by Judy Nunn
‘Mannie! Mannie! Mannie!’
Little Rachel was toddling comically towards him as fast as her two-year-old legs could carry her. Mannie closed the door, picked up the infant and dumped the knapsack of groceries on the living room table.
‘How’s my favourite girl?’ he said to the child as he followed Ruth through the open archway into the kitchen. ‘Something smells good.’
‘Chicken soup.’ Ruth stirred the pot on the stove. ‘Fresh stock. Samuel had a job this afternoon and he came back with five chicken carcasses – isn’t that wonderful? We’ll have real soup for a whole week.’ She didn’t look at him as she spoke; she knew Mannie would be cross. And he was.
‘Read story, Mannie, read story.’ Rachel was tugging his hair demanding her customary bedtime story, but Mannie put the child down.
‘Not just now, liebchen. Why did he go out looking for work, Ruth? You know how dangerous that is. Where did he work? For whom? Is he here now?’
‘He’s washing, he came back filthy.’ She continued stirring the soup. ‘It was Hoffmann’s Garage in Wilmersdorf, we can trust Hoffmann. And they paid him well. But then you know how good Samuel is with cars – he says he shouldn’t have bothered studying engineering, he should have been a mechanic …’
‘Yes, yes, I know how good he is with cars. But to actually look for work! Someone could have reported him. They could have followed him back here! It’s too …’
‘Too dangerous, I know.’ She turned to face him at last. ‘I tried to warn him, but he just said he was off to make some money and we were going to have chicken soup.’
‘But I’ve brought the groceries, Ruth. He didn’t need to …’
‘Darling Mannie.’ She kissed his cheek fondly. ‘What would we do without you?’ She turned down the flame under the pot. ‘Let it brew, come and sit down.’ She picked up Rachel and they walked into the living room to sit at the table that looked out over the balcony to the square below, although these days the gauze curtains were always drawn.
‘I saw Sharon Meisell this morning,’ Ruth said. ‘She told me that they’re getting out. Efraim has arranged false papers.’
She looked weary, Mannie thought. Not the ever-present signs of fatigue that resulted from inadequate diet and lack of exercise, but a weariness that came from deep within. It was hardly surprising under the circumstances, but Mannie was unaccustomed to seeing what he perceived as sadness in Ruth’s eyes. Clear blue, they were always alive and positive. Like her husband, Ruth was a creature of humour and spirit, of resilience and determination; the two were made for each other. Concerned, Mannie waited for her to continue.
‘I never thought the Meisells would leave. Well, not of their own accord,’ she added, her tone heavily laced with irony. ‘They’ve been here longer than my father. It came as a bit of a shock, I was so sure that we’d all stick it out together. We were the strong ones, we agreed at the beginning, the Meisells and the Lachmanns. Now Sharon says that we were the foolish ones, and I’ve no doubt she’s right.
‘Anyway,’ Ruth bounced the child on her lap, Rachel raking her tiny fingers through the fair honey-brown of her mother’s hair, ‘I suggested to Samuel that we should try to get out too. Sharon’s given me the contact for the false papers.’
‘Excellent,’ Mannie agreed enthusiastically. ‘I’ll pick them up for you. I’ll do whatever I can …’
She interrupted him. ‘Samuel won’t go.’
‘Why?’ he asked, but she wasn’t listening.
‘He would have, years ago when you said that we should. Samuel would have listened to you, Mannie. But he stayed because of my stubbornness. No,’ she corrected herself with a rueful raise of her eyebrows, ‘my selfishness. My determination to live on in my father’s home, regardless of the danger to my husband and child. And now Samuel’s the one who refuses to leave.’ She disentangled the child’s fingers from her hair and put Rachel down on the floor. The child toddled over to Mannie to tug at his trouser legs.
‘Samuel says that “the tide has turned”,’ she continued. ‘He says that it’s only a matter of time before Germany is defeated, and we must “weather the storm”.’ Ruth smiled as she imitated her husband. ‘You know Samuel, Mannie – the constant optimist, and how he does love a cliché when he’s being dramatic.’ A humorous twinkle returned to her eyes as she fought to lighten the moment. Besides, she realised, she did feel better now that she had admitted her guilt, and to the person to whom her admission was most important. ‘He always thinks if he says something passionately, and often, it will come true.’
