Every Man Dies Alone (11 page)

All this Baldur had dinned into them, with much abuse, till it sank into their befogged brains. They had sat opposite each other across the table in dim light in the Persicke flat, with the incessantly swaggering, threatening, flashing Baldur between them. The two SS men had sprawled on the sofa, a threatening, dark presence, for all that they seemed to be smoking cigarettes nonstop. Enno and Borkhausen had an awful impression that they were in a kangaroo court facing imminent death. They swayed back and forth on their chairs, trying to grasp what they were supposed to understand. From time to time they nodded off, only to be wakened by painful blows from Baldur’s fist. All they had planned, done, and suffered seemed to them like an unreal dream, and they longed only for sleep and oblivion.

In the end, Baldur sent them away with his brothers. In their pockets, without their knowing it, Borkhausen and Kluge each had fifty marks in small-denomination notes. Baldur had decreed this further, painful sacrifice, which for now turned the whole Rosenthal scheme into a loss-making operation for the Persickes. But he reminded himself that if the men went back to their wives penniless, shattered, and incapable of work, that would give rise to much more fuss and questions than if they showed up with a little money. And he imagined it would be the women who found the money, given the condition of their men.

The older Persicke, who was charged with getting Borkhausen home, accomplished his mission in ten minutes flat, during which time Frau Rosenthal had disappeared into Judge Fromm’s apartment and Trudel Baumann had emerged into the street. He simply grabbed Borkhausen by the scruff of his neck—he was barely capable of walking—and dragged him across the courtyard, dropped him on the ground outside his flat, and woke his wife by banging on the door with his fists. As she recoiled from the dark figure looming in her doorway, he yelled: “Here’s your man back! Put him to bed! He’s been lying around on our staircase, puking over everything…”

And all the rest he left to Otti. She had quite a bit of trouble getting Emil out of his clothes and putting him to bed, and the elderly gentleman who was still enjoying her hospitality was roped in to help. Then he too was sent away, despite the early hour. Also he was told he mustn’t on any account come again—perhaps they might arrange to meet in a café or something, but not here.

Otti was seized by panic on seeing the SS man Persicke at the door. She knew of some colleagues who, instead of being paid for their services by these gentlemen in the black uniforms, had been pitched into a concentration camp for being immoral and work shy. She had imagined she had a completely invisible existence in her gloomy subterranean apartment in the back building, and now she made the discovery that—like everyone else at this time—she was the object of unceasing surveillance. For the umpteenth time in her life she swore to reform herself. This prospect was made easier by her discovery of forty-eight marks in Emil’s pockets. She put the money in a stocking and decided to wait to hear what Emil told her of his adventures. She, at any rate, would begin by denying all knowledge of any money.

The other Persicke’s task was much harder, especially as the distance to travel was a lot farther, for the Kluges lived on the other side of Friedrichshain. Enno was no more capable of walking than Borkhausen, but Persicke couldn’t take him by the arm or the collar in the public street. It was embarrassing enough anyway to be seen with this battered-looking drunkard, because although Persicke had little regard for his own honor or that of his fellow men, his uniform demanded respect to a unique degree.

It was equally unavailing to order Kluge to march a step ahead or a step behind, for he always had the same insuperable inclination to sit down on the ground, to stumble, to grab hold of walls and trees, to walk into pedestrians. Hitting him was useless, so was barking at him: the body just wouldn’t obey, and the streets were too busy already for the good going over that might just sober him up enough. The sweat stood out on Persicke’s brow, his jaws were working with rage, and he vowed to tell his odious little squirt of a brother to his face what he thought of such assignments.

He had to keep off the main roads and make detours down quieter side streets. Then he would grab Kluge under his arm and lug him for two or three blocks until he couldn’t do it anymore. He got some grief from a policeman who had noticed this compulsory form of transport, and who trailed after him through the whole ward, forcing Persicke to adopt a gentler and more concerned manner than he
would have liked.

