by Daniel Kraus
I wove through the mob toward the fountaining sparks. From the air, it would have been a sight to behold: ten-foot-long shelves had been arranged in swastika formation, doused with gasoline, and kindled with hundreds of books. Diligent Rigby had described pre-war book burnings used to galvanize Nazis against overlarded Jewish intellectualism, but this frenzy was beyond righteous nostalgia; it felt like a pagan rite, missing only its wicker man.
Orderly echelons of Hitler Youth cycled forth with armloads of books scooped from handy piles. For fifteen minutes, the steady pitching of literature into the blaze was disciplined. But these were children; it devolved into squealing anarchy, hundreds of boys sprinting close enough to be licked by flames, to shiver and spasm and eject their armloads. Somewhere amid the hysteria, a monkey screamed, screamed, screamed.
Kuppisch, forgotten. Geschenk, forgotten. The blaze gobbled chapters, paragraphs, and sentences, and from its roaring phantasmagoria swirled fireflies of individual letters. I searched myself for satisfaction. My binge at Sweetgum notwithstanding, books had been foes since cubhood. But this was no victory. This was cremation. If nothing else, books are conversations from beyond the grave. Am I anything at all, Reader, besides this manuscript you hold?
Singed pages chased me, the last words of the damned, as I burrowed through the Hitlerjugend horde toward what looked to be the only area not clogged with spectators. I resolved that, should von Lüth demand his report, it would be overloaded with oxymoron. Germans were stouthearted and hangdog, hardboiled and shamefaced, dyspeptic and compliant, meek and malicious. The fact that they repeated their workaday routines in the face of rampant hatred did not, in fact, make them noble. It made them ghosts.
I reached the cleared street corner only to discover the reason that it was emptied. Upon it paced a once-handsome fellow turned street lunatic: a full carpet of curly gray hair gone flyaway, a cleft chin belittled by muttering lips, broad shoulders tapering into pendent arms. He wore a simple black suit, weak armament against the cold, but his most striking accessory was an eye patch, which lent his existing orb a doubled avidity.
Well, I’d ignored plenty of urban cranks. I continued forward. The man heard my footsteps and fixed me with his single eye. His suit, I saw, was banded at the neck by a white clerical collar. This was unexpected; Rigby had expounded on the acrimonious relations between Nazi and Christian leaders. I hesitated just long enough for the preacher to raise his battered Bible and begin babbling.
“Sorry, chap, I don’t speak it,” said I. “Good-bye, auf wiedersehen, all that.”
An unwitting mistake! The preacher switched to a staccato English.
“Who is Führer?” demanded he. “Not he in sheep’s clothing. It is Gød. It is Gød who is Führer. What thus say Gød? Gød thus say, ‘Do not violence the stranger, the fatherless, the widow, nor shed innocent blood.’”
“Gød,” sighed I. “You are barking up the wrong tree.”
I stepped to the left, but the preacher shifted his footballer’s body in concert.
“Where is prophets? True prophet is called traitors. True prophet is muzzled. True prophet is took away like animal. It is the Führer-beasts who is traitor.”
I could hear the clack of Kuppisch’s boots.
“Do you see the man with the red armband approaching?” asked I. “He would take great satisfaction in arresting you for these things you say.”
But even as I offered this warning, I noticed the reichsmarks scattered about the preacher’s feet, spots of reflected fire, evidence he’d soapboxed here unharmed for some time. As I puzzled over his durability, he knocked raw knuckles against his Bible and leaned close enough for me to smell his foul breath.
“You close your heart to Gød, you fall into hole. It is why we, Volk of Gød, suffer if we not speak the sins of Deutschland.” He extended his Bible. “Pray with me. Lord, give we ears for hear your word, brains for respect your law.” He shook the Bible at me. “Pray! Forgive Führer-beasts who evil against you, Lord.” The preacher jabbed me in the chest with the Bible. “Pray!”
His clerical collar had popped and, like the gnarled train rail, middle-fingered the heavens. What was up there, wondered I, that deserved repeated taunts? I decided not to chuck the Bible into the gutter, for I had a grudging respect for this Gød-botherer. Life, after robbing him of an eye, had so badly jolted his brain that even the Gestapo tossed him coins of charity instead of tossing his ass into a cell.
