Out of Such Darkness (12 page)

She stiffened. ‘What’s that scent?’ she said.

He still isn’t sure that Rachel accepted what he had said about how Prentice had stood close while explaining the Cameron Mortimer book he had brought home – the one with the garish cover. Jay thinks about the librarian and starts constructing the fantasy of a possible affair. The figure of the MC appears and encourages him with leers and licking lips but the vision of Rachel is there too – the vengeful wife having discovered his infidelity through some typically thoughtless lapse on his part.

But the sex. Think about the abandonment of extra-marital sex.

There’s something comfortable about his sex-life with Rachel.

Comfortable? Why settle for comfortable?

But when it happens with Rachel it’s better than anything he experienced before. Would he put that in danger? Perhaps it could happen more often but is this her fault or his? He wonders when to tell her that it’s a mitzvah for a Jewish married couple to have sex every Friday night.

Once a week. Would you be up to it, big boy?

As Rachel steers onto their drive and parks behind the VW, Jay finds himself thinking not of Prentice but of Teri Herbold, the attorney responsible for winding up Straub, DuCheyne. The idea of their weekly meetings in Stamford, a good distance from Burford Lakes, sets his blood running.

Now you’re thinking straight. She’s a much better candidate. I want a front row seat for that
.

It’s early afternoon and, as a result of an hour of vigorous activity in the ‘yard’ after synagogue, a second pile of early leaves sits by the English family’s US-patriotic mailbox. The family is scheduled to have supper with the Cochranes but the rest of the afternoon is free. Neither the newspapers nor the television – other than their weekly ration of
The Sopranos
– holds any attraction now that their return to England is firmly scheduled … at least in Rachel’s mind.

He’s settled in the den. Having finished the
Berlin Novels
he’s now turning over the Cameron Mortimer book that Prentice found for him. He starts reading and finds himself following Dexter Parnes VC as, using false papers, he attempts to negotiate the platform barrier of the Zoo railway station in Berlin. Members of Hitler’s Brownshirts stand in his path even though they don’t have official sanction. They’re using the authority of their clubs and pistols and they’re looking for a Jew to fool with. They gather round a dark-haired, Slavic-eyed young woman in a fur coat like ants chancing upon a grounded moth. It’s soon obvious that only Dexter Parnes VC has the courage to go to her aid.

Jay’s wonders whether he wants to bother with the book. There’s something about the casual reference to the woman’s Slavic eyes and the description of her plight that makes Jay think that he’s going to be troubled by its dated values. He crosses to the computer desk and enters the
Yahoo!
web address. This leads him to a Dexter Parnes VC fan page which yields references to 16 books and 14 films. The books are out of print and he can’t trace videos of the films – either in tape or the new disc format. A new
Yahoo!
search links him to a site called IMDB that describes the movies as, ‘
hour-long second features written by uncredited Patriotic Studio scriptwriters based on the mystery-adventure books by British writer Cameron Mortimer
’.

A further search on
Cameron Mortimer
links Jay to a specialist bookseller site that has a stock of the out-of-print books. It has a pen-portrait of the author that ends with the comment that Cameron Mortimer
‘followed a number of leading lights of the English arts movement based in America by “coming out” as a homosexual. W H Auden mentions in his autobiography having had an unsatisfactory short liaison with Mortimer in 1941 when they were collaborating on a theatrical production that was never staged. Mortimer died in 1986.’

Using
Yahoo!
Jay finds the new Internet-based bookshop called
Amazon
that allows him to search for specific books. The autobiography of WH Auden isn’t easy to locate because he doesn’t know its exact title but he succeeds eventually. The blurb describes how the book relates Auden’s relationship with Christopher Isherwood and their time in Germany. It costs $14.99 and Jay wonders whether he should pay that much.

You’re a multi-millionaire! You’re quibbling about
…

I’m quibbling about a few measly dollars when a $3 million cheque is in the post, he thinks. The Auden biography goes into his shopping basket. While he’s in the site, he looks up Isherwood’s book,
Christopher and His Kind
. He follows the link and it too goes in the shopping basket. For a second he ponders …

Tell me you’re not thinking of putting the Auden book back. You’re so busy you can’t read two books? You’re not able to afford both? You think Rachel wants you under her feet? Better that you sit in the den reading.

