The Seventh Gate

by Richard Zimler

  Will either of us ever see Vera again?

  K-H and Marianne visit Isaac a few nights later, distraught. Her cousin in London has written that he will be unable to sponsor them because he is opening a second creamery in Manchester. She shows us the letter, which is written in German: “Once the new creamery starts turning a profit, I assure you we’ll apply for your visas, though we’ve been told that your deafness may complicate matters.”

  Shanghai is said to be accepting Jews, and she and K-H have applied for visas there in case the United States also fails them.

  On the radio that evening, Monday, the 7th of November, Hansi and I hear a news bulletin about the attempted assassination of Ernst vom Rath, the Third Secretary at the German Embassy in Paris. His assailant is reported to be a seventeen-year-old German Jew named Herschel Grynszpan. He apparently walked into the embassy and asked to speak to Ambassador von Welczek. Vom Rath was sent out to meet with the boy, who promptly shot him twice in the abdomen.

  Vom Rath teeters between life and death for two days. Isaac prays he falls on the side of life, fearing reprisals, since the newspapers are full of grotesque threats against the Jews and the need for a final resolution to what they call the “Jewish question.”

  Rumors I hear at school explain away Grynszpan’s act as the result of vom Rath having broken off their secret love affair. Only after the war do we learn that the boy’s parents, sister, and brother had been shoved on boxcars and shipped to Poland in late October.

  On Wednesday the 9th, vom Rath dies, and his assassination is described as a moral outrage by the Nazi leadership. Later that day, two Gestapo men arrive at Isaac’s warehouse and factory, searching for weapons, but all they find is an old saber stored in a backroom. “My army sword,” Isaac explains. “Stupid of me to forget it. I could have sold it and used the funds to help get more people out of Germany.”

  That night, near midnight, I awake to the sound of shouting. I rush into my old bedroom, worried about Hansi. He’s standing bare-chested at the window, which he’s thrown open.

  “Are you all right?” I ask him.

  He nods, then makes a breaking motion with his hands and designs the sign for glass. He points down Marienburger Straße. I slip in beside him and lean out. The sidewalk outside Frau Koslowski’s grocery is covered with shards from her shattered window.

  “Burglars,” I whisper. “I better call the police.” He shakes his head and crosses his index finger and thumb—his shorthand for swastika.

  “Nazis broke her windows?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he signs, so I go back to the sitting room and slip on my clothes. Papa is home tonight and comes to me, scratching his head, also bare-chested.

  “Where are you going?” he asks me in a drowsy voice.

  “Someone’s robbed Frau Koslowski,” I lie. “I’ll just check she’s all right.”

  “Sophie, let the police handle it!” he orders.

  I go to the door. “Watch Hansi,” I tell him.

  Outside, I smell smoke from the west mixing with the odor of hops. And I hear shouting voices, which must mean a crowd has assembled wherever the fire is, but I go instead to Frau Koslowski’s grocery. I walk slowly, tense, ready to run, because I realize that my neighborhood—the east, west, north, and south of my mind—is no longer safe. A puddle of milk has spilled through Frau Koslowski’s smashed doorway; several of the shelves have been knocked to the floor.

  I find the old woman sitting in her beige nightgown at the back of the shop, in front of the doorway to her flat, pressing a bloody towel to her cheek with her bony hand.

  Another woman is sitting next to her, young, in a rumpled floral dress. I’ve seen her in the neighborhood before. She looks up at me, startled.

  “I’m a friend,” I say. “I live just down the street.”

  “I’m her upstairs neighbor,” the woman tells me.

  “It’s me, Sophie, Frau Koslowski,” I say, waving.

  She looks up at me with pink, squinting eyes. She doesn’t recognize me. She’s terrified.

  “They mistook her for a goddamned Jew,” the upstairs neighbor says bitterly.

  I walk west, across Prenzlauer Allee, then begin to run ahead. Just as I’d guessed, flames are curling out the windows of the Rykestraße synagogue, releasing a thick black smoke. Firemen have arrived and are blasting water inside. A police captain from the station next door has taken charge and his officers are holding back a crowd of about a hundred.

