Wilhelm secured his grip on Hannah. He wasn’t going anywhere. They dashed across the crowded streets. Women and children screamed out as their husbands and fathers were forced onto trucks. Those who resisted were beaten. Sirens echoed, but the police did nothing but watch as the Gestapo—the Nazis’ secret, ruthless police—rounded up their desired suspects. Hannah ran so quickly that even Wilhelm, nearly a foot taller, struggled to keep up, but his grip did not falter.
The ominous shadows grew with each step. Hannah’s home was around the corner. They covered their eyes as an invisible blazing heat swept over them. Broken glass crunched under their shoes. The heat grew, and its origin was soon discovered. As Wilhelm and Hannah turned the corner, the windows of the shop shot out gusts of flame. Hannah tried to speak, but no sound came out. Her legs collapsed. Wilhelm fell to his knees to stop her from hitting the pavement. She was paralyzed, only able to gawk at the horror.
“Stay back,” Wilhelm cautioned.
He brought his shirt over his mouth and nose and dashed inside. He yelled out for Hannah’s parents, but the crackling fire roared each time and swallowed up his yells. The walls were as black as the smoke, but the east wall had stayed relatively unaffected by the fire. Painted on it in blood red was the Star of David, stretching from floor to ceiling. The words “Tod für Ratten und Juden”—Death to rats and Jews—were to the right of it. The letters looked like they were traced with the tip of a finger.
Hannah stood behind him silently, her greatest secret had been revealed.
“Hannah!” a voice cried out to her from behind.
Wilhelm turned. His eyes met Hannah’s only for a moment through the thick fog of the black smoke.
“Mother!” Hannah cried.
She dashed toward her while Wilhelm stumbled out of the shop. Emma and Hannah pulled each other into a hug that temporarily blocked their airways. Wilhelm coughed violently as his lungs tried to reject the smoke they had been forced to inhale. He took quick breaths, and the cold November air flooded into his lungs.
Josef emerged from a small crowd and dashed to his wife and daughter.
“Thank God,” Josef sighed. His lip was split open, and blood trickled from a gash on his forehead. Bruising had already commenced, growing in varying shades of purple and blue.
“Father?” Hannah gasped when her eyes fell upon his forehead. She flung her arms around him, pulling him into a hug.
“I am okay. I am just happy you are safe,” Josef said, rubbing her back. “Thank you, Wilhelm,” he said, looking up from the hug.
Firetruck sirens rang out, and the spinning red lights skipped off the streets. The Goldschmidts made room for the firetruck and firemen, but it drove past them. They would only extinguish non-Jewish homes and businesses.
Hannah and her parents hugged one another as they looked on, and even though memories inside their home flooded their thoughts, the fires still roared.
Wilhelm thought of his mother. He had always felt her presence in his childhood home. It was a great comfort to know he could always return to it and to her. But that same comfort would not be available for Hannah. Every memory would be tarnished because of this night. He took a deep breath and sprinted back inside.
“Wilhelm!” Josef called. He pulled free from Hannah and Emma and followed in after Wilhelm.
Wilhelm had accidentally started a fire at the “Rote Blumen” in his youth, and the ensuing beating he had received from his father had temporarily changed the way he walked. But it had taught him a valuable lesson on how to put out a fire. Wilhelm grabbed the black dividing curtain and pounded the fire before draping the curtain over it. The flames suffocated before it could spread. Josef and Emma had kept a few empty buckets near the customer bathroom, as it would often leak. Wilhelm and Josef filled them and poured the water over the small batches of fire that remained.
Hannah would not stand idly by. She dashed in, her mother close behind her. Emma ran by Josef and helped fill up the empty buckets. Hannah stared at the red Star of David. The symbol that had once been the shield that guarded her faith in God was now a blood-soaked macabre sword that inflicted grievous injury and spilled her secrets. Wilhelm looked from the wall to Hannah.
“Wilhelm, I wanted to but…” she started to say but fell silent.
It all made sense now. Her strange attitude had nothing to do with him but everything to do with being in the company of a man who despised and imprisoned Jews. He had unknowingly put her in a dangerous situation.
