Anniversaries

by Uwe Johnson

  – That depends on the evidence, doesn’t it?

  – Oh, there was more than enough evidence. Go track down everywhere a veterinarian went in almost twenty years of practice, from one estate to the next, Farmer X to Cottager Y to Granny Klug—you can find anything. One Baron von Rammin talked to the investigators in his courtyard, hand on his horse’s bridle the whole time; the Bülows, the “Upper Bülows,” invited them into the house. The Bülows had a son in England who apparently would rather study there than do his military service in Germany. And if some farmer lost a head of cattle in 1931 because he didn’t want to miss out on Saturday night at the bar and didn’t call the vet until Sunday morning, what did he remember six years later? Maybe he didn’t mind making it Dr. Semig’s fault at this point, the guy was in jail already anyway.

  – And Griem?

  – At first Griem didn’t want anything to do with it.

  – He couldn’t recall anything?

  – He knew there was nothing to recall. And he didn’t understand why the Gneez people wanted a trial; before he did anything, he wanted to know who was gunning for him and why. He had attained his rank not as a reward but because he was a good farmer, a townsman-farmer’s plot in Jerichow wasn’t enough for him. He actually had a real gift for thinking in large areas, planning work years in advance, training workers. Of course he had accepted money when he’d taken a soggy meadow in the nobility’s private possession and had it improved at the Reich’s expense, as land critical for the people’s agricultural economy, but since he could justify his decisions his conscience felt clear. Still, if the Gneez district court wanted to put him on the witness stand with a Jew, it wouldn’t be long before they were looking into his bank account.

  – Semig could’ve kept his practice, as far as he was concerned?

  – As far as he was concerned not even the Tannebaums would’ve had to flee Gneez. Griem wanted his peace and quiet. He didn’t do anything for the time being except reject the rumors as “a cowardly attack on the party.”

  – Prudish bunch.

  – Meanwhile, the Blackshirts had time to hit pay dirt. They could go house to house in Jerichow. Albert Papenbrock, grain wholesaler, had remitted fees to Dr. Semig that would have been lower for comparable work done by a day laborer. Heinrich Cresspahl, entrusted with deliveries of materiel critical to the war effort, had bought a car from Dr. Semig and had no bill of sale to show for it. Mrs. Methfessel was convinced that the health department wouldn’t have confiscated all their meat if Semig hadn’t sent a certain letter to Schwerin. Dr. Semig had treated his own ailments but sent his wife to Dr. Berling, and Berling was in and out of the house constantly when Dora had a broken ankle, but the bill he’d sent was what you’d have to call a friend’s price.

  – Never mind all the other things they stumbled across while looking into Semig.

  – Berling’s speeches about the fatherland in danger. This Cresspahl, apparently suspected of English tendencies.

  – And Kollmorgen had wanted to buy the house on the Bäk.

  – They hadn’t discovered that yet. But they did hold it against this Jew Semig that he’d rejected an offer on the house from a deserving longtime member of the National Socialist movement, a regional group leader in the party: Friedrich Jansen.

  – And the files on Kollmorgen’s appearance before the court in the proceedings against a member of the SA?

  – Proved very convenient.

  – So now there’s the trial?

  – In mid-October the trial still hadn’t started. What the Gestapo couldn’t find by way of evidence was delivered to them in anonymous letters. And Griem hadn’t been softened up enough yet. Griem sat in his headquarters, Gau District II, and talked. He knew that bullheadedness was a badge of Mecklenburg honor—pigheadedness not so much. He acted like he had no idea that the secret police didn’t need anything but two men and a car to take him away.

  – Did Papenbrock hire a lawyer?

  – That would have felt to him like admitting guilt. And aside from the Cresspahls and him there were five other people in Jerichow who could expect a summons to Gneez; with so many witnesses, there was no way the truth would not prevail.

  – So this Semig of yours . . .

  – Of “ours”?

  – Okay, Marie, fine. Of mine.

  – . . . must’ve been happy as a clam.

  – In the basement under the courthouse.

  – He was safe there until the trial, and the trial was being prepared carefully and properly, not at all like what you always read about those times.

  – He wasn’t even accused of anything, Annie.

  – Now you’re both looking at me like I haven’t understood a thing.

