THE PROSPEROUS THIEF
Andrea Goldsmith is the author of four previous novels: Gracious Living (1989), Modern Interiors (1991), Facing the Music (1994) and Under the Knife (1998). She lives in Melbourne. Andrea Goldsmith’s website is at http://purl.nla.gov.au/net/award/andrea-goldsmith
THE PROSPEROUS THIEF
Andrea Goldsmith
First published in 2002
Copyright © Andrea Goldsmith 2002
This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
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National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Goldsmith,Andrea, 1950–.
The prosperous thief.
ISBN 1 86508 756 4.
1. Jews – Australia – Fiction. 2. Jews – Fiction.
3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945) – Fiction. 4. Lesbianism in literature. I.Title.
A823.3
Set in 12/14 pt Bembo by Asset Typesetting Pty Ltd
Printed by Griffin Press, South Australia
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for Dot
Virtue and crime weigh the same
I’ve seen it:
in a man who was both
criminal and virtuous.
—Tadeusz Rózewicz
We all live in a phantom dwelling.
—Basho
THE PROSPEROUS THIEF
Contents
Part I THE PAST
A Thief with Aspirations
Prospects
Out of a Job in the New Germany
Fake Coffee and False Promises
A Genius for Reprisal
Kristallnacht
Preposterous Migrations
Part II HAUNTINGS
The Kindertransport
A Meeting in the Woods, Northern Germany, April 1945
A Meeting in Melbourne
Language and Silence
Rough Wisdom
Part III THE NEW CENTURY
Hooked on the Holocaust
A Seinfeld Lookalike with a Side in Volcanoes
Feuds and Fallout
Intimate Betrayals
The Purloined Narrative
At the Volcano
Part I
THE PAST
A Thief with Aspirations
On a balmy night in the summer of 1910, not far from the gutter in Berlin’s Scheunenviertel, Heinrik Heck was born. Twenty-four hours later his mother was back at the bar downing her beers and buttoning Heini to a nipple whenever he threatened to bawl. His father, typical of the wanderer-fathers in the Scheunenviertel, had moved on months before the birth. He had promised Heini’s mother he’d be back, but was either dead or in gaol or had chanced on some good luck he wasn’t about to share with a woman who meant only shackles and misfortune. Greta didn’t care, she’d moved on too. First there had been Johannes, followed by a messy month with Johannes and Bulle, and finally, not long before the birth, sentimental Heinrik, who was honoured, he said, to offer his name to the child. Seven weeks later and the sentiment had soured; soon Heinrik, too, was gone, leaving behind nothing but his name.
Heini was weaned from breast to beer in the three or four bars of his mother’s preference. Berlin’s white beer was a favourite along with a nice piece of sausage, although Heini learned early not to be choosy.When there was nothing better to eat he would climb on a chair and from there to the table, dip his fist into the mustard pot and lick.
While not an ideal diet, it seemed to do the trick, for Heini grew into a smart little boy blessed with a cunning more valuable than gold in this district, and certainly longer lasting. He knew how to scrounge for food and could always find a safe place to sleep.And even before he could walk he could gauge the mood of his mother and the other drinkers in the bar. On good days he was bar mascot with ample attention and plenty of food, but when moods turned sour, all he was good for was slapping and kicking and knew to keep his distance.
The Hecks and people like them filled in the cracks in the underworld. Pickpockets, thieves, prostitutes, pimps, bludgers, fighters, gamblers. And drunks, always drunks. They hung out in gloomy bars and bedded down in grimy rooms, several crammed in together and no one as brave as the rats or as well fed. Heini, his stomach hurtling in its emptiness, would see the rats gnawing the doorframes and know he’d have to turn himself into a stranger to have a life as good as them.
‘They don’t come much lower than us,’ his mother once said. ‘But someone’s got to hold up all the rest.’
Down in the Scheunenviertel it was the quick or the dead and Heini fortunately was a fast learner. By the age of five he had acquired the basic skills for survival in this district. He knew to trust no one but himself, he knew when to take advantage, and he was learning the hard way how to deal with fear. Younger than most of the boys who prowled the streets, he nonetheless possessed fingers fine-tuned for gain. One day when the baker’s back was turned, he grabbed a loaf and made off with it. He slipped into the first alley, then into another, and from there through a dank portal across a courtyard to an alcove on the far side. He squatted down among the weeds and, with his back pressed against a scrap of wall, he sank his teeth into the still-warm bread. His stomach clutched with delight. He took two more bites, then knowing to prolong the pleasure, changed to a neat nibbling round the edges. Such an expert with a loaf, he could make it last till midday.
