A pair of soldiers, entering the store, looked Adolf up and down. “It’s more than that, sir,” one of them finally said, while the other hauled the old man to his feet. “It’s an insult to good Party members who follow the true German faith of our ancestors. If the proprietor of this establishment won’t allow such talk from customers, he has the right to eject them.”
Adolf looked at the old man, who, though bruised and bleeding did not seem to need immediate medical attention. “I am sure,” he began, wondering why he had gotten involved in the first place, “that he was only momentarily confused. If he must be escorted out, please, allow me.”
The soldiers glanced at each other, then at the owner of the store.
“If you let him go, he’ll likely create more trouble,” said the merchant.
“I have a car and driver waiting outside,” said Professor Hoffman. “If you would allow me, in the spirit of the season, to escort the man home, I shall do so.”
It was clear from the expression on the owner’s face that Hoffman was well known in this shop. “As you wish, Herr Professor,” he said tightly, and then turned back to his customers as if the whole incident had not happened.
“Give me a hand, please, Adolf?” Hoffman asked as he guided the hobbling old man out of the store.
At once, Adolf set down his books. “Yes, mein Herr,” he said. To the store owner, he added, “I’ll come back for these.”
Hoffman shook his head, “The store will close in an hour. Put them on my account,” he told the merchant, indicating both his own books and Adolf’s. “And have them sent to the University.”
That evening, at the Judenmuseum, Adolf related the events of the day to his friends. The group was small, as most of the regular members had already left for home. Ilsa had put up the government required holiday decorations, but also lit candles on the largest menorah. Franz had brought a bottle of wine and Klaus had brought cookies. The air was festive, if a bit melancholy.
“So, you actually helped escort an Enemy of the State home?” asked Ilsa.
“I wouldn’t exactly call him that,” said Adolf. “After all, there’s nothing illegal about being Christian. Half the rural population of Germany is still Lutheran.”
“Still,” said Franz, “in Berlin...”
“And the Professor just bought your books for you?” said Krista. “What kind of car did he have?” Adolf smiled. Here on a scholarship, Krista did not grow up with cars and drivers like the rest of them.
“A Mercedes.” Adolf shook his head. “Being with Hoffman was almost as weird as being here. He wouldn’t tell me how he knew my name, or why he was helping the old man, or why he wanted me with him.”
“Did you ask?” said Ilsa.
“You don’t ask a senior professor anything,” said Adolf. “You just listen.”
“Well? Did he say anything?”
Adolf nodded. “That was the really great part. He lectured.”
“Lectured?” said Franz. “To an underclassman and some old guy who’s not even a Party Member?”
“And why would a lecture be great?” said Klaus. “It’s vacation time!”
“But that’s just it! Professor Hoffman was interesting! I hope I get him next year--he says he’ll try to arrange it! He talked about all these different names people have had throughout history for the winter solstice holiday: Christmas, Yule, Saturnalia--some others I can’t remember. He said every society in history celebrated the winter solstice, and that what we’re doing today is just another derivation.”
“I don’t suppose he mentioned Hanukkah, did he?” asked Krista.
“No, but I almost asked him!” The others in the room laughed and whistled.
“That would have really been some ride, if you had!” said Franz.
Adolf poured himself another glass of wine. “Not to mention a more interesting vacation. Possibly better than going home.”
His friends, unaware of how serious he was, laughed and joked until the wine was gone. Then they made polite, yet heartfelt wishes for happy holidays, and headed for their rooms.
Only Adolf and Ilsa remained.
“Let me help you clean up,” Adolf said, gathering up napkins and paper cups.
“Thank you,” said Ilsa, folding the chairs and returning them to the closet.
“Perhaps I could walk you home,” said Adolf. “It gets dark so early this time of year--”
“Thank you, no. I can manage. And there are plenty of police and soldiers about.”