  – There’s nothing to understand, Annie.

  – D’you know what, Mrs. Fleury? Sometimes I think I understand it, and I can’t believe it. And yet it’s from my own mother’s life.

  January 15, 1968 Monday

  You were curious why there were so many loud bangs in the street. The New York Times has figured it out for you. Not only did last night’s rain and today’s thin driving snow catch you in the neck, the water also seeped into cable shafts, mixed with the salt that had been sprinkled on the streets during the recent snowfalls, causing short circuits and setting off gas explosions. It was the sound that the manhole covers made: Pop.

  And whether you were curious about it or not, she informs you that you had failed to be present last night among the fifteen hundred people in Town Hall at a rally against the draft. You could have signed your name and address on the scroll, promised to counsel, aid, and abet young men who refused to fight. If you want to rectify the omission, you can find the group at 224 West Fourth Street. Will Annie do it? Will you do it?

  You were always curious about your child’s new doctor, his background, who he actually is, this man who shines a light into Marie’s mouth, listens to her breathing, asks her about her sleeping habits in deliberate American English and nimble German with a Polish accent. Who is this worthy gentleman in his sixties, his back stiff down to the waist with age? What lies behind the friendly, slightly deaf expression on his plump face? Do you really want to know? Be satisfied with the diplomas in Latin on the wall, as long as Marie trusts him.

  – The one on the left is from Bratislava, the one on the right from Warsaw. The one in the middle from Germany: the old gentleman says with somewhat strained politeness. You shouldn’t have looked across the room like that at the solid frames, as if curious about something. Now you won’t get out of the first-visit conversation, the formalities of an initial consultation. – Cresspahl, that’s a German name, isn’t it?: he says, half turned away from his desk, head to one side, paying close attention. The impassive, smooth face, the thin gray hair combed back over his ears in two billows, we wouldn’t recognize it if we hadn’t seen how carefully he deals with a child, how carefully he talks, so as not to frighten.

  Cresspahl is a German name, Dr. Rydz.

  – Germany wass a goot place to live, back then, Frau Cresspahl.

  Back then was 1931. Germany was Berlin, when he was working at the Charité hospital and “the hospital on Reinickendorfer Street.” He lived on Friedrich-Wilhelm Square in Friedenau. Took the 177 tram to Berlin Zoo Station. What did it look like back then?

  Friedrich-Wilhelm Square in Friedenau was a charming place to live, at that time, Mrs. Cresspahl. Two west-facing windows, dry in the mornings from the sun and fogged over at night from the thick foliage outside. Friedenau was a nice place to take walks, the little streets with the old country houses, the stately apartment buildings, the bushy trees. Niedstrasse, Schmargendorfer Strasse. The clouds of chestnut blossoms right next to each other on Handjery. Some city council member must have been addicted to chestnut trees.

  The people were polite and friendly in the beer garden by the post office, obliging, even to foreigners. It was a lovely year, Mrs. Cresspahl. After work you came back to the quiet parklike square as if comi
ng home. The streetcars were boxes—ugly, crude, efficient. Do you know Berlin, Mrs. Cresspahl?

  We get letters from friends in Friedenau that say they’re building a subway through the square.

  – What a shame about the church!: Dr. Rydz says. He has put his pen and paper aside and turned to face the visitors fully, talking in a lively voice, fingers comfortably interlaced. The church was a touch too small for the square, it looked somewhat deformed, like a little red-brick hunchback. Ugly, crude, and efficient—the empress’s creation. She used to dedicate a new site to her God every three months. Her name will come to him in a minute: Auguste Viktoria von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. Doflein was the architect’s name.

  – They say the church will stay, unfortunately, Dr. Rydz.

  But that comes as a relief to him. At least one piece of the past still standing. It wasn’t easy to choose between Berlin and the other European capitals, back then. Trips to Paris, Vienna, Prague, and no complaints when you got back to Friedenau, to the Church of the Good Shepherd, from which rather stuffy comments about Dr. Felix J. Rydz, MD’s nightlife reached Frau Rabenmeister, who, as a landlady, was—

  Dufte, Dr. Rydz? Swell?

  Knorke, Mrs. Cresspahl. Spiffing. That was the word for it back then. Knew how to enjoy life, you might say. Anyone who left there to go back to a small if prosperous country town in Poland, to open a private practice, he’d seen his share of life and knew for good the country where his annual vacations would one day turn into a right to permanent residence.