I dug a mark from my pocket and flipped it, a fiery red comet in an ashen universe. It landed upon the Bible, then clanged to the sidewalk, eagle-and-swastika-side up. I leaned in and whispered so that Kuppisch, closing in behind me, would not hear.
“Here is a prayer. Gather the coins at your feet and buy a ticket. For a train, or a plane, or a boat. Get out of this country as fast as you can.” I shrugged. “Amen.”
VII.
ONE DAY, DISCOVERED RIGHT IN front of my imbecilic face, was the Geschenk. For hours I compiled a screed of insults with which to excoriate myself, for this Geschenk was neither symbolic abstraction nor metaphorical conceit, but rather a literal gift—one of the countless offerings of food that arrived unbidden at von Lüth’s door. The basket was worn wicker, bedded with a white towel, and contained a crumb cake and a note:
EIN GESCHENK
Aus Meixelsperger Bäckerei
There had been hardly a day since my arrival when von Lüth’s quarters and arboretum had not been redolent with the sweet steam of fresh baked goods, from Erdbeertorten (strawberry tarts) and Pfeffernüsse (pepper nut cookies) to Apfelmaultaschen (apple-filled ravioli) and Laugenbrötchen (pretzel rolls). How many of these delicacies had come from Meixelsperger Bakery with this same impatient postcard? Curse my seventeen-year-old’s brain! A trip to this bakery was horribly overdue.
Finch luck, being what it was, dictated that I would have to wait whole months—while war raged, Reader, and millions died!—before von Lüth’s next out-of-town trip, a four-day lecture tour of northern cities. But wait I did until the departure’s dawn, at which point it was all I could do not to shove the large man out the door as he dithered between suits—tangerine with mint pocket square or mint with tangerine? Von Lüth had been enthralled by my observations on daily German life, and as he bid his adieu, he again encouraged me to peregrinate Berlin during his absence so that I might greet his return with rousing tales of metropolitan “adventure.”
He used the word in hyperbole, but it ended up being apt.
Meixelsperger Bakery was but ten minutes from von Lüth’s building, a demure little business I recognized from countless passes. Ever was its counter queue choked and its six tables wedged with dour doughnut dunkers paging through Signal magazine propaganda as if forced by Luger pistol. These nondescript diners were suddenly packed with covert potential; one of them, I was certain, was Rigby’s undercover dynamo, growing fatter each day as he waited upon my late, so very late, arrival.
Eternal, though, were the clicks of Kuppisch’s claws behind me. Were I to shake the bulldog, I’d need to double my derring-do, triple my trickiness, multiply my Machiavellianism. On Day One of von Lüth’s furlough, I foxed down abrupt and illogical side streets, but any dog could sniff out a dead body. On Day Two, I took care to never pause, counting on a dog’s need to piss, but Kuppisch, it seemed, owned a bladder the size of Asia. On Day Three, I took us right past the eyepatched street preacher, certain that my bloodhounder would stop to arrest the man for vocalized treason, but the preacher’s improbable luck held and Kuppisch, like so many Gestapo before him, turned a deaf doggie ear.
By the eve of von Lüth’s return I’d wasted time enough on rank cowardice. At dusk on that fateful May day, I said to hell with subterfuge and concluded that day’s citywide amble by crossing the street on what I hoped looked to Kuppisch like impulse and entering Meixelsperger Bakery.
Therein waited a queue of four people. I shall not forget them. Before me, a butcher, stooped from cutting-board duty and clutchin
g a bag of wartime sausage that needed bread. Before him, a stoic mother, hands raisined from the scrubbing of clothing and children. Before her—ah, perfect!—a Wehrmacht tank corporal, helmet lodged beneath arm, his uniform black enough to conceal its oil burns. At the front of the line, a tram conductress lashed to a shoulder-belted coin dispenser, reciting an order to the most intimidating German I’d ever seen, Frau Meixelsperger herself, a scowling razorback with thick oven-burns crisscrossing her brawny forearms.
The five fixed me with stares. This was typical. Next, also typical, they judged my skin a sign of sickness and, in proper German fashion, looked away. I took my place in the queue and with overblown nonchalance peeked out the window. Across the street waited Kuppisch and his rifle, though I had no doubt that he would come in after me if I dawdled.
