The Seventh Gate

by Richard Zimler

He tries to smile and reaches for my hand. I love the warmth of him, and his ease with me. And I realize that being with a pajama-clad, pipe-smoking Jewish sorcerer and talking with him about adult matters is my refuge from my life. Even Georg’s murder serves—in some perverse way—to take my mind from Tonio’s delight in Hitler, my mother’s disappointment in me, and all I’d like to change. Though now I have another, much more substantial, reason to want to find the murderer—protecting the most unusual person I’ve ever met.

  Over the next weeks, however, my difficulties keep adding up and tugging me away from Georg’s death. Worst of all, as we enter into the new year of 1933, Rini and I have a rancorous quarrel, breaking months of giggling solidarity during which we’ve managed to keep politics at a distance.

  Our troubles begin when we read in the Morgenpost about Albert Einstein and Erich Maria Remarque fleeing Germany, which prompts me to tell Rini—in a voice of supreme authority—that the two men might have acted hastily. Standing together in our schoolyard, I tell her, “I think they should have stayed and fought.”

  “Who do you think you are to judge them?” she snaps.

  I immediately know she’s right and already regret my words, but I play dumb and ask, “What do you mean?”

  “If Remarque thinks that Nazi threats against the Jews and Communists are real, and that staying here would only get him arrested, then who are you to disagree with him? Maybe you ought to pay more attention to what the Nazis aim to do to people like him.”

  “I do pay attention. I have since I first heard Hitler on the radio!”

  “Though you no longer seem to mind him so much. Maybe you and Tonio both think the Jews are only pretending to be scared of the Nazis because we secretly run the world from a New York command post.” She raises her hand above her head and jiggles invisible strings. “I’m an evil puppetmaster controlling all you do and say, right? Me and the Rothschilds!”

  I reply harshly to her, in part because she seems to want to misunderstand what I’m saying. And her mentioning Tonio has brought up my dread that I’ll have to choose between him and her someday. Also, I hate her implying that Papa—as a Communist—could be in imminent danger, and that he might have to flee Germany. I’d decided by then that never voicing my fears about my father will help to keep him safe.

  Back and forth our quarrel goes, and we’re both too hotheaded to consider that we’re inflicting permanent wounds. “I’m sick of you being a Jew!” I conclude, which isn’t true; if anything, I’m jealous of her for having already learned some of what Isaac is teaching me.

  “Coward!” she screams.

  Right again, but she gives me a contemptuous look and runs off before I can either apologize or curse her, leaving me alone with my guilt, which quickly becomes a vow never to talk to her again unless she apologizes. The alchemy of dishonesty.

  Right afterward, Greta Ullrich—who has made it well known that her dentist father has decided to no longer fix Jewish cavities as his contribution to the Fatherland—comes marching up to me. Her hair is always braided in perfect plaits, as though she were a milkmaid who gets inspected every morning by the Bavarian Braiding Union. I’ve never forgiven her for once telling Dr Hildebrandt, the headmaster, that she’d seen Rini smoking on school grounds. Instead of Greta Ullrich, Rini and I call her Gurka Greulich—meaning repugnant snitch; gurka means pickle but is slang for tattletale.

  “Good for you, Sophie!” she tells me, smiling brightly. “We’ll show those Jews their place.”

  “Gurka, if you don’t shut your damned mouth, I swear I’ll cut off those braids of yours and stuff them up your Bavarian behind!”

  Gasping, she runs back to her group of gawking idiots, all of them with that wholesome, empty look of girls bred for a proper marriage, and they start whispering about me as if I’m scandalous. Which compared to them, anyone who looks as if she’s from Berlin must be.

  * * *

  Tonio soon adds to my worries, since he insists on bringing up my virginity every time we’re alone, pestering me like a hungry fly. Cede to his wishes or lose him—those seem to be my only options. And when he pleads in the softest voice a boy could ever have, clutching my hands in his lap as if he understands how difficult my choice is, I begin to doubt that I can resist much longer. And question why I should.

  Once, while we’re kissing in my room, he whispers, “When I’m inside you for the first time, we’ll be pledged to each other forever.”

  I know a boy will say just about anything to get between a girl’s legs, but that forever is the word I’ve been waiting for. And that we is clever, too; it implies we’re on the same side.

  “You’re driving me crazy,” I tell him, rolling my eyes.

  “Sophie, you don’t know what it’s like for a boy. We have needs that you don’t.”

  He puts my hand over the bulge that’s rising down the leg of his trousers. “See, I’m always ready and you’re not.” He presses himself into my hip and moans. “I ache all over when I’m like this.”

  I push him off and after he stops pouting, we start reading car magazines side by side on my bed. Much safer. And he’s recently figured out a way to include my adoration of Dietrich and Garbo into his automotive reveries …

  Holding up a photo of a big blood-red car, he says, “Sophie, do you think Greta would prefer a 1932 Deusenberg Brunn Torpedo Phaeton or …” Here, he picks up a glossy picture of a sleek convertible. “… a 1929 Hispano Suiza H6B?”

  The car names mean nothing to me, of course, but I can tell in an instant that Garbo would go for the Phaeton—much classier. I point to that one.

  “How about Marlene?” he enquires, his face so earnest that I have to suppress a giggle.

  Tonio and I go on like this—our feet playing together on the end of the bed—until we’ve decided on cars for Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Norma Shearer, Willy Fritsch, Max Schreck, and creepy but captivating Gloria Swanson, who, in Tonight or Never, wore the most gorgeous gowns I ever saw.

  Tom Mix and his horse Tony are the hardest to match, but we end up choosing a 1932 Ford Tudor with a trailer at the back. Lon Chaney has been in his grave for two years but Tonio and I still pick out a pink and yellow roadster for him.

  Tonio also lets me speculate on what Jewish stars like Groucho Marx would want their chauffeurs to drive. And yet there are signs his kinship with the Nazis is growing deeper … The worst is that he gives me Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf, to read when I refuse yet one more time to give up my virginity. My boyfriend is so enraptured by his prophet that he really believes that Hitler’s sacred words will convince me to open my legs. In short, he thinks I’ll fuck him for the Fatherland! (Little do I know that this is not so crazy as it sounds. Millions of girls will be pressured to do just that over the coming years. Even the lucky ones who aren’t forced to slog their way through Mein Kampf. After all, Germany’s soldiers need their rations.)

  While I’m walking the tightrope between my choices, President Hindenberg—who has been doing his own balancing act between political parties for several months—closes his eyes, prays for kind treatment in future history books, and names Herr Hitler as Chancellor, then disappears back into his hole. After the initial sense of panic both Papa and I feel, the announcement on the 30th of January comes as a relief, in the way of all political catastrophes that are expected; after weeks of nervous anticipation, the worst has finally happened, and now at least we will be able to see how disastrous—or prosperous—life will become. “We can now clear away the dust and rubble and start over, with the workers leading us forward!” Papa says confidently, certain that the little man who shouts will soon vanish, though he’s pushed back the date of his demise until the beginning of 1934—a year away.

  Isaac sees things differently. “Hitler won’t want to lose the element of surprise, so we’re in for some fast changes. As for your father’s beloved workers, our Chancellor will be only too happy to send them to the front as cannon fodder when he’s ready
.”

  Hitler has sworn an oath to uphold the constitution, however, and only two Nazis are in his cabinet, so it’s just possible that Isaac’s worries will prove unfounded and life will go on much as it has over the last decade.

  I never admit it to anyone, but a shadowy part of me is also a bit glad to see threatening changes in our government, since I want Rini to pay for abandoning me. That I regard Hitler’s opinions about the Jews as nothing but slanderous lies makes my betrayal of her even easier in a way, since I don’t feel tainted by his viciousness. Not that I truly want anything bad to happen to Rini and her family or any other Jewish people, of course. Oh, no, I’m one of the good Germans.

  As part of the nation’s celebrations, deaf storm troopers march through the Brandenburg Gate alongside their hearing comrades, carrying upraised torches past our new Führer. They are unable to hear the tens of thousands cheering around them, of course, but they are grateful for the chance to feel united with such a massive, exuberant crowd. Seizing a chance for inclusion at any price is a powerful temptation to someone born deaf. At least, that is what Marianne assures me the next time I see her.

  Inside that warm sea around the storm troopers are many who only a few months earlier had referred to Hitler as nothing but a house painter wearing his brush on his upper lip. Now, they’re bright shiny new Nazis dreaming of glory—seemingly overnight, our Führer has adopted millions of them. And Tonio is among them. In fact, when he comes home after the celebrations, he rushes up to our apartment like a child who has discovered Roman coins while digging in his yard and tells me in my room, “The giant black Mercedes the Führer was riding in—it was magnificent!” He’s so electric with glee that he jumps up to touch the ceiling. “Sophie, a while back you asked me what the most beautiful thing I ever saw was. It was Hitler in that car!”

  So God is an ambitious Austrian thug in a Mercedes. Who could have guessed?

  K-H attends the same Berlin rally, but with his own weapon of choice, snapping dozens of pictures of deaf friends who have apparently changed into fervent Nazis. He’s imagining his exhibition: The Day the Deaf Lost Their Sight. Each time his shutter snaps, he feels as though he’s vibrating with the power that keeps us all alive—what we feel when we know we are accomplishing an important task beyond the scope of anyone else. This sense of being useful is also a powerful emotion, especially to a man made to feel during his childhood as if his deafness was shameful.

  It’s a storm trooper with a German shepherd on a leash who tells him to stop taking pictures. Reading the man’s lips, Karl-Heinz replies, “I’m a photographer—it’s my job.”

  Does the Nazi take exception to the deaf man’s mispronounced vowels? Or maybe he suspects that this photographer beginning to focus on the crowd again—without authorization!—is really a Jew only pretending to be deaf.

  “Karl-Heinz is missing,” Isaac tells me the next morning when I come to his apartment.

  Marianne is sitting on the sofa at the back of the room, breast-feeding little Werner, now six months old—a red-cheeked pasha. “Sophie!” she calls out, her face brightening, and she reaches out a straining hand to me.

  I rush to her, grateful she hasn’t forgotten me, and kneel down so we can embrace. Her scent of terror is overpowering. Her trembling seems to enter into me.

  Werner is dressed in green flannel pajamas with blue sleeves, and a fire-colored collar.

  “A gift from Vera,” Marianne tells me. “I think she may want Werner to grow up believing he’s a tropical bird.”

  “He’s cute as can be,” I tell her, enunciating carefully so she can read my lips. Werner has soft tufts of blond hair and light brown, glowing eyes. And he’s wearing a satisfied expression, as if he’s an emperor who has just finished a banquet. He’s an infant who’ll be photographed a thousand times by his papa. And pampered by the tallest aunt in Germany.

  “That child is always eager for milk!” Isaac exclaims. He’s going to have a big Prussian belly.”

  “Shush!” Marianne says, waving off his good-natured laughter. She’s wearing a giant silk robe—black, with red stripes—that tumbles to the ground in luscious folds.

  While Werner is feeding, Isaac tells me about K-H not coming home the night before. For her sake, the old tailor speaks cheerfully, but we’re all thinking about how opponents of Hitler have disappeared over the past year and never been found. Others, like Georg, have been murdered. His is the name we are all thinking of but dare not say.

  Isaac brews a fresh pot of coffee. The cold winter light slanting through the windows seems drawn to Marianne, leaving me in shadow. The miracle is that I don’t resent her for being so beautiful.

  Isaac is of the opinion that a Christian ought to go with her to report Karl-Heinz missing or the police might treat her badly. And someone who can hear, in case she needs to make a phone call. But who can they ask to accompany her at seven-thirty on a winter morning?

  I volunteer my father, and as we’re discussing alternatives a knock comes on the door. Answering it, I’m caught completely unprepared for Vera. Gasping, I instinctively lift Werner between us—my protection against being clobbered for having failed to accept her gift of a jacket. It might be funny in other circumstances, but she’s not laughing.

  Chapter Seven

  Vera’s eyes, opening wide under her jutting forehead, look at me as if I’m a malignant apparition—a dybbuk from last year’s Carnival party. Regaining her composure, she snaps, “Who gave you Werner?”

  “Marianne, of course.”

  “Don’t drop him!” She strides past me as if I’ve been discarded.

  “Vera …” I say, not sure how to begin to apologize.

  She turns around. I’ve no time for you, her earthworm lips, twisted into a frown, tell me.

  “I’m sorry,” I continue. “I did everything wrong. You must … you must hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you.” She closes her eyes to consider what to say. “You hurt me … hurt me badly.” She reaches for my arm, gives it a squeeze as if she’s saying farewell, and strides into the kitchen with her forward-tilting walk.

  I feel like never moving again until I can think of how to make peace with Vera, but instead I comb Werner’s hair and shuffle into the kitchen, my mind made up to head off to school. But Marianne has other ideas. As soon as she’s got Werner securely in her arms, she says, “Sit next to me,” and she tugs me down without waiting for my reply. My back is to Vera, which is just as well. Marianne gives me a conspiratorial look, then faces the angry giant. Vera is lighting a cigarette. She wears a white woolen scarf and a huge black sweater that falls to her knees. The largest pullover ever knitted. A fishing net with a collar.

  “Sophie will go with me to the police!” Marianne declares. To Isaac’s puzzled look, she says, “She’s a Christian and can hear. What else do I need?” She smiles at me enticingly. “Will you come with me?”

  “Of course.”

  “I forbid her to go!” Isaac bellows, flushed with anger.

  I’m aware of myself in that prickly way adolescents are when they’re being fought over by adults. I manage to say, “Isaac, you can’t forbid me to do anything.”

  “I very well can!” he snaps back.

  “Let her go!” Vera tells him, and she waves him away when he glares at her.

  “You know, Vera, you’re the biggest nudnik I’ve ever met!” Isaac declares.

  “I don’t speak Yiddish, so save your slanders for your fellow parasites,” she tells him, and when she turns to me I see from her look of complicity that we’ve already agreed that this is how I can earn her forgiveness. I’m grateful.

  “Vera,” Isaac says after a long, self-pitying sigh, “you are forgetting that this young lady has school to attend. And you,” he says, pointing an angry finger at me, “are already late.”

  “I think God will forgive me—just this once—for disappointing you,” I reply.

  He tries hard not to smile but ends up laughing. Then he s
ays in a tone of warning, “Sophele, my darling, cleverness is not always such a good thing. So try to be a little bit stupid now and again—ein bisl stumpfsinnig.”

  Werner watching his mother

  As we ride a tram to the police station in Alexanderplatz, I snuggle with Werner, who—to my great delight—kicks his legs, waves his hands, and giggles every time I kiss his ears or blow on them. Still, I’m glad that Mama and Papa never gave me another younger brother or sister—one silken-haired albatross around my neck is more than enough.

  Marianne smiles her gratitude at me, but that emotion brings others, and the tears that have been waiting inside her are soon sliding down her cheeks. “Sorry, it’s just that K-H and I haven’t spent a night apart in four years,” she explains to me, blowing her nose into her handkerchief.

  After we get off at our stop, Werner starts to fuss and holler, so we duck into a café where Marianne can feed him. We sit in the corner, around a wooden table with an empty amber-colored glass vase in the middle; flowers are the first to go in an economic crisis. Marianne unbuttons her blouse and gives the infant her breast. His eyes are entranced. He’s lost in a Seventh Heaven whose gate is the soft feel of Mama.

  “Werner is the luckiest baby on earth,” I tell Marianne.

  “That’s very sweet of you, Sophie. But he is deaf, you know.”

  “That doesn’t seem to matter—not with you two together like that.”

  I notice now that Marianne smells of mint. “My cousins in England have addicted me to Pascalls Crème de Menthe,” she explains.

  I accept the candy she offers me, and with all of us happily sucking away, I ask, “Was Georg Hirsch in love with Vera?”

  She considers my words. “I did always sense a clash of emotions between them. But you never can tell with people.”

  “Do you know the name of the advertising agency where he worked? And where it was?”

  “Bellevue Advertising, on Königstraße … a new building on the last block before the river.”