A few days later, when I see the photograph, a tremor shakes me, because I’m thinking: No matter what else he does in his life, Mr Zarco will always be on page two of issue Number 42 of that wretched newspaper and the Nazis will always know where he lives.
K-H, Mr Zarco’s photographer friend, knocks on our door that evening and reassures us that our upstairs neighbor is recovering well. My mother brings him a cup of the coffee she’s just made. K-H wears red suspenders and a white bow tie. Very classy. And today, his cologne smells of violets.
“Isaac is already complaining about the chazerai that the hospital calls food,” K-H tells us, laughing in the relieved way of people who’ve been crying. “You understand?”
“No,” my mother says, because she isn’t used to his deaf person’s voice or his Yiddish, so I translate chazerai, pig-food, into German; it’s a word Rini uses all the time.
Gazing at me over his steaming cup, he says in a somber voice, “Sophie, Isaac wanted me to tell you that you’ll have to water his plants until he comes home.”
“His plants?”
“He said you agreed to help—to water his pelargoniums whenever he was away.”
Tears of gratitude flood my eyes. Worse, I can’t assemble a voice to explain myself.
“Didn’t you hear? Mr Zarco is going to be fine,” says Papa, pressing reassuring lips to my cheek. Mama sits beside me and combs my hair with her fingers.
When I’ve calmed down, I lead K-H to Mr Zarco’s apartment. The photographer asks me about my favorite subjects at school. He speaks in short sentences to better manage all those words he cannot hear. I talk about Frau Mittelmann, but my words float over the image of Mr Zarco lying facedown in his own blood.
“Sophie … ?” K-H is holding the front door open for me. Empty of guests, the sitting room is a landscape of books. The Persian rug is gone, too, revealing a dark parquet floor. I feel like a child in a fairy-tale forest, facing the unknown alone. I’d like to knock every last volume off the shelves. Destruction as a way to prove that nothing now can ever be the same.
And Tonio sympathizes with these hooligans …
My face must give away my despondency, and K-H pours a little schnapps into a shot glass for me. “Drink this, sweetheart,” he says as if it’s an order, and as the burning descends into my belly, he adds cheerfully, “Isaac won’t be stopped by broken ribs. Now, I’m going to leave you for a minute. I have to pack a bag for him in there.” He points to the bedroom. “Isaac needs something to read. And he needs more tobacco. So you just water the plants and stop worrying.” He plucks his suspenders and smiles handsomely.
Am I evil for wondering about what his penis looks like? “I’m all right, just do what you need to do,” I assure him.
Four pink and white pelargoniums huddle under the windows in the sitting room, as quietly exuberant as Mr Zarco himself. They’ve been planted in canary-yellow ceramic pots and arranged on a slate platform. I squat down by them and pull off the wilted flowers, wanting the plants to be perfect for his return. I find a rusted iron watering can under the sink in the kitchen.
When the flowers have soaked up all they can, I pass by the guest room on my way to Mr Zarco’s bedroom. My first look at Wonderland. Twenty blue and green glass fish—each the size of my hand—are dangling from the ceiling, spreading colored shadows around the room, which is a treasury of paintings and drawings. A watercolor of a city of domes and minarets catches my eye first. It’s painted in browns and grays under a blue-blue sky, as if even bright sunlight cannot lift the gloom from the city. Istanbul, Mr Zarco will later tell me.
Just above it is a drawing of a bride and groom soaring through the air. Behind the love-struck couple is a cockeyed village centered by a garlic-bulb Orthodox church. My first Chagall. I will study it many times over the coming years, and what never ceases to amaze me is the sense that the artist has reproduced an entire world in a five-by-seven sketch. It’s one of the works that changes my life.
Near the window is the drawing that becomes my favorite, however. It’s an Otto Dix portrait of a slender, kindly looking gentleman standing by an open window and wearing an elegant but threadbare coat. The man, in his sixties, is aware he is being sketched, and his lips are pursed in gentle amusement. His long, spidery hands are beautiful—the hands of a father who writes weekly letters to his faraway children with an antique pen, I fantasize. It’s his goodness that the artist has sought to capture I’m sure of it. And I place his name in a special spot in my memory when Mr Zarco tells it to me a few days later: Iwar von Lücken, a German poet and friend of Mr Dix.
