Voices of the Dead (7 page)

Harry was brushing his teeth when he heard the doorbell. He went downstairs, opened the front door. Galina was standing on the front porch in a raincoat on a warm August night. She came in, brushed his cheek with her palm. “Expecting rain?” Harry said, closing the door.

She started unbuttoning the coat as she walked to the stairs, took it off, draped it over the banister and walked up naked, wearing high heels.

Halfway up she turned, glanced at him and said, “You coming, Harry?”

Munich, Germany. 1942.

The key worked. Harry slid it in and unlocked the door, but someone might be living there. He rang the buzzer and waited, thinking about what he would say if the occupant came down and asked what he wanted. He moved back into the alley and looked up at the second-floor windows, the afternoon sun reflecting off the glass making it look dark.

Harry heard a truck, turned and saw a military vehicle coming toward him, stepped back to the door, turned the handle and went inside. He moved up the stairs and stood looking at the door to the house he had not seen in more than six months.

He went in and listened. Heard the faint sounds of traffic on Sendlinger Strasse. Closed the door and went into the kitchen. He opened a drawer and grabbed a paring knife with a four-inch blade. Opened cupboards and saw his parents’ glasses and dishes.

Harry went into the living room. It was their furniture, the chrome-and-leather Marcel Breuer chairs and couch, chrome-and-glass Bauhaus end tables and von Nessen lamps. Harry’s father, the BMW designer, telling him about the quality and craftsmanship of the pieces. Not that Harry had cared about such things when he was younger, but he’d listened and learned.

The Bechstein grand was across the room. His mother had played professionally until Hitler outlawed Jews from participating in the arts. His father wanted to destroy the piano after he read that Edwin Bechstein, an ardent Nazi, had given Hitler a Mercedes-Benz as a gift.

His mother had said, “Julius, pianos are not political.”

“Today,” his father had said, “everything is.”

On the wall behind him, above the mantle, was a black swastika reversed out of a circle of white on a square of red cloth, the flag of the Third Reich. Below it was his mother’s prize Doxia clock, with its silver deco numerals and hands, and frosted silver dial.

On the opposite wall was a framed photograph of Adolf Hitler, little mustache perched like a bug on his upper lip. Harry had seen him driving through Munich on numerous occasions. His parents thought Hitler was crazy and couldn’t understand why the German people had elected him. It was a nightly discussion at the dinner table until his mother would say: “Can we talk about something else?”

There was an eight-by-ten photograph in a sterling silver frame on the end table next to the couch. Harry picked it up and studied it, an SS officer posing with his wife and twin sons, the boys about Harry’s age, wearing lederhosen. They had taken over the house and everything in it.

He went to the window and watched the traffic below, cars and military vehicles passing by. He went to the third level where the bedrooms were. His parents had the big room with the bath. Harry’s room was at the opposite end of the hall, guest room in between. His room looked the same, the single bed, the six-drawer dresser, desk and bookshelves. He looked in the closet. His clothes had been replaced by light brown shirts and dark shorts of the Hitler youth, by lederhosen and other clothes he didn’t recognize.

He walked down the hall to his parents’ room. It too looked the same. The art deco armoire, the light brown furniture with black lacquered trim, the nine-drawer dresser and oval nightstands. The same deco furniture grouping in front of the fireplace where his parents sat in the winter and read. The same double bed and white chenille bedspread.

The closet was divided between men’s and women’s clothes. On the left were military uniforms lined up on hangers. Three black jackets with black-white-red swastika armbands and matching jodhpurs. Next to the black jackets were three pale-gray uniforms cut the same way, with an eagle on the sleeve in place of the swastika. On a shelf above the uniforms were three peaked caps with the same eagle above the skull and crossbones.

Below the uniforms were two pairs of well-shined black jackboots. He got on his knees and moved the boots aside and crawled to the back corner of the closet, dug the tip of the knife blade into the seam between the floorboards and pulled back. The plank came up and Harry reached in the opening and took out a thick wad of marks, a photograph of Harry and his parents in front of the house, three sets of identification, and his uncle’s address and phone number in Detroit, Michigan, USA.

His dad had said, “If something happens to your mother and me, I have left something for you.”

It confused Harry at the time. He had said, “Papa, what’s going to happen?”

“I hope nothing. I hope the Allied forces defeat Hitler. But we have to be prepared.”

Harry placed the floorboard back in position, went back into the room and stood by the window. He looked at the ID cards, one each for him, his mother and father. Their photographs, but different names, aliases, and nothing that said they were Jewish. If his father had these documents, why didn’t they leave the country? He put his parents’ papers back in the floor. They weren’t going to need them now. He was counting the money, already up to five thousand marks when he heard voices downstairs.

Harry stuffed everything into his trouser pockets. He moved into the hall and looked over the banister. The twins were coming up the stairs, wrestling. One had the other in a headlock, crashing into the wall. He heard a woman’s voice telling them to stop or they would be punished. It didn’t seem to do any good and now the mother came up the stairs and separated them.

“Boys, go to your rooms,” she said.

Harry went back in his parents’ bedroom, crossed to a door with glass panes that led to a balcony on the alley side of the building. He opened the door and went out. There were two chairs and a table. He looked through the glass and saw the woman enter the room. She stopped and turned, yelled something down the hall and moved toward the closet unbuttoning her dress. Harry crouched and froze.

She came back from the closet wearing a robe, the curves of her body visible under the thin fabric. She had short brown hair and pale skin and heavy red lipstick. She picked up a magazine from the nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed with her back to him.

