People Like Us

by Louise Fein

  I wake with a start. Pushing myself upright, I peer at the hands of the clock on the mantelpiece, but it’s only five thirty-five. I flop back onto the pillow, the vividness of the dream still with me. It isn’t too late. I could stay here, and everything will be the same. Or I can go, and everything will be different.

  Be a good girl, clean of mind and body. Don’t stray into the path of evil. Be meek. Act only for the welfare of others. That’s what He would tell me. I lie still and wait for His voice. Nothing. I prop up my pillows and recline against them, looking towards Hitler’s portrait over the mantelpiece. It’s fuzzy and unclear in the half-light seeping around the edges of the closed shutters. Still nothing.

  My mind is blank. Empty. Quiet. Blissfully quiet. Could that be permission? Really, what harm can there be? It’s just a walk with an old friend. Nothing more.

  *

  I’m early, of course. Ridiculously so. What will Walter think? That I’m too eager? I hope my long skirt, high-buttoned blouse and shapeless jumper will convince him otherwise. God forbid that he should know what thoughts have really crossed my mind.

  I throw a stick for Kuschi. He brings it back, drops it at my feet and whines until I throw it again. I hurl it into the river and he bounds in, swimming hard against the current to grab it before it floats away. He has no fear of water.

  A sound on the road – a stone clipped by a shoe, scattering across tarmac.

  It’s him. Striding up the lane with his hands in his pockets, hat pulled low over his forehead. He looks up and smiles.

  A million butterflies flutter in my belly.

  ‘You came,’ he says.

  ‘So did you.’

  He laughs, I laugh, and everything melts. My insides; the nippy air; the trees and the hedgerows; the road; the bridge. All soften and bleed together, warmed and muted, running like wet paint on a canvas.

  ‘Let’s walk,’ he says, and we fall into step on the path. We follow the river through a wood where the roofs of scattered houses can be glimpsed through a dense tangle of branches, marking the edge of town. From here the river flows out into wide, undulating farmland. With each step, we put distance between us and Leipzig, and I feel a rising, glorious sense of liberty.

  ‘How was summer camp?’ he asks.

  ‘It was okay.’ I pause, unsure of how much I should reveal of the BDM to an outsider, a possible enemy of the Reich. We step in time with each other on the path.

  ‘You don’t seem very enthusiastic,’ he laughs. ‘But that doesn’t surprise me.’

  ‘Why not?’ I decide to go along with his misinterpretation.

  ‘Because you always were different. Special different, I mean. Like how you ran out of school that awful day and chased after Freda and me…’ He swallows hard.

  ‘It was a long time ago, Walter,’ I say quietly. ‘I’ve changed.’

  He continues as though he didn’t hear. ‘I always admired that about you. Your independence of mind. Your spirit and passion. The way you dreamed of becoming a doctor, even though it was impossible. I knew you were smart, questioned things. Definitely not a blind follower of rules.’ He pauses. ‘I can tell that you, of all people, see the truth behind the rhetoric.’

  I glance at him. His words make my skin feel hot. No one has ever spoken so openly to me. Besides, he makes flaws like independence and questioning of rules sound like good qualities.

  ‘How could you notice all that, when you never took the slightest bit of interest in me?’ I ask.

  ‘Who said I never took any interest in you?’

  ‘You barely noticed I existed.’

  He shakes his head and smiles. ‘Well, that’s where you are entirely wrong, Miss Herta,’ he says with a wink. ‘I noticed much more about you than you might imagine.’

  I feel my cheeks redden.

  ‘So, what do you plan to do when you leave school?’ Walter asks, changing the subject.

  ‘I’d like to go to university.’ I sigh. ‘But Vati doesn’t want me to. Besides, it’s terribly complicated to get to university these days if you’re a girl. And Vati would need to approve. Of course, I’ve had to give up that silly dream of being a doctor. How I wish I’d been born a boy.’

  ‘I’m rather glad you weren’t.’ I feel his eyes on me and my skin burns even hotter. ‘I think you would make an excellent doctor,’ he adds.

