Good People

by Nir Baram

  Silence fell, and Thomas looked with admiration at her grey eyes. The officers were surprised by her boldness. If they dared to punish the sisters, he would intervene. If he was going to fall, better heroically.

  The officers looked at one another. ‘Wonderful idea!’ one called. ‘The Gorgon will make us into good Nazis.’

  They all laughed and pounded the wooden banister.

  ‘Tomorrow they’re deporting her. Today she’s getting married,’ said the sister.

  ‘And they aren’t deporting you?’ asked the friendly officer.

  ‘Tomorrow they’re deporting her,’ she repeated.

  ‘Young lady, we won’t allow that to happen,’ called out the officer.

  ‘Will you help our sister?’ the first one intervened. ‘Tomorrow they’re deporting her, they’re treating her like a miserable Jew, she didn’t do anything.’

  ‘Drop in on my office tomorrow morning,’ said the officer. ‘Meanwhile have a good time. Soon there will be dancing. I’m already asking for a dance.’

  ‘But tomorrow they’re deporting our sister,’ said the second sister, and an expression of childish amazement overwhelmed her. She was twenty at most.

  ‘So the day after tomorrow,’ laughed the officer, and his friends laughed again.

  The two women gave the officer another look, as though to discover whether he had really withdrawn his offer to help. Then they moved away.

  A young couple sat on a bench beside the damp steps leading down to the cellar doors. The man was tickling the woman, and she was laughing. The steps had been whitewashed for the party, and the barricade had been removed. Was he standing on their ceiling now? There was no way of knowing. He had never been down there. ‘Everything that I haven’t personally seen,’ Weller once said, ‘is just a rumour, and only the ignorant masses believe rumours.’

  Wolfgang now announced a song contest to celebrate the conquest of Paris. ‘Friends, we have the approval of the Minister of Propaganda, Dr Goebbels, that the best song will be presented at the great exhibition of German art.’ After the applause, Wolfgang listed the judges—himself, of course, Albert Kresling, Stefan Kruger, who had a doctorate in poetry, Georg Weller, as a representative of the district governor, and another representative of the Ministry of Propaganda.

  ‘Say it.’ Thomas could now see the whole picture.

  ‘Hermann Kreizinger from the SS delegation to the Generalgouvernement.’

  I won’t stay here any longer to put up with their displays and surprises. His entire body felt split open, as if the stitches had come out in the middle of the courtyard and people everywhere were staring at him. Hermann and Kresling, von Thadden, Weller and Wolfgang—they had all disappeared now, but he knew they could see him. The noise of the crowd disintegrated into particles: shouts, calls, whispers, throats being cleared, plots, the SD report from Stuttgart, a pregnant woman, the economic worries of the individual, perfidious Albion! I would strip her naked right here, neutralise their ability to do damage, we showed them in Bydgoszcz, we showed them about Bromberg, how many children? And as for the English? Si vis pacem, para bellum.* We have a satanic task, the Führer ordered, she excelled at university, soon I’ll be a grandfather, in March he told me in secret, I wrote to your honour and asked for a transfer, go to the grave with that, just yesterday we shouted, ‘Fucks for the ugly, too!’ in the Vienna Opera and it’s already 1940?

  In his imagination Thomas was ripping Weller to pieces. Frightened by its savagery, he struggled to get rid of the picture, but he only managed to replace Weller with Wolfgang, Kresling, the damn singer, but not with Hermann. Even in his imagination he didn’t dare fight Hermann.

  Perhaps he was falling victim to visions of persecution, believing again—as Erika Gelber used to tease him—that the world was plotting against him. Maybe he needed a touch of humour: there was no reason for a little intrigue among colleagues to become a duel to the death.

  He reached the staircase. ‘Gentlemen, excuse me,’ he called out, putting on a friendly smile as he climbed the steps amid cries of indignation. Some of the partygoers leaned to the side, others rose and dusted off their uniforms, he pushed at the bodies, hot breath mingled with the smell of brilliantine, alcohol vapours, lemon perfume, radishes from Weller’s garden.

