The Berlin Boxing Club

by Robert Sharenow

Hildy leaned inside the car, and she hugged and kissed my mother and then my father.

  “Don’t be scared, my little beauty,” my father said to her. “I’ll be fine. And Karl’s the toughest guy on the block now.”

  I kissed my mother and then reached out to shake my father’s hand.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll be okay.”

  “Come closer, Karl,” my father said.

  I leaned in, and he tenderly touched the side of my face and kissed me on the cheek. I could not remember the last time I had been kissed by my father, and it felt strange.

  “I finally got to see you fight,” he said. “You must be something in the ring. Take care of your sister, okay?”

  “I will,” I said.

  I felt a rush of emotion toward my father like I’d felt the day my mother had visited in the basement. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, but the words got stuck in my throat.

  “Good-bye, Karl,” he said.

  I covered them both with the drop cloth so they were completely hidden and shut the door. My parents slumped down in the seat under the cloth, until they looked like they could pass for a pile of painting supplies instead of two living, breathing human beings. Then Hartzel drove off into the night. Almost as soon as they rounded the corner, a loud crash came from down the block in the other direction.

  “Let’s get inside,” I said.

  An Evening Stroll with Our Aunt

  IT WAS ONLY TEN P.M. BY THE TIME WE GOT BACK INSIDE, though it felt as if it were past midnight. We made our way downstairs to the basement, because I figured that would be the safest place for us. Anyone breaking into the gallery would see that it had already been ransacked and I hoped would also assume it had been abandoned.

  Hildy was terrified, and as we sat in the darkness, she peppered me with questions that I couldn’t answer. “Where are they going to take Papa?” “Will he be okay?” “How long will we have to stay alone?” “What are we going to do?” I tried to keep her calm, but my lack of any concrete information or plan made her more and more hysterical.

  Then we heard another loud crash. A baby cried from an apartment nearby. The sound of shouts, laughter, and chants swelled as another wave of men and boys poured down our street. A brick was thrown through our already broken window, shattering most of the remaining glass. Hildy shrieked in terror.

  “Shhhh!”

  “They’re going to kill us,” she cried.

  “Keep quiet!”

  “I want Mama!”

  “Please, Hildy. Pull yourself together.”

  “I can’t!”

  “Keep your voice down or they’ll hear you.”

  “I want my mama!”

  “I’m here. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not. They’re going to get us.”

  “I’ll protect you.”

  “You can’t—”

  “I can. I’ll get us out of here.”

  “How?”

  “I think I know a place we can hide.”

  “Where?”

  “Just stay down here. I’ve got to go back up and make a phone call.”

  “I want to come with you! Don’t leave me!”

  “No. Just stay here. It’s okay.”

  I stood up to go upstairs, and she screamed, “Karl!”

  I clamped my hand over her mouth.

  “Quiet!” I hissed.

  Her breathing calmed a bit, and I removed my hand.

  “You can come with me, but you have to promise to be quiet. Can you do that?”

  She nodded.

  We both slowly made our way back up the dark staircase to the main floor. I searched around in the darkness until I found my father’s address book.

  “I need you to light a match for me so I can look up a number,” I said. “Can you do that?”

  Hildy nodded. I found a box of matches, and she lit one. Her eyes were wide with terror as I flipped through the book until I found the name I was looking for: “BERTRAM HEIGEL.” I picked up the phone.

  Twenty minutes later the front door gently opened, and the strange high voice of the Countess called out, “Karl?”

  The Countess stepped over our broken furniture and inside the main room.

  “Are you here?”

  Hildy and I emerged from the back dressed in our sweaters, scarves, hats, and overcoats. We had both packed our rucksacks with some books and a few possessions we were able to find in the wreckage.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said.

  “Of course,” he said. “A girl like me always likes a night on the town.”

  I stepped into the light, and the Countess gasped.

  “Karl, my dear boy, you look awful.”

  “It’s not so bad,” I said.

  Through the darkness, I could see that he had dressed in his long blond wig and makeup with a kerchief tied around his head. He wore a simple blue dress under his overcoat. I was not sure why he had dressed as a woman, but I was glad he had. A woman walking with two children would be far less likely to be attacked than a man.

  “Hildy,” I said, “this is the Countess.”

  “Aren’t you a darling?” the Countess said, approaching and taking her by the chin and staring at her in the dark. “I bet you’re Daddy’s little princess.”

  Hildy nodded nervously.

  “I do like to be called the Countess, but you may call me Aunt Bertie, if you like. I’ve always wanted a little niece just like you.”

  Another loud crashing noise erupted from the street. We all flinched.

  “So, it’s just a few blocks to my apartment,” the Countess continued. “And if anyone asks, you’re my niece and nephew and we’re just out for a stroll, returning from a lovely dinner party, like a silly game of pretend. Do you think you can do that?”

  Hildy nodded.

  “Okay then, let’s be off.”

