Gerhard remained seated on the bench, thinking about their conversation, while a paddle steamer splashed down the Elbe. There was something he hadn’t told the old man. He was actually a member of one of their clubs—the Nazi party’s, that is—but not because he wanted to be. He would never have been considered for a professorship at the university if he hadn’t joined. It had been his lifelong goal to become a professor, a teacher of a higher order, so he had joined in 1933, and in 1937 he got his reward. What did it actually matter that he was a member of the party? It didn’t do anyone any harm, and he took solace in that.
The old man had reminded him of the book burnings in 1933, when he’d watched in horror as many of his favorite titles were thrown onto the flames for being considered un-German. The thought still made Gerhard angry: How could an Austrian be allowed to decide what was or was not German? Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, had told forty thousand enthusiastic supporters in Berlin that the book burning was a breakthrough in the fight against moral corruption. Great books by writers like Franz Kafka, Erich Kästner, Thomas Mann, and Marcel Proust burned to ashes. Heinrich Heine, who had once watched his own books burn, had written, “Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.” But the Germans would never, thank god, fulfill Heine’s pessimistic prophecy. Of this Gerhard was certain.
A tugboat lined with tires berthed at the dock across from the bench, causing a few irritated gulls to fly off the nearest mooring poles. He guessed that the tugboat had been at the free port, because it had lowered its smokestacks, which was something tugboats did only when they had to sail under the low bridges that linked the free port with the rest of the harbor.
A large cargo ship rebuked a smaller ship with a loud blast of its horn, and the smaller craft quickly moved out of the way. At first glance the traffic in the harbor appeared to be an incomprehensible jumble, but he’d begun to work out who gave way to whom and which boats were so huge that they didn’t cede to anyone. Lowest on the hierarchy were the tour boats, which the others didn’t even seem to consider real ships. The tugboats were the perennial outsiders, the anarchists among the river’s ships.
He was freezing now and stood up to retrieve his bicycle, which he’d leaned against one of the bald trees on the promenade. It occurred to him that the tree resembled a wicked old witch, maybe Weinhardt’s wife. He smiled at the thought and biked home to his apartment in Neustadt.
He filled his copper bucket in the coke room, then went up to his apartment, tossed a few shovelfuls into the stove, and lit a few sticks of kindling. He sat in his chesterfield recliner, his favorite piece of furniture. He’d traveled the world through classic works of literature in this chair, and it stood as a visual—albeit secret—testament to Kafka, Kästner, Mann, Proust, and all the other authors whose books had gone up in flames. He inched his chair closer to the stove and held his cold hands over the mint-green tiles. The warmth flowed from his fingertips to his arms, then down through the rest of his body.
He thought of Weinhardt. His frail body housed a strong mind. He wished more men possessed his courage, but he was a dying breed. Although Gerhard had all the prerequisites, the people of his generation were doomed to be cowards. The young had to be mobilized, and there was no better place to do that than the university, where he had a voice. He should educate them, give them the courage to voice their opinions. Should, should. If only there were more people like Weinhardt, because it would take a large choir to rile up the country. He cursed himself. This was where he always got stuck. Courage. He simply lacked the courage. All his dreams of saying “enough is enough,” of going away, of making a difference were a delusion. When would he learn? When would he recognize himself for who he really was?
He looked at the clock. It was time to go.
Neugraben, Germany, November 10, 1938
It wasn’t fair to the city of Neugraben to call it ugly. It was a typical German city, and it didn’t call attention to itself in any way other than by being typical. It wasn’t the sort of place that attracted landscape painters and aesthetes, but it had a few interesting features, such as the old, red, half-timbered houses, the stout St. Michael’s Church, and the great forests south of the city. From the high Falkenberg hilltop—which strove in vain to be considered a mountain—one could see the entirety of Neugraben and its environs, all the way down to the Elbe, which slowly wound its way toward Hamburg.