  “Let the damn thing burn down!” shouts a Nazi Youth. Around him are at least a dozen of his colleagues and four storm troopers. One with a thick mustache still carries a can of gasoline, and he makes no effort to hide it. All of them are in a back-patting, good-humored mood.

  “Let it turn to ash!” another of the boys shouts.

  An old man with pajama bottoms showing under his overcoat grabs his arm. “I live two houses away. You want my home to go up in flames too?”

  “Fuck off!” the Nazi Youth replies, wriggling free.

  Turning to the woman next to me, I ask, “Is anyone trapped inside?”

  “I don’t know,” she tells me.

  Her husband looks at me angrily, so I walk away and look for Isaac, Rini, and the Munchenbergs, but the only Jewish person I recognize is Herr Wachlenberg, the baker at the River Jordan. At the corner of TresckowStraße, he’s been forced down to all fours by Gestapo officers. I’m only twenty paces away. I should run to him, but terror has gripped my gut and I dare not move. A Gestapo officer orders him to crawl on his hands and knees. A small group laughs caustically.

  A big man in an overcoat, his hands in his pockets and an unlit cigarette dangling from his lip, steps forward and kicks Herr Wachlenberg in his belly. With a grunt, the baker falls on his side, moaning. He brings his knees up by his head protectively.

  It’s the assailant’s hands in his pockets I’ll never forget—as if breaking a Jew’s ribs is a casual thing. As easy as lighting his cigarette, which he does while standing over the wounded man.

  Herr Wachlenberg spots me as I stride toward him. Giving me a panicked look, his eyes black with dread, he shakes his head. I can hear his thoughts easily enough: Don’t risk it!

  I’ll sketch and even paint my feelings dozens of times in subsequent years, though I never get them right. Maybe only Hieronymus Bosch could do justice to that burning atmosphere of hate and cruelty.

  Trembling with rage, I reach for Herr Wachlenberg’s shoulder to try to tug him to his feet.

  “Get away from the dog!” I hear a man shout.

  I’ll never be certain what happens next. As if God Himself takes hold of me—with no time passing, in between the ticks of a clock—I find myself thrown back onto the cobbles, the air ripped from my chest. Has a Gestapo officer struck me in the gut? Or was it the man with his hands in his pockets?

  I’ve skinned both my hands badly and am fighting for air. An old woman with a tangle of gray hair is leaning down toward me. Behind her I can see the night sky. When did the sun go down? Maybe that’s why I’m so cold. And where is Hansi?

  “You’ll be all right,” she tells me.

  From behind, I feel pressure on my shoulders, and soon I’m sitting up again. Then I see Isaac’s worried face.

  “What happened?” I ask him.

  “I’m not sure. I just got here. I was hoping you’d stayed at home. You’ll never learn, will you?” He kisses the top of my head, then tries to lift me up, but I’m too dizzy.

  “Just let me sit here for a minute.”

  After I catch my breath, he manages to get me to my feet. My legs are cold and numb, so I lean on him. He notices that my right palm is bleeding and pulls out a splinter of glass. Taking out his handkerchief, he ties it around my hand.

  The smell of smoke brings me back to myself. “Herr Wachlenberg … where is he?” I ask, and I look around without spotting him.

  “Sophie, we’re going home,” he replies sternly.

  “Take me to his bakery first.�
��

  Isaac keeps his arm behind my waist to prop me up. Onlookers curse us. A bit of luck under the circumstances, because if they knew what we do in bed, they’d murder us instead. I recognize some of the shouting people—a butcher named Mueller from whom Mama used to buy sausages, a blond woman who’d always sit in one of the front pews at church, a bearded businessman who walks his white whippet on Marienburger Straße …

  How could I ever have thought that everyone in my neighborhood was a good person at heart? What illusions children carry!

  The River Jordan is all broken glass and splintered wood, but that makes no difference now; dangling out the first-floor window, just above the bakery—stripped naked, his head in a noose and a piece of bread stuffed in his mouth—is Herr Wachlenberg.

  Another image I will try to sketch and fail. Part of my collection of half-finished pictures.

  Professor Munchenberg answers our knocks and tells us that he and his wife are fine, and that she’s trying to fall back to sleep. The radio is on at a low volume. “Nothing will ever be the same now,” he tells me in a resigned voice. “Though maybe that’s a good thing.”

