securing me away from Etta. Alone for one day and one night. Klein dreaming of planting potatoes in Ukraine for Germany. Me enclosed in his car. Never more than inches from him.
Chapter 19
This was not the Dresden I imagined. It was how I envisioned Paris to be. Grand stone buildings of several storeys, turrets and spires. We drove through the square and under an arch with a leaded glass passage above us joining what seemed like palaces together. Saxony defined. A colony of kings and princes making even Weimar seem young and modern.
Klein parked the Opel past the glass passage, outside one of the palaces.
‘Luncheon,’ he said and opened and closed the door behind him before the word was finished. I stepped out, carried my coat and hat. Klein left his raincoat and he did not wear a hat which was unusual to me. Even the swing-kids wore hats; although with their brims the wind was fond of them. I suppose Klein’s was a fashion I was not aware of. He always looked like he was in a ballroom simply waiting for a lucky girl to blush at him.
He did not wait for me, and my back was crippled from sitting so long. I stretched, which did nothing to ease and waddled after him like an old man, an old man from the Merchants’ Bridge.
The courtyard full of tables under parasols and despite the mottled cold sky there were those I should call sophisticated sitting there with waiters flowing between them. Coiffured courtiers laughing and gossiping and eating salads from small plates. I looked as elegant as a postman as I hobbled past.
Klein was in the centre of the lobby when I entered. He lit a cigarette from a silver pocket lighter and blew a plume of blue and judged a palace.
I saw the three wooden boxes of telephone booths.
‘Herr Klein,’ I said when I reached his shoulder. ‘I must telephone my wife. I will be a moment.’
‘Nonsense. They have a Parisian bistro here and we are early for a seat. We cannot waste time or they will be gone. Come.’ He took my arm. I resisted just enough. For politeness.
‘I must call, sir,’ I said. ‘I promised I would.’ His hand moved to my back to usher me on and I took a step away, his hand off me. ‘Go ahead, sir.’ I faked embarrassment. ‘You know wives and their worry.’
‘I am gladdened that I do not, Ernst.’ He patted me to the telephones. ‘Go. Go ring the little woman. I starve. I will get us a table.’
I watched him leave. I should have said that I needed to use the convenience, which was true and would have needed less debate, but I did not think of it. Etta my only thought.
I closed the concertina glass door of the booth, picked up the receiver and took the number from my wallet. The operator came on before I had unfolded the number.
‘What number caller?’ The female voice urgent, like our past landlady at the wrong end of the month.
‘One moment.’ I gripped the lump of receiver to neck and shoulder, opened the number only to find the last two figures smudged and blurred from the sweaty cheapness of my wallet. I had never telephoned it before. Did not know it to recall. I had taken it down hurriedly. One of those last-minute things you do when your manager’s car is honking outside your window and your wife asks you to telephone her when you can. And we had never called each other before. Our calls were across market squares. From balconies. This a new communication of love to me.
‘Erfurt,’ I said to the Bakelite. I almost said, ‘Etta,’ as if that would be enough. I had never had my own number to call before. This was probably the second time I had ever used a pay telephone in my life. Just holding the thing made me nervous.
‘I think it is 4703. Or 4708. Or it could be 4768. I cannot read it very well.’ I fumbled for change and put it on the tin tray. I had two coins. Because I am a fool.
‘Please deposit two pfennigs, caller.’
I had a five and a one. I put in the five. There was a ratcheting noise in my ear.
‘What number, caller?’
‘I am not sure. If I get it wrong can I make another call? I have put in five.’
‘Please, what number, caller?’ This woman I could not see was in a room miles from me. A bank of red and white tabs and switches distanced us and she did this for hours a day, hundreds of times a day. I was not even a voice to her. A sound in her headphones. My being a twist of wire and a plug. A red flag in a bank of others that indicated a call. My tremulous voice only that.