As I step into the doorway of Mr Zarco’s bedroom, K-H waves me in. Only one painting is on the walls—a watercolor of a shimmering topaz-colored forest under the purple sky of dusk. The trees seem to be made of fire. Like a premonition of destruction—or rebirth.
Below the painting is a mahogany desk covered by a blotter of faded green felt. On it are three notebooks of black-and-white checked oilcloth, like those used by schoolchildren.
“Sophele,” K-H says gently, coming up to me, “I wanted to say something to you before. This country of ours is going through a difficult period, but everything will be all right in the end.” He kisses my brow. “You’re too young to worry. Live your life.”
What good luck I’ve had to meet such a considerate man, I think, but he seems to have forgotten that I’m at an age where nearly every experience can grow thorns.
“Now the disagreeable part,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “The flag has to come down.”
“No, please. If you remove it, then Mr Zarco’s protest didn’t mean anything.”
He tilts his head as if weighing his options. “No, next time they might throw firebombs. Or murder him, like they did Georg. We can’t take the chance.”
“Did you know Georg well?” I ask, and when he nods, I add, “Did you like him?”
“Yes, though he wanted to use violence against the Nazis. I wasn’t so sure.”
“Is Mr Zarco against violence?”
“He’s not sure either.”
“And Vera?”
K-H laughs, then crosses himself as though warding off evil. “I’d never presume to speak for Vera.” He brings his fist down on his head like Buster Keaton. “She’d clobber me.”
So maybe Georg was murdered by the Nazis because he wanted to start using violent tactics against them. “Do you really think Georg was strangled?” I ask. “I mean, there were no signs of a fight.”
He shrugs. “Maybe I’ll show you the pictures when you’re a bit older—if your parents give me permission, that is. Then, you can make up your own mind.”
“What pictures?” I question.
“Vera was the one who found Georg dead. She had me take photos, because she wasn’t convinced the police would investigate properly. She wanted proof of those swastikas drawn on him. She was very upset, as you can imagine.”
“And where are the photos now?”
“Isaac has them.”
“Do you know where he keeps them?”
“Yes,” he grins, eyeing me suspiciously, “but I’m not going to tell you. We probably shouldn’t even be talking about these things.”
“K-H, I’m fifteen years old,” I declare. “And … and I knew Georg. So I think I have a right to see the pictures, especially because I’m worried about
Mr Zarco and what’s going to happen to him and … and all the Jews.” Seeing that he’s still going to turn me down, I add, “My parents let me see my father’s mother in her casket when I was only twelve. I didn’t get the least bit upset.” That’s a lie, since I spiraled down into nightmares for days afterward, but it’s for a good cause.
“Are you sure?”
When I nod, he heaves a sigh of resignation. Men can be such pushovers.
Mr Zarco keeps the photos in an envelope in his desk drawer. The first is of Georg’s pale and slender face. His cheeks show a dusting of whiskers, and I’m struck by his high, flaring eyebr
ows, which seem too bushy for so thin a man. A swastika reaches its evil arms across each cheek, like a grasping spider. A smaller one sits at the center of his forehead. There are no marks on his neck.
Georg looks older than I remember him, but he was in makeup then, dressed as Cesare.
The second picture is of his hands, a rushed, uneven swastika in each palm. I’d bet the killer made these ones last—as an afterthought, while fearing being caught. So maybe the murder wasn’t planned.
“Was it creepy taking pictures of a dead man?” I ask K-H.
“No, I’m used to it. I was a police photographer for several years.”
As he goes to the window to take down the spaghetti flag, I rush to him and reach out for his shoulder so he’ll turn to me. “K-H, even if the rest of Germany is stuck in the Middle Ages, this is Berlin. Mr Zarco should be able to do what he wants to here.”
I catch Hansi wondering about his reflection
He shakes his head. “That’s the point, Sophie—he can’t. Not anymore.”