  When we reach the landing outside Isaac’s apartment, a man, thin and pale, with short, unkempt gray hair, is sitting on his heels in the corner. He’s wearing a long white nightshirt but is naked from the waist down. He holds his own left arm, which is bleeding near the elbow, and his head jerks, as though in spasms. One of his eyes stares at nothing, the other darts around, seemingly in search of a fluttering butterfly. I recognize him as the man I’ve seen walking on the arm of an elegant young woman in the garden at the center of Wörther Platz. They have a bouncy, brown-and-white Shetland sheepdog who smells like an old pillow and whose name is Ringelblume, German for Marigold. I know, because Hansi insists on petting her whenever we spot them.

  “Who’s there?” he whispers.

  “It’s me, Isaac.” He offers his hand, slowly, tenderly, as if this foundling might run off.

  “I hear other breathing,” the man says suspiciously.

  “A friend. A young woman named Sophie.”

  He shudders, so Isaac takes another step forward and touches his cheek, which makes the man seize Isaac’s hand. He gently steps the old tailor’s fingertips over his closed eyes and lips. “That is you, isn’t it?”

  “Beethoven is even beautiful in Braille,” Isaac replies, as if it’s a sentence in code.

  The man laughs in a relieved burst. “How many years ago did I tell you that?” he questions.

  “Too long.” Isaac helps him to his feet.

  “There was no time to dress,” the man says, crossing his hands over his private parts. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be silly. I helped your mother change your diapers when you were a baby. I’ll get you some clothes as soon as we get inside.” Isaac nods for me to open the door and leads the poor man forward, but then, suddenly pale, he asks in a fearful voice, “Where’s your cello?”

  “Back at the apartment, smashed.”

  “Damn those bastards! I’ll go for it as soon as I make you comfortable.”

  “No, leave it for now.”

  “And Ringelblume?”

  “In my wardrobe hiding. I locked her in there as soon as the Nazis started shouting for me. She’ll be fine. I gave her a bowl of water.”

  I reach for Isaac’s shoulder, hopefulness in my expression. Smiling as though presenting me with a treasure, he says, “Yes, Sophele, this is Benjamin Mannheim.”

  And that’s when the tears I’ve been holding back flood me.

  After Isaac bolts the door and brings out a bottle of schnapps, we sit together in his living room, our guest in a pullover and pair of trousers that I’ve fetched for him, both far too big. He doesn’t want slippers. “I want to be able to wiggle my toes,” he says, laughing as he demonstrates. “They’re proof that I’m still alive. I thought I was a dead man.”

  Mr Mannheim is a bit giddy, and as if to prove it, his one real eye keeps dancing around.

  It’s chilly in the apartment, so I’ve draped a crocheted throw rug over my shoulders and given a blanket to Mr Mannheim in case he needs it. I’m sitting cross-legged on a cushion in front of our guest, staring up at him. He and Isaac sit close together on the sofa.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” I tell him excitedly. “I’ve wanted to meet you for years. I’ve seen you many times in Wörther Platz, but I didn’t know you were you.”

  “I hope I’m not a disappointment,” he replies with amused lips.

  “Of course not.”

  I study his slender face. Another Jewish man who doesn’t eat enough. Berlin must have 20,000. A long, painful-looking scar leads from his right eyebrow across his forehead, then down to his left ear. “You play beautifully,” I tell him.

  He bows his head gracefully. “Thank you.”

  “So, don’t keep me in suspense, what happened to you?” Isaac asks him.

  “I counted four voices. They smashed the cello, and some crockery, and then they led me out to the street and spun me around so that I lost track of direction. They told me to find my way home, and that when I did, they’d have a gift waiting for me. I suspected their present might be a bullet, so I sat down on the sidewalk until I could get my balance back. They didn’t like that, and one of them whacked me hard on my left arm with what must have been a plank of wood.” He holds his hand up and grimaces. “It might be broken.”

  “I’ll call a doctor,” Isaac tells him.

  “Is he Jewish?” Mr Mannheim asks anxiously.

  “Yes.”

  “Examining my arm could get him into trouble.”

  “Listen, Benni, I won’t tell the Gestapo if you don’t.”