  Not so curious anymore, are you, Mrs. Cresspahl?

  The Berlin girl who wanted to spend the 1939 holidays with him but not in Charlottenburg said that Cannes was fine. (You didn’t ever happen to meet a family named von Lassewitz, did you, Dr. Rydz?) Four years at a French military hospital. 1943: escaped across the Pyrenees. 1945: ship to America, where all his degrees counted for nothing and it took him five years before he could practice medicine again, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan straight off, to get at least some benefit from his not just fluent Polish and German but Czech, French, Spanish, and English. Pediatrics only. It became clear in New York that he understood children best, better than grown-ups at least.

  Now you know, Mrs. Cresspahl. The conversation ran so smoothly because you saw him as a European, and you think you understand them more easily; now you’re pretty sure that he’s Jewish. What happened to the girl from Berlin-Charlottenburg? Don’t say that. Ask him something else, anything. If he’s ever been back to Poland.

  – No. Never.: Dr. Rydz says. His answer comes out unexpectedly fast, clipped; his soft face tenses, his gaze goes sharp and then off into the distance. He will never set foot in Poland again. More gently, he must have a forgiving temperament, he adds: All the Polishness I need comes right to my door on the Upper West Side, Mrs. Cresspahl.

  No need to ask him if he’s ever been back to Berlin-Friedenau. Why would he want to go visit the Germans who wiped out his family in Poland as nonhumans. Cresspahl, that’s a German name, isn’t it?

  – Mrs. Cresspahl, are you sure you’re feeling well yourself? Is there anything I can do for you, ma’am?

  – Are they going to take him away from me too and send him to Vietnam?: Marie says.

  – He can’t even walk properly, Marie.

  – Even if the war expands?

  – He’ll stay here, Marie. We won’t lose Dr. Rydz.

  – Gesine, did you see that they’re rebuilding the burned-out building on Ninety-Sixth Street? They’ve set up a big crane, you should see it go! They’ve finally realized our area can’t go to pieces, we need to be able to stay here.

  – What if we left, Marie?

  – Never! Never! Don’t even think such a thing, Gesine.

  January 16, 1968 Tuesday

  In the low, blinding sun coming down Ninety-Sixth Street this morning, into which it was hard to walk with your eyes open, something was missing on Broadway. It was the bright yellow pack of taxis, whose drivers are on strike, and their passengers were stuffed into the subways, most of them men in sober business suits, looking around uncomfortably, nauseated by the crush of other people’s proximity

  Herr Dr. Walther Wegerecht, head judge of the district court in Gneez, forty-eight years old, considered outspoken and clever, admired for his glittering career and rich wife, was not happy to be placed in charge of the proceedings against Warning/Hagemeister. He’d had pretty much enough of such cases, if only because they were hard to get a handle on. Or so I imagine it. Friends from the university, now in office in Schwerin, had dropped hints about a possible promotion; Wegerecht the assessor had married up, a Schwerin girl who never let him forget how boring it was in the provinces and never felt that, say, an official residence overlooking the Berlin Tiergarten was out of reach. But by this point, he had started to wonder if his advisers truly were his friends. At first, the Mecklenburg Reich governor’s chancellery had let it be known that the honor of the party and its associated organizations took precedence over all else, etc.; that was easy enough to arrange, especially for such a reward. When he first took over the case, he’d expected to find that it was ultimately directed at Dr. Semig. But now he’d been forced to recognize that it was actually aimed at Griem, with the Jewish veterinarian a mere detour. If the police commissioner assigned to the Gestapo was to be trusted, these fellows had a link to Schwerin too, but one with a further connection to the capital of the Reich. At the Hanseatic regional supreme court in Hamburg, on the other hand, the whole affair was dismissed as a bagatelle, and he didn’t want to ask around at the RSC in Rostock.

