In Another Time

by Jillian Cantor

  But Max could not forget what he’d seen when he’d gone into the closet, the flashes of memory returning to him time after time. He felt this incessant need to pay attention, to look closely, keep track of everything, so that if or when it came time, he would be there to save Hanna. He would change the future he saw for her and protect her.

  In April the SA declared a boycott of all Jewish shops and businesses, and Max thought for sure everyone else around him would finally take notice.

  “Hitler can say whatever he wants,” Elsa said, sounding more flabbergasted than alarmed. “But I’ve always bought my bread from Feinstein. Where else would I get it from?”

  And most people agreed with Elsa. The boycott only lasted one day because the German citizens, the people Max had known all his life, did not want to follow such a thing.

  “See,” Hanna said to him, the following evening. “We’re still more powerful than one man. Us Germans are not going to let anything terrible happen like you keep saying.”

  Then she tucked her violin under her chin and she closed her eyes and played. The music echoed through his shop in a way that felt natural now. When Hanna wasn’t there, the shop was too quiet; he missed the sound of her music, almost as much as he missed her.

  “How’s Frau Feinstein?” Max asked Herr Feinstein when he walked outside to unlock his shop the next morning, and Feinstein was out front of his own shop, sweeping the sidewalk. Max asked after Frau Feinstein every time he saw Herr Feinstein on Hauptstrasse these days, a question that Feinstein always seemed puzzled by from his slight frown in response. Max had known the Feinsteins since he was a young boy, and he had never thought to ask after Frau Feinstein before he had glimpsed a future where something terrible had happened to her.

  “She’s well. Very good,” Feinstein said now, sweeping. “But me? My sciatica is acting up.” He stopped sweeping for a moment, put his hands on top of his broom, and looked around. “And I will tell you, Maxwell, I’m too old for this.”

  Max couldn’t tell whether he was talking about his sciatic pain or about Hitler. Though technically they were supposed to, neither one of them had moved to salute the other. “You could close the shop,” Max suggested. “Retire. Maybe leave Germany?”

  “And why would I leave Germany?” Feinstein arched his eyebrows. “I was born in Germany. I’ve lived my whole life in Germany. I’m a German.”

  Max understood; he felt the same way. It was hard to imagine leaving everything he’d ever known, leaving his country. Why should they have to go? It was their home. But he didn’t know how much longer staying would truly be an option for any of them either.

  Herr Feinstein stopped sweeping and clapped Max gently on the shoulder. “Let me get you a loaf of bread, mein Junge,” he said kindly, just as he had so many other mornings. The gesture was so fatherly, and it suddenly made Max long for his own father. If only his father were still here, he could help Max sort out everything happening in Germany, help convince Feinstein and everyone around them to take the growing threats seriously.

  But when Feinstein handed him the bread, what else was there for Max to do now but take it and return to his shop, alone? And life moved on still, just as it always had.

  In May Hanna had a recital in Berlin with a quartet group she played with at the Lyceum. It was a concert in the public square to celebrate springtime, the coming of summer, and the end of the term at the Lyceum. Several student groups had been invited to play. Hanna had played in it the year before also, but Max hadn’t thought twice about it then. This year he worried. Universities had begun firing Jewish professors, but so far Hanna’s teacher had escaped being let go at the Lyceum because of his rare talent. It was not the same as a professor of mathematics or science, Hanna said, who seemed to be more easily replaceable. Herr Fruchtenwalder could not be replaced, and even Hitler cared about music.

  “It’s like you want to invite trouble in,” Max said to her, as she tried to dismiss his concerns about the night concert in the city. This May was not the same as last May. Four students, two of them Jewish, playing in the public square, after dark? He couldn’t imagine them being well received.

  “Playing is inviting trouble? Oh, Max, really.” Hanna sighed.

  He tried to wrap his arms around her, hold on to her in a hug, as if his body could make her understand more than his words could.

  But she shrugged away. “Music is different. No one cares if you’re Jewish or anything else. They only care what you sound like. And I need to practice.”

  The train was crowded, almost buzzing, as Max got on to ride it into Berlin the next evening. There was something palpable in the air, a current of excitement. He took his seat, and then as he looked around, he noticed something odd. Almost everyone was carrying books, and not just one book, but stacks of them. Where had people gotten so many books? Not his shop, certainly.

  “What’s going on?” Max asked the man in the seat next to him, who had four books in his lap: H. G. Wells, Hemingway, John Dos Passos, and Heinrich Heine, all of which Max had read and sold in his shop.

  “We’re lighting them up.” The man laughed, excited.

  “Lighting them up?” Max pictured a stack of books illuminated, aglow in the streetlamps. But he knew from experience, people had not been that interested in books since 1929, before the market crashed in America, setting off an economic ripple all throughout the world. It didn’t make any sense.

  “There’s going to be a big bonfire at the Opernplatz,” the man said. “We’re going to burn all the anti-German books.”

  Burn them? Books were treasures, his entire life and work. How could they be burning them?

