Someone started to applaud and others joined in.
"More!" a man yelled. "More!"
"Play, barrel-organ man!" another shouted. "Bring out the beer. We're going to have a real Saturday night party now!"
The barrel-organ man grinned widely and patted the head of his monkey; it seemed to be grinning too. The stiff-necked upper crust could keep their genteel appreciation, Miriam thought as she curtsied and began to sing. This was more like it; this was the real thing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The clop of a leather dice-cup and the clicking of ivory dice against the glass counter lured Erich and Sol away from their Sunday job in the basement of their fathers' tobacco shop. From the top of the curtained-off basement stairs, they watched their fathers' customers come and go, hoping for a big sale that would provide them with pocket money for the week.
The two men playing dice asked for a box of Solomons, one of Herr Freund's first creations--a blend of cherry and Martinique tobaccos. After getting odds on the Dempsey-Hülering fight, they let the dice determine which man would pay for the purchase. Not for the first time, Erich wondered if there would ever be a cigar named after him, and dismissed the thought. Papa was and always would be nothing more than a junior partner in Herr Freund's shop.
If he were certain of nothing else, Erich thought angrily, he was sure of one thing: he was not going to play second fiddle to anyone--not even if, as was true for Papa, there was justice in it. After all, Herr Freund was the original owner of the shop.
He glanced at Sol and then back at Herr Freund, who was quietly restocking the shelves. Their parents had it all worked out--after all, the two boys were such good friends. What could be more natural than the two of them taking over ownership of the shop one day? Not me, he thought. He was destined for better things. Last night at the cabaret--and being with Miriam--had convinced him of that.
Not that this place was so bad; it was actually fun because of the gambling license, which many of the more elegant tobacconists had.
Like all other Berlin stores, Die Zigarrenkiste, "The Cigar Box," was officially closed on Sundays. But the cost of maintaining the gambling license was high, the rent on the shop exorbitant; in these days of encroaching inflation, Herr Freund said, shopkeepers could ill afford to close for an hour, much less a day. There were always high rollers seeking action, dapper men craving good cigars, and finely fashionable women wanting cigarettes to complement new outfits. Any of them might stop by their favorite tobacconist-bookie on Sundays "to see if the lights were on."
The shop was perfectly located, close to the train depot, the embassies, restaurants, and outdoor cafés, and surrounded by clothing and jewelry stores. Sunday strollers ambled along the wide boulevards of Unter den Linden, past Embassy Row, and on toward Pariser Platz. They turned into Friedrich Ebert Strasse at the Brandenburg Gate, meandered past the Academy of Arts, the Tiergarten, and the zoo, and stopped to window-shop at the various stores that dotted the route to their fashionable destinations. It seemed quite natural that, on the pretext of saying hello, they should drop into Die Zigarrenkiste for a quick gambling fix and their weekend smoking supplies.
The men purchased cigars singly or in cedar boxes; they carried them home like chocolate soldiers in wooden coffins, transferred them to humidors, and gave the boxes to their children to use as treasure chests. For weekdays, they bought less expensive cigars; but on Friday and Saturday evenings at the theater and after large Sunday dinners, only Havanas would do.
Berlin's upper crust ladies also frequented the shop. Erich loved to watch them make their selections. They purchased one or two at a time, agonizing over their choices. Right now, Turkish and Egyptian cigarettes were all the rage. Since most of the ladies smoked out of fashion rather than habit, nothing else would do but that their cigarettes be specially ordered: embossed with their own names or initials--or those of their tobacconist--or colored to match their outfits or their eyes.
On days when his own gambling losses were excessive, Erich's father complained about the expense of stocking goods to suit the whims of the rich. Papa could rant and rave all he liked, Erich thought, it did not take a mathematical genius to figure out that the profit was worth the investment. The bookie operation was no sure thing, so the shop's real profit lay neither in that nor in tobacco. Tobacco's accouterments, that was where the real money came from: gold and silver cigarette holders encrusted with gems that matched jeweled hatpins and tiepins; cigarette cases initialed or inscribed to husbands or wives or lovers; ivory and enameled guillotines for snipping cigar tips.
