The Berlin Boxing Club

by Robert Sharenow

  I spent as much time as possible in my basement room either training or drawing in my journal. One evening after dinner I worked out on the heavy bag. I circled the bag, rotating sets of punches, first jabs, then uppercuts, then crosses, then combinations. I was so focused on mechanically driving my fist into the fabric that I didn’t even notice my mother standing near the bottom of the stairs, watching me. I stopped when I saw her. She rarely came down to the basement since it had become my room.

  “It must be nice,” she said.

  “What?”

  “To be able to hit something like that, to have a release.”

  “I suppose.”

  “This boxing has been good for you,” she said, sitting on my bed. She looked tired but smiled at me. “Sometimes I wish I had something like that.”

  “I don’t really have it anymore,” I confessed. “I was kicked out of the boxing league.”

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I have not been myself lately, but I can still figure things out, Karl. I know when you come and go. I’m still a mother. I’m sorry you can’t compete anymore, but you still have your boxing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve barely missed one day of training in four years, and I don’t expect you will anytime soon. It’s inside you now. And I know you’ll box again someday. There will be other tournaments.”

  “I wish I could believe you.”

  “There will be,” she said, “because you want it so badly. That’s how all great things get done. Do you know why I gave up painting?”

  “No.”

  “Most people think I gave it up because of my family obligations, but that’s not true. The real truth is I had no passion for it. My father was a portrait artist and wanted me to follow in his footsteps, so I did for a while. But I never really got any pleasure out of it beyond the pleasure that it gave him. Of course I love the world of art, but the process of painting was always a task for me and not a joy. On the other hand, you’ve been drawing in your journal for as long as you could hold a pen. I couldn’t make you stop if I wanted to. And you have the same kind of passion for your boxing. That’s why you have the makings to be great.”

  “Papa doesn’t think so.”

  “He does.”

  “Then how come he never said anything to me? About anything?”

  She sighed and seemed to consider her answer before responding.

  “One of your father’s modern ideas about parenting is to leave you alone and let you become the man you want to be, not the man he wants you to be. Do you remember when you were very little, perhaps four or five years old, and we used to dress you up in a tuxedo for the gallery openings?”

  I hadn’t thought about it in a long time, but suddenly an image formed in my head of myself as a young boy standing beside my father in a matching tuxedo. The memory gave me an unexpected feeling of warmth inside, like stepping into a hot bath.

  “I even had a little matching blue silk scarf, didn’t I?”

  “Yes.” She laughed. “You loved dressing up with your father like that. And he would parade you around the gallery with such pride. Do you know why he stopped?”

  “No.”

  “One night at a gallery opening all your father’s friends took to calling you Little Sig. You thought it was funny, but it upset your father. Later that night he said he never wanted you to dress you up in the tuxedo again. When I asked him why, he just said, ‘Karl must be Karl.’”

  “But then why does he always criticize all the things I want to do, like cartooning and boxing?”

  “Both of those things have high risks. He still wants you to do what he thinks will be best for you. He’s still a parent.”

  “He’s a hard person to understand,” I said.

  “In some ways you’re right. But in other ways he’s very transparent. Your father tries to treat you how he wanted to be treated by his father. He believes in self-reliance and wants to instill independence in you. Also, he’s tried to keep you and your sister out of trouble. Do you understand?”

  “I guess.”

  “Good. Because now he needs you.”

  “Needs me for what?”

  “He’ll tell you. Get dressed and go to him.”

  My mother rose from the bed, kissed me on the top of my head, and then turned to move back up the stairs. It had been so long since she’d shown me any affection. I was struck by a powerful longing to be a little kid again, to run home from school to be enveloped by her embrace, to be comforted by her sweet voice when I woke from a nightmare, to let her bathe and dress me and take my hand as I accompanied her on her daily errands. Oh, how I loved her, and I needed to tell her so.

  “Mama . . . ?”

  She paused on the stairs. I was hoping to see the young vibrant mother I remembered from childhood. But when she turned back to face me, I saw only the withered, fragile woman that she had become.

  “Ja?” she said.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  She turned and slowly trudged back up the stairs.

  I changed out of my workout clothes and went upstairs. I found my father waiting for me in their bedroom, hovering over a brightly colored abstract oil painting of a woman reading a book.

  “Do you remember her?” he said, without turning to look at me.

  “Of course. It hung in the living room of our old apartment for years. Right above the mantel.”

  “It was always my favorite. Picasso has magical eyes. He sees the world so differently than we do, but he is able to make us understand what he sees. That’s what a truly great artist does.”

  Years earlier I had copied the Picasso into my journal, and it had struck me that the woman in the painting must’ve been reading something naughty and got caught in the act.

  “There’s beauty to it, and sexuality,” my father said. “But also humor and mystery, even some darkness around the edges. So many ideas in one painting. It’s no wonder those savages have banned art like this. Too many ideas. Too much beauty.”

