The Prosperous Thief

by Andrea Goldsmith

  The Lewins find two vacant seats against the far wall and there they sit waiting their turn. Fear, hope, desperation, all are running savage here, and a starched white tension, tight and still. Movements are smothered, the papers grasped in so many hands are checked and checked again, always surreptitiously. No one disturbs and yet everyone is disturbed. No one forgets for a moment that one family’s luck will be another family’s loss. People steal glances at the competition as if it could be determined by manner and appearance whose application will be successful. There is a background murmur of well-modulated German, and an occasional English phrase, but not a word of Yiddish. These Jews are quite a different type from those Eastern European Jews of Heini Heck’s experience. In fact, there is unlikely to be a pastry-cook anywhere in this room. Here are gathered secular Jews from Germany’s middle-class: doctors, lawyers, academics, business people, all of them indistinguishable from other Germans.

  Martin takes them in. ‘They’re just like us,’ he whispers to Renate.

  And just like Martin and Renate, they would have lived a comfortable German existence before the rise of Hitler. They would have eaten at restaurants and patronised the theatre and the opera, they would have enjoyed lives which Heini Heck could only dream about. These are well-educated people, discreetly Jewish and proudly German, yet in a few short years they have been reduced to circumstances worse than anything Heini has ever experienced. Heini has known hunger and violence, he has known neglect and poverty, but he has always known there was a place for him in Germany, no matter how menial. But not so today’s Jews, not so Martin and Renate Lewin: their very lives are being squeezed. Deprivation, humiliation, threats, violence, and what was distressing but tolerable even as recently as last year is now an ever-present and life-threatening danger. Martin sees his own fear and desperation reflected in the faces and demeanour of the other Jews in this room. It’s like being on the deck of a sinking ship with not enough lifeboats to go around.

  Suddenly there is a shattering of the brittle air. A woman on the other side of the room is on her feet and waving her arms. ‘We were here before you,’ she shouts.‘We were here before you.’And turning to the elderly couple next to her,‘You saw us, I know you saw us arrive before them,’ and points with her fist in the direction of two girls, neither of them more than sixteen, making their way to one of the desks at the top of the room. The woman follows them, ‘They’re pushing in,’ she shouts, as she pushes past chairs, crushing toes and scraping shins. The toddler’s doll falls to the floor, the woman scuttles it yet presses on. Her husband lunges, but she’s too quick. He lunges again and this time he manages to grab her jacket, and with apologetic glances to the rest of the room drags her back to her seat. The woman’s voice is quieter now but still audible. ‘It’s not fair,’ she says over and over. ‘It’s not fair.’

  And neither it is. Not this place, these queues, this Germany, this Führer.And not the laws against Jews, nor those countries that guard their visas like gold. Nothing is fair any more. And when one Jew makes a fuss twenty Jews suffer. Martin wonders if this woman has spoiled their chances. He looks around the room trying to read the faces. But whether spy or Jew is watching, it is impossible to judge.

  Over the next two hours there are other outbursts, people for whom the fear or anger or confusion or the sheer unfairness of it all can no longer be contained. Martin and Renate sit locked inside themselves, both knowing it is safer this way. When at last their name is called, Martin approaches the desk alone. He has told Renate he will impress better with his English if he does not have to translate for her, but in truth he is afraid her antagonism to any place that is not Germany will spoil their chances. Yesterday with the Americans and the day before with the Brazilians she made no attempt to hide her lack of interest in their countries, nor her intention to return to Germany as soon as circumstances improved. Not wanting to jeopardise their chances with the whole of the British Commonwealth, Martin uses his unstable English as an excuse to talk with the official alone. Although it is difficult, in this the most crucial move of their lives, to be acting without her.

  He has been told that a knowledge of English will help their chances, but as he talks with the officer, he learns their prospects are not good no matter how proficient his English. It was much the same story with the Americans yesterday. So many other German Jews are ahead of them in the emigration queues, people with skills and qualifications much more in demand than those of a silk merchant and his silk-designer wife. Their case seems so hopeless, and their lack of money makes it even worse. And such committed Germans are he and Renate that they have no contacts in Britain, no contacts anywhere in the world, no one to sponsor them or provide guarantees.

