“You’re right. We are living through a dark time. But in such times we have to cling strongly to what we believe.”
“What’s at stake here is the survival of the lodge!”
“Yes, but at what cost?”
“If we have to—”
“Brother Furst, if you were crossing the desert and you saw the sun was getting stronger and your canteen was getting empty, would you piss in it to stop it from running out?”
The roof of the temple quaked with the outburst of laughter. Furst was losing the match, and he seethed with rage.
“And to think that these are the words of the outcast son of a deserter,” he exclaimed, furious.
Paul took the blow as best he could. He squeezed hard on the back of the chair in front of him until his knuckles turned white.
I must control myself, or he will have won.
“Most venerable Grand Master, are you going to allow Brother Furst to expose my statement to this cross fire?”
“Brother Reiner is right. Stick to the rules of debate.”
Furst nodded with a wide smile that put Paul on the alert.
“Delighted. In that case, I ask you to withdraw the floor from Brother Reiner.”
“What? On what grounds?” said Paul, trying not to shout.
“Do you deny that you only attended the lodge’s meetings for a few months before your disappearance?”
Paul became flustered.
“No, I don’t deny it, but—”
“So you haven’t reached the degree of Fellow Craft, and you do not have the right to contribute to meetings,” Furst interrupted.
“I’ve been an Apprentice for more than eleven years. The degree of Fellow Craft is gained automatically after three years.”
“Yes, but only if you attend the Works regularly. Otherwise you have to be approved by a majority of the brothers. So you have no right to speak in this debate,” said Furst, unable to hide his satisfaction.
Paul looked around for support. Every face looked back at him in silence. Even Keller, who had seemed to want to help him moments earlier, was quiet.
“Very well. If that’s the prevailing spirit, I renounce my membership in the lodge.”
Paul stood and left the bench, walking toward the lectern occupied by Keller. He removed his apron and gloves and threw them at the Grand Master’s feet.
“I’m not proud of these symbols anymore.”
“And nor am I!”
One of the others present, a man by the name of Joachim Hirsch, stood up. Hirsch was Jewish, Paul recalled. He, too, threw the symbols down at the foot of the lectern.
“I’m not going to wait for a vote on whether or not I should be expelled from a lodge I’ve belonged to for twenty years. I’d prefer to leave,” he said, standing at Paul’s side.
Hearing this, many others stood up. Most of them were Jewish, though there were a few non-Jews, Paul noticed with satisfaction, who were clearly just as indignant as he was. Within a minute, more than thirty aprons had piled up on the checkered marble. The scene was chaotic.
“That’s enough!” shouted Keller, beating the mace in a vain attempt to make himself heard. “If my position allowed it, I’d throw this apron down too. Let us respect those who have taken this decision.”
The group of dissidents began to leave the temple. Paul was one of the last to go, and he left with his head held high, though it grieved him. Being a member of the lodge had never been particularly to his taste, but it hurt him to see how such a group of intelligent, cultured people could be split apart by fear and intolerance.
He walked in silence toward the entrance hall. Some of the dissidents had gathered in a huddle, though most had collected their hats and were making their way out into the street in groups of two or three so as not to attract attention. Paul was preparing to do the same when he felt someone touch his back.
“Please allow me to shake your hand.” It was Hirsch, the man who had thrown his apron in after Paul. “Thank you so much for setting an example. If you hadn’t done what you did, I wouldn’t have dared do it myself.”
“No need to thank me. I just couldn’t bear to see the injustice of it all.”
“If only more people were like you, Reiner, Germany wouldn’t be in the mess she’s in today. Let’s just hope it’s only a passing ill wind.”
“People are scared,” said Paul with a shrug.
“I’m not surprised. Three or four weeks ago, the Gestapo got the power to act extra-judicially.”
“What do you mean?”
“They can detain anyone they like, even for something as simple as ‘walking suspiciously.’”
“But that’s ridiculous!” said Paul, astonished.
“There’s more,” said another of the men who was about to leave. “After a few days the family receives a notification.”
“Or they’re called in to identify the body,” added a third gloomily. “It’s already happened to an acquaintance of mine, and the list is growing. Krickstein, Cohen, Tannenbaum . . .”
When he heard that last name Paul’s heart leapt.
“Wait, did you say Tannenbaum? Which Tannenbaum?”
“Josef Tannenbaum, the industrialist. Do you know him?”
“Sort of. You could say I’m . . . a friend of the family.”
“Then I’m sorry to have to tell you that Josef Tannenbaum is dead. The funeral is being held tomorrow morning.”
50
“Rain should be compulsory at funerals,” said Manfred.
Alys didn’t reply. She just took his hand and squeezed it.
He’s right, she thought, looking around her. The white gravestones shone under the morning sun, creating an atmosphere of serenity completely at odds with her state of mind.
Alys, who knew so little of her own emotions, and who so often fell victim to this emotional blindness, did not quite know what she was feeling that day. Ever since he had summoned them back from Ohio fifteen years earlier, she had hated her father from the depths of her soul. Over time, her hatred had acquired a variety of shades. At first it was tainted with the indignant hue of the angry adolescent who was always being contradicted. From there it progressed to scorn when she saw her father in all his egotism and greed, a businessman prepared to do anything in order to prosper. Last came the evasive, skittish hatred of a woman afraid of becoming dependent.
