by Steven Uhly
The Italian described to Lisa how this power saved his life because it gave him the opportunity to set suffering and death in a relationship that he understood.
Forty years after his liberation by the Soviet Army, the man would indeed put an end to his life. He would not throw himself against an electric fence because there was none to hand. He would leap down the stairwell in the house where he lived. Lisa would read about it in the newspaper on April 12, 1987, a day after his death, and immediately think that the electric fence must have tormented poor Primo Levi his whole life long, that its significance must have been reversed the very moment he left the camp and looked at the fence from the outside. At once it became a different fence, that is to say the fence of those who had remained inside. Then the fence with no mouth learned to speak inside Primo Levi’s head, urging him to throw himself against it, so he could burn after all in the electrical current of his dead comrades. Lisa would imagine Primo Levi turning his back on the fence and going to Turin, his home town, because he believed he would be safer if he surrounded himself with the memories of a happy childhood. But the fence always remained right behind him, always lethal, always expectant.
When Lisa finished the book she became frightened. She failed to notice at first because fear was just an extra sideways glance, a peek to see if everything really was alright with the way other people were looking, a second listen to check that nothing hidden lay behind what had just been said. But it did not stay that way. Soon Lisa started bringing up the past, looking at things in a different way, listening to things in a different way. She knocked on her memories to see if there was a false bottom, she crouched down and put an ear to them, listening for whether anything was stirring underground. She became frightened that there was something she might not have seen or heard, she became frightened that she might fail to notice the precursor of something and that it would take her by surprise.
She stopped meeting up with her school friends, she lied, feigning excuses of tiredness, homework, illness for so long that they all gave up on her.
One day she was eating a sandwich in the playground, which she had made herself that morning in Herr Weiss’s kitchen, she stood at the bottom of the wide steps that led up to the main entrance, leaning against the central railings, the older pupils were standing around or walking past, the younger ones running and playing.
Suddenly she noticed that the others moved in groups, both large and small, like molecules ending up somewhere as a result of the coincidence of world history, and which formed solid structures out of necessity. At the same time she realized that she herself was alone. That nobody had come to congratulate her on this day, her seventeenth birthday. That she was not bothered, on the contrary, until then it had not even occurred to her.
But that was not all. A new feeling unfurled inside her, growing stronger with every breath. A good feeling.
When the bell rang for the end of break, calling them all back into the classroom, Lisa realized that she felt free for the first time in her life. And she realized that she would never be able to discuss this with anyone. Not with Tobias Weiss, not with her grandmother, not with any teacher, and certainly not with any of her fellow pupils. As they made their way to the math lesson on the first floor and she realized that, viewed from the outside, she quite clearly belonged with all those heading in the same direction, she could already feel the flip side of her new freedom: there was no way back. And there was no prescribed way forward either. She would have to find it all by herself.
She took her place in the classroom, a large rectangular space with a high ceiling and four long double windows. A second later the math teacher, a very old man, entered the room, I wonder what he got up to in the war, Lisa wondered? Does anybody else think about that? she thought. She let her gaze roam amongst her classmates. They know nothing, she thought. She thought of her history teacher, a middle-aged woman, at most ten years younger than Lisa’s grandmother. Have we heard a single word about what happened to the Jews? she wondered. To my people, she thought tentatively, as you might try on a new dress to see whether you feel good in it, and if so, you might buy it, assuming you have enough money. But what is money in this context? Lisa thought, as the math teacher with a hazy past turned his back to them without saying good morning, took a piece of chalk and began to write a formula on the board, this was his method, economy of communication he called it, without anyone believing him, the pupils just thought he was an unfriendly schoolmaster you could do nothing about. Perhaps money is some sort of leap of faith that I need to make. That I belong somewhere, to different people, even if I’ve never met them before, even if they’re not my family. My people, does that suit me? Isn’t it too tight around the chest?
When the schoolmaster had finished writing on the board and turned to stare at his pupils, until either they could stand it no longer, or the cleverest or the bootlickers or the nervous amongst them put up their hands to venture a hypothesis or finally to end the silence, Lisa knew what she needed. She needed advice. The image of a large brick building behind a wrought-iron gate popped into her mind. It was in the south of the old town, Sankt Annen Strasse. That is where she would go.
50
All of a sudden he could hear his own footsteps. His boot heels positively clanged on the uneven stone ground. It smelled damp and moldy. He took a deep breath. He knew this tunnel. He had been here once before. Then, he had accepted the invitation to a training seminar. Now, fifteen years after the end of the war, fate had led him back to this place. It was good to be alert, it was good to feel one’s own body, to smell something, it was good to be alive. Everything was good.
The blackness receded, becoming transparent at first, then milky, and finally outlines were visible. It became lighter and lighter still. The light of day. He walked into the inner courtyard of the old castle, the sun was shining, its rays slanting into the stone edges, the battlements and the castle roofs, which surrounded it like a shield against the passing of time. Here, it seemed to be saying, time has stood still, nothing has happened, all of us remain united in the same belief.