  ‘And how on earth would you know that? You haven’t seen me since I was twelve.’

  Herr Metzger’s warnings flicker through my mind. Should I be wary of these compliments? Is he trying to ingratiate himself?

  ‘People don’t change,’ Walter is saying, ‘not deep down. You’re still the same girl inside, I’m sure of it. Anyway, do you want to know the thing I really used to like about you?’ He’s smiling again.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You laughed at all my jokes, however bad they were – and some were truly dreadful. That’s earned you a special place in my heart.’

  I smile. ‘And do you still tell terrible jokes?’

  ‘Of course!’ He puts his head on one side and looks at me. ‘Did you hear about the dog who used to chase people on bikes?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘In the end,’ he says, looking deeply serious, ‘they had to take his bike away!’

  ‘Oh,’ I laugh, ‘I see the jokes haven’t improved. And are you the same boy you always were?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘So… do you still strip down to your underwear in front of girls before you swim in the lake? And, do you still get cross and stamp your feet when you can’t be the cowboy with the rifle, because you have to be the Indian with just a bow and arrow?’

  ‘Yes. Most certainly. And what, Miss Herta, is wrong with that?’ He swipes playfully at my arm. ‘Everyone knows it’s much better to be the cowboy with the proper weapon. And besides, it will be a very lucky girl who gets to see me in my underwear!’

  Blushing furiously now, I begin to run so he can’t see my face. I call over my shoulder, ‘Race you to the big tree!’

  Kuschi barks with excitement and shoots off down the path ahead of me. I focus on the tree, chin up, pump my arms and legs. But his feet thump closer and closer behind me. In a flash, he is overtaking and accelerates away, finishing lengths ahead. I might as well have been walking.

  He waits by the tree, hands on hips, chest rising and falling. ‘As I recall,’ he says with a wink, ‘you never did beat me at running.’

  ‘Well, you obviously haven’t learnt when its polite to let a girl win!’

  ‘And if I had? I’d’ve let you win on purpose and you wouldn’t have liked that either.’

  It’s just like being eleven years old again.

  I march straight past him and he runs to catch up. ‘See?’ he says, ‘I’ve proved my point. People don’t really change as much as they think they do.’

  He’s right, of course. I would have felt cheated. I give him a light-hearted thump, and without really understanding why, we are both laughing once again, and I’m glad he won. He is the boy, after all.

  We follow the course of the river through a field of ripening yellow wheat. It’s waist high and grows right up to the edge of the path. Kuschi dives into it, chasing something. He disappears, re-emerging further up the path, tongue lolling from his mouth.

  There is not another soul to be seen and the city is far behind us. Walter’s presence is bedazzling. So easy, but alarming. Like being with a rare and magnificent tiger. It seems tame, and I’m enthralled by its beauty, but it has the power to destroy me.

  ‘Is it true,’ I ask quietly, ‘what they say? About this Conspiracy of International Jewry to take over the world?’

  ‘Well, if there is one, I’m certainly not a part of it. Nor anyone else I know.’

  I laugh at my own stupidity. Of course he wouldn’t tell me, even if he was part of it.

  ‘Seriously, Hetty, you can’t really believe these lies?’ He looks at me with worried eyes.

  I think
carefully before speaking. He might be different, but the rest of his kind are to be feared.

  ‘We’ve suffered. Us Germans, I mean. Ever since the punishment of Versailles. So much poverty and hardship as a result.’

  ‘You say “us Germans”,’ Walter says, plucking a head of wheat and pulling it apart, dropping the pieces at his feet as he walks. ‘Can’t you see that I’m German too? That is all I am. I’m more German, even, than you!’

  ‘What on earth do you mean by that?’

  ‘You have a French mother. My family have lived in Germany for generations. I’ve always been proud to be German. My father was decorated with the Iron Cross for his bravery in the war, fighting for Germany. And how has he been repaid? By being stripped of his citizenship and his livelihood! We are aliens in our own country.’ His eyes are wide and he waves his hands with passion. He frowns and taps his temple. ‘Remind me, I forget – was your father decorated for bravery in the war?’