"Aren't as many customers as usual," Sol whispered.
"Maybe there'd be more customers if your papa weren't so stubborn," Erich said, referring to his father's contention that his partner was allowing street merchants to take profits rightfully theirs. Why not, Papa said, cater to those who prefer the dreams brought by cocaine and morphine.
And why not, Erich thought. It was legal, and would boost the shop's declining revenues. But Herr Freund inevitably dismissed the topic with words that brooked no further discussion. "We will leave such transactions to lesser men."
"Business will pick up after Kaverne opens," Sol said.
"Depends on how good the cabaret is. Papa says if Oma Rathenau thinks the rich will flock to her place just because she opened it, she's in for a surprise."
"My papa says they'll all come--the rich and famous."
"Your papa says a lot of things. People might come once, but after that Frau Rathenau has to make them want to come. They want excitement, not just elegance anymore."
Erich lifted his head and shoulders the way his new Freikorps-Youth leader, Otto Hempel, did when he was about to deliver a speech. Why couldn't his father look like that, Erich thought. Better yet, why couldn't he be like that. While his father was working here in the shop during the war, drinking and playing the horses, Otto Hempel was helping von Hindenburg decimate the Russians at Tannenberg, earning a field commission for gallantry. He had told them about it one night around the campfire, silver hair shining in the firelight. He had commanded the battery that fired those first shells of liquid chlorine in Poland, only to have it fail to volatilize in the frigid conditions. He had helped coordinate the mustard-gas attack at Ypres, only to have the victory that could have won the war snatched away because no one believed him about the new weapon's wonderful potential.
Now there was a hero--and he looked the part, too. Said his hair had turned silver from the ardors of the battlefield.
Erich glanced at himself in a cigarette case Herr Freund had left lying on the counter to be polished. He turned it this way and that, imagining himself with a head of silver hair and a row of medals.
"Give people what they think they want, then make sure they keep wanting what you give them," he said to Sol. "Some cabarets have naked waitresses. Men can touch them...anywhere they want."
Sol lifted his head and looked at Erich, who quickly put down his makeshift mirror. "Where did you hear that? At one of your stupid campfires?"
Erich narrowed his eyes. "You watch what you say about my camp."
"Then you watch what you say about my papa. He knows what he's doing." Sol raised himself to his full height and looked down at Erich.
Erich clenched his fist. "If you really want to know, Miriam told me." He opened his hand, but kept his fighting stance.
"I suppose that's what you talked about in front of her uncle and everyone."
"After you and your squeaky cello disappeared, Miriam walked with me to...to...the Tiergarten and back."
"Herr Rathenau would never let her walk with you or anyone else unchaperoned. Not at night--"
Erich gave a derisive snort and leaned back haughtily against the wall. "That's what you think. Go ahead, ask her! We went for a walk and--"
"She didn't tell you those things, about the cabarets," Sol said, but in a softer tone.
"Well, something like that." Erich took a bent cigarette from his pocket. "Wan
t to go outside with me and smoke this?" He straightened the cigarette, then dabbed saliva on the paper to help hold it together where it had torn.
"You said we wouldn't take any more. Remember, you were the one who got sick--"
"I took them for Miriam." Erich pulled several more cigarettes from his pockets, most of them damaged.
"Her parents let her smoke?"
"They're dead, remember? She lives with her uncle." He thought about the way Miriam had looked, dancing in the lamplight. Funny how he wanted to tell Sol about that and didn't want to, both at the same time. He rolled one of the cigarettes between his fingers and remembered how she had taken his hand, that one, and kissed it. "Boy, I sure would like to do things to her."
"What things?"
"You know. Things."
"She wouldn't even let someone like you hold her hand."
"Bet she already kissed me."
"Liar!"
Erich felt his face redden. He shoved Sol against the wall. Sol swung wildly, managing a glancing blow off Erich's temple before Erich surged in with body punches.
