But she was firmly resolved never to visit Herr Grün again.
And then there was this delivery of autumn models of the Ober department store, and old Frau Ober was always so fussy, and carped about every individual thread, so it was better for Rachel to go and clear the air. In the end no one in the company was as good at dealing with people as she was. The Ober wasn’t far from the barracks, and from the barracks it was only a few steps to Molkenstrasse, so could Rachel please be so kind and drop the bag of leftover brocade off with Frau Posmanik, because she’d set it aside for her anyway. If she called in to see Herr Grün at the same time, it was the most natural thing in the world, after all, you have to know when you can expect your workers to be back on their feet.
Herr Grün wasn’t in his bed, as he should have been if he’d been signed off sick. ‘He isn’t here,’ said Aaron through the crack in the door. It was really infuriating how often Frau Posmanik left her children alone. It was only after a number of questions that the little boy condescended to reveal to Rachel that Herr Grün hadn’t gone out or anything, but that he was on the roof.
The impertinence of it.
You had to fish for a hook with a pole and lower a ladder. You had to find the way through a dusty attic, and afterwards you had cobwebs in your hair, the lengths you have to go to sometimes. And then after you’d bent through far too low a door, you were standing on a metal roof where you were constantly tripping over a seam, really not the right place for a businesswoman who’s put on almost her very best shoes for a conversation with an important customer.
At first she didn’t see Herr Grün at all. Someone had put washing out to dry on the roof, the unsightly intimacies of a big family. She had to duck under clothes lines hung with underpants and vests, and then at last discovered, in a niche between two chimneys, a wicker chair with someone sitting in it, someone of whom only a pair of slippers and an adventurously colourful dressing gown could be seen. The rest of the man was hidden by an open newspaper.
‘Herr Grün?’
He didn’t lower the newspaper straight away. As if he wanted to finish an article before he was prepared to notice her. But then he was exquisitely polite, which Rachel found merely aggravating.
‘Fräulein Kamionker! What a pleasant surprise! Unfortunately I can’t offer you a chair. There’s only one, and it’s not worthy of you.’ He briefly raised his backside to show her that the wicker chair was completely worn out, and should long since have been sent to the blind people’s workshop on Stauffacher for repair.
Désirée had been right: Herr Grün had changed. Whether it was for the better – Rachel wasn’t so sure. Previously he had been taciturn and hard-headed, now he seemed talkative, but she could have sworn he was no less stubborn.
‘I thought you were ill.’
‘Convalescent. Dr Meijer says the sun will do me good. Except I can’t climb down all the steps to the street and then back up again quite yet. So I’d rather come up on the roof.’ He had rolled up his newspaper, and was now using it to point, like a tour guide, at the panorama of surrounding houses. ‘The view is glorious.’
‘Nothing special.’ All that could be seen were parapets, chimneys and washing lines. A poor area of town isn’t the sort of place to find historic buildings.
‘Exactly,’ said Herr Grün. ‘Nothing special. That’s the wonderful thing about this country: that it doesn’t want to be anything special. You can’t imagine how much I envy you that ordinariness.’
Rachel wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment or a veiled criticism, so she changed the subject. ‘I hear interesting things about you.’
‘I envy you that too,’ said Herr Grün.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your curiosity.’
‘I am not curious!’
‘Yes you are,’ said Herr Grün. ‘Believe me. I’ve had to learn to assess people correctly.’
‘You flatter yourself!’ Rachel took a furious step back, and came into unpleasant contact with a wet sheet. ‘If you think that even for a minute I would . . .’
‘Curiosity is a fortunate quality in a person. If someone is curious, he also hopes that something good might happen. I’m not curious about anything any more.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘You see,’ said Herr Grün, ‘back in the cabaret . . . Did Fräulein Pomeranz also . . .? Stupid of me. Of course she did. You’ll have got everything out of her.’
‘I have absolutely no . . .’
But Herr Grün had started telling stories again, and heard no objections. Arthur had said that a blockage of words is like an abscess; once it’s pierced everything comes pouring out, and only then can the cure be lasting.
‘Back in the cabaret,’ said Herr Grün, ‘Blau was always the popular one, not me. I got the punchlines and he just supplied the prompts. You know why that was? Because he asked the questions and I gave the answers. If you ask questions you’re curious, and if you’re curious you’re likeable.’
If Rachel had been even slightly interested in Herr Grün, that could have been the link for some teasing banter. But as it was, she just folded her arms and tried to find a rather more relaxed position on the smooth metal of the roof. Her shoes were elegant, but they were also uncomfortable.
‘What happened to your Herr Blau?’ she asked.
‘Blau is dead. His name was Siegfried Schlesinger. Siegfried, of all things. I always teased him about his cufflinks. He had had his monogram engraved on them, and I said, “It’s outrageous, making me work with the SS.” It was a good punchline at the time.
‘Then we ended up in the camp. That was a scene we hadn’t performed before. Grün and Blau at the races, we’d done that one. Grün and Blau at the zoo. And so on. But now: Grün and Blau in the camp. A lousy sketch.
