Child of the Light

by Berliner, Janet

  There were women, too, posing as ladies while promising to raise skirts but not prices, offering heavenly communions to be consummated in the privacy of the nearest alley.

  "What this nation needs is a generation of reasonable Nationalists--Gentiles and Jews--willing to work together for God and good government...the dream of a true democracy," Rathenau said. He slapped his walking stick against his palm. He was walking so fast that Solomon had to run lightly to keep pace with him. "Europe has a history of vesting absolute power in one individual. I intend to position myself to block that sort of thing from happening again."

  He halted. Putting his hands on Sol's shoulders, he looked down into the boy's eyes. "As I watched your performance last night, you reminded me so much of myself," he said. "Struggling. Forced to play solo. You are the new generation, Sol. With my help you may not have to accept, as I had to, that, in Germany, Jews will always be second-class citizens."

  As suddenly as he had taken hold of Solomon, he let go. "Constant vigilance is exhausting, Solomon," he said, in a tired voice. "There are times I want to lie down and pull Berlin's sidewalks over me."

  Sol looked down at his feet. How many weary men's spirits lay beneath the city? Perhaps theirs were the voices he heard, he thought, wondering fleetingly what the Foreign Minister might say about the voices and sounds in the sewer.

  "Back in '18, I decided to retire," the Foreign Minister said softly, moving on. "I've a summer house in Bavaria--"

  "Papa showed me pictures of it in Der Weltspiegel," Sol said.

  "I intended to live there, away from all this. Fortunately for Germany--though unfortunately for me, since it thwarted my retirement plans--I decided to have the bedrooms repapered. One afternoon, the paper hanger and I talked as he worked. After listening to him, I realized that, with people like him around, my role in our country's history remained incomplete."

  They rounded the corner at the Reichschancellery and headed down Friedrich Ebert Strasse. The cigar store was half a block away.

  "The man proposed that Germany depopulate the African island of Madagascar and repopulate it with European Jews," Rathenau went on. "'The solution to the Jewish problem,' he said, 'is to pen them like wild dogs, tame them, and use what assets and abilities they possess for the good of humanity.'"

  Until now, Sol had done what he did when his parents spoke Yiddish, a language he only partially understood: he had allowed the conversation to flow around him like a piece of music he had never heard before. Usually, if he relaxed into it that way, the pieces became a cohesive whole. However, what the Foreign Minister was saying now made no sense at all.

  "He wanted to send the Jews to Madagascar? He must have been crazy!"

  "I thought so too, and had him removed from the premises," the Foreign Minister said. "Shortly after that, I heard that he'd entered politics, and now Bavaria's National-Socialists support his ideas--"

  Shouting interrupted him. Sol stared in the direction of the voices. Down the block, Erich was backing out of the shop.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "You may be my son, but your actions are that of an imbecile!" Herr Weisser yelled. He was standing in the doorway of the shop, shaking his fist at Erich.

  "Leave me alone, Papa!"

  Erich turned, dashed across the street without any regard for traffic, and disappeared into the apartment house.

  Herr Weisser, his face red with rage, fell silent. Apparently, Sol thought, he had run out of effective yet moderate epithets to hurl at his son.

  "Maybe we should detour through Leipzigerplatz before going inside," Rathenau said.

  Solomon shook his head. Once Friedrich and Erich started arguing, it would take longer than a stroll through the plaza for their tempers to cool. "Erich probably tried to sneak another dog into the apartment," he said, wondering why Herr Weisser had gone back into the shop instead of following his son.

  "That much trouble over a dog?"

  "Herr Weisser has agreed to let Erich keep a small dog in the apartment, but Erich says the little ones are toys. It's worse since he's joined the Freikorps-Youth--"

  Sol stopped and, with a sick feeling, glanced up at Rathenau. During the waning months of the war, the Foreign Minister had financed a Freikorps unit, a movement that had begun before the war with Wandervögel--birds of passage--boys and girls who enjoyed outdoor activities. Some of those young men had been part of Rathenau's corps, but the years of fighting had hardened their idealism into hatred. In Sol's opinion, the post-war Freikorps-Youth was a step further down. A big step. Many of the boys were homeless ruffians, easily influenced; and the leaders, Jew-haters.

