Jacob's Oath: A Novel

by Martin Fletcher

  The lines of people outside food stores reminded him: He must get a ration book. First the officials said they didn’t have enough. Then that he didn’t have the right; then that he had to go somewhere else, to a “KZ Betreungsstelle,” an aid center for former concentration camp inmates. The nearest one was in Frankfurt.

  Hauptstrasse, once wrapped in furs and echoing to the clip of high heels stepping from big black cars, was now drab and closed to civilian vehicles. It was reserved for the U.S. military. Some civilians were dressed well, in homburgs and suits: the townspeople. Most wore rags and looked lost: the refugees. Most of these had no jobs and nothing to do but wander around and gaze at the shops and marvel at the luck of this pristine city when their own had been destroyed.

  Jacob passed the Steiners’ old home at number 159, where his best friend, Ulrich, had lived; they were among the first to be sent to the east. He peered at the names on the bells: strangers all. The sensation returned: adrift in a void.

  In the camp, even as his senses were blunted, a sixth sense, of heightened awareness, honed to any threat, protected him. He didn’t feel the cold, he didn’t smell the stink, he didn’t taste the blood, but he did develop an acute sense of anything unusual, looming danger, how to stay out of the way of an angry Nazi guard. As he turned the corner his nerves went on edge, and as he approached the door of his own room his blood surged. He knew the door was open before he even saw it. Just a little bit, but ajar. Someone’s been inside. Or is still inside.

  Jacob’s steps slowed as he scanned the street. Nobody around. If they had left, they would have closed the door. It’s open. They must be inside. His heart pounded, it beat against his ribs. He breathed deeply to control his panting, his mind raced. It isn’t the police. They would have someone waiting outside. It must be the landlady. But she had promised never to disturb him. The money. A thief? But who would think of stealing from a refugee? Who knew he had money? Maybe someone who followed him home from the castle or the market? That could be it. Someone who saw him selling all his cigarettes. No, there would be much better targets for a thief. Anyway, why would a thief leave the door open?

  Or am I crazy? Did I just forget to close the door?

  His heart pounding, he prodded the door so that it swung open while he stood in the street. There wasn’t a sound. He peered around the door. “Hello?” he said. “Someone there?”

  Five seconds went by until a little voice answered. “Hello?”

  It was a woman’s voice, quavering and tentative. Jacob hesitated, and stepped into his room.

  Sitting on the bed, her hair disheveled as if she had been sleeping, was a young woman with dark hair, wide staring eyes, and a frightened face. A shaft of light from the open door fell across her body, cutting her in two. She stood up, holding her arms at her sides, making her look even slighter than she was. As Jacob watched her, his heartbeat dropped. No danger here. Then it sped up again as he stared at her a little longer than was correct. Her dark hair falling from her face as she leaned forward to shake hands, the swell of her breasts, her full lips. A sweet smile. Walking along the Philosophenweg he had thought of the fairy tale and wondered about his home, Who has been sleeping in my bed? He had been thinking of a wolf. Not a beautiful girl.

  How long had it been?

  “Hello,” he said again.

  “Hello.” She tried to smile.

  “I’m Jacob Klein,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “The mayor’s office told me where you live.”

  Jacob nodded as if it all made complete sense. He closed the door.

  “I fell asleep,” she said.

  “Yes, you must be tired. You probably have had a long journey.” Why did he say that? Because she also must have been on the road? But she was well-dressed, in a frock and blouse, and a coat lay on the bed as if she’d been using it as a blanket. And she had a little bag that was open, showing more clothes. She was beginning to look a little familiar, but she would have changed a lot. She looks about twenty-two or -three, he thought, and he’d been away for five years. Girls change a lot in five years at that age. Her eyes? There’s something about her … I’ve seen her before.

  “I’m Sarah Kaufman,” she said. Jacob nodded. There had been several families called Kaufman.

  “Excuse me. Do I know you?” he asked.

