Child of the Light

by Berliner, Janet

  Foreign Minister l922,

  letter January 23, l916.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  September 1933

  Sol looked from the profusion of geraniums bordering the patio of the Tiergarten café to the trees beyond. Already it was September. The trees were almost bare and the earth was a carpet of leaves and acorns. To him it seemed only yesterday that the scent of May lilacs hung in the air.

  "Beautiful, isn't it!" He looked across the table at Erich and wondered what had happened to the years.

  "The Führer loves nature, doesn't he, girls?" Erich leaned down and petted his two German shepherds. Achilles, lying like a bunched blanket against his legs, lifted her head and gave a contented ruuff. Taurus, the younger dog, sitting with ears perked, appeared not to respond to the affection except to shake her head, dog tag clicking, after Erich was through.

  "He's probably much too busy at the Reichstag to make time for oaks and elms." Sol was hard-pressed to keep the edge of sarcasm out of his voice.

  "He'll be here," Erich said.

  "I'm not waiting much longer."

  Erich pounded the metal table with his fist. "Dammit, Solomon, he'll be here!"

  "Schlemiel!" Sol grabbed hold of the tankards of beer. "You wouldn't want to stain your precious uniform, would you?"

  Erich's face reddened. He gripped the table edge as if he were about to vault it like a gymnastics horse. "I've warned you not to speak Yiddish in public," he whispered, glancing at the threesome who had just arrived and stood waiting to be seated. "Even one word is dangerous!" He lowered his voice still further. "You're pushing your luck, Solomon."

  Sol looked at the threesome--an elegantly dressed couple and a tall silver-haired man in a blue-serge suit who stood behind them, a hard feral smile on his face. He kept one hand possessively on the woman's shoulder and the other on the man's while he surveyed the Biergarten.

  "Who's the one with the silver hair?" Sol asked. "Anybody important?"

  "Important, no. Dangerous, yes!" Erich whispered. "That's Otto Hempel. He's only an Untersturmführer, but he's SS. I don't have the power to protect you from people like that even if I do outrank him." Erich clutched Sol's wrist. "Watch out. Please."

  "I'll hold my tongue if you hold your temper." Sol pulled his hand away. "Maybe you should befriend Hempel. You serve the same king, after all."

  Erich ignored Sol's mocking tone. "The only people he wants to get close to, other than the High Command, are boys--bent over with their pants down. Goddamned queers are worse than whores." His voice was laced with disgust. "I hate immoral people!"

  He glowered and sipped his beer. Sol watched Achilles wolf down a bockwurst that had rolled off the table during Erich's outburst. Taurus took no notice. Like Erich and me, Sol thought. Erich, so quick to seize any opportunity that he claims will help our families weather the Nazi storm, while I wait and watch.

  Deciding to give the Chancellor ten more minutes, he listened to the threesome's conversation.

  "They're all the same." The woman was addressing the shorter man. "Take that French philosopher, Bergson, and that renegade Jew--whatshisname?--the one who emigrated recently?" She tossed the tail of her narrow boa angrily around her neck.

  "Einstein?" The man sounded bored.

  "Right. The one who said you can bend light or something? I mean, who cares? Only a Jew would be interested in such foolishness. So what do the other Jews do? Give him a chair at the university. Does he stay there? No! Takes off for North America. To tell them our secrets, no doubt. Our secrets. German secrets."

  "Eavesdropping again, Solomon?" Erich asked. "I think you look upon it as sport--though from the sounds of it, you'd be better off not listening."

  "Same old argument," Sol said impatiently. "Always the Jews. We've conspired with the Communists to create Kultur-Bolshevismus. We're trying to rot Germany's moral fiber by corrupting its scientific and artistic institutions. Such absurdity would almost be funny if so many people didn't take it seriously."

  He gave a sad smile as the woman started in on the architect Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus Movement.

  "Just don't listen," Erich said. "Don't be a masochist."

  "How can I help but listen?"

  "All that glass and concrete," the woman said. "The building has no character. Much like you, my darling!" She removed a shoe and, balancing on one foot, dumped out a stone. "As for your wonderful ideas! Let's go for a walk, he says. It might improve your temperament! Ridiculous! Walking is for Jews and peasants. Besides, there's nothing wrong with my temperament that a good man couldn't cure!"

