People Like Us

by Louise Fein

  I jump off at the next stop. The street is busy and I turn to cross the road to head towards Thomaskirche. A crowd of young men pass me, heading in the opposite direction, down Gottschedstrasse. On a whim, I follow them. The air becomes heavy. My throat stings and my lungs heave.

  Smoke!

  I reach the corner of Gottschedstrasse and Zentralstrasse and stop. I’m facing the building Walter took me to that first time we came into the city together. I remember how I stood outside the synagogue, feeling such shame and anger as I waited for him. I see his face as it was then, proud and excited, filled with love as he presented me with the Kafka from beneath his jacket. I let out an involuntary sob. People turn and stare at me.

  Heat is intense on my bare skin and I gape at the flames engulfing the synagogue, licking skywards, roaring and crackling. The fire is consuming the whole building, curling from the windows and underneath the roof. A crowd is assembled, watching the spectacle from a safe distance away. A fire engine stands in front of the building, the firemen leaning idly on their vehicle, watching the inferno.

  ‘Why do they do nothing?’ I ask the man standing next to me.

  ‘They won’t save the synagogue,’ he answers, ‘but they stand by in case the fire should spread to German property.’

  ‘But – what if there are people in there?’ I say, my chest tightening. What about the Rabbi? ‘Shouldn’t we do something?’

  The man shrugs his shoulders. ‘Be my guest,’ he sniffs.

  And what of the Kafka? The prospect of the book Walter so lovingly presented and I later rejected, being consumed by the flames, is more than I can bear.

  I slip around the back of the gawkers. To one side of the burning building lies a pile of books and papers. Two men have set fire to that too. A desolate little group stand silently watching. The only one to speak is a little boy who asks, ‘Why do they burn our things? Those are our things!’

  Nobody answers.

  Turning, I run through the centre of old Leipzig. Here, nothing is changed. It could be any ordinary evening. People out for a stroll, visiting the bars and restaurants. How can they, the thoughtless swine? I run faster until my chest is fit to explode.

  At the top of the Brühl, I slow to a walk, drawing the air in great, heaving gasps. There are clusters of men, strange sounds, shouting.

  I hug the walls of the buildings as I enter the street, but soon abandon this. The safest place to walk is in the middle of the road. The air is filled with acrid smoke and mobs of boys and men smash the windows of shops, battering in doors, yelling as they loot the contents. They don’t even notice what they grab – anything, great armfuls of it. They whoop in delight. The pavements shimmer with shattered glass. Policemen stand around making no attempt to stop the madness.

  Two men emerge from a covered passageway next to a tailor’s shop just in front of me. The windows, like so many others, have been broken and some boys, no older than fourteen, are grabbing piles of cloth from inside. The two men cry out and jostle past me as they rush forward to save their possessions. I huddle, frozen in fear, against the wall as other men push past. A crowd rolls in, surrounding the men, hiding them from view.

  These men, no longer fathers, brothers, sons, are wild creatures, smelling blood and power and chaos. The veneer of civilisation is shattering, revealing the true nature of man – wild and dangerous; beast.

  I watch, my feet stuck like glue to the road. I had half expected some sort of army of Jews out on the streets, locking arms with the National Socialist defenders. Not this. This is just thugs, running amuck, belligerently smashing up shops.

  I should leave. It isn’t safe and surely Walter isn’t here?

  I turn to retrace my steps, but see up ahead, on the right, a sign for Keller & Co. It’s stupid and unlikely that he’s there, but I don’t know where else to go. I make my way slowly down the crowded, narrow street. Another window is smashed. Shrieks of victory. The smoke-filled air is choking and hot.

  What the hell am I doing here?

  And hell-like it is. All these men, high on violence and destruction. My bowels shift. I should just turn back, go home. Poor Bertha, risking all she has for me. Even if I find Walter, what could I possibly do?

  A movement catches my eye. A youth. Something familiar about his shape, the way he lunges forward. I look again.

  Tomas.

  Tomas, but not in uniform as he should be when on HJ business. Tomas, full of fury, wielding a pickaxe. He’s amongst a group about his age, some younger. It’s his Schar, but why in civilian clothes? He shouts something and the mob attack the window of a department store. He turns, as though he senses me watching. He shouts to me, but I don’t hear what he says. I stay rooted and he drops his axe and runs to me.