  “Your sister went to school with my sister,” she said. Jacob made a flourish with his hand, as if to say, that explains everything. He gestured to the bed, and she sat down again. Jacob perched next to her.

  Outside, the church bells chimed seven o’clock. Jacob said, “Where is your sister?”

  “I don’t know. And yours?”

  “Same.” He pressed his lips together, sighed. “Why did you leave the door open?”

  “It was open when I arrived. It isn’t my room. I don’t know … it didn’t seem right.”

  “I forgot to lock it,” he said. “Now I’m glad.” She nodded with a slight smile.

  Jacob looked at her. There was a heavy silence, the weight of loneliness, it draped the room. She sighed. Her chest rose and fell as she tried to control herself. She wiped away a tear. She said, “It’s been so hard.”

  “Yes,” Jacob said.

  “It’s been so long.”

  There was one pillow, and Jacob pushed it toward her and she leaned back against it. For fifteen minutes they lay beside each other without a word. Her eyes were heavy. It was awkward until each began taking comfort from the presence of the other.

  Jacob began to squirm and shift and could no longer contain himself. “Umm,” he began, and stopped.

  “Yes?” she said.

  Jacob sat up. “Ummm, sorry, but, uh, I have to go to the toilet.”

  Sarah jumped up. “Of course. I’ll wait outside.” As she took the three steps to the street, Jacob said, “It’s all right, there’s a door.”

  “That’s all right, I need some air.”

  Jacob shook his head and smiled as he directed a strong stream against the bowl, not wanting to make a splashing noise.

  He thought, And then there were two.

  When he opened the door and sheepishly invited her back, they hesitated a moment, choosing between the wooden chairs and the bed. “It’s more comfortable here,” Jacob said, plumping up the pillow. She joined him, leaning against the wall.

  “Okay,” Jacob said. “Tell me, I’m so curious. What made you come here?” He sensed Sarah stiffen at the directness of the question, and quickly added, “Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you did. Delighted. But you know, what happened? How did you know I was here? I mean, we don’t even know each other. Although, I’m glad we do now. And where have you come from?”

  She looked away. The little room seemed heavy again. He raised his shoulders in encouragement.

  Sarah answered with a shake of her head and a helpless raising of her hands.

  “It’s all right, I understand,” Jacob said with a thin smile. What could he say if she asked? “Just tell me, how you came to my room. And why.”

  Sarah sighed. “Well. This morning I came from Frankfurt. I was looking for someone. A man.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “The American army chaplain in Frankfurt, he arranged a ride with a jeep, and they took me to the chaplain here in Heidelberg. He had said there was a Jewish man here. The only Jew in Heidelberg.”

  “Me?” Jacob said.

  “Yes. He said he had met you. He didn’t know your name, though. But he took me to the mayor’s office, he thought maybe you had gone there for help, and they remembered you and found your name. The only Jew to come back. I recognized your name. But my husband, Josef Farber…”

  “I know Joe. He went to Berlin. You married him?”

  “As good as.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. I hoped it was him. We said, if we ever lost each other, we’d meet here. Afterwards…” Her lip quivered. “But it was you.”

  “I’m sorry.
”

  She looked at him sharply.

  “No, really. I mean, I’m sorry he’s not here. I’m not sorry that I’m here. I mean … I wish he could be here too.”

  “So do I.”

  “It’s early. He could be anywhere…”

  “We promised to meet here. On a bench by the river, at the bottom of the steps.”

  Jacob wanted to say: Then he’ll come. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it. How could he know if Joe would come back? With so many dead, what good would it do to pretend there was hope?

  He said, “You can stay here as long as you like.”

  “I didn’t have anywhere else to go, you see. The chaplain wanted to send me back to Frankfurt, there are Jews there, staying in a hospital. But I didn’t want to leave. Who knows when I could come back here again? But there’s nowhere here for people like us. When the chaplain asked about finding me a room here, they said there are thousands of people looking for a room and I should go to the countryside.”

