Child of the Light

by Berliner, Janet

  A train hooted its way into the Zoo Station as Sol trudged through the gate that separated the gardens from the street. He stood for a moment to watch with growing loneliness as people detrained--men with satchels, women lugging hatboxes and children, all of them with somewhere to go and circumnavigating him as they might a pole or a tree.

  "Solomon? Sol?"

  Miriam's voice sang out his name, its cadence lilting above the street noise. Sol dipped inward for its source, into the well of visions in the sewer and nightmares in his bed, certain that now he was dreaming in the streets.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  "Need help with your suitcase, pretty lady?"

  Miriam shook her head at the overweight, overcoated man. He had sat in the seat across from her all the way from Paris, and again during the journey from Frankfurt, where she had changed trains for the last part of the trip home. Though he had stared fixedly at her ankles, he had made no previous attempt to talk to her. Her suitcase was heavy and she was tempted to let him help her as far as the taxi rank and worry about getting rid of him later. Not that she could afford a taxi, but what the hell.

  Apparently sensing her hesitation, the man stepped closer. The look of delighted anticipation in his eyes quickly changed her mind, and she shook her head again. "Thank you, I can manage," she said politely but firmly.

  He made no effort to hide his disappointment.

  For the thousandth time Miriam wondered why she hadn't contacted Sol or Erich. They had never been far from the periphery of her consciousness in the nine years she'd been away. She had written to Erich a couple of times and he had always responded, but through Sol. Eventually, she gave up the effort except for a birthday card once a year which he dutifully reciprocated, never so much as adding anything but his name.

  Sol was a different story. They corresponded regularly at first. His letters had been a great source of pleasure and comfort for her, especially after her grandmother died. Through him she learned that Erich had given up his veterinarian apprenticeship in favor of an appointment to the Reichsakademie. As of Sol's last letter three years ago, Erich was hopelessly devoted to dogs, making progress in the Abwehr, and conquering attractive, influential women. At the time, Sol was enrolled at the Language Institute, studying the Talmud and the Kabbalah, and helping in the tobacco shop. In deference to practicality, he was also studying bookkeeping and accounting.

  When she sold the last of her grandmother's jewelry and her life began to sour, she stopped writing to Sol. Running through the money so fast was her own fault, she thought. Somehow she'd convinced herself that the well was bottomless.

  There followed three years of silence, then she'd received the letter that had brought her back here. She dug it out of her handbag and read the beginning again:

  29 Junie, l933

  Meine Liebe Miriam,

  It has been so long--so very long--since I last heard from you. When half-a-dozen of my letters went unanswered, I at first worried that perhaps something terrible might have happened to you. Finally, I decided that you were simply too busy with your new and glamorous life and that the best thing I could do was send you warm thoughts, keep loving you, and pray that someday our lives would once again intertwine.

  Now, I have heard news that I feel I must impart to you. Forgive me, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but someone had to tell you--they are gaining more power every day, if not every minute. Some time ago, Erich told me that it was the good Dr. Goebbels' intention to conscript your home and use it as his headquarters--mostly, I fear, because it is far enough away from Wallotstrasse and the ever-vigilant SS that his bedroom activities with every willing star-struck blonde in Berlin will be overlooked.

  Whatever the reason, I begged Erich to intercede on your behalf, as I did last year when--as I wrote and told you--I found out that the most valuable of the paintings and furniture in the house were appropriated. Whether or not Erich could have done anything to help without significant injury to himself is something I cannot judge.

  I do know that by early October the move into your estate will be well underway--if not completed....

  Miriam folded up the letter and put it in her bag. She knew its contents by heart. The letter had taken more than three months to find her; three days later she had booked her ticket home.

  Standing alone on the steps of the station, she asked herself why she had really stopped writing to Sol--and answered herself in the same way she had done for three years. In Erich's case, it was annoyance; in Sol's, she had found herself unable to reply. She wanted the ink of her adolescence to blur...wanted her future to be a tabula rasa. The past, which held the pain of youth's broken promises, needed to be relegated to the past.

  She laughed at herself.

