Restitution (2 page)

Too late to go back to sleep
, Karl realized. By now, his father would be up and in his office. Mother would be busy with the household and the family servants. Perhaps she was already supervising the preparation of that evening's dinner. With luck, there would be a roast chicken with
houskové knedlíky
– bread dumplings – and
– crepes filled with jam – for dessert. Any minute now, Leila, his nanny, would knock softly at Karl's bedroom door, telling him it was time to get up and come downstairs for breakfast. Perhaps Leila would protect him from his mother's displeasure at discovering Lord in his bedroom. Leila Adrian had been with the family for years, and she had a soft spot for young Karl, whom she had practically raised from birth. Leila was from Sudetenland, the northern part of Czechoslovakia, a region that was home to an ethnic German population that had clashed with the Czechs over the years. But that was politics, and Leila didn't care about that. She was ferociously loyal to this family, and her love had grown over her years of devoted service. She had never married and had no children. And while she would occasionally visit her sister in their hometown of Ústí nad Labem, the Reiser family was her true family. Karl knew Leila would try to defend him, but, more than likely, he and the dog were going to be in trouble this morning.

Another sound drifted up from the downstairs salon. Karl listened for a moment, hearing his parents' voices rise and fall. He sensed some kind of alarm in their tone, and wondered briefly what his father was doing here when normally he would be in his office by this time. As a commodities broker, Father bought future grain crops from large farms in the area and sold these contracts to domestic and foreign markets. His company, A. Reiser, had been started by Karl's grandfather Abraham. But Karl's father had taken ownership at a young age, achieving great success and making his family one of the wealthiest in Rakovník. His offices were on the ground floor of the house, though he was often away on business.

“Come, Lord,” Karl finally said. “Let's see what's going on. Maybe I can sneak you past Mother without her noticing.” Lord snorted an acknowledgment and Karl rolled out of bed. He paused briefly to look at his reflection in the mirror above his bookshelf. His long, thin face and lanky physique reflected back. Like his father, Karl had a strong, angular nose. His sparkling eyes were a gift from his mother. He dressed quickly, ran a brush through his thick hair – the red hair and freckles also came from his father's side of the family – and sprinted down the long staircase to the main floor. Lord followed, sending the Oriental carpets flying as he rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs. But Karl needn't have worried about his dog. When he entered the living room, his parents were deep in discussion, oblivious to all other activity.

“But, Victor, who could have done such a thing?” his mother asked. She paced anxiously back and forth.

Karl's father shook his head. “Calm down, Marie. I'm sure it's nothing. Children. Pranksters. That's all. You mustn't be so upset. There's nothing personal in this.”

“Nothing personal! How can you say it's nothing? We've never been targeted like this. It's shocking, disgusting! We are fully assimilated in this town.”

This was an understatement. There were only thirty Jewish families who lived in this town of about thirty thousand people. And though the Jewish families all knew one another, Karl and his family only saw them a couple of times a year when they met at the big synagogue on Vysoká Street for the High Holidays. These events, and the occasional Yiddish word that Victor would drop into a conversation, were the only indications of the family's Jewish background. First and foremost, the Reisers thought of themselves as Czechs – loyal citizens of their country.

Karl had rarely seen his mother this agitated. An attractive and cultured woman, she was typically reserved and in control. But not this morning. She wrung her hands and tugged nervously at the collar of her lace blouse. Father eased his ample bulk out of an armchair and took his wife by the hand.

“And that's why you mustn't worry,” he said. “This is a minor incident. But I've called the police to report it, just to be on the safe side. Please, calm down.”

The telephone rang shrilly and Father moved to answer it. He responded in clipped sentences to the caller; perhaps a police official, Karl guessed. Mother continued to pace, ignoring Karl, who had taken a seat in the corner of the living room next to his sister, Hana. Leila stood in another corner of the room, casting nervous glances at her two young charges. Their nanny was grandmotherly in appearance, a small, gray-haired, kind woman. She too looked more troubled than Karl could ever remember.

Karl leaned over to his sister and whispered, “What's going on?”

