If I can’t do it, God help us, thought Paul desperately.
* * *
Paul and his mother had spent two days trying to find work and had eaten nothing whatsoever in that time. Pawning the watch had given them enough money for two nights in a boardinghouse and a breakfast of bread and beer. His mother had persevered looking for work, but they’d soon learned that a job was a pipe dream in those days. Women had been thrown out of the positions they’d occupied during the war when the men returned from the front. Not because the employers wanted this, naturally.
“Damn this government and its directives,” a baker had said to them when they’d asked him for the impossible. “They’ve been forcing us to hire war veterans when women do the work just as well and charge much less.”
“Did women really do the work as well as men?” Paul asked him insolently. He was in a bad mood. His stomach was growling and the smell of bread baking in the ovens was making matters worse.
“Better sometimes. I had one woman who could work the dough better than anybody.”
“So, why’d you pay them less?”
“Well, it’s obvious,” said the baker, shrugging his shoulders. “They’re women.”
If there was any logic to this, Paul couldn’t understand it, even though his mother and the employees in the workroom nodded in agreement.
“You’ll understand when you’re older,” one said as Paul and his mother left. Then they all burst out laughing.
Paul’s luck hadn’t been better. The first thing he was always asked, before the potential employer found out if he knew how to do anything, was whether he was a war veteran. He had suffered many disappointments in the space of a few hours, so he decided to confront the problem as rationally as he could. Trusting to fortune, he decided to follow the coal man, to study him and approach him in the best way possible. He and his mother had managed to stay in the boardinghouse for a third night after promising to pay the following day, and because the landlady felt sorry for them. She even gave them a dish of thick soup with bits of potato floating in it, and a piece of black bread.
So there was Paul, crossing the Rheinstrasse. A bustling and happy place filled with peddlers, newspaper sellers, and knife grinders, who hawked their boxes of matches, the latest news, or the benefits of well-sharpened knives. The smell of the bakeries mixed with the dung of horses, which were much more common in Schwabing than cars.
Paul took advantage of the moment when the coal man’s assistant left to fetch the doorman of the building they were going to supply, to get him to open the door to the cellar. Meanwhile, the coal man prepared the enormous birch-wood baskets in which they transported their wares.
Maybe if he’s alone he’ll be friendlier. People react to strangers differently in front of their juniors, Paul thought as he approached.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
“What the hell do you want, lad?”
“I need a job.”
“Get lost. I don’t need anyone.”
“I’m strong, sir, and I could help you unload this cart really fast.”
The coal man deigned to glance at Paul for the first time, looking him up and down. Paul was wearing his black trousers, white shirt, and sweater, and still looked like a waiter. Compared to the corpulence of the big man in front of him, Paul felt like a weakling.
“How old are you, lad?”
“Seventeen, sir,” lied Paul.
“Even my aunt Bertha, who was terrible at guessing people’s ages, poor thing, wouldn’t put you at any more than fifteen. Besides, you’re too scrawny. Get lost.”
“I turn sixteen on May twenty-second,” said Paul, sounding offended.
“In any case, you’re no use to me.”
“I can lug a basket of coal perfectly well, sir.”
He climbed up onto the cart with great agility, took a shovel, and filled up one of the baskets. Then, trying not to let the effort show, he put the straps over his shoulder. He could tell that the fifty kilos were destroying his shoulders and lower back, but he managed a smile.
“See?” he said, using all his willpower to keep his legs from buckling.
“Kid, there’s more to it than picking up a basket,” said the coal man, taking a packet of tobacco out of his pocket and lighting a battered pipe. “My old aunt Lotta could pick up that basket with less fuss than you. You need to be able to carry it down steps that are as damp and slippery as a showgirl’s crotch. The cellars we go down to almost never have any light, because the building administrators don’t give a damn if we smash our heads open. And maybe you could get one basket down, maybe two, but by the third—”
Paul’s knees and shoulders could no longer take the weight and the boy fell facedown onto the pile of coal.
“—you’ll tumble over, as you’ve just done. And if that were to happen to you on those narrow stairs, yours wouldn’t be the only skull to get broken.”
The lad clambered up on stiff legs.
“But—”
“There’s no ‘but’ that’ll make me change my mind, kid. Get off my cart.”
“I . . . could tell you a way of making your business better.”
“Just what I need . . . And what would that be?” asked the coal man with a mocking laugh.
“You lose a lot of time between finishing one delivery and beginning the next because you have to go to the warehouse to collect more coal. If you bought a second cart . . .”
“That’s your bright idea, eh? A good cart with steel axles to take all the weight we carry costs at least seven thousand marks, not counting the harnesses and horses. Have you got seven thousand marks in those tatty trousers? I’d guess not.”
“But you—”
“I make enough to pay for the coal and to keep my family. You don’t think I’ve thought about getting another cart? I’m sorry, kid,” he said, his tone softening as he noticed the dejection in Paul’s eyes, “but I can’t help you.”
Paul bowed his head, defeated. He’d have to find work somewhere else, and quickly, because the landlady’s patience wouldn’t last much longer. He was getting down from the cart when a group of people approached them.