Mannie remained silent, but he nodded.
‘So we shall “weather the storm” together. Who am I, having demanded we remain in the first place, to now decide otherwise? Then he said he was off to earn some money and we were to have fresh chicken soup. I told him if anyone should risk going out to work it should be me. He looks so damn Jewish!’ She shrugged, refusing to admit to the fear she had felt all afternoon, and her laugh was one of loving exasperation.
Ruth’s laughter was normally contagious, but this time Mannie didn’t join in. ‘I’ll speak to him, Ruth. I’ll convince him.’
‘Speak to me about what? Convince me about what? No, no, don’t tell me. You’re going to read me the riot act.’
Mannie rose, and Samuel, a towel around his neck, his black hair wet and tousled, gathered his friend in a boisterous hug. ‘No lectures until after the soup, though, Mannie, we’re dining early – I haven’t eaten since breakfast and I’m starving.’
‘Someone has to talk sense to you, for God’s sake …’ Mannie began as soon as he could extricate himself from the embrace.
‘After the soup!’ Samuel had picked up Rachel and was whirling her about, the child squealing excitedly. ‘No lectures until after the soup, promise me.’
‘All right, all right,’ Mannie agreed. ‘When Rachel’s gone to bed.’
‘Read story, Mannie, read story,’ the little girl called at the mention of bedtime.
‘After the soup.’ It was Ruth giving the orders, as she rose and crossed into the kitchen.
Mannie followed with the bag of groceries, unpacking the bread, the powdered eggs, several tins, and producing, with a flourish, a precious small brown paper bag.
‘Coffee!’ Ruth exclaimed delightedly upon opening it. ‘How on earth did you manage that?’
‘We lawyers have excellent black-market connections.’ He grinned, proud of himself and pleased by her reaction.
Upon Ruth’s instruction, Mannie rejoined Samuel and Rachel in the living room and, through the open archway, Ruth watched the men play with the child as she stacked the supplies into the cupboard and cut up the bread. Chalk and cheese, the two of them, she thought, but such a bond they shared. They’d both spoken to her a great deal about their childhood. Samuel was always the one who got them into trouble, they said, and Mannie was always the one who got them out of it.
‘Son of a diplomat,’ Samuel would say. ‘It obviously rubbed off.’
Ruth had never met Stefan Brandauer but she’d seen his picture many times in the newspapers. Stefan Brandauer had been a prominent member of Berlin society, and Mannie looked just like his father. Tall, fine-boned, elegantly handsome, his hair always groomed. A tidy man. The antithesis of Samuel. She smiled as she watched Samuel piggy-backing Rachel around the living room. Nuggetty, athletic, his dark curly hair refusing to be tamed – not that he’d care to try anyway – Samuel was an unruly man in every way.
But the differences between them had always meant nothing. Just as being Gentile and Jew had had no influence upon their friendship. It never had. They’d been children of Berlin, they both maintained. ‘True Berliners, and proud of it,’ Samuel always said. That’s why it had been such a shock when he’d been dismissed from university before he’d completed his degree.
‘They say I’m not a German,’ he’d told her, hurt and bewildered. ‘They say that I’m a Jew. What’s wrong with being both? I’m a German
who happens to be a Jew.’
Samuel had never thought of his Jewish heritage in terms of race. His upbringing had been unorthodox, and Ruth remembered, when she’d first met him, being faintly shocked to discover he ate ham with gusto, jokingly calling it smoked salmon. His father had been a professor of physics at the University of Berlin, an intellectual and, like Stefan Brandauer, a staunch patron of the arts. Leonard Lachmann and Stefan Brandauer had become firm friends, and it was in the Brandauer house at Tiergartenstrasse that the lifelong friendship of their sons had been forged. Leonard had lost his position at the university around the same time as Stefan had been posted to London. ‘A sign of the times,’ Stefan had wryly remarked, then more seriously he’d added, ‘We’d best pray for our sons.’ Shortly after Stefan’s departure, Leonard Lachmann, too, had left Berlin, having accepted a post at Zurich University.