  He folded a large piece of brown wrapping paper over the painting and carefully taped it shut.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I found a buyer for it,” he said. “A Swiss dealer named Kerner, who says he’s got a client who is mad for Picassos in Stockholm. It could fetch us enough to be able to to get to America.”

  “America?” My heart rose up. I’d had no idea my father had been working on an actual plan to get us out, and the idea thrilled me. Images of America, the promised land of boxing, movie stars, and comic books, flooded into my head.

  “I have cousins in the United States, one in Florida named Leo and one in New York named Hillel. They are the sons of my father’s brother,” he continued. “They moved before the Great War. We had not been in touch for years until now. I don’t know them well, but they’ve agreed to sponsor us. We just need money to make the trip. I’ve sold nearly everything I’ve been holding on to. This last Picasso should bring us just about enough to get us what we need. But this dealer Kerner is a man I don’t trust. So I need you to come with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Just to be careful.”

  “Careful about what?”

  He finished wrapping the painting and turned to look at me.

  “We must be careful about everything these days, Karl.”

  We silently walked through the streets in the gathering dusk. My father moved quickly, his eyes focused on a point in the distance. We passed an iceman unloading a huge block of ice with sharp metal tongs from his horse cart. Walking by the open ice box sent a chill through me that enhanced my tension and inner fear.

  Kerner was staying at a small hotel downtown called the Little Kaiser. My father took a deep breath before knocking on the door. We heard footsteps approach; an eye peered through the peephole; then Kerner opened the door and grandly ushered us inside the suite. “Willkommen! Come in, come in,” he said, hugging my father warmly as if they we
re old friends. Kerner was a tall man with a long, thin face and a pencil mustache like Errol Flynn’s. His long blond hair was neatly slicked back against his scalp.

  “And who is this?” he said in mock surprise. “Your muscle?”

  “This is my son, Karl.” my father said.

  “He looks nothing like you, Sig. Sure the postman wasn’t involved?”

  Kerner was laughing, but his eyes were measuring me up. I had seen that look before in the ring when opponents tried to sneak looks at me before a fight. My hands instantly got cold and clammy and tightened into fists.

  “Come in, come in,” he said.

  We stepped into the small sitting area that consisted of a couch and two armchairs positioned around a wide, low coffee table. My father unwrapped the painting on the table in the center of the room, and when it was revealed, Kerner clapped his hands with delight.

  “Fantastisch! Look at those tits. My client will love it. He’s a dirty old man, this guy.”

  My father winced but managed a weak smile.

  “I’m just glad you were able to find a buyer who would pay my price.”

  “Yes,” Kerner said. “There are still people with money to buy art out there if you look under the right rock. This is excellent, Stern. Always good doing business with you.”

  He extended his hand, and my father shook it as if sealing the deal.

  “I will send you the money as soon as I’m back in Stockholm.”

  “Send me the money?” my father said, releasing his hand.

  “I assume you want Swiss francs? Or would you prefer U.S. dollars?”

  “We agreed that I would be paid my portion up front.”

  “Did we?” Kerner said, furrowing his brow as if trying to remember the conversation. “I don’t recall us discussing that.”

  “I’m certain we did,” my father said.

  “Well, it is an awkward misunderstanding. But I’m afraid I don’t have the cash.”

  “That is unfortunate,” my father said.

  “But I will send it to you straightaway. As soon as we get back to Switzerland.”

  “We?”

  “Yes,” Kerner said. “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce my associate, Gustav.”

  A beefy man dressed in an ill-fitting blue suit emerged from the bedroom of the suite and came to stand behind Kerner. He moved his jacket aside to place his hands on his hips and in doing so revealed a flash of the gray steel of a revolver stuck in the side of his belt.

  “Gustav and I will be traveling back to Switzerland this afternoon”—Kerner continued—“with the Picasso. Now you and your boy should run along and not do anything stupid.”

  “This is what you’ve sunk to, Kerner? Highway robbery?”

  “Call it what you will,” he said.

  “You won’t get away with this,” my father said.

  “No?” Kerner said. “And what can you possibly do about it, Stern? Your government has banned this painting. If they knew you had it, they would only take it away. Besides that, you’re a Jew and a black marketeer. They would shoot you like a rabid dog. At least with me, you know it will wind up in the hands of a true art lover. We both want to make sure this pretty bitch finds a loving home.”

  My father stood silent for a moment, his face reddening with anger. Then he suddenly lunged forward, grabbed the painting, and hoisted it high over his head as if to smash it.

  Kerner stepped forward to block him. I was too stunned to know how to react.

  “Stop!” Kerner shouted.

  Gustav pulled his gun and leveled it at me. My body froze, and my eyes locked on the dark hollow of the barrel. My father stared at Kerner, the painting shaking in his hands high above his head.

  “You really want to see your son shot over a painting, Stern?”

  My father’s eyes quickly darted from Kerner to Gustav to the gun and then to me. He slowly lowered the painting and tossed it to the ground.

  “There will be a special place in hell for opportunist pieces of garbage like you when this is all over.”