  Hanna’s quartet was supposed to play not too far from the Opernplatz. His fear for her was not imagined, as she kept insisting, and not something far off in the future, either, but real. Right here. Here were these men, amped up at the idea of destroying ideas, stories. Beautiful books. They’d think nothing of doing the same with music, or hurting people making music. Max felt sure of it.

  “You’re welcome to come,” the man said. “Doesn’t matter if you haven’t brought any with you. I hear they already brought the entire library from the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft out into the square. There’ll be plenty for everyone.” He stared at Max expectantly, as if waiting for him to say thank you for the generous invitation.

  “I-I-I can’t,” Max stammered. “I have other plans tonight.”

  “Ah, well suit yourself then.” He eyed Max up and down. “You’re not a Commie, are you? Or a Jew?” As if his lack of eagerness to participate in burning books made him either one, or both.

  “No,” Max said. “I just . . . have other plans,” he repeated. Then added, hoping to shut him up, “With my Freundin.”

  For a little while it did, until the train stopped in Berlin and they both stood to get off. “You know, you can bring her if you want,” he said to Max. “It’s a good night to be a German. You wouldn’t want to miss it.”

  Max just nodded, as if he’d take it under consideration. The man saluted him with the Hitlergruss and Max saluted back. As he got off the train, the night air was warm, and the scent of diesel filled his lungs, and for a few moments he just stood there, unable to catch his breath.

  When he did, he started running toward the concert, which would be held outside, in the square just south of the Opernplatz. He could already see the smoke from the fire in the distance, and he wanted to cry. All those precious books going up in flames, all those awful people cheering it on.

  He reached the square, and Hanna was standing with the other three members of her group, her violin in her hand, her back to him. Though there were chairs set up for a large crowd, only a few were filled.

  “Hanna.” He was out of breath, sweating from running so hard. He grabbed her arm, and he felt better once he touched her, as if by holding her, he could keep her safe.

  She spun around, and she smiled. “You came!”

  “You can’t play tonight. We h
ave to go.”

  “What? Max . . . ?” Her face turned; now she was annoyed. And she pulled out of his grasp.

  “They’re burning books in the Opernplatz. A lot of books.”

  She glanced off into the distance. “So that’s where the smoke is coming from.” She turned back to him, her face softened a little. “I know how much you love books.”

  It wasn’t about the books. It was about their sheer delight, the number of people wanting to burn them, the horrifying energy of the men on the train. And only because what, they believed some books to be anti-German? What else did they think was anti-German? Music, played by a beautiful Jewish woman?

  “I can’t just leave them here in the lurch.” Hanna motioned with her head to the other three members of her quartet.

  “You could cancel the concert,” Max said. “It’s not safe for any of you, and there’s barely anyone here to listen.”

  “We have to play,” she said. She jutted out her chin, put her hands on her hips, but her voice trembled a little as she spoke. “None of us will pass Chamber Quartet if we don’t.”

  “Hanna, I’m sure your teacher will understand.” He reached for her again, but she pulled away.

  “Max, stop. I have to get ready. If you want to listen to the concert, then have a seat. I’ll find you after. If you’re so worried, then go home.” She turned and walked off to go stand with the other three members of her group. There was no way he was leaving, so what else could he do now but take a seat?

  The quartet began to play, and instead of closing his eyes, listening, enjoying the music as he normally would’ve, he could barely concentrate on it; as his heart pounded against his chest, adrenaline pumped through his veins. In the distance the noise of a crowd yelling, cheering, grew louder and louder. The quartet seemed to get softer and softer. The smell of smoke filled his lungs.

  In Berlin tonight, all the beautiful books were burning; all the beautiful music was dying.

  This is not my country, he thought. This is not my Germany.

  Later that night, the acrid smoke still burning his lungs, Max exhaled loudly, relieved after walking Hanna safely home to her apartment. The train back to Hauptstrasse was quiet. Books were still burning in Berlin, and the men who’d rode the train out with him were still there celebrating.

  When he got back to his shop, he looked around, running his hands across the shelves. How many of these would those men consider anti-German? He had English books. Books by Jewish authors. Books by American authors. His eyes lingered on a copy of Buch der Lieder by Heinrich Heine, the same book that the man on the train had been holding.

  And then he remembered a play Heine had written that his father had given him to read as a teenager. He couldn’t remember the name, or even much of what the play was about, but he remembered a line that had chilled him even then, when he’d read it. He’d underlined it and showed it to Johann:

  Where they burn books, Heine had written, they will, in the end, burn human beings too.

  Hanna, 1948–1949

  The new orchestra season began in September, and I was still not a part of it. Maestro Philip moved the second chair violin, Charles, into Stuart’s old seat, and then rather than holding auditions for Charles’s seat, he offered it to a man who’d had it before the war and who’d been recovering from his injuries for the past few years. He’d lost his right leg, below the knee, but he had a fake one now, and he was ready to play violin again.

  “You are number one on my substitute list, Hanna,” Maestro told me when I went to inquire about the seat, and inwardly I’d wanted to scream. I didn’t want to be a substitute, a stand-in. I didn’t want to be a sometimes violinist, only when the orchestra needed someone in a pinch. I wanted the violin to be my job, my entire life. I wanted my own seat.