He can’t believe he’s hesitating and proceeds to the check-out. He picks up the Dexter Parnes again and within minutes is following the spy’s footsteps through a city that, day by day, is losing its conscience.

A city that I recognise
…

When we met that first time in the cafe near Tiergartenufer was I concerned solely for Wolf’s welfare? Honestly? I don’t recall. Perhaps I was already thinking that if he was like me then I could shape him; he could be everything I wanted in a companion.

Of course Wolf’s innocence was extremely arousing and I vowed to keep my baser urges under control during that meeting. “When I say I want you to discover yourself, I don’t mean in a physical relationship. I mean I want to be your friend. Do you know what I mean if I say mentor?”

He nodded.

“I can tell you what it is like being of our kind. Help you see whether this is what you’re really made to be. Am I making sense?”

His blue eyes were wide. “You want to be my friend.”

“But only a friend – at least until you are sure what you want.” I knew saying this that the thought of going further would be a fantasy for me until it could be fulfilled or denied. “Is this clear?”

“Es ist klar.”

“What it means is that you can talk to me about anything and I will help you.” I looked at my watch. “It’s late. Where do you live? I think it’s about time I took you home.”

Wolf told me he lived in Charlottenburg in a square near the Rathaus and so we took the tram all the way along Hardenbergstrasse. He explained that his family owned a factory that made enamelware. It had thrived when other factories struggled because it had the sole contract to supply the millions of bowls that were used in soup kitchens all over Germany. His father, Herr Koehler, was very rich. He supported the Nazi Party and had encouraged Wolf to join. The boy was proud of already being fast-tracked for a position in one of the elite Brownshirt battalions when he would become eighteen – in 1935.

When we talked about our next meeting, Wolf suggested that he should propose to his father that he have private English lessons and that he had found a suitable teacher. The plan was ideal. I would meet this innocent but captivating boy weekly and be paid for it!

We left the tram at the Rathaus and crossed the road to Spreestrasse. The Koehler’s house was in a side road on the right taking up a whole block. It was a tall, detached town house behind high, spear-topped railings. We shook hands at the gate. I watched as a butler opened the front door and ushered Wolf inside.

How long did I hold out? Longer than you would think. I was convinced of his innocence and I was not sure he was one of us. I had seen so many boys at school for whom it was ‘just a phase’ and I wondered whether this was true for Wolf. The season for Rosa’s Bridge activity passed as we went into autumn and then winter. I didn’t live like a monk, of course I didn’t. Every weekend I would go to the Nolli for sexual release but it was becoming more seedy with every exchange of money for sex.

Wolf and I met every week and we explored, in English to fulfil my duty to Herr Koehler, what it meant to be homosexual. I became more and more convinced that Wolf was right in his conviction. At the end of every meeting we would hug and kiss on the cheeks in a chaste way and I would send him home. I’m not embarrassed to say that his presence in the room was overpoweringly erotic and as soon as he left I would have to take myself in hand to relieve the pressure.

At Christmas, we exchanged presents. It was also Wolf’s sixteenth birthday on Boxing Day. Was he being ironic when he gave me a copy of Mein Kampf? Given his convictions, I couldn’t be sure. I bought him a ring for his little finger. He preferred to wear it round his neck on a thin gold chain. We lingered over our hug that day and I found myself patting his bottom in a mock chastisement for his present. I realised immediately that I had overstepped the mark and apologised. Wolf merely smiled. He had long since stopped blushing in my presence no matter what we discussed.

The meetings continued weekly and by now had taken the format of my other lessons. We no longer needed to talk about sex. We discussed the news of the day – and this meant that I was able to keep track of the rise of Hitler which culminated in his accession to the post of Chancellor on January 30, 1933. Wolf telephoned me that day bursting with pride and enthusiasm at the news. “There is going to be a huge torchlight parade tonight. At the Brandenburg Tor. You must come. I will be marching. I have the honour to carry our banner. Tell me you’ll be there, Cammie!”

