by Steven Uhly
She continued on her way home. It had turned cool, the summer was coming to an end, the days were getting shorter, a hint of twilight hung over the city even though it was still light, even though the sun was still shining. One thing begins in another, Lisa thought, surprised at herself, at this phrase, at her familiarity with a stranger, at life itself, which had suddenly opened one curtain for her and drawn another shut. She was still standing on the same stage, but the scenery was different. What about the audience? She looked at the faces of the people she rode past, especially the elderly ones. Which of them had helped Mosche? And the others? How many Jews had there been here in total before they all died? I’m cycling through a prison, she thought. I’m cycling through a hideout. I’m cycling through a den of thieves. I’m cycling between murderers. Between traitors. Between liars who are pretending they did nothing. I’m a Jew. Thank goodness hardly anyone knows. Lisa Ejzenstain. Perhaps Kramer’s better after all.
When she turned into her street and the bicycle jolted over the cobblestones, which juddered through her body, she remembered that Mosche had talked of D.P.s.
“What are D.P.s?” Herr Weiss repeated as they were watching the news together in the living room. He had cooked and now they were sitting on the sofa, both with plates of fried potatoes and spinach on their laps, with a little fried bacon sprinkled on top. That’s definitely not kosher, Lisa thought. The newsreader spoke of how Nikita Khrushchev was denied permission to leave New York and Long Island, he spoke of the United Nations General Assembly taking place there, which is why they had not been able to refuse Khruschchev and Fidel Castro entry. He spoke of how the media had been urged to say as little as possible about these two statesmen. He spoke of eighty passengers who had died when their airplane crashed immediately after takeoff, all American soldiers. About thirty-nine people who had died in torrential rainfall in the Italian Alps. He spoke of the large number of countries that had gained their independence or would do so in the coming days. Black men in uniforms appeared on the screen, unfamiliar flags fluttering in the wind. He spoke of how Wilma Rudolph was welcomed back home to America by thousands of people. The television showed a pretty woman with short hair, who was a few years older than Lisa. With her long legs she ran faster than all the others, the newsreader spoke of a miracle, because Wilma Rudolph had suffered from infantile paralysis. Everything the newsreader said sounded to Lisa as if it were a personal message to her.
“Hmm, I think it stands for Displaced Persons, which, um, well, are people who are homeless,” Tobias Weiss said slowly. “After the war Germany was full of, well um, people who didn’t belong here, as they say, such as prisoners-of-war, forced laborers, collaborators afraid of going back to their countries. And, well, um, Jews of course.”
“How did they get here?” Lisa said, without taking her eyes off Karl-Heinz Köpcke, now smiling and talking about Chubby Checker who had conquered Germany with his song “The Twist.” The television showed pictures of girls dancing, they were around Lisa’s age, they were dressed like Lisa, plaits, blouse, knee-length skirt, flat shoes. As they danced they twisted their hips the opposite way from their torsos, while slowly rotating on the spot and laughing.
The bulletin was at an end and on the screen appeared the map of a country that no longer existed, with cities in the east that were no longer known by those names.
“The Jews?” Herr Weiss said, as if unsure. She glanced at him. Before he could say anything she asked, “Did you come across any Jews during the war?”
The German Meteorological Service in Frankfurt forecast sunshine for the following day, September 21, with temperatures between thirteen and fifteen degrees. A light wind from the west and southwest. In Berlin the sun would rise at 05:50 and set at 18:07. Herr Weiss cleared his throat.
“Well, now, of course we came across Jews.”
“Tell me what it was like.”
Herr Weiss went to the television and turned a knob. The screen went blank, Lisa recalled how she used to watch the dot in the middle to try to catch the moment when it vanished. But the moment always came and went before she noticed, which is why she had never seen it. Now she forced herself not to look. Instead she stared at Herr Weiss, who sat down on the sofa beside her. She had made him feel flustered. Which had been her intention. I have to, she thought.
“Lisa,” he said, “you know what happened to the Jews, don’t you?”
Lisa nodded.
Herr Weiss nodded. “Everyone pretended that what was happening was perfectly normal, and so, well . . .” He paused. “There were a few Jewish children in my class. At some point they just stopped coming. And then, well, erm, people said that the families had received an order to move out for labor deployment. I sensed, yes, I sensed that it was a lie when our father told us. It sounded too formulaic, do you know what I mean?”
“So when did you know what was really happening?”
“In the war.”
“In the war?”
“We were soldiers. We fought. But when we were on leave and the others went home . . .” He paused, his mouth closed slowly, he looked at the television as if another program had started. Then he cleared his throat again and said, “My mother had a stroke when I was on my first assignment. And, um, well, the others went home, but what was I going to do there? Instead I hung around, I went to the station, I don’t know why, I sat on a bench and watched the trains. I saw goods trains heading east, they traveled slowly through the station, you could barely make out what they were transporting, but through the tiny barred windows I saw hands and eyes. I knew at once that those were Jews. And then people started mentioning it. They’re not coming back, they said, They’ll go up in smoke, into the air, they said, there’ll be plenty of room up there, that was the kind of joke you’d hear.”