In the district around Waltershofer Strasse, smokestacks spewing black smoke stretched toward the blue sky like monuments to industrialization. Behind them, an extensive network of railroad tracks ensured that the rest of Germany could enjoy Neugraben’s productivity. The clothing factory was here in a brick building with tall, curved windows that allowed daylight to penetrate even the farthest corners of the vast factory floor. The chairman’s office was located on the second floor near the entrance.
Karl Strangl sat behind his desk talking on the telephone. Behind him hung a portrait of his father, Reinhardt, whose illness in 1932 had forced him to hand off control of the factory to his elder son, Karl. Reinhardt Strangl had started the business with two seamstresses in 1895 and grown the company to the point that it now employed more than six hundred.
Karl hung up the phone and went out to the receptionist. When he asked her to find Mr. Müller, the familiar tapping of the typewriter ceased, and Mrs. Meissner adjusted her already meticulously coiffed hairdo with both hands. The middle-aged secretary smiled and replied that Müller was already on his way.
Karl returned to his desk and removed a cigarette from his silver case. After lighting it, he scrutinized the cherry as if it concealed a secret he hoped to uncover. He always smoked Gauloises. It was a holdover from the First World War, when they found the packs on dead French soldiers. Maybe he himself was the secret? How many people looked at him and thought, that man is a killer? No one, because he never talked about the war. Not even to August and Maximilian. But who was interested in an old war anyway? He ran his hand through his hair, which was getting a little too long. His elder daughter, Hilde, often teased him that he was starting to resemble one of the young boys who danced to swing music down in the St. Pauli district. He still felt like a young boy, and aside from the emergent gray hair on his temples, he could still deceive himself whenever he glanced in the mirror.
“The chairman wished to speak with me?” Hans Müller stood in the doorway.
Hans Müller was fifty-two years old and managed the factory’s day-to-day operations. Müller, who had worked his way up from the bottom under Reinhardt Strangl to his current position as the chairman’s right-hand man, was well liked by everyone. He was a loyal, vigorous man who had forsaken marriage for a life wedded to the factory, and Karl couldn’t imagine being there without his efficient assistant. He never said out loud that Müller patched over his own deficiencies as chairman.
“Please come in, Hans, and have a seat.”
Müller sat down, crossed his legs, and pulled a stack of papers from the black leather folder that he always carried under his arm. “I expect the chairman wishes to review the order one last time.”
“You always know what I’m thinking. Do you have a spy in the reception area? Maybe you’re having an affair with Mrs. Meissner, who gives you information.” They laughed as the unsuspecting secretary entered the room with two cups of coffee on a tray.
When she’d left the office, Karl leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. He savored the moment. He’d been looking forward to sharing this news with Hans; it was the kind of news that should be shared with those who’d done the most to make it come about.
“The order is confirmed, Hans. We are to deliver 250,000 uniforms to the army over the course of the next two years.” He tried to sound relaxed, but his voice came out as thrilled as a boy’s.
Müller’s entire face smiled, even the deep cleft in his chin. “Wonderful. And what about the SS uniforms?”
“Hugo Boss and the others a
re still hogging those.”
“So we didn’t get any?”
“No, still just ten thousand annually,” Karl said without showing any sign of disappointment. He leaned across his desk, accepted the papers Müller handed him, and examined the order. Until now the factory had mostly made work clothes. They had produced thirty-five thousand of the Wehrmacht’s uniforms annually since 1934, but now they would have to convert their production to manufacture primarily uniforms. As long as Hitler continued to expand and equip the army, there would be growth at the Strangl Clothing Factory.
He spun the small stamp-holder rack on the table and removed a stamp. He moistened it on the square pad and pressed it carefully onto the paper. From an elegant wooden box in a desk drawer, he pulled out a Parker fountain pen. He brought it out only on special occasions, and he’d carefully filled it that morning, hoping to use it later in the day. Concentrating deeply, he wrote the date and applied his signature. Karl gave Müller a proud smile and handed the stack of papers back to him. Müller stood and turned to leave. Then he stopped in the doorway.
“Congratulations again. That’s a fine piece of work, Mr. Chairman.”
“Don’t be so modest, Hans. It’s your doing as well.”