“What’s this, then, Klaus? A new recruit?”
Klaus’s assistant was returning with the doorman. But it was another, older man, short and bald, with round glasses and a leather briefcase, who had addressed the coal man.
“No, Herr Finken, it’s just a kid who came looking for work, but he’s on his way now.”
“Well, he has the mark of your trade on his face.”
“He seemed determined to prove himself, sir. What can I do for you?”
“Look, Klaus, I have another engagement to get to, and I thought of settling up this month’s coal. Is that the whole lot?”
“Yes, sir, the two tons you ordered, every ounce.”
“I trust you absolutely, Klaus.”
Paul turned on hearing those words. He’d just understood where the coal man’s real capital lay.
Trust. And he’d be damned if he couldn’t convert that into money. If only they’ll listen to me, he thought, returning to the group.
“Well, if you don’t mind . . .” Klaus was saying.
“Just a moment!”
“Might I inquire what exactly you’re doing here, kid? I’ve told you I don’t need you.”
“You’d need me if you had another cart, sir.”
“Are you stupid? I don’t have another cart! Excuse me, Herr Finken, I can’t shake this lunatic off.”
The coal man’s assistant, who’d been giving Paul suspicious looks for a while, made a move toward him, but his boss gestured for him to stay back. He didn’t want to make a scene in front of the customer.
“If I could supply you with the means to buy another cart,” said Paul, moving away from the assistant while trying to maintain his dignity, “would you hire me?”
Klaus scratched his head.
“Well, yes, I suppose I would,” he conceded.
&nb
sp; “All right. Would you be so good as to tell me what margin you get for bringing the coal?”
“The same as everyone else. A respectable eight percent.”
Paul did some quick calculations.
“Herr Finken, would you agree to pay Herr Graf a thousand marks as a down payment in exchange for a discount of four percent on the price of coal for a year?”
“That’s an awful lot of money, lad,” said Finken.
“But what are you saying? I wouldn’t take money in advance from my customers.”
“The truth is, it’s a very tempting offer, Klaus. It would mean a big saving for the estate,” said the administrator.
“You see?” Paul was delighted. “All you have to do is offer the same to six other customers. They’ll all accept, sir. I’ve noticed that people trust you.”
“That’s true, Klaus.”
For a moment the coal man’s chest inflated like a turkey’s, but the complaints soon followed.
“But if we reduce the margins,” said the coal man, not yet seeing it all clearly, “what will I live on?”
“With a second cart you’ll work twice as fast. You’ll make your money back in no time. And there will be two carts with your name painted on them going through Munich.”
“Two carts with my name . . .”
“Of course, it’ll be a bit tight to begin with. After all, you’ll have one more salary to pay.”
The coal man looked at the administrator, who smiled.
“For God’s sake, hire this boy or I’ll hire him myself. He has quite a business head on him.”
Paul went around with Klaus for the rest of the day, speaking to the estate administrators. Of the first ten, seven accepted, and only four insisted on a written guarantee.
“It seems you’ve got your cart, Herr Graf.”
“Now we’re going to have a hell of a lot of work. And you’ll need to find new customers.”
“I’d thought that you . . .”
“No way, kid. You get along with people, though you’re a little shy, like my dear old aunt Irmuska. I think you’ll be good at it.”
The lad remained silent a few moments, contemplating the day’s successes, then addressed the coal man again.
“Before I accept, sir, I’d like to ask you a question.”
“What the hell do you want?” asked Klaus, impatient.
“Do you really have that many aunts?”
The coal man gave an enormous laugh.
“My mother had fourteen sisters, kid. Believe it or not.”
11
With Paul in charge of collecting the coal and finding new customers, the business began to prosper. He drove a full cart from the stores on the banks of the Isar to the house where Klaus and Hulbert—for that is what the mute assistant was called—were finishing their unloading. First he would rub the horses down and give them water in a bucket. Then he’d change the team and harness up the relief animals to the cart he had just brought.
Then he would give his companions a hand so they could dispatch the empty cart as quickly as possible. It was difficult to begin with, but as he got used to it and as his shoulders broadened, Paul was able to haul the enormous baskets around. Once he was done delivering coal at an estate, he’d gee up the horses and head back to the stores, humming happily as the others made their way to another house.
Ilse, meanwhile, had found some chores to do in the boardinghouse where they were lodged, and in exchange the landlady gave them a small discount on their rent—which was just as well, since Paul’s wage was barely enough for the two of them.
“I wish I could make it lower, Herr Reiner,” the landlady would say, “but it’s not like I really need a lot of help.”
Paul would nod. He knew that his mother wasn’t helping all that much. Other tenants in the boardinghouse had whispered that sometimes Ilse would stop, lost in thought halfway through sweeping a corridor or peeling a potato, holding on to the broom or the knife and staring into the void.
Concerned, Paul spoke to his mother, who denied it. When he insisted, Ilse ended up admitting that it was true in part.