‘So there we were,’ Samuel had told Ruth when he and Mannie had given her their potted history, ‘thrown out into the storm, left to fend for ourselves, two lonely orphans.’
‘Two lonely orphans whose fathers paid for their education, set them up in a flat, and forwarded regular allowances,’ Mannie had corrected him.
‘It sounded better my way. Don’t listen to him, Ruth. He never lets me get away with anything.’ Samuel had cast a caustic look at his friend. ‘What on earth would I do without you, Mannie?’
What indeed? Ruth thought as she spooned the soup into the bowls.
They ate at the kitchen table, Ruth helping Rachel messily devour her soup and Mannie staring thoughtfully through the gauze curtains at the Meisells’ ground-floor apartment opposite. Their curtains were also drawn, but the light within was clearly visible. He prayed that the Meisells would get out safely. Just as he prayed that Samuel would heed his advice, and in his mind he rehearsed his ‘lecture’.
When they’d finished dining, Ruth stacked the bowls and cutlery, preparing to leave the men alone for their talk.
‘Read story, Mannie, read story.’
Ruth shared a smile with Mannie. He had always been Rachel’s favourite bedtime storyteller.
‘I’ll take her to the bathroom and get her into her pyjamas and you can put her to bed, Mannie.’ She dumped the soup bowls in her husband’s hands. ‘Samuel will do the washing up, after which we’ll have coffee, and he’ll give you his full attention. Won’t you!’ Her look defied Samuel to disagree.
‘Yes, yes, I said I would. Not that it’ll make any difference anyway.’
Samuel and Ruth were making the coffee together, measuring out the precious grinds and taking care that it didn’t boil over, while Mannie read out loud to Rachel, tucked in her cot, the latest chapter of her favourite story. She never tired of Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Snow Queen’.
Then the quiet of the night was shattered by the clatter of boots in the street and, for a brief moment, all four of them, even the child, froze in a breathless silence.
Barely a second later, Mannie rose and turned out the bedroom light, noting the Meisells’ apartment opposite also plunge into darkness. Dear God, he thought frantically, was there time to get the family upstairs to his flat? Then he heard the stamp of the boots on the wooden stairs. There wasn’t. He gathered Rachel in his arms, whispering for her to be quiet.
In the kitchen, Ruth had turned out the light and Samuel had dived into the living room to extinguish the lights there. The boots were in the hallway now. Samuel returned to the kitchen and held Ruth close as they waited silently in the dark.
The boots stopped at the front door and there was a banging of fist on wood.
In the bedroom, Mannie clasped Rachel to him.
In the kitchen, Samuel and Ruth remained frozen.
‘No,’ she said, as he finally made a move. ‘Let me go. I might be able to bluff them.’
She went into the living room, stared at the front door, then took a deep breath and turned on the light. There was another pounding, and she opened the door to a man in plain clothes. A Gestapo officer, she knew it immediately. Beside him was a uniformed Oberleutnant and behind them three troopers, also in the immaculate grey of the SS.
The Gestapo officer marched straight in, the SS men following, the Oberleutnant’s pistol drawn, the troopers’ rifles at the ready, all eyes surveying the room.
‘You are Frau Lachmann, the owner of this apartment?’ the officer demanded.
‘I believe you are mistaken,’ Ruth replied, disguising the tremor in her voice, her tone firm but respectful. ‘This apartment is the property of Herbert Klauptmann.’ She gave the fictitious name in which her father had purchased the apartment. ‘The records will clearly show that he purchased it over twenty years ago.’
The Gestapo officer was momentarily confused. This woman was Aryan, and patrician at that. She was no Jew. He glanced at the Oberleutnant. Perhaps they had the wrong apartment. Perhaps they should check the records.
But the Oberleutnant did not acknowledge the officer’s querying look. ‘It has been reported that the Jews Lachmann live here,’ he barked. ‘Man, wife and child. Your papers.’ He held out his hand peremptorily, and Ruth knew that all was lost.
‘I am Lachmann.’ Samuel appeared from the kitchen and the troopers immediately trained their rifles upon him. He walked slowly to Ruth, careful to give the men no cause for alarm, and put his arm protectively around her.
‘Where is the child?’ It was the Gestapo officer, annoyed at the Oberleutnant for issuing the orders, but more annoyed at himself for his moment of indecision.