Karl set the fountain pen gently back in the box and returned it to the drawer. There his gaze fell upon the party pin. It didn’t look like much, but it opened more doors than a ring of keys, and it conferred advantages that the uninitiated were forced to do without. He had joined the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in 1932, not out of any conviction but because his father had advised him that it would benefit his business to do so. He wore the pin only during meals with select contacts and business connections and, as he had recently, whenever he needed to negotiate a big contract for uniforms. The little emblem with the swastika had proved very useful in such situations.
He walked back out to reception and asked Mrs. Meissner to have Albert bring around the car. He retrieved his jacket from the coatrack, then nodded pleasantly at the secretary, who was transcribing on her typewriter.
It was his custom to walk through the factory at closing time. First into the cutting room with its long storage tables littered with rolls of fabric, where people were busy cutting the fabric with patterns so the seamstresses could quickly sew a sleeve, leg, back, or whatever it was they specialized in. Then he entered the huge factory floor, where all the seamstresses sat in long rows behind humming sewing machines, which they tried to drown out with chatter. Beyond the floor was the stockroom, where the completed garments were bundled. He imagined the shelves bulging with uniforms, as they would be soon; he could already hear the trucks pulling up to the loading docks and the freight trains whistling.
By the time he walked out to his waiting car, darkness was descending, as if the smoke wafting from the stacks had finally managed to turn the blue sky black.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman,” his aging chauffeur said. He was, as usual, right on time. Karl always said that Albert was as reliable as a Swiss watch.
“Good afternoon, Albert. Or is it evening? It is already getting dark.”
The chauffeur opened the rear passenger door of the glistening Opel Admiral, which hadn’t been driven even a thousand miles since its maiden voyage.
Karl slid inside, and the chauffeur closed the door behind him. A copy of the day’s newspaper lay on the backseat. It crinkled when he unfolded it. He was instantly disgusted by what he saw on the front page. A large photograph of an angry mob on a Berlin street filled the entire page beneath a headline that read “The Righteous Anger of the People.” He thumbed through the newspaper until he found the article, which explained in bombastic prose how the German people had taken the bull by the horns and driven out the scheming—the writer had used that very word—Jews from several of the city’s districts. The newspaper glorified all the violence that had erupted across the country during the night, then went on to state that the rebellions were understandable. Karl sighed in frustration; it was impossible to find a neutral newspaper anymore.
It had all started with the murder of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath. A few days earlier, a Polish Jew by the name of Grynszpan had visited the German embassy in Paris and pulled a pistol on vom Rath. Though vom Rath had taken five rounds to the belly, he’d died only yesterday. All hell broke loose in Germany. Jewish shops and synagogues were smashed and burned to the ground, and Jews across the country were assaulted and beaten; thousands were arrested and taken away. The factory workers hadn’t been able to talk about anything else all day; many, it seemed, were proud of what had transpired. He shook his head, put the newspaper down, and wiped the ink from his fingers with his handkerchief.
The drive home usually took half an hour. The Opel crossed the Elbe on the North Elbe Bridge, which reminded him of a poor man’s version of London’s Tower Bridge. Then the car drove through Hammerbrook, whose gloomy gray streets were lined with cheap workers’ housing. Albert turned left down Grosse Allee. A trolley and a double-decker bus with an advertisement for Juno cigarettes on one side raced toward the Opel. Outside of a secondhand bookshop, an elderly Jewish man was busy sweeping up shards of glass while a flock of boys shouted obscenities at him; no doubt the same boys were the reason he was now sweeping. The enormous central station soon appeared in view, looking like an anthill as streams of laborers and soldiers came and went. The car then headed toward the posh neighborhood along Harvestehuder Weg. Boastfully calling attention to their inhabitants’ wealth, the small mansions and luxury villas with their manicured lawns stood in stark contrast to the deplorable conditions in the workers’ district on Hammerbrookstrasse.