Leo and I took an unusually crowded overhead train from Zoo station to Lehrter Bahnhof. From there it was only a short walk across the Moltke Bridge before we found ourselves on the edge of a massive crowd milling around the Victory Tower in the Platz der Republik. The way south to Unter den Linden was blocked by the crowds of seething Berliners all in festive mood. Something had been released with Hitler’s victory. It was as if a new spirit was passing from person to person like a bug. People would break into applause through sheer exuberance and the sound of clapping would sweep across the crowd in waves.

There were policemen in evidence but it was strange for us not to see another uniform. Leo leant in to speak to me. “Where are all the Brownshirts? You’d expect them to be strutting about as if they owned the place.” It was true. Other than the police, there was not a uniform to be seen. This was so strange in a Berlin that had become accustomed to showing deference when a gang of Brownshirt thugs hove into view.

“This is hopeless,” said Leo. If we want to see anything we have to get into Pariser Platz. Follow me.”

It had been dark for some hours. We hadn’t expected anything like this number of people. Wolf told me that the march was to be a spontaneous show of support for Herr Hitler. How had this number of people come to know about it?

I followed Leo as he backtracked to the riverbank where we turned right and followed it eastwards until we came to a narrow street where we turned right again, this time between office buildings. The crowd was thinner here and it was easy to hurry through to the north side of Unter den Linden. The Brandenburg Gate was on our right.

Leo put his mouth to my ear again, speaking in German. “I suggest we keep our comments to ourselves and no English – you don’t know who you might be standing next to.”

I looked at the people to either side of me. With their winter coats and headgear they looked no different from the ordinary Berliners we saw every day, but I took Leo’s point. This was no time for British cynicism about the enthusiasm that was building all around us.

The first notes of a military band sounded far off to our left. The parade must have collected at the eastern end of Unter den Linden and the intention was clearly for a triumphal march through the Brandenburg Gate before sweeping right and towards the Reichstag. This was the route that the police were trying to clear.

The band was joined by the deep booming voices of hundreds of men singing. I recognised the Horst Wessel song, an anthemic tribute to an early Nazi martyr. Despite myself, I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck tingling. As we stood on tip-toes trying to make out how far the march still had to travel I could make out a glow in the distance. The word ‘Torchen’ was passed among us by way of explanation.

It came louder and louder still. The crowd stiffened to attention as one – not only to stretch for a better view – but also in a militaristic response to the approaching army. Men removed their hats. Leo and I looked at each other. I took off my hat and Leo stuffed his artisan’s beret into his pocket. He gave me a look with a shake of his head which I interpreted to mean ‘don’t do anything to draw attention’.

The band came first, each player accompanied by a lantern carrier. Then the first of the Brownshirts appeared carrying flaming torches and their voices swelled as they repeated the verses of the Horst Wessel over and over. My, how they strutted. They goose-stepped as if their lives depended on it; this was their victory as much as Hitler’s. They were now lords and masters of all around them.

It’s raining and, as on every Sunday morning, Jay’s been playing in the pick-up soccer game. After a short session of hand shaking under the shelter, the players all agree to be at the same place at the same time next week. Jay sets off across the pitch towards the break in the trees that leads to the Halprin’s backyard. Through the steady drizzle he can make out a tall figure shrouded in a drover’s coat and baseball cap waiting on the far touchline. Jay recognises Howard Edler; he has the family Labrador on a leash at his side. They appear to be standing in Jay’s path.

‘Howard! Not a good day for hanging around.’ Jay wears a waterproof top over his wet T-shirt but hasn’t covered his legs. His thighs have broken out in goose-pimples.

‘Or for soccer.’

‘It’s always like this back in the UK.’

They shake hands. ‘You’re used to it then,’ Howard says.

‘Yes. Did you want to ask me something?’

‘I hoped I’d catch you, yes.’

‘Do you want to come into the house?’ He looks round. ‘Out of this rain.’