“That’s what worries me.” He didn’t want to say anything more, as if that might give his fears power. But this was one of the few times during the year when alcohol flowed freely among the entire population. The sight of an attractive, working class woman walking alone at night might initially attract a chivalrous escort from the soldiers. But once they saw her bar code, they might just as easily use Ilsa for an evening’s entertainment, without fear of reprisal. It was not something Adolf would have thought about a few months ago. Now, it enraged him.
“I won’t be leaving until much later, anyway,” said Ilsa. “I’m going to let the candles burn out, as the book says they must.” She drew the chair from her desk into a better-lit spot, sat down and picked up some sewing.
Adolf looked at the menorah, and was once again struck by the beauty of the nine white candles, still an inch or so tall. “Those candles must have been expensive.”
Ilsa shrugged.
“If you would, please, allow me to buy the candles next time. Or--anything else you need.”
“You are most generous. But there is little I need. My salary covers my room and board, with a little to spare. I do not buy cosmetics or hair dye. I have no family to support, nor any dowry to save for.” At that, the thread under her fingers snapped. Ilsa looked startled, and then returned more carefully to the stockings she was mending. “My only hobby is reading, and, as long as I remain here, it costs nothing.”
“Strange,” said Adolf. “The Party branded you as ‘missgeburt’--useless-- and stuck you here, in this dead-end ‘career’. Yet, they put you in the right place. By accident, of course.”
Ilsa smiled. “I have often thought about that.”
“Why--?” Adolf faltered. “Why does it matter so much to you?” His gaze took in the whole museum.
“I’m not always sure myself. Love of the dead, perhaps?”
At Adolf’s quizzical look, she continued. “I am dead--or might as well be; so says the Party. The Jews are dead. Yet what they left behind--the art, the poetry, their way of understanding the universe--is so powerful. So alive. Perhaps I still hope that, even without having children, I can leave something behind as well.”
“You will probably leave more behind than I ever will,” Adolf said.
“Why do you say that?”
He stood, and began to wander about the room. “This place, you, there is more life...more meaning here than in any part of my life. It may be that I will have a parcel of children, but what of it? Will they hate me, as I hate my father?
“I may rise in the government, but will I ever do anything that matters?
“But when I’m here, I feel something. Something I don’t have, but that I want. It’s like there’s a hole inside me, aching to be filled, and I don’t even know what it is I’m supposed to fill it with!” Adolf broke off, gazing at Ilsa, as if she could somehow fill that place inside him.
“I feel that way, too, Adolf,” she said. “Just because I revere the dead, doesn’t mean I don’t yearn for life.”
“But what do you hope to find here?”
“Understanding, perhaps.”
“Of what? The Jews? Or of the world that destroyed them—and now tries to rob you of your life and humanity?” Adolf wondered what was happening to him. His words bordered on treason. His feelings, if he dared to speak them aloud to another Party member, could get him arrested.
“Of myself, I think.” Ilsa shook her head. “I’m not sure that I can explain it.
Only that, since I first began reading their books, I started believing that these people, if they were here today, would understand me. The loneliness, the anger, the feelings of the outcast—“ Ilsa broke off, as if fearing she had revealed too much. Then, making a decision, she plunged ahead.
“If I can’t be loved, or valued, or respected, it’s nice to at least be understood. Or maybe even, eventually, part of the understanding of something wonderful. Something that once belonged to the human race, but is now gone.” Ilsa shook her head. “No. Not gone. Hidden. Waiting for the chosen few to uncover it.”
“Yes! And I want to be one of those chosen few!” Adolf’s voice shook with the heresy of his words. On this night, with just the two of them, Judaism didn’t seem like a game.
The candles sputtered, then flickered out, one by one, plunging the room into darkness. Adolf thought about the rest of Ilsa’s words. And perhaps because of the darkness, or the magic of the longest night of the year, he found the courage to say something he hadn’t even imagined thinking of yet.
“You’re wrong if you think you can’t be loved, Ilsa. Or any of those other things the Party tells you you’re not worthy of.”
