Child of the Light

by Berliner, Janet

  "Why torture yourself?"

  "I want to see what dust has gathered and what insults the sparrows have deposited. We'll be back before dark, in time to celebrate Shabbas," she told him. "Promise."

  Still, he hesitated. "Why not wait until tomorrow? You'll be more rested."

  "What is it, Sol? What's really bothering you? We both know they have taken what's mine. I've had to face that. There is something else. Isn't there."

  "Miri." Sol took her hand. "When we--Erich and I--heard about this, we talked about it. He was very upset. He said he would do what he could to stop it, but he doesn't have that kind of power."

  "Erich..."

  "We have to talk about him. He's there, Miri. At the estate. In charge of guarding it for Goebbels--"

  "No!" She hadn't meant to shout but the word rang out like an alarm. She lowered her voice. "Why Erich? Explain it to me."

  "He'll have to do that himself. I just wanted you to know. We could bump into him--"

  Miriam glanced in Jacob Freund's direction. "Let's go. Now!"

  Outside, they stood hand-in-hand as Solomon flagged a taxi. "I need to find work," Miriam said as they slid inside. "A cabaret, anything, it doesn't matter."

  Sol gave directions to the driver. She leaned close to the window and looked across the street at the cabaret's faded awning. "If only Oma had not closed Kaverne."

  If only, she thought, wondering if her life would always be filled with those two words.

  Suddenly all she wanted was for this day to end. Her emotional bucket was filled to overflowing; she envied the taxi driver his isolation, closed off from them by a glass partition and separated from the outside by glass and metal. It had all been too much. The news about the house, the company disbanding, the long train rides back to a hate-filled city that had once been home. Seeing Sol was wonderful, but Jacob...When she'd insisted on going to the villa now, she'd failed to realize how tired she was. She wasn't at all sure she could handle anything more; under the circumstances, she was especially not sure she could handle seeing Erich again.

  She glanced at Solomon, grateful that he understood her need for silence. With any luck, Erich wouldn't be at the estate--

  Luck hasn't exactly been your middle name of late, she reminded herself. Her only hope of making it through this day was to set aside her feelings. There would be time enough to examine those. For now, the best thing she could do was to act and react, and leave the thinking--and the feeling--for tomorrow.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The cab rounded the last S-curve before the estate. Heart racing, Miriam waited for the villa to come into view. Even had the place still been hers, she reminded herself, she could not afford to park so much as a dog in the driveway. It took wealth to maintain an estate, not just income--all of which was moot, since she had neither. Her uncle had kept the place immaculate. The lawn was always manicured, the chestnut that shaded the west chimney pruned, the ivy that covered the gate and guardwall-ironwork trimmed. There never seemed to be an end to the work that needed to be done. The east wall re-grouted, the trim of the front-door canopy touched up. Always something.

  The cab stopped and she stepped out. While Solomon paid the driver, she walked over to the east gate and gripped the bars, inhaling the richness of newly mown grass. The place was even more beautiful than she remembered. There was so much to the villa she had taken for granted. Red-and-black brickwork graced each corner and set off the entryways. The wrought-iron grills over the windows nicely contrasted with the limestone. The black, red, and gold cobblestones in the crescent-shaped driveway had been chosen to match the colors of the Weimar Republic.

  She remembered the wording of Uncle's will. Meine Vorfahren und ich selbst haben sich von deutschem Boden und deutschem Geistgenärt...my forefathers and I myself have nourished ourselves from German earth and spirit...should death of inheritee occur before liquidation of my estate, the grounds and buildings shall revert to the German people, to serve as a showplace for art and artifacts by Germans of Jewish descent....

  On the roof, a man in a carpenter's apron hoisted a flag from the flagpole on the southeastern turret. The cloth unfurled in the breeze.

  Red, with a white circle and a black swastika.

  "Take that down!" Shaking the gate, she thrust an arm between the bars. "You hear me, you bastard? Take it down!"

  She dug into her handbag for the keys to the estate and tried each of them in the lock. None worked.

