by Julian Beale
‘Mr Riley and Mervyn’ he squeaked, ‘You’re a little early today gentlemen. No doubt it’s Christmas arrangements, but I can accommodate you. Of course I can. Please follow me.’
And with that he led the way up the spiral staircase which was located at the extreme end of the building, leading up to a reasonably sized meeting room which completely occupied the mezzanine area. Martin had showed it briefly to David and explained that they seldom used it except for client visits, so David assumed that these two represented some important business. It was certainly a performance to get up there, with Sol and the huge Mervyn struggling to negotiate the stairs.
David continued perplexed by the dramatic change in Sol, the more so because Martin was now definitely moving him towards the front door and himself acting in an anxious manner. As they stood together in the open doorway, Martin spoke.
‘Thanks for coming, David. It’s been good to see you and we must make another plan. I can tell that Sol is definitely doing some scheming.’ There was a forced joviality as he gesticulated with some wild movements before going on, ‘what about New Year’s Eve if you’re around that day? We’ll be back at work, so come up for some lunch and maybe we’ll all have something more to celebrate in the evening’.
Even as Martin was speaking, they could hear clearly the sound of raised voices from the upstairs room, Sol in agitation and an aggressive note from the white man, Riley. Immediately afterwards, there was a crash against the inside wall followed by two or three thumping noises, unmistakeable to David as the sound of blows to the body. He grabbed Martin by the arm and spoke urgently.
‘Who are these guys, Martin, and what are they doing to Sol? More to the point, what are we going to do about it?
‘Please, David, just leave now. I’ll be able to handle it OK.’
He held the street door wide in invitation. His voice was tremulous but his message was clear, so David walked out and set off down Westbourne Grove, leaving Martin to duck back into the building. David stood on the pavement for a minute or so in uncomfortable indecision before he started to move away. But he had gone only a few strides before heard the door of the Kirchoff building slam shut again, and turning, he saw the unwelcome visitors. They were coming towards him. Riley was in the lead, Mervyn in close attendance with a small bag in his ham like fist. They were unhurried as they approached. It seemed to David that they would simply walk on by, but Riley stopped short and fixed him with a gimlet eye. Without warning, he jabbed a short, hard blow from his gloved left fist deep into David’s stomach. He dropped to one knee on the pavement fighting for breath. Riley bent a little from the waist and hissed into his ear,
‘Not your business. Keep it that way.’
Then he was walking on, steel capped shoes ringing in the cold evening air.
David gave himself some recovery time. It was as much the shock as the pain. Then he walked straight back into the office. Martin must have heard the door and came clattering down the spiral stairs. Sol remained out of sight, up in the meeting room.
‘Sorry,’ said David with a wan smile, ‘but they thumped me too on the way past. So now I think I should know a bit more.’
Martin looked dishevelled and agitated.
‘Christ,’ he said, ‘let me just see to Sol.’
Whirling round, he disappeared upstairs and David sat on a typist’s chair and listened to the muted tones of conversation above him. Martin came back, looking no less disturbed. He slumped into the chair at his desk and loosened his tie. His hands were shaking.
‘Sol needs his medication. It’s his heart you see. I’m going to get him home to Naomi who will handle it. Give me half an hour and I’ll be back. I agree that you should know more and Sol insists on it. Can you manage here on your own?’
‘Of course I can.’
David sat and watched without comment as Martin carefully manoeuvred his father down the awkward stairs and through the main office into the street outside. Sol was ashen and trembling all over. A taxi or hire car had pulled up outside; Martin must have summoned it. David heard the doors slam and the vehicle pull away. He got up then, closed and locked the front door and wandered around the office while he waited. He felt numb and confused. What the hell was going on here?
He got his answer during the remainder of that evening. Martin was good to his time estimate and returned in another cab. He proposed they walk to a restaurant where he sometimes had lunch. It was still early for evening traffic in the bistro and they had the place almost to themselves. They sat at a table in the window, ordered pasta and a bottle of Chianti.
By this point, Martin had recovered himself and was more composed. David could see that he was less nervous, but still agitated and that stemmed from embarrassment. He confirmed this in his opening comments as they waited for their food to arrive.
‘Riley and Co. They’ve been onto us for about six months now. It’s a protection racket and they’ve targeted a good few businesses around here, including this restaurant, I think. It’s unpleasant, but we can afford it if we have to. And we must. Sol gets really badly affected as you’ve seen and if truth be told, I’m not much better myself. Taken together, we are really a thug’s dream.’
Martin paused there and gave a sheepish grin. Then he continued.
‘Actually, David, I suppose I’m grateful for that incident happening today — while you were with us I mean. You see, I’m keen for you to join us. I’m sure you and I would work well together and Sol agrees but he just wants a bit more time to think the thing through. That’s fair enough and I predicted his reaction. I was also sure that before there could be a commitment, you’d need to know more about our history and where we come from in every sense. I wanted to take my time about that. I tend to keep the past buried and when I tell you about our background, you’ll understand why. But Riley’s visit means that I can’t delay. I’ve got to lay it out now. All I ask of you, David, is that you keep what I’m about to say to yourself — even if it puts you off any further association with Sol and me. Is that agreed?’