“I understand. It was not safe to trust me,” Wilhelm said with a sorrowful look.
Her secret was hers to share, and he often forgot they did not know each other as well as he thought. He had been fully confident about his feelings for her, but perhaps she was not about her feelings toward him. Wilhelm stepped outside for fresh air and to give Hannah and her parents a moment alone.
Emma softly grabbed Hannah’s hand. “Go,” she said, signaling Hannah to follow him. Emma had a wonderful ability to sense sadness in others, and she could see the change in Wilhelm’s eyes.
Hannah stepped outside. Wilhelm was sitting on the curb, taking puffs of fresh air like a cigarette. He had earned the right to hear Hannah reveal her secret her way.
“Wilhelm,” she said, just loud enough to be heard.
He rose from the curb and turned toward her. His tux and face were stained black—his face temporarily, his tux permanently.
“You do not have to say anything,” he said.
“I want to. Wilhelm, I’m Jewish. I wanted to tell you out loud. I trust you. I would have told you regardless of what happened tonight. I am sorry I lied to you,” she said.
“You didn’t lie. I never asked.”
“You do not mind?”
“It is a part of who you are. One of thousands. And I like them all,” Wilhelm said.
Hannah rested her head against his chest. He ran his fingers through her hair.
Inside, Josef and Emma tip-toed about the shop to assess the damage. Inconsequential cloths and fabrics, the hours labored into the hand-sewed suits, tuxes, and jackets to the irreplaceable photographs had all burned to ash. Hannah and Wilhelm stepped back into the shop. No one appreciated the possessions of loved ones more than Wilhelm. He knew there would be a time when Hannah’s parents would be gone and that the mere sight of a cloth ruler and sewing machine would devastate her and bring her to tears. When Wilhelm’s mother had passed away, his father refused to remove any of her clothing or toiletry items from the house. Her brush with her black hair woven between the bristles brought him to tears for a year, and as Wilhelm thought about the brush and the final remnants of smoke dissipated through the broken windows, his eyes filled with tears.
“You should be getting home, Wilhelm. It’s not safe,” Josef said.
Wilhelm’s eyes went to Hannah.
“I’ll be okay,” Hannah said, squeezing his hand.
Wilhelm wanted to offer his apartment for them to stay in, but if they did, Erich was sure to ask questions, and just because he knew Hannah’s secret, it did not mean it was his to share. He gave her hand a final squeeze and left.
The fires had been extinguished, and the silence outside made it appear the looting and vandalism were over. But Josef would not have his family sleep upstairs in case his shop fell victim to arson once more. They slept in the back room at the side of the steps. Blankets were laid out for comfort, and some were wrapped around them as the cold November winds whistled in. Even with a jacket, gloves, and knitted hat in addition to seven blankets, the wind and cold found ways to attack.
Blocks away, Wilhelm was in a warm bed. The wind and cold were powerless in its attempt to penetrate through the insulated walls of his apartment. But still, no sleep would come to him. He was scheduled to work in the morning but called Hans at home to tell him he was ill. Instead of a greeting, Hans had answered the phone with a curse word. There was little Hans cared about at 2:30 in the morning.
Wilhelm wanted to avoid seei
ng Erich, for there was no way he could keep the previous night from showing on his face. So, at ten after four, he dressed and returned to Hannah’s home but first stopped at the car dealership for the mop, bucket, and soap he used to wash cars and carried it the nineteen blocks. The sun had yet to rise, and the wind was cruel.
As soon as he reached the Goldschmidts’ shop, he began sweeping the debris and soot and decided to remove the disgusting racial epitaph from the wall next. It took nearly thirty minutes of scrubbing before it started to come off, but it still left a nasty reminder in the form of a red smear. The walls that had once been a clean white would never return to that color. Wilhelm went to the nearest hardware store and bought two cans of gold paint. He had always liked gold and thought it would look elegant amongst the fine tuxes Mr. and Mrs. Goldschmidt made. He applied the first coat of paint and, while that dried, he mopped up the water they had thrown onto the floor to extinguish the flames. He salvaged what he thought might be of importance, but he would let Hannah and her parents decide if they wanted to keep it. It was too much of a personal decision for an outsider to make.