  "Stop it, Miri." Sol took hold of her arm. "They are not going to fit. You can be sure they've changed all the locks." He pointed toward two workmen opening the western gate for an army truck. "If someone sees you, we could be turned in."

  "Turned in? This is my home!"

  "This was your home!"

  Furious, Miriam shrugged off his hand and hurled the keys through the bars of the gate. They clinked as they landed.

  Covering her mouth with her hand, she watched a tar sprayer enter the other gate and move along the driveway, suffusing the air with stench. A yellow steamroller with a puffing exhaust followed, its driver waving frantically and shouting invectives at the workmen as if he were in charge of smoothing out the broad boulevard of the Unter den Linden during rush hour.

  "I won't believe Erich is a part of this!"

  Sol's dark eyes held an answering reflection of her own hatred and helplessness. She put her arms around his neck and laid her head against his chest. This time, when he held her close, she could feel his love for her. She breathed in the smell of him. Please don't let go of me, she thought. Outside of myself, you are all I have left.

  The stuttering of an engine right behind her made her turn her head. A motorcyclist in leather helmet and goggles crested the hill and roared past. The rider, bent low for aerodynamics, seemed almost part of the machine.

  He glanced sideways toward her and did a double-take, changed his balance, and throttled down. The engine screamed in protest. Jamming down a boot, he swung the machine in a shrieking U-turn, bumped over the curb and skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust.

  Sol pulled Miriam back against the gate.

  Gunning the engine, the rider raised his goggles.

  "Erich! Are you crazy?" Sol shouted. "You almost killed us!"

  Miriam said nothing. Her heart was pounding as much from the rush of adrenaline as from her first sight of Erich in nine years. For a moment she forgot about the house, the Nazis--the real world--and stared at this man who, together with Sol, had occupied so many of her thoughts. Except for the area the goggles had protected, his face was grimed with dirt and exhaust. Still, she'd have recognized him anywhere. He never really had looked like a boy, she thought. More like a miniature man waiting to catch up with himself.

  "So! The prodigal has returned, and more beautiful than ever."

  He smiled, obviously pleased with the drama of his entrance. Turning off the cycle, he put down the kickstand and draped an arm across the handlebars. His body seemed charged with the power of his machine, the supple muscularity of his torso evident even in his leather jacket. Like a confident warrior on a steed, Miriam thought, glancing at Sol. He looked jealous, and angry with himself. Damn Hitler and all his barbarians! Damn you, Erich, for the weakness at the back of my knees.

  Deliberately she put aside who he had been and looked at what he had become--at his army motorcycle and the swastika on his sleeve. "How dare you take my house!"

  "Me?" He seemed taken aback.

  She glared at him. "You and yours!"

  With the back of his hand, Erich wiped sweat and dirt from his face. "They took your house while you were cavorting around Europe. You should have sold the estate years ago!"

  Should have? Who was he to tell her that! Her grief over Oma's death, and her desire to keep the villa in the family despite the downturns in her finances and career, had made her procrastinate, but that did not excuse these Nazi thieves. "Why didn't you stop them?" Miriam asked quietly.

  "I tried." Erich looked uncomforta
ble. "I confronted Goebbels."

  His brows were pulled down, his need to rationalize clear. Though she could not think of a single thing to justify his association with these madmen, Miriam held herself in check. Let him bury himself with his own words, she thought, over her weak-kneed reaction to seeing him again.

  "I looked into the situation myself." Erich's face wore an expression of deep concern but she believed none of it. "I demanded to see papers. Almost lost my commission because of it, but I saw them." He slapped the cycle to make his point. "I even went to an attorney. It was all there in the new laws, spelled out in their usual mumbo-jumbo--their right to appropriate whatever they wanted for the good of the Fatherland. I had to apologize--officially apologize," his voice rose, "to that goddamn cripple. He's been watching me like an alley cat ever since."

  "It all boils down to one thing, Miri," Sol said wearily. "Empty Jewish houses don't stay empty very long."

