The Jewish Candidate

by David Crossland

  A family of four gathered up their beach gear and quietly moved down the train, beyond the sliding doors. A middle-aged man folded up his paper and also left. The blonde stood up and followed him, not looking at David as she pushed past the skinheads. Her departure silenced them for a couple of minutes and they spoke in German, too fast for him to understand.

  The train stopped at yet another little town and to David’s horror, there were dozens more skinheads on the platform waiting to get on. They carried furled banners and red, white and black flags. There was no sign of any police.

  The train moved off. The carriage was now crowded with neo-Nazis. One, a man in his mid-20s sporting a Hitler Youth-style haircut with a severe parting and what looked like a World War Two army jacket, sat down next to him as heavily as he could manage, squeezing him against the window. Two others were sitting opposite him now. The driver announced the next stop was just two minutes away. David decided it was time to move to another carriage. He stood up to get his bag, but a hand grabbed his arm and pulled him down. “Hey, Neger, have a drink with us!” the fat one croaked, standing up. He had shaken his bottle of beer, pointed it at David and sprayed it in his face. “Good German beer, ja! You like?” The whole carriage erupted into wild laughter.

  David looked up and saw the emergency break. But the train was already slowing as it entered Wenzlau station. He lunged at the fat one and managed to strike his nose, but not with enough force. A terrific, painful blow smashed into the side of his head. Someone had struck him with a bottle of beer. He felt the cold liquid running down his neck, and the wet warmth of blood. He felt dizzy. He tried to haul himself down the corridor but was tripped up and found himself lying face down on the carriage floor. Fists and boots slammed into his back. A boot stamped on the back of his head. The shouts were deafening. He was alone in a hell of hatred. Someone leant close to his eye and spat: “You’re dead you fucking pig nigger.” A second later, a sharp, powerful kick jabbed his right kidney. He shrieked with pain. He was suddenly terrified he would sustain lasting damage.

  Screaming for help, he got on all fours and scrambled for the exit. Someone kicked his backside and caught his testicles. The blow sent him crashing into the sliding doors. They whooshed open. The ticket inspector was standing over him.

  The crowd of skinheads fell silent. The inspector looked down at him. “What’s going on here?” David pulled himself to his feet, almost buckling under a piercing pain from his kidney. Blood was trickling down his face. “Helfen Sie mir bitte,” he said. Help me please. The inspector looked at him with disgust and stepped back. David pushed past him and hurled himself towards the opened train door. Someone tripped him again and he tumbled down the steps, knocking his head on the concrete of the platform. He hauled himself up and limped along beside the train, aware of people staring at him. He turned round to see the group of skinheads following him.

  He turned the corner and staggered up a cobblestoned street. The pounding boots were catching up. He could hear them baying “Negerschwein!” People were coming out of shops to see what was happening. “Hilfe!” he pleaded, but no one did anything. Beer bottles exploded next to him. There was a red brick church about 100 yards ahead up the street. But he knew he wouldn’t make it. He stopped in the middle of the street and looked around. Above him, people had opened their windows and were leaning out with their arms folded on the sills, as if they were waiting for some festival parade. Shopkeepers, children, women clutching plastic shopping bags watched him in silence. The mob had almost reached him. The air was filled with a low hum of ape noises. He could hear a loudspeaker in the background. He looked up and saw black balloons rising into the sky. This must be the town they were all heading to for their rally. But the realisation had no impact on him. He was too paralysed by horror, and by the prospect that he might not see his Mbhali again.

  There was blood and sweat in his eyes and everything went blurry. “Hilf mir bitte. Help me!” Somewhere in the distance, too far away, he could hear a siren. He spotted a butcher’s shop. The owner was standing in the doorway. David ran towards him. But the man stepped inside and slammed the glass door shut. Before he could stop, David tripped over a loose paving stone and went smashing through the door. Glass shattered all around him.

  He lay on his back on the floor of the shop. He could feel a warm rush around his neck and started to feel weak. At least the pain had gone. The delicious smell of fried sausage and roast meat filled his nostrils. He turned his head and saw a pool of blood spreading over the immaculate black-and-white tiled floor. The sight made him convulse with a surge of panic. His vision started to go black. He started to shiver. He could hear voices and saw the outline of figures staring at him through the shattered door. Someone laughed. Then heavy boots running off.