"Be quiet, children!" Sol's father called out. "Look who has stopped outside. Herr Rathenau himself."
The boys dropped their guard and started into the shop, but Sol's father shooed them back into the alcove. Sol peeked around the curtain. "To see him twice in two days," he said in awe.
"Did he come in the limousine or the convertible?" Erich tried to see over Sol's shoulder. "Is Miriam with him? Maybe she suggested he come so she could see me," he whispered excitedly. His heart pounded at the possibility of being with Miriam again.
"Stop breathing down my neck." Sol shifted slightly so they could both have a clear view of the door.
The bell above the shop door jangled. With a theatrical wave of his hand, Herr Freund ushered in the Foreign Minister. Rathenau entered--alone. He wore a gray suit and maroon cravat and carried a walking stick under his arm. A huge diamond twinkled in its knob.
"How nice to see you again, Herr Freund."
The statesman surveyed the shop, breathing deeply as though savoring the rich aroma of tobacco that permeated the air.
Herr Freund slipped behind the counter and quickly removed the dice cups. "How might I serve you, Herr Rathenau?"
Now that the counter was between them, his tone was comfortable. Erich understood that feeling of putting something tangible between himself and someone to whom he felt in some way inferior; he had often wished he could do it with his Freikorps-Youth leader. He recognized the defensive gesture that allowed clerk and customer to maintain their separate worlds across the barrier of Meerschaum pipes and open cigar boxes and glass.
"A couple of cigars, to begin with," Rathenau said. "I'm to accompany my mother to the Schauspielhaus tonight. A troupe from Frankfurt is attempting Faust...mediocre talent, I'm told, but exuberant. Give me something light but full-bodied. Perhaps it'll help me forget that I'm allowing myself to sit through yet another butchering of Goethe."
Erich watched Herr Freund select two fine Havanas. Herr Rathenau paid for them with a banknote, then indicated he would take another, for immediate use.
"Perhaps you would honor me by accepting one of these." Reaching under the glass, Herr Freund produced a single cigar. He twirled it in his fingers, breathed in its aroma, and placed it on a small velvet pad, which he passed to the Foreign Minister.
"Something new?" Herr Rathenau asked.
"I have named a cigar for my son and a gold-tipped cigarillo for my daughter. We were about to name one for my partner's son."
"About time," Erich whispered, surprised.
"With your permission, however," Herr Freund said, "we should like to name this latest...a Rathenau."
Furious at having lost out to the Foreign Minister, Erich watched Herr Freund clip the cigar and light it. "Too early in the day to soak the tip in cognac," the tobacconist said, tossing the end in a trash basket and handing Rathenau the cigar.
I hope you choke on it, Erich thought, as the Foreign Minister moistened his lips with his tongue and rotated the cigar in his mouth, relishing it as one might a fine brandy.
"Excellent--and I am deeply touched by your tribute." Herr Rathenau raised his brows in appreciation, patted Jacob on the shoulder and blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling's ceramic friezes. "You have proven yourself to be a seller of smokes without equal. And now, as to my main reason for stopping by--"
Herr Freund's smile remained fixed. He leaned forward, hands on the glass, shirt sleeves rolled up, the glow from the overhead lamps shining dully on the bald spot where his hairline receded.
"As I implied," Rathenau said, "I did not come simply for cigars. I came to see the boy."
"I was right." Erich poked Sol playfully in the ribs. "Miriam must have asked him to come."
"Is that you, Solomon, hiding back there?" Rathenau asked. "Come on out."
The boys exchanged startled glances.
"Go on!" Erich shoved his friend a little too hard and Sol practically fell into the shop.
"That was some performance you gave last night," the Foreign Minister said.
"I know I was awful, sir."
Erich secretly applauded Sol's honesty. Apparently Herr Freund felt otherwise, because his face tightened.
"Well, you're no virtuoso, but Miri liked your Haydn. Judging by your degree of discomfort with performing, however--" Rathenau smiled and put an arm around Solomon's shoulders--"I rather suspect you might be persuaded to give up playing in public."
