But, just this once, I will answer you.
That woman is my fiancée.
She was picking up her things, that’s all.
She looked upset, says Charlotte.
So?
Must I be responsible for the sufferings of others?
After a pause, he adds: never do that again.
What?
Coming here, like that.
If you oppress me, you will lose me.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, she repeats.
Before daring to add: but, do you love her?
Who?
Well, that woman …
Don’t ask me anything.
Life is too short for nonsense like that.
If you must know, we are separated.
She came to fetch a book she’d forgotten.
But if I had been with her, that wouldn’t have changed anything.
Charlotte is no longer sure she understands what he’s saying.
Not that it matters.
All she knows is: she feels good here, with him.
How many times do people feel like that?
Once, twice, never.
She shivers with cold.
Her teeth chatter.
Finally, he moves toward her to warm her up.
3
Where was the logic in his silence?
When he seems so thrilled to see her again.
He spends a long time contemplating her.
As if he is responsible for this moment.
As if he did everything he could to find her again.
It’s incomprehensible.
Charlotte becomes lost in a labyrinth of futile thoughts.
But it makes no difference.
She wants to give herself to him, and that’s all.
He is more brutal than last time.
He pulls her hair with a lover’s strength.
Charlotte’s mouth opens.
And travels down her beloved’s torso.
He is touched by the energy she puts into giving him pleasure.
She can’t get enough of it now.
It is hope that crosses her throat.
She seems to understand so perfectly what he likes.
Charlotte falls asleep, happy.
He looks at her again, a savage child calmed.
So he had to survive for this moment.
Alfred plunges his face into Charlotte’s hair.
An image comes to his mind.
A painting by Munch:
Man’s Head in Woman’s Hair.
He stays like that for a moment, before getting up.
He walks over to his desk and starts to write.
Poems, or simply isolated sentences.
A few pages inspired by beauty.
Charlotte awakes.
Did she hear the din of her lover’s thoughts?
She moves toward the written words.
Alfred says: it’s for you.
You have to read it while imagining a piece by Schubert.
Yes, yes, yes, she says, thinking about the Impromptus.
She starts to read, and the words come to her.
It is not always the reader who has to go toward the sentences.
Especially not with Alfred’s, so powerful and indomitable.
Charlotte mentally underlines each one.
He writes about her and him, and it’s the history of a world.
It’s Schubert’s impromptu in G-flat major.
They are the minor of hideaways and the major of true lovers.
She tries to pick up a page, but Alfred stops her.
He grabs the whole sheaf.
And throws them on the fire.
Charlotte screams.
Why?!
Suddenly.
In a second.
When it must have taken him hours to write.
She cries.
She is in despair.
No one had ever written such words for her before.
And now they are all gone.
He takes her in his arms.
He says they exist, and will always exist.
Not in a material form.
But in memory.
They will exist with the music of Schubert.
The music we do not hear, but which is there.
He goes on, explaining the beauty of the gesture to her.
The essential thing is that those words were written.
The rest doesn’t matter.
We must not leave evidence for the dogs anymore.
We must put away our books and our memories inside us.
4
In France, at that very moment, a man gets up.
He looks at the reflection in his bedroom mirror.
For a long time now, he hasn’t been able to recognize himself.
He can barely even say his own name: Herschel Grynszpan.
A seventeen-year-old Polish Jew, he lives in forced exile in Paris.
He has just received a despairing letter from his sister.
His entire family has been expelled.
Without warning, they must leave their country.
Now they are in a refugee camp.
For too long, Grynszpan’s life has been nothing but humiliation.
His existence is like a rat’s, he thinks.
So, on that morning of November 7, 1938, he writes:
I must protest, so that the whole world hears my protest.
Armed with a pistol, he enters the German embassy.
Claiming he has an important document, he finds himself in a diplomat’s office.
Later, it will be said that this was a settling of personal scores.
A private, sexual affair with an unhappy ending.
Does it really matter?
In this moment, all that counts is the hatred.
The third secretary, Ernst Vom Rath, is pale.
There can be no doubting the young man’s determination.
And yet, the would-be killer is trembling.
His palms are clammy.
The scene seems to go on forever.
But it doesn’t.
He pulls the trigger now.
He shoots the German at point-blank range.
Several shots, one after another.
The diplomat’s head smashes into the desk.
Cracking his skull.
Blood pours onto the floorboards.
