All at once, I feel hungry; it’s always the same when I’m nervous. I need to calm down, because I’m about to read one of your letters. I don’t want to discover any secrets; there are more than enough secrets awaiting us in Cuba.
I’ll read it for you, Dad. So that you’ll remember Mom, who never forgets you however many years go by.
Ida my love,
Today is the fifth anniversary of our life together, and I remember as if it were today the moment I first saw you, in the back row of that autumn concert in Saint Paul’s Chapel at the university.
You were speaking Spanish with your students, and I couldn’t stop looking at you. You became lost in the music, and I can still see how you flicked your hair behind your ears, and I could see your beautiful profile. I could have traced it with my fingers, from your forehead to your eyebrows, nose, lips, cheeks.
You still remember the concert, the music, the orchestra. I remember only you.
I never tell you I love you, that you’re the best thing that has ever happened to me. That I enjoy your silences, being beside you, watching you sleep, wake up, having breakfast with you on the weekend at sunrise. Have I ever told you that those mornings together, when sometimes we don’t even say a word, are my favorites because you are by my side?
You came into my life when I was resigned to the fact that nobody would accept my solitude. One day we must travel the world, lose ourselves among other people. Just you and me. Promise?
Ida my love, I’ll always be here for you.
Louis
Hannah
Berlin, 1939
There were mornings when I woke up feeling as if I couldn’t breathe, days when I sensed a tragedy was coming ever closer, and my heart began to beat wildly. Then very rapidly and suddenly, it seemed to stop altogether. Was I still alive? One of those days was a Tuesday. I hated Tuesdays. They should have been erased from the calendar. As soon as we got to Khuba, Leo and I would decree: “No more Tuesdays!”
When I woke up, my body was feverish, but I didn’t have a cold or any pain. Papa, with his tie in its Windsor knot and already holding his gray felt hat, took my temperature. He smiled and kissed me on the brow:
“You’re fine. Come on, get out of bed.”
He stayed with me for a while, gave me another kiss, and then left me in my room. The sound of the front door slamming startled me. Now it was just Mama and me in the apartment. Abandoned.
I knew I didn’t have a temperature and that I wasn’t ill, but my body refused to get up. I had even lost all desire to go out and meet Leo to take photographs. I had a premonition but could not say of what.
That day, Mama was wearing light makeup but not her false eyelashes. She had on a dark-blue long-sleeved dress that gave her a slightly formal look. I put on the brown beret she had brought me from her last trip to Vienna and shut myself in my room with the atlas, hoping to find our tiny island, which still had not appeared.
We were on the verge of going somewhere. Papa couldn’t continue keeping our final destination a secret. I was ready to accept anything. Nothing more could happen to us: we were living in a state of terror in an as-yet-undeclared war; I didn’t think many things could be worse than that.
Leo said Papa had even bought a house in Khuba.
“If we’re not staying there long, why will we need a house?” I asked him. As ever, Leo had the answer.
“It’s the easiest way to obtain an entry permit. Having a house shows you won’t be a burden on the state.”
I didn’t know where Papa went every morning; he had been banned from the university. He must have been going to the consulates of countries with strange names to get us visas, refugee papers. Or he was with Leo’s father, hatching some plot or other that could have cost them their lives.
I imagined Papa as a hero coming to save us, in a soldier’s uniform and with a chest full of medals like Grandpa, who’d defeated the enemies of the German people. I saw him confronting the Ogres, who were powerless against his might and surrendered to his valor.
I was starting to get confused by all these disturbing thoughts when Mama put a record on the gramophone. That was my father’s treasure, his most precious jewel. His territory.
One day, as he was placing the shellac disk in the polished wooden box, Papa had explained the workings of this marvel that kept him in ecstasy for hours. It was a real magic trick. The sound box of the RCA Victor—which he called simply Victor, as though it were a close friend—had a moveable arm ending with a metal needle that followed at a perfect rhythm the grooves in the black disk that went around and around until I felt dizzy just looking at it. The sound waves changed into mechanical vibrations and came out of a lovely golden speaker shaped like a trumpet: an enormous bell. The first thing you heard was a whirring sound, a kind of metal sigh that lasted until the music started to flow. We would close our eyes and imagine we were at a concert at the opera house. The music poured out of the trumpet, the whole room shook, and we let ourselves be carried away. We rose into the air, an incredible experience for me.
Then I could hear the words of her favorite aria: “Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix, comme s’ouvrent les fleurs aux baisers de l’aurore!”
So there was nothing for me to worry about. Mama was carried away by the music of the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, one of the records Papa used to look after carefully, cleaning them before and after he put them on Victor. It was a recent recording, with his favorite mezzo-soprano, Gertrud Pålson-Wettergren. He once went to Paris with Mama just to hear her sing. I could see the nostalgic look on Mama’s face. By now, yesterday was a distant notion for her. I on the other hand, while listening to the desperate woman’s aria, imagined myself running through meadows with Leo, climbing mountains and crossing rivers on the island where we would live.
Nothing bad was going to happen. Papa would come home for dinner. I would go out to meet Leo, and in my atlas we would find the lost island in the midst of some unknown ocean.