I closed my eyes. Pictured my hand writing the number from the dial of our shiny telephone on the little table. I discarded my coat and hat to the black and white tiled floor of the booth.
‘Erfurt, 4703, please.’
‘Thank you, caller.’
The telephone hummed, electricity in my ear, then what I hoped were the clicks of success. I waited. Watched the lobby empty and fill again. Klein appeared in the corner through the throng, studied me with two puffs of his cigarette, one hand resting in his jacket. I jerked a smile to him, rolled my eyes to signify the problems of all married men and he turned, vanished among the suits and polka-dot dresses. Then the wrong voice came.
‘There is no answer, caller.’
‘Can I try another number?’
‘Please deposit two pfennigs, caller.’
‘I have put in five. Can I not make another call? I may have the wrong number. Can I try again?’
‘Please deposit two pfennigs, caller.’
‘Can you try Erfurt 4708, please? I am sure that is the number.’
‘I am sorry, caller, you must deposit two pfennigs to make another call.’
‘But I did not get through! Please, operator. I am trying to call my wife. In Erfurt. I am in Dresden. I do not have any more coins. I have a one and have put in a five. If I put the one in can I try again?’
‘I am sorry, caller. You must deposit two pfennigs to make another call.’
‘But I have not made a call! Can I try another number, please. It is important that I speak to my wife. Please. I have put in five!’
‘It is two pfennigs to call, caller.’ Like a crow now, with the repetition of the sounds.
‘Two, to, kaw, kawller.’
‘Thank you, caller,’ she said, another red flag in front of her I imagined, and her world clicked and left me. Etta never there. Hundreds of miles away down a wire and never there. I put the bony receiver back, hoping that the return well would grant me change. I heard my coin rattle down and a bell chime in the machine’s heart and I fingered the giggling drawer looking for a prize, like we all do. Nothing.
*
‘I have ordered for you,’ Klein said when I found him in the crowded bistro. The room was trying to look simple inside its palatial walls. Square tables with blue or red gingham tablecloths laid out like a chessboard. Us on a red one, our dining partners on a blue. Klein in the centre of the room like a raking bishop chess-piece in middle-game. He did not ask me about my telephone call.
‘I have ordered you something I am sure you have never eaten. The most expensive bill of fare. If a man does not have an expense account by the time he is thirty or his income does not exceed the first digits of his age in hundreds he is not a man, Ernst. My father taught me that. So we eat on Topf’s dollar.’
I said nothing. Water on the table and I drank. Dry from the road and the exasperation of the telephone booth. Kle
in tapped another cigarette on his engraved case. This supposedly settles the tobacco. I had seen Bogart do it. He did not offer me and lit up as if I was not there. Smokers often do this. Drop out of the world while they concentrate on their ritual. And it gives us time to think. The smoke in my face. The lighter placed on his case matching perfectly the silver tableware beside it. I could afford my own pack now but had become so used to the art and satisfaction of rolling cigarettes. But still I could not do it so comfortably in company.
‘This oven design could be revolutionary for Topf. We could all be rich. Richer. The first genuine twenty-four-hour cremation oven. It is like inventing the automobile all over again. Your friend in Weimar would be most interested.’
‘I do not think he could accommodate something that needs such height, sir. I thought this oven was designed only for the camps?’
Klein dragged long on his cigarette, his eyes left and right of him.
‘You are in public, Ernst. No business in public. Please.’
‘My apologies, Herr Klein.’ Fool. Idiot.
‘No. You are still learning. My mistake. I should have told you beforehand.’
I noticed that every time he admonished me it would always be given as an apology. My fault was his error. His error in not teaching me better. And I realised how very easily he had set me as his pupil when the position of professor was not given. But now that I had realised it, the trick of it, his power waned. No matter how expensive his cigarette lighter, the shine of his cuff-links. The tail-coated magician on the stage just a box of tricks beneath a false-bottomed table. He rested his elbows on the gingham, smoked faster.