David was relieved to notice that Martin’s confidence became stronger with every word of this introduction.
‘You have my word’, he said with a brief nod.
Martin started with the family history, speaking of Sol’s parents and their simple life in a small village community located midway between Lodz and the Baltic port of Gdansk in Poland. How Sol had been a bright pupil who married Deborah, his childhood sweetheart and greatest friend. How the young couple moved to Warsaw for Sol to take up the offer he had won from High School to enrol for a degree in Economics. Some years of living close to the breadline finally rewarded with an outstanding result which gave Sol the chance to move again, and this time a much greater step. To Germany and to an appointment with a Government ministry in Berlin. The year was 1935. They prospered, working hard, becoming fluent in the language, living frugally, managing to send home a little money for their families and to build up some reserves for themselves. Deborah was able to work, but then found herself pregnant and their daughter Natasa was born in November 1937.
At this point, David could anticipate the tragedy about to unfold. He could imagine a devout, hard working couple, content to be self effacing as they built their lives, enhanced their security and determined to ignore all that was going on around them.
Martin did not dwell on the detail of what happened next, but his biting summary was all the more effective. Deborah and Natasa were removed by the police for ‘resettlement’ during the early weeks of 1941 but Sol was retained at his job in the Ministry for a further year. It was explained to him that his work was valued and in recognition of his contribution to Nazi Germany, his wife and child were being kept safe and well. Precisely what became of Deborah and Natasa is a story which can never be told. They simply disappeared, and Sol saw neither again after his final glimpse of their faces at the window of the bus which took them away.
It was almost a relief when the end came for him. He
was picked up when it was judged that the value of his work was worth less than the burden of employing a Jew. He was jammed into a train holding thousands and transported to Dachau.
Martin ordered coffee and they smoked in silence. Then David asked,
‘How did Sol survive the Camp?’
‘By becoming as close to indispensable as it was possible to be. He managed to get work in the Camp commandant’s office, work that was relevant to his skills and qualifications. All the concentration camps had to submit up to Himmler’s level what I guess we would call today a business plan, with details of how they were performing against target. The work was meat and drink to Sol. He knew far more than the Germans at Dachau what was required and he was bloody good at it. But of course, the “product” — what else to call it? He was dealing with a profit and loss account which depended on his fellow prisoners who were being harvested. What items of value did each leave behind, right down to teeth and hair; how to turn possessions into marketable assets; how to dispose of the unwanted remains. Sol has erected strong barriers, but deep inside him, there’s a despair which won’t die before he does.’
‘Yes.’ David was absolutely at a loss for words.
‘And there’s more,’ Martin continued, ‘in his job, Sol had help from other inmates — prisoners who were assigned to him for work in typing, filing, that sort of thing. None lasted very long, but there was one woman who was especially competent. Ironically, she wasn’t a Jew, but a Romanian gypsy. Anyway, she worked well and became a good friend. She had a daughter with her and I guess that touched a strong chord in Sol. The child was eleven or twelve and she came to help Sol whilst her mother was too sick to work one day. The girl was pretty enough to attract the attention of one of the soldier guards and he made a grab for her. He held her down across Sol’s desk, bawling at him to get on with his figures whilst the child was being violated in front of his eyes. Sol broke the habit of a lifetime just that once. He got out of his chair to fight back. It wasn’t much of a fight: a fit young soldier against a broken down Jew. Sol got knocked senseless and the soldier completed his rape. He called in his mate who did her as well. Then they slit her throat. And then they woke Sol up and started in on him. They took turns to knock him about a bit more before they castrated him with a pair of office scissors. Then they made him get rid of the body of the girl and get back to work himself.’
The nausea which this horror produced in David made him miss the further significance of the story but it came to him in a rush as he saw Martin staring at him. Martin spoke without waiting for the question.
‘No, of course I’m not his son and it’s just a coincidence that we have our similarities. But he is the one and only father figure in my life. I respect him and I love him plus I owe him a great deal. You see David, I have no idea who my natural father was and neither has my mother, Naomi. She was in Dachau too, and being young and quite pretty, she was much in demand. How else was she to survive?’
He looked appealingly at David as if to seek approval for behaviour under circumstances which are unimaginable except to those who were forced to endure them. David stretched across the table and put his hand briefly on Martin’s shoulder. It was an instinctive gesture made both to acknowledge the anguish and to thank him for sharing it. Then he said,
‘It’s a desperate, tragic story, but thank you for trusting to tell me. I guess you don’t often speak of it.’
‘You’re right. Only once a year. On our Day of Atonement, my mother Naomi, Sol and I, we stay home alone and just sit with each other, sometimes saying nothing for hours on end, sometimes talking trivia. We find there is no catharsis to be gained from sharing memories of that time, it’s just enough to be still together.’
David was moved by this and said so. Then he added ‘Please tell me what happened next. How did you get from there to here?’
‘Well, to keep it brief. Sol and Naomi survived Dachau until the camp was liberated by the Americans in 1945. They’d become very close and it made things much easier to pretend that they were man and wife with me as their son. Also, Naomi is Austrian, so we went to Vienna until Sol applied successfully to bring us here. We arrived in London late in 1947 and we’ve been here ever since.’