  “Who said this will ever be over?” Kerner said casually.

  “Take a good look at these men, Karl,” my father said. “This is what the scum of the earth looks like.”

  My father grabbed my arm and quickly led me out of the room.

  “Gute Nacht!” Kerner said as we retreated.

  Gustav kept the gun pointed at us until we were back out the door.

  We did not speak at all as we walked away from the hotel in the thickening darkness. My father did not go directly home but strayed down along a path by the Spree River. The current of the river moved quickly, and the water looked black with glints of silver in the moonlight. He finally came to stop at a small park overlooking Museumsinsel, Museum Island, an island in the center of the city with a series of museums built in the last century. He sat on a park bench facing the island and stared at the dark outlines of the domes and statues of the buildings. After a moment, I sat beside him.

  “Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm the Fourth had those built,” he said, finally breaking the silence, “to house all the art treasures of the kingdom. Hard to believe the government once valued such things enough to build those magnificent palaces for them.”

  “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he replied.

  “What are you going to tell Mama?”

  “For now I’m just going to tell her that everything went fine, at least until I have another plan in mind. I can’t leave her without hope.”

  My father again lapsed into silence. I felt uncomfortable sitting there with him, unsure of what to say. I was horrified at my father’s powerlessness. But I also felt a strange sense of satisfaction, at sharing in this moment of my father’s despair, two men bound together through cruelty with no one else to rely on. We sat like that for another fifteen minutes, in the cool darkness. Finally my father rose, and we walked home together.

  The Mongrel

  AFTER THE PICASSO INCIDENT, I HOPED THAT MY FATHER would come to rely on me more and that he would treat me more like an adult. Yet in the aftermath he only became even more remote and secretive. I never even found out exactly how he explained the incident to my mother. They seemed to close into themselves even more deeply with each passing day.

  Several weeks later a package arrived for me at the gallery. I almost never received any personal mail, so I couldn’t imagine whom it might be from. The return address on the thick white envelope bore a name I didn’t recognize, Albert Broder. I took the package down to the basement, slit open the side, and spilled the contents onto my bed. The envelope contained a large collection of boxing magazines and comic books. Finally a small piece of gray notepaper fluttered onto the basement floor. I picked it up and read:

  Dear Karl,

  I’m sorry I have not reached out to you sooner, but it took me a while to track down an address for you. I thought you would enjoy these magazines and comic books, especially a new one from America called Action Comics. It has a great new crime-fighting hero named Superman who I think you will like. Things have not been the same here since you left, for more reasons than you know. I miss your comradeship. Please come visit if you get the chance.

  Your friend, Albert Broder (aka Neblig)

  I felt my chest tighten with emotion. Neblig had not given up on me after all. I still had a real friend who had spent the time and energy to track me down. It had been six months since my last fight, and I wondered what Worjyk and the other members thought of me.

  I dug through the pile of magazines until I discovered Action Comics. The cover featured a striking image of the new hero called Superman, a muscular man with dark black hair and dressed in a blue jumpsuit and a flowing red cape, hoisting an automobile over his head and smashing it into the side of a rocky hill. A group of men, presumably gangsters, ran away in fear as shattered glass and pieces of the car flew off in all directions.

  I was instantly transfixed by the stor
y. Like me, Superman was an alien, an outsider from another planet that had been completely destroyed. His physiology was different from that of normal humans, just like what the Nazis said about the Jews. Only instead of being corrupted, Superman’s blood gave him superior strength and intelligence. He even had dark, wavy hair like a Jew. And his alter ego, Clark Kent, wore glasses and looked like one of my father’s intellectual friends. Also like me, he transformed himself from a humble, meek, ordinary man to a muscle-bound warrior. Despite their strength and heroism, both Superman and Clark Kent were misunderstood outsiders.

  One line in the comic book really stuck out and sealed my devotion to this new hero. The writer described Superman as “Champion of the Oppressed.” He was no ordinary detective or soldier, fighting crime or rescuing damsels in distress. No, he was the protector of the weak and those most in need. He was the champion of justice. Someone who would stand up for helpless old men whose stores were vandalized and little girls who had rotten eggs and apples thrown at them.

  I read and reread the comic book a half dozen times that day. The character of Superman seemed so much bigger and more significant than the childish comic strips I had been drawn to in the past. I was so overwhelmed and inspired by the story that I immediately set out to create my own superhero. I grabbed my pen, ink, and journal and in one fevered burst sketched out everything, including my character’s uniform, logo, weapons, and the entire story of his origins. Everything about the character came to life almost instantly, springing from the deepest corners of my imagination. I wrote and drew for five straight hours, working and reworking different ideas. When I was done, I had given birth to the Mongrel.

  When I finally put my pen down, I felt physically drained but satisfied in a way I never had been in my cartooning before. I wanted to share my new creation with someone. Yet I knew my parents wouldn’t understand. I feared my sister would be too frightened by the dark implications of the story. There was only one person who I thought could fully appreciate my new hero.

  Return to the Berlin Boxing Club