The brusque baker rammed a box of buns into the tram operator’s breasts. The line shuffled forward; I was fourth. No time to waste. I inspected the bald grandfather at the farthest of the tables. Surely this geriatric wasn’t the double agent? The tank corporal’s loaf of bread was free; he paused at my elbow to buckle his helmet. I panicked, looked outside. Kuppisch had smelled a rat and was crossing the street. I grimaced at the closer tables. Which of you useless Huns knows Allen Rigby? I wanted to shout. The baker snapped at the harried mother; the queue caterpillared. Desperate, I coughed to gain the attention of the closest coffee-swiller, only to have him growl. A clatter of change. The butcher, my antecedent, was paying. I checked outside. Kuppisch’s dewlaps were pressed against the door glass as he squinted to see inside. There was no time left, none at all.
“Herkommen,” scolded Frau Meixelsperger. “Beeil dich.”
Customers wanted home before the streetlights extinguished. They nudged; my abdomen struck the counter, and the revolver chuckled against its ribcage holster. It would raise suspicion if I did not order food. But had I brought any money? I stared at the baker, paralyzed. Her brow thickened like dough. She cursed and gestured at the falling night, the restless queue behind me, my general idiocy. Everyone in the bakery was watching. Behind me, the door creaked open—the bulldog, slobbering to bite.
His fangs, though, never sunk into my rotten flesh.
From concrete, wood, sewer, and steel rose a groan.
If one roamed Berlin long enough, one noticed its warts: cheap metal speakers jerry-rigged atop road signs, telephone poles, and rain spouts. I’d heard plenty of air-raid sirens before, distant as banshees, but this one was on top of us and overlaid by a second, then a dozen, until the city’s every other noise was stamped. For thirty seconds, the patrons of Meixelsperger Bakery swayed as if within a body of water, before the surf of truth broke upon us.
Like breakers upon rock, the queue scattered. People collided, muttered civilities, collided again, and graduated to shoving and swearing. Baked goods were dropped and flattened underfoot. The edge of my vision caught Kuppisch recoiling from the violent exodus. I looked up, even though all I could see was ceiling.
The upside to having my cadaver spattered across broken brick was outweighed by my desire to carry out Rigby’s mission—he, and so many others, had placed all their chips upon me. I broke from the counter, only to have my body slingshotted back. My white wrist had been snatched by a hand even whiter, though its color came from a thick coat of flour.
“Mein Gøtt,” said Frau Meixelsperger. “How many Geschenke I need send your pig-master before you come?”
I admit, Dearest Reader, that I’d relied upon my secret-agent contact being Errol Flynn: barrel of chest, lithe of limb, sly of mustache, cocksure of grin. To say the least, this she-hulk had no place in my fantasy. While I collected my idiot jaw, Meixelsperger, with considerable muscle, dragged me along the counter, around the register, and back through a kitchen humid with exhalations of fresh bread. She bashed open a rear door, and we entered an alley carrot-colored by the sunset.
Our view was narrowed by apartment buildings in which window after window darkened as lights were snuffed. Against gray clouds, searchlights began hunting after the reflective bellies of enemy aircraft. Their vertiginous loops transfixed me; Meixelsperger pulled my bony arm so that it popped against its socket. It was clear that she’d noticed my personal guard dog and did not wish to know the length of his leash.
The alley adjoined an eastward stampede of humanity. Agitation was rampant, but not so hysteria. This I attributed to the amicable stewardship of the Hitler Youth. Those sharp-toothed little cretins savored any chance to carry out orders, and already they were stationed on every corner as crisis crossing guards, swinging swastika-banded arms toward the neighborhood bomb shelter, an ugly concrete box built atop, or so I’d gleaned, extensive underground chambers.
I was less than elated to find that the neophyte Nazi closest to us was the same undersized, bucktoothed band major I’d seen raising hell in Mitte—red-cheeked, neckerchiefed, lederhosened, and shouldering a fez-capped monkey. Though the half-pint primate trembled at the cacophony, the boy was having a ball. The proof was in the strident song belching from his red lips. I know, Reader, that I am prone to embellishment, but his atonal atrocity made the air-raid siren sound like Brahms’s Lullaby. I almost dug the revolver from my ribs right there.
Despite his duties and ditties, the wee pisser missed nothing. He spotted Meixelsperger and me struggling opposite the crowd and, being a helpful lad, shouted for us to correct our mistake.
