She wanted to comfort him but she was too numb to move. Hermann took off his apron. “I will tell Inge,” he gasped. “You had better close up the shop.”
She nodded but didn’t move. She stared at the carcass on the bench and thought about her brother. She tried to remember him as he used to be, before the Hitler Jugend, when he still wore lederhosen and played with tin soldiers on the stairs; she tried not to think of him frozen, all bleeding and raw, like Spritzer there.
Like horsemeat.
An ice blue evening sky. The House in the Woods looked like a battered farmhouse in the middle of a battlefield, Marie thought. The rondavel had gone a long time ago to help board the windows; now most of the trees were gone too. Netanel had chopped the small ones down for firewood, and now only the big willow and two old firs remained.
Marie ran up the back path to the kitchen door. Netanel peered out from a gap in the boards. “What’s wrong?” he whispered, as he ushered her inside. She had never come in daylight before.
Marie stood by the kitchen table, shivering in her warmest coat.
“What is it?” he repeated.
“Hold me,” she said.
He put his arms around her and she leaned into him. She couldn’t even cry. Why do I feel so numb? “Tell me what’s wrong,” he said.
“It’s Dieter.” It was stupid to feel like this, she and Dieter didn’t even like each other, not for years anyway. It began when he joined the Hitler Jugend; the last time she had seen him he was wearing his new Wehrmacht uniform with two chevrons on the shoulder, and they had barely spoken a civil word.
But he was her brother. She had played with him in his cradle and when he had taken his first steps she had been there to cheer him on.
She wasn’t angry at the Russians. They were just defending themselves, on their own land. It was Hitler she hated. He had turned her little brother into a swaggering monster and death was just the postscript.
“I’m sorry,” Netanel whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Who is there?” Frau Rosenberg called. “Is that Josef? Is he back from his cards?”
“It’s no one, Mutti,” Netanel answered. He led Marie into the drawing-room, lit the candle by the bed and shut the door.
Marie sat down. “We don’t even know how he died.”
There was nothing he could think of to say.
“He never grew up,” Marie said. “He never had the chance. I always thought one day we would be brother and sister again. That we would look back and laugh at all this. You know, he was just a little boy playing soldiers.”
“Shhh,” Netanel said, stroking her hair, “it’s all right.”
“No, it will never be all right again. You don’t believe it, and neither do I.” She took off her coat, unbuttoned her cardigan and reached behind her to unfasten the buttons on her dress.
“What are you doing?”
“When is it going to be you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“They want to take everything away from us, Netya, and we’ve let them! We have been so afraid of them we have let them steal the present as well as the future. Soon they’ll take you too!” She stood up and pulled her dress over her head.
“No,” Netanel said. It wasn’t meant to be like this. He picked up her dress and pushed it back into her arms. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
She twisted away from him. “They’re going to take you away from me. But they can’t take you now. Every moment I have with you is one moment I will not regret when you’re gone.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m cold. Are you going to let me into your bed or do you want me to stand here and freeze?”
When he was twenty years old Netanel had lost his virginity to a prostitute in München. He had learned little from the experience, and only a little more on his return visit. Eligible Jewish men, even good looking ones, were not greatly prized in Hitler’s Germany and further opportunities had been limited. What else he knew, he had learned from books.
It was over too quickly. He pulled out of her, heard her murmur: “No.” A few moments later he lay panting on top of her, feeling ashamed.
She stroked his hair. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“You might be good at . . . deceiving your father. But I think even Hermann might suspect ... if you brought home ... a baby.”
“Was it all right for you?”
“It was wonderful.” Mein Gott, what about his mother’s sheets?
They lay quietly for a long time. He felt embarrassed and awkward. The door to the living-room opened. “Is that you, Josef?” Frau Rosenberg said. Marie gasped and pulled the sheet over her head.
“Shut the door please, Mutti.”
“Are you in my bed?”
“Yes, Mutti.”
“Are you tired?” She squinted into the shadows. “Oh, Netanel. Who is that?”
“It’s Marie Helder, Mutti. She came to visit us.”
“Oh, Netya. You’ve brought a gentile into the house!”
Netanel laughed. “Yes, Mutti, I am afraid so. Now go back inside and sit down. Father will be home soon.”
The door closed.
They lay in the darkness, listening to the sound of their own breathing. “Once that would have been my worst nightmare,” he whispered. He pulled the sheet away from her face. “Adolf Hitler seems to have put things in perspective for me.”
She opened her eyes. He was laughing. She started to laugh too.
“I should have locked the door,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter. Rather your mother than the Gestapo.”
He kissed her and stroked her hair from her face. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t very good, was it?”
“That was just practice. Do you want to try again?”
Marie closed her eyes and let him love her. She tried not to think about Dieter, or her father, or any of it. There would be time for all of that. She knew she was doing what she should have done years ago. She was with the man she had chosen, and she had wasted so much time.