  ‘No. He was brave, though, but he was overlooked for a medal. It was a travesty.’

  ‘Really? Well, he’s doing all right now, isn’t he? We, on the other hand, have seen our business destroyed, our lives turned upside down. Just imagine, for a moment, how that is, will you? Imagine how your country wants to be rid of you. A devoted German citizen, yet you have nowhere else to go.’

  Satan is clever and has a way with words. Do not believe all that the devil seeks to tell you.

  ‘What do you mean, stripped of your citizenship and livelihood? You’re not making sense.’ I imagine what Vati would say if he was listening to this.

  Walter takes a deep breath. ‘They have taken away our passports, Hetty. If we want to leave the country, we must pay something called an exit tax.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Essentially, it’s an exorbitant amount of money we would have to pay the Government. We’d have to give them everything we own.’ Walter speaks slowly, patiently, as though I am a small child. ‘Our house, our valuables. They tax our business on its value back in 1930 when it was worth ten, twenty times what it is now. Being a Jewish business means banks, if they lend to us at all, charge us interest rates five times higher than any other business. And nobody will buy from us, other than a few loyal customers, mostly foreign ones. They have strangled us almost into bankruptcy. It’s simply sheer determination not to be beaten that has kept my uncle and my father going these last few years.’

  ‘I think you are taking it all too personally,’ I find myself saying. ‘The Nazis have rescued the nation. I think you’ve forgotten the dire state we were all in after the war. You can hardly blame the Party when it was the Jews who were behind the shocking terms of the peace treaty which resulted in all our suffering—’

  ‘Do you really think a bunch of conniving Jews forced the hands of those governments who signed that treaty?’ Walter’s face reddens as he speaks. He’s angry. I have prodded the tiger. ‘According to our Führer, Jews are the instigators behind the tyranny of capitalism AND communism. Two opposing ideologies. Why? Ask yourself, Hetty? The Jews behind everything that is bad? It’s simple and easy to blame us for all that is wrong. And people believe what they want to believe, whether the evidence is there or not.’

  His words sting, and I squirm beneath the force of them. But he’s being unfair. We’re not personally responsible for his family’s bad fortune.

  ‘Well, none of this is my father’s fault. People have always been jealous of his success.’

  Walter stops walking. His eyes search my face. ‘You don’t know, do you?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘How you came by your home.’

  ‘What do you mean? What’s this got to do with anything?’

  And now there he sits, like a lord in his stolen house.

  This is not how this morning is supposed to go.

  ‘You really don’t know, do you?’ he repeats.

  ‘Well, what then?’ I shout at him. ‘If you know something, tell me! How can you blame me for not knowing something if I’ve not been told?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I just thought…’

  ‘Please tell me,’ I repeat, quieter now.

  Wissen ist macht. Knowledge is power.

  We walk again, side by side, along the dusty path.

  He takes a deep breath. ‘The family who owned the house you now live in were Jewish acquaintances of my parents. They were much wealthier and better connected than us and Herr Drucker was the ultimate boss of your father. He owned and edited the Leipziger. But the National Socialists don’t like Jews controlling newspapers. So, a number of people – your father and the Mayor amongst them – got together and concocted stories about Herr Drucker to oust him. Corruption, tax evasion, that sort of thing. All made up of course. The whole case went to court, heard by Judge Fuchs, a big supporter of the Nazi party, who was only too happy to oblige with a favourable judgement against Drucker.’

  ‘These are terrible accusations!’ I cry. ‘Why should I believe you?’

  ‘You don’t have to. But it’s the inconvenient truth.’ The look in his eyes is honest. His expression hard. Is this the truth? Or, what he has been told is the truth?

  I look out across the wheat-gold field and remember the day we moved in. The fancy furniture, the artwork, the crystal and silver all left in the house. Like fitting pieces of a puzzle together, a picture emerges. Why would anyone leave such treasured things behind?