And then, without giving himself time to think and change his mind, Adolf found Ilsa’s hands in the darkness, pulled her close, and kissed her. Her eyes widened, but she did not pull away. She returned the kiss, chastely, Adolf thought, but did not care.
Later, as he walked Ilsa home, Adolf thought about his family, awaiting him in Munich. He hoped the faulty train system might for once work in his favor, and strand him in Berlin for the entire season.
CHAPTER 5
“Isn’t it wonderful how all the trains are running on time again!” The large man leaned across his seat toward Adolf, and winked. “You know, when I was a boy, you could set your watch by the trains; anywhere in the Reich.”
Adolf wanted to point out to his companion that this was the fourth time he had mentioned it, but it wouldn’t do for the son of Helmut Goebbels to speak so to a soldier of his father’s generation. So he kept a smile pasted on his face, and tried to look admiringly at the medals and ribbons that adorned the older man’s decommissioned uniform.
“You know, everyone says they’d give their right arm for the Fatherland, but not many of us actually do it!” He laughed heartily and clapped Adolf on the back with his one remaining arm. “Lost it in ‘92, I did, in Africa. But we made those swinehunds pay! That region won’t be livable for centuries now! And the Party never forgot me. Even like this, I get a place to live, and all the privileges of my old rank, everywhere I go. Yes, son, we truly live in the best place on earth.”
Adolf sighed with relief as the old man settled into a silent reverie. He tried not to think about what it was like for the old soldier, with nothing to do all day but ride the trains or sit in the parks, looking for anyone who would listen to him. Sure, he could travel anywhere in the Reich for free, get front row seating at any game or rally, but when was the last time someone invited him to dinner? It frightened Adolf more than he cared to admit that it would only take one accident, one injury that couldn’t be repaired, to render him physically imperfect, and turn him into a pariah.
Like this pathetic old man.
Like Ilsa.
The train pulled into the Munich Station, just as Adolf’s seatmate was beginning the story of how he ended up in Africa in ‘92. Adolf saluted him in the name of the Führer, then hurried out of the car and into the comforting warmth and cavernous space of the station.
Adolf saw his mother at once. She wore a fur coat with a matching hat that must have cost his father at least a month’s pay. The collar was turned back, displaying the bronze star which signified the woman wearing it had born at least three children. Despite her best efforts, Elena Goebbels had never been able to trade it in for one of silver, signifying six births. Her bleached hair was long, but modestly braided and pinned about her head as befitting a matron of the Reich.
“Adolf!” He was swept into his mother’s embrace, as she breathed a kiss on each of his cheeks. “Oh, you’re so skinny! Don’t they feed you in that expensive university?”
Adolf murmured something in response, smiling down at his two younger sisters, who stood demurely behind their mother.
“Do you mean to tell me mother let you miss school to come meet my train?” he teased.
Twelve year old Leisl giggled, but little Marta, who had even less of a sense of humor than their father said, “School is out for the holidays, Adolf. Our last day was yesterday.”
“I’ll put your bags in the car, sir,” said a voice at Adolf’s shoulder. He turned to see Otto, one of the family’s drivers, already loaded down with Adolf’s suitcases. Adolf never ceased being amazed that someone so large could appear and disappear so silently.
Leisl was dancing on her toes now, plying Adolf with questions about college. Not even a stern look from their mother could restore Leisl’s properly demure behavior.
“The whole family will be at dinner,” Elena said, once they were seated in the quiet and comfort of the Daimler Benz.
Adolf leaned back into the cushioned seat and sighed with relief. The whole family meant his maternal uncle; maybe even his older sister and her husband. The knots in Adolf’s stomach began to untie. Seeing his father was never as bad an ordeal in large groups.
The Goebbels mansion seemed smaller than Adolf remembered it. That, at least, he had been warned to expect during his first trip home from college. What surprised him was the way he kept wondering if this beautiful home in which he had grown up had once belonged to a Jewish family.