‘You know what bad comedians do when their punchlines don’t work? They slap each other. Kick each other in the backside. So that the audience have something to laugh at. Slapstick. The stick you slap someone with. Beatings always go down well, it’s an old stage rule. It’s a hit, a smash.
‘Blau got the biggest laugh of his life when they broke his nose. Had them rolling in the aisles. And then they tore into him again. Da capo.
‘Yes, Blau is dead.’ His voice was quiet now. ‘And Grün should be too. He just missed his prompt.’
His feelings were stowed away in jars, sealed and screwed tight. But now one of the jars had opened. The jar in which Herr Grün kept his tears.
66
Kassel, 28.6.37
Dear Dr Meijer!
I have had to read your last letter over and over again. In it you have written something that moved me very much. It would really be a great comfort for me if my husband’s death had been something impersonal.
But the car that drove him over didn’t come along by chance, and my husband didn’t stumble into its bonnet by accident. That’s just what I’ve told the children, to make it easier for them.
It was one of those open trucks that they used to drive around the streets in to kick up a row and intimidate people. Twenty men in the back, always ready to leap on somebody and beat him up.
My husband was a lawyer and had brought some cases against them. He even won a few. In 1932 such things were still sometimes possible.
It was on Königsstrasse here in Kassel, right in the centre of town, just in front of the town hall. My husband and I were walking side by side along the pavement, arm in arm. They drove by and recognised him. The driver wrenched the wheel around, I could see his face as he did it. His face open wide as if he were sitting on a roller coaster, in delighted panic or panicking delight. The car swung over and rode up onto the pavement, the uniformed men in the back all bounced up in rhythm, and then it was there, so close that I could smell the petrol, hot metal and the rubber of the tyres.
I can still smell it.
My husband let go of my arm. It all happened so quickly, but I’m sure he did it on purpose so that I wouldn’t be dragged along.
Attentive until the final thought. And then there was that blow, not even particularly loud, just like a big suitcase falling off a luggage trolley. Then the truck hopped again, back into the street.
At first it looked as if nothing bad had happened. My husband was lying on his back, eyes open. There was no sign of an injury.
Until the blood started spreading beneath his head.
So much blood.
I told the children a different version. They couldn’t have borne it otherwise.
We filed an action against the perpetrators, we were still as naïve as that in those days, but by the time the case came to court it was 1933 and they were in power. I was advised to withdraw the accusation, but my husband wouldn’t have wanted that. The result was that he was given a fine. He was. Posthumously. For damage to property. Because a brownshirt truck got a dent in its mudguard.
I paid the bill for the repairs. With interest.
You’re right: it would have been easier if it had really been an accident.
That’s all five years ago now, but since the court case I’ve never told anyone about it in such detail. The memory hurts, but I realise: it’s also good to share it with someone.
I trust you because I don’t know you. No, that sounds wrong. I meant: although I don’t know you.
I’ve since been to Berlin. Nothing about my situation has changed, except that I’m now on some waiting lists. I haven’t been to the Swiss Embassy. Everyone tells me there’s no point.
A shame Goliath doesn’t really exist.
With warm regards
Yours
Rosa Pollack
Zurich, 2 July 1937
Dear Frau Pollack,
I would dearly love to say something consoling to you, but I don’t know how. It’s so terrible, what people do to each other.
Arthur Meijer
Zurich, 3 July 1937
Dear Frau Pollack
Don’t think ill of me for sending you such a stupid letter yesterday. I found no words, and still needed to say something to you straight away.
In the letters that my nephew Ruben writes from Halberstadt, there has been much talk of bullying, of a thousand perfidious little pinpricks, but he’s never said anything about spontaneous violence. From his reports I had the sense that lots of terrible things are happening in Germany, but that for each fresh outrage a law or a bill had first to be passed. Until now I couldn’t have imagined anything like what has happened to you. (That may be naiveté, or simply just cowardice.)
(It was probably cowardice. I’m not a brave person.)
Of course it’s impossible for you to be exposed to such things for even a day longer.
I have thought all night, and would like to make you a suggestion, which I ask you not to interpret as charity. It would help me too. Really.
I do have a receptionist at my surgery, but my Fräulein Salvisberg is an elderly lady, who finds the work too much, and could use some relief. (At least one can put it that way without insulting the dear soul too much.)
Irma told me that you have worked as a geriatric nurse, and a step from there to the waiting room of a general practitioner is not a very great one. If it would be convenient – empty words. After everything I know about your situation, it will be more than convenient. So, to rephrase – If you will permit me, I will contact the immigration authorities here to see about the prospects of a work permit. It shouldn’t actually be all that difficult.
To this end it would be useful if you could assemble your personal details on a piece of paper for me, age, place of birth and all those things. The authorities are doubtless going to want all those things.
With warmest greetings
Your Arthur Meijer
PS: I wonder whether Irma hasn’t known the truth for ages, and only goes on talking about an accident because she thinks she owes you that. I would not put such consideration beyond her.
PERSONAL DETAILS
Name: Pollack, née Bernstein
First name: Rosa Recha (my father was a big fan of Lessing.)
Date of birth: 30 September 1900 (I would seem to have been conceived during the night of the turn of the century.)