“Falscher Weg! Falscher Weg!”
Meixelsperger’s glare reduced me to plum pudding, but the upbeat chipmunk kept insisting that we were headed the wrong way, and it was starting to attract attention. Kuppisch had to be nearby; he would notice the hubbub and pounce. Without thinking better of it (perhaps by now that goes without saying?), I hissed at the infernal urchin as we passed.
“Quiet! Let us be!”
He gasped, not from dismay but excitement.
“English! I learn from teacher! I sing my song for you! Ja, ja! ”
I came to a halt.
“What? No.”
“In English, it will not rhyme. But I sing!”
“No! Nein! Please, nein!”
The boy’s sour voice squealed through the sirens like a rusted scalpel. Flowers wilted. Birds dropped dead from the sky. Several RAF planes malfunctioned and crashed into the Alps. Still the monkey, that scraggly slave, hauled itself up to do the requisite hotfooting in time to the lyrics.
Jews are sinners
They slaughter Christian children
They cut their throats
The damned Jewish filth.
Meixelsperger’s tugging advised that I ignore the brat. Yet I hesitated. Had this pealing pubescent any idea of what he sung? The spitty shine of his prominent front teeth suggested not. He completed his cheeping couplets and took a breath for another round. My sense of self-worth, what was left of it, could not let this pass as it had in Mitte; I held up a hand.
“No,” said I. “That is enough.”
He did not listen. Over siren screeches and the thunderclaps of rubble-worn shoes, he crooned the stanza over and over, mixing English and German with glee, swinging arms bent as if cradling rifle butts like a proper Stoßtruppe. My guts twisted. It was not in defense of Jews specifically; do not credit me that much. It was, rather, disgust at the unacknowledged privilege with which this slimy tadpole spouted his vileness, his indifference that those about which he sung—the damned Jewish filth—were right there in earshot.
I ripped myself from Meixelsperger’s grip, fantasizing of strangling first boy, then monkey, and with considerable strength slapped down both of his dancing elbows. People hurrying by paused to gasp at my unacceptable behavior.
“Enough,” hissed I. “You will not sing this song again.”
The chubbed, pink mounds of his cheeks slackened and drained to white. I swooned with triumph and waited for the rewards owed me—his dancing eyes blurred out by tears and his giddy squawk drowned by blubbering.
Instead of oozing tears, his
eyelids slitted. Instead of bawling, his loose mouth sealed shut in mature circumspection. His tiny hand, upon dropping to the handle of his ceremonial dagger, did not seem all that tiny. His shifted his eyes from me to Meixelsperger; from Meixelsperger to me. He repeated this routine for several seconds before I realized what was happening.
We were being memorized.
“Mein Gøtt,” said Meixelsperger. “Mein Gøtt.”
Her iron fingers sunk into my arm, and this time I let the secret-agent baker drag me from further disaster. If our encounter with the boy hadn’t made us a spectacle, our direction did, but Meixelsperger pushed through the crowd with all the might of the German army. Masses filled our wake instantly, though still I caught glimpses of the livid lad staring after us, his total stillness accentuated by the jerking jig of the scrawny black monkey.
VIII.
IN THE TIME THAT IT took to reach a vacant side street, night descended and I swore that I could see against a black sky the blacker triangles of the RAF. Frau Meixelsperger charged down an alley, through a wooden gate, and into the fenced backyard of a modest bungalow. There she squatted before a flowered hillock, parted a curtain of leafed tendrils, and knuckled a signal upon a steel door embedded in the dirt. The reply was the clang of a thrown lock; the door swung outward. Without a word, she dropped her legs into the hole and disappeared inside.
Another dark, downward path in a dark, downward death. I followed.
Meixelsperger bolted the hatch above while I surveyed the grim scene. Family bomb shelters were not rare, though I doubted that they usually crammed ten people into a ten-foot-long, five-foot-wide, four-foot-tall warren. Corrosion had worn mournful mouths through the corrugated steel walls, which supported, just barely, crooked shelves of dusty canned foods. Damp blankets had been draped to ward off poison gas, and the moldy stink mingled with that of the diesel fumes wafting from the engine powering a triad of flickering bulbs. A pile of World War I gas masks trapped the light in their lenses and turned it into gold. Fool’s gold, I was certain.