Harry went over the balcony railing and climbed under it, wrapping his arms and legs around a support beam, looking down at the cobblestone alley ten meters below. A couple minutes later, he heard the door open and felt the wood creak above him. He saw her in the openings between the boards, barefoot, sitting in a chair. Saw her get up and move to the railing, looking at something. He heard voices. She turned as the twins came out, Harry catching glimpses of them pushing each other, one grabbing the other’s arms behind his back.

The mother said, “Stop this now or I will tell your father.”

They stood at attention, clicked their heels together.

“No mamma, please. We will be good.”

They acted like little kids, Harry thought.

“Any more of this your father is going to hear about it.”

One of the boys leaned over the railing. Harry could see his head upside down, hair hanging, until his mother pulled him up.

“Go to your rooms,” the mother said. “I will let you know when you can come out.”

The boys went in the house and she followed them and closed the door.

Harry held on with his left hand and arm and reached over half a meter, grabbed the downspout with his right hand. He took a breath, pushed off with his legs, lunged and grabbed the downspout with both hands, clung with his knees, got his feet in position, pushing up to secure himself. He shimmied down a few inches at a time, and when he was a meter from the ground he jumped.

He took a left on Westenriederstrasse. Passed the butcher shop, Joseph Bamberger, where his father used to buy meat—boarded up now. Harry and his father would stand in front of the glass display case, talking to friends until it was their turn. A few doors down was the poultry shop, still in business, but the Jewish proprietor had been deported. There were only a couple Jewish-run businesses still in operation. Thinking about it, Harry wondered why his father had been so stubborn.

Harry cut over to Frauenstrasse, where his parents’ good friends the Fabers lived in an apartment down the street. He found the building, checked the directory, but Faber was not among the names listed.

Frauenstrasse turned into Blumenstrasse. He took it to Lindwurmstrasse and went left, walked to 125, and went to the rear of the building, to the makeshift synagogue where his family had worshiped since their synagogue on Reichenbachstrasse was destroyed by the Nazis on Kristallnacht in November 1938. The door was locked. There was no one around. Harry didn’t know if people still came here. He didn’t know if there were any Jews left in Munich. It was late afternoon. He took out the bread and sausage Frau Schmidt had given him and ate, leaning against the wall of the building, wondering what he was going to do. He had to get out of Munich, but how?

When it was dark the door opened and an old man came out of the building and saw him.

“What are you doing here?”

“I used to come here with my parents,” Harry said.

“What’s your name?”

“Harry Levin.”

“You’re a Jew, why aren’t you wearing your star? They’ll execute you on the spot.”

“They’re going to kill us all anyway,” Harry said. “Why advertise it?”

“Are you a partisan?”

“Whatever I have to do,” Harry said. “How many of us are left?”

“I don’t know,” the old man said. “The Nazis have taken most of the Jews to the settlement in Milbertshofen, Knorrstrasse 148, and the housing area in Berg am Laim before deporting them to Palestine.”

“They’re not going to Palestine, they’re going to concentration camps: Dachau, Theresienstadt and Auschwitz.” He had this on good faith from prisoners he had met and worked with. Harry could see the bewildered look on the old man’s face. “We have to get out of Germany.”

“Come with me,” the old man said, taking him to the cellar where services were conducted. He gave Harry a name, Recha Sternbuch, and an address on a piece of paper. “If you can get to Montreux, Switzerland, this woman will help you. Do you have money?”

Harry nodded.

“You can take the train. But you will have to bribe the Swiss police. A boy your age traveling alone raises a red flag. I will pray for you.”

Harry slept on a bunk in the cellar of the warehouse synagogue and left the next morning. It was strange walking through the city not wearing the yellow star on his coat, seeing Nazis everywhere. He was nervous at first, and then got used to being disguised as a normal German, no one taunting him, giving him a hard time, no one even noticing him.

He walked two miles to the train station, stood in the terminal, studying the board that listed departures, and bought a ticket to Montreux. He went to track 23. He would be out of Germany, free in a few hours.

The train was there, so he got on and took a seat in the middle of the car next to the window. He watched people come down the aisle and fit their luggage on the overhead rack. He heard the soldiers before he saw them, six SS officers in gray-green uniforms, peaked caps, jodhpurs and black jackboots. They sounded drunk, laughing and talking loudly.

Harry sank down in his seat and looked out the window. A train had just pulled in on the next track and people were getting out. He glanced over at the soldiers, accidentally made eye contact with one of them, and looked away. He saw the man out of the corner of his eye, saw him get up and start down the aisle.

Harry could feel his heart banging in his chest.

“You are traveling alone?”

Harry looked up at him and nodded.

“Where are you going?” He had a pistol in a black holster on his hip.

“Montreux,” Harry said. “To visit my grandmother.”

The Nazi glanced at the empty luggage rack. “What is your name?”

“Volker Spengler.” That was the name on his ID, the name his father had chosen for some reason. Probably because it sounded so German.

The Nazi said, “How old are you, Volker Spengler?”

“Fourteen,” Harry said, trying to stay calm.

The Nazi sat down next to him, and Harry felt his pulse take off. He leaned back against the window, trying to move away from the man, give himself a little room.

“Are you all right? You seem nervous.”

“I’m fine,” Harry said, heart pounding.

The Nazi said, “What do you have to be nervous about?”

“Nothing.” He could feel his palms sweat and rubbed them on his pant legs.

The Nazi was staring at the sleeves of his coat covering half of his hands.

“This is yours? It looks too big for you.”

“My cousin grew out of it and gave it to me.”

“Let me see your papers.”

Harry took the ID out of his shirt pocket and handed it to him. The Nazi opened it, looked at the photograph and back at Harry.