  “Yes, that’s what they told me.”

  “You’d think the Amis would treat us differently. But they say we’re all Germans.”

  “That’ll change.”

  “So how did you get this room?”

  “I got an ID card. They knew me, they couldn’t say I wasn’t from here. Although they’d have liked to.”

  “That’s the trouble. I’m not from the town, I’m from outside, from near Leimersdorf, and I’m not going back there. I hate them, after the way they treated us.”

  Sarah’s face hardened at the memory. “I hate them.” When neighbors stole their chickens and they complained to the policeman, did he help? My foot! He stole the last one. When she shouted at a boy at school who had called her a dirty Jew, it was her they had punished for being a nuisance in class. The teacher wouldn’t let her into the classroom. “And they were our neighbors.”

  She looked at Jacob, around the room. “And so I didn’t have anywhere to go. And I thought, if you’re alone, and I’m alone, maybe we can be alone together.”

  He nodded and imagined them holding hands. She smiled and said, “After all, my sister knew your sister.”

  “Yes. You and me, we practically grew up together,” Jacob said.

  “Exactly. We’re like brother and sister.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly what I had in mind.”

  “Not for long, anyway,” Sarah said, “just until I find somewhere.”

  “Well, let’s see. Everyone is sharing in town, you may as well share with me.” Before she could object, not that she appeared to want to, he said, “Would you like to put your clothes away in the cupboard?”

  “Is there room?”

  Jacob’s eyes widened and he let out a guffaw. He snorted and slapped his sides as if he had never heard anything so funny.

  Sarah chuckled too, and wondered, Is he all right? He was like the clown in a circus. Would he cry next? It was catching, though, and as Jacob could not stop laughing, she began to laugh too, until they were rolling on the bed and beating it with their hands.

  Finally, she managed, “Wait, wait, what’s so funny?”

  Jacob was panting, trying to regain his breath. He stood, walked to the cupboard, and with a gesture of triumph threw open both doors. Sarah saw two shirts and a pair of pants hanging on a wooden hanger. All the other hangers were empty.

  “That’s all?”

  “It’s more than most, trust me.”

  “That isn’t funny, that’s sad.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” Jacob said, breathing in deeply, calming himself. “Of course it’s sad. But it’s still a lot. What about you? Where did you get your clothes?”

  “The chaplain in Frankfurt. I think he liked me,” she said, taking her blouses and pullovers from the bag and folding and stacking them neatly in the drawers. “Confiscated from Nazis, I suppose. Imagine what they would think, me wearing their clothes.”

  “And what do you think, wearing their clothes?”

  “I don’t care. What didn’t they take from us? Can’t we take a little something back?” She hung two dresses and two skirts on the hangers, and as she turned her back to him and pulled out her bras and knickers she said, “Now please don’t look.”

  Jacob turned away and lay on the bed and closed his eyes. The glimpse of her little underclothes, so intimate yet so distant, stirred him, but it stirred memories, too. The bad ones. His night thoughts. As Sarah busied herself at the cupboard, and wooden hangers clattered against the wooden doors, he heard different sounds, saw different things. They flashed through his mind, cackling like a witch on a broomstick, those things he saw in the dark.

  Naked skeleton women defecating in the open, stripped of shame. A pack of naked women herded like animals through distant trees in the snow, their bodies bouncing and quivering. They were like silent spirits gliding through the forest. Silhouettes with guns pushing and prodding them. As he lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling he grunted, trying not to think of his sister. Julie. Oh, Julie, what did they do to you? And Maxie … maybe not knowing is better.

  After the British had torn down the wire and set them free, breathed life into the dying, they had felt reincarnated, for they were not resuming their old lives but had been given new ones.