“So what did you do?”
“What was I supposed to do? It simply happened, it was like force majeure. I was just a simple soldier, I collected body parts that the Russians had shot or blown off my comrades, I just kept seeing blood, all day long, blood and bones and the screaming wounded, there was no opportunity for me to do anything at all.” He looked at Lisa almost beseechingly. Lisa looked at Herr Weiss, her Tobi, who now seemed like a big brother to her.
“You didn’t even say Erm just then, or one of your other fillers.”
“Didn’t I? Well, I’d better make up for that as quickly as possible.”
She smiled at him. Not a den of thieves and murderers, she thought, Just a city full of people. You’ve got to look very closely, Lisa, you have to scrutinize each individual you meet.
She called her grandmother.
“No, darling. Maria’s . . . out.”
She went down to the third floor where the door was already open.
“How big you’ve got!” Frau Kramer exclaimed as she embraced her granddaughter. She was wearing a light-blue apron and held a breakfast knife in her hand.
“Grandma! You see me every day!”
“But not as often as before. It means I notice things like that.”
Lisa sat at the round table by the window, Frau Kramer brought over some fruit, rolls, pâté and tea. The last of the light in the west was blood-red, staining a few clouds that hurried across the sky as if having to get somewhere before night. Everything is permanently on the move, Lisa thought briefly, before saying, “I spoke to a man from the Jewish Community today.”
“Oh,” Frau Kramer said, “does that still exist here?”
“It exists again. His name is Mosche and he invited me to come to the Jewish New Year’s celebrations the day after tomorrow.”
“Are you going to go?”
“Of course, it’s interesting. And maybe I’ll find out more about the D.P.s.”
“Oh,” Frau Kramer said again.
Lisa eyed her grandmother over the rim of the cup she was now bringing to her lips.
“Do you know anything about them?”
“Well, there were to be a few camps here when we arr
ived in Lübeck.”
“You never told me about that.”
“It wasn’t a particularly nice time. It was all about survival. It was quite something just getting us through the first winter.”
“I want to know everything, Grandma.”
Frau Kramer nodded. “Yes, I’ll tell you, but not today, please.”
“Why not today?”
“I see you so rarely, do we always have to talk about the past?”
There was a pause, during which Lisa searched for the right words. “Grandma,” she said, “you’ve been living with your past for so long. But all along I’ve been living with a lie. Are you so surprised that I’m desperate to find out more?”
Frau Kramer shook her head. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry, Lisa, please don’t take it amiss. I’m tired and the past is painful.”
“But you did everything right, Grandma. What should be painful about it for you?”
“That I lied to you for so long. And that I still haven’t told you everything. That hurts. In retrospect it makes everything wrong, even if perhaps it wasn’t.”
She took a handkerchief from her apron and wiped her tears away. Lisa reached for a roll. As she ate she looked out of the window where the last of the light receded.
“Let’s do it like we did that first time,” she said after a while, turning to her grandmother. “We’ll meet somewhere nice and you can tell me everything. Deal?” Frau Kramer nodded and gave her granddaughter a smile of gratitude.
They chatted a while longer about other things. Lisa told Frau Kramer about Wilma Rudolph, the American sprinter, whose face had been in her mind all evening. Frau Kramer told Lisa that she would soon be getting a pay rise at Hawesta, and that she wanted to train in bookkeeping so she could stop working as a packer. Keeping their feelings in check, the two women smiled at each other and pretended nothing existed outside this moment. They had to, for everything was there, all the anxious love of a woman for a child she might have lost had she not resorted to the most extreme measures, doing what nobody else did and what nobody could have done. Everything was there, the confusion in the heart of the granddaughter, who felt as if she would gradually pass from a solid to a liquid state and lose all grip if she failed to keep her head running around the clock like an engine, generating ideas that gave her a direction, a third eye that could see things which were not there, with all the risks for her mind that this entailed. It was a ritual the two women performed with their chitchat, each body movement a letting-go, each smile on the lips a new Yes against an old No.
When the two felt that this was enough for one evening and it was time for bed, they hugged each other and Lisa went back upstairs. As she unlocked the door to Tobias’s apartment she heard the front door open downstairs. A woman entered the hallway on high heels and came up the stairs unsteadily. Maria, Lisa thought, summarily cutting off all further thoughts and feelings associated with that name and that face and that voice.
She entered the dark apartment. Tobias was already asleep. She fetched her nightie from her room, went into the bathroom, undressed, washed with a flannel at the basin, dried herself with the towel, put on her nightie and inspected the face of the young woman staring back at her in the mirror. Slowly, while still looking herself in the eye, she untied her plait, picked up the hairbrush, which was on the window sill to her right, and spent a long time brushing her hair. She closed her eyes as she brushed her teeth, concentrating on this alone. She rinsed her mouth, then the toothbrush, put it back in the mug, returned to her room, closed the door gently behind her and tilted open the window. Fresh air flooded the room, caressing her face, she could smell autumn. She heard familiar, indeterminable noises that gave the night its melody, I wonder what it sounds like in a proper city? she thought. Then she went to bed and fell asleep.