Howard shakes his head and drips from the peak of his cap spin away. The dog bares its teeth and snaps at the drops as they fall past its head. ‘No. This won’t take long. It’s about Ben.’

This can’t be good. Jay involuntarily pictures Howard’s daughter Leah. She has her mother’s dark colouring and looks older than her 12 years. If he was Ben … ‘What about him?’

‘Did you know there’s some discomfort about his role in the school production?’

‘
Cabaret
?’

‘Yes.’

‘He has mentioned it but we didn’t take it seriously.’

Howard nods eagerly and the dog whines because it’s too slow to pick off the falling raindrops. ‘And you’re right not to. We at Bar Shalom aren’t concerned at all. But we understand the more conservative elements at Beth El are reacting badly.’

‘Beth El?’

‘It’s the orthodox synagogue in Burford Station – our more conservative brothers and sisters.’

‘What’s the problem?’ Jay worries that he’s sounding aggressive but he’s cold and wet. Howard merely shrugs and the water-drops from his coat set the dog dancing again. Jay guides Howard and the dog to the shelter of one of the conifers that separate the park from the Cochrane’s back yard.

‘They don’t seem to understand the nature of the show, the meaning of the song,’ Howard says.

‘So they don’t object to the whole show?’

‘I don’t think they can. It’s written by Jews, after all. No it’s more because the part of the Nazi Youth member – the one who sings the song – has been taken by a Jewish boy.’

‘But that’s nonsense. If I’d asked to join the other synagogue, they probably wouldn’t recognise us as Jewish.’

‘But you
are
Jews.’

Jay wipes a hand across his forehead, wiping away the raindrops threatening to fall across his eyes. He finishes by squeezing his nose as if he’s wringing out his face. ‘Why are you telling me this if it’s not a problem for Bar Shalom?’

‘I wanted you to know that we’re on your side. Rabbi Zwyck saw me yesterday and asked me to make this point to you as soon as I had an opportunity.’

Jay senses there’s more. ‘And?’

Howard’s face crumples into a wince. ‘And to let you know that Rabbi Stern of Temple Beth El has started a petition and they’ll be taking it to Jefferson High. He’ll probably see Mr Costidy.’

‘The director of the show? To achieve what?’

‘Presumably to ask him to cast another boy in the Hitler Youth role – a gentile boy.’

‘I don’t believe it. Are they serious? This rabbi …’

‘…Stern. I’m afraid he is.’

Jay looks across the soccer field. The rain is easing and the grass gleams in weak sunshine. The roof of the shelter is steaming. He turns back.

‘Look,’ Howard says, ‘you must be cold. You should get inside. I just wanted you to know as soon as I could and I knew about the soccer game.’

Jay offers his hand. ‘Yes. Thanks for coming.’ He turns away and cuts across the back garden of the Cochrane property. He’s anxious to have a hot bath. He needs to think.

His first concern is what Rachel is going to make of it. He enters the house through the back door and into the warmth of the den. He decides to wait until dinner to find out.

Although Jay would prefer to move the focus of their weekly meal routine to Friday evening, Rachel maintains that a winter Sunday demands a roast dinner and so they’re sitting at the dining table in a formal setting. A steaming dish of carrots, broccoli and peas is at its centre. Jay has finished carving the chicken and slides portions of meat onto each plate.

‘Just white for me,’ Ben says.

‘No, you have both.’ Jay picks some of the paler dark meat and flips it onto Ben’s plate. ‘How did the rehearsal go?’

Ben, who was out of the house for most of the afternoon, says, ‘Not too bad?’

‘How’s your solo coming along?’ Jay ignores Rachel’s warning frown from across the table.

‘All right.’ Ben uses his fork to select a raggy-edged sliver of the brown meat and isolates it on the side of his plate.

‘Have you heard any more about some people in the town being unhappy about it?’

‘Yeah.’

Jay can see that his son is pretending to be untroubled.

‘They’re still complaining apparently,’ Ben says. ‘But it’s not bothering Mr Costidy?’

‘Good.’ Jay is seeking a way he can encourage his son without alienating him.