  Wegerecht—body type pyknic, Mecklenburg round head shaved bald—had joined the party relatively recently, almost too late, and more dutifully than not. He came from the German National People’s Party, he’d read Berlin’s Deutsche Tageszeitung with greater relish than the Mecklenburgischer Beobachter, he would have preferred to see the restoration of the Kaiser’s (and duke’s) house, and he didn’t like what he was hearing from the army about these Hitlerians gaining ground. What he retained from his old party’s orientation was an aversion to the Jews in Berlin, for national-economic reasons, but not to a Jew who had fought on the German side in the World War, who owned property in Jerichow and spoke good Mecklenburg Plattdeutsch. He wanted only to teach a lesson to such a person, so that he’d come to his senses at last and leave the country. That would be the patriotic thing to do, the one worth a promotion. That was also a side benefit the state prosecutor, Kraczinski, was willing to accept. Otherwise, though, Kraczinski acted like he could easily spin out seven more cases from this one, a real Jerichow nexus. On top of that, he was all for going after Griem; Wegerecht wasn’t sure about that. It was so hard to get a clear look behind the scenes at the Reich Labor Service. It was like a forest at night, where someone might be standing behind every tree, with a truncheon. What Wegerecht was most sure of was that he had to get through this situation with flying colors, so that his stand on the Zentner case might soon be forgotten (D. Eng. Zentner, industrial business mgmt., traveling with a mean dog, mistakenly harassed as a Jew despite his warning that the dog was dangerous, v. SA, seeking compensation for injuries suffered). Riding high, that’s how he had to come through, and any false move might end up in a broken neck.

  Walther Wegerecht was well aware that his wife, Irmgard née von Oertzen, cared less for who he was than for what he meant for her. His good mood meant that the money would show up in the bank on the 30th; his cares and concerns were, she felt, a reckless endangerment of their lifestyle. He couldn’t discuss them with her, and in such phases he didn’t see Irmi much, and she didn’t even give him credit for turning a blind eye to the now more frequent male visitors from the garrison. She wanted him to be independent, confident, slick—that was the only way he could be sure of her. Plus the kids, and Wegerecht was a doting father. It wasn’t because he’d lost a bet that he’d shaved his head; it was because his four-year-old girl, the latecomer, liked feeling
the thick rug of stubble on the palms of her hands. He was not well. His ruddy cheeks made him look “in the bloom of health”; he preferred not to think about the listlessness, mild depression, downright unbearable impulses he felt for as long into the night as his work kept him up; his doctor chatted with him over Friday skat games at the City of Hamburg Hotel, but not about essential hypertonia. He sometimes had dreams about driving in a car with the windows closed, running out of air, being too weak to turn the window handle; now and then in the light of day it was like in his dream. He was not inclined to go to the doctor with ideas like that. If it wasn’t wise to go after Griem, Irmgard would never come back to Schwerin, or if she did, it would be without him. If he started something against Papenbrock, Irmi would lose quite a few social contacts from the Jerichow area, and as for Gneez affairs, he was left to stumble around in the dark. If it was only about sending a message to Warning/Hagemeister, he should have closed the case sooner, and people might remember his former reputation. But then there’d still be this annoyance of the Jerichow Jew to take care of. And Irmgard wouldn’t leave him alone, no doctor’s note would help with that.

  He knew he was losing his grip and decided to pay Ramdohr a visit. He hadn’t felt entirely comfortable about having moved up the ladder while Ramdohr had had to step down from the bench due to his Social Democrat friends; he’d been using a heavy workload as an excuse for four years now. Ramdohr, no longer Judge Ramdohr, came to meet him at the door, introduced him to everyone in the family—his wife, all four daughters—as though their friendship had been in continuous use since 1933, and then kept his family there. The group sat outdoors, on a warm October evening, with a view of Gneez Lake, over a Mosel that hadn’t been poured out so generously by Judge Ramdohr, and they talked about maritime law, one of Dr. Ramdohr’s newer acquisitions. It was clear from the Horch parked outside the house, from the new furniture, even from the wallpaper, that his colleague Ramdohr (“former colleague,” Ramdohr interjected) was earning more than enough money from his Hamburg consultations and, annoyingly, was in no way suffering the punishment his dismissal had been intended as. Late that night, when Wegerecht was seen out onto Gustloff Street, not pleasantly but annoyingly drunk, he hadn’t made an inch of progress on the Jerichow situation, a relaxing evening of reconciliation and companionship had slipped through his fingers, and he couldn’t even blame Günti Ramdohr for taking his revenge.