  The interview is brief and dismal. The Lewin application is placed with others in a tray and Martin walks back to his seat. Everyone watches, everyone is trying to read the result in his face. One man actually speaks: ‘The English,’ he says in English, ‘it helps?’ Martin shrugs, who knows what helps? And takes Renate by the arm and together they leave the building.

  Back in the fresh air, he feels as if a thresher has plunged through him; all wilt and dust, he’s never felt so useless nor so weak. And when a couple walk past on their way into the building, the man familiar from the press and obviously someone of distinction, Martin feels a further slackening: with people like that applying for Britain, what chance do they have?

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ Renate says.

  If only it were true, Martin is thinking. If only merely wishing for something could make it happen, there would be no Hitler, no Nazis, and German Jews would not find themselves outlawed in their own country. It would be so much easier if he could talk with his wife, properly talk about the current situation. But she refuses, and sometimes quite violently; in fact, if it were any less important, Martin would have given up trying a long time ago.

  He glances across at her, she is looking more relaxed than she has since their arrival in Berlin, and he decides to let things settle for the moment. He steadies himself with a few deep breaths, he doesn’t feel strong but will pretend and, linking his arm through hers, steps into the street. He knows they should contact Erich, Renate’s brother, but with no good news to report there seems so little point. Besides, they discussed all the options last night with him and his wife Dora, and again over breakfast this morning, and for now Martin wants no more talking. He feels such futility as if he and all the Jews in Germany are trapped in a maze to which there is neither entry nor exit, all of them in a haphazard scampering while Nazis take potshots at them from strategically placed watchtowers.

  With a couple of hours to spare before their train to Düsseldorf leaves, they decide to spend it in the Tiergarten. After three days in Berlin clogged with official buildings and official people, with every waking moment dogged by the struggles of staying in Germany and their struggles to leave, and spiking it all the unaccustomed strain between them, there is every reason to revisit a place that has in the past provided them with so much pleasure.

  They cross the road and enter the park. It is a mild day with autumn in full splendour. The sun is shining and the air is crisp and golden. The paths are full of promenading people chattering and laughing as if the world has not changed. And brilliantly coloured leaves lifting in the gentle breeze and fluttering through the air like exotic butterflies. Martin plucks one from Renate’s hair and slips it into his pocket.

  The park provides a buffer between them and the world outside; Martin feels himself loosen and Renate too. They walk the paths in a slow sauntering beneath branches deeply black against a pale mauve sky. And carpeting the lawns, leaves so richly red that if you were not there to see, if you could not bend down and place them so bright against the white of your skin, you would not believe such colour possible. Martin finds himself wondering where they might be next autumn, and immediately a single, urgent plea: not here, anywhere, but not here.

  They remain in the southern section of the park
, brushing easily against each other as they walk, an arresting couple with her grace and height and his perfect neatness. They wander past lakes and the river and numerous mounds of dirt made by burrowing beasts, and once even the pale flash of a rabbit. And at last, in this russet and gold place they feel themselves ease back together again. They continue deeper into the park. No traffic penetrates here, just the rustling of leaves, the scrape of their shoes on the gravel, the occasional shout from distant children.

  ‘It’s not so different from our first visit,’ Renate says, recalling their honeymoon of ten years ago. She leans in closer, touching her face to his neck.

  A little further on, in a sheltered area by one of the smaller paths, they notice a man asleep on a bench. He’s ragged and filthy and even at a distance they can smell him.

  ‘So Hitler hasn’t put everyone back to work,’ Renate says looking at the man.

  ‘Jews and derelicts, who would have thought we’d have so much in common?’