Chapter 10
Winter to spring, spring to summer; the radio broadcasts reported that the German army had taken Sebastopol and were converging on Stalingrad; their Japanese allies had landed on an island called Guadalcanal somewhere in the Pacific; Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps were sweeping towards the Suez Canal. The announcer said that soon British Palestine would be in German hands, together with the whole of North Africa.
But Hermann no longer took much interest in the war. Since the news of Dieter’s death nothing much interested him; Inge had taken to her bed and stayed there. The doctor visited regularly and prescribed medicine. But Marie knew there was no cure for what was wrong with her mother; she had lost the will to go on.
Visiting the House in the Woods was more difficult for Marie during the summer when the sun did not set until after nine o’clock in the evening. Lovers came to the woods behind the house, and increased the danger of her being seen. She found herself longing for the winter nights when few people ventured past the edge of town and she had the protection of darkness.
Because of the risk, she made her dangerous journey no more than once a week; on those occasions they fell on the bed in each other’s arms almost at once. Marie did not know how she had lived so long without a man in her life. Now she had sinned against her Church and outlawed herself in the eyes of her country, and she had never been so happy.
Her cousin Heidi, who was married, had once told her that sex was difficult and painful at first. But then one day, she said blushing, it becomes wonderful.
Heidi was right. She and Netanel had lost their awkwardness with each other and this other magical and unexpected thing happened to her body. The first few times she had felt nothing, but then, as their lovemaking became less panicked, she started to experience new and overwhelming sensations. One night the tension boiled to a climax that left her feeling weak but ecstatically happy.
When she opened her eyes Netanel was
smiling at her. “Does this mean I am going to hell?” she whispered.
“Because you enjoyed it?”
“I’m a good Catholic girl . . . I’m not meant to enjoy it.”
“Of course you are. Didn’t your mother ever tell you anything?”
“I can’t imagine her ever enjoying anything ...” She put her arms around him. He was losing weight. She touched the silver Star of David that he wore at his neck, her Christmas present to him all those years ago. “Don’t ever give up,” she whispered. “No matter what happens, promise me.”
“I promise.”
One day there would be a time for us, she thought, a time when they could lie here for as long as they wanted without fear. This surely could not be all there was. Surely this could not be all there was.
“If you could get away from here, where would you go?”
He thought about it for a long time. “Palestine,” he said finally. “The Zionists say one day Jews will have their own country there. Can you imagine it? A country where we wouldn’t be foreigners any more, where being called a Jew wasn’t an insult? Somewhere they couldn’t take anything away from us ever again?”
It was late evening, nearly ten o’clock, but the sun had not long set behind the Alps, and the air was warm and smelled of hay. Marie climbed the stairs to the apartment, wondering how it was possible that her parents were so blind they could not see this new glow about her. But Thank God for it! She assumed an air of casual boredom as she opened the door.
She froze. There was a man in an SS uniform sitting drinking schnapps with her father in the living-room.
He got up and gave a slight bow of his head, the heels of his polished black leather boots clicking smartly together. “Good evening, Fraulein Helder,” Rolf said.
Marie looked at her father. “What is he doing here?”
Hermann looked frightened, and did not answer.
“I came to see you,” Rolf said.
He was smiling; the bully-boy’s swagger had been replaced by a rather more sinister brand of self-assurance. He wore the chevrons of an SS Stürmbahnführer and his death’s head cap grinned from the table by the window. He looked sleek, like a wolf, with the face of a god and eyes like winter.
“Where have you been?”
“That is no business of yours.”
“Your father says you were at the cinema.”
Marie concentrated her attention on Hermann. “Why did you let him in?”
He did not answer her, but his eyes pleaded with her. He looked utterly miserable. So! Even he is intimidated by the carter’s son now!
“Come and sit down,” Rolf said.
Hermann yawned and rubbed his eyes. When the elaborate pantomime was finished, he said, “I’m tired. I think I must excuse myself. I have to be up early in the morning.”
Are you really going to leave me here with him? Marie thought. Are you frightened of him or have you worked out some way this brutal little upstart can be of use to you?
“Goodnight, Herr Helder,” Rolf said.
“Goodnight, Stürmbahnführer Emmerich. Goodnight, Marie.”
“I should go to bed too,” Marie said.
Hermann looked at Rolf then back to her. “But your guest . .
“He’s not my guest.”
Rolf smiled but his eyes didn’t. “Let her go to bed if she wishes, Herr Helder. I thought I might be able to help her. But if she is tired, it can wait until another day.” He picked up his cap.
Marie could not help herself; she had to ask the question: “Help me? How do you think you could do that?”
The corners of his mouth creased into a smile. Does he know? Is he playing with me? She took off her coat and seated herself in the armchair by the fire. Hermann’s bedroom door click shut. Rolf sat down opposite her, and took his time lighting a cigarette.
“How was the film?”
“What film?”