I knew what I had to take in my suitcase. The camera, with lots of rolls of film, of course. Only a couple of dresses; I didn’t need any more. I would have loved to see Mama’s luggage. She would be happy only if they let her take her jewels. The perfumes. The creams. We would need a car just to take all her baggage.
Suddenly there were two loud knocks on the apartment door. No one had paid us a visit in months. Eva had the key to the service entrance. Mama and I stared at each other. The music went on playing. We both knew the moment had arrived, even though no one had prepared me for it. I looked at her for some answer, but she was slow to react; she didn’t know what to do.
She rose from her bergère armchair and lifted the Victrola’s moveable arm. The disk stopped turning, and silence filled the living room, which now seemed as vast as a castle. I felt like an insect in the doorway. Two more loud knocks followed. Mama shuddered. Her lips started to quiver, but she stood very erect, lifted her chin, stretched her neck, and walked slowly toward the door—so slowly, there was time for not just two but four loud bangs that made the room tremble.
Mama opened the door, genuflected, and gestured with her hand for them to come in, without asking who they were looking for or what they wanted. Four Ogres entered the living room one after the other, bringing with them a blast of cold air. I couldn’t stop trembling. The freezing draft chilled me to the bone.
The chief Ogre reached the center of the room and came to a halt on the thick Persian rug. Mama stepped to one side so as not to obstruct the view of this man who had come to change our lives forever.
“You do live well, don’t you?” he announced, without bothering to disguise his envy. He began to study the room in great detail: the coppery drapes, the silk net curtains to filter the light from the courtyard window, the imposing sofa with yellow Pompeii cushions, the oil portrait of Mama with her flawed pearl hanging around her neck and bare shoulders.
The Ogre inspected every object with the precision of a ruthless auctioneer. It w
as obvious from his eyes the things he liked most and he was planning to keep for himself.
Our living room was filled with the smell of gunpowder, burnt wood, smashed windows, ashes.
I placed myself as a shield between the Ogres and Mama. When she laid her hands on my shoulders, I could feel her trembling.
“You must be Hannah,” said the chief Ogre in a cultured Berlin accent. “The German girl. You’re almost perfect.”
He pronounced almost with such spite that it was as if he had slapped me.
“As far as I can see, Herr Rosenthal isn’t at home.”
When he said Papa’s name, I thought my heart would burst. I took deep breaths to try to calm it, to prevent them from hearing my blood pumping so loudly. I began to perspire. Mama still had the fixed smile on her face. Her cold hands were making my shoulders numb.
I had to think of something else, to escape from the room, my mother, the Ogres: I started to peer at the brocade on the silk wallpaper. Strands of fern leaves ending in bunches of flowers that were repeated endlessly. Go on, Hannah, follow the trace of your roots and don’t think about what is going to happen, I kept telling myself over and over. One, two, three leaves on each stem.
I lost concentration when a drop of sweat started slowly to roll down my temple. I didn’t dare stop it, so I let it drip onto my front.
I sensed that Mama was about to break down. Please don’t cry, Mama. Don’t let them see how desperate we are. Don’t lose that beautiful, cold smile of yours. Tremble all you like, but don’t cry. It’s Papa they’ve come for, and we knew this moment would arrive. It was high time we heard the banging at the door.
The chief Ogre went over to the window to check which side of the street our living room faced and possibly also to calculate how much our apartment was worth. Then he crossed to the gramophone. He picked up Papa’s fragile record, examined it, and looked straight at Mama.
“A key piece for every mezzo-soprano.”
I could sense Mama was about to offer them tea or some other drink, and I stiffened to try to convey to her not to do it. Stay as you are, proud and erect. I’ll protect you. Lean on me; don’t let yourself collapse and don’t offer the Ogres anything.
The man paced slowly round the room, and as he did so, the current of freezing air expanded around him. I couldn’t stop trembling. I was going to have to run to the bathroom.
The Ogre waved to his two men to search the other rooms. Perhaps they wanted to steal our jewels. It wouldn’t be hard to find them: they were in the box with the lonely ballerina on top, together with the Patek Philippe watch that Papa wore only on special occasions. Perhaps they were after the money Mama kept in one of her bedside table drawers. All our cash was there, apart from some she’d given to Eva in case of an emergency. The rest was in bank accounts in Switzerland and Canada.
The Ogre went back to the gramophone.
He lifted the arm with the needle and studied it intently. If he broke it, or if anything happened to the gramophone, Papa might have killed him. It was something he would never forgive.
“Herr Rosenthal is about to arrive,” said Mama, and I wondered how she could be telling them that when she knew they were there to take him away.
All of a sudden it became clear to me that it was not the money they were after, or the jewels, the paintings, or even Papa’s wretched gramophone: what they wanted were the six apartments in our building. First they wanted to scare us and then take them from us. No doubt the chief Ogre would move in, sleep in the main bedroom, take over Papa’s study, and destroy all our photos.
Silence.