The car turned onto Heilwigstrasse, then down a large stone driveway. With Alster Lake in the background, the whitewashed villa resembled a postcard. From the southeast-facing balcony, there was a great view of Krugkoppel Bridge, the small marina on the other side of the bridge, and Alster Park on the western bank. The villa had been built in a neoclassical style characterized by symmetry, a mansard roof, windows divided by muntins, and a tall plinth foundation.
From the backseat, Karl acknowledged Albert with a pat on his shoulder. “Thanks for the ride. Your wife feeling better?”
“Much better, thank you. And thank you for the flowers. That was very kind of you.”
“No need to thank me.”
Albert climbed out and opened the rear passenger door. Karl paused a moment in front of his enormous house.
The entrance, with its wide front steps and embellished wrought-iron railings beneath a large gabled roof, always reminded him of a small palace. He’d known he would buy this house the moment he laid eyes on it. He’d stood on the semicircle drive and imagined Ingrid waving to him from the front steps as he drove off to work, imagined August setting sail from the little pier at the edge of the garden, and the twins on the lawn splashing each other with water as Hilde sunbathed on the balcony. He’d had to admit since then that dreams and reality seldom cross paths—in fact they intersected only a few times—but whenever they did, he was happy.
He figured they were all home because they were expecting guests for dinner tonight—or rather, a guest. As the plump young servant girl Karin took his coat in the hall, he made a wisecrack that bounced right off her. If only she were pretty, he thought. She curtsied dutifully and disappeared into the kitchen, from which wafted the scent of roast duck. He heard the housekeeper setting the table in the dining room, the silverware clinking softly each time she set a fork or knife beside the Rosenthal service. When he walked through the living room, she greeted him pleasantly, and he saw how carefully she was polishing the silverware with her white apron—even though the girls in the kitchen had no doubt just washed them. She held each glass up to the light, and if she wasn’t satisfied with what she saw, she put it back on the silver tray. He wondered why an even number of chairs encircled the long table but didn’t think anything more of it.
The big woodstove in the living room crackled, creatin
g a stuffy heat that he didn’t care for; it reminded him of those scorching days in the north of France in stiflingly hot uniforms. His wedding photo rested on the mantle. He’d been twenty-one, Ingrid twenty. She was sitting on a chair with her bridal bouquet in her lap, and he was standing behind her, his hand resting on her shoulder. They were smiling—dream and reality had indeed met in that picture frame, and their happiness was visible. A horseshoe meant to bring them luck was tied to the bouquet, and they’d always marveled at how well it had done its job. She was twice as old now, but remained just as beautiful as she’d been that day.
The living room led to the sunroom, where Ingrid sat in a wicker chair with her back to him. A teacup rested on the glass table in front of her, and he noticed the steam rising from the cup and spiraling dreamily up toward the white-caulked ceiling, blending with the gray smoke of her cigarette.
She hadn’t heard him enter, so he studied her surreptitiously, savoring the moment. She wasn’t beautiful in the conventional sense, but with her oval face framed by nearly black hair and a sober expression that lent her face a touch of sadness, she had a distinctive appearance. Her green eyes often appeared to be gazing off into the distance. Though she was sitting just a few feet away, she seemed very far away.
Ingrid wasn’t like other society women. Not because she didn’t care, but because she didn’t seem to belong. She was bored, he knew, but she had her garden, her books, and her children. He knew she was acting when she beamed like a radiant hostess or played the part of a curious guest asking about the interior design of another host couple’s home, and he appreciated her for this. Though she was the daughter of the mayor of Binz and thus part of the city’s upper crust, she radiated an almost childlike joy in the simplest things, like spring flowers in bloom, a hedgehog on the lawn, or a good book. And then there was her rose garden. Mr. Nikolaus, the old gardener, tended the entire garden with loving meticulousness to ensure that it was presentable year-round, but he was forbidden to lay a finger on her rose garden. Alluding to the gardener’s Dutch roots, she often told Karl in her characteristically caustic tone that the only thing people from the province of Friesland understood were Friesian horses and tulips. That said, Karl often saw Ingrid and Mr. Nikolaus engrossed in conversation in the rose garden, and he knew she was fond of the old gardener.
Winter Men Page 3