by John Lawton
They scrubbed.
When they had finished the message was still more than faintly visible. Gloss paint did not scrub so well. And they’d none of them been able to reach the moustache.
The tailors stood up, their knees wet, their trousers soggy.
‘We can scrub no more off,’ Hummel said as politely as he could.
‘Who said anything about any more scrubbin’?’ said the German.
He took a dozen paces back and raised his rifle. Bemmelmann sagged against Hummel’s chest in a dead faint. Hummel heard the gentle hiss as Beckermann pissed himself. Heard Hirschel muttering a prayer.
But the rifle carried on upwards, drawing a bead on the statue’s head, then the crack as it fired and chips of stone showered down on Hummel. The second crack and the stone head split open and two chunks of rock heavy enough to stove in a man’s skull bounced off the cobbles behind him and rolled away.
‘Right,’ said the German. ‘Pick your feet up Jew-boys. And follow me.’
Hummel roused Bemmelmann.
‘Where am I?’ the old man said.
‘In hell,’ Hummel replied.
§7
Hummel had no difficulty seeing himself and his neighbours as Vienna saw them from the early-morning doors and windows, in the eyes of women shaking tablecloths and in the eyes of unshaven men still munching on their breakfast roll, clutching their first cup of coffee. A raggle-taggle bunch of damp and dusty Jewish tailors led by a bantam-cock of a soldier, strutting while they straggled – a recognisably barmy army. Every so often the German would try to kick a little higher, but, clearly, the goose step was not as easy as it looked and needed more practice than the man had given it, and was all but impossible whilst turning around every couple of minutes to urge on his charges. It might have been better to herd them like pigs or cattle, but Hummel could see the thrill of leadership in the way the man stuck out his chest and kicked out his legs. He’d probably never led anything in his life before. He shouted, they shuffled. Down to the river, across the Aspern Bridge, along Franz Josef’s Kai and into the ancient heart of Vienna.
The German yelled ‘Halt’.
Hummel was wondering why he could not just yell ‘stop’ – as though there was any particular military relevance to a word like ‘halt’ – when he realised where they were. Outside the Ruprechtskirche. Probably the oldest church in the city – some said it had stood twelve hundred years already. It was a small church. A simple, almost plain exterior. Not a touch of grandiosity in its conception or its accretions. What desecration now? Of course, the final desecration would be if this idiot, this tinpot Boney at the front, were to marshal them inside. Hummel had never been in this or any other Christian church.
A crowd had their backs to them. The German parted a way with his rifle and Hummel found himself on his knees once more, his bucket and brush set down before him, facing a large bright blue letter ‘H’. Beckermann plumped down next to him, the bucket obscuring the letter. Hummel looked to his left wanting, for reasons that were inaccessible to him, to know what word he was obliterating now. The man next to him was hunched over, scrubbing vigorously, the letter already half-erased. Hummel knew him. He could not see his face, but he knew him. He looked at the blue wide-pinstripe of the man’s back, and he knew the suit. He had made it himself not two months ago for a young violinist named Turli Cantor.
Cantor did not turn. Hummel dunked the brush, gazed outward at the mob and bent his head to scrub. They had an audience – a crowd of onlookers who seemed to Hummel to be neither gloating nor commiserating. He had heard that the mobs could be as vicious as the SA, jeering and kicking as rabbis were dragged from their homes to clean public lavatories. This lot showed no inclination. They were watching with the casual half-attention of a crowd watching a street entertainer who they found just distracting enough to pause for, but who would be off the minute the hat was passed. So that was what they were? Street entertainment. The Famous Scrubbing Jews of Vienna. Roll up, roll up and watch the kikes on their knees on the steps of a Christian church. He looked again. They were blank, expressionless faces. Perhaps they had no more wish to be there than he had himself. The troops standing between the Jews and the mob weren’t ordinary soldiers like the one who had led him here. They were black-uniformed, jackbooted German SS.
Hummel was making good progress with his ‘H’ when he felt a change in the mood of the mob. He risked an upward glance. The SS were all standing stiffly upright – perhaps this was what was meant by ‘at attention’? – and the crowd had parted to let through an officer in black and silver.
From his left he heard Cantor whisper, ‘My God. Wolfgang Stahl!’
For the first time his eyes met Cantor’s. ‘I have known Wolf all my life,’ Cantor said, his voice beginning to rise above a whisper, ‘Surely he will save us?’
Cantor stood, clumsily, one foot all but slipping from under him on the wet stone flag and uttered the single syllable, ‘Wolf.’
An SS trooper shot him through the forehead.
The crowd scattered, screaming. This was not what they had paid to see. Hummel rose – afterwards he assigned the word ‘instinctively’ to his action – only to feel the pressure of a hand on his shoulder, forcing him back down, and the sound of the German soldier’s voice saying, ‘Don’t be a fool. You can’t help him. You can only get yourself killed. You and all your mates.’
Hummel saw a boot push Cantor’s body over, saw the black hole between Cantor’s eyes, saw the click of the heels as the same boot came together with its mate and saluted the officer. Then he twisted his head slightly, enough to make the German tighten his grip, and saw the black leather of the officer’s gloves drawn tight across his knuckles. Then one hand rose – the salute returned. The man turned and all Hummel saw was his retreating back and the movement of SS troopers across the steps, and then a voice was shouting ‘Show’s over’, and someone he could not see at all was dragging Cantor’s body away.
They scrubbed until the graffiti was washed away. They scrubbed until the blood was washed away.
Slouching home Hummel asked Hirschel what the word had been.
‘Schuschnigg,’ Hirschel replied. ‘And it may be the only memorial our chancellor ever gets.’