‘You know it is only the degenerate races that contract the typhus? You do not see their guards or the officers getting sick. It is their weakness that belies them. And we are providing a service to dispose of this problem that their race has created.’ He waved his cigarette hand as if all of this was a past historical event, an act of Genghis Khan, that no longer mattered.
I mirrored his pose. His trick.
‘You told me that Jews do not allow cremation. My friend, my crematorist friend, and his colleagues have almost become sanctified. Cremation is a religious process now. But not one for Jews. They are for the same process?’
‘They do not allow tattoos either. As I told you: the body must be returned as given. At Auschwitz the prisoners have their number inked. Tattooed on their arms.’
‘They tattoo them?’ He did not acknowledge the shock in my voice.
‘Only at Auschwitz. It used to be on their chest but the arm hurts less. And the ink is their own fault. They gave them numbers on their clothes but the Jews would take the clothes from their own dead to wear for themselves. It messed up the records. That is how much respect they have for each other. Robbing the dead for one more shirt. They complain that they cannot have tattoos. They cannot be cremated. Even in prison they need to be special. So they get marked and cremated anyway. That makes them realise they are not so special. One country has finally said “no” to them. Displacing Poles and Roma is not the same. The Jew is the immigrant of the world. They’re not even Semites. They have stolen even that. What rights do you give a people without a country? They trade passports and daughters like cards. For profit. Each one of them has more than one passport. No sovereignty. What pride is there in that? They marry German women to gain our lands.’ He sat taller. ‘Let me tell you how a Jew works, Ernst.’ My name ground out like pepper.
‘A Jew enters a golf club. He begs to join and the owner concedes because the Jew offers two years of membership upfront. For a year the Jew attends. Plays a little, eats a lot. Slowly more Jews join. Recommended by their friend and gradually they become the majority. Other members leave because they cannot get the best times, and evenings in the clubhouse are taken over with mitzvahs. After a time the owner cannot attract new members and has lost too many of his old. This is because the Jew knows how unpopular his race is. He takes advantage of it. To turn good neighbourhoods into ghettoes and crowd in his own renters living like rats. He does not care what hovels his own people live in.’
His stub had gone out, rare for him to let it so and he tutted at himself and immediately lit another.
‘So the Jew, and his friends – they never do anything alone – make an offer to the owner to buy the club, at a reduced price naturally now that the club has become unpopular. And the owner buckles and sells. And the golf club goes. And a ghetto comes up. And more Jews come in. Not fine houses. Slums. Did you ever hear of a Jew building a mansion? That is their way. That is what Europe has become. That is how it was done.’
‘That does not sound good economic theory, sir.’ I smiled, but only to be polite. We were businessmen at lunch. You could say such things out of hours; sure that was the way. I went to put my napkin to my lap but paused; still needed to relieve myself. ‘I studied economics.’
‘Ah, yes. Erfurt University. Theory. But I was a member of that golf club, Ernst.’ He sipped his water. ‘Not theory. Remember, Ernst, we are only making ovens. As Topf has ever done. Should the man who makes the clock decide which wall it hangs? We are only pushing and pissing paper. To make profit. We eat here today because of it. Supply and demand. I am sure that was day-one economics at Erfurt University was it not? Where are you going?’
I had started to rise.
‘I need to use the bathroom, Herr Klein. Excuse me.’
‘Do not excuse yourself to another man, Ernst. Only when there are ladies present. The napkin goes on the table and you stand up.’
‘Yes, sir.’ And I did just that. And left him. Talk of new ovens not appropriate in the Paris bistro of the Taschenberg Palais. The Jewish ‘problem’ apparently natural for discourse.
There was a man in the facilities better dressed than I. He was by the door and greeted me as I entered and pretended not to hear me in the stall. After I had washed he gave me a towel and sprayed me with a cologne without asking and I flinched as if he was striking me. He pretended not to notice. I was still thinking of tattoos.