  ‘Gentlemen, when is the dancing?’ he called out with a clownish look at his watch. He had no idea where that gesture had popped up from. ‘Gentlemen, please let me pass, some items from my apartment are needed for the last performance.’

  ‘Gentlemen, thank you very much, thank you,’ he said again.

  He was stricken with dizziness, took a deep breath. If he fell, he would never get up. In one rapid movement he gained the head of the stairs. An officer whose uniform buttons gleamed thrust his elbow into Thomas’s ribs. ‘Oh, I apologise, thank you, thank you very much,’ the officer said and his friends cheered.

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ Thomas whispered in response, pushed the blue wooden door open, entered and closed it. He took a breath and raced up the empty staircase like a child skipping home, believing he had left all the horrors of school behind. Had they searched his apartment? He pushed open the apartment door, stormed into the parlour and his gaze whirled: a thick strip of light crossed the floor, trailed over his body and kept advancing until it flowed onto the statue next to the wall. His nervousness increased: the parlour looked like a dusky replica of the illuminated courtyard. His desire to return home seemed contemptible. What home? There wasn’t a single thing in his life that linked him to this Polish apartment—he had not even taken down the picture of Polish soldiers mourning the failure of the revolt of 1830.

  He began to check the apartment. Everything was still in place, both in his room and in his drawers. He took off his clothes and lay on the bed, covered himself with a blanket and pressed his cheek against the soft wool. From below came the vague cheerful playing of a piano, and von Thadden’s baritone trilled:

  Ade! du muntre, du fröhliche Stadt, ade!

  Schon scharret mein Rößlein mit lustigen Fuß;

  Jetzt nimm doch den letzten, den scheidenden Gruß.

  Du hast mich wohl niemals noch traurig gesehn,

  So kann es auch jetzt nicht beim Abschied geschehn.*

  It was a song he happened to know, ‘Abschied’, from Schubert’s ‘Swan Song’. A choice that must have amused his enemies.

  …

  Four knocks on the door, growing louder. He wakened from his troubled sleep and pulled the blanket off his face. When he was a child, his mother had instructed him, ‘Tell your friend that two knocks are perfectly sufficient.’ He had never told him. Had his mother said something to Hermann? Not likely. His mother always greeted his friends cordially, even Hermann.

  He felt like curling up between the smooth sheets until he went away, but he knew he had to face him. There was no choice. He took a black sweater out of the closet, washed his face in cold water and straightened his hair. Four more knocks.

  Before him stood Hermann, in a pressed dress uniform, with a second-class Iron Cross pinned to it. When did the bastard manage to become a hero? Hermann looked tired; above his upper lip bristled a silvery moustache, wet from the rain. It seems we’ve both aged. His weariness aroused hope in Thomas that perhaps he hadn’t come to cheer at his downfall; perhaps the recent events were only figments of his imagination?

  He was ashamed of himself for grasping at a straw. That was the malady of the weak.

  ‘You aren’t celebrating?’ asked Hermann. ‘We conquered Paris.’

  ‘I’ve celebrated enough.’

  ‘You look tired. They say you’re working hard,’ said Hermann.

  ‘Please,’ Thomas pointed at the parlour.

  ‘Unfortunately, I have to reject your generous invitation. I’m in a rush to get back to Cracow,’ said Hermann. ‘And about that guy you’ve been looking for, the one from the American company.’

  ‘I haven’t been looking for anyone.’

  ‘Not l
ooking for anyone,’ Hermann said under his breath, ‘Buszkowsky, the manager of your Polish office? Anyway, he hasn’t been among the living since May—eliminated along with lots of others.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Thomas. ‘Anyway we came to the conclusion that he wasn’t very valuable.’

  ‘The special plan to impose order: Krieger and Streckenbach’s people took about four thousand members of the Polish intelligentsia on a hike in the forests around Warsaw.’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything about that,’ Thomas answered. He remembered the bloodied boots, and imagined them stretching to the sky, like the skyscrapers of New York, while he, a small pin-man, hopped around them. He swallowed his saliva, determined to conceal his nausea. He could not afford to show Hermann any indication of weakness. ‘You know that here in Warsaw I am mainly concerned with advising agencies of the Reich.’