As he stood in the doorway of his mother’s immaculate parlor, Adolf imagined the room filled with books; Shabbat candles and a menorah on the shelf where the tea service now stood; a painting of David at his harp in place of the Edicts for Party Women on the wall.
While supper was being prepared, Adolf watched snow falling in the darkening garden and imagined a creative banker or doctor planting palms and fig trees, trying to bring a piece of the ancient homeland to life in this northern refuge. What was it like for them, he wondered, always starting over in strange, often hostile, new lands? How often were they the most educated or talented of their neighbors? And was that, perhaps, their only real crime?
“Adolf?” He was shaken from his reverie by Leisl, who stood dressed for dinner in a full-skirted, pink dress with lace across the bodice. Her honey brown hair was braided and tied with pink ribbons. “It’s time for dinner.”
Adolf bowed gallantly. “May I escort you, most beauteous maiden?”
Leisl laughed at their old childhood game. “Very well, noble warrior.” Adolf took her arm. Leisl matched his long strides easily. “Do you think Father will let me start bleaching my hair in time for New Years Eve?”
“Don’t you think you’re a little young, yet?” said Adolf.
“Helga Schmidt bleaches hers, and she’s the same age I am!”
Adolf grimaced. “Helga Schmidt is so ugly, her parents would let her try anything! Besides, I’ll bet she looks even worse as a blonde.”
“Well, now that you mention it, yes,” said Leisl.
“In fact...” Adolf gazed at his sister’s lustrous brown hair, for the first time noticing how lovely it was.
“What?”
“I’ll bet if you let it stay its natural color, you’ll get noticed more. With everyone trying to look blond--and lots of them turning out like Helga Schmidt--people with dark hair like yours will really stand out. You could start a new trend in modeling.”
Leisl laughed, and a moment later, a servant flung open the door to the formal dining room. Adolf found his family arrayed before him, all wearing their best. He gulped, hoping his school uniform would pass muster.
Apparently it did. Helmut Goebbels stood at the head of the table, and glanced at Adolf with the snarl of approval. His wife beamed proudly at their only son, as Adolf escorted Leisl to her chair. At a nod from Helmut, everyone sat
down.
Servants brought in the first course, while the men began typical dinner table conversation.
“How is life at University?” Uncle Gustav asked as he slurped his soup.
“Very challenging,” said Adolf. “I made high marks in everything--except mathematics.”
“As usual,” Helmut muttered.
“A family trait,” said Gustav easily. “Nothing to worry about. It never held you back, eh, Helmut?”
Gazing at the two men, Adolf found it hard to believe they were family, even through marriage. Gustav was as jolly and easy going as Helmut was cold and rigid. And he never seemed to resent the fact that his sister’s husband was the shining star of their combined family; the power broker who moved in the inner circles. Gustav seemed content to serve the Fatherland as a humble and, Adolf had to admit, mediocre, engineer.
“You will get a tutor, I suppose?” said Adolf’s father.
Adolf ground his teeth. To say yes was admitting weakness; to say no would be to risk failing a class. Before he could answer, however, Gustav surprised Adolf by calling out, “It worked for you, Helmut. I’m sure Adolf will be no different.”
“I was eight,” Helmut said. “Not eighteen.”
Adolf decided to steer the subject back to the one thing all four men at the table held in common: University. “I’m being considered for Professor Elias Hoffman’s select sophomore class next year.”
“Hoffman?” said Gustav with a bark of laughter. “Is he still teaching? That man was ancient when I was there!”
“Rumor has it that he’s immortal,” said Adolf.
“Watch your back in his class,” said Helmut. “I always hated the bastard.”
Adolf would have liked to hear more, but knew better than to question his father about anything.
“Do you get to drill with real weapons?” asked Kurt, Helmut’s son by one of his mistresses. At thirteen, Kurt was Helmut’s only such child to be raised in his father’s household. The others remained with their mothers.
From the Ashes Page 3