  We emerged onto the street and made our way toward the Countess’s apartment building. Along the route we saw that dozens of Jewish stores and homes had been attacked. We passed Herr Greenberg’s art supply shop, and tubes of paint and colored pencils lay trampled on the ground in front of the store, so great swirls of color mingled with the broken glass of his front window. Multicolored boot tracks led off in all directions like trails of blood in the woods that a hunter would track to find a wounded animal. I saw streaks of red mixed in and wondered if Herr Greenberg’s blood had been spilled along with his paint.

  The Countess held Hildy’s hand as we moved quickly down the sidewalk. A group of boys, who appeared to be my age, emerged from around a corner and approached us. I instantly recognized one of them as my old friend Kurt Seidler. I hadn’t seen Kurt in more than two years, since the day I had been kicked out of our school with all the other Jews. Kurt and his friends were not wearing Nazi uniforms, but I noticed they were all carrying items that they must have looted from Jewish homes or businesses. One of the boys had a silver teapot, another held a small radio tucked under his arm, and Kurt himself gripped a set of brass Sabbath candlesticks, one in each hand.

  I pulled my hat low over my face as we approached. The boys were smiling and talking excitedly. As we passed, Kurt addressed the Countess.

  “Hey, anything left to grab up ahead?”

  “No,” the Countess said quickly.

  I carefully glanced up, and Kurt suddenly caught sight of me. A flash of recognition dawned on his face. His eyes locked on mine. My pulsed quickened as I wondered what he would do. We stared at each other for a long moment, and then he quickly looked away.

  “Come on, boys,” he said. “Let’s check it out anyway.”

  Kurt and his friends moved on. I exhaled and glanced over my shoulder at them. They seemed so overwhelmed with the excitement of the night that they almost appeared to be skipping down the sidewalk. A sharp wave of nausea hit me. I wondered what had become of my other friends. Were they out looting and attacking Jews too?

  “Wasn’t that Kurt Seidler?” Hildy asked.

  �
��I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  We moved on down the block and saw a group of brownshirts kicking at an elderly Jewish man lying in the street. Hildy cried out when she saw them, and the Countess pulled her close. I heard the Jew’s muffled cries as we passed: “Please, stop.” The brownshirts were so focused on their task they didn’t notice us passing by on the opposite side of the street.

  We finally made it to the Countess’s apartment building, which was on a quiet residential street in a neighborhood where few Jewish people lived. As a result, the street was completely untouched and still, as if it were just any other night.

  As we entered the apartment, I noticed that the front rooms seemed different. Several pieces of furniture and some artwork appeared to be missing. The Countess noticed my quizzical expression.

  “I’ve had to redecorate a bit over the past couple of years. Leaner times call for a more sleek style. But I’ve kept my boudoir intact. Here, Hildy, come take a look.”

  The Countess led us into the bedroom, which was dominated by a large vanity covered with cosmetics and multicolored perfume bottles. Feather boas and scarves hung over the edges of the mirror. He sat Hildy on a small embroidered chair in front of the vanity.

  “I’ve never seen so much makeup,” Hildy gasped.

  “Not all of us are as naturally beautiful as you are, my dear. You can play with whatever you like. Karl, come help me in the kitchen.”

  I followed the Countess into the small kitchenette, where he helped me clean and bandage my wounds. Then he poured some milk into a saucepan on the stove to make hot cocoa.

  “Does she know I’m a man?”

  “No. I don’t think so. I didn’t say anything.”

  “Good. Don’t. She’ll be more comfortable if she thinks I’m a woman. All little girls want their mothers when they need comfort, ja?”

  “I need to find them,” I said. “I need to know if my father’s okay. He lost a lot of blood—”

  “In the morning,” he interrupted. “There’s nothing to be done tonight. It’s a madhouse out there.”

  “I need to at least call the hospitals.”

  “I don’t have a phone in the apartment anymore. And it’s too risky for you to use the public phone in the lobby that you called me on earlier. Too many prying ears. None of us would be safe. I’ll find a safe phone for us to use tomorrow. We’ll find them. Don’t worry.”

  He mixed pieces of dark chocolate and sugar into the simmering milk and then poured three cups, and we returned to the bedroom.

  Hildy was flipping through a big stack of phonograph records that were lined up on a shelf beside the vanity.

  “You have so many records.”

  “They’re my lifeline. I sold my radio months ago. I got sick of hearing all the bad news and the rotten music they play these days.”

  “I’ve never seen such a big collection of jazz singers.”

  “Yes. Unfortunately, no one is allowed to play this kind of music anymore. Isn’t that ridiculous? As if Louis Armstrong were some sort of political operative. But I still listen to them late at night with the volume turned low.”

  A large old wooden phonograph sat nearby, and the Countess started picking out thick black discs and putting them on, one by one. We listened to the crackling music as we drank our hot cocoa. Some of the Jazz Age cabaret songs were funny, some were sad, and many of them had a world-weary quality.

  “All these songs are from the good old days, which didn’t seem so great at the time but are looking better and better. This one was always my favorite. It’s by Josephine Baker. Do you know who that is? She’s a wonderful Negro singer from America. She used to play the cabaret here, and there’d be a line around the corner. Used to do a crazy dance wearing only bananas!”

  “Peeled or unpeeled?” Hildy giggled.

