Hannah & Emil (26 page)

‘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?

‘I hear a rumour,' his father said without looking up from the piece of paper onto which he was copying addresses. Oh yes, thought Emil. That's unusual. ‘I hear you have brought weapons into town.'

Emil froze. ‘Father, who told you? Who knows?'

‘That is not the point,' he said, looking up. He leaned forward, his paunch pressing against the desk, lowered his voice. ‘Have you lost your mind? What do you think you are going to do with them?'

‘Defend ourselves. And, Father, it is the point. If someone has told you, then someone's talking. I need to know who it is.'

‘Don't worry. He told only me.'

‘Father, forgive me. You are the biggest gossip in town. If someone is telling you, they're not being as discreet as I would hope.'

‘Well then.' He threw a hand in the air. ‘I will tell you, before you go holding an inquisition. Herr Peters is concerned. He thinks you are pushing things along too quickly. He told me only so that I would talk to you.'

‘It was his idea. He brought me in on it.'

‘He wanted only to be prepared. But now he says you are talking about going after the bosses.'

‘Not yet. Not if we don't have to. For now I'm working to help us win the election. We brought them in when things looked bad, after the July election.'

Klaus was satisfied with this, for a moment. ‘This is still a democracy. We still have elections. Their success is waning. These other methods—you will go too far. And there will be no way back.'

‘You have seen what they do.'

‘But that is not what we do, Emil.' He finished writing, handed Emil the piece of paper. ‘Now, Mother wants you all round for dinner this weekend.'

‘We can feed ourselves, you know.'

‘I know, yes, you have been working. Greta has news.'

‘Has she broken down his defences at last?'

‘Good God, I hope so. Mother cannot sleep for worrying about her. Says she will die an old maid if she wastes much more time on this ditherer.'

‘You want me to go and see him?'

‘Have you become a mobster since I last saw you, Emil?' But there was a glint in his eye. ‘Come on, walk down with me. There is time for a beer with an old man before you go back to your life of crime, surely.'

Klaus was not at his desk. The other union functionaries were rushing through the corridors cradling files, hair awry. Zelma was again at the window, looking down onto the street. She wore a dark green suit. It gave her a smart silhouette at the bright window. ‘Zelma,' Emil said. She started.

‘Oh, Emil.' She stopped, peered at him. ‘I'm not sure you should be wandering about.'

‘You spend too much time listening to Father.'

‘Still, they're out for blood down there.'

‘Where is he? Have you seen him?'

‘Not yet. He comes in late sometimes now. I believe he's getting a little old for this game.' Emil cast a look over his father's desk. There were piles of paper everywhere, an ashtray, a cup with a coffee mark at the rim. ‘He won't let me touch it. He insists he can't find anything when I do.'

‘If he comes in, would you tell him I was looking for him? There's talk of a strike. I need to know what he wants to do.'

‘Bit late for that, don't you think? Haven't you heard the news?'

‘Of course. I need to know what action he wants to take.'

She lifted her hands, gestured at the desks, the furniture, the photographs of labour leaders on the walls. ‘Emil, it's over for us, for now. You should spend your time with your family until things settle.'

‘Hans is fine. He's at school, where he belongs.' He backed into the corridor, pushed himself quickly down the stairs.

Since he had entered the building not ten minutes before, the pavement had begun to fill with men and women in their working clothes who had come to a halt, chatting in little groups with a look about them of mild elation, though he knew many of them had come to SPD rallies at one time or another. On the other side of the wide road, beyond the carts and buses and tramlines and bare trees, the pavement was crowded with SA. Some looked drunk, tilting cheerfully into the road, though it was barely eight in the morning.

A man stood just in front of him on the step of an office building entrance, shouting. A group thickened across the path to listen, blocking Emil's way. ‘Excuse me,' he said, several times, but no one budged. He could not make himself understood above the man's shouts and the crowd's rowdy gossiping.

‘These are great times, friends!' the man was shouting.