  Those were fine thoughts, or at least pragmatic, but the truth was she wanted to see Sol and Erich. Wanted? No, longed! Dammit, she missed them both. Loved them both. Her love for Erich, she had long since decided, was perverse. When she thought of him, she felt aroused; loving him was stupid but exciting, like walking by a river during an electric storm. Worse yet, he made her dislike herself.

  Sol?

  Sol was mist and rainbows and the smell of Frau Freund's latkes.

  Thinking about those made her remember her hollow stomach, growling with hunger. She hadn't eaten anything more nourishing than a sweet roll in days.

  She inhaled deeply, but the smell around her was hardly that of potato pancakes; as usual, Berlin's sidewalks were splotched with dog droppings. Still, it was Berlin. Whatever else that meant, she was home.

  Dropping her suitcase at her side, she massaged her shoulder and congratulated herself for having had the good sense to leave the rest of her things to another ex-member of her troupe. She leaned sideways to pick up the case again and noticed a young man across the street. He was standing motionless in the path of the other passengers, who had crossed over and were moving around him as if he were a tree that had taken root in the sidewalk.

  Come on, Miriam, don't be an idiot, she told herself, aware of her pounding heart. Nevertheless, she squinted to see more clearly in the encroaching dusk.

  "Solomon! Sol Fr--!" She stopped. It was too much to ask of the Fates and, besides, Freund was too Jewish a name to yell.

  The young man turned his head in her direction but did not react. Embarrassed, she changed her gesture into a wave and smiled as if she had recognized someone behind him. She was beginning to feel like an absolute idiot. Such happy coincidences were the stuff of dreams.

  Then again, she'd made a fool of herself before, she thought as he took one step, and another, until he was running toward her.

  "My God, it is you!" Sol grinned widely as he dodged a car.

  "Who did you think it was? A ghost?"

  She opened her arms and he embraced her, lifting her up and whirling her around.

  "Miriam Rathenau at your service, sir." She laughed and held onto her hat.

  "You look wonderful." He let go and stepped back to admire her.

  And you feel wonderful, she thought. "What do you think?" She executed a pirouette. "Is Berlin ready for my return?"

  "If the city's not, I am."

  She smiled at his open appreciation. The worse she felt, the more carefully she dressed, as if looking good worked some inner magic that forced her to take a more optimistic view of her life. She had put on a stylish calf-length tweed skirt and matching jacket. Her legs were stockinged in black silk, and a white silk blouse and cloche cap completed the outfit. Aside from a tall feather, the cap resembled a Pilgrim's bonnet and would have looked very proper had she not turned the edge up saucily on one side.

  "Can it really be you?" Sol made no attempt to hide his pleasure. "You were a girl when you left Berlin."

  "I'm twenty-six, Sol."

  "Well, you look seventeen, at most."

  "I'd love to believe you, darling, but you need to have your eyes checked."

  For an instant she sensed a change in Sol, as if s
he had said something tactless. Then he said quickly, "I feel like I should spout poetry or say something philosophical to mark the occasion."

  "You could give me a kiss for starters." She smiled. "And maybe carry a disgustingly heavy suitcase?" She folded her arms around his neck and stood on her toes.

  To her surprise, his lips tasted of beer; his kiss was warm, but that of a brother. He was a man now, not the tentative boy she had left behind; tall and handsome, with that kind of brooding intensity in his eyes that many women found irresistible. Was there someone else in his life, some other woman--a wife? She glanced at his left hand.

  The extent of her relief at seeing a ringless finger shocked her.

  "You've come home...for good?" he asked

  "For good or bad. Depends on your point of view." She linked her arm through his and he lifted her case with the other. "In answer to the question in your eyes, my Sol, yes, I received your letter. I got it a few days ago." She stopped. There would be time for all that, and for asking about Erich. "Could we be serious later?" she asked.

  Sol looked relieved. "Been in Paris all this time...I mean, since your last letter?"

  "Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich...everywhere." She waved as if to include the universe in her experience.

  Sol looked at her slim waist. "Aren't world travelers supposed to get fat from sampling all sorts of delicacies?"