“Mr. Schreiber,” Josef said, stepping through where the black curtain had once hung.
He neither knew the time or why Wilhelm was in his shop. He had locked the door both out of habit and precaution, but Wilhelm had most certainly entered through one of the gaping holes where the glass windows had once stood. Josef’s head looked swollen but, at least, it had stopped bleeding.
“Good morning, Sir,” Wilhelm greeted without breaking the back-and-forth motion of the mop.
“What is it that you are doing?” Josef asked.
“I thought I would get started,” Wilhelm said.
“Wilhelm, you seem like a nice young man. But this cannot work with Hannah. We are Jews. You are German. There are laws,” Josef explained.
“You are German too,” Wilhelm said. He turned away from him as he mopped the floor. Josef nodded, both annoyed and appreciative, and grabbed the broom.
“Gold?” Josef asked.
The color was hard to miss.
“Elegant, yes?” Wilhelm asked.
“It’s tacky,” Josef said, but his deadpan expression slowly curled into a smile.
Wilhelm chuckled and continued to mop. No matter how many times Josef or Wilhelm swept, a fresh layer of dirt and ash always remained.
“Why doesn’t it bother you?” Josef asked.
“That you are Jewish?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. I was sheltered as a child. I did not see much but my school, my home, and the flower shop. My father never talked, and my mother died when I was young. I did not receive much input about anything.”
“Thank you. For that and this,” Josef said, nodding to the shop.
“Thank you for changing your mind and letting me take Hannah out. I still owe you,” Wilhelm said.
“Consider those extra fees for your tux paid for,” Josef said.
“Not quite. I will require a new suit coat.”
“It would be my pleasure, my good young Sir.”
It was strange to talk as much as they did. Josef was not one for silence and filled it with whatever thoughts crossed his mind—random in their transition. In the next hour, they talked about anything from what Schönfeld was like to family vacations Josef had been on. He even talked about life during the Great War and the extreme sanctions and limited rations that followed. He talked about how he had become a tailor and when he met Hannah’s mother. After his university schooling, he and his friends had vacationed in Munich. He had drunk too much, and the train back to the city was crowded. He and his friends were forced onto different cars. While his friends got off at the right exit, he passed out and only awoke at the last stop in a city called Germering. The train station was almost entirely empty, but that’s where he had met her—Emma had also gotten off at that station.
“I asked her where in God’s earth I was! She was so polite, and they were both attractive in their nurse’s uniform,” Josef said.
“They?” Wilhelm asked.
“Yes. I was seeing two of her.”
Wilhelm smiled. “Mrs. Goldschmidt said she was good with a needle,” Wilhelm added.
At the time, he did not know what it fully meant, but now that he knew she was a nurse, it made sense. He didn’t need to ask to know that it had become an illegal profession for Jewish people.
“When she spoke, I keeled over and vomited at her feet,” Josef continued.
“She didn’t run away?” Wilhelm asked.
“On the contrary, she nearly carried me to a nearby park and laid me on a bench and sat with me. When I awoke, we watched the sunrise. I took her to breakfast and then I got back on the train.”
“You left?” Wilhelm asked.
“I missed my stop again—this time on purpose—showed up and never spent another day without her.”
He went on to elaborate that Emma was not Jewish so, at first, his family did not accept her but grew to love her as much as he did. Wilhelm had no idea how his parents had met, and he would never know. His father absolutely cherished Wilhelm’s mother, but the mention of her caused him great pain, and his pain transformed into tremendous anger.
By the time Hannah and Emma had woken, the floor was free of debris and the wall had a second coat of paint. Hannah and Emma stepped through where the black dividing curtain had once hung. Their eyes were red with bags drooping under them. Wilhelm had looked the same during the weeks after his mother’s death. It was from crying oneself to sleep.