A red pool forms around the assassin.
Officers burst in.
The killer does not try to get away.
The news soon reaches Berlin.
The Fuhrer flies into a rage.
Vengeance must be immediate.
How dare he?
Quick, crush this vermin.
And then, no.
Not him.
All of them.
It’s a race that’s to blame.
Spreading.
Vom Rath was killed by all the Jews.
Pleasure mingles with rage.
The pleasure of reprisals.
5
The Salomon family is eating lunch in silence.
There’s a knock at the door.
Charlotte looks at her father.
Every sound is a menace.
It cannot be otherwise.
They all remain seated around the table.
Without moving, immobilized by fear.
More knocking.
Harder, more determined.
They must do something.
If they don’t, the door will be smashed down.
Finally, Albert gets to his feet.
Two men in dark suits stand outside.
Albert Salomon?
Yes.
Please follow us.
Where are we going?
Don’t ask questions.
Can I take a few things?
There’s no point, just hurry up.
Paula tries to intervene.
Albert signals her to keep quiet.
Better to avoid a scene.
&nbs
p; They’ll fire at the least sign of resistance.
They only want him, so at least that’s something.
Probably for an interrogation.
It won’t last long.
They’ll realize that he’s a war hero.
He gave his blood for Germany.
Albert puts on his coat and his hat.
And turns around to kiss his wife and daughter goodbye.
Hurry up!
His kisses are fleeting, stolen.
He leaves the apartment, without looking back.
Charlotte and Paula hug each other tight.
They don’t know why he was taken.
They don’t know where he’s going.
They don’t know how long it will be.
They don’t know anything.
Kafka wrote about this in The Trial.
The hero, Joseph K., is arrested without reason.
Just like Albert, he prefers not to resist.
The only judicious attitude consists in accommodating oneself to the way things are.
So that’s it.
It’s “the way things are.”
There is nothing to be done against the way things are.
But how far does that way go?
The process seems irreversible.
Everything has already been written in the novel.
Josef K. will be killed like a dog.
As if the shame must outlive him.
6
Without any explanation, Albert is thrown into Sachsenhausen.
A concentration camp to the north of Berlin.
He is penned up in a cramped room with other men.
Albert recognizes some of them.
They exchange a few words to reassure each other.
In their heads, they play out pitiful scenes of optimism.
But none of them really believes it anymore.
It’s gone much too far now.
They’ve been left here to die, nothing to eat or drink.
Why does no one come to see them?
How can they be treated like this by their compatriots?
After several hours, some officers turn up.
They open the door of the shack.
A few protests are raised.
The rebels are immediately seized.
They are led to another part of the camp.
They will not be seen again.
The officers explain to the prisoners that they are going to be interrogated.
They must form a line.
Standing in the cold, they wait for hours.
Some are too old or too sick to hold out.
Those who collapse are transported somewhere else.
They will not be seen again either.
The Nazis are not yet executing people in broad daylight.
The weak and the defiant are shot in the backyard.
Albert positions himself in the middle of the line of dignified men.
Yes, they are dignified.
The determination not to offer up their pain, on top of everything else, is palpable.
It is the only thing you can keep.
When you have nothing left.
The desire to stand up straight.
His turn comes.
He finds himself facing a young man who could be his son.
You’re a doctor, he snorts.
Yes.
No surprise there, that’s a real Jew’s job.
Well, you’re not going to twiddle your thumbs here, you lazy bastard!
How can anyone call Albert lazy?
He has worked all his life like a man possessed.
Striving to make medical breakthroughs.
If this shit-for-brains soldier doesn’t die of an ulcer, it will be thanks to him.
Albert lowers his eyes: it is too much to bear.
Look at me! shouts the young Nazi.
Look at me when I’m talking to you, vermin!
Albert lifts his head, like a puppet.
Takes the sheet of paper that is handed to him.
And reads on it the number of his dormitory, and his serial number.
He no longer has the right to a name.
…
The first days are torture.
Albert is not used to physical work.
He is out on his feet, but he knows he must keep going.
If he falls, he risks leaving.
Leaving for that place from where no one ever comes back.
Exhaustion wipes out his ability to think.
In certain moments, he doesn’t know anything at all anymore.
He doesn’t know where he is, who he is.
As when you wake from a nightmare.
And it takes you several seconds to return to reality.
Albert stays in this zone for hours on end.