‘The child is not here,’ Samuel answered. ‘The child is staying with friends.’
‘It is not wise to lie to the Gestapo, Herr Lachmann. Search the apartment.’ The officer indicated the bedroom door, which was ajar, and two of the troopers started towards it.
‘No!’ Ruth ran to the door trying to bar their way, an act of sheer desperation. ‘No, please!’
One of the men grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the floor, the other pointing his rifle at her. Samuel roared and leapt at the man. Two shots rang out from the Oberleutnant’s pistol and suddenly Samuel was sprawled on the wooden floor, blood seeping from his head.
Ruth crawled to him, screaming hysterically, but one of the SS men dragged her to her feet. Then the door to the bedroom slowly opened, and Mannie stood there, Rachel in his arms. He was wearing Samuel’s coat which always hung on the peg behind the door, the coat with the Star of David stitched on the left side of the chest.
‘We will go with you quietly,’ he said. ‘We will cause no trouble. Come, come my dear, Rachel needs you.’ The child was crying, and he held her out to her mother. The SS man released Ruth and she took the little girl in her arms, burying Rachel’s face against her shoulder so the child wouldn’t see the body of her father.
‘The report stated there was a family of three in this apartment,’ the Gestapo officer said. ‘The family of Lachmann. Man, wife and child.’
‘That is so,’ Mannie said, his arm about Ruth. She was controlling her hysteria for the sake of her daughter, but her horrified gaze was focussed on the ever-increasing pool of blood around her husband’s head. Mannie pulled her close to him. ‘I am Samuel Lachmann, this is my wife Ruth, and this is our child.’
‘And what of this man?’ the officer demanded, pointing at the body on the floor.
‘My brother – he was visiting us.’
‘His bad luck,’ the Oberleutnant sneered, and the other SS men exchanged smirks. The only good Jew was a dead one, they all agreed.
The Gestapo officer did not approve of the remark, just as he did not approve of the shooting. His job was to conduct good, swift roundups, neat and efficient. Get the Jews out of his jurisdiction and down to the Grunewald Goods Train Station. The gun-happy thugs of the SS made things messy. There were three more raids to be conducted that night, and God knew how many more bodies there would be for his men to collect in the morning.
‘You are permitted to pack one suitcase. You have th
ree minutes,’ he ordered.
‘We are packed already,’ Mannie said. He knew where Samuel and Ruth kept the suitcase. They had been prepared for such a moment for the past two years.
One of the SS men accompanied him into the bedroom and watched while Mannie slid the suitcase out from under the bed and took Ruth’s coat with its Star of David from the peg behind the door.
Mannie didn’t know why he was doing what he was doing. Perhaps it was to assuage his shame as a Roman Catholic, although he was sure his death would serve little purpose. Perhaps it was his love for Ruth and his instinctive desire to protect her. Who could say? He only knew that what he was doing was right, and that he was prepared to pay the price.
He draped the coat over her shoulders and Ruth, in a state of shock, allowed him to guide her to the door. Mannie glanced back briefly at the body of his friend, the stream of Samuel’s blood now gathering about one of the legs of the dining room table. Then, both oblivious to the officious barking of the Oberleutnant, he and Ruth stepped out into the hall.
‘Juden raus! Raus! Schnell! Schnell!’
The Gestapo officer switched off the light and pulled the door closed behind them. How he wished the man would shut up.
They came from everywhere. Within a matter of months, the mountain work camps and townships of the Monaro rang with a cacophony of unfamiliar accents and languages which confused both the locals and the hundreds of their fellow countrymen who had flocked to the area looking for work. Even city-bred Australians, who’d bumped into the odd ‘Wog’ and considered themselves relatively sophisticated, were confounded. They were outnumbered by the Europeans, and bewildered by the sudden onslaught of foreign accents and the sights and smells of strange foods. Garlic wafted from the kitchens of the Italians; the Poles and the Czechs ate evil-looking, thick sausages; the Germans downed sauerkraut by the bucket-load; and the Norwegians, incomprehensibly, relished soused herring and pickled rollmops with their beer. The previously sheltered Australians didn’t know what to make of this avalanche of new sensations.