“The film you saw tonight, at the cinema.”
“Is that why you came here tonight? To discuss films?”
“No, I came here to see you. I have always admired you, Marie. It is a pity that my duty to my country has kept me away from Ravenswald for so long.”
“I had not realized you were gone. You were hardly missed.”
The smile disappeared. “Do you still prefer your little Jewboys to good Germans?”
“What do you want, Rolf?”
He leaned back in the chair. “I was sorry to hear about your brother.”
“He died for the Fatherland. It’s an honor for us.”
“You could have saved him, you know.”
“How could anyone have saved him? He died in Russia. We don’t even know what hap - ”
“He need not have been there. A transfer could have been arranged. He could have served the Reich in other ways.”
“How?”
“It doesn’t matter now. What is important is having friends.” He leaned forward. “Friends who have a little influence.”
“Friends like you?”
“You have misjudged me, you know. I can be a very good for you and your family.”
“What exactly do you do, Rolf? You are in the army, I can see that. But where have you been fighting?”
“I told you. There are more important ways to serve the Reich.”
“You make sandwiches for the Wehrmacht?”
He leaped to his feet. “Shut up, you little slut.”
Marie jumped up too. She would not let him insult her in her own house. “Don’t come here again, Rolf.”
He fought to control his temper, aware he had lost his advantage. The savage smile returned. He feigned a leave-taking and casually picked up his cap from the table. “By the way, whatever happened to that little Jewboy of yours?”
“I don’t know.”
“I heard he’s still here in Ravenswald. I thought they would have put him in a KZ by now. For his own protection.”
Marie was aware he was watching her, looking for a reaction.
“Still, he won’t be around much longer. Goodnight, Marie.”
“What do you mean?” She went to stand between him and the door. “What is going to happen to him?”
There was a strange look in his eyes. What was it? Triumph? No, more than that. It was - relish. “They are rounding up all the Jews tonight. Tomorrow morning Ravenswald will finally be Judenrein - Jew-free.”
She felt the blood drain from her face.
“Goodnight, Marie. Sleep well.”
Netanel was asleep on the banquette in the living-room. Frau Rosenberg shook him awake. She was in her nightgown. She was holding a candle and she was shaking. “There’s someone banging on the kitchen door,” she said.
Netanel sat up and listened. Yes, he could hear it, too. The tapping was soft, but urgent. If it was the Germans they would have simply kicked the door in. There was only one person it could be.
He dressed quickly, pulling on trousers and a shirt.
“Do you think it’s your father?” Frau Rosenberg said.
Netanel took the candle from her and told her to go back to bed. He went down to the kitchen and unlocked the door. A shadow slipped past him. “Marie?”
Her expression told him everything he needed to know.
“Who is it?” Frau Rosenberg said, peering from the doorway. She had somehow found her way downstairs in the dark.
“It’s all right, Mutti. You go back to bed.”
“I don’t know where your father is. He should have finished playing cards by now.”
He helped her back upstairs to bed. When he came back he put down the candle and took Marie in his arms.
“They’re coming for you,” she whispered.
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“You should not have come here!”
“I had to warn you. You have to get away.”
“Get away - where? There is nowhere to run to!”
“You can’t just let them take you!”
&nbs
p; He kissed her on the lips. “There’s nothing to be done. This is goodbye, liebling.”
She stared at him. He was right, there was nowhere to run. No one would give him or his Mutti shelter. “Then get out of the house, just for tonight. Until all the arrests are finished!”
“If we hide tonight they will come back tomorrow. I’ve been ready for this for a long time now. It’s all right.”
“It’s not all right! Why can’t they all just leave us alone?”
“I’m ready,” he whispered.
“I’m not. I’ll never be ready to lose you, Netya.”
“You have to go,” he said. “They mustn’t find you here.”
“I’m not going. I don’t care if they shoot me. You are all I want. Without you I’m just a butcher’s daughter in a dirty apron.”
“You’ll never be that. It may seem terrible now but one day things will get better. I can’t stop what’s happening to me but I won’t drag you down with me.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and propelled her towards the kitchen door. But it was too late. They both heard tires spinning on the gravel driveway and shouts as the soldiers spilled out of the trucks in their heavy boots.
“NO!”
“They’re here! GET OUT!”
There were shouts at the front door: “Aufmachen, Polizei!”
Netanel pushed her out of the kitchen door. “Run!”
They had kicked down the door. She heard boots stamping across the marble hall. There were shadows moving among the trees, out the back, the sound of men’s voices, very close. Torchlight flickered around the yard.
“Run, Marie, for God’s sake, please run!”
“No, I won’t leave you!”
A shadow loomed behind him and she heard a dull thud. He groaned and fell. Someone grabbed her and pushed her to the ground. They shone a bright light in her face, blinding her. “Who is it?”
“It’s Helder’s daughter! What’s she doing here?”
Freedom (Jerusalem) Page 7