Ever since her father’s henchmen had caught her on that fateful night in 1923, Alys’s hatred toward her father had been transformed into cold animosity of the purest kind. Emotionally drained after her breakup with Paul, Alys had stripped her relationship with her father of all passion, focusing on it from a rational point of view. He—it was best to refer to that person as “he”; it hurt less—was ill. He didn’t understand that she had to be free to live her own life. He wanted to marry her off to someone she despised.
He wanted to kill the child she carried in her belly.
Alys had had to fight with all her strength to prevent it. Her father had slapped her, had called her a filthy whore and worse.
“You’re not having it. The baron will never accept a pregnant whore as a bride for his son.”
So much the better, thought Alys. She withdrew into herself, roundly refusing to have an abortion, and informed the scandalized servants that she was pregnant.
“I have witnesses. If you make me lose it, I’ll turn you in, you bastard,” she told him with a self-possession and certainty she’d never felt before.
“Thank heavens your mother isn’t alive to see her daughter like this.”
“Like what? Sold to the highest bidder by her father?”
Josef found himself obliged to go to the Schroeder mansion and confess the truth to the baron. With an expression of poorly feigned sorrow, the baron informed him that obviously, under such conditions, the agreement would have to be annulled.
Alys never spoke to Josef again after the fateful afternoon when he returned, seething with fury and humiliation, from his mee
ting with the in-law who wasn’t to be. An hour after his return, Doris, the housekeeper, came to inform her that she was to leave immediately.
“The master will allow you to take a suitcase of clothes with you if you need them.” The harsh tone of her voice left no doubt as to her feelings on the matter.
“Tell the master thank you very much but I don’t need anything from him,” said Alys.
She walked toward the door, but before leaving she turned back.
“By the way, Doris . . . try not to steal the suitcase and say I’ve taken it with me, like you did with the money my father left on the sink.”
Her words punctured the housekeeper’s supercilious attitude. She turned red and began to gasp.
“Now, you listen here, I can assure you I—”
The young woman left, cutting off the end of the sentence with the slamming of the door.
* * *
Despite being on her own, despite everything that had happened to her—despite the vast responsibility that was growing inside her—the look of outrage on Doris’s face had made Alys smile. The first smile since Paul had left her.
Or was I the one who forced him to leave me?
She spent the next eleven years trying to work out the answer to that question.
When Paul showed up on the tree-lined path in the cemetery, the question answered itself. Alys saw him approach and move to one side, waiting as the priest said the prayer for the dead.
Alys completely forgot about the twenty people surrounding the coffin, a wooden box empty but for an urn containing Josef’s ashes. She forgot that she had received the ashes by post, along with a note from the Gestapo saying her father had been arrested for sedition and had died “trying to escape.” She forgot that he was being buried under a cross and not a star, as he had died a Catholic in a country of Catholics who cast their votes for Hitler. She forgot her own confusion and fear, for in the middle of all this, one certainty appeared now before her eyes like a lighthouse in a storm.
It was my fault. I was the one who pushed you away, Paul. Who hid our son from you and didn’t allow you to make your own choice. And, damn you, I’m still as in love with you as I was the first time I saw you fifteen years ago, when you were wearing that ridiculous waiter’s apron.
She wanted to run to him, but thought that if she did she might lose him forever. And even though she had matured a great deal since becoming a mother, her feet were still shackled by pride.
I have to approach him slowly. Find out where he’s been, what he’s done. If he still feels anything . . .
The funeral ended. She and Manfred received the guests’ condolences. Paul was the last in the line and approached them with a cautious look.
“Good morning. Thank you for coming,” said Manfred, holding out his hand, not recognizing him.
“I share your sorrow,” replied Paul.
“Did you know my father?”
“A little. My name is Paul Reiner.”
Manfred dropped Paul’s hand as though it had burned him.
“What are you doing here? You think you can appear back in her life just like that? After eleven years without a word?”
“I wrote dozens of letters and never received a reply to any of them,” Paul said, flustered.
“That doesn’t change what you did.”
“It’s all right, Manfred,” Alys said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You go home.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, looking at Paul.
“Yes.”
“All right. I’ll go home and see if—”
“Fine,” she interrupted him before he could say the name. “I’ll be along soon.”
With a final spiteful glance at Paul, Manfred pulled on his hat and left. Alys turned along the central pathway of the cemetery, walking in silence with Paul at her side. Their eye contact had been brief but intense and painful, so she preferred not to have to look at him just yet.
“So you’ve come back.”
“I came back last week, pursuing a lead, but it turned out badly. Yesterday I met an acquaintance of your father’s who told me about his death. I hope you were able to grow closer over the years.”
“Sometimes distance is the best thing.”
“I understand.”
Why would I say a thing like that? He may think I was talking about him.
“And what about your travels, Paul? Did you find what you were looking for?”