‘You just ignore them, Ben. They’re ignorant.’ Rachel says.

‘I suppose if I’m Jewish …?’

‘You are.’ Rachel brandishes her knife like a fencing sword and it wavers between her son and her husband. ‘It sounds wrong to say “admit it” but we have to admit it – we’re Jewish.’

It’
s
not about being Jewish. It’s about Rabbi Stern and his prejudices.

‘It’s not about being Jewish or not being Jewish!’ Jay blurts out. His wife and son look up from their plates. ‘What I mean is that you being Jewish or not
should
be irrelevant.’ He turns to Rachel. ‘I was talking with Howard Edler after soccer today. He kept me talking in the rain.’

Rachel is nodding encouragingly, hurrying him along.

‘He said that it’s the rabbi of the other synagogue – the orthodox one – he’s causing the stink about Ben doing the Nazi song because Ben’s a Jew.’

‘But we’re not proper Jews. We don’t do the religion thing – not unless you decide to keep going, and when do they officially make you Jewish – a Jew?’ Rachel says.

Ben leans forward. ‘I’m Jewish enough for the Nazis to have put me in a camp sixty years ago.’

The boy talks sense.

‘He’s got that right,’ Jay says.

Rachel is serving herself more vegetables. ‘But the other rabbi – the orthodox one …’

‘His name’s Stern,’ Jay says.

‘OK. This Rabbi Stern, he doesn’t think Ben’s Jewish enough to join his church.’

‘To be fair, we don’t know that. He’d want more proof than Elayna Zwyck asked for, that’s for sure,’ Jay says.

‘So what’s the point of the protest?’ Rachel strikes the handle of her knife down on the table top. ‘Sorry. But is it about the swastika or about Ben being Jewish? If it’s the flag the whole thing has nothing to do with Ben. If it’s about Ben … if Rabbi Stern doesn’t think Ben is Jewish why’s he making a fuss?’

‘I think everybody accepts that Ben is a Jew and I think that’s Stern’s main problem. He sees it as Jew plus swastika – a toxic mix.’ He turns to his son. ‘More to the point, Ben, is how does all this fuss make
you
feel?’

All the brown meat Jay had selected for his son now forms a gravy-fringed ghetto of left-overs walled-in by Ben’s knife and fork. ‘You have to see how the song works in the play? The first time it’s quite innocent – like a country ballad? It’s only when they put it in the new context of it being sung to threaten the old Jewish couple at the party that it’s sinister. It shows that context is everything? That’s what Mr Costidy says anyway. It’s the strongest piece of theatre in the show and I want to be part of it.’ His face is flushed and his eyes are moist.

Jay leans across and puts a hand on his arm. ‘Good on you, son,’ he says.

‘So, now what?’ Rachel asks.

‘Perhaps I have to go and see Mr Costidy to make sure he doesn’t bow under pressure from Rabbi Stern and his people,’ Jay says.

Which is exactly what you should do, actually.

The Jefferson High School campus sits alongside Route 22. Jay’s holding to the 15 mph speed limit along a driveway that could have been built in a straight line uphill to the visitors’ parking lot but it’s deliberately kinked to pass alongside the running track and the separate arenas for American football, soccer and field-hockey that have been cut into the slope.

Jay recalls that the school also boasts indoor basketball and swimming halls with banked seats for spectators. He wonders whether it’s a good idea to hurry Ben away from all this and back to the claustrophobia-inducing rooms of his previous school in England.

With your money he could go private.

He wonders whether he could muster enough arguments to persuade Rachel that they can afford a public school but decides that he should concentrate on the matter in hand. When he phoned Mr Costidy earlier in the day it was as if the teacher had been waiting for the call. ‘Yes, Mr Halprin, it would be good to talk. Can you come in today – at 11.00?’

Pedestrian students, scantily dressed, considering the temperature, and with their breath clouding in the air, bustle along the walkway between the main entrances of the three buildings. They scurry like insects satisfying some unknown greater need. When one group bumps into another they exchange scents with brief touches, hand to arm. Females, the more socially secure gender of this species, hug and sometimes touch cheek to cheek. This cements their places in the hierarchy. They bustle on, each individual confident in his or her own purpose. Jay compares this with the slovenly foot-dragging of Ben and his contemporaries in the English school.