Chapter Five
I go to bed early that night, my thoughts tangled in my speculations about Georg’s murder until Mr Mannheim begins playing his cello in the apartment house directly across the street. I toss off my eiderdown and go to the window. His yellow curtains are drawn tight. The cautiousness of a musician who lives in a country where people are no longer safe in their own homes.
Hansi is still asleep, so I ease the window open and pull up my chair so that I can lean on the sill; I need the reassurance of music. If Tonio were here with me, we’d have our eyes closed and be holding hands, floating together in the darkness.
Mr Mannheim’s devotion to Mozart and Telemann unites all of us in our neighborhood, and a good many people I know are likely to be listening to him at this very moment, because every night at nine, and earlier on weekends, this man whose face none of us has ever knowingly spotted picks up his bow and sets to putting the universe in order again. Whether he is aware of it or not, Mr Mannheim’s message is this: the world has chords that obey physical laws, and scales that cannot be altered no matter what Hitler says, and ways of modulating between keys that are so gloriously unpredictable that maybe—just maybe—life will get better and not worse: Tonio may come to his senses; my mother will discover she needs to be kinder to me; Hansi will learn to peel potatoes efficiently; Georg’s murderer will be caught; and Mr Zarco’s ribs will heal perfectly. And I’ll get all the moussaka I can eat.
Clouds glide past the moon, as radiant as those in a dream or myth. It is as if I am seated at the center of a city that is showing me its innermost workings, as well, because I can see for the first time that my neighbor is not working alone. Alongside him is the long-haired violinist who plays excerpts from the Brandenburg Concertos outside the Villa Klogge and the blind accordionist who sits on a bench in Kurfürsten Platz every Sunday morning, bellowing out chansons d’amour, his hands in fingerless leather gloves. Despair is not our only choice, they tell us, and beauty is a simple thing.
“They looked like Laurel and Hardy,” Mr Zarco tells me.
I’m sitting by his bedside in the hospital. Deep pouches sag under his eyes and his lips are cracked, but he swears he hasn’t felt this good since he fainted at a spa in Baden-Baden from the scalding water and sulfur fumes.
He’s wearing blue flannel pajamas, frayed at the collar and with holes at the elbows. The doctors are keeping him under observation until tomorrow. I’ve just asked him to describe his assailants. I’m armed with my sketchbook, which sits on my lap, and my box of Czech pencils. My plan is simple: once the police have my drawing, they’ll be able to identify the men who attacked him and track them down. I’ll be a hero.
“Be serious,” I tell him. “What did they really look like?”
“I am serious,” he assures me. “Imagine Laurel and Hardy as grimy pickpockets.” He holds up his hand as if he’s swearing before a judge.
“I’m fifteen,” I say, as if that’s impressive. “You can tell me the truth.”
“Mazel tov,” he says, scratching the gray whiskers on his chin. “Sophele, don’t you have to be somewhere?”
“Like where?”
“Like school!” he bursts out.
“Cancelled for the day,” I lie. In point of fact, I bribed Rini with two strings of licorice into telling Dr Hildebrandt that I had to leave early because Mama was ill. I’ll bring the principal a forged note from my father tomorrow.
“Why would school be cancelled?” Suspiciousness reduces Mr Zarco’s eyes to slits.
“How should I know?”
He frowns but doesn’t insist I leave. A benefit of his not being related to me.
“Laurel hit me first,” he begins. “Then Hardy knocked my head against the pavement. What they did after that, I can’t tell you.” He sighs with gratitude. “I was in dreamland, Gottze dank,” he says in Yiddish, meaning thank God.
I ask him to describe what they were wearing. He’s better on clothing than faces. He even remembers the wooden buttons on Laurel’s coat.
“I have a tailor’s memory,” he explains.
A nurse brings lunch. While Mr Zarco is munching away, I make good use of my pencils. Every time I look up at him, amusement blooms in his eyes. But he’s got a big surprise in store because Papa took Hansi and me to see Laurel and Hardy in The Music Box not too long ago.
“Some Linzer torte?” he asks me when he’s finished his schnitzel. He takes the tart out of its box with infinite care, as if it’s a diamond tiara, and eases it onto his tray.