  Judging by the set look on his face, the Foreign Minister had heard all right--and taken note. Sol practiced the truth in his head: It just slipped out. I didn't mean to kill your chances with Miriam. At least he had not told Herr Rathenau that his friend talked to dogs. This was bad enough, but that would really have done it!

  "Anyway, they fight about dogs," he said weakly as they entered the shop.

  "Calm down, Friedrich, for God's sake," his papa was saying. "Why make a national tragedy out of it? They're just children."

  They? Sol thought, wondering what Papa meant. Then he saw Miriam seated in the corner, her hands demurely folded on the table. He could see her face clearly now. She was even more beautiful than he had thought at first, and younger, nearer to fifteen than seventeen. Her eyes were a startling violet, and though her chignon was almost black, her skin had the bone-china delicacy that usually went with auburn hair.

  "Miriam! What's going on? What are you doing here?" Rathenau looked from her to Herr Weisser, who was glaring at her as if she had two heads.

  Jumping up, she ran over to him and threw her arms around his waist. "They're making such a fuss, Uncle Walther!" The action pulled up her tennis skirt; Sol tried not to stare too hard at her tanned legs.

  "Fuss? Smoking, kissing!" Friedrich spun around toward her uncle. "Is that what they taught your niece in America?"

  "I asked Konnie to bring me along when he told me you wanted him to pick you up here," Miriam said. "I wanted to surprise you. Erich was here, and we talked--"

  "Talked?" Friedrich looked flushed. "You two broke into our shop!"

  "Erich was showing me his lock picks," Miriam said.

  "Showing off, you mean, and you encouraged him! And what did you two do once you were in?" Friedrich pointed at her. "For shame!"

  Rathenau took hold of Weisser's hand and, looking less than amused, drew down the man's arm. "Such a small matter, Herr Weisser. Don't upset yourself so. We should all remember that when the trivial becomes important, the important becomes trivial. Why don't we go to your parlor, have coffee and a cigar, and talk this out like gentlemen."

  "Talk! That's all you Jews are good at."

  Sol saw Papa pale as he stepped in front of Herr Weisser and silenced his partner with an ominous glare. Rathenau's face hardened, and his knuckles tightened around his walking stick as if he wanted to thrash Friedrich Weisser. Taking Miriam by the arm, he said softly, "I guess this is a family matter after all. Come, child."

  "At least let me call a taxi for you." Sol's father did not take his gaze off Weisser.

  "My chauffeur will be here momentarily." Rathenau reached out and shook Sol's father's hand. "Things will work out. We'll get together...another day."

  "So! He's gone!" Jacob Freund said to his partner after Rathenau stepped outside. "Shame on you, Friedrich! They say he may become Germany's president, and you treat him like dirt. What the children did was foolish, but--"

  "You're an imbecile yourself if you think such behavior trivial. If you had seen them, behaving like that in my shop!"

  "Our shop, Friedrich," Jacob said.

  Sol watched his father carefully. His voice was gentle, yet it clearly indicated that Herr Weisser had overstepped both business and personal propriety. The business, begun by his father a dozen years before the war, involved a seventy-thirty split between the two
men. Herr Weisser had been a bicycling hamster--an impoverished peddler who went out to the countryside each morning for produce to hawk--before Papa took him into the business, first as Shabbas help, and permanently when Papa had volunteered to fight for his country and needed someone to run the shop.

  "Why don't we do as Herr Rathenau suggested? Let's go home--your home if you prefer. We'll drink a good strong cup of coffee. Talk."

  "For all the good it will do," Friedrich said, but he began locking up the store.