  ‘Hetty! What the hell are you doing? You must go home, it’s not safe out here.’

  I nod dumbly.

  ‘Does your father know you’re out?’

  ‘No! I mean, yes. I-I was with friends, but I heard all this commotion and came to see…’

  ‘C’mon, I’ll take you home.’ Tomas wraps his arm around my shoulder and begins walking me up the street. I let him guide me, suddenly weak, limp, as though I can’t hold my own weight.

  ‘Why are you here, Tomas? What’s happening? Why aren’t you in uniform?’

  ‘Orders.’ He taps his nose, as though it’s all subject to secrecy. ‘Destroy or be destroyed, that’s the choice, Hetty. I should get back there, but I’ll see you safely home, or at least onto a tram first.’

  Our feet crunch on broken glass. My throat is raw and my eyes sting. Shouts to the left. Two men, roughly dressed, drag an elderly man in a suit from his shop door, out into the street, right in front of us.

  ‘Fuck you! Fuck you all!’ yells the old man, resisting. He pulls an arm free and with lightning speed throws a fist into the face of one of his captors.

  ‘Stupid bastard!’ shouts the punched man and they start to beat the older man. Blow after blow. The man is screaming, high-pitched; desperate. A raw animal sound which penetrates me, deep inside. The man is down, twisting and turning on the pavement. They kick him, vicious and hard.

  ‘Look away.’ Tomas’s voice in my ear, but I can’t.

  His yells are reduced to whimpers.

  They are battering the life from his body.

  ‘Stop,’ I say, ‘STOP! Do something!’ I turn to Tomas, but he stands and does nothing. ‘Jesus Christ, they’re killing him,’ I yell. Everything goes black around me, except a red-tinged vision of the old man and the two men kicking him, in the centre, as if I’m seeing it through a camera lens. I lurch towards them.

  Strong arms hold me back. I struggle against them, crying out. The men don’t stop, they continue beating him until he whimpers no more.

  ‘Leave it, Hetty, come away,’ Tomas is saying in my ear, gripping my arms so hard it hurts.

  The men stop. Chests heaving, they look at me.

  ‘Get her out of here,’ they tell Tomas. ‘She’s a liability. This is no place for a girl.’ And they walk away, leaving an inert body, twisted and bloody, in amongst the dirt, the glass, the shit on the road.

  Tomas drags me firmly by the shoulders, manoeuvring me past the dead man, propelling me away from hell.

  We wait at the tram stop. Everything looks the same. The wooden shelter. The single street lamp throwing out its paltry glow. Away from the horror unfolding in the Brühl, it’s eerily quiet. I wish I could forget what I just witnessed, but I know, with absolute certainty, that I never will. The brutal violence. The way those men wanted to kill another human being. His desperate cries for help as he writhed in agony in the dirt. It replays and replays, blinding me from my surroundings.

  I did nothing. I stood and watched the life drain from him. I didn’t even offer comfort in his death throes. What sort of person does that make me? Complicit?

  And Walter? What if it’s Walter’s body kicked and battered, lying in a gutter somewhere? A noise escapes from deep within
. I’ve not found Walter.

  Tomas peers down at me. ‘Are you going to be okay?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I lie, clenching my teeth to stop them chattering.

  I’ve lost track of time and check my watch. I’m surprised only an hour has gone by. I can still get home and Bertha will be happy.

  A tram turns the corner, its light piercing the gloom as it trundles towards us.

  ‘Thanks for looking after me, Tomas. I’m fine now. Really.’

  ‘I need to get back.’ He looks towards the Brühl. ‘But I should make sure you get home safe.’ He looks down at me.

  ‘Seriously,’ I try to laugh, ‘I’ll be home in five minutes. I’m fine.’

  The tram passes slowly, then, metal screeching on the line, it comes to a stop.

  ‘Tomas,’ I muster all my strength to look straight at his eyes without wavering. ‘Thank you for taking care of me. I will be perfectly safe. Go back to your duties.’ I force my face into a smile, jump on the tram and wave.