Place of birth: Melsungen, District of Melsungen, Hessen (perhaps you have seen a picture of the beautiful half-timbered houses there? My father had a little weaving mill there.)
Professional training: primary school teacher (but I never practised the profession, because I met my husband while I was doing the course and married him straight after my exams. Pointlessly wasted fees.)
Current occupation: unemployed
Religion: (three guesses.)
(So, is that enough parenthetical observations for your liking?)
Kassel, 10.7.37
Dear Goliath!
The personal details that I enclose sound remarkably silly. Your letter has left me light-headed with hope.
Of course I can imagine nothing better than to help in your surgery. Or in any other way. Do you need a cook? My children say I bake the best cakes in the world. Oh, it would be so lovely if this really worked! The situation here gets more dreadful by the day.
The impression that you will have gained from your nephew’s letters is not incorrect. Most of the things being done to us are entirely legal. It is only the laws themselves that are criminal. As if highway robbers were to wear collars and ties and keep strictly to shop opening hours.
An example: they don’t simply take people’s houses away. They just pass a bill according to which each house-owner is obliged to become a member of a house-owner’s association. Sounds harmless enough, doesn’t it? But the association doesn’t accept Jews, so the houses sadly, sadly, have to be sold. At a price determined by the purchaser.
And that is happening everywhere.
I myself have worked in an old people’s home run by the B’nai B’rith. The association was compulsorily dissolved and its assets confiscated. So far so orderly. First you invent a clause, and then you enforce it.
Before they pulled all the bedclothes out of the cupboards and took them away, I had to produce an exact list of them, sheet for sheet, pillow case for pillow case. They even waited until the dirty laundry had been washed, ironed and sorted again. To make sure that nothing was missing. Only then did they come and take it all away. They paid me my wages for that one day. Minus social insurance contributions, as prescribed by the regulations. All according to the book.
When the old people had long since been thrown out of their rooms, a Party member sat in our director’s office for weeks going through the accounts. B’nai B’rith members who were behind with their contributions were sent a reminder and had to pay the difference. Your view of things is quite correct: we are an orderly country, where stealing is only ever done against receipt.
I will be so happy when I no longer have to live here.
By the way: I naturally assumed that you and your family are Swiss. If that is the case – what is your nephew doing in this accursed Germany?
A work permit for Switzerland would be wonderful. If it works out, I will only ever call you Goliath for as long as you live.
With warmest, warmest greetings
Your
Rosa Pollack
‘How do you imagine this?’
Herr Bisang pulled a face as if he had toothache. He had set his pocket watch down on the desk in front of him and now straightened the chain, aligning it so that it was precisely parallel with the dark brown cardboard portfolio containing Arthur’s application.
‘Really, Dr Meijer, how do you imagine this?’
The official had the pursed lips of a man who has an unpleasant taste in his mouth, but whom propriety forbids to spit.
‘Stomach problems,’ Arthur thought automatically.
‘Just as this Zionist Congress is being held in Zurich. With delegates from all over the world. I have talked to my colleagues in Basel, who have experience of such things. They all say we should brace ourselves. You have no idea how much work we ha
ve to do already.’ With a reproachfully exhausted gesture he pointed to a shelf full of lever-arch files. ‘Entry permits. Special authorisations. Applications, applications, applications.’
‘I don’t quite see the connection.’
‘But Doctor Meijer!’ Herr Bisang pressed both thumbs to his temples and pulled a face again. ‘You are an intelligent person. One can tell just by looking at you. No, no, don’t contradict me. I have an eye for these things. You have to be able to read people in a post such as mine. You understand what I mean.’
‘To be quite honest: no. I’m asking you for a work permit for a receptionist, and you . . .’
‘Stop there,’ said Herr Bisang and raised his hand like a traffic policeman. ‘Let’s not muddle things up. You have made an application; I have received an application to process. It has nothing at all to do with a personal request. If it were up to me . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘But it isn’t up to me,’ said Herr Bisang. ‘We have our instructions. Rules. Guidelines.’
‘Frau Pollack would really be the ideal receptionist for me.’
‘Ah, you see, Doctor Meijer . . .’ Herr Bisang seem to have reached a favourite topic of his. ‘What is ideal? It would be ideal if I could retire tomorrow on a full pension. But authorities are not there for the ideal, but for the doable. And this work permit is not doable.’
‘My I ask you the reason?’
Herr Bisang coughed and brought a hand to his throat as if to check that some new illness wasn’t on its way.
‘Application for entry with a view to accepting a workplace can only be authorised if in the professional sector in question it can be demonstrated that there is an inadequate supply of local applicants.’ The sentence sounded as if it had been learned by heart, as indeed it probably had been.
‘In this special case . . .’
‘There are only special cases.’ Herr Bisang laid his fingertips together as carefully as if it were a difficult trick. ‘Particularly among you Jews.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Please don’t misunderstand me, Dr Meijer. I have no prejudices. I do not know such things. For me there are only facts. Figures. Statistics. And it is an indisputable fact that the number of applications from German citizens of the Mosaic faith has risen very sharply over the past few years.’
Melnitz Page 72
