The Seventh Gate

by Richard Zimler

“Everything is going to be fine,” Papa then tells us, giving Hansi kisses on the top of his head and one on his ear, which makes him wriggle happily. “Better than ever, in fact.”

  My brother still won’t say a word, but after a while I can tell from his down-turned glance that he’s petrified our father will leave again without warning.

  “Freddi, how could everything be better than ever?” Mama questions, more harshly than she probably intends, since the last cinders of her resentment—at his having put us through this torment—must still be burning. Fires go out slowly inside my mother’s mind.

  “First, you have to agree to never repeat what I’m going to say,” he tells us. “After today, there’s a great many things we’ll need to forget.”

  My mother and I promise, but then she says, “Freddi, maybe we should talk alone.”

  The possibility of being excluded again from an adult conversation makes me grip my father’s leg in a stranglehold.

  “No, let Sophie and Hansi hear,” he tells Mama to my relief. “I’ll need their help.”

  He sits my brother beside him, then leans back with a sigh of exhaustion into the cushions of our sofa. “I must look like a mess,” he says. He makes believe he’s looking at himself in a hand mirror and gives us a comic grimace.

  My love for him grows wider at that moment. Maybe I can even talk to him about Tonio pressuring me and confess to him that I’ve become friends with Isaac. Everything could still work out.

  Papa says that he’d received a phone call at his office telling him that he would be arrested the next morning. “So I left work early and went to see Alfred Weidt. You remember him, Sophie?”

  “The star gymnast who could do an iron cross.”

  “Absolutely. And I knew he’d help me—he always had that sort of strength and loyalty.” Papa gives me a crazy smile—a fixed, jack-in-the-box grin. I’ve never seen it before, and it makes me uneasy. “After all,” he continues, “we trained for two years on the same team. But when I talked with Alfred, he said he could do nothing for me.”

  From Papa’s odd smile, I infer he’s hiding something. And I have a good idea it might be rage.

  “Alfred’s wife, Greta … we were friends in high school, too. As she walked me to the door, she pushed a scrap of paper in my hand. She’d written the name and address of an old friend of her family who could help me—a legal magistrate, a Referendar.”

  “So what did you do?” I ask.

  “I took the underground across town to his apartment in the evening. I found him at home, and he let me in. A tall man … very distinguished. And do you know what he wore while he spoke to me, Sophie?” he asks enticingly, putting his arm over my shoulder. “A monocle!”

  Papa adds that detail because he knows I find men with monocles hilarious. I can see from the glint in his eyes that he’s hoping I’ll giggle appreciatively, and I do, but when he does his jack-in-the-box grin again, I feel like asking who he is and where my real father has gone. “What happened next?” I ask instead.

  “He escorted me into his office and sat behind his desk. I was petrified, and when he asked me to explain why Greta had given me his address, I told him about the phone call informing me I was about to be arrested, and that I could not risk prison because I had a family to support, and though I’d been a Communist I only ever wanted what was best for Germany. I rambled on terribly because I was so tired and overwrought. All he asked me afterward was whether I was prepared to renounce my past political affiliations.”

  “Did you agree to that?” Mama asks, and her quivering lips move over an Ave Maria. An inheritance from her Catholic mother.

  “Yes, I had no choice.”

  Mama’s eyes gush with tears. What a scene—my mother weeping as if someone has died, Papa embracing her and reassuring her that all is well, and Hansi—his eyes dull and head angled down—as mirthless as a boiled potato. As for me, my legs have gone all stiff, as if I may need to dash off to save my own skin.

  “The Referendar told me he would have an answer for me in the morning,” Papa continues after Mama calms down. “I was to return at eight. I spent the night in a cheap boarding house, though I couldn’t sleep and went walking through the Grünewald, in that clearing where we used to go for picnics when you were little, Sophie. You remember?”

  “I think so,” I say, because he needs my support, but I don’t.

  “I returned to the magistrate’s home in the morning, but I was told that he could not yet tell me if I could avoid arrest. The person he needed to speak to had been unavailable and would be away from his office all that day and the next one too. So I was to come back only two days later.”