  I wrote to Stuart to tell him the news, and then I eagerly checked the post each day, waiting for his reply, believing he would write me something back that would make me feel better. But for months, nothing came. And then I stopped believing I’d hear from him again. It seemed fairly clear: Stuart had given up on the violin, and on me. And I felt his absence as a loss, another missing piece in my world.

  But I was used to that, and so I moved forward. I continued to practice my violin each day after work and picking up the boys. I had nothing specific to practice for, but not practicing would be giving up, and I was not going to do that.

  I found myself wandering into bookshops that winter. The first time, it was on a whim. I was meandering through the West End on a Saturday. It still felt odd, even after a few years, not to be observing the Sabbath. Julia had put the boys on a football team, and they practiced on Saturday mornings. I usually walked them back and forth to practice while Julia and Friedrich were busy doing something else. And then I wandered around during their practice, having no interest in watching a bunch of boys kick a ball around. That’s when I first walked into the Ivy Bookshop, a purveyor of new and used books that had opened up on Carnaby Street.

  There was something about the place, when I first walked inside, that brought everything back. The smell of the paper or the binding glue, or maybe it was the rows and rows of books on high shelves, or the young man sitting behind the counter, offering to help me find anything I needed. When I was inside the Ivy Bookshop, for a little while, I felt that same thing as when I played violin with Stuart: I was home.

  I browsed the shelves, week after week, and the young man behind the counter asked me what I was looking for. “I don’t know,” I told him honestly. He laughed and asked if I wanted a suggestion, but I told him I just wanted to look around.

  I thought of Max, that day so many years ago now, when he showed up at the Lyceum with a biography of Beethoven, trying to win my affection. How I’d pretended to have already read it just to have an excuse to go to his shop, to see him again that very same night. How I kept accepting his books and his stories and his suggestions, just to keep coming and seeing him at first, and how in time, I eventually came to love them, to read them, to understand how books were to Max what the violin was to me.

  “Do you have anything in German, Allen?” I asked the man one Saturday afternoon that February. I’d already come in enough times that I now knew his name and that the used section of the store was impossibly large. Finding a German book in there would be like finding a needle in a haystack. I only had an hour while the boys were at practice, and it was easier to ask than to continue to browse through myself.

  Allen motioned for me to follow him. The shop was busy today, not like Max’s shop, which was almost always quiet. And we had to walk through a crowd to get to the back of the used section. “I keep all the books in other languages here, but German books . . .” His eyes scanned the shelves, his fingertips brushing over the spines the same way Max’s used to, and my breath caught in my chest. “Not many people looking for German anything these days,” he said.

  It was a strange thing, that in the years I couldn’t remember, being German had come to only mean being a Nazi. But Germans are the enemy, Lev told me not too long ago when he heard me telling a friend of Julia’s who’d come to the house that I was one. Julia had laughed uneasily and clarified to her friend that I considered myself a Brit now. But I wasn’t officially, and I didn’t see myself that way either. In my heart, I was a German. I would always be a German.

  “Ah, here’s one!” Allen plucked a book from the shelf and handed it to me. Another customer clamored for his attention, and he told me to come up front if I wanted to buy it.

  I turned the book over in my hands, a volume of poems by Erich Kästner. I’d never read him, but I knew they’d burned his books in Berlin after Hitler came to power because Max had told me; he had been a fan of his work. And then it, like so much else, went up in smoke. I was playing that night in an outdoor quartet, and we’d heard the cheers, watched the smoke rise. I’d never been more terrified, but we continued to play because stopping would’ve meant we were giving up, giving in. Letting the Nazi
s win. I didn’t think the Nazis would ever win, but somehow, impossibly, they had.

  Max had read this book once. He’d left it the first morning I met him at the Lyceum, and I’d tracked him down from the name and address of his shop stamped in the back. I’d thought Max was sort of cute, with his green eyes and his light brown curls and his impish smile. I’d never really noticed boys before him; I was too focused on my studies and violin to care. But then there Max was one morning, almost out of the blue, staring at me as if my violin had mesmerized him, enchanted him. It was instantly endearing.

  I opened the book up now, wanting it to be the same one, looking for the Beissinger Buchhandlung stamp in the back, wanting to touch something again that Max had once touched. But of course it wasn’t there. This was another copy, someone else’s book. Still, I went to the counter and bought it, took it home, and then I read it secretively at night in my room. Not because I didn’t want to explain to the boys and Julia that I was still a German and still needed to read my own language, but more because the poems made me think of Max. For the first time since I woke up in the field, I felt close to him, reading the same words that I knew he had years before. The poems made me weep. And I didn’t want the boys to see me like that.

  I read the poems each night before bed, and then I began to dream so many dreams of Max. We were always back there together, in his shop, among all the books, and then Max would grab on to me, he would implore me: Please, Hanna. Please, you have to leave with me. We have to go. Now.

  I can’t leave yet, I have the orchestra.

  And then again, there was the man, the Nazi, holding the gun to my head, telling me to play. To play for my life. And then Max was gone. I was all alone.

  I would wake up filled with fear, and regret. Why hadn’t I listened? Why hadn’t I left with Max when I’d still had the chance?