The sun was shining but not too strong, the wind was a cool shuffling on his face, and the loaf as good as any he had tasted. He squirmed against the bricks until he found a smooth patch, was nibbling the loaf and squinting into the light and thinking as far as days went this was one of the best, when he saw them, two of the toughest, on the other side of the courtyard. Quickly he shrinks into the weeds and wraps himself up like a snail. He’s sure they haven’t seen him. And neither can he see them, although he senses them drawing near. His ears strain to hear, but apart from cursing, the boys’ words blur in the breathy air. Tighter, he tells himself, curl up tighter. But fear fills his stomach and then it’s rising and with it the bread, and if the boys haven’t noticed him already they will now, although these toughs could see a cringing kid at a hundred metres in poor light, so he probably never stood a chance. And here they come, loping across the ragged ground, closer and closer and laughing as they grab him.
They’re as big as grown-ups, they taunt with insults, they throttle with fists, they toss him around like a ball. Heini can’t stop his grizzling, he’s all pain and snivelling fear. These boys will flay the life out of him, then they’ll throw him in a hole where no one will find him, and he’ll lie there sore and starving and too weak to move. He may even die.
He may even die.
And suddenly his fear loosens and his blubbering stops – no point to nothing if he’s about to die. And now he’s kick
ing the boys and swinging his fists, and spitting from his bloodied mouth. He’s not fool enough to think he can hurt them, but neither will he go down without a fight. And almost immediately their blows slacken, their taunts lose enthusiasm, and in another minute they’ve had enough. But they’ll be back, they say, as they turn to leave, and they’ll finish the job next time. Heini hears their laughter as they make their way across the courtyard. And though he’s sore and bleeding and his loaf is ground into the dirt, he vows there won’t be a next time.
It is less than a month later when next he sees them. He is coming down the stairs of his building carrying a bucket full of slops. His head is down, his mind on the job, and under his breath he’s cursing his mother who’s too drunk at the end of the day to walk, and too desperate to get to the bar in the morning to bother with the buckets, when a flicker at the edge of his vision makes him look up.And there they are, the two brutes waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. Their fists are raised all ready to punch, their faces are mean with smiling. Heini is all fear and floundering, nowhere to run and certainly not with his hands full of filth. He’s the loser this time and all out of luck, when suddenly he realises his advantage. He’s standing on the stairs high above them, and in his hands a weapon far more powerful than their big beefy fists. He raises the bucket slowly, so slowly, raises it while keeping his gaze pressed hard to them. For a moment they waver, surely this kid wouldn’t dare? They even move forward, then decide not to take the chance.
Heini acquired a reputation in the streets as a kid not to be messed with. Not that he had abolished fear, he needed a certain amount to keep him alert, but after the business with the toughs it was so well disguised no one would recognise it, much less turn it to their advantage. And along with the reputation, he developed a practical wisdom. Whether dealing with danger, or the basics of eating and hygiene, even the more complex business of making a living, Heini had a nose for the necessities. Not all children had the knack; his sister who was a bit younger and his brother who was a bit older certainly didn’t. They relied on him and he did his best to look after them.
Once when his brother complained about one of the drinkers in the bar and bared his backside to show the marks, Heini explained that sometimes you learn more than you bargained for.
‘Although it’ll toughen you up,’ he said, inspecting the damage. ‘This,’ he said, pointing to the broken skin,‘this isn’t unbearable, it’s just bad. And there’s plenty of bad in this life, so best you get used to it.’ He paused before adding, ‘And you stink.’ He put an arm around his brother who was trying not to cry and suggested they go for a swim together.‘I stink even worse than you.’
When everyone smells there’s no point to washing, but Heini knew when the worst smell is your own, when you reek like your guts are spilling through your skin, it’s time to act. With so many horses in the streets there were plenty of troughs – often a safer bet than the pond in the park. Not that anything had ever happened to him, but he’d heard about other children who had been hounded by a monster-man down there, or so went the story. Summer was best. Summer meant swimming, and how he loved moving through the cool, cool water, the ease and stretch of his body, or just floating on his back beneath the sun, his eyes shut and not a care in the world. A person could do a lot worse than be a fish, he had often thought.
Heini was the dependable member of the family, and better him than Walter who was a bit simple, or his mother who was becoming more and more useless. Heini took his responsibilities very seriously, and by the age of eight he had become a truly gifted thief, much better than any of the other boys he knew. Affe Werner, who had been a thief longer than living memory, would gaze on Heini with pride. ‘That boy,’ he would say, ‘has been touched by God.’
Heini felt it himself. He was a natural. How else to explain the ease with which he would nip through an opening, sniff out the money and valuables, have them safe in his pouch plus a little something for himself, and be back in the street before Werner had finished his cigarette. He was adept at purses too, and worked Alexanderplatz and the Friedrichstrasse theatres with the stealth of an old pro. He wasn’t bad at begging either, although it seemed such a waste of his gifts and besides it spoiled his pride. Although what he had squeezed out of smart ladies in their furs was no one’s business.
‘Quite a boy you have,’ people would say to Greta, who may or may not respond depending on the time of day.