But once they arrived in Friedrichshain, he was able to get his revenge. He put Kluge on a bench behind some shrubbery and beat him so hard that he lay there unconscious for ten minutes at the end of it. This little chump, who cared about nothing in the world except his horses—and all his knowledge of them was through the tabloids—this creature that was capable of feeling neither love nor hate, this idle creep who had devoted every winding of his pathetic brain to the avoidance of real exertion, this pale, modest, colorless Enno Kluge developed such a fear of uniforms from that time forth that meeting any Party member was enough to paralyze his brain.

A couple of kicks in the ribs roused him from his stupor, a couple of thumps on the back set him on his feet, and then he trotted along like a beaten dog in front of his tormentor till he reached his wife’s apartment. But the door was locked. The postwoman Eva Kluge, who had spent the night in despair of her son Karlemann and her whole life, had set off on her usual daily grind, the letter to her other son in her pocket, but very little hope in her heart. She delivered mail as she had done for years, because it was still better than sitting idle at home tortured by gloomy thoughts.

Once he’d persuaded himself that the woman really wasn’t home, Persicke rang next door, as luck would have it at the door of that same Frau Gesch who with her lie had helped Enno gain entry to his wife’s flat. Persicke simply shoved his hapless victim into the woman’s arms as she opened the door, said, “Here! Look after him, you know where he belongs!” and then left.

Frau Gesch had firmly resolved never again to take a hand in the affairs of the Kluges. But such was the authority of an SS man, and such was the universal fear of them, that she took Kluge into her flat without protest, sat him down at the table, and plied him with coffee and bread. Her own husband had already gone to work. Frau Gesch could see how exhausted little Kluge was, and she could also see from his face, his ripped shirt, and the filth on his coat evidence of protracted mishandling. But since Kluge had been handed over to her by an SS man, she didn’t dare ask a single question. Yes, she would have rather put him outside the door than listened to an account of what had happened to him. She didn’t want to know anything. If she didn’t know anything, she couldn’t testify to anything, blab, get herself in trouble.

Slowly Kluge chewed his bread and drank his coffee. Thick tears of pain and exhaustion dribbled down his cheeks. From time to time,
Frau Gesch cast a sidelong look at him. Then, when he had finished, she said: “Now where do you want to go? Your wife’s not taking you back, you know that!”

He didn’t answer, just stared straight ahead of him.

“And you can’t stay here with me either. For one thing, my Gustav wouldn’t have it, and then I don’t want to have to keep everything under lock and key on account of you. So where do you want to go?”

Again, he didn’t reply.

Frau Gesch said crossly, “Well, in that case, I’ll leave you on the staircase! I’ll do it right away. Or?”

He said with difficulty, “Tutti—old girlfriend of mine…” And then he was crying again.

“For goodness sake, what a baby!” she said contemptuously. “If I always folded like that the moment something went wrong! All right, this Tutti: What’s her real name, and where does she live?”

After many further questions and some threats she learned that Enno didn’t know Tutti’s real name, but thought he could find his way to where she lived.

“Well then,” said Frau Gesch. “But you can’t go on your own in that state—any traffic policeman would arrest you. I’ll take you. But if you’re wrong about the apartment, I’ll leave you there on the street. I’ve got no time for looking around, I’ve got to go to work!”

“Could I have just a little nap?” he begged.

She hesitated briefly, then decreed, “All right, but no longer than an hour! In an hour we’re off. There, lie down on the sofa, I’ll find something to cover you with.”

He was asleep before she came back with the blanket.

Old Judge Fromm had let Frau Rosenthal in personally. He had led her into his study, whose walls were completely lined with books, and let her sit down in a chair there. A reading lamp was on, a book lay open on the table. The old gentleman himself brought in a tray with a pot of tea and a cup, sugar, and two thin slices of bread, and said to the terrified woman, “First have some breakfast, Frau Rosenthal, and then we can talk!” And when she wanted to bring out a word of thanks, he said kindly, “No, please, I insist. Just make yourself at home here, take an example by me!”

With that, he picked up the book under the reading lamp and calmly carried on reading, all the while mechanically stroking his beard. He seemed entirely oblivious of his visitor.