  ‘So, what happened to the Drucker family?’ I ask. ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. My guess is they left Germany.’

  ‘How could you know all this?’

  ‘The day my father told me what had happened was the very first time I felt fear. And shame.’

  ‘Shame?’

  ‘I wanted to be like everyone else. Like Karl, I wanted to join the Hitlerjugend and do my bit for Germany. I didn’t see why I should be excluded.’

  I look at him and our eyes meet. I want to believe him.

  I look away.

  But I don’t want to believe him. With all my heart, I don’t.

  Something twists in my chest and I want him to stop. ‘You’re giving me a warped version of the truth. Vati got to where he is by sheer hard work. He’s not some kind of – of lazy criminal. You have to be wrong, Walter. You’ve been fed lies.’

  ‘Why would I tell you something so serious if it were wrong, Hetty? I have nothing to gain and everything to fear by telling you this. Think about it.’

  I watch the river flowing between the grassy banks.

  ‘You must know, better than most,’ Walter adds, ‘where they send people who speak up against the authorities. Concentration camps. Without a proper, fair trial. Hard labour; terrible conditions. For indefinite periods of time. Rumour has it they even carry out executions there. There’s no doubt people are shot if they try to escape. The SS have recently opened another camp not so far away – near Weimar. Why would I risk telling you a pack of lies? You only need to say one word to your vati and—’

  ‘Oh Walter, I’d never do that,’ I breathe. ‘Besides, I don’t know much about these camps. Vati rarely talks of such things. To me, anyway.’

  Kuschi appears from the edge of the wheat field and nudges his nose into my palm. I scratch his ears as he walks beside me, then he dashes off again, disappearing beneath the waving heads of wheat.

  ‘If you knew all this at the time, why didn’t you say something?’ I ask. ‘Why did you stay friends with Karl and continue to visit?’

  Walter sighs. ‘Because I was an idiot. I never told my parents I was around your house all the time. They’d have gone mad at me if they knew. But I was so ashamed to be Jewish I didn’t tell anybody, and I don’t think Karl realised, not for a while anyway. I don’t look like the stereotype, so I suppose he had no reason to suspect and I desperately wanted to be like any other normal, patriotic German boy. It was only after he joined the Hitlerjugend and I didn’t that he figured it out. One day, he just cut me off. He n
ever explained.’ He presses his lips together and kicks at the ground. ‘He didn’t need to.’

  We walk on in silence. I think of our big house, of which I have always been so proud. And Vati. Vati, who calls me Schnuffel and loves me. Vati, who tells us all the time how far he has come in this life. How honest, hard labour reaps great rewards and how Germany can be great once the selfish, dishonest Jewish race is banished and the terrible morals of inferior foreigners are wiped out.

  And here he sits in his stolen house? Could it be true?

  Walter looks at his watch. ‘We should head back,’ he says. ‘It’s not that I want to, but…’

  We’ve reached the end of the field. The path winds into the relative darkness of the woods which lie beyond.

  ‘Yes. Me too.’

  We turn around and retrace our steps. Kuschi lollops past, long pieces of wheat heads sticking from his collar. He looks comical with the yellow fronds waving as he runs. We laugh at him, and the tension is gone. The air is peaceful once more and the morning floats with the sound of birdsong and the ripe, sweet smell of late summer.

  Back at the bridge we stand facing each other. I run my fingers back and forth over the rough surface of the stone wall.

  ‘Well, I guess this is it then,’ he says softly. ‘It was lovely to see you again.’

  ‘Yes. It’s a shame…’ I look into his face at last.

  Those fine blue eyes.

  The world tips, just a little.

  ‘Let’s shake hands and hope that sometime in the future we can be friends again.’ His hand is warm and strong. I fight an urge to step closer and take a breath of him. Shaking hands is too formal.

  ‘Walter,’ I begin, staring at my feet and his, facing each other on the dirt path, ‘Heaven knows what you must think of me, and I know it’s mad and stupid, and wrong, but can’t we meet here again, like this? There is no real harm, is there?’