  "I wish them dead. Every last one of them." Miriam felt like a bomb, ready to explode. Grief, love, her initial delight at being in Berlin, even her feelings for Solomon--gone, all of it. There was room for nothing but anger.

  "I'll keep trying, Miriam. Anything's possible, I suppose, even with the Nazis." Erich lowered his voice as he said the word. "They control the courts, but they are not above the law of the jungle. Goebbels is under fire for his earlier Bolshevik writings. He may be more approachable now." He lifted her hand and, looking into her eyes, brought her fingers to his lips. "How about formulating our battle plan over dinner? There's a new Italian place. They serve exquisite eggplant parmigiana, the wine cellar's superb, the violist plays a wonderful Albinoni sonata...."

  "When?" She was toying with him, looking for a way to pierce his arrogance.

  He pulled back his jacket wristband and looked at his watch. "Would an hour from now be too soon?"

  "No, Erich. It can't be too soon." She forced herself to smile at him and to ignore Sol's obvious discomfort.

  "I can't make it any sooner. I'm sorry, my love."

  "Good. An hour, then, and I'll have my house back."

  His smile dissipated. "Really, Miriam! This isn't a game---"

  "Of course it isn't a goddamn game!" She was half-shouting, hysteria driving her.

  Erich glanced anxiously across the villa grounds. The tar sprayer and steamroller had stopped and the men were looking in his direction. "Control yourself." His tone was low and anxious. "This is hardly the place for---"

  "For them!" She shook her fist at the workmen.

  Sol placed his hands on her shoulders and drew her away. "You'll get it all back."

  Erich gripped the handlebars, put his machine in neutral, and walked it clear of the gate. "My idealist friend! Your little universe in perfect harmony!" He put down the kickstand. "You really do believe all of the wrongs of the world will be redressed."

  He stopped, as if he sensed something beyond the hill. After a moment she heard dogs barking and gears grinding, and an army deuce-and-a-half crested the rise and came grumbling toward them. Sticking out of rubber-rimmed portholes in the truck's canvas canopy were several yelping German shepherds.

  Erich took a key from his pocket and stepped up to the gate. "I have to see to the dogs," he said over his shoulder, nearly shouting to be heard above the din of the animals and the engine. "Look, I gained a certain advantage with the Führer today. Maybe I can go to him about the house."

  "Sure," Miriam said sourly, her anger renewed by seeing him with a key that fit. "He'll break a leg for a Jew."

  "You never know." Erich unlocked the gate and swung the left side wide. He returned to unlatch the foot bolt of the right half and push it open. "The Chancellor sees benefits where his underlings see obstacles."

  Like a huge lumbering animal oblivious to anything in its path, the truck closed in on them, huffing and spitting exhaust as it pulled toward the gate. Sol pulled Miriam out of the way. Erich signaled and the truck snorted and rolled into the drive, making its way toward the azalea garden. She watched forlornly as it plowed across the lawn, its tires pulling up long divots.

  "As long as Hitler holds the reins of power but weaklings like Himmler and Goebbels and Röhm are in the harnesses, the country's running on feeble legs...the Führer knows that," Erich said.

  "The Führer apparently knows everything," she replied, debating walking onto the estate while the gates were open.

  Before she had made up her mind, Erich shut them. When he reached out between the bars as if to touch her shoulder, she made no attempt to draw closer to him. She felt nothing, nothing at all.

  "I'll be back when I've shown the trainers where to bed down the dogs."

  He turned and ran after the truck. It rumbled down the hill separating the front lawn from the gardens; he rushed down the stairs between the marble lions and past the rose beds.

  "Do you know him?" Miriam asked. "Know him at all?"

  "Erich Alois Weisser!" Sol's voice was laced with disgust.

  "Alois?"

  "Hitler's father's name. That's what he meant by 'advantage with the Führer!' He told his precious leader he had already changed it. Now he'll have to find a way to pre-date the documents."