By and by, a little confidence returned to the frightened old Jewess. For months she had lived in fear and confusion, with her bags packed, always ready for a vicious attack. For months she had known
neither home nor ease nor peace nor calm. And now here she was sitting with the old gentleman whom before she had never seen except on the stairs, and very occasionally at that; the light and dark brown leather bindings of many books looked down at her, there was a large mahogany desk by the window (furniture the likes of which she had once owned herself, in the early years of her marriage), a slightly worn Zwickau carpet was under her feet. And then, add in the old gentleman himself, reading his book, stroking away at his not un-Jewish-looking goatee, and wearing a long dressing gown that reminded her of her father’s caftan.

It was as though a spell had caused a whole world of dirt, blood, and tears to fade away, and she was back in a time when Jews were still respected people, not fugitive vermin facing extermination.

Unconsciously, she stroked her hair, and her face softened. So there was still peace in the world, even in Berlin.

“I am very grateful to you, Judge,” she said. Her voice sounded different, more certain.

He quickly looked up from his book. “Please drink your tea while it’s hot, and eat your bread. We have a lot of time, there’s no hurry at all.”

And he was reading again. Obediently, she drank her tea and ate her bread, even though she would much rather have conversed with the old gentleman. But she preferred in the end to obey him in all things and not disturb the peace of his apartment. She looked around again. No, everything had to remain as it was. She wasn’t going to endanger it. (Three years later, a high-explosive bomb would blow this home to smithereens, and the sedate old gentleman himself would die a slow and agonizing death in the cellar…)

Replacing her empty cup on the tray, she said, “You’ve been very kind to me, Judge, and very brave. But I don’t want to endanger you and your home to no purpose. It’s no use. I’m going to go back to my flat.”

The old gentleman looked at her attentively while she spoke, and when she got to her feet, he led her gently back to her chair. “Won’t you remain seated a little longer, Frau Rosenthal!”

She did so, reluctantly. “Really, Judge, I mean what I say.”

“Won’t you kindly listen to me, first. I, too, mean what I am about to say to you. Let’s start with the question of danger. I was in danger, as you put it, all my professional life. I had a mistress whom I had to obey: one that rules over me, you, the world, even the world outside as presently constituted, and her name is Justice. I always believed in her, I made Justice the guiding light for everything I did.”

While he spoke, he paced back and forth, his hands behind his back, always in Frau Rosenthal’s sight. The words passed his lips calmly and unexcitedly. He spoke of himself as in the past, a man who really no longer existed. Frau Rosenthal listened to him, gripped.

“But,” the judge continued, “I am speaking of myself, instead of speaking about you, a bad habit among people who live alone. A little more now on the matter of danger. I’ve received threatening letters for ten, twenty, thirty years… And now I’m an old man, Frau Rosenthal, sitting reading his Plutarch. Danger means nothing to me, it doesn’t frighten me, it doesn’t engage my head or my heart. Don’t let’s speak of danger, Frau Rosenthal…”

“But people are different nowadays,” Frau Rosenthal objected.

“And if I tell you that those earlier threats were issued by criminals and their accomplices? Where’s the difference!” He smiled. “They are not different people. There are a few more of them, and the others are a little more circumspect, a little cowardly even, but Justice has remained the same, and I hope that we both live to witness her victory.” For an instant he stood there, rather erect. Then he began his pacing again. Quietly he said, “The triumph of Justice will not be the same thing as the triumph of the German nation!”

He stopped for a moment, then went on in a lighter tone of voice: “No, you can’t go back to your flat. The Persickes were there last night, you know, that Nazi family that lives over me. They have your keys in their possession, and they will keep your flat under constant observation. You really would be putting yourself in unnecessary danger.”

“But I must be there when my husband comes back!” begged Frau Rosenthal.

“Your husband,” Judge Fromm said in a kindly tone, “your husband will not be able to visit you anytime soon. He is currently in Moabit Prison, accused of having secretly passed property abroad. He is safe, therefore, at least as long as he is able to keep the state prosecutors and the tax authorities interested in his case.”

The old judge smiled subtly, looked encouragingly at Frau Rosenthal, and then went back to his pacing.