Seeing them side by side, Erich was struck with how diminutive the man was; Rathenau had been seated at the party, and his stature and bearing had lent him an illusion of height.
"Sir?" Sol frowned, his face a study in puzzlement.
The statesman released him and laughed out loud. "Just teasing, young man. You did a fine job, under trying conditions. It is not easy to follow an act like my Miriam's."
He glanced curiously toward the curtain.
"Ah, young Weisser!" Rathenau looked directly at Erich and chuckled. "Took a fancy to my young lady, did you not?"
Erich had been holding the edge of the curtain and peeking around it. Feeling as if he had been reprimanded for staying suspiciously long in the bathroom, he jerked his head back behind the curtain. He would not go out there now, he decided, even if they tried to drag him out.
Then he heard Rathenau say, "I have taken a liking to your Solomon, as has my niece," and he was filled with such hurt that he stepped back against the wall as though someone had pushed him. His face burned and his heart thudded ferociously.
"With your permission, Herr Freund, I would like your son to join me for lunch today at the Adlon." The Foreign Minister's voice dropped toward the end of the sentence. "I have no son of my own, and probably never will have. I was impressed by his effort last night and I wish to reward him--"
Pretend Sol's a dog, Erich told himself. Send him a message. Get him to invite me. Don't go without me.
"You liked my performance?" Sol sounded amazed.
"Sol--" Jacob Freund said.
Erich crawled forward and, parting the curtain just enough to peek out, saw Rathenau hold up a hand in a gesture of forbearance. "Quite all right, my friend. The boy is naturally confused."
The Foreign Minister reached out and touched Sol's cheek. Erich put his hand against his own face.
"I shall explain myself further at luncheon, young man," Rathenau said, "unless, of course, you have other plans. Or perhaps you'd simply rather not come."
"Oh, no...I mean yes...I'd love to come, but--"
"But?" Herr Freund sounded dumbfounded.
"Herr Foreign Minister," Sol said, almost too softly to be heard, "...could...do you think...could my friend, Erich, come with us?"
The Foreign Minister eyed Sol's father, who returned the look without a sign of emotion. There it was, Erich thought. What Papa called the attitudinal interchange between classes. Herr Freund, the impassive merchant; Rathenau, his statesman's
gaze bespeaking loftier aspirations and ideals than the sale of cigars, even to customers of wealth and power.
"Solomon will be honored to go with you, Herr Rathenau," Herr Freund said, his expressionless voice and face masking what Erich was sure must be a racing pulse. He remembered what he had heard the night he'd awakened and his mother was crying and his father was shouting, That Jew is humble-ambitious, I tell you. Humble-ambitious!
"What time should we have him ready?" Sol's father asked.
Have them ready, Erich corrected. Surely Rathenau would include him in the luncheon, now that Sol had asked--
"We have established that it is all right with you, Herr Freund," the Foreign Minister said. "Now let us hear from the boy."
Not boys. Erich felt his heart plummet and he chided himself for ever having admired the Foreign Minister.
"I am...honored," Sol mumbled. His hand trembled as he pushed his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose.
Ask him again, Erich begged mentally.
"Good. I shall call for you at--" Rathenau opened his watch-- "shall we say twelve?"
Father and son nodded in unison. Herr Freund walked around the counter and opened the door for Rathenau. Sol looked back, grimaced, and followed the two men into the street.
Erich crept along behind the counter for a better look. The statesman's chauffeur, a massive, homely man, leaned comfortably against the limousine. When he heard the bell above the door, he straightened up. He smoothed back his hair, which hung to his collar, slicked it beneath his cap, and held open the car door. Rathenau ducked inside and slid open the glass panel that separated the front seat from the back. Then he leaned against the plush, fawn-colored leather upholstery, gloved hands resting on the head of his walking stick, and his horseless carriage rolled away.
Thinks he's a king but he is just a little man with too much money and power, Erich thought. Like Papa says they all are.
"You see?" No longer impassive, Sol's father gripped his son by the arms. "All that practicing paid off. I told you it would!"
Child of the Light Page 7