  The tar sprayer started up with a growl. The steamroller's engine rumbled and the machines resumed their steady pace toward the east gate. The truck, it seemed, had needed to enter before the tar was laid down. Schedules had overlapped in a rare display of inefficiency. Whole minutes had been wasted, Miriam thought bitterly. Erich should inform the Führer so he could have those responsible shot.

  "Erich Alois Weisser," Miriam said. "Why not!" Ultimately, she thought, environment and background won out against rebellion, especially here in Germany. "He's always wanted to be some other person, to have lived in some other time. Why keep his surname? He's never been his father's son."

  "Don't torture yourself like this. Let's leave."

  "No. Pamper my masochism." Crossing her arms, she continued staring at the villa.

  The tar sprayer neared the gate, and the driver, a huge man with a concave, rubicund face, climbed from the cab. "You can see it when we're finished," he said, shooing them away as if they were stray animals or waifs. "I know you're curious, but off with you now. We don't want anyone holding us up or getting injured."

  She ignored him. "You were there, weren't you?" she asked Sol. "The night Erich gave me the dog."

  "I left when you and Erich---"

  "Why didn't you stay...why were you there at all?"

  Sol took off his glasses and cleaned them with his handkerchief. "I don't know, Miri," he said slowly. "I always found it hard to say no to Erich." He put his arm around her. "As for why I left--I guess I couldn't imagine why you'd want me there."

  She mustered up a smile. "Will you ever know your own worth?"

  He laughed gently. "I knew. The question in my mind was, did you? Now we really must leave. Erich's right about one thing. It is dangerous, our being here."

  You were so right, Uncle Walther, she thought, remembering what he had said the evening after Friedrich Weisser's ridiculous over-reaction to finding her kissing Erich. Keep your eye on young Solomon Freund. You may not think so now, but I tell you his spirit is much like your own. He will not be defeated easily.

  "You're not afraid, are you?" she asked.

  "Yes. And if you're not, you should be. Erich thinks I'm oblivious to the real world, and in a way he's right. But I am not stupid. There are times when fear is the only expedient means of self-preservation."

  She could feel tears very near the surface. How could a day be so tender yet so terrible?

  "I'm ready to leave," she said. "But I'll be back--shaking the gate and shouting until Goebbels himself has to deal with me."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  "Miriam! Here's someone you might remember," Erich called out, returning to the gate with Killi at his heels.

  He saw Sol steer Miriam to the crest of the hill. She shook him off and they looked around and stood u
nmoving for a moment. Then they turned their backs and disappeared over the rise.

  "Come back. Please." Erich grasped the bars of the gate and let Achilles' leash slip from his wrist. Wearing a red cape with a swastika emblazoned on it, the shepherd wandered up the driveway.

  "She doesn't l-love us any more, K-Killi!"

  He had asked Sol to write and tell Miriam that he had taken Achilles; she had not even asked about the dog. He had imagined her running back to the gate, stooping, opening her arms--to the dog, and to him for looking after Achilles so well. Instead...

  He eyed the dog, which was circling around a scattering of keys someone had dropped on the driveway--sniffing and whining, growling, backing away.

  It's so easy for them to blame everything on the Nazis, he thought. Because they're Jews...

  In mid-thought he mentally castigated himself. Now he was beginning to sound like Goebbels! But Solomon and Miriam--! "They don't understand," he said under his breath, to Achilles. He and the dogs were in military security. Abwehr--not something foul, like the Gestapo. Didn't his friends know that? Couldn't they see the difference?

  He and the shepherds had to wear the trappings. That simple. "Only a j-job," he said. He did not believe the Party line. He hated anti-Semites. They reminded him of...Papa.

  In nearly a dozen years he hadn't used that word.

  Tired of Achilles acting like a foolish pup over a bunch of keys, he silently commanded her to return. She did so instantly, crawling forward on her belly to allow him to stroke her huge smooth head. But he found, for once, that he could not enjoy the dog. He kept imagining what his friends were saying about him. Miriam, in that hysterical anger only women seemed capable of, telling Solomon, "He wears their uniform, he represents them!"