The Prosperous Thief (6 page)

‘We’ll be fine,’ Renate says again, squeezing his arm. ‘Just as long as we stay in Krefeld and keep a low profile, we’ll make it through this period.’

She sounds so sure and so like her old self, but she’s wrong, he knows she’s wrong. Renate has always been the more practical of the two of them, the more realistic too, and the more decisive. It was she who decided when it was time to have a child, she who guided him through the first hollow months when his business was taken. It was she who, after her father died earlier in the year, arranged for her mother to leave Düsseldorf and come to live with them in Krefeld. In fact, all the major decisions of their married life, with the single exception of where they would live – Krefeld, where Martin’s business was, and not Düsseldorf where Renate grew up – have been made by her. And Martin has been happy for this to be so. For not only is Renate practical and efficient, she is usually right. But not in this matter of emigration, and the reversal of roles is not comfortable for either of them. Several months ago, despite her opposition, he lodged their papers with the Palestine Office, and in the past couple of days, added America, Britain and Brazil. But still she refuses to face the reality of being Jewish in today’s Germany, refuses to see that Hitler is having a dream run. The entire country is now behind him, even here in Berlin where not so long ago the people regarded him as something of a joke. And much of the rest of the world is behind him too. Just a few months ago Hitler marched into Austria and no one stopped him. And a couple of weeks ago he announced the Sudetenland would become part of Greater Germany and still no one stopped him. The British leader Chamberlain comes and goes and as long as Hitler is happy, he is happy too. Everyone seems to love Hitler, everyone except the Jews.

Fake Coffee and False Promises

S
everal weeks later, four hundred kilometres west of Berlin in the provincial town of Krefeld, Martin Lewin lay beside his sleeping wife lulled by the familiar sounds of a new day. There was the clatter of horse hooves, the clang of milk cans, the coalman’s curses and the grocer grunting as he struggled to raise the iron grille of his shop. A bus wheezed to a stop, a car strained in the frosty morning, and then, as the other sounds fell silent, Martin heard the flap and whip of the swastika banners in the early morning breeze. Suddenly he was alert, the sounds of the new day drowned out by noise from the new Germany.

There had been no word on their visas, and with every day bringing new restrictions and deprivations it felt as if life were going backwards. At the same time, Germans kitted out with new hopes, new opportunities and new uniforms were living better than ever before. Even Heini Heck was prospering under the new regime. Having learned that a spell in prison was no bar to the army, he had dropped in at a recruitment office to investigate his options. When asked what he could do, he said he could cook. And why not? he thought, when there was opportunity for all Germans smart enough to take advantage. His days were now passed on the army parade grounds learning to be a soldier and in the army kitchens learning how to cook.

While Heini’s life was hurtling down paths unimaginable before Hitler came to power, in the Lewin household life was reduced to subsistence level. As Martin lay in bed this November morning, he was already totting up the most pressing of his problems while trying to ignore the scrape of anxiety in his stomach. He wished he could pull the quilt over his head like he used to as a child, knowing that when he again emerged the problems would have dispersed. Instead he turned towards Renate and buried his face in the curve of her neck. Gently, so as not to wake her, he ran his hand over her shoulder, down the quiet ripple of her ribs, across the rise of her hip and the familiar swell of her thigh. Not everything had changed, he reminded himself. He might be without work and freedom of movement and his life might be reduced to bare bones, but no one, not even Hitler, could silence his heart.

He pressed in closer and must have dozed, for when next he opened his eyes it was dawn and the sky a wintry pale. Renate was still fast asleep, rare in these jittery days, and Martin not about to wake her. He slid to the edge of the bed, pushed his feet into yesterday’s cold shoes, pulled on his old, wilted dressing gown, and with a last glance at his sleeping wife left the room.

He stopped outside his daughter’s bedroom. All quiet within, but Alice, who had never needed much sleep, more than likely awake. Such a solemn child she was, with far too many burdens for a six year old and far too little childhood to temper them. He pressed his ear to her door, still no sound, just the sharp and all-too-familiar pang of having failed his child. He hesitated a moment longer before continuing down the dim hallway to his mother-in-law’s room. Here there was a filament of light beneath the door; Amalie Friedman was awake but Martin knew she would not want to be disturbed. He moved to the edge of the runner where the carpet was less worn and headed towards the kitchen.

He turned on the light then thought better of it, he could make his coffee just as well in the gloom, and the heater wasn’t even a consideration despite the steely air. He should have worn his coat over his pyjamas, instead was left to pull the flimsy gown tighter and worry as he did most of the time these days how best to eke out their meagre funds with no job, hefty expenses and silence on their visas.

Martin Lewin had always been a man of order and what he was wanting now was a plan to follow. He wanted to know they could spend X Reichsmark this week, and Y Reichsmark the following week, and in the third week they would sell the rest of the silver cutlery, and in the fourth week … and so on until, say, week eight when they would hand over the last of their money for visas and bribes and board the boat for America or Britain or, if there were no other choice, Palestine or Brazil. He was wanting a sure-fire strategy for survival at a time when uncertainty was the only reliable player.

He had sought help from foreign silk buyers and sent letters to foreign embassies.He had asked favours from more fortunate friends as they were leaving the country and had maintained regular contact with the various German-Jewish organisations. His days were choked with efforts to leave Germany and for his pains there had not been a flicker of hope. He knew there would be more violence, he knew there would be more restrictions, but the nature of the violence and the extent of the restrictions made a mockery of his tidy mind. He used to believe that people, good people, had a limited tolerance for behaving badly – How to live with oneself? How to justify one’s brutality? What to say to one’s children? – but today’s good Germans were showing a remarkable tolerance and breathtaking stamina. Such strength they displayed and how it crushed.