  The most beautiful woman in southern Africa was so far away. Tears filled his eyes. He tried to picture her but his mind was so filled with terror that she wouldn’t come. All he could see was the white sand of Llandudno Beach in Cape Town where he had proposed to her. The most beautiful and kind woman in the whole world. The mother of his unborn children. He tried to say her name but it never came.

  Chapter Ten

  On board the SPD campaign bus, Sunday, August 5

  Rudolf Gutman read the news of Khosa’s death on his laptop, en route to a campaign speech in Dortmund. His campaign manager, Bruno Heise, alerted him to the story. Four skinheads were briefly detained after Khosa’s death, but they were unlikely to face any charges. They had a dozen witnesses – their mates and one elderly male passenger – to testify that Khosa struck the first blow. Besides, Khosa died because he tripped and severed his jugular when he fell through the glass door. A tragic accident, as the mayor of Wenzlau pointed out. No one else who was in the carriage, on the train platform or in Wenzlau’s high street came forward to testify. The butcher said he closed the door because “the man looked like a wild animal and appeared to be deranged.”

  Gutman slapped the table. “Jesus Christ! What the hell is going on? A baying mob of Nazis hounding a black man to his death! And no one lifting a finger to help him! Jesus!”

  Heise nodded.

  “These Nazi bastards have killed almost 200 people since 1990!” said Gutman. “In some parts of the east, they’re in charge of local councils, they’re even running bloody kindergartens. Can you believe it? They hold village fetes, put up bouncy castles! The kids grow up learning to hate Jews and Muslims before they even know what Jews and Muslims are! Just wait, Bruno. If I get in they won’t know what’s hit them. I’ll clean that scum up. You mark my words.”

  “Careful, Rudi,” Heise warned. “Voters won’t elect a Jewish guy who just wants to go round chasing Nazis. They want to hear that their jobs and pensions are safe under a Gutman government. If you don’t get that message across you’ll be sitting on the wrong side of the Reichstag after election day.”

  Gutman sighed. Heise was right. As usual. The former tabloid newspaper editor knew what made the average German tick.

  “You can’t go on too much about neo-Nazis because most voters don’t see them as a threat,” said Heise. “They just see them as irrelevant whackos. To do anything about them, you’ve got to be in power. And this is your one and only shot at the job.”

  Berlin, Sunday, August 5

  Goldberg’s in Knesebeckstrasse, in the district of Charlottenburg, was a kosher bakery and café run by an Israeli couple who moved to Berlin five years before. It was a popular hangout for the city’s expanding Israeli immigrant community, and its bagels were prized by Jews and non-Jews in the neighbourhood. It was past two a.m. when two men cycled up to the shop. One extracted a can of red spray paint from his saddlebag and daubed two letters, an R and an A, divided by a curved scimitar sword, onto the wall next to the store. The other took out a bottle of petrol, lit the storm matches taped to the side, and nodded. His companion struck the large window with a hammer. It smashed immediately, allowing the bomb man to throw his bottle into the
shop. A ball of fire engulfed the counter. The two men cycled off in opposite directions. The flames licked across the wooden floor and into the kitchen behind the shop. They reached a line of pillow-sized sacks of flour and devoured the brown cotton bags. A gust swept through the shattered window, fanning the fire and releasing a cloud of flour across the kitchen. The dust explosion ripped through the store and brought the ceiling crashing down. The fire devoured the wooden, carpeted staircase, trapping six families in their apartments. As smoke billowed from the building, people tore the windows open and yelled for help. The fire brigade arrived in seven minutes. Two hydraulic fire ladders were raised and firemen in breathing apparatus leapt through the windows. A crowd gathered to watch as the men rescued 15 residents, helping them across the window ledges into the baskets of the ladders and swiftly lowering them to the ground. In the apartment above the shop, two firemen had to overpower a screaming mother and manhandle her onto the ladder. The skin of her face, hands and arms was burned off because she had run into the flames to try to reach her 18-month-old boy. The men heard the boy crying in his cot, but he was dead by the time they subdued the blaze enough to get through. An elderly lady on the second floor also died, of smoke inhalation.