  "Me, fat? Never! Matter of fact, you could take me to your parents for a Shabbas meal. It will be my first in...too long."

  She laughed and nuzzled her head against his shoulder. Clutching the post of a street lamp, she swung around it at a tilt.

  "It's so good to be back, Sol! So good to be with someone I know." She looked toward the Brandenburg Gate. "We share so many memories."

  "Mother and Recha were sure you had become the toast of Europe. When we stopped hearing from you, we decided you had gone to Hollywood and married Errol Flynn or someone. We kept expecting to see you on the Movietone News, wearing furs and posing for photographers."

  "Why an American?" She pouted coyly and once again tucked her arm through his. "Why not Willy Fritsch? I'm sure I could have dazzled him into a trip down the aisle. But I've simply been too busy to take time off to marry a star!" More seriously, she added, "Actually, for the past three years I've been with a dance company from Stuttgart."

  "The Stuttgart Ballet?"

  "I wish. You see before you the star of that traveling talent showcase, La Varieté Nouvelle." Star ballerina of third-rate theaters, she thought as she bowed grandly to hide her unease. "Danced excerpts from every great ballet on Europe's worst stages, for a lot of applause and little else. Did a bit of everything. Lehar. Lincke. Giselle, the Sugar Plum Fairy, you name it."

  "Even so, Recha's such a balletomane I swear she gets programs from Siberia. We should have seen your name somewhere."

  "I used a stage name." Again Miriam waved her hand in the broad gesture that encompassed fate and the universe. "Every time I handed someone a portfolio of my American performances, they looked duly impressed--and slammed the door in my face. Eventually I realized that people were afraid my name would attract Nazi attention. All I had to do at Nouvelle was audition, so I became Mimi de Rau. Like it?"

  "Mimi, you make me sad and dreamy," he sang softly.

  "Chevalier you're not." Miriam laughed with delight. "I am très Parisienne, n'est pas? So, verree Frrench." She rolled her 'rrs' and tried to look like a seductress.

  "So, has the company come to perform in Berlin, Fraülein de Rau?" Sol asked as they reached the apartment house.

  "Hardly!" She gazed up at the barred windows. "We made the mistake of performing in Munich. The Chamber of Culture shut us down." She frowned at the Minister of Propaganda's latest lunacy: a few weeks before, Goebbels had formed the Chamber to protect the public from non-Aryan influences in the arts.

  "The company's director was Jewish?"

  "No, but they decided he was because of his nose. Next they'll be measuring everyone's noses."

  Though Sol laughed as he held open the door, he did not sound amused. He had doubtless heard the rumors that the nose-caliper test was a reality in some places and that circumcision examinations were a possible next step. "Failure to fit accepted parameters" and "Jewish tendencies" had become familiar catch-phrases.

  "If you don't have work here, why did you come back?"

  Miriam reached in her purse. After some digging, she produced a large latchkey. "I came across the keys to Uncle Walther's house the day we were notified the company was being disbanded, which was also the day your letter found me. The front door key fell off the ring and into my hand. I took it as an omen."

  "Think of it this way--you would rattle around like a ghost if you lived in that mansion...alone."

  "Good old Solomon--always finding something positive, even in evil. If I could afford to live there, I could also afford servants, Solomon." She kissed an index finger and pressed it to his lips, then turned her palms up in mock despair. "But that's all moot, isn't it. I'm penniless. Can you love a Poor Little Match Girl?"

  "You're not bitter about the estate?" Sol sounded shocked.

  "Bitter? No. Furious! But later, Sol, please."

  "Just one question. Didn't your grandmother leave you anything?"

  "Everything she had left, which was mostly jewelry. Didn't take me long to spend it. You know me--used to the good life!"

  "What about your trust fund?"

  "Gone. After Oma's death, I found out inflation had eaten up most of her fortune. The Nazis took what was left. She and I lived on the trust. I couldn't deny her anything, Sol. She was old, and used to a certain way of life. I just figured, when it was gone, it was gone. I probably should have sold the estate years ago but, to cut a long story short, Princess Miriam 'Mimi de Rau' Rathenau has been paying for her own bread and butter--and precious little jam."