  It’s a poor joke and the spell is immediately broken. Martin’s face is grim as he checks his watch, and though they have plenty of time, they make their way back across the park and directly on to Zoo Station. With their pleasures so few and fragile these days, Martin should have thought before he spoke – though Renate appears undisturbed, her brow is clear and her hand on his arm is relaxed. She seems to see what he sees but somehow manages to dispatch the fear more easily. He looks around at the crowds and traffic and so many Nazis, far more than in Düsseldorf or their own town of Krefeld, and feels so exposed.

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ Renate says again, squeezing his arm. ‘Just as long as we stay in Krefeld and keep a low profile, we’ll make it through this period.’

  She sounds so sure and so like her old self, but she’s wrong, he knows she’s wrong. Renate has always been the more practical of the two of them, the more realistic too, and the more decisive. It was she who decided when it was time to have a child, she who guided him through the first hollow months when his business was taken. It was she who, after her father died earlier in the year, arranged for her mother to leave Düsseldorf and come to live with them in Krefeld. In fact, all the major decisions of their married life, with the single exception of where they would live – Krefeld, where Martin’s business was, and not Düsseldorf where Renate grew up – have been made by her. And Martin has been happy for this to be so. For not only is Renate practical and efficient, she is usually right. But not in this matter of emigration, and the reversal of roles is not comfortable for either of them. Several months ago, despite her opposition, he lodged their papers with the Palestine Office, and in the past couple of days, added America, Britain and Brazil. But still she refuses to face the reality of being Jewish in today’s Germany, refuses to see that Hitler is having a dream run. The entire country is now behind him, even here in Berlin where not so long ago the people regarded him as something of a joke. And much of the rest of the world is behind him too. Just a few months ago Hitler marched into Austria and no one stopped him. And a couple of weeks ago he announced the Sudetenland would become part of Greater Germany and still no one stopped him. The British leader Chamberlain comes and goes and as long as Hitler is happy, he is happy too. Everyone seems to love Hitler, everyone except the Jews.

  Fake Coffee and False Promises

  Several weeks later, four hundred kilometres west of Berlin in the provincial town of Krefeld, Martin Lewin lay beside his sleeping wife lulled by the familiar sounds of a new day. There was the clatter of horse hooves, the clang of milk cans, the coalman’s curses and the grocer grunting as he struggled to raise the iron grille of his shop. A bus wheezed to a stop, a car strained in the frosty morning, and then, as the other sounds fell silent, Martin heard the flap and whip of the swastika banners in the early morning breeze. Suddenly he was alert, the sounds of the new day drowned out by noise from the new Germany.

  There had been no word on their visas, and with every day bringing new restrictions and deprivations it felt as if life were going backwards. At the same time, Germans kitted out with new hopes, new opportunities and new uniforms were living better than ever before. Even Heini Heck was prospering under the new regime. Having learned that a spell in prison was no bar to the army, he had dropped in at a recruitment office to investigate his options. When asked what he could do, he said he could cook. And why not? he thought, when there was opportunity for all Germans smart enough to take advantage. His days were now passed on the army parade grounds learning to be a soldier and in the army kitchens learning how to cook.

  While Heini’s life was hurtling down paths unimaginable before Hitler came to power, in the Lewin household life was reduced to subsistence level. As Martin lay in bed this November morning, he was already totting up the most pressing of his problems while trying to ignore the scrape of anxiety in his stomach. He wished he could pull the quilt over his head like he used to as a child, knowing that when he again emerged the problems would have dispersed. Instead he turned towards Renate and buried his face in the curve of her neck. Gently, so as not to wake her, he ran his hand over her shoulder, down the quiet ripple of her ribs, across the rise of her hip and the familiar swell of her thigh. Not everything had changed, he reminded himself. He might be without work and freedom of movement and his life might be reduced to bare bones, but no one, not even Hitler, could silence his heart.

  He pressed in closer and must have dozed, for when next he opened his eyes it was dawn and the sky a wintry pale. Renate was still fast asleep, rare in these jittery days, and Martin not about to wake her. He slid to the edge of the bed, pushed his feet into yesterday’s cold shoes, pulled on his old, wilted dressing gown, and with a last glance at his sleeping wife left the room.