  The Countess put on the scratchy old disc, and a voice emerged that was fragile and sexy at the same time. The lyrics struck me as ominous, like she was singing about a Germany she knew was slowly dying.

  She’s a little bit sad and a little bit smart

  Something of an angel and something of a tart

  She likes danger, dancing, brawling and booze

  She’s got everything to gain and nothing to lose

  She’s my Berlin baby

  A brightly falling star

  My Berlin baby

  Always goes too far

  Let’s eat and drink and dance and sing

  Who cares what else tomorrow brings

  The morning may just not begin

  So grab a little sin

  She’s my Berlin baby

  A brightly falling star

  My Berlin baby

  Always goes too far

  Always goes too far

  Always goes too far

  The last strains of the music faded, and the needle scratched as it reached the end of the record. The Countess lifted the needle and turned off the machine. Hildy had fallen asleep on a small purple velvet couch. The Countess gently placed a pillow beneath Hildy’s head and covered her with a blanket.

  “She can sleep here. You take the couch in the living room.”

  He handed me a pillow and a blanket from a closet.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You were brave to come out and get us.”

  “You were the brave one, Karl. You figured out the plan and took control. I just answered the call. You’re just like your father.”

  I experienced an unfamiliar feeling of pride at being compared with my father.

  By the time I retreated to the living room and settled down on the couch it was well past midnight. As I lay back, my mind raced with concerns and anxieties. How would I track down my parents? Had my father received treatment in time? How long would the anti-Jewish rioting last? Would it ever end if the police and the government didn’t care to stop it? How would we escape this nightmare?

  I grabbed my rucksack and took inventory of the few things I had been able to salvage from the gallery: a small pile of my sketchbooks and journals, the little money I had stashed under my mattress, my prized copy of The Ring magazine with the cover story on Barney Ross, the book Boxing Basics for German Boys, and the first issue of Action Comics with the origin of Superman. I opened Hildy’s rucksack and looked inside. She too had taken some of her journals, her favorite dress, and a sweater that our mother had knitted her. I was relieved to see that she had also taken Herr Karotte and the very first Winzig und Spatz book. These items from our old life gave me some small measure of comfort. The Nazis had broken our windows and torn apart our furniture, but they had not destroyed our selves. I set the books aside and finally drifted off to sleep.

  The Feint

  THE NEXT MORNING THE COUNTESS FOUND A friend a few blocks away who agreed to let us use his phone. It was too dangerous to risk returning to the gallery, because bands of brownshirts still roamed the streets, looting whatever they could find and harassing any Jews they came across. Some of them forced the Jews to sweep or scrub away the mess in the streets as if they had caused it themselves.

  The Countess’s friend was an old gentleman, named Herr Braun, who had a large white mustache and wore an ascot and a silk jacket. He lived in a freestanding brick town house that had once been quite grand but, like his fine clothing, had begun to fray. Hildy stayed in the apartment while the Countess and I went to make the calls to try to find our parents. With Herr Braun’s help, we made contact with every hospital and clinic we could think of, but no one could find a record of Sigmund Stern’s being admitted for treatment.

  “If they were smart, they found a private doctor,” Herr Braun said.

  “Were your parents friendly with any doctors?” the Countess asked. “Jewish doctors?”

  “None that I can think of.”

  “Well, I’m certain that’s what they must have done,” the Countess said, with a little too much forced confidence.

  “There were many arrests last night,” Herr Braun said. “I was listen
ing to reports on the radio this morning. They might’ve been pulled over and arrested.”

  Instantly the worst images of my parents rotting in a dirty jail cell flooded into my head. What would happen to Hildy and me if they had been arrested? Would we be arrested too?

  “There’s no need to panic the boy,” the Countess said.

  “I’m just trying to be realistic,” Herr Braun said.

  “Why would they arrest them?” I asked.

  “For inciting the riots,” he replied.

  “Inciting the riots? What did they do to incite the riots?”

  “Nothing of course,” Herr Braun said. “But the news reports are blaming the Jews for starting the trouble themselves. There’s even talk that the government intends to have the Jews pay to repair all the damage. And there may be more trouble tonight. I would suggest that you stay indoors until this all blows over.”

  “You and your sister are welcome to stay at my flat as long as you need.”

  “What if it doesn’t blow over?” I said.

  Neither man responded.

  “I need to find my parents.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend making any more calls,” Herr Braun said. “It’s not good to be asking too many questions. You might bring suspicion on yourself . . . and us.”

  “Suspicion of what?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Suspicion of anything.”

  “Let’s just lay low for a while, Karl,” the Countess said gently. “I’m sure things will quiet down after a couple of days. And then we’ll find them.”

  “No. I’ve got to find them now.”

  “It’s too risky,” Herr Braun said.

  “I know someone who can help,” I said.

  “Who?” the Countess asked.

  “Just someone. He lives not too far from here.”

  “Why don’t you call him first?” the Countess asked.

  “No. I have to see him in person.”

  Since Max had ignored all my letters, I feared he wouldn’t take my calls. I needed to confront him face-to-face.

  “You shouldn’t be out on the streets alone, Karl,” the Countess said.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I don’t look Jewish. No one will bother me.”