  Some of the men and women had behaved like animals, not even seeking a private place to couple in. Most survivors were young, and after years of being enslaved and thrashed like dogs they were amazed to be alive. They rediscovered themselves and their bodies, and copulation was like taking freedom, an affirmation of life. The British soldiers and doctors and nurses were disgusted, they thought the men and women behaved like shameless whores, but they were not whores, they were just in shock at what they could do. They could do anything they liked, and they celebrated. In the rooms, under blankets, on top of blankets, in the showers, even in the open, in the fields, in the woods, by the stream, they rolled together and made love and cried freedom.

  But not Jacob. He hadn’t thought of a woman for months, and hadn’t had a woman for years.

  FOURTEEN

  Heidelberg,

  May 18, 1945

  And now Jacob and Sarah lay in bed holding hands after a night in which their silences told more than their words. He could hear faintly the twittering of birds through the open window and the drone of a car and, through the wall, the early chatter of the Braunschweigs. Jacob turned his head and looked at Sarah dozing on her back and felt some peace at last.

  Sarah sensed Jacob’s gaze and as she turned to look at him her eyes drifted open and a smile began to form.

  As Jacob tried to smile back he felt the faintest ebbing of his senses and deepening of his breathing and, a cloud of sweetness enveloping him, he slipped into sleep.

  Through half-closed eyes, Sarah saw Jacob’s face slacken, his eyelids descend, and she heard his even breathing. She gently slid her hand from his and turned on her side, away from him, and tried to go back to sleep.

  She hadn’t meant to tell him about Hoppi, but he’d insisted. After all, he’d known Josef, there weren’t that many young Jewish men in Heidelberg, and they were about the same age. She had met Hoppi at a student dance in Berlin, each passing as a Christian, and their shared ruse had brought them together until they shared a deep love. It all came back and it had been so wonderful. When had she last poured her heart out? They were lying on their backs. She couldn’t remember who had taken whose hand as they talked but it seemed so natural and right. She told how they had changed hiding places almost weekly, sometimes daily, with half a dozen regular shelters, and then they had almost argued.

  She had tried to list all the names of the people who had helped her, and called them “the good Germans.” Jacob had said there weren’t any. She had tried to explain. If there weren’t any good Germans, she would have been dead long ago. “They are not all the same, truly,” she had said. But it had been different for Jacob. People had dropped dead around him every day. He had not been helped by a so
ul, every German had been evil. He had become agitated and she had tried to soothe him. “Yes, you’re right, everyone is evil,” she had finally said. “Feel better now?”

  When she told him how Hoppi had gone out and never returned, it was his turn to soothe her. She relived the torment of waiting, for hours and then days, and the anguish of those sleepless nights. She had looked for him in the streets and knocked on the doors of acquaintances, which she knew was foolish, for anyone could denounce her, but she couldn’t help herself. When she managed to say what Wilhelm Gruber had told her, that he had seen Hoppi being beaten and dragged away, she had barely been able to say the words, and had wept.

  But she had not told Jacob what she really felt, what she knew: that Hoppi could not be alive. That everyone had been taken to Auschwitz, and after Isak had told her what he had seen she knew that nobody could survive there for three years, certainly not someone as gentle and kind as Hoppi. And she had been glad that Jacob had not said all kinds of silly things, had not made impossible promises, that Hoppi was alive and all would be well.

  When she had recounted her journey, Jacob had teased her about Isak, and she had had to laugh. Yes, she thought, he’s right, Isak really was sweet. A savior. Would she see him again? Their parting was sudden because the jeep to Frankfurt was already late. He had said it was a good omen: She was going home on the first day of peace. She had kissed him on the cheek, and he had hugged her, a typical Russian bear hug, big and warm and strong, and told her to visit him in Balakovo on the Volga. “My mother is the best cook east of the Elbe,” he had promised. “Unlikely I’ll come,” she had said. “You come to Heidelberg, I’ll show you the castle.”

  Then suddenly they had kissed on the lips, briefly, and she had said to him, “I owe you my life.”

  “No, no,” he had said, holding her from him, stroking her hair. “God sent me at the right time, that’s all.”

  Her response had been quick and sharp and now she regretted it. “What God?”