It was a life and Heini wasn’t about to complain. The worst was his teeth, but fortunately they were falling out and stronger ones growing in their place. He always had somewhere to sleep, although never flash and often changing because his mother would drink the rent or one of her men would disappear with the purse. But still a place, either at the very bottom of the building or the very top, just the one room for five people, Heini, his sister and brother in one bed, and Greta with her latest in the other. And in between, the stove and the table and the stinking lamp and a string for the clothes and a bucket for the water and another for the slops. And bloating the air the familiar stench of fuel mixed with piss and foul breath and mould.
Heini far preferred the attics to the cellars. It was not just the filth from the street which oozed endlessly into the basements, nor the thick, prison-like bars that smothered the basement windows; he liked the way the windows bulged beneath the sloping roof of the garrets, and beyond the glass, the queer comfort of the endless sky. It was a bit like swimming, he would think, as he lay on the bed gazing out. He was fascinated by the clouds, how some stretched like smoke through the blue, and others were feathery like birds’ wings, and others were puffed up and fat enough to carry a boy – although goodness knows where he’d go if ever he had the chance.
As lives went, Heini could pinpoint a lot worse. He knew of kids who spent their days coughing up their lungs, and others with umpteen brothers and sisters to squeeze into a life the same size as his own, and the dumb girl with the small head who dribbled and laughed and would be dead if she didn’t have a mother to look after her. And while the current room might be smaller or colder or more lice-infested than others, Heini knew what was possible for people like him and what he needed to do each day to exploit the meagre possibilities. Even the places he robbed, with heaters that worked and two, sometimes three rooms for just one family, didn’t rankle. They were robbing material pure and simple, and not for living in by the likes of him.
It is possible his mother may have once shared his views, but by 1918 nothing much mattered to her except the next drink. Greta and her mates had hardly budged when the machine guns first sounded, and most were still in their places when the war was over. But opportunities were not thick on the ground in the postwar period, and Heini, with a sister and brother to support, found himself stretched to the limit.
One morning while placating his aching teeth with the tip of his finger he noticed a group of children heading off to school. He followed at a distance, saw them enter through a gate and disappear into the building beyond. He had never thought of going to school before. But why not? There was money to be made in reading and writing, particularly down in the Scheunenviertel where plenty of people couldn’t even sign their name. And if he was as smart as people said, he should manage book-learning as well as anyone. He looked more closely at the children, they were just like him, same rags, same ill-fitting shoes, same dirt on their faces. If it was all right for them, why not for him?
It took a month to organise. He chose a school near the market in order to be in close proximity to the shoppers, a little more evening work around the theatres, and most of the house-stealing he’d leave to his brother. The way he’d worked it out, he said to his mother, they shouldn’t be any worse off. She thought it a god-awful idea. Everyone she knew had managed perfectly well without going to school. But Heini knew her friends, and if ever there was a reason for school it was them.
Although he nearly changed his mind on the first day. Everyone knew what to do and where to go
and he didn’t. He had always managed by being a step ahead of the rest and was jittery with all the strangeness. He decided to give it a month.
Well before the trial period was up, Heini had learned the ropes. He had learned the pecking order too. To be popular with the kids you had to be a leader in the playground without being a bully, and to win over the teacher you had to be clever. In fact, the teacher made his preference for the smart kids so obvious Heini wondered why the dumb ones bothered to turn up. Years of managing the family finances put him near the top of the class in arithmetic, and once he learned his letters there was no stopping him with reading and writing. The writing surprised the teacher, so neat and well shaped despite his large hand, and while Heini could easily have demonstrated where the credit lay with the teacher’s wallet more often than not poking out of his pocket, he never did.
Heini settled into the new routine quickly. His mother hardly mentioned his going to school; in fact, he’d find himself wondering if she even remembered, and then she’d burst out with a snide remark about children who were too big for their boots and rising above themselves. Heini didn’t care. He loved school and was determined to make the most of it. Within two years, and still only ten years of age, he was earning regular money reading and writing for those in the neighbourhood who couldn’t. He passed on his learning to his brother and sister. Walter couldn’t get the hang of it and as soon as he acquired the basics begged to be let off. But Hilde was just like him and took to the lessons like a drunk to drink.
Six years later when he left school, Heini judged it as time well spent; there were, after all, other ways of stealing than bag-snatching and housebreaking. But tough times meant his plans fell in a heap along with those of most other Germans. The war might have ended in 1918, but losing it went on for much longer. There were strikes and starvation, and what few pockets were full were hidden behind fortresses. And while Heini knew most people were suffering, when you’re already on the bottom, the crush is that much worse. Day after day, month after month, year after year the same dismal story: not enough food, not enough money, and no prospects. Each day, he would go to the market with Walter; but even for expert scavengers, when the food is in short supply and the scavengers are not, you’re lucky to come away with anything much at all.
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