David had plenty more to ask about, to burrow deeper into the relationships and understand more about the business, but he decided that he would hold his peace for now.
‘You get back to them, Martin. I’ll settle up here. I’ll probably have a last drink and then head for home, but I’m looking forward to being back on New Year’s Eve.’
The two shook hands and Martin left David in the bistro.
A while later, he was walking back to Bayswater tube station, his mind a maelstrom of thoughts and emotions.
DAVID HEAVEN —1965
The following evening, David was returning to his poky flat but turned into the local pub for a drink. There in the bar, he found a welcome surprise as the familiar face of King Offenbach beamed at him over a pint of bitter.
‘Where the hell did you spring from?’ said David, ‘and anyway, how did you find me? Or is this all by chance? Whatever, King, how good to see you!’
‘Do I have to answer all the questions at once,’ drawled the black man ‘or how about I go ahead and buy you a drink so we can start talking from there?’
They took their drinks to a side table and sat facing each other. David was trying to remember when they had last met and thinking that it must have been here in London at one or other of the post graduation bashes.
King anticipated the question.
‘The last time I saw you, David, you were very much the worse for wear in that club off Covent Garden, trying to remove from one of the dancers what little she was wearing. With your teeth as I recall.’
David didn’t even have the grace to blush.
‘I just hope she enjoyed it as much as I’m sure I did, but honestly I don’t remember too much about some of those wild evenings. I’ve come down to earth since.’
‘Sure thing,’ King smiled ruefully, ‘well, I guess I got home about mid-September and pretty much straight back to work. But the good news is that my chief has lined me up for a job in Europe, and as of a couple of days ago, I’m based in London out of our Embassy. I’ll be here for six months or more, so it looks like I get to spend Christmas and most of next year in my favourite city. And since you’re wondering, I’ll tell you right off how I came to find you.’
But David had already worked this one out and answered in one word.
‘Pente’.
‘Right on’, said King, pointing an elegant finger, ‘that’s how I tracked you down. Plus I’ve got to tell you straight off that Pente reckoned you might be able to put me up. Just for a night or so while I’m waiting for the Embassy to allocate me an apartment.’
‘Sure. It’ll be a real pleasure. But I’ve got to warn you that my place is small and scruffy. I’m hoping to move in the New Year, but I’ve had a few things to sort out. That’s mostly because my father died suddenly a couple of months ago.’
‘Oh gee, David, I surely am sorry to hear that. You were close?’
‘No, not so much, except for during what has turned out to be the last year of his life.’
‘Yup. Family matters can surely be quite a challenge,’ King replied and then to change the subject he enquired, ‘Tell me other news, David. I know you’re pretty tight with Conrad. How are things for him?’
And so they went on to talk — people, places and events. After an hour or so they left the pub and went for a meal at a friendly Italian restaurant just round the corner. They ate in a peaceful corner, fussed over by Sergio who insisted on choosing a menu for them and telling them to take their time. It was an excellent ambience to encourage two normally reticent characters to bare a little soul. King Offenbach started it.
‘David,’ he said, ‘ I guess you know I keep pretty close contact with Pente and the first thing I want to say to you about that is thanks!: it was you w
ho introduced us shortly after I arrived in Oxford.’
This was true. David remembered the occasion of getting a group together in the pub one evening to meet ‘the King’, and Pente had certainly been amongst them. But it was hardly a big deal, and he said so.
‘Sure, I appreciate that,’ King went on, ‘but it’s become a bigger deal since, definitely for me and I think for Pente also. No, it’s nothing like that,’ he chuckled as he saw David’s eyes start to widen. ‘Jeez, but you Brits drag sex into everything,’ and he waved away David’s protests, ‘let me concentrate on expressing this.’ He paused to take a pull at his drink.
‘I guess you could say that Pente has become my spiritual adviser as well as close friend and confidant. So that’s the big thing you started. You see, religion is pretty damn important for me — after all, I’m a boy from the wild wastelands of Carolina. I guess it’s both bred and beaten into me by way of a difficult family background and also it troubles me that what I do for a living seems a fair way towards being at odds with the scriptures. I’ve got to say that good ole Pente has a way with his words and his analysis both, so now I’ve gotten the habit of touching base with him on a regular schedule, just to chew the fat a bit and to run a few ideas past him. Plus there’s a reciprocal too. The only doubt which troubles Pente about his calling is that he’s not exactly a natural for turning the other cheek. As you know, David, he can get awful steamed up about things and then his notion of Christian justice gets to come a bit under the heading of brimstone.’
David kept his silence as King picked up his glass and drank again. Then he continued.
‘David, I do need to be quite straight with you now about something which Pente guessed the first time we talked and which I know he mentioned to you. It’s true. I do work for the US Government, specifically the CIA and yes, those guys picked me from school and bankrolled my education including my time at Oxford. Telling you this is no indiscretion. It’s not going to get either of us shot though it’s not something I advertise. But I figure it’s important you know.’