I gave him my last coin. The coin I could not use to dial my wife. He stroked my collar ineffectually, dusting me with a camel-hair brush. I had notes in my wallet, but you cannot make a telephone call with those or tip a cloakroom attendant. I had a hotel to get to. Did not know what money I would need for that. I had never stayed in one before.
The food was at the table when I returned. A good sight for the starving traveller.
‘Speciality of the bistro, Ernst,’ Klein said. ‘Angemachetes Rindertatar. Eight marks. That is expenses for you.’
I could eat on eight marks for a week.
‘Fried cut potatoes also,’ he said. ‘The Belgians can do something right. Enjoy.’
I copied him and took up my fork only. But it did look as if one should eat it in the hand it was that small. A potato cake above and below. A fat pink meat between. I scooped a little, as he did, and it came away like ice-cream as I now know that expensive food does. It pulls away and melts. That is how you know it costs eight marks.
When I took it in my mouth my instinct was to spit. It was raw. The meat raw. If my mother had served me such I would have called a doctor for her. Klein watched me as he chewed. He wanted my surprise. Wanted my reaction. I swallowed without giving him such.
‘You have ate tartare before?’
‘No,’ I said, and cut another piece. ‘It is good. Thank you.’
He chewed hard. His eyes to his plate. I could tell he was disappointed with my reaction. He had a lesson primed no doubt. A lesson for my ignorance.
‘I hope that you do not mind that we have no wine. Topf’s expenses will only stretch so far. And the beer is terrible here.’
This remark, about the beer, as so many of his, dropped, slapped to my face to show his familiarity with a world larger than mine. But I had begun to take his measure. I had university in my past and from his lack of boasting on the subject and his irksomeness of mine I suspected he did not. No wife. He
spoke of cars with the same devotion. He talked of Martinis at his country home as if my having a wife prevented me from doing so. I began to think that he was lonely, or, if that word was too strong, a man who did not understand that he was lonely, or the perception of it. A man not aware that he had missed something and defended it with lessons to impart his superiority. Everything you had done in your life was foolish. You were still in short trousers if you did not have a black Opel.
‘Do not eat it all, Ernst,’ he said. ‘Only peasants lick their plates.’ He put his fork down. Waited for me to do the same. ‘We have four hours to the camp. We should go.’ He snapped his fingers for the bill. I kept eating, as unpleasant as it was. His mouth down-turned at the scrape of my plate.
He got his receipt and waited impatiently for my hat and coat.
‘That is why you leave them in the car,’ he said. ‘You need a vehicle, Ernst. You will gather these things eventually.’
It was only as we left Dresden that he asked me about the telephone. I sighed my frustration at not having got through. Relayed the whole débâcle to him.
The charger of his engine growled with his first stroke into its last gear as the road opened.
‘You could have asked the desk, the reception, to make the call. They would have done it for free. You should have asked me. I know the number. How else would I call you if I needed you?’
I wanted to slam the dashboard in front of me. Scream at him for not telling me so. But this was still my boss, the head of my floor, the director of the Special Ovens Department.
I laughed instead, because it was not what he expected me to do at his great reveal. I spent four hours looking out the window at a country that had become Germany while I was at university. The road signs still in Polish. The call to Etta would wait until I was at the hotel. Klein did not volunteer the number as we drove. He would hold that back. A gleam of power until I said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to him for giving me my own number that I was too childish to know myself. I could have taken out pencil and paper and asked directly but I did not want to show him my concern. It had waited three hours. It could wait four more even if Etta was looking at the clock wondering and worrying. And if I did not press he had no hold over me. He might stew on it. On the fact that I did not seem to care. He could feed me with gems or breadcrumbs as he saw fit, as I now knew he did to all. But if I did not trouble with what or when he chose to divulge I was confident he would drain like a battery lantern. And I would glow the better. At least to myself.
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