He sat at the table in the kitchen, his chin cupped in his hands, staring at an old oil stain in the wood. His life was unrecognisable from a few years ago. Nothing had remained untouched, not even here in the flat where he had lived most of his life. And it would only become worse. Winter had begun early this year and how they would manage Martin simply did not know. As a boy he had loved this season: the slingshots made from acorns, the skating rink opening, the first snow, and no matter how cold the weather, it would always be warm at home with stoked boilers and hot drinks and wet clothes dried without a fuss and dry ones always available.

How different it was for his daughter. Today’s acorns were German acorns and best left where they lay, the skating rink was banned to Jews, and snow meant never being warm and dry.And summer promised no better. As a child Martin had passed the long hot days down at the river with a mob of boys and girls, Germans and Jews all together and no one bothered by it. But now even the water had been Aryanised and another slice of childhood denied his daughter.

He pulled himself from his seat and busied himself with the coffee, or rather the stuff that passed for coffee these days, put the pot on the stove and cupped his hands around the bowl for warmth. As he stood there he tried to recall the taste of real coffee, to summon it up by association: the grinding of the coffee beans, sitting with Renate at the table while the coffee brewed, the rich aroma filling the kitchen.And for his pains a spurting of sour saliva and the disappointing smell of – what was it? Chicory? He thought that was it, although Renate insisted it was roasted sawdust.

He could recall so much about the old days, but not the sensations, not the actual smells or tastes.And it was no consolation to know he would recognise the old pleasures should they ever return because he needed them now. And immediately chided himself. His daughter had never tasted real coffee, cake was a rarity for her, and chocolate had gone the way of all luxuries. She had never been to a puppet theatre, nor to the swimming baths; in fact, she had hardly ever played with other children. There was so much his daughter had been deprived of, and little for her to recognise if life should ever return to normal.

She had been born in March 1932, a year before Hitler became chancellor but with the National Socialists already on the rise. With each passing year their lives had been whittled away, first the luxuries then the necessities, until there was little left to lose. Even those life rhythms Martin had always presumed as natural had been ambushed so that nothing seemed natural any more, neither birth nor death, nor growing old with the woman he loved – and certainly not childhood.

He and Renate had wanted so much for their daughter, their first child, and the first grandchild as well. As for politics, they simply did not figure back when Renate became pregnant. But even if the pregnancy had occurred later, they still would have gone ahead with much the same joy. For despite the restrictions, or perhaps because of them, back in those days he and Renate, like most of their Jewish friends, thought things couldn’t possibly become worse. Back in those days they all wore blinkers.

Martin sighed, hindsight’s wisdom has such a ruthless genius for accusation. While the country changed he kept fooling himself it wasn’t changing so very much.Yet it was perfectly clear almost from the time Hitler took power that he was to be Germany’s salvation. He put Germans back to work, he built German confidence and reinstated German pride, he took the pathetic remnants of Germany after Versailles and modernised and industrialised. He showed the world that Germany was once more to be treated with respect. And if he didn’t like Jews, neither did a good many Germans, and even among those who did, most were quite prepared for Jews to be a casualty in an otherwise excellent programme of national reconstruction. It was perfectly clear back then if only Martin had wanted to see.

Yet to be fair to himself, what was happening defied logic. He would look at the anti-Semitic cartoons and read the anti-Semitic propaganda and have to remind himself that this vile material was about him, that suddenly and through no fault of his own he had become a person to be despised. It was as if without warning or explanation the sky turned green, or the grass purple, and you wouldn’t believe your eyes and neither could Martin believe his. Children deprived of a childhood; doctors, lawyers, professors and businessmen now portrayed as vermin; veterans from the last war treated like criminals. These things simply made no sense.

He carried his coffee into the living room, wrapped himself in an old cashmere rug – crimson and black, the Nazi colours, he suddenly realised, and quickly banished the thought – settled into its faint luxury and sipped slowly, drawing as much warmth and solace from the stale steaming drink as memory and imagination would allow.

In another life he would have been at the factory by now, not sitting in his nightclothes drinking ersatz coffee. He had worked since the age of fifteen and hated being without a job, hated not being able to provide for his family, hated not having an identifiable place in the world. Although it had been far worse when his business was first taken. Whole days would pass when he couldn’t even bring himself to dress, there seemed no reason, and besides, he could entertain Alice just as well in his nightclothes. But gradually he picked himself up, or rather Renate did, as his private loss became overshadowed by the larger and more threatening changes which marked Hitler’s Germany.

He could easily identify all the changes, but oddly, the most pervasive and the most merciless tended to be those which had infiltrated here, into home and family. Once a haven, his private world was now permanently infused with anxiety and tension and a pain deep in his belly that he knew to be a rehearsal of future losses. And there had been changes in himself too, which had left him sharply depleted. He had always been a sociable person, a people person, but his renowned amiability was now not simply irrelevant but downright dangerous. It was increasingly difficult to know who he was, much less which of his old qualities would help in these impossible times.

Back in the old days his life had been full of people. Rich people, poor people, artists, tradesmen, Germans and Jews. Outside of family and work, he liked nothing better than chatting with friends or acquaintances over coffee and cake. There was something in his manner, not unrelated he had often thought to his small stature and nondescript looks, which made him comfortable to be with in a way more handsome men were not. And he found people interesting, so he would invite confidences when most other people simply couldn’t be bothered. That he neither expected nor sought the same in return merely added to his attractions.