  In the apartment's parlor, Friedrich told his wife what had happened, and the argument was renewed. Sol, to his surprise, was not sent out of the room. He sat quietly listening to the two men: his own father, rational and positive, trying to make his friend see that he had overreacted; Friedrich, his voice raised, maligning the Rathenau family at every opportunity.

  The two men had reached an impasse when Recha and Sol's mother, apparently hearing the commotion, came upstairs from the Freund flat. Mama wiped her hands on her apron. "What is the matter?" Her house dress smelled of baked bread. Her golden hair was pulled back in a bun and perspiration traced a path through a white splotch of flour on her temple. "I heard shouting." The lines around her eyes deepened with concern as she looked from her son to her husband. When Jacob started to explain the situation, Recha interrupted.

  "What's so bad about kissing? It's in all the movies!"

  Her father placed his hand against the small of her back and propelled her into the kitchen. "And stay there," he said.

  "Forever?" the child wailed.

  Jacob smiled fondly and swung his daughter off her feet. His breath came out in a huff, the way it did when he lifted a heavy crate; he set her down awkwardly, looking at her as if he realized for the first time that this spindly-limbed young lady was no longer a toddler.

  "You think you're twenty again, Papa!" Mama said.

  Both men chuckled and Solomon relaxed. For once he was glad he had a sister. Thanks to her, the tension seemed broken. Now Papa will take out his snuff box, Sol thought affectionately.

  His father did not disappoint him. Pinching a little snuff between thumb and index finger, he sniffed it up and sneezed loudly several times. He blew his nose on a large white handkerchief, leaving a residue of brown snuff-stain.

  "Time to take care of my son." Herr Weisser stood up and opened his hand to indicate a spanking.

  "Take it easy on him, will you?" Sol's papa said, the hint of a smile on his face. "He didn't do anything any healthy boy doesn't want to do."

  "Maybe you'd better come along, Jacob," Herr Weisser said, "or I'm likely to lose my temper all over again."

  They are just like Erich and me, Sol thought as the two men delegated their anger to that crevice they reserved for such breaks in friendship and went together to look for Erich. After checking his bedroom, they tried the library.

  Erich was there, rummaging through the drawers of his father's massive mahogany desk, strewing papers all over the hand-polished parquet floor. A vase of meticulously arranged white gladioli teetered atop the desk. Erich made no effort to keep it from falling and it crashed to the floor.

  "Clean that up! Now!" his father ordered.

  "C'mon, I'll help you." Sol bent and began to gather up the broken porcelain from amid the water and flowers.

  Erich glared down at Sol, then continued rummaging. His eyes shone with such fury that Sol stepped backwards and bumped into Friedrich Weisser.

  "Mein Gott!" Erich's father said in a tone of utter disbelief. "He's after my revolver."

  "And when I find it I'll use it."

  Losing all semblance of control, Friedrich Weisser hurtled forward and pushed Erich away from the desk. "Just who did you hope to shoot?" He spoke so quietly he could hardly be heard. "Me, your mother, our friends? Yourself?"

  Erich steadied himself. "I hate you," he said in the same quiet voice. He held up his injured hand as if to slap his father. "You hear me, I--"

  He shuddered, a slight tremor, and then blinked in surprise. Sol realized his friend had suffered another of the lightning seizures. He held his breath, but as most often happened, the slight seizure came and went so swiftly as to be almost indiscernible.

  "Now you listen to me!" Erich's father took his son by the lapels. "If you ever--"

  With his good hand, Erich peeled his father's fingers off his shirt. Sol watched Friedrich Weisser stand unmoving as Erich reached behind himself and, still holding up the injured hand like an icon, opened the door. For a moment, they just stood there as if posing for some ill-conceived photograph.

  "Hamster," Erich said in a quiet, ugly tone. He turned and left the room. One door slammed as he left the apartment; another as he left the building.

  His father started after him, but Jacob Freund gently restrained his friend. "Let him be. He'll be back."