  ‘He was on the list of the intelligentsia, didn’t you know?’ Hermann said, as if he hadn’t heard. ‘His father and uncle were archaeologists. Maybe you’d be pleased to hear that their expertise in digging stood them in good stead. Unlike their comrades, they weren’t buried folded up.’

  ‘No doubt, the German spirit will heal the world.’

  ‘I understand that you didn’t know they were lovers of archaeology,’ Hermann continued with pleasure. ‘In your model I read about the great danger of Polish archaeologists. Quite convincing, I have to say.’

  ‘Thanks a lot. I’m glad you found time to read it.’ Thomas tried to sound calm. Knowledge of Bizha’s death was already a distant memory. In an instant he had managed to digest his death, to become accustomed to it, to see it as another death that had snatched away one of his acquaintances.

  His fingers itched. He remembered something his father had told him when he was a boy, a revelation from the battlefield: there isn’t any single thing—any one thing that you learned or believe in or inherited—that you won’t discard on the spot in order to survive. Later, at home, the whole thing will seem like a bad dream.

  Thomas felt that he was soaring over the familiar terrain of his soul. His self-control, which had always been his pride and glory, had been surrendered to this survival reflex; he was in the midst of a tiger-leap into the unknown. If he were forced to fight Hermann to the death, he would do it.

  He wanted to shout This fear is marvellous!

  ‘Well, maybe not every word.’ Hermann laughed. ‘Sometimes it was boring and obscure, a little like that book by Rosenberg.* The true myth of the twentieth century is that it’s possible to read this thing.’

  ‘Reading demands discipline. While I was working on the model, I read the whole book and enjoyed it.’

  ‘Sure you read it,’ said Hermann, ‘like the books you read at school, or was I the one who actually read them?’

  ‘Maybe one book, whose simplistic message matched your intellect,’ Thomas retorted. ‘If you came here to reminisce, I also have some memories.’

  Hermann leaned across. ‘I’ve heard that you’ve made enemies here too.’

  ‘There’s no success without enemies,’ Thomas answered. ‘You know that.’

  ‘How unfortunate that you can’t consult your Jewish therapist. I heard she’s in the labour camp at Ravensbrück. Finally she’s doing some real work.’

  ‘I never spoke about work with her anyway.’

  ‘Maybe a smart man like you should wonder why decent men like my old friend Kresling and your colleague Georg Weller have become your enemies?’ Hermann suggested with feigned courtesy.

  ‘I assume that, with respect to Kresling, I have you to thank for it.’

  ‘Naturally it was my duty to tell him with whom he was dealing.’ Hermann rubbed his hands together and pretended to be thoughtful. ‘But I’ll tell you something: he would never have trusted a man who was willing to betray his place of work and his partner Georg Weller, who gave you an opportunity when no one in Germany even remembered that you were alive.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Thomas hissed. ‘Weller was a marginal figure in the Foreign Office, and thanks to my model he rose to greatness.’

  ‘You really believe that, eh?’ Hermann cleared his throat. ‘First, don’t exaggerate the prestige of your model. Most of the agencies of the Reich regard it as pitiful gibberish from our incompetent Foreign Office. Second, as to our little matter, I have to inform you that even if there were no Hermann Kreizinger in the world, your treacherous intrigues would still be doomed to failure. Weller is very close to Eberhard von Thadden. You remember there was a suspicion he was Jewish? Maybe you also remember the old family friend who invented the dubious story that Eberhard is the great-grandson of a Russian aristocrat, and, presto, extricated him from the quagmire.’

  Now he recalled. ‘Of course,’ he answered, and there was a catch in his voice. ‘Reichsmarschall Göring.’

  ‘The great patron to whom you longed to deliver the model,’ Hermann said drily. His high spirits had faded. It seemed that ridiculing Thomas had given him less pleasure than he anticipated. ‘Weller is very close to him, through von Thadden. Your arrogance set you against a network of forces which had already withstood every test while you were still selling umbrellas in your American company. But even without me and von Thadden, everyone would have come out against you!’

  ‘Well, if you say so.’ Thomas smiled. Hermann really did want him to understand why he had become his enemy.