  "What can it matter to you how something's built?" the shorter man asked in an even tone, as if the intimation that his manhood left something to be desired was unworthy of his attention.

  "It matters because it's decadent!" The woman held onto her anger like a cat with a bird in its mouth. "Like those vulgar American skyscrapers. You can't tell the front from the back."

  "Cubism and the concept of the multi-sided universe are simply reflections of the times."

  "Nonsense! Your fancy theories reflect nothing but radicals and Jews, wanting to change everything. Like the roof of that monstrosity--the Bauhaus! It's flat, for God's sake! A flat roof in the Fatherland! It's unChristian! UnGerman!"

  "Not to mention impractical, since it's likely to collapse under the first snow," the SS man added.

  "That's right. You tell him, Otto," she said to the second lieutenant. "If Franz won't listen to reason, maybe you can make him understand."

  "Perhaps you should calm yourself, Helga, before you bring on another migraine," Hempel said. "As for me, I do my best not to think." He raised his hand and snapped his fingers for a waitress. "It muddies the emotions."

  The waitress, a girl of no more than seventeen, offered a choice of tables, one within view of Erich and Sol, the other in a prime spot around the corner and overlooking the lake with its weeping willows, swans, and blanket-wrapped boaters. The woman, appearing to seethe from her companion's treatment of her, indicated a preference for the table closer to Sol and Erich. Seating herself in Erich's line of vision, she arched an eyebrow, smiled, and draped her calf-length skirt so her ankles were seen to best advantage.

  Sol looked from her to Erich and tried to assess him through her eyes. The young first lieutenant did look handsome in his uniform. Were it not for the mutilated hand, he would appear the perfect Aryan, as if he had stepped from one of the State-financed propaganda films at the Marmorhaus. The ribbons above his breast pocket added just the right touch of color, even though they represented completion of Abwehr military-security instruction and not gallantry in action. The neat mustache that graced his lip had surely stirred the heart of many a Fraülein on the parade field and at sports rallies in the Oranienburg grain fields.

  "Ever have a woman like that?" Erich picked up his beer, toasted his admirer, and drank deeply.

  Sol shook his head. "Have you?"

  "She's no beer-and-bockwurst lay, I'll tell you that. You might try it some time. Do you good."

  "Me?" Sol laughed.

  "Why not? You're good-looking enough, in a Semitic kind of way. Lots of misguided women go for the dark brooding type. You can't spend the rest of your life moping after Miriam." He paused and his eyes darkened. "Have you heard from her lately?"

  Sol shook his head. "I did write and tell her about the estate, but that was three months ago. Maybe more. Perhaps she never received the letter."

  "Or perhaps she just doesn't care anymore. How long has it been since you heard from her--at least three years."

  "We've both had birthday cards."

  Erich laughed. "I'm sure Vladimir has too. She has a new life, Solomon. Face it. Do yourself a favor and get yourself one of those." He nodded in the direction of his admirer. "How old do you think she is? Forty? Forty-five?"

  Sol shrugged, knowing that whatever he said would give Erich the opportunity for some acidic reply. When it came to Sol's shyness, Erich
seemed unforgiving. As for his comments about Miriam, Erich's philandering was no indication that he had forgotten her, Sol thought. Different people used different ways to protect themselves; for Sol it was isolation, for Erich, just the opposite. That didn't mean a thing.

  The woman leaned back, gave her order to the waitress, and made a limp-wristed motion with her hand. "Send the Gypsy to read our tea leaves. I wish to see if life has any excitement in store for me."

  "I'm afraid she's unavailable, Fraülein," the girl said apologetically. "She says there is too much wind upon the water today for her power to be effective."

  "Ridiculous!" The woman darted her gaze across the lake. "Not so much as a breeze. You bring her out here!"

  "I'm sorry," the girl replied. She lowered her voice. "You know how stubborn the lesser peoples can be, Fraülein."