“No.”
Say you were wrong to leave. Say you were wrong and I’ll admit my mistake and you’ll admit yours, and then I’ll fall into your arms again. Say it!
“Actually, I’ve decided to give up,” Paul went on. “I’ve reached a dead end. I have no family, I have no money, I have no profession, I don’t even have a country to return to, because this place is not Germany.”
She stopped and turned to look at him closely for the first time. She was surprised to see that his face hadn’t changed much. His features had hardened, there were deep circles under his eyes, and he had put on some weight, but he was still Paul. Her Paul.
“You really wrote to me?”
“Many times. I sent letters to your address at the boardinghouse, and also to your father’s house.”
“And so . . . what are you going to do?” she said. Her lips and her voice were trembling but she couldn’t stop them. Perhaps her body was sending a message she didn’t dare articulate. When Paul replied, there was also emotion in his voice.
“I’d considered going back to Africa, Alys. But when I heard about what had happened to your father, I thought . . .”
“What?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d like to talk to you in different surroundings, with more time . . . tell you about what’s happened over the years.”
“That’s not a good idea,” she forced herself to say.
“Alys, I know I have no right to come back into your life whenever I feel like it. I . . . Leaving that time was a big mistake—it was a huge mistake—and I’m ashamed of it. It’s taken a while for me to realize that, and all I ask is that we can sit down and have coffee together one day.”
And if I were to tell you that you have a son, Paul? A gorgeous boy with sky-blue eyes just like yours, blond and stubborn like his father? What would you do, Paul? And if I were to let you into our lives and then it didn’t work out? However much I want you, however much my body and my soul want to be with you, I can’t allow you to hurt him.
“I need a little time to think about it.”
He smiled, and small wrinkles Alys had never seen before clustered around his eyes.
“I’ll be waiting,” said Paul, holding out a little piece of paper with his address. “As long as you need me.”
Alys took the note and their fingers brushed against one another.
“All right, Paul. But I can’t promise anything. Go now.”
Slightly hurt at the brusque dismissal, Paul left without another word.
As he disappeared down the path, Alys prayed he wouldn’t turn around and see how much she was shaking.
51
“Well, well. It looks like the rat has taken the bait,” said Jürgen, gripping his binoculars tightly. From his vantage point on a hillock eighty meters from Josef’s grave, he could see Paul making his way up the queue to offer condolences to the Tannenbaums. He recognized him instantly. “Was I right, Adolf ?”
“You were right, sir,” said Eichmann, a little uncomfortable at this deviation from the program. In the six months he had been working with Jürgen, the newly minted baron had managed to penetrate a number of lodges, thanks to his title, his superficial charm, and a number of fake credentials supplied by the Lodge of the Prussian Sword. The Grand Master of that lodge, a recalcitrant nationalist and acquaintance of Heydrich’s, supported the Nazis with every inch of his being. He had unscrupulously granted Jürgen the degree of Master and given him an intensive course on how to pass as an experienced Mason. Then he had written letters of rec
ommendation to the Grand Masters of the humanitarian lodges, urging their collaboration “to weather the current political storm.”
Visiting a different lodge each week, Jürgen had managed to obtain the names of more than three thousand members. Heydrich was ecstatic at the progress, and Eichmann, too, as he saw his dream of escaping his grim employment in Dachau becoming closer to a reality. He hadn’t minded typing up note cards for Heydrich in his free time, or even the occasional weekend trip with Jürgen to cities nearby, such as Augsburg, Ingolstadt, and Stuttgart. But the obsession that had awoken in Jürgen over the last few days worried him a great deal. The man thought of almost nothing but this Paul Reiner. He hadn’t even explained what part Reiner played in the mission Heydrich had charged them with; he’d said only that he wanted to find him.
“I was right,” repeated Jürgen, more to himself than to his nervous companion. “She’s the key.”
He adjusted the lenses of the binoculars. Using them wasn’t easy for Jürgen, having only one eye, and he had to lower them every once in a while. He shifted a little and the image of Alys appeared in his field of vision. She was very beautiful, more mature than the last time he’d seen her. He looked at the way her black short-sleeved blouse emphasized her breasts, and adjusted the binoculars to get a better look.
If only my father hadn’t turned her down. What a terrible humiliation it would have been for this little tart to have to marry me and do anything I wanted, Jürgen fantasized. He had an erection and had to put his hand in his pocket to arrange himself discreetly so that Eichmann wouldn’t notice.
On second thought, it’s better like this. Marrying a Jew would have been fatal to my career in the SS. And this way I can kill two birds with one stone: luring Paul in and having her. The whore will learn soon enough.
“Shall we continue as planned, sir?” said Eichmann.
“Yes, Adolf. Follow him. I want to know where he’s lodging.”
“And then? We turn him in to the Gestapo?”
With Alys’s father it had been so very easy. One call to an Obersturmführer he knew, ten minutes’ conversation, and four men had removed the insolent Jew from his Prinzregentenplatz apartment, giving no explanation. The plan had worked out perfectly. Now Paul had come to the funeral, just as Jürgen was sure he would.
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