  ‘You can do magic tricks, and juggle too. I have to confess, after your company cleared out of Germany, I believed you were finished. When I heard you had a job in the Foreign Office and that you’d impressed some agencies with your model, I applauded you. And as for what you tell everybody, how you voted for the Party from 1929 on, out of respect for your father—that’s a true work of art. No one can deny it, except those who know that your mother threw your father out of the house while you were at university—but even then you can claim that you remained close, and respectful of him, and that can’t be contradicted either. The problem is that in your whole life you’ve never believed in anything except your own ability. You have no national feeling and no loyalty to your nation, and frankly you never had any sense of obligation towards your parents. And, worst of all, you’ve never devoted even a minute to thinking why you’re like this, or how you might improve as a person; you never understood that every act of the individual should serve as a general rule for the behaviour of the entire race. You have devoted all your talents and energy to nothing but your own benefit. You perfected yourself alone, and you can disguise yourself as whatever you want, even a National Socialist. But there’s a moment when people figure it out, do you understand? No, you don’t; you never understood. That’s just what I was talking about with Kresling. You believe that everyone is like you. But I believe there’s such a thing as truth, and ultimately it will come out. That’s the difference between us.’

  ‘Maybe I’m like that, and maybe not,’ Thomas said coldly. ‘A person like you couldn’t judge. As for my father, don’t you dare mention him to me. If you had honoured your father the way I did mine, or at least if you’d helped him get out of his financial troubles, maybe he wouldn’t have sat down on the railway tracks.’

  Awareness that he had told an outright lie, and that Hermann had loved his father more than any child he knew, only heightened his ferocity. Had he intended to drive Hermann mad? He was impelled by a single flaming image: his teeth gnawing at Hermann’s mind.

  ‘Luckily for you, I know this is the prattle of a man who’s done for,’ Hermann said. ‘You’re finished in the Foreign Office, and there are no more rabbits in your hat.’

  ‘We’ll see about that.’ The distortion of a hoarse cough filtered into his voice. ‘Remember your surprise when you heard about the model? Get ready for another one.’ He had defied Hermann as much as he could. He felt euphoria—mingled with fear, of course, but actually fear wasn’t such a bad ruler. Hermann expected him to be stunned and defeated, like that night in the street. That would never happen
again.

  ‘So we can only wait.’ Hermann hissed his familiar threatening whistle.

  ‘We’ll wait. Patience was never your strong point,’ replied Thomas. ‘There’s an unsettled account between us, and it will only be closed when you’re lying where my mother is lying now.’

  Liberating lightness swept through his body. Suddenly he understood his thirst for revenge, which had worked itself up beneath thickening layers of thought. Now his thirst raged wildly, and his body ached for it: any desire that throbbed with such intensity must be real.

  ‘You should have said that earlier,’ said Hermann. ‘If you really wanted revenge, I would have seen it in your eyes. But we both know that if I had extended my hand to you and promised to help you out of your trouble, you would have taken it.’

  ‘It’s fascinating to see a beer-hall thug struggle to figure out a man like me,’ Thomas said. ‘I’ll settle the account between us according to law, as cultured people do. Long ago I hired a lawyer in Berlin to sue for the damage you did to my house and for your part in my mother’s death. You know how harshly the SS deals with robbers who shame the uniform they’re wearing.’

  ‘One minute you want to kill me, the next minute you’re suing me,’ Hermann mocked. ‘We didn’t steal so much as a napkin from your house.’

  ‘We disagree on that. According to my reckoning, you stole a lot,’ Thomas said. ‘So maybe you’ll extend your hand to me now?’

  ‘I’d sooner commit suicide.’ Hermman rose to his full height, a head taller than Thomas. ‘Germany, the whore of the 1920s, suited people like you, but now there’s a new Germany, and you’re like an infection in her body. The problem is that there are too many people of your type in the system.’

  ‘The world is made up of people like me. Look, even the government needs me, and that’s what really terrifies you: behind your government and your Party, the parades and the victories, it’s my face that pops out in the end.’ For the first time in his life he felt that he was chasing his words, but nevertheless everything he said pleased him.