  Our guest laughs, and Isaac telephones Dr Löwenstein, but his wife says he was arrested a few hours earlier. She doesn’t know where he’s been taken.

  “I’m afraid things are worse than I feared,” he tells us. “Mrs Löwenstein says that Jews are being beaten up and hauled off by mobs and brownshirts in some other areas of the city.”

  Mr Mannheim closes his eyes and leans back as though into memories. And for the first time, I wonder if Jews carry a genetic vestige of 2,000 years of persecution in their very bodies.

  “Sophele, would you be kind enough to make us some tea?” Isaac asks me, and when I nod, he adds, “And bring in some matzo. I’m famished all of a sudden.”

  “Because you don’t eat anything during the day!”

  “Do you have a Gentile doctor?” Isaac asks Mr Mannheim as I leave the room.

  “Almost,” our guest replies, bending over and folding cuffs on his trousers to keep them from hitting the floor. “He’s three-quarters Christian, which means he can still practice medicine with two hands and one leg.”

  “He must do a lot of hopping.”

  Two Jewish men laughing gleefully in the middle of a pogrom. I don’t know how they do it.

  “I’ll call him in the morning,” Mr Mannheim says.

  “For now, the schnapps will help take away some of the pain,” Isaac says. “Drink up.”

  Isaac and he talk while I boil water and brew our tea. I also fetch some aspirin. Mr Mannheim takes the pills out of my hand with delicate but quick movements, his hand like a pecking bird. Then he reaches up to my cheek. “May I feel your face?”

  I sit next to him on the sofa and close my eyes as he sculpts me into his memory. His purposeful touch carries me back to the day I met Vera.

  “What happened next, Benni?” Isaac asks.

  Mr Mannheim takes a greedy gulp of his tea. “The men ran off and I stumbled over here. You know, Isaac, I thought I’d managed to avoid this sort of … of attack. An old colleague of mine from the conservatory is at Gestapo headquarters now. He’s still a reasonable violinist. On occasion we play duets at his apartment. He’s protected me against the denunciations until now.”

  “What denunciations?” I ask.

  “Neighbors have been complaining about my playin
g.” He holds up his bad arm again. “They’ll be overjoyed I’m out of commission. And my poor cello …” He grimaces.

  “I’ll go get it,” Isaac declares, standing up. “No, don’t!” Mr Mannheim orders, thrusting up his hands. “You can go in the morning. Whoever is there waiting for me will get bored and leave by then.”

  “All right, if you think it best.” Isaac squats by our guest. “I’m glad you had the good sense to come to me,” he says, and he leans his head against the cellist’s. Glancing at me, smiling to keep tears away, he adds, “Benni was a very good friend of my son’s.”

  “Isaac, I need to call my children,” Mr Manheim tells him. “May I use the phone?”

  I walk him to the bedroom, so he can have some privacy. Having him on my arm makes me tingle. He walks daintily and slowly, like a mantis. I realize with a start that he may not be blind by birth. While he’s speaking with his children, Isaac tells me, “No, he was in a car accident. He lost his right eye and most of his vision in his left one. The poor boy was a pile of broken bones!”

  Mr Mannheim’s son and daughter are both safe. It’s my turn to make calls next. After all our years of separation, I still know Rini’s phone number by heart, but no one answers. We can’t call Marianne and K-H because they’re deaf, and we can’t risk going to their apartment at the moment. Roman is safe because he has recently left for Italy. As for Dr Hassgall, his teenaged daughter answers his phone and tells me he’s gone to the King David School to stand guard, so I call his office, but there’s no answer. Else is safe at home. She answers my call in a drowsy voice; she was unaware that Berlin was in the middle of a pogrom and was sound asleep. But she’s thankful I called so that she can try to reach her Jewish students. I tell her I’ll call Volker. He answers in a terrified voice, speaking gibberish at his usual breakneck speed. As best I can decipher, both his parents were taken away near midnight.

  “Listen, Volker, talk slowly. Do you have an aunt or uncle in the neighborhood?”

  “No.” He repeats to me how the Gestapo came for his parents. Apparently, one of the men punched his father. It’s all a bit hard to decipher, since he can’t stop weeping.