  Friedrich Weisser sat down heavily in one of the library chairs. Suddenly he looked to Sol like a very old man. "He'll never return. Not really. In body, perhaps, but never as my son."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  As dawn approached, Sol lay awake listening for the opening and shutting of doors and for the creaking of the apartment house's worn wooden stairs. If only I had been able to talk Rathenau into taking Erich along to the Adlon or had refused to go without Erich, he thought. Maybe none of the trouble would have happened. And mentioning the Freikorps-Youth to Rathenau! He felt guilty about that too, even if Erich did not know of the betrayal.

  He had to find Erich and make him come home.

  There were only two places Erich could have gone--the Freikorps camp or the sewer. Looking for him at the camp would be foolish and dangerous, especially at night; on the other hand, the last thing Sol wanted to do was go to their hideout, where the voices waited.

  Still, anything was better than just lying in bed feeling bad.

  He rose, dressed quickly, and crept into the kitchen. The key to the shop was in its usual place, hanging from a hook on the wall. He put it in his pocket. Erich could pick his way in through the cabaret, but Sol could not. The shop was his only hope. Once inside, he would go down to the basement and call to Erich through the tobacco-shop grate. Then Erich could let him in through the nightclub by opening the door from the inside. As soon as this crisis was over, he would ask his friend to teach him his lock-picking secrets. That would please Erich...make him feel superior.

  Feeling much better, he poured himself a glass of milk and ate a piece of his mother's marble cake before wrapping up a slice for Erich, along with some cheese and liverwurst and two pieces of bread. Holding the package in one hand and his shoes in the other, he turned to leave.

  "Going on a picnic?" his father asked from the shadows.

  Sol started to put the package down on the counter.

  "I won't keep you from sneaking food to him, nor will I say a word to Herr Weisser. But if you do this thing, you do so against my wishes. Whether or not you believe it, helping that boy defy his papa may not be in his best interests. Herr Weisser is not always right, we both know that. He is a difficult man. But Erich has to learn that he's not yet grown up--"

  "But, Papa--"

  "No arguments, Sol. Do what you must. However, if you go, I shall put you over my knee when you come home and spank you until my arm aches too much for me to lift it."

  The emotionlessness of his father's voice bespoke his sincerity. This is all Erich's fault, Sol told himself. He gets out of line, and I am damned if I do and damned if I don't.

  He hesitated. Then, trembling, he crept outside quietly, wanting to run but knowing the noise would upset Papa all the more.

  Sol's plan to get into the sewer worked perfectly. Erich was there, heard him at once, and let him in through the cabaret. In their hideaway, a single candle was burnt down almost to its holder. It was too dark to see for sure, but judging by the sound of his friend's voice, he had been crying. He was wearing his uniform.

  "Go home, Erich," Sol said. "Your papa will forgive you."

 
Erich seated himself cross-legged on the flooring crates, his hands sagged in his lap. "He'll forgive me, all right. He always does. But who needs forgiveness? I'm going to live in the camp. They'll let me stay there permanently if I promise to care for the dogs."

  "Dogs can't take the place of family."

  "For me they can."

  Solomon handed the food package to Erich, who immediately devoured the cake.

  "He just stood there looking at me," Erich said after a time. He put the cheese and meats in one of the knapsacks the boys kept among their other things in the hideout. "Never came after me or really tried to stop me from leaving. Some papa he is!" He wiped a tear from his cheek and glanced at Solomon as though daring his friend to comment on his crying. "Well, I know where I'm not wanted. Some of the other boys are already living at the campsite, even though we're only supposed to use it for meetings."

  "Those are boys without families."

  "And some who don't want families. They're the ones I want to be with." He whirled the knapsack around to his back and slipped his arms through the straps. "Come with me, Sol. You'll love it there."

  "Don't be dumb! Everyone knows how your leaders feel about Jews."

  Erich waved his hand airily. "That's just talk. The real toughs have joined a new unit, the Storm Troopers or something, and won't have anything to do with us."