  “You must have been beside yourself with worry!” Mama observes. She’s enjoying her preoccupation now—and making a show of it—because Papa has already indicated that this story has a happy ending. She’s like a small child in that way; she loves being scared as long as she’s sure that peace and contentment will triumph in the final act.

  “No, after a short while a great calm came over me as I walked through the city. I felt as if I could look at my life from a distance. I went to see the Victory Column, and looking up at that winged angel blessing Berlin and all of Germany, I saw that I could be a different man—and still do a great many things I’d no longer considered possible. Doors were opening to me. It was a liberating feeling—like getting a reprieve from a death sentence.”

  Has my rationally minded engineer father had a religious epiphany? At the time, I think so. It occurs to me only years later that Papa may have invented it. After all, implying angelic intervention would have been the best way to win my religiously inclined mother’s support for any difficult decisions he might later have to make—even a move overseas.

  And what is this about a death sentence? Is that how he has regarded his life with Mama, me, and Hansi up until now?

  “When you saw the Referendar again, what did he say?” Mama prompts.

  “He introduced me to two men. The older of the two, maybe sixty, was a history professor. The younger one was a chemical engineer, just like me. The three of us spent hours talking. About Marxist theory, at first. It was astonishing. I don’t know how I could have been so blind, but Professor Furst … that was the older man’s name, though you mustn’t tell anyone, you understand? Sophie … ?”

  “I understand, Papa.”

  He caresses my cheek and says, “Good girl,” then looks frantically between my mother and me, leaning forward, needing us to understand. “He demonstrated to me … no, he proved to me, using Marx’s own words, that our new Chancellor represents the next step in Germany’s destiny—that he will bring about the dictatorship of the Volk, the common man, that we have all been so … so eagerly awaiting.” Looking at Mama tenderly, he adds, “And that some of us, Hanna, those who live with God in their daily lives, and who often understand the world better than their husbands, have been praying for.”

  So much rekindled love for Mama fills Papa’s eyes that I lean away from him, unwilling to intrude. It has been many years since I’ve seen tears of adoration for her in his eyes.

  “You must be exhausted, Freddi,” Mama says, her voice soft. “I’ll make you some tea.”

  The intimacy between them is too overwhelming for her and she wants to escape to the kitchen. But Papa takes her hand and raises it to his lips. “Let me finish my story, Hanna, then you can make us all a snack. Right, Sophie?”

  He hugs me again, wanting to reassure himself that I love him no matter what he’s renounced, just like Mama, and I do, but the musty scent of him and dirt on his clothes make me wonder where he’s really been. I’m certain that my father is lying to us, and maybe for the first time in his life over something important. It’s at that moment that I decide that his clownish smile must mean that he’s making up a story to cover the truth. But what that story is, I have the distressing feeling I’ll never find out …

  “Yes, Papa, a snack would be nice,” I tell him.


  Hearing the doubt in my voice, he misinterprets it as fear.

  “Don’t worry, Häschen, I’m all right,” he says sweetly. He lifts his tin of Haus Bergmann cigarettes from the coffee table and taps one out. It’s a gesture I’ve seen 10,000 times, and it’s reassuring. “I just haven’t slept and I’ve been living on chocolate and coffee. But it’s good to finally see the truth and to have a chance to start over. Who would’ve thought it would be possible at my age!” He gives a quick laugh at himself, then lights his cigarette, inhaling urgently, as if his strength comes from the smoke. But after only one more puff, he stubs it out angrily in the blue ceramic ashtray that I made him at school years ago.

  “The Führer doesn’t smoke,” he tells us by way of explanation.

  No, but you do, I want to say but just nod instead.

  “Professor Furst … he didn’t say a single harsh word to me in three hours. Imagine his patience! And he was so generous when he accepted my apologies. He assured me that many a German patriot had come to the same conclusion as I had, and that my past was nothing to be ashamed of. ‘All roads that lead to Hitler are the right ones,’ he told me.”