The courtyard was full of people. A colorful mix, women in skirts of different lengths, men in various sizes of jackets and coats, children, boys and girls. He could not see any old people. He was just about to ask a woman in a strikingly short skirt what these people were doing, why they had all gathered here, when she stood to attention, saluted and said, “Heil Hitler, Obersturmbannführer Ranzner!” She relaxed her arm, shook his hand and said, “How wonderful that you were able to arrange it! Without you none of this would have happened!” She laughed, revealing two rows of rotten teeth. When she noticed his confusion, she became serious. “I understand,” she said. “This is a bit of a surprise, isn’t it? You see the transvestite standing over there, you know, the unshaven one in women’s clothing? That’s your adjutant, Scharführer Hilbig, do you remember him?”
His eyes followed the woman’s outstretched finger and caught sight of a repulsive-looking feminine man with a bloated body and enormous breasts, which could not be real.
“That’s impossible,” he said. “Hilbig was stocky, he had wide nostrils, a bulging forehead and small eyes. This man here looks like an abortion!”
The woman smiled and he had the uncomfortable feeling that she was scrutinizing him with disdain.
“I’m sorry to have to disappoint you, Obersturmbannführer,” she said, “but that really is Hilbig. Resurrected in that unfortunate body, half man, half woman. When we found him we thought that we just had to round up all the transvestites and we’d have our old S.S. sergeants back. But we were mistaken. Hilbig is the only one. Mind you!” First she held a finger in the air, then pointed to herself. “There are the women too! Don’t forget! You didn’t recognize me, but rest assured that I’m Scharführer Kretschmer, your first adjutant. That’s why I was standing beside the tunnel waiting for you.” She gave him an endearing look, then shrugged and said in resignation, “In this life I’m going
around as a prostitute. And I’m not the only one, either, two other S.S. men have been reborn as whores, they’re over there somewhere.” Searching with her outstretched finger over people’s heads, she failed to find them and made a dismissive gesture.
“Doesn’t matter! The main thing is that old comrades are back together.” It sounded as if she were trying to comfort herself.
They were approached by a little girl with a satchel on her back. The woman in the miniskirt stood to attention, thrust out her right arm and bellowed, “Heil Hitler, Reichsführer S.S.!” The girl, who was no older than seven, casually returned the salute and fixed her eyes on Ranzner.
“Well, well, Obersturmbannführer Josef Ranzner. I hear you’re with the secret service now. Excellent work! I’ve appointed you as contact man, Obersturmbannführer. You will integrate all those who are reborn into the institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany and create a network that will allow us to strike just as soon as we are strong enough. Is that clear, Obersturmbannführer Ranzner?”
Ranzner awoke from his paralysis. He stood to attention in front of the little girl and shouted, “Absolutely, Reichsführer S.S.”
“Excellent, excellent,” the girl said, smiling. But then a weary expression crept across her face. Gloomily, she said, “We’re condemned to fulfill our duty in these unworthy bodies. There’s nothing we can do. But it changes this much of our convictions.” With her thumb and forefinger the girl formed a zero and stretched out her arm toward Ranzner. Then she dropped it again to her side.
“Some have come off worse than me. See the negro over there? That’s Heydrich.” The girl giggled with delight and the prostitute joined in. Then they composed themselves and the girl said, “Enough! He is a comrade like you and me, he has done great things and we are dependent on every man for the difficult tasks that lie ahead!”
“What sort of tasks?” Ranzner asked cautiously.
The girl gave him a look of astonishment.
“What? Don’t you know anything?”
Ranzner shook his head.
“We’re going to conquer the world!” the girl said. “Five-stage plan! What else?”
Ranzner nodded and felt benumbed. “But we lost the war,” he said.
The girl dismissed this with a bored wave of her hand.
“That’s all lather! We were just dispersed in every country. And that very fact gives us our chance! We’ll do it like the Jews, we’ll start a global conspiracy with the diaspora, at the end of which lies the conquest of everything. Is that clear, Obersturmbannführer Ranzner? Or do you doubt our mission?”
Instinctively Ranzner snapped to attention and barked, “No, Reichsführer S.S., no doubts, everything is perfectly clear! World conquest!”
“Excellent!”
“Just one last question, Reichsführer S.S., if I may.”
“What?”
“Is Sturmbannführer Karl Treitz here too?”
The girl gave him a puzzled look. She turned to the prostitute.
“Do you know anything about a Sturmbannführer Treitz?”
The woman shook her head, then turned to the assembled crowd and cried, “Is there a Sturmbannführer Treitz here? Sturmbannführer Treitz, please make yourself known if you are present. Treitz! Step forward!”
Everybody turned to face them. So many faces! Germans, Africans, Chinese, whites, blacks, reds, yellows, men, women, children. There were even two Hasidic Jews amongst them, which Ranzner found particularly remarkable. But nobody came forward. The crowd stared at them in silence.
All of a sudden they faded away, dissipating into a white light, and a small blonde girl with a button nose and fringe thrust her face into Otto Kruse’s field of vision. She grasped Kruse’s eyelashes and pulled up his lids. With a friendly smile, she said, “Hellooooo Daddy! Are you baaack?”