His consciousness wandering.
As for Charlotte and Paula, they are exhausted by lucidity.
The lack of news eats away at them.
Like hundreds of other women, they stand outside police stations.
In front of the building, there is a huge crowd of female protesters.
Where are our husbands?
Where are our fathers?
They beg for information.
For some proof that they’re alive.
Charlotte manages to enter one of the offices.
She is carrying a warm blanket.
I would like to deliver this to my father, she pleads.
The officers force themselves not to laugh.
What’s his name? a Nazi finally asks.
Albert Salomon.
All right, you can go now, we’ll take care of it.
But I would like to take it to him myself, please.
That’s impossible.
No visits are allowed for the moment.
Charlotte knows she must not insist.
If she wants the blanket to reach her father, she must keep quiet.
She leaves in silence.
A few seconds after this, the officers burst out laughing.
Ah, that’s so sweet!
Does the little Jewish girl want to take care of her daddy-waddy?
Ah … Oh … Ah … they snigger.
As they wipe their muddy boots on the blanket.
7
Weeks pass.
The most terrible rumors circulate about the fate of the men.
Hundreds have died, it is said.
Paula and Charlotte still haven’t heard anything.
Is Albert even alive?
The opera singer does everything she can to liberate her husband.
She still has a few admirers among the Nazi hierarchy.
They will see what they can do to help her.
It’s complicated: no one is being released.
Please, please, I beg you.
She implores them constantly.
Alfred is there, during the unbearable days of waiting.
He distracts them as best he can.
Whenever Paula looks away, he embraces Charlotte.
But he too is taut with anxiety.
The arrests have been aimed at the elite, above all.
Intellectuals, artists, professors, doctors.
Soon, they will attack those who have nothing.
And he will be first in line.
Everyone is trying to flee.
But where?
How?
The borders are closed.
Only Charlotte is able to leave.
If you are under twenty-two, it’s possible.
You do not need a passport to leave the country.
She still has a few months.
Her grandparents have heard about the latest incidents.
In their letters, they beg Charlotte to join them.
It’s a paradise here, in the South of France.
She can’t stay in Germany any longer.
It’s becoming too much of a risk.
Paula shares this opinion.
But Ch
arlotte can’t leave like that.
Without seeing her father again.
Although, truth be told, this is an excuse.
She has already made her decision.
She will never leave Germany.
For the simple reason that she will never leave Alfred.
Paula’s efforts are finally rewarded.
After four months, Albert is released from the camp.
He goes home, but he is not the same man.
Horribly thin, wild-eyed, he lies on the bed.
Paula draws the curtains, and lets him sleep.
Charlotte is in shock.
She stays close to him for several hours.
Fighting against the despair that threatens to overwhelm her.
…
She is worried by her father’s labored breathing.
Watching over him, she feels a strange emotion.
Of being able to protect him from death.
Slowly, he regains his strength.
But hardly speaks at all.
Sometimes he sleeps all day.
This man who used to stay up working all night.
One morning, when he opens his eyes, he calls for his wife.
Paula comes right away.
What is it, my love?
He opens his mouth, but no sound emerges.
He can’t say what he wants to say.
At last, he emits a sound that is a name: Charlotte …
What about Charlotte?
Charlotte … she must … leave.
Paula knows how much those words hurt him.
More than ever, he needs his daughter close to him.
But he knows now that there is no hope.
He was on the front line of the horror.
She must flee, quickly.
While it is still possible.
8
Charlotte refuses, of course.
She doesn’t want to leave, she can’t leave.
The others insist: there’s no time to lose.
No, I don’t want to leave you, she repeats.
As soon as we’ve gotten our fake papers, we’ll join you, they assure her.
No, I don’t want to, no, I don’t want to.
Paula and Albert don’t understand.
Only Alfred knows the truth.
He finds her attitude absurd, excessive.
No love is worth risking death for, he thinks.
And it is death that awaits them here.
Charlotte doesn’t listen.
She listens only to herself; to her heart, in other words.
She repeats over and over: I can’t leave you.
The pain would be unbearable. Don’t you understand how much I love you?
He takes her hands.
Of course he understands.
He loves her feverish, fanatical temperament.
The beauty of a love stronger than fear.
But that is no longer the point.
He has no other choice but to threaten her.
If you don’t leave, I will never see you again.
Charlotte Page 8