  The Revengers of Allah had struck again.

  The attack topped the national news. At 11 a.m. that day, a black Mercedes drew up outside the charred building. Hermann von Tietjen got out, looking sombre and statesmanlike in a black suit and long black coat. An aide opened the boot and handed him a large wreath. Tietjen strode up to the police cordon, laid the wreath on the pavement and stood for a minute, his head bowed, as if in silent prayer. A news TV crew hurried up to him. “Herr von Tietjen! Do you have a statement?”

  He turned to them and cleared his throat. “Are you ready?” he asked the cameraman, who nodded. “I have come to express my condolences, my sorrow and my anger at the death of a small child and a pensioner who were murdered in what appears to be yet another outrageous attack by Islamist extremists. I am alarmed at this obvious assault on our Jewish community and I implore the government to start cracking down forcefully on Muslim terrorists in our midst, so that we can free ourselves of the scourge of radical Islam. I would also like to say that I am surprised, and concerned, at the failure of Muslim representatives in this country so far to condemn this criminal behaviour.”

  He held up his hands to fend off further questions. “Please. This is a time for mourning. That’s all I have to say.”

  Chapter Eleven

  A5 Motorway Bound for Frankfurt, Friday, August 10

  Gisela Hornbauer loved fast cars. The lanes to her right were a blurry line of white and red as she gunned her Audi TT down the Autobahn at 120 miles per hour. In the dark, the dashboard looked like a cockpit. She frowned as a little Fiat pulled out into the fast lane half a mile in front of her. Within seconds she was almost touching its bumper and flashing her headlights. Get out of my fucking way. The driver ahead swerved back into the middle lane, just missing the front bumper of an articulated truck. The road ahead was clear again and the speedometer surged past 130. This was a great stretch of motorway when it wasn’t clogged up with losers.

  Hornbauer checked her watch. She was late. She would have to hurry to get everything ready for him. Just a few more weeks left and this bloody campaign would be over. She worked on Gutman’s team but didn’t really care whether he won or lost. She didn’t agree with most of what he said. She was 35 and ran her own event management company. What would a leftie chancellor like Gutman ever do for her? But it didn’t matter. Now she could tell prospective clients that she helped run a national political campaign. That would be great for business.

  She turned the rear view mirror to look at herself. 14 hours on the trot and still looking fresh. Her lover always praised her high cheek bones, broad shoulders, straight back and long legs. He said she was of “fine Aryan stock.” She turned heads. She had her long, golden hair cut to a fashionable, business-like bob in January, the day after she won the contract to organise campaign events for the Social Democratic party. Her lover had been furious with her for not seeking his permission to change her hairstyle. Thinking about it made her wet.

  Gutman didn’t regret the decision to hire Gisela Hornbauer. Her hard bargaining with concert hall owners, bands, leaflet printers, equipment and vehicle leasing firms and TV networks kept the campaign well within its budget.

  The sparkling skyscrapers of “Mainhattan” – as the people of Frankfurt called their banking district – reflected in the river Main as Hornbauer drove over the bridge towards the modern red-brick tower where she had her penthouse. The rent was exorbitant but the view of Germany’s financial capital was unrivalled. She could tell that it impressed her lover – not that he would ever admit that.

  Only two hours left, and there was so much to do. He was always punctual. She started to get nervous. She got the pork knuckles out of the fridge. The sight of the wobbling, pink, skin-covered flesh around the shiny white bone almost made her retch, but it also made her moist again. She lowered them into a huge saucepan and filled it with carrots, leek, parsley and celery. Her mother taught her the recipe when she was 10. They would have to simmer for an hour and a half.

  She peeled off her business suit, hung it up carefully and rushed into the bathroom for a hot shower. With her hair shorter, it was more fiddly to braid into pigtails, but that was the way he wanted it. Next, the frilly white blouse and the red leather dirndl he had bought in Munich. Her 36C breasts oozed out of it. She finished off with bright red lipstick. He liked that.