  ‘Go!’ I say lightly. ‘I’ll see you soon, I promise.’

  I watch him standing there as the tram pulls away, legs slightly apart, torn between his duty and my safe-keeping. He raises a hand finally and then turns to go.

  Nausea and a wave of dizziness overwhelm me. I sink onto a wooden bench, my head falling to my knees.

  Walter. Please just be alive.

  *

  I can’t stop shaking. That contorted body, splattered blood. The head, crushed, face down in the road. Maybe he had a wife. Children. Grandchildren. People who loved him, called him nicknames, laughed with him. Not anymore.

  The image of his face morphs into Walter’s. I begin to retch. I can’t stop it and I get off the tram halfway up Hindenburgstrasse and vomit at the side of the road. My stomach heaves and heaves. But I don’t feel any better when I’ve finished. Still shaking, I walk up the main road towards where Walter told me his grandmother’s house lies. Perhaps he is safely home now.

  It’s quieter than the city centre, but a smell of burning pervades the air, even here. It’s as if war has broken out in the centre of our most civilised city. I feel as though I’m walking through a hideous dream I can’t wake from.

  There’s another fire ahead. It’s hard to know, but it could be Walter’s house. A fire engine is parked in the street. Again, the firemen stand idly by, watching.

  I stare up at the elegant façade, flames taking hold, roaring from within. The rock in my stomach grows. From what Walter’s told me of it, I’m certain this is his house.

  I push my way to the front of the gawping crowd.

  ‘What happened to the occupants?’ I ask a woman, staring up at the flames with her two young sons.

  ‘They fled – squealing like rats from a burning barn,’ she replies, curling her mouth downwards, her face as sour as her words. ‘That idiot, Schloss,’ she waves a hand at the greengrocer’s shop across the road, ‘took the women in. Gestapo arrested the men.’

  ‘The men?’ I echo. ‘What men? Where have they taken them?’

  Am I too late? I swallow the sour bile in my mouth.

  ‘Shipped them off to God knows where for the night. ’Bout time too,’ she adds, sniffing hard. ‘Been complaining about them for months. Having Jews in our midst like that – heaven knows what they might have done to our kids. Been living in fear, you know, it’s awful. I told Schloss, not that he listens to me, I told him he’s making trouble.’

  I push my way roughly back through the crowd and run across the road to the greengrocers. ‘Hateful, rotten cow,’ I say out loud. Please let that horrible woman be wrong. Please don’t let them have Walter.

  Herr Schloss stands in a narrow doorway, to the side of the shop, talking to a bunch of angry youths.

  ‘You’re as bad as they are, if you hide the buggers in with you,’ one is saying.

  ‘Send ’em out,’ adds another.

  ‘These are women and children, frightened to death. I’m not sending them out to face you lot,’ Schloss tells them firmly.

  ‘Then we’ll have to smash your windows in and fetch ’em out ourselves,’ says the first youth, raising a wooden bat.

  ‘Now, now!’ Herr Schloss raises his hands. ‘Be reasonable. You’ve no argument with these poor souls. Look, I’ve no wish to have ’em in my place, I can tell you. But their house is burning down and they’ve nowhere to go tonight.’ He points at the burning building. ‘I’ll send them on their way first thing. You’ve no argument with me, lads.’

  The boys exchange glances.

  ‘They’ll be gone first thing in the morning, I give you my word,’ Herr Schloss repeats firmly.

  ‘They’d better be,’ growls one of the youths. ‘We’ll be back early, Schloss, and if they’re not, expect the worst.’ He turns and walks away, the others following him.

  Herr Schloss steps back to close the door and I rush forward.

  ‘Please!’ I shove my foot in the doorway. ‘Please! I want to help.’

  He grabs my arm and pulls me through the door, slamming it shut behind me. He stares at me, raising his eyebrows high.

  ‘I’m a friend of Walter Keller,’ I explain. ‘Is he here? Is Walter here?’

  A woman appears at the top of the stairs. Walter’s mother. I recognise her instantly. But she’s thinner, older and more haggard than I remember. She walks slowly down the stairs, her clothes smudged and dirty. Tears leak from her eyes and make a pathway through the soot on her cheeks. Another, plumper, woman follows her down with three children. Walter’s cousins and aunt?