He parks in one of the visitor bays in front of the Arts Building and enters through glazed double doors into a reception atrium that, if you took away the milling students, would have graced the foyer of a Manhattan office building.

I know this is wicked of me – but I’m reminded of the World Trade – sorry the ex-World Trade Center. If I had a wrist I would slap it hard.

Jay registers with a receptionist. She has spectacles that cling to the end of her thin-tipped nose held in place by a chord round the back of her neck stretched as taut as the hawser on a suspension bridge. She asks Jay to wait, indicating a row of chairs.

Mr Costidy appears after only a few minutes. His arrival coincides with a bell sounding and the reception area empties of students. ‘Mr Halprin?’ Costidy nods towards the wall-clock. ‘That’s the five-minute bell for the next session. I have a free. Thanks for coming.’

‘Thanks for agreeing to see me.’

Costidy clasps his hands in front of his chest and squeezes his shoulders together and upwards. ‘We
have
to talk about Ben and the show, right.’ He tugs at the sleeves of the expensive-looking, pale-pink sweater that’s draped over his shoulders. ‘Have you seen our theatre? It’s empty. Let’s go there. Call me Mark, by the way’. He hurries through one of the internal glazed doors and leads Jay with quick, tiny steps along a corridor. The windows on their left look out over the playing fields. It’s a bright day but, in the distance, where the traffic pulls up at the crossroads, the exhausts billow white clouds. The marked-out soccer pitch is stubbled with iced ridges of turf.

There are teaching rooms to the right and when they reach the end of the corridor it opens up into a large space with two sets of doors. These are set in the wall which Jay, guided by his internal navigation system, imagines to be the end of the building. Mark opens the nearer door and ushers Jay into the back of an auditorium that falls away in rows of tiered seats down to the proscenium of a stage that juts out beneath closed curtains. Jay whistles. ‘It’s a proper theatre.’

Mark smiles. ‘Not what you’d expected, I imagine. I was in the UK for an exchange in my early teacher training. This must seem very different if your only experience is a school assembly hall.’ He points to the end seats in a row a few steps down to indicate where to sit.

‘This is where you’re staging
Cabaret
?’ Jay examines the stage area as he lowers himself into the cinema-style seat. There must be room for five hundred, he thinks. A picture of Ben, alone on the bright-lit stage in front of a darkened auditorium, flashes in front of him. Would it be better for his son to not take part rather than to fail?

Mark tugs at the sleeves of the sweater and half-turns to face him. ‘Your son is very good, you know …’ he tails off with an upward inflection.

‘Jay – call me Jay.’

‘We want him to have a significant role in the production.’

‘What makes me think there’s a “but” coming?’

Mark smiles ‘But there has been this unpleasantness and we have to be sensitive–’

‘I hope you’re not going to give in.’

Mark stiffens. ‘It’s not a matter of “giving in” as you put it.’ He turns the wrist of his right hand so he can examine his nails and sighs. ‘Rabbi Stern is an influential man. He’s on the Board of Trustees. Many of the parents are in his congregation.’

‘More are not.’

Mark nods. ‘That’s true.’

Jay leans forward, his elbows on his knees. He doesn’t look at the teacher but speaks in the direction of the stage. ‘There are so many reasons why you shouldn’t give in to the protest. Not least is freedom of speech–’

‘I’m way ahead of you on this one, Jay. The First Amendment also enshrines religious tolerance and the synagogue seems to be going against this as well.’

‘Does the rabbi know that Kander and Ebb are both Jewish?’

‘I don’t think it’s the musical per se that the rabbi is against.’

‘What is it?’

‘A Jewish student wearing the swastika?’

‘You know what’s laughable here? You know what’s making me angry? Ben isn’t Jewish enough to be welcomed into Rabbi Stern’s temple. But he’s Jewish enough for all this fuss to be made.’