  He stopped outside his daughter’s bedroom. All quiet within, but Alice, who had never needed much sleep, more than likely awake. Such a solemn child she was, with far too many burdens for a six year old and far too little childhood to temper them. He pressed his ear to her door, still no sound, just the sharp and all-too-familiar pang of having failed his child. He hesitated a moment longer before continuing down the dim hallway to his mother-in-law’s room. Here there was a filament of light beneath the door; Amalie Friedman was awake but Martin knew she would not want to be disturbed. He moved to the edge of the runner where the carpet was less worn and headed towards the kitchen.

  He turned on the light then thought better of it, he could make his coffee just as well in the gloom, and the heater wasn’t even a consideration despite the steely air. He should have worn his coat over his pyjamas, instead was left to pull the flimsy gown tighter and worry as he did most of the time these days how best to eke out their meagre funds with no job, hefty expenses and silence on their visas.

  Martin Lewin had always been a man of order and what he was wanting now was a plan to follow. He wanted to know they could spend X Reichsmark this week, and Y Reichsmark the following week, and in the third week they would sell the rest of the silver cutlery, and in the fourth week … and so on until, say, week eight when they would hand over the last of their money for visas and bribes and board the boat for America or Britain or, if there were no other choice, Palestine or Brazil. He was wanting a sure-fire strategy for survival at a time when uncertainty was the only reliable player.

  He had sought help from foreign silk buyers and sent letters to foreign embassies.He had asked favours from more fortunate friends as they were leaving the country and had maintained regular contact with the various German-Jewish organisations. His days were choked with efforts to leave Germany and for his pains there had not been a flicker of hope. He knew there would be more violence, he knew there would be more restrictions, but the nature of the violence and the extent of the restrictions made a mockery of his tidy mind. He used to believe that people, good people, had a limited tolerance for behaving badly – How to live with oneself? How to justify one’s brutality? What to say to one’s children? – but today’s good Germans were showing a remarkable to
lerance and breathtaking stamina. Such strength they displayed and how it crushed.

  He sat at the table in the kitchen, his chin cupped in his hands, staring at an old oil stain in the wood. His life was unrecognisable from a few years ago. Nothing had remained untouched, not even here in the flat where he had lived most of his life. And it would only become worse. Winter had begun early this year and how they would manage Martin simply did not know. As a boy he had loved this season: the slingshots made from acorns, the skating rink opening, the first snow, and no matter how cold the weather, it would always be warm at home with stoked boilers and hot drinks and wet clothes dried without a fuss and dry ones always available.

  How different it was for his daughter. Today’s acorns were German acorns and best left where they lay, the skating rink was banned to Jews, and snow meant never being warm and dry.And summer promised no better. As a child Martin had passed the long hot days down at the river with a mob of boys and girls, Germans and Jews all together and no one bothered by it. But now even the water had been Aryanised and another slice of childhood denied his daughter.

  He pulled himself from his seat and busied himself with the coffee, or rather the stuff that passed for coffee these days, put the pot on the stove and cupped his hands around the bowl for warmth. As he stood there he tried to recall the taste of real coffee, to summon it up by association: the grinding of the coffee beans, sitting with Renate at the table while the coffee brewed, the rich aroma filling the kitchen.And for his pains a spurting of sour saliva and the disappointing smell of – what was it? Chicory? He thought that was it, although Renate insisted it was roasted sawdust.

  He could recall so much about the old days, but not the sensations, not the actual smells or tastes.And it was no consolation to know he would recognise the old pleasures should they ever return because he needed them now. And immediately chided himself. His daughter had never tasted real coffee, cake was a rarity for her, and chocolate had gone the way of all luxuries. She had never been to a puppet theatre, nor to the swimming baths; in fact, she had hardly ever played with other children. There was so much his daughter had been deprived of, and little for her to recognise if life should ever return to normal.