52
At the beginning of July 1947, five hundred people strolled in small groups through Zehlendorf. Theirs was a short journey, all they had to do was step outside the camp gate, walk to the left for a while down Potsdamer Chaussee until they came to where Kurstrasse headed almost due north. It was a beautiful street, stately patricians’ houses from the Wilhelmine period stood by large fields where corn was ripening, here and there these people saw splendid linden and oak trees with dark-green leaves, a sign that spring was over and summer here. There were smaller plum, apple and pear trees too, as soon as they ripened people from the entire neighborhood would come to gather the harvest and, as in the previous year, the occasion would witness an encounter between Jews and Germans. The many orphans in the camp especially enjoyed coming here to play, fifty of them now walked past the trees with an urgent desire to get climbing, but today they could not for they had to go to school.
These five hundred people did not know that the fields belonged to Farmer Hönow, they did not know that he was head of the last farming family in Zehlendorf, they did not know that his son, Günter, had been a prisoner-of-war and had returned home only a few months earlier, they did not know that the family did not know how things would go from here. And back then nobody could imagine that one day Günter would build concrete housing estates in which there would be no room for the fields he had grown up on.
On the right-hand side was the Evangelical Hubertus Hospital, a rambling complex of buildings in late 1920s style, tall gables, wide, squat houses that looked like heavy bodies with pointed hats. There was a large park with a beautiful, round plaza by the main entrance on Spanische Allee. Some amongst the five hundred knew that a few months previously several American military vehicles had taken away a handful of senior doctors for denazification.
The walkers headed toward a row of two-story houses with red roofing shingles, which had once formed an uninterrupted terrace running a fair distance down Tewsstrasse, but now bomb damage allowed a view of the large gardens within this development, known to be a housing complex for state officials and built by the Reichsbank at the beginning of the 1920s.
When the people reached Tewsstrasse, which ran perpendicular to Kurstrasse, they turned left, now heading almost exactly westward. Nobody amongst the five hundred knew that this road had been called something else until 1938. But had they known, then perhaps it would have come as a surprise that the Nazis should have renamed it after an educational reformer, and perhaps one or two of them would have suspected it might have been because of the term “unified school,” which was coined by Tews.
They passed number 18, where the film director Eduard von Borsody had been living since 1933. He made twenty-six films in the Third Reich, two of them commissioned by the Reich Propaganda Ministry, and now he was working on his new project, which would soon be appearing in cinemas with the title “The Woman by the Wayside.” Perhaps Anna would have recalled another Borsody film she had seen with her Aryan friends in the Nauen picture house on Marktstrasse. She might even have been able to tell the others about Borsody’s biggest pre-war success, “The Green Hell,” which came out just before Reichskristallnacht.
But as she had no idea that this was the director’s house she walked straight past it with other things on her mind, followed by Sarah who was carrying Shimon, and surrounded by her people: Ruth and Aaron, the Abramowiczes with their children, the old man and Emil, who had started calling himself Zwi and had only very reluctantly put on civilian clothes for this evening.
Anna thought of the future and felt a tugging in her abdomen. She looked at the curtains at the windows they walked past and suspected that behind them lived men and women observing this crowd without love, men and women no doubt angry that Jews were permitted to walk this route on the pavement again, that the American army of occupation had given the Jews free use of the school, which meant that the Aryan children had to take lengthier journeys, men and women who had hoped they would never have to see another Jew in their life.
Anna knew that they would not be able to stay in Germany, and she had never felt it as keenly as on this warm evening in this golden light.
But
she was concerned about the future. Peretz had told her that the Jews in Palestine were trying to buy weapons because they feared an invasion by their Arab neighbors and because they were determined to fight for their rights.
Peretz had told her that the British had surrendered their mandate over Palestine to the United Nations in the hope that they would be instructed to reassume it.
He had told her that the Soviets had secretly been welcoming the illegal immigration of Jews into Palestine of late, in the hope that the situation would escalate, forcing the British to leave the Middle East.
Peretz had told her too much, Anna decided.
Tewsstrasse curved to the left, heading almost exactly southward, where it became Wasgenstrasse. The people did not know that Wasgen was an old German word for the Vosges, which would never again belong to Germany, but they knew the building on the right of the bend: the school, the Westschule, soon to lose that name, and which functioned as the events center for the D.P. camp.
It was a beautiful school, two buildings from the 1920s and ’30s, tall and wide, their façades stood at right angles to each other, creating a spacious forecourt by the outer curve in the road. At the very center of this forecourt the thick stump of a birch tree rose from the ground like the bisecting point of an angle.
The right-hand building, with its double gable, triangular bay and two entrances at ninety degrees to each other, reinforced the impression that somebody here had been busy with a compass. This part of the school remained unfinished.
The five hundred people headed for the entrance to the left-hand building. Simpler than its counterpart, it would have looked inconspicuous had it not been for the clock directly above the door in a large red square painted on the wall.
In one of the classroom windows to the right of the door the arrivals saw a blue printed placard they knew well. In Yiddish, it read: