Hannah & Emil

by Belinda Castles

  Later, when they’d found everything they had asked for, they stood in the yard while Schulman fed the horses.

  ‘Are you an optimist, Becker?’

  Emil thought for a moment. ‘Only an optimist would get himself mixed up in a foolish scheme like this one, friend.’

  Schulman smiled, patted the horse, dipped his head.

  Emil left by the backyard, squeezing out past the horses into the alley, avoiding the main street until he’d weaved his way out of the Jewish quarter. It was close in the lanes. There were the smells of life in the apartments and yards: a ginger cake baking, basement toilets, the comforting tang of animals, pungent in the heat. He heard shouting on the street, cheering, a peal of laughter. A person had just been humiliated in some pointless, brutal way.

  After twenty minutes, he was at the door to his apartment building. As he reached for the handle, he saw again the rifle lying across Schulman’s hand above the open coffin in the backroom of the funeral parlour. He remembered something a Turk had said as he cleaned his rifle in the trenches, taking out the bullets, checking the mechanism of the safety catch, then cleaning and checking it again: ‘Trust in God, but tie your horse first.’

  ‘No, Emil, you’re mad, I won’t let you do it. It’s snowing. He’ll catch his death.’

  ‘We’ll be walking. It’ll be warm enough. He can wear the coat my father gave him for his last birthday.’

  ‘It is too small.’

  ‘It will do for the job.’

  He could hear the boy in the bedroom, opening cupboard doors, pushing hangers to one side, looking for the coat from the winter before. ‘Found it, Papa,’ came his voice.

  ‘Okay,’ Emil called back. ‘Put it on. We’re going.’

  The boy appeared in the room, squeezed into his old coat, buttons ready to burst, a serious look on his face.

  ‘Wait,’ Ava said. ‘Take my scarf, if you must go.’

  ‘Mama!’

  ‘If you don’t wear it you’re not going and that’s the truth.’

  Hans gave his father a look. Emil shrugged. She came back with a long pink scarf in her hand and made to tie it around the boy’s neck. ‘No, Mama. It’s pink!’ He looked again at Emil.

  ‘Give me the scarf, Ava. He can have mine.’

  Mother and boy stared at him.

  ‘Who cares? It’s pink. What does it matter?’ He unravelled his grey scarf, handed it to the boy and took Ava’s scarf from her, opened the door, took the box of pamphlets from the dining table. ‘We’ll see you in an hour or so.’

  The boy was behind him on the stairs. ‘Don’t you mind, really?’

  Emil laughed. ‘It’s the warmest scarf I have ever worn.’

  ‘Tell me, Papa. What’s on the pamphlets?’

  ‘They explain what we think about the Nazis, why we need another election.’

  ‘Georg’s brother has joined the Hitler Youth. They go marching. And next year they will learn to shoot a rifle.’

  ‘They are thugs, boy. They will learn to shoot their rifles and they will go around pointing them at people who never did anything to them.’

  ‘Won’t I be allowed to join the Hitler Youth?’

  ‘My God, no. Never.’

  ‘Well, then, what can I join?’

  ‘You don’t need to join anything. I’ll teach you how to shoot a rifle.’

  ‘Really? You mean, you know how it’s done?’

  Emil reached forward to open the door onto the street at the bottom of the stairs. Hans was looking at him, waiting. ‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘I can show you, when you’re older.’

  The boy seemed happy with this as he stepped out into the snow, swirling around his face. He stuck out his tongue immediately to catch the flakes. Emil reached inside the box and handed him a pile of leaflets. ‘Hold them to your chest. Tuck your hand inside your coat, like this. Otherwise you won’t be able to feel them in five minutes. Now, you’re doing this side of the street, I’ll do the other. Don’t go racing off. I’m an old man, remember. Don’t make me look slow. I have my pride.’

  Hans nodded, made for the first door. Emil called after him as he began to cross the street, ‘Go up into the apartment buildings and put one under each door. If anyone says anything to you, say I’m coming up right behind you.’

  They worked their way along the dark street. It was Emil who had to wait for his son, because he had given himself the houses to do and Hans the apartments, with all their stairs. His leg was bad in the cold. He had got himself some shifts for Peters, sorting nuts and bolts and bits of pipe, and he had to stand all day. It was all that was available. With his leg he would have struggled to get up the stairs of more than a few blocks without needing to rest. The boy would be tired but he would eat and sleep well when they were done.

  The street was quiet. He could smell his neighbours’ meals cooking. Those men in work were home from their shifts and the children had long since been called in from the streets, leaving half-finished snowmen and heaps of snowballs behind them on the pavement.

  They had done their street in about twenty minutes. Emil’s feet were going numb because he had to wait for Hans, snow seeping into the open seams in his boots. Emil waited on the corner for his son to finish the last building. He came out, panting. ‘We don’t have to go so fast,’ Emil said. ‘Do you want me to do the apartments?’

  Hans shook his head, leaning on his knees, a few crumpled pamphlets left in his hand. After a moment he caught his breath and spoke. ‘There was a scary old woman. I had to run down the stairs.’

  ‘How did she scare you?’

  ‘She shouted at me when I put the pamphlet under the door.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She called me a dirty communist. Are we dirty communists?’

  Emil laughed. ‘No. And they wash the same as anyone, when there’s water. Come on. Let’s do another street. Or are you too tired?’

  Hans stood up straight. ‘No, Papa.’ He smiled, forcing his breath back to normal. ‘I’m not tired at all. Let’s do some more.’

  The snow had stopped by the time they were back outside their apartment building. Hans leaned forward on Emil’s hip, eyes closed. Emil took his shoulders, set him upright. ‘Go up, Hans. Mother will have soup for you. And here, I have something for afterwards.’ From his pocket he drew a paper bag of chocolate cat’s tongues. Hans peered into the bag in the dim light spilling from the apartments and smiled.

  ‘Aren’t you coming up, Papa?’

  ‘I’ve got something to do. I’ll be back when you’re asleep.’

  ‘Mama won’t let you go if you come up, will she?’

  ‘Perhaps not. In any case, I don’t want to drag my bad leg up the stairs only to come down again straight afterwards.’

  ‘I did every one. I didn’t skip any at all.’

  ‘I know. I never doubted it.’

  Hans smiled sleepily and went in. Emil followed him inside and stood in the vestibule listening to his footsteps tread slowly up the four flights. The rap at the door, a creak, Ava’s voice, the floorboards shifting as she stepped to the balustrade to look over. He stayed in the shadows, heard her move back and the door close.

  He stepped back out into the cold and made for the river. He could have walked across it, if he had had business on the other side. This afternoon it had been busy with skaters, but he took his usual path alongside it, careful not to stray off the path in the snow and onto the ice. He had seen it split under the weight of a child more than once, and then the scurry to haul them out, not always successfully. Eventually, he reached the factory, quiet at night now. It had not run a night shift for two years. Many around it were closed altogether.

  On the far side of the factory, where no light spilled from the town, he felt around him in the snow for a stone with the toe of his boot. He felt only slimy grass beneath the thick snow. In his pocket was a little change. He took a coin and threw it at the high window, heard the chink, went back around to the front of t
he building. After a moment, the door opened a crack and he stepped into the dark. He could smell the man who had let him in, and the metal of the machines, the grease that kept them working. It was slightly less cold away from the iced-over river.

  ‘Emil,’ came Karl’s voice softly, and he made out the shape of him as they moved towards the stairs, where a faint light crept from under the office doorway above and at the edges of the blinds.

  ‘Karl.’

  They stepped quietly on the metal stairs, hands on the cold brick walls. Emil’s leg was very stiff now. He needed to sit for a while.

  Karl put his mouth to the door when they reached the top. ‘It’s Becker,’ he said quietly.

  The light went off for a moment and the door opened. They stepped inside. He could feel the presence of several men in the office. Emil closed the door behind him and stood in the dark, men breathing all around. ‘We meet in the dark now?’ he said and the light went on, dazzling after the night and the dark factory. He put his hand over his eyes to make out the features of the dark shapes in the room. There was Schulman, of course, three unionists and SPD men who had done some work for the Reichsbanner, and an addition to the usual gathering, the communist Fischer. He was related to Emil’s mother in some distant fashion. Cousin of a cousin? He’d been involved with the workers’ and soldiers’ councils after the war, Emil remembered.

  He could trust them, as far as he knew—as far as they felt they could trust him, probably. Behind the secretary’s desk sat Herr Peters. There was no longer a secretary employed by the firm, and so the desk was bare but for the steel flasks of the men, filled with schnapps. ‘You’re late, Emil,’ he said. ‘We were worried.’ He looked closely at him. ‘That’s a fine scarf.’

  Emil glanced down at the scarf, took the empty seat, brought out his own flask. ‘Father brought me some leaflets at the last minute. I wanted to get started on them.’

  ‘You still think pamphlets will do it?’ the man next to him said with a bitter laugh.

  ‘There’s always hope. We did better in this election. We should work with that, if we can. Keep at it.’

  Peters nodded. He seemed to think Emil had information that others did not, seemed to trust him more than these others. But trust was all or nothing, not more or less, thought Emil. There might come a time when any of them could denounce any one of the others and that would be the end of him. It might already be here.

  ‘Karl has been waiting for you in order to give us news, Emil,’ Peters said.

  They all sat forward, waiting for Karl to speak. He looked at Emil and began. He was unanimated, hard to read, a member of the party and yet here with them. His information to date had been good, and the police still officially supported the SPD government. Emil wondered where Thomas would be now. Perhaps that was the source of Karl’s confusion. ‘I think that the pamphlets will not do you much good now, Emil.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘It’s a feeling. They say that Hitler is impatient with elections.’

  ‘What can he do without being elected? He has already refused to be part of a coalition. His influence is fading, surely?’ Peters said.

  ‘People are saying he has the force, with the SA and now the Steel Helmets. He will find some other way.’

  ‘You must join a strike,’ the communist interjected.

  Peters looked at Emil.

  ‘There are too many unemployed,’ Emil said. ‘Who would notice?’

  ‘They say he will stop at nothing,’ Karl went on. His voice was quiet but they were listening. ‘My feeling is—I feel that this is true.’

  Peters was still looking at Emil. He leaned across his desk. ‘It’s possible you’re wrong, of course.’

  Karl shrugged.

  Fischer said, ‘We must act now. You must join with us.’

  Emil found that they were all looking at him. He wondered whether it was the scarf.

  Karl went on: ‘They want lists of enemies.’ They waited for him to continue. ‘They will start with the politicals, then the foreigners.’

  ‘You mean Jews,’ Peters said.

  Karl reddened for a moment, avoided Schulman’s eye. ‘Yes, that’s what they called them. They mean also gypsies and Slavs. Some of them are very keen. They have started making lists of their neighbours without being asked.’

  ‘Who do they have down as their politicals?’ Emil asked.

  ‘Unionists. SPD. Not the communists. They want to bring them over. They have weapons, they say.’

  Father’s name is on a list in some grubby thug’s drawer, Emil thought. ‘Where are our weapons now? Are they clean? Has anyone checked them recently?’

  Peters glanced at Schulman. ‘They are safe. But it is not time to think about that.’

  ‘There’s no point in having them if they’re not ready to use. If we’re not ready. Do all of you know how to use them?’ A few of them looked down. ‘Come on, I’ll show you. It’s simple.’ Emil was standing. Fischer was also on his feet.

  The others looked at Peters. ‘Listen, Emil. First we must discuss what we plan to do. The Reichsbanner has helped at the rallies of course, and the elections. But can we really arm ourselves? It’s not policy.’

  ‘Then why did I send for them?’

  ‘It was worse then—the July election, it looked bad.’

  ‘They’re making lists. They’re preparing. Shall we wait to be arrested?’

  ‘How do you plan to stop them?’

  ‘We should all take a rifle, or pistol, whatever you’re able to use, and when the time comes, we must hide. If there is a list, everyone here is on it.’ He looked at Fischer. ‘You may make your own decision about which way things are going. But you’re right. It’s better if we join together. We can sort out our disagreements later.’ He addressed the others. ‘If they come for you, you will defend yourself. I will send a sign, and we’ll find each other. We’ll meet the other units in the other towns. We’ll have our own list. We’ll work through it until they cannot function, and we shall have a proper election. Fischer’s right. We must join together.’

  An SPD man who had not spoken to now said, ‘You expect us to murder them?’

  ‘You can wait for them to get you first, if you choose,’ Emil said. ‘Only don’t give me away—’ he pointed a finger at him, ‘—or I shall come even sooner.’

  Karl stood by the door still, hands in his coat pockets, looking at the floor.

  ‘Karl,’ Peters said, ‘you know them. You must give us your honest appraisal now. Is it time? Are we going to need these weapons?’

  When Karl looked at him Emil felt his stomach shift. He would always be the brother of Thomas, he would always bring Emil’s childhood into the room with him. It was dangerous, this feeling. He could not make a proper assessment of the man. Who was to say whose side he was really on? And yet it was not in him to exclude him or go against him. ‘I think, somehow, we will win.’ He was looking at the floor, the circle formed by their dilapidated shoes in the lantern light. He does not mean us, Emil thought.

  ‘And the police,’ Peters went on. ‘Your colleagues. Which way will they go?’

  ‘They will defend the law.’

  ‘Whoever makes it?’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps. Yes.’

  ‘Okay,’ Emil said. ‘I say we meet in the New Year. I’ll show you how to use the guns. If anyone does not want one, he should not come.’

  ‘We must continue our usual work with the Reichsbanner,’ Peters said. ‘We must protect the unions and the SPD, and agitate for a new election. Another may be decisive. Everything may still turn out for the best.’ He raised his glass. ‘And then we may all forget we ever knew one another. Spend our evenings with our lovely wives again.’

  The men gave out a mumble of assent, drank from their flasks.

  Fischer leaned back into the shadows, his body straight in spite of the chair, his hands in the pockets of his overalls.

  ‘I have to go,’ Emil said. ‘I’m out too late
already.’

  ‘Me too,’ Karl said. ‘I must go as well.’

  They nodded, drank gravely, raised hands as Emil and Karl left the room and descended the dark stairs into the factory. Halfway down, Emil felt a hand on his shoulder and stopped. ‘Emil,’ Karl whispered, his voice carrying even so in the cavernous dark above the machines. ‘I will not be coming again.’

  Emil shook Karl’s hand in the dark. ‘Goodbye, Karl. Good luck. Be careful with yourself.’ He could not see Karl’s face. He continued down the stairs. There was silence behind him. He let himself out onto the path and made his way along the icy river towards home.

  In Father’s office, the secretary was taking down Christmas decorations at the window, standing on a desk. One of her stocking seams was not straight. It was distracting. Klaus was writing down the times and places of the next few rallies agitating for another election for Emil to pass on to the Reichsbanner. Zelma turned in the window. ‘Did Hans enjoy the holiday, Emil?’ She stepped down onto the chair, arms full of ornaments. He stood to help her. ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘Yes, too much. He doesn’t want to go back to school. Too much fun to be had at home.’

  ‘That’s the danger. It’s your father. He spoils him.’

  ‘I blame him too. He receives only exemplary discipline from me.’

  She laughed. ‘I can imagine.’ She addressed his father now, ‘Herr Becker, can you manage? I told Michael I’d be home in time to cook for his parents. They’re coming on the train from Düsseldorf.’

  ‘Yes, yes, Zelma.’ He waved at her. ‘Go. And don’t hurry in tomorrow. Stay and have breakfast with them. They will want to spend time with you.’

  She smiled at Emil. ‘Thank you, Herr Becker. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  Emil watched his father, listening to Zelma’s heels on the stairs. The building was otherwise quiet and outside the traffic was picking up as the day ended. He looked at the strands of pale hair combed back from Klaus’s forehead and wondered how much longer his father would work. The union was supposed to pay him a pension from the age of sixty, only a few years away now, but funds were low, with so many unemployed, and his father liked coming here. What would he do at home, in the apartment? Drive Mother to distraction, probably. And how would he keep on top of all the gossip?