Thirty-Five
Thirty-Five
T here’s a wild storm raging. Driving rain splashes against the windows, and rivulets track their way down the panes. The bare branches of the cherry tree bend at an alarming angle and thrash against the iron railings in violent gusts. Doors rattle and slam in the wind. The house groans and creaks.
Mutti is in the sitting room, drinking coffee and listening to the wireless over the din.
“I’m off to school,” I announce from the doorway as I button up my coat.
“What a day,” she says, watching the trees sway in the wind. “And I don’t just mean the weather... That terrible trouble in Paris.”
“What trouble? What’s happened?”
“Didn’t you listen to the news this morning? Franz told me it may not be safe to go out. At least for a little while.”
“Why?” I ask, coming into the room, putting my bag down. “Don’t I have to go to school?”
“He had to attend an emergency SS meeting,” Mutti continues, ignoring my question. “No good will come of it.”
“No good will come of what? You’re speaking in riddles, Mutti!”
She nods her head at the paper lying on the coffee table. “Read it yourself,” she says, turning her back to the window and the wrath of nature outside.
I sink onto the sofa and spread the paper across the table, turning to the cover page.
8 November 1938
From our correspondent in Paris.
HEROIC GERMAN DIPLOMAT IN PARIS FIGHTS FOR HIS LIFE!
Ernst vom Rath desperately clings to life, following the assassination attempt yesterday by a Polish Jew.
He lies in hospital, awaiting the arrival of the Führer’s best doctors, already on their way to Paris, who will try to save him.
The talented young diplomat was shot five times at close range by Herschel Grynszpan, who lied his way into the German Embassy.
Grynszpan was arrested at the scene and immediately confessed his crime.
It is thought that the scoundrel intended to kill the ambassador, Count Johannes von Welczeck.
Vom Rath is a promising young lawyer. An embassy spokesman has described him as hardworking and honest, a talented advocate with a bright future ahead of him.
A young man of whom his family, and his country, is rightfully proud.
It is said that Grynszpan harbored evil intentions and acted out of spite and vindictiveness.
This terrible crime reminds us of the chilling realization that no German, wherever he or she is in the world, is truly safe.
Safe from the ever-present threat of the Jew, waiting for the opportunity to do him harm.
The story sounds sensationalized. I remember Vati’s words about news and stories and the truth.
“Do you think it’s true?”
“Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“A friend of mine says you shouldn’t always believe everything you read in the papers.”
“Well, you had better tell that friend to get ahold of their senses. How dare someone make that suggestion.” She has the look of someone who has been personally insulted. “Why would you question Vati’s good judgment as to what to print because of the ignorant remarks of a so-called friend?”
Mutti would defend Vati to the ends of the earth. He doesn’t deserve her devotion. A knot of anger forms in my belly.
I change the subject. “Do I have to go to school?”
“I don’t see why not,” she says in a thin voice.
“Vati didn’t say you shouldn’t.” She leans toward me, narrowing her eyes and lowering her voice.
“This is the beginning. The conspiracy. The Jews.” Her eyes are wild.
The pupils, huge black pits. There’s a madness in them.
Her hands tremble as she pulls a cigarette from the pack on the table and places it carefully between her lips.
“They’ve been scheming and planning this for years.
” She pauses to light the cigarette, shaking out the flame on the match and tossing it into an ashtray.
“Planning what?”
“The revolution! This is the start of their push for world domination.”
“You cannot seriously believe... Mutti, come on. This isn’t true.”
“Oh, I’m deadly serious.” Her voice is shaky with emotion. She takes a long drag on her cigarette and it seems to calm her. She stares a little past my left ear into the middle distance.
“Mutti?”
Her eyes refocus. She takes another drag and blows a plume of smoke from the corner of her pursed lips. Her cheekbones protrude too high now; her skin is sinking in, giving her a gaunt, haggard look.
“If I’m to go to school, I had better go. I’m already late,” I say, picking up my bag from where I’d dropped it on the floor. I need to get away from her hateful words.
She nods and refills her coffee cup, slopping some into the saucer as she pours.
“Yes, yes. But come straight home. Vati will know more after his meetings. I can tell you this much: The Jews have it coming to them. They will be sorry they were ever born.”
F RAU S CHMIDT TALKS of literature, usually my favorite subject.