The Ogre settled into Papa’s velvet armchair and began to stroke it as though testing the quality of the fabric. He took his time caressing the arm, staring intently at me all the while, telling me silently by this that he was willing to wait for Papa for as long as it took. He was comfortable and began to study the photographs of the Strauss family displayed on the walls around the room.
Until then I had never noticed how the staircase leading to our apartment creaked, but now it sounded as loud as church bells. The moment had arrived.
Silence.
The chief Ogre had also heard the footsteps and sat motionless, ears pricked. From where he was sitting, he dominated the whole room.
Another step, and I realized Papa was outside the door. My heart was about to explode. Mama’s breathing quickened; I was the only one who could hear her soft moans from behind me.
I was going to shout “Don’t come in, Papa! The Ogres are here! There’s one sitting in your favorite armchair!” But I realized there was no point. There was nowhere for us to escape to. Berlin was a pocket handkerchief; they were bound to catch him sooner or later. And Mama was about to faint.
The Ogre and his entourage took up positions behind the door. I could hear the key scraping in the lock; it always got stuck a little.
Silence, growing longer and longer.
The delay disconcerted the chief Ogre, who exchanged glances with his men. To me, every second seemed like an hour: I even found myself wishing they would take him away once and for all—for him to disappear with them. A few more minutes like this, and I would be the one who fainted. I wanted to go to the bathroom; I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I didn’t want to be a witness to the humiliating spectacle that the Ogre had been carefully preparing for us, so that we would beg and weep disconsolately. Mama did not move.
The door opened.
And the strongest, most elegant man in the world came in. The one who put me to sleep and gave me a kiss whenever I was afraid. The one who hugged me, cuddled me, and swore that nothing would happen, that we would go far away, to an island that not even the Ogres’ tentacles could ever reach.
The look on Papa’s face showed how sorry he felt for us. He seemed to be asking himself how on earth he could have put us in such a position. We had already experienced something similar that November night when he was arrested. But this was the decisive moment. There was no going back, and he knew it. It was time for him to say good-bye to the woman he loved, to the daughter he adored.
“Herr Rosenthal, I need you to accompany us to the station.”
Papa nodded without looking the Ogre in the face. He took several steps toward me, trying not to glance at Mama, because he knew that might weaken her. I was the one who could resist, who in the end would be without a father to protect her from ghosts, witches, monsters. But not from the Ogres. No one could defend us against them.
He put his arms around me and took hold of my icy hands. I could feel how warm his were. Lend me some of your warmth, Papa. Chase this terror from my bones. I hugged him with what little strength I had left. And I wept. That was what the Ogres wanted: to see us suffer.
“My Hannah, what have we done to you . . .” he whispered, his voice choking.
I closed my eyes tight. They were separating me from the man who until today had protected me; the one in whom we placed all our faith to save us. They were taking him away. Mama held me and drew me to her. I realized that, from then on, the weakest person in the family would be my only support. I still had my eyes shut tight, despite the tears.
“Don’t worry, Hannah,” I heard my father say. He was still there. Another second. Another minute, please. “Everything will be all right, my girl.”
Haven’t they taken him away? Haven’t they changed their minds?
“Look out of the window,” Papa said. “The tulips are about to bloom.”
Those were the last words I heard. When I opened my eyes again, he had vanished with the Ogre. The whole building could have heard me weep. I shouted out of the window:
“Papa!”
Nobody heard me. Nobody saw me. Nobody cared.
I could sense a whisper behind me. It was Mama.
“Where are you taking him?” she asked, her voice quaking.
“It’s routine,” I heard one of the Ogres say from the doorway. “We’re going to Grolmanstrasse police station. Don’t worry, nothi
ng will happen to your husband.”
Yes, of course. They would send him back safe and sound. And he would return and tell us he had been treated like a fine gentleman. That, rather than water, they had served him wine in a big, warm, well-lit cell. But I knew what was really going to happen: he would sleep in a crowded cell and go hungry. And if we were lucky, we would occasionally hear news of his wretched existence.
From the day they took Herr Schemuel, the butcher from our neighborhood, we’d had no news of him. There was no difference between him and my father. To them, we were all the same, and I was convinced: nobody came back from that hell.
I should have clung to him until he dragged me away, to have recorded that moment I could no longer remember, because I tended to erase sad moments from my mind.
Mama rushed to her bedroom and closed the door. Terrified, I ran in after her and saw her opening drawers and pulling out documents that she scanned hastily.
“I have to go,” she muttered. “I’ll see you later.”
I couldn’t believe it. Where are you going, Mama? There’s nothing we can do. We have lost Papa! But it was no use: with the strength of the Strauss family, which had been suppressed until that moment, Mama plunged into the street after months of shutting herself in. She slammed the front door and vanished, unconcerned about her makeup, whether her shoes and her handbag matched, if her dress was properly ironed, or if she was wearing the appropriate springtime perfume.
I closed my eyes again and told myself: you must not forget this. I started to list everything I had to engrave on my memory: the brocade wall coverings, the light in the hallway, the velvet armchair, Mama’s fragrance. Even so, the most important thing escaped me: Papa’s face.
I was all alone. In an instant, I knew what it was like to be without my parents. And I also knew it would not be the last time.
The German Girl Page 7