Otto Kruse stared at his child. Then he took hold of her waist with both hands, lifted her up and said, “Good morning, sunshine! Yes, I’m back.”
Emma had already set the breakfast table, so he only had to put on his dressing gown, pick up Gudrun and go into the dining room, where she was waiting for him with a smile at the oval marble table. Heinrich sat on his chair and looked at him. He greeted his first born with a succinct nod of the head, the boy’s face lit up briefly before becoming serious again. He lifted his cup and drank the cocoa his mother had made him. Heinrich’s face disappeared almost completely behind the large cup; only his eyes were visible. They remained fixed on his father. Otto Kruse interpreted Heinrich’s attentiveness as a sign of childish admiration and a silent plea for masculine guidance. A law of nature.
“Morning, darling!” Emma said. “I sent Gudrun in because you were making such ghastly sounds in your sleep. I hope I didn’t do the wrong thing.”
Otto Kruse gave his wife a paternal smile. He sat Gudrun in her high chair and moved toward his place opposite his wife.
“No, you did exactly the right thing,” he said, sitting on the cherry-wood chair and picking up the newspaper Emma had put on the table for him.
As he drank his coffee, ate his egg and read the paper, as Gudrun spoke incessantly while experimenting with butter, jam and cocoa, as his wife watched him affectionately in silence, hoping for attention, Otto Kruse thought about his dream. It was the first time he had not remained stuck in the amorphous blackness, something different had happened instead. It seemed as if this dream contained a mission, an old mission he had wanted to forget. In vain, as it now turned out. I must become active, he thought, pouring himself some coffee.
51
The man waved expansively with his arm to indicate the large hall they were standing in, but it seemed to imply much more. Lisa watched him, he was half a head shorter than her, a man of slight build, stooped either through age or by things that lay outside the hall.
“Thank you for telling me your story, young lady,” he said. “The three of us have something in common, you, me and the building. We all survived thanks to Aryan houses. Isn’t that . . .” he searched for words. Two tears ran from his eyes, they sought out a path down the man’s skin with its large pores, they seemed to be traversing his face, from pore to pore, but this was barely noticeable. The tears vanished, leaving behind a damp, shining trail that came to an end just by the corners of his mouth. Lisa stared, she was struck by a peculiar feeling, she felt as if she were about to pick up this frail old man in her arms and kiss away his tears, she could taste salt in her mouth. She wrested herself free, she forced herself to look away from the man’s face, her eyes strayed aimlessly around the hall, catching sight of the tall wooden ceiling, the beautiful beams that extended as far as the rows of windows right beneath the ceiling, as if framing each of them. Further back in the hall she saw a kind of lectern that held a thick book, she saw the two long rows of tables, she saw that everything looked very modest. Lisa returned her gaze to the face of the man who was now smiling at her.
“There’s nothing left. This used to be a magnificent synagogue with a golden dome, and over there,” he explained, pointing somewhere to the rear of the hall, “was a precious menorah.” Noticing the bafflement on Lisa’s face he said, slapping his head with his palm, “Of course, you wouldn’t understand. A menorah is a type of candle holder with seven branches.” To give Lisa an idea he described a semi-circle with his hands, starting in the middle and moving up at the sides. Then he broke off and said, “But I’m sure you’re here for a much more important reason.”
“No, no! It all interests me.”
“Then come back in two days’ time. We’ll be celebrating Rosh Hashanah.” He slapped his forehead a second time and smiled at Lisa. “The Jewish New Year festival. All the Jews who still live in Lübeck will be there.” He rocked his head from side to side, which reminded Lisa of Tobias Weiss.
“There aren’t many of us,” the old man said, and then talked about a handful of D.P.s who remained, but Lisa was no longer really listening, she suddenly felt full of this new affinity, which was like
a pair of shoes she had just bought and was now putting on tentatively. Did they pinch? Were they too small, too big? Did she really like them?
“What’s your name?” she said, before realizing that a young girl like her should not pose such a bold question to an elderly man. But he felt like a grandfather, and now as she looked horrified at what she had said, he laughed, amused, and replied, “My name’s Mosche, just Mosche. That’s all I was before, too.”
He accompanied Lisa to the door. Outside, between the façade and the wrought-iron gate, they stopped again, Mosche took her arm, gently turned her around and pointed upward.
“That was the dome.”
Looking up, Lisa said, “What was it you meant about the Aryan houses?”
“They were too close together. That’s why they didn’t blow up the synagogue; it would have damaged the Aryan houses.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Yes, they couldn’t afford to destroy German property just because of the Jews.” He escorted her to the gate. “But what am I saying? I’ve survived for so long in these houses that I ought to be grateful to them. Believe you me, I know exactly who did what here.”
“Here in this street?”
“Here in Lübeck. And most of them are still around.” He opened the door, then took hold of Lisa’s slender hand and said, “We survived, young lady, you and I. Both of us paid a high price. You don’t know who you are. And I’m not the man I once was. But let’s not talk about that now. Why don’t you come to our New Year’s celebration the day after tomorrow?”
They said goodbye, Lisa got on her bicycle and rode down Sankt Annen Strasse. She turned and saw him looking at her and waving, as if they were close friends or relations.