But I cannot focus. I can only think of Mutti and our strange conversation this morning.
My brain jumps from one vision to the next.
An innocent German man, shot, blood spurting from his chest as he stands, stunned and defenseless, on the steps of a building in Paris.
Countless Jews descending like vermin over our city, smothering, foul and evil; Walter looking on, smiling because I fell for his charms. Me, duped and ruined forever.
Or all these vile lies, and Walter, the boy I love, innocent of everything, dragged from his home by the Gestapo, thrown into jail, and left there to rot.
My palms sweat. My heart beats. I watch the teacher’s face; her mouth moves but I hear nothing. She writes on the blackboard, but I can’t make sense of the words.
At the end of the lesson, Frau Schmidt asks for our homework to be handed in. Less than half the class have completed it.
“Sorry, Frau Schmidt, I’ve been too busy with my BDM activities; I’ve not done any homework,” I tell her when she holds her hand out for mine.
She starts with surprise.
“That isn’t like you, Herta,” she says, with a disapproving tone.
“It can’t be helped.” I look her straight in the eye. “BDM is more important than schoolwork.”
She won’t risk arguing with that. We stare at each other for a moment. She gives a quick nod and purses her lips. Moves on to the next girl.
I push my way through the chattering crowd at the doorway, spilling into the corridor, searching for a red-gold sweep of hair. I’m carried along with the tide of girls to the gymnastics hall where they splinter into groups, sheltering from the rain outside.
She’s waiting for me. We ignore the rain and run down the steps into the deserted playground. Huddling against the building to stave off the worst of the drizzle, I find I can’t meet her eyes.
“About yesterday... what I said about Karl.” Erna pauses. “I’m sorry if it came as a shock.”
“It did, rather.”
“And what you told me, about Walter. That was rather a shock, too. I barely slept last night.”
“Me neither.”
“Hett—”
“Thing is, Erna”—I summon the courage to look into her flecked green eyes—“once you find out someone isn’t what you think they are... it’s hard to trust. Hard to go on, as we were.”
“ Exactly !” Erna’s face becomes animated.
“Hetty, I trust you to the ends of the earth. You could have informed on my father. You heard what he said, but you didn’t.
Now I know how you feel about Walter, and the treatment of people who aren’t racially pure, well, that just brings us closer together.
Perhaps you can help the fight against—”
“Oh, Erna. I want to help. I wish I could. But... I’m not sure what I can do.
Vati is traveling up the Party ranks and Mutti supports everything he does.
At least, she did. She’s so broken now, after Karl.
.. I’m not sure how she’ll ever recover.
Besides, Walter says I should keep my head down.
Stay safe, because with luck, all this will one day be over and then we can be together.
Oh, I don’t know. What on earth can we two girls, with no money or influence, actually do ? ”
“But don’t you see what you’ve done already ? It’s incredible. You’ve dared to think differently.”
“It’s not incredible, Erna. I’ve only fallen in love, that’s all.
If it hadn’t been for Walter, I’d...” What would I be?
I’d still be as fervent a follower as I was.
I’d never dare to think differently. I’d still believe I was destined for greatness as Hitler’s child.
Wouldn’t I? There’s a pounding in my temples.
“I don’t know what I’d be,” I say quietly.
“It doesn’t matter what you would or wouldn’t be. What matters is now. You can help us. The resistance. As things get worse, more and more will join. You’ll see.” Erna lays a hand on my arm. “Your father must have information. Surely you must hear things, see things?”
“You’re asking me to spy on my father?”
She looks at me hard. “Do you want to help Walter, his family, and thousands like him? Without trial, more and more Jews and political opponents are being herded into camps. The Nazis are expanding the network, building more. They want to force Jewish people, all of them, out of their homes, into ghettos. And that’s not all.
The Nazis’ promise of peace and prosperity—it’s a lie.
They are pushing us toward war. Hitler wants his empire.
If we don’t do something, where will it end?
It’s our future, Hett. We’re the young. We should be fighting it. ”
I nod dumbly. I think of Bertha, Lena, and the countless others who don’t share Hitler’s vision of the future but are too scared to say anything, do anything. I’ve been so blind, buried my head so deep and believed in all the promises. I wanted to believe.
Erna’s staring at me. Waiting for me to speak.