Hana was usually talkative, but not so this morning. She sat perched on the edge of her chair, holding her dog, Dolinka, in her lap and stroking its head. Hana shrugged. “Go outside and see for yourself,” she replied. Hana was four years younger than Karl. They were as close as a brother and sister could be, though Karl sensed at times that Hana thought of him as the favorite – the older of the two and the only boy in the family.

Karl walked out the door and onto the streets of Rakovník. The family's three-storey house was in the main part of town, facing Husovo
the central square. Their property consisted of three buildings side by side. The first contained the grain warehouse for his father's business, and the second housed several servants and employees. The last house on the corner was the family home. Theirs was one of several impressive buildings in this section of the city.

By now, the main square was full of people and cars, everyone rushing about their business. Karl walked a few paces from his home and then turned around. He sucked in his breath at the sight that greeted him. In bold, white letters, the word
– Czech for Jew – had been painted across the brick wall of the house. The thick letters stood out on the street, emblazoned across the face of their home, their intent unmistakably menacing. Karl was not one for emotional outbursts. But this time was different. This time, he was overwhelmed with contempt for whoever had committed this crime. He stood rooted to the spot, his face flushed, his chest pounding.

There was no such thing as hiding your Jewish identity in a town as small as Rakovník. You were saddled with it within a country where anti-Semitism had deep roots. In 1541, during the Habsburg dynasty, there had been a complete expulsion of the Jewish population. Over the centuries, the Jewish ghetto in Prague had been burned to the ground on several occasions, forcing Jews to rebuild their community each time. Even though his family thought of themselves as fully integrated into the Rakovník community, Karl was often bullied by his schoolmates. Not only were the Reisers Jewish, they were wealthy to boot, making Karl an easy target. As a child he frequently had been followed to school and taunted by the other children. “Hey
, did you fall asleep under a strainer?” they teased, suggesting that the sun had passed through a sieve to create the pattern of red freckles that lay across his nose and cheeks. He hated the reference, and felt self-conscious about his appearance. Nothing seemed worse than being a red-haired, freckle-faced
Jewish
boy living in a small town in Eastern Europe in the 1930s.

The worst assault had happened a year earlier when Karl was walking home from school. He could hear them approaching from behind – several boys, thugs who attended his school. But this time, the taunts were louder and more menacing than before.

“
,
do Palestiny!”
–
Jew, go to Palestine!
– one boy shouted, as Karl glanced over his shoulder and quickened his pace, anxious to get to the safety of his house. Though he was tall and muscular, Karl was not athletic, and certainly not a fighter. He would be no match for these tougher boys. The footsteps behind him came closer and then a thick, meaty hand reached out and grabbed Karl by the shoulder, spinning him around. It was over in seconds. Karl lay on the ground doubled over as the boys laughed easily and moved on. He limped home and spent the evening nursing the painful bruises on his stomach and the welts across his arms. He hid the marks from his parents, who would have been outraged by the attack. Eventually, Karl put it behind him.

There had been other beatings, but each time he would shake them off and let the incidents pass. And, relatively speaking, he knew that these confrontations were minor, not at all like the real dangers that existed these days in other countries where Jews were being systematically targeted. Adolf Hitler's name had been spoken with disdain in Karl's home for years. “A madman,” his father often said. “He'll never last.” And yet the preceding years had seen the steady rise of anti-Semitic laws in Germany. With the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, Jews had lost their status as legal citizens there. They could no longer hold public office, and were barred from various professions and occupations.

But it seemed inconceivable that the harsh measures being implemented in Germany would ever come to Karl's homeland. Tomáš Masaryk, their country's beloved previous president, would never have allowed the Jews of Czechoslovakia to be targeted in that way. He respected the worth and dignity of all people, regardless of religion. And his successor, Edvard Beneš, appeared to rule with the same spirit of liberalism. Despite the hostility toward Jews that had marked the history of the Czech lands, both of these leaders expounded a democratic political philosophy that kept anti-Semitism in check. Karl could handle those occasional beatings by local thugs. However, this was an attack on his home, on his family; this was much more serious. As he stood staring at the graffiti on the wall, Karl's mind was so preoccupied that he didn't notice his father, who had come out of the house to join him on the sidewalk.