“I may have been a little distracted lately. Too much going on in my head,” she said, stroking his face.
This will all pass eventually, thought Paul. We’ve been going through a lot.
However, he suspected there was something else to it, something that his mother was hiding. He was still determined to find out the truth about his father’s death, but he didn’t know where to begin. It would be impossible to approach the Schroeders, at least while they could rely on the support of the judge. They could have Paul thrown in prison at any moment, and that was a risk he couldn’t take, especially not with his mother in the state she was in.
At night the question gnawed at him. At least he could let his thoughts wander without worrying about waking his mother. They now slept in separate rooms, for the first time in his life. Paul had moved to one on the second floor, toward the rear of the building. It was smaller than Ilse’s, but at least he could enjoy his privacy.
“No girls in the room, Herr Reiner,” the landlady would say at least once a week. And Paul, who had the same imagination and the same needs as any healthy sixteen-year-old boy, found the time to let his thoughts wander in that direction.
Over the months that followed, Germany reinvented itself, just as the Reiners had done. A new government signed the Treaty of Versailles in late June 1919, signaling Germany’s acceptance of sole responsibility for the war and committing to colossal sums in economic reparation. On the streets, the humiliation to which the Allies were subjecting the country produced a buzz of peaceful indignation, but on the whole people breathed more easily for a time. In mid-August, a new constitution was ratified.
Paul began to feel that his life was falling back into some order. A precarious order, but order nonetheless. Gradually he began to forget the mystery surrounding his father’s death, whether because of the difficulty of the task, his fear of confronting it, or his growing obligation to take care of Ilse.
One day, however, in the middle of a morning rest—the very time of day when he’d gone to ask for work—Klaus pushed away his empty beer mug, balled up his sandwich wrapper, and brought the young man back down to earth.
“You seem like a smart kid, Paul. How come you’re not studying?”
“Just because of . . . life, the war, people,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.
“There’s nothing to be done about life or the war, but people . . . you can always strike back at people, Paul.” The coal man exhaled a cloud of bluish smoke from his pipe. “Are you the type to strike back?”
All of a sudden Paul felt frustrated and powerless. “And what if you know that someone’s struck you, but you don’t know who it is or what they’ve done?” he asked.
“Well, then you leave no stone unturned until you’ve found out.”
12
All was quiet in Munich.
In a luxurious building on the east bank of the Isar, however, a gentle murmuring could be heard. Not loud enough to wake the house’s inhabitants; just a muffled sound coming from a room that overlooked the square.
The room was old-fashioned, childish, ill-suited to the age of its owner. She had abandoned it five years earlier and hadn’t yet had time to change the wallpaper; the bookcases were filled with dolls and the bed had a pink canopy. But on a night like this one, her vulnerable heart was grateful for the objects that took her back to the security of a long-lost world. Her nature cursed itself for having regressed so far in its independence and resolve.
The muffled sound was crying, smothered in a pillow.
On the bed was a letter, only the opening paragraphs visible amid the tangle of bedsheets:
Columbus, Ohio, April 7th, 1920
Dearest Alys,
I hope that you are well. You can’t imagine how much we miss you, as the dancing season is due to start in only two weeks! This year we girls will be able to go together, wi
thout our fathers, but with a chaperone. At least we’ll be able to go to more than one dance a month!
The big news of the year, however, is that my brother Prescott is engaged to a girl from out east, Dotty Walker. Everyone is talking about the fortune her father, George Herbert Walker, has, and what a good couple they make. Mother couldn’t be happier about the wedding. If only you could be here, as it will be the first wedding in the family and you’re one of us.
The tears rolled slowly down Alys’s face. With her right arm she clung to a doll. Suddenly she was about to hurl it to the other side of the room, when she realized what she was doing and stopped herself.
I am a woman. A woman.
Slowly she let the doll go and began to think about Prescott, or at least what she remembered of him: they were together under the oak bed in the house in Columbus, and he was whispering as he embraced her. But when she looked up she discovered that the boy wasn’t tanned and strong like Prescott but fair and thin. Wrapped in her reverie, she was unable to recognize his face.
13
It happened so quickly that not even destiny could have prepared him for it.
“Damn you, Paul, where the hell have you been?”
Paul had arrived at Prinzregentenplatz with a full cart. Klaus was in a foul mood, as he always was when they worked the wealthy areas. The traffic was terrible. The cars and trolleys waged an endless war against beer sellers’ wagons, handcarts piloted by crafty deliverymen, and even workers’ bicycles. Policemen crossed the square every ten minutes, trying to impose order on chaos, their faces inscrutable beneath their leather helmets. They had already warned the coal men twice that they should hurry up with the unloading if they didn’t want to get an enormous fine.
The coal men certainly couldn’t afford that. Although that month, December 1920, had brought them many orders, encephalomyelitis had carried away two of the horses only a fortnight earlier and they had had to replace them. Many tears had been shed by Hulbert, for those animals were his life, and as he had no family, he even slept with them in the stables. Klaus had spent the last pfennig of his savings on the new horses and any unexpected expense could now ruin him.
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