  She rushed into the kitchen and emptied a tin of Sauerkraut into the pan. Damn. She had forgotten to buy onions and bacon. He liked his Sauerkraut with onions and bacon. She saw her cleavage reflected in the oven door. Maybe he would be too distracted to notice the omission. The whole apartment started to smell of fermented cabbage, just the way he liked it. It was 7.45 p.m. The doorbell rang on the dot. Her heart started beating faster. She ran into the bathroom to check her face and pigtails one last time.

  She opened the front door. Hermann von Tietjen stepped in and sniffed the air. “Mmmmmm, Sauerkraut and pork knuckle. Smells just like at my mother’s.” He grabbed her breasts in his hands and jigged them up and down, pretending to weigh them. Then he kissed her hard on the lips, forcing his tongue between them. She felt so wet she was worried she might stain the dining room chair. “How was your week, Liebling?” she said.

  He gave her bottom a painful smack. “We are making progress. I’m hungry.” She went into the kitchen and put her apron on. He slipped off the jacket of his beige Hugo Boss summer suit and draped it on a hanger. He took off his tie and opened the collar of his black cotton shirt. He walked into the bathroom and studied his face in the mirror, running his fingers through his hair and taking a small silver folding comb out of his pocket to neaten his fringe. Then he turned the water on as hot as he could stand it and scrubbed his manicured hands, like a surgeon about to perform an operation. He dried them carefully, waiting for the condensation to evaporate from the mirror. He scrutinized his face one last time, gave a grunt of satisfaction and walked into the kitchen.

  Gisela was stirring the Sauerkraut. He walked up behind her and grabbed her breasts again, but more tightly and painfully this time, while gyrating his crotch in the small of her back. She dropped her wooden spoon and giggled. “Hermann! Later! The Sauerkraut is nearly ready!”

  She heaved the meat out of the pan and spooned out the Sauerkraut, praying that he wouldn’t notice the lack of onion and bacon. The table was covered with a red-and-white check cloth and looked incongruous against the wall-to-ceiling window that stretched the length of the open-plan sitting room and dining area, offering a vista of glitzy office towers on the far side of the river. She poured out a large glass of wheat beer, retrieved three Brezels from the oven and spooned some sweet Bavarian mustard into a rustic little grey and blue ceramic pot.

  They sat down and ate. Tietjen dunked his Brez
el into the mustard and took a long swig of beer. Then he set about cutting the pork into neat slices. Gisela looked at him. “How is the campaign going, Hermann?”

  He said nothing. She knew she had to be patient. Hermann didn’t like to talk much after a hard week’s work. The silence, enhanced by the scraping of their cutlery on the plates, started to become deliciously oppressive. Finally, he looked up at her, licked some gravy off his knife, and demanded:

  “How is your Jew doing?”

  “My Jew! Hermann! You know he isn’t my Jew! He’s just a customer!”

  “He is a dangerous man, Gisela,” said Tietjen, holding up his fork in rebuke. “Very bad for our country.”

  “It’s a Friday night,” Gisela pleaded. “Can’t we forget about politics and just enjoy ourselves?”

  Tietjen shovelled a forkful of Sauerkraut into his mouth. She froze. His face contorted into a grimace of disgust. He opened his mouth and let a little heap of Sauerkraut slop out onto the plate with an exaggerated retch.

  He stared at her with a look of confusion and disbelief. “This doesn’t have onions or bacon in it.”

  “I’m sorry, Hermann, I forgot. It’s been one hell of a …”

  “This is shit!” He crashed his fist down and swiped the glass off the table. It shattered against the window and drenched the carpet with beer.

  Gisela gave a plaintive, pleading cry. “Hermann!”

  He grabbed a handful of Sauerkraut, stood up and hurled it in her face.

  “Hermann!” She wiped the warm, slimy cabbage out of her eyes in time to see him pull off his belt.

  “Hermann, no!” She knocked her chair over as she backed away from him.

  She turned and tripped over, falling onto the soft carpet. As she crawled away on all fours, she felt a stinging pain on her rump. He grabbed her pigtails and jerked her head back. She felt something warm against her cheek and recoiled as he rubbed her pork knuckle into her face. He let go of her hair and she fell forward. He ripped open her stocking, sank his teeth into her calf and reached up into her crotch.