  The waitress departed for the kitchen. With a defeated sigh, the woman sat back on the white wicker chair. Glancing toward Erich, she pushed at her auburn hair, then shook her fashionable center-parting back in place. Her gaze roamed from his eyes to his ribbons and down his shirt buttons; she recrossed her legs, pointing a slim foot in his direction, her red patent-leather shoe as covert an invitation as a lighthouse beacon. "If the Gypsy is unavailable, perhaps he could read my tea leaves," she said in a voice just loud enough to make certain Erich heard.

  Franz took her hand and pressed it to his lips. "You are a wicked creature. Such a taste for soldiers."

  The taller man leaned over and quietly said something to the woman. She stiffened. When she looked back at Erich, her eyes had narrowed.

  "A well-preserved forty, I'd say," Erich whispered. "They're best about that age...no games, and they work hard at it."

  "Seems your SS friend has changed her mind."

  "She knows what she likes." Erich settled back confidently. "She'll come around."

  Other than dogs, Sol thought, the only two things that seemed to arouse his friend were conquests and contacts. The right ones. Erich's Reichsakademie studies had been but a means to an end, like his interest in mathematics and physics--derived from recognition of his excellence, not from fascination with the subjects themselves.

  "Such women excite me." Erich's voice was suddenly husky. "They know everyone who's anyone, and ultimately they talk. The SA Storm Troopers can keep their barrel-chested wives and simple-minded whores. I'll stick with the cream. By the time I leave here, I'll have her key and telephone number."

  "Doubtless you'll use both."

  "Shsh!" Erich's brows drew together and a look of concentration entered his eyes. He set down his beer and turned toward the graveled path that serpentined through the woods. "Did you hear that?"

  "Hear what?"

  "Them! Him! I told you he'd come."

  Sol listened for the crunch of boots on gravel. He could hear nothing, but then Erich frequently sensed sounds and movement before others did. After his Freikorps unit became part of the Hitler Youth, his superior woodsman skills had earned him a two-week intensive camp in the Black Forest. He was an excellent tracker, as good and sometimes even better than the dogs he worked with so closely and loved so much; they too had senses beyond human ken.

  Erich gripped Sol's wrist. "I've never seen him up close before. My God, this is a day, Solomon!"

  Solomon. These days it was always "Solomon," as if Erich were deliberate distancing himself from the old days. Just as Herr Weisser had become "sir" to Erich ever since their big blow-up after Rathenau's murder. No hint of disrespect, only a coldness, as if Erich were no longer an integral part of the Weisser household or of the cigar shop, with its Jewish co-owners. Yet he insisted that he had come to hate the Hitler Youth and was bent on moving up in the Party proper precisely for the sake of family and friends.

  There was a missing puzzle piece somewhere, Sol thought. He could feel his friend's sincerity when he said things like that. And yet--

  "Can you hear him? I told you he'd come!"

  Jittery as a first-day kindergartner, Erich smoothed his hair, straightened his tie, picked lint from his lapels.

  Sol saw the SS man sit up even straighter than before and turn his head toward the trees. Now Sol heard voices, one resonating louder than the rest, demanding attention with the deep throaty insistence of a cello. He listened, torn between curiosity--he had never seen the Chancellor at close range like this--and the strong urge to run.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Sol watched Hitler and three paunchy Storm Troopers saunter into the open. A white terrier pranced at the Chancellor's side. While Achilles simply looked from the terrier to Hitler and lifted her brows with lazy disdain, Taurus emitted a low growl. The little dog immediately cowered behind its master's legs. Almost imperceptibly, Hitler glanced down. He shifted his gaze to the tables and looked around with the air of a man who had arrived at a popular restaurant to find his regularly reserved table taken. Then he stared over the heads of the café customers, out across the lake, as though absorbed in a vision only he could discern.

  "Führer, wir folgen Dir!" The woman, Helga, shouted words lifted from a popular election poster: "Führer. We follow you!"

  The Chancellor bowed slightly to acknowledge her adoration.

  "Mitt Gottes Willen," Erich added softly. Rising to his feet, he clicked his heels and saluted Helga's small compact hero. "With God's will."

  Hitler and his entourage lifted their arms in an answering stiff-armed salute, which induced most of the customers to shout "Heil!" and raise their arms in return.