“Oh, my,” Emma gasped, her eyes swiveling around the room. There was still significant damage to the western wall, but the fact that any of it looked as good or better than it had lifted her spirits.
“Do you like the color? If yes, it was my decision. If no, it was Wilhelm’s,” Josef joked.
“I love it. Wilhelm, you are too kind,” Emma said. She put her hands on his shoulders, smiled, and hugged him.
“I know somebody who can help with windows,” Wilhelm mentioned.
Refurnishing the inside would do little if they did not fix the gaping holes. The winds of November would blow in anything from leaves to old newspapers and, soon, winter would be upon them, sending in drifts of blowing snow.
“We can’t ask that of you,” Emma said.
“You didn’t,” Wilhelm assured her.
“I will go with you,” Hannah said.
“Be careful,” Josef said.
Things had quieted, but that did not mean it was safe.
“No harm will come to her. You have my word,” Wilhelm said.
He held out his hand, and Hannah grabbed it.
Wilhelm’s “somebody” was Hans, and although he had called in sick, he hoped he would understand. Hans had said the windshields came from the same place that produced windows for homes and businesses. The owner’s name was Frederick, and the two had known each other from since they were young and, therefore, Hans felt he could have and should have received a better deal.
“You’re not sick,” Hans said when Wilhelm walked in.
“No. I am sorry,” Wilhelm said.
“Is that Hannah?” Hans asked, lifting himself off his chair to gain a better vantage point.
“Yes,” Wilhelm answered.
Hans nodded his approval. Hannah smiled politely yet uncomfortably.
“Were you out last night? The city was taken over by the devil,” Hans said.
“Hannah’s father’s shop was looted by mistake,” Wilhelm said.
Though he knew Hans to be a decent man, the prejudice of Jews ran rampant. It was something taught from parent to child as a scapegoat to problems.
“Windows broken?” Hans asked.
Wilhelm nodded.
“Broken glass everywhere. I had to take a different route to work today,” Hans said, his explaining sounding an awful lot like complaining.
Wilhelm knew he did not mean to sound self-loathing, but he did. If only Hans knew
how November 9th had affected some people. He and Hannah had seen first-hand men being forced onto the convoy trucks and taken away. The synagogue Hannah and her parents worshipped at had been burnt to the ground. Shops and homes had been destroyed.
“Well, since somebody called in sick today,” Hans said, staring at Wilhelm for at least ten seconds of silence, “I can’t exactly run to Frederick’s. But I can give you his address.” He scribbled on a piece of paper. “He is impatient, so make sure you talk quickly and get to the point.”
Wilhelm took the paper, thanked him and then he and Hannah walked toward the door.
“Wait,” Hans shouted. He rolled his eyes and reached in his pocket for his keys. “You’re going to want to drive.”
He tossed the keys, but Wilhelm dropped them, making Hans close his eyes in frustration at his compassion.
“I get done at four. I have a houseful of crying kids to return to. Please be late,” Hans said.
Wilhelm smirked. Hans often talked about all the crying in his house, yet his desk was littered with his children’s pictures, and every day, he snuck in a story of something new one of his children had learned.
Wilhelm thanked him, but Hans was already face-deep in his newspaper.
“Do you want to drive?” Wilhelm asked, looking at Hannah.
“I do not know how to,” Hannah replied.
There had never been a need to own a car. Hannah’s world consisted only of fourteen blocks.
“I will teach you,” Wilhelm said.
As Wilhelm drove, he explained every knob, button, and stick. He answered every question Hannah had, even the questions she asked twice. The ride to Frederick’s was only twenty minutes, but they stayed for only ten.
Frederick was a man of fewer words than Wilhelm’s father, and Wilhelm wondered what grand conversations the two could have. Josef and Wilhelm had measured the windows and jotted down the measurements. Wilhelm only had to hand over the paper and Hans’ note, and a couple of Frederick’s workers loaded up the car. Wilhelm paid him, and Frederick waved goodbye with the hand that was not clawing at his head.
“Do you want to drive back?” Wilhelm asked Hannah.
Forever Fleeting Page 7