  Papa’s voice breaks and he covers his face with his hands as he starts to cry. Grief for the self he has buried alive … ? And are Mama’s tears for the loss of the man she married?

  I will remember my father’s bent back and trembling hands all my life, and always with a sharp sense of guilt; if I’d found the courage to speak honestly then, I might have convinced Papa to keep resisting—and thereby saved many lives. I could have even sacrificed my own desires and told him we should leave right away for France or Switzerland, where he could still believe in his ideals. But I was too confused—and maybe selfish—to say what I thought.

  Maybe Hansi has also realized that the journey we’ve been on together has reached a dead end. He curls into a ball as soon as Papa starts to cry. Does he think it might be dangerous to come back to a home where our parents are not who we thought they were? After all, maybe our father will decide that his son is also part of a past he must now give up.

  While I hold Hansi, Mama kneels next to Papa and pulls his hands away so she can kiss his eyes, as though he’s her child.

  Hansi gets word that Papa has switched sides

  Her maternal fussing irritates me. “What did the second man tell you, Papa?” I interrupt.

  He wipes his eyes. “He gave me more good news,” he replies, helping Mama back into her chair. Remaining standing, he gazes down at me excitedly and says, “Bernhard … that was the chemical engineer’s name … he said that our new Chancellor has been looking for men with my qualifications—and who think like him. He and I talked about chemistry for a while. He was testing my knowledge.” Papa snaps his fingers and gives me a bright look of triumph. “But your father proved to him he knows organic and inorganic chemistry inside out. He ended up making me a proposition. If I was ready to follow the Führer wherever his struggle for justice and glory might lead us, then the National Socialist Party was ready to make use of my talents.”

  “Freddi, they can’t expect you to join the army—not at your age!” Mama gasps.

  “No, no, they don’t need me to carry a gun, just to use my head. And, I must say, it feels good to be wanted so badly. Sophie,” he says, rubbing his hands together nervously, I hope you’ll be pleased to hear I promised Bernhard that you would help, too. Because he told me that our young people represent Hitler’s secret reserve of strength. And what could be more beautiful than a father and daughter working together for their country?”

  When he looks at me questioningly, I give him the required reply, “Nothing could be more beautiful, Papa.” I’d like to go to my room and lock the door and cry a while, but I’ve always been attracted to the scene of a terrible accident—the more anguish the better—so I stay.

  “Did they say whether you’ll be changing jobs?” Mama asks.

  “Yes, but not right away—probably only in a few months. And my salary will be …”

  “Will we have to leave Berlin?” I interrupt in a flash.

  “You’ll be happy to hear, Sophie, that the answer is no.”

  Relief makes me shudder; I’ll still be able to count on Berlin. Though maybe the city will renounce its past, as well, and sink into the medieval hatred of the rest of the country, just as Rini feared.

  “Although,” Papa says loudly to get my attention, continuing in the humorously pompous voice he usually reserves for mocking Hindenberg and other ancient politicians, “we may have to find a larger apartment more commensurate with my new position and salary.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Mama exclaims, laughing appreciatively. I do, too, thinking it’s my safest option. So we will leave behind the apartment I’ve always lived in. And I will have to start hating Isaac, Rini, and Vera.

  My fears for my own identity are a clear indication that I’ve failed completely to understand the ingenious simplicity of Papa’s conversion—and the ease with which millions of others have been reinventing themselves since the election. My father has been assured he’ll be able to go right on campaigning for a prosperous paradise of workers who sing and dance as they plow, weld, hammer, and type. Indeed, as Professor Furst has told him, the Führer expects nothing less than dreams of glory from his little helpers. My father can go on loving Hansi and me, his wife, gymnastics, chocolate, chemistry (both organic and inorganic!), and the Victory Monument. Little need change. All he really has to do is slip dear old Marx into the magician’s hat of Professor Furst’s political theory, whisper an incantation from Mein Kampf, and presto … Out will come a black dove named Hitler. Oh, and one more thing: he will have to swear to help destroy those who jeer as the dove spreads his wings over Germany. And who warn foreign ambassadors about the danger the Nazis pose. The Jews in particular. And maybe he will have to stop smoking, too. That will undoubtedly prove much harder than hating the Jews, who were only pretending to be good Germans all along, as we all now know.