  ‘It’s okay, Herr Schloss,’ Walter’s mother says in a soft voice. ‘Who are you?’ She peers at me.

  ‘I’m Herta Heinrich.’

  She instantly recoils.

  ‘Walter was once great friends with my brother,’ I rush on. ‘We bumped into one another a few months’ back.’

  ‘I know,’ she says, her tone hostile now. ‘He told me. And I remember how upset—’

  ‘Frau Keller, I’m not making any excuses for my family. But the important thing is Walter. Is he safe?’

  She shakes her head. ‘They have them all.’ Her cheeks are pinched and her lips drawn back, reminding me of a cornered, snarling dog. ‘My husband, my son and my husband’s brother. Taken into custody by the SS, only this time they said they will be transferring all of them to Buchenwald Concentration Camp in the morning.’

  The night blackens. I’ve failed him. The world tilts sideways and I grab the banister to steady myself.

  ‘I tried going to the Gestapo headquarters, but I was turned away. They’ve not even done anything wrong,’ she cries, raising her hands to her anguished face. ‘And my Walter! He’s supposed to go to England to start a new life, to marry and have a chance to be happy. What now? How am I to get them out of that place?’ she demands.

  I sink down and sit on the bottom stair. ‘I don’t know.’ I have no more strength. I should have come earlier. Found a way as soon as I read that dreadful order. I let my head sink into my hands. Behind my eyelids: Walter’s face, his smile, his eyes. I can almost catch his smell, feel his hands; gentle and warm.

  ‘The children are terrified,’ Frau Keller is saying. I look up at her. ‘We’ve nowhere to go, except to the Jewish house in the morning. We have nothing left but the clothes we stand up in. Even if he were free, we now have no way to pay Walter’s exit tax, so he cannot leave. Everything we ever had is gone.’ Her voice quivers and the children begin to cry.

  They stand there, staring at me with desperate, wild eyes.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I mumble. I’ve never felt so powerless.

  I look at my watch. It takes a moment for the clock hands to make sense. I’ve been gone well over two hours. It’ll be nearer three by the time I get home.

  ‘I have to go.’

  Nobody says anything as I pass Herr Schloss. He opens the front door for me.

  ‘I’m not like my father,’ I tell them as I step outside. ‘Not one little bit.’
/>   *

  I push open the back door as quietly as I can. The passageway is in darkness and for a moment I think that, with luck, they’ve gone to bed. But a silhouette appears at the head of the passage and Mutti’s voice, shrill and loud, cuts through the silence.

  ‘Where the HELL have you been?’

  She runs and grabs my shoulders with long, thin fingers, shaking me with surprising strength and yelling into my face.

  ‘You stupid, stupid girl! You were forbidden to go out. I telephoned everyone I could think of, but no one knew where you were,’ she rages, barely taking a breath. ‘I left a phone message with Vati, and I was just about to call the police!’

  We move into the hall and that’s when I see Bertha, her face tear-stained and stricken, her hands trembling. Shame washes over me.

  ‘I’m sorry…’ I croak.

  My mouth is like sandpaper. I collapse onto the bench. Walter is gone and I’ve ruined everything for Bertha. A stab of fear for her, and for me, when Vati finds out.

  ‘Look at the state of you! You’re covered in soot, and muck. And is that blood? Hetty, you stink of – of smoke! Where on earth were you?’

  She slaps me. A sudden, stinging blow across my cheek. I hold my face where she struck it.

  ‘Hetty?’ Concern, now, added to the anger in Mutti’s voice.

  ‘I need some water.’

  ‘Bertha – please.’ Mutti’s hands are on my knees. She crouches down and tries to look into my face, but I can’t meet her eyes. ‘I don’t understand,’ she says. ‘Why do you punish me like this? I’ve lost one child, I can’t lose you too.’ She grips me tight.

  Bertha hands me a glass of water. I drink it in gulps. It’s cool and refreshing, a salve to the bitter burning in my throat. Then she hands me a warm, damp cloth to wipe the dirt off my face.

  ‘You may go,’ Mutti tells Bertha coldly. ‘I’ll deal with you in the morning. I can’t face it tonight.’