  The Chancellor was the last to lower his arm. Rumor had it that he took special pride in maintaining the salute for lengthy periods in front of female admirers, as if doing so proved his virility. He had apparently issued a standing challenge to any Storm Trooper who believed he could hold the salute longer than his Führer.

  Grateful to the few who merely gestured in desultory fashion, Sol kept his arm lowered. Hitler looked his way. Fortunately, the Chancellor's attention was not on him, but on Erich's dogs. After looking with disgust at Achilles, Hitler fixed his gaze on Taurus.

  "A beautiful dog. A fine, proud bearing. Good lineage?" He moved toward their table.

  "The best, mein Führer," Erich replied. "Descended from the German grand champion."

  "In animals, as in people, breeding is everything." Hitler's gaze roamed the audience. When he was sure he had their attention, he lifted his finger like a schoolmaster and said, "Genetic purity creates strength of character." As if it were being scolded, the terrier backed under the nearest table. "Your animal's name?"

  "Achilles. And this--"

  "I was not referring to the old one, Herr Oberleutnant."

  "--is Taurus. Achilles' offspring."

  Sol saw anger flare in Erich's eyes.

  "Taurus!" Hitler patted Taurus on the head; she did not respond to the display of affection. "Born in May?"

  "The fourteenth."

  "And your name?"

  "Weisser." Again Erich lifted himself into military bearing. An odd expression crossed his features. "Erich Alois Weisser. I had my name legally changed to honor your father."

  The bastard doesn't miss a move, Sol thought, stunned by his friend's audacity. There was a certain appeal in Erich's lying to someone who told so many lies, but why this particular lie? Why work this hard at impressing a man he purported to despise?

  What had happened to Erich's unwillingness to compromise that had caused them so much pain when they were boys?

  He had finagled his way into the Reichsakademie despite his hand and come back from his training camp in the Black Forest full of tales of the people he had met there--men in counter-espionage whose mere hints about the training center in Oranienburg had been enough to convince him not to ask too many questions. He was, he had told Sol many times, thankful to be in the security division, where he could acquire power and correct abuses without inflicting pain. As for his being taken with the Nazi Party, he insisted he saw its potential for bringing Germany out of
the Depression and, like everyone else, desperately wanted to see an end to that, as well as to repression. Recently, he had managed to get a promotion and to maneuver his Abwehr canine unit into headquarters security. I'm not guarding Goebbels, I've penned him, he had said when the orders came through. I intend to use him before he uses us.

  To Sol it sounded too easy; all too terribly familiar.

  "Weisser." The Führer mulled the word like a fine cognac. "A good German name. A good German dog. I shall remember you."

  "Maybe I was not born too late after all," Erich said, as the Chancellor patted him on the shoulder and stepped away. He looked as if he'd been touched by a god and rendered immortal.

  Examining the newly appointed Chancellor as objectively as he could, Sol tried to see what it was about him that commanded such worship. He looked nothing if not ordinary in his oft-photographed, belted trench coat: a nose too large for his face; eyes, blue and clear and seemingly without guile or, more accurately, without expression at all.

  A Storm Trooper pulled up a chair for Hitler and the Chancellor sat down. "You must all read Schopenhauer," he told his entourage as if continuing a lecture cut short by his emergence from the woods. "Detailed knowledge of his philosophy must be required of all Germans. My dear Schopenhauer teaches us that although all forms of life are bound together by misery and misfortune, we higher forms must struggle against, and separate ourselves from, the lower." His hands fluttered as he spoke, not with the careful theatrics with which he endowed his Reichstag-balcony speeches but, Sol thought, like the wings of an injured bird. "His books, with their affirmation of the strength and triumph of the will, kept me going"--another flutter of the hands--"no, kept me alive, during those terrible days in the trenches, when we dined on rats and died from typhus and influenza and were up to our knees in mud."

  Again he lifted the index finger. "Yes! Everyone will read Schopenhauer."

  He patted the terrier and looked at the two Brownshirts. They stood at parade rest, watching the woods as though they expected trouble from that quarter. "You may leave," he told them. He waved in the direction of the woods. "Anywhere I go in our beloved Fatherland, I'm among friends."