“No, thanks. I’m sketching Laurel’s coat. Then I’ll be done.”
“Heidi is Berlin’s number one baker,” he adds seductively. “Her crème pâtissière is …”
“Can’t you see I’m working?” I interrupt. And doesn’t he realize I’m trying to make up for refusing to accept the coat that he and Vera planned to give me? Even intelligent people can be so thickheaded.
Seeing it’s best to ignore me for the moment, he gobbles down his piece of torte, licking the raspberry compote off his fingers like Hansi. I wait until he’s lit his pipe and leaned back against his pillow with his hands behind his head, the picture of masculine satisfaction, then hold the sketchbook up for him.
“So, you’re going to be an artist!” he says triumphantly, as though he’s just spotted my destiny. “Let me see that.”
He studies the drawing keenly, holding it away from his face at different distances, which pleases me. Then he hands the sketchbook back to me and wipes the crumbs from his blanket onto the floor. If a cleaning lady didn’t sweep his room every morning, it would look like a parrot’s cage.
“Laurel was more of a shlemiel,” he says, and seeing I’m stumped, he adds, “A man who trips over his own feet. Or who gets shat on by pigeons. This shlemiel looked like he didn’t bathe. And the lapels of his coat were wider than the ones you’ve drawn.”
I refine my portraits according to Mr Zarco’s observations, though he is very hazy on Hardy. After another half hour, my likenesses are as good as they’re going to get.
“Not bad,” he says, adding with mock seriousness, “I guess it takes a girl with a criminal mind to be able to draw hoodlums.”
I sidestep that criticism with an important question. “Were you the one who thought of shredding swastikas and putting them out all over the city?”
“Yes.”
“Who knew about your plans?”
“Only the members of The Ring.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, why?”
“No reason,” I lie, because I’ve just concluded that the editors of Der Stürmer must have known that Mr Zarco conceived of the protest or they would have photographed someone else. Which means that there must be a traitor in The Ring who gave them that information. “Mr Zarco, will you show my portraits to the police?” I ask.
“Absolutely.”
“What do you think they’ll do with Laurel and Hardy if they catch them?”
/>
“Give them a medal. Maybe a monument, too.”
“This isn’t funny!” I tell him, infuriated by his refusal to treat me like an adult.
“Stop criticizing me and help me sit up. I keep sliding back down and it’s bad for the digestion.”
I tug on his arm. That’s doesn’t work, so I get behind him and push. It’s like trying to move a sack of potatoes.
When he’s finally seated comfortably with his legs over the side of the bed, he rests his pipe on the side table. “Sophele, I know it isn’t funny,” he says morosely. “But the men who hurt me will not be caught. They’re beyond the law.”
“Just like whoever murdered Georg?” I ask.
“Perhaps.” He reaches for his pipe again and inspects the bowl to keep emotion at bay. “It was wrong of me to let you waste your time with the drawing, but it was reassuring to have you sketching beside me. Please forgive me.”
“I don’t mind,” I tell him.
His eyes look bruised and his hands sit defeated in his lap. At length, he says, “I’m feeling a little fragile now, and I need to think, so maybe you should go home.”
But I won’t give in to cowardice again. “No,” I declare. I’m staying with you.” After he gives me a little smile of thanks, I say, “Mr Zarco, now that Georg is dead, will The Ring still have regular meetings?”
“Yes, we just need to restructure a bit.”
“Can I come to one? Not to join necessarily, just to watch.”
“Absolutely not!” he declares. “A fifteen-year-old girl … You must think I’m crazy.”
Even when he is frowning, I can see how much he likes me, and how much life he has. “Don’t move,” I say, and I turn to the next page in my sketchbook and start to design the grid in which I’m going to draw his face.
“No you don’t!” he exclaims, guessing what I’m up to. He throws his hand out as if to stop an onrushing tram. “I look like the Frankenstein monster. And in these pajamas …”
“Just sit still.”
He reaches up to shield his face again, peeking out through his fingers, and this time I allow myself to smile.
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