  An even easier conversion lies in store for me; I won’t even have to give up smoking!

  “A bigger apartment!” Mama whispers to herself, gazing around, raising her hands to her mouth, which she only does on those rare occasions when reality corresponds to the dreams she had as a girl. Is she envisioning a garden in Dahlem where she can reproduce the apple orchard she had on her childhood farm? Now that she’s had a few moments to adjust, she’s plainly thrilled by her husband’s change of direction, just like a million other wives who’ve been coping too long with shrinking bank accounts. Why not the farmer’s daughter with the willful daughter and mute son, stuck in the dreary life that she can no longer bear?

  Still, this sudden plot deviation doesn’t seem believable to me; I’m still too young to know that people need only be frightened for their lives to swear that night is day. And that they can believe it’s really true.

  “Sophie, I don’t want you ever mentioning anything about the rallies and meetings I used to take you to,” Papa tells me as we sit down to supper that evening, ending any last hopes I had that our lives will get back to normal. “And you’re not to visit Rini anymore.”

  So he’s forgotten my fight with her. “Of course not,” I agree, holding my plate out for the potatoes Mama is serving.

  “Forget everything that came before now,” he adds, not realizing how silly that sounds.

  “I’ll do my best,” I promise.

  As I take back my plate, Mama raises her hand threateningly toward me, since my answer isn’t assurance enough for her. “This is serious, Sophie,” she warns me.

  “I know that!” I snarl.

  She shoots me a contemptuous glance as she lifts up Hansi’s plate, which means she’s not done with me yet.

  Sure enough, as I’m getting undressed for bed that night, she barges into my room and takes one more book from my shelves, just to spite me—an edition of Goethe’s Faust that I’ve never read. It was a gift from Rini’s parents for my fourteenth birt
hday.

  “Has Goethe made your blacklist, too?” I ask. “I didn’t realize he was a Communist.”

  “He’s far too complex for a girl like you,” she tells me in a haughty voice. A literary critic who never reads. Par for Germany.

  I realize that she’s going to take advantage of Papa’s new beliefs to try to tighten her control on me. Obedient mothers and fathers using Hitler’s regulations to take revenge on their renegade children … Has that been written into the script, too?

  “Goethe may be too dense to burn well,” I observe in a mock-helpful tone. “But if you shred the pages, we can eat the pieces in our soup. Who knows, his poetic words might even improve the taste of your potatoes!”

  I grin to provoke her. I can be a jack-in-the-box, too, if I need to be.

  “Sophie, that’s not in the least bit funny!” she snaps, scowling.

  “I’m sure Goethe would find us eating his words hilarious. You know, Mama, if you’re very quiet,” I add in a conspiratorial whisper, “I think you can even hear him laughing at you right now.”

  Which brings tears to her eyes. One small and bitter victory for the children of Germany. And for our writers.

  But then Papa comes in to scold me for being rude and notes I’m not too old for a beating—unexpected, since he’s never even laid a hand on me before. He’s got his leather belt stretched tautly between his hands, and his eyes fill with the disdain he used to reserve for capitalist factory owners as he tells me how he will expect more from me from now on. His words are razor-sharp, meant to wound me permanently—just like he’s been hurt—and I’ll always remember him sneering, “You think you’re a little Kurt Tucholsky, with that nasty Jewish sense of humor, but you’re really just an insolent, ungrateful child.”

  I end up sobbing, since even if I hate myself how can I stop being who I am and knowing that my father has betrayed me?

  The dilemmas of a girl who doesn’t understand how easy it is to become someone new.

  After I’ve stopped crying, I gain the courage to ask the one question I still need to—so I’ll know exactly what’s required of me. Papa is seated now on the end of my bed, rubbing my feet, behaving sweetly now that he’s been successful at making me feel worthless.