  Sol put down the suitcase and gave her a hug. "I can't promise you butter, but you are always welcome to whatever bread we have."

  She kissed his cheek. He reddened slightly. After fishing in his pockets for the key, he opened the front door.

  "Mutti? Recha? You'll never guess who's here!"

  No one answered. Sol peered into the music and sitting rooms. "They must still be in the food lines."

  "Hello?" Miriam called. "Herr Freund?"

  Sol sent Miriam a cautionary look and signaled her into the library. The room had two tall narrow windows. The one nearest the door was trimmed in Dutch curtains and spilled light onto a table cluttered with papers. The other was covered by a shade.

  Seated near a corner, facing the darkened window and slowly rocking back and forth, was Jacob Freund.

  "Oh my God!" Miriam thought of Jacob Freund as she had remembered him. Gentle. Dapper. Resolute.

  This couldn't be the same man.

  Jacob stared straight ahead, face set as though sculpted. Though not yet sixty he looked eighty. His cheeks were sunken, his cheekbones protruded. He stared toward the window shade through eyes that, clouded with film, seemed distended from their sockets. His hair was white and butchered; liver spots mottled his scalp. His right hand lay motionless on the blanket across his lap. His left forearm was on the rocker's arm. A silk ribbon dangled from his left hand, which hung as if it had no bones; attached to the ribbon, moving like a pendulum with each slight twitch of his hand, was an Iron Cross.

  Try as she would, Miriam could not stem the tears. "Is he always...like this?"

  "It comes and goes." Solomon put his hands on the old man's shoulders. "Miriam Rathenau's here, Papa."

  The chair continued its rhythm. Sol motioned Miriam aside.

  "His eyes.... Is he blind, Sol?"

  "He has chosen to be blind."

  She looked at Sol in horror. He gripped her arms as if he wanted, needed to hold her. "Accept it," he said. "I have." He stared at the carpet. "At least I think I have."

  They waited helplessly for a response or any sign of recognition from Sol's fathe
r. When none came, Sol guided Miriam into the kitchen. He poured them each a buttermilk.

  Miriam turned and stood in the archway, staring at the old man.

  "Seems like everything is a rare treat these days." Sol handed her the beverage. "It's hard to buy anything, what with 'We do not serve Jews' signs going up everywhere. At first it was only, 'Don't buy from Jews'...."

  "What do you mean 'chosen'?" Miriam kept her eyes on Jacob as she drank. "How can he have chosen to be blind?"

  "His eyesight's been failing for years but he can still see--with glasses. However, he refuses to get another pair. He says there's nothing left he wants to see."

  "Then he's not completely--"

  "Not yet." Sol's voice faltered. "He broke his glasses the day von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor."

  Nine months ago, Miriam thought. Some people give birth to sweet-smelling babies; we Germans bear tyrants.

  "That evening," Sol said, "Papa placed his glasses under the chair and rocked back, crushing them. Since then his condition has worsened rapidly--"

  "What's the prognosis?"

  "The last doctor who came said it was acute depression, complicated by what we've known for some time. He has retinitis pigmentosa. Basically, a splash of melanin on the back of the retina." He struggled to finish. "I'm afraid it's degenerative."

  "There must be something...other doctors..."

  "There's nothing we can do. It's getting harder and harder to find a doctor willing to come to a Jewish household."

  "There must be Jewish doctors."

  Sol shook his head. "Most have left the country. The rest have to employ constant watchfulness to preserve their own safety, for all our sakes."

  "He just sits and rocks?"

  "Sometimes he putters around the house, but he doesn't go to the shop anymore. I've taken over for him. Mother helps with the books. I'm a linguist, not an accountant, despite all thoseclasses."

  "You're a student, Sol. It's all you should ever have to do."

  Sol wiped off her buttermilk mustache and she chuckled despite herself. They eased into the table's corner-bench and deliberately talked of pleasant things--sunsets in the Alps, where she had learned to ski, and of how she had performed an excerpt from The Dying Swan in a rainstorm on a Rhine tourist barge. As they washed and put away the glasses, she asked him to come with her to the villa.