Stones From the River (40 page)

“Wouldn’t you lie to save someone’s life?” Trudi asked.

“How could I?”

“How could you not?”

“Trudi.” Herr Hesping touched her arm. “We’re not even talking about a situation where that’s needed.”

“But we must know that about each other.”

“It may never be necessary.”

“I won’t let anyone force me into lying.” Frau Weiler’s eyes glistened the way Ingrid’s eyes did when she talked about martyrs. Ingrid was nearly finished with her studies to become a teacher, and during the past year Trudi had seen less of her.

“Let it rest, Hedwig—please,” Leo Montag said.

“It seems Herr Heidenreich has been doing some quiet damage,” Emil Hesping said. “Informing.”

“Kurt Heidenreich?” Herr Blau shook his head. “But we always talk, and he never—” He clasped one veined hand across his mouth. “I hope I can remember everything I’ve told him.”

“Let’s rather hope that he forgot,” Michel Abramowitz said.

“I heard that he refused to stuff Frau Kaminsky’s parrot,” Trudi said, “but he didn’t tell her until she came to pick it up. It was rotting, too late to take to the taxidermist in Krefeld. She had to bury it.”

“Let’s talk about what we can do to to help Frau Simon,” Leo Montag said.

“Any suggestions?” Frau Blau asked.

Michel Abramowitz hesitated. “I’ll make some inquiries.”

“That may not be good for her or for you.” Leo Montag spoke slowly. “You know me, Michel, and this is hard to say, but—”

“She needs a good lawyer who’s not a Jew, right?”

Leo flinched. “In this country—now … Yes. Unfortunately.”

“Or a Communist,” Herr Blau reminded him.

“That was so long ago,” Frau Blau said.

Herr Abramowitz raised his chin and stared at the piano with the silver-framed photos of his children, dating from infancy to three years earlier when his son, Albert, had left for Argentina after many attempts to persuade his parents and sister to join him. We weren’t ready then, Herr Abramowitz thought. We waited too long. And Ruth still wasn’t ready to go without her husband. But he and Ilse had finally agreed to let Albert help. How he hated the waiting, the uncertainty. Nearly half of the Jewish community in Germany, which had numbered five hundred thousand in 1933, had already left the country. But for those who hadn’t, it was becoming harder and harder to find a place that would take them. Even Palestine was no longer an option. Because of Arab objections, the British had restricted immigration into Palestine, hindering what had once looked like a workable agreement between the Palestinian Zionist Organization and the Nazis: to keep Jewish wealth in a fund in Germany, which was to be used for buying German exports to Palestine, while the Zionists were to take care of Jewish immigrants.

And other nations, including the United States, severely restricted Jewish immigration. Nobody wants impoverished Jews, Herr Abramowitz thought bitterly. There’d be no problem for us if we could take our money out of Germany. The real irony is that we’re still here—not because the Nazis prevent us from leaving—but because we have no place to go.

“At least we have Albert,” he said heavily.

“Michel—” Leo started.

Herr Abramowitz raised one hand to stop him. “I want all of you to know that our families—Ilse’s and mine—have lived in
your
country for many generations. My great-grandfather built this house.… And about finding the right kind of lawyer—I agree with you. I have a colleague, Aryan head to toe, but human inside. He’ll check into what’s happening with Frau Simon.”

“For now, just watch out, all of you,” Emil Hesping warned. “You know how easy it is to get arrested.”

Herr Blau nodded. “I know parents who won’t discuss politics in front of their children. They’re afraid they’ll tell their teachers or Hitler-Jugend leaders—even if they don’t mean to turn their parents in.”

“Some of them mean to,” Leo said.

Emil Hesping nodded. “That’s what the pure German family is all about.”

Suddenly, they all were very quiet. They knew only too well that those who were brave or foolish enough to speak out against the government were made examples of: they were beaten, had their belongings seized, or were sent away. To come to their defense was dangerous. You knew it was safer to pretend not to notice when the police came to your neighbor’s house late at night, to keep your lights off even if you wanted to help, to walk away if one of your friends was pulled aside to be questioned.

“Last week they stuck a priest from Krefeld into the KZ,” Emil Hesping said.

Trudi felt chilled at the mention of
Konzentrationslager
, those camps that were correction centers for so-called “asocials,” for Communists and other political prisoners who didn’t fit in.

She and her father were the last to leave the Abramowitzs’ house, and as they stepped into the night, the stench that the flood had left seemed even harsher than during the day. The clouds—though it was too dark to see them—felt dense and close to the earth as if sheltering the town, infusing it with the deceptive promise of peace.

“If all the people who thought like us …,” Trudi said, “if we all got together—maybe we could stop this.”

“Those points of connection—they’re the weak spots. As soon as we build bridges to others, we’re in danger. That’s when they catch us.”

“I don’t think Herr Blau would tell.”

“He’s a good man, but he’s frightened. You know that people only hear that part of a story they can handle.”

What he said felt true because she’d seen it happen when she’d carried her stories around town. Some people didn’t want to hear all the details. They would ask, but they’d distract themselves with interpretations that had little to do with her stories, yet gave her new material. Some would walk away or change her endings. But that was all right: a story stayed alive that way, shaped and reshaped in each telling, signifying something different to everyone who was affected by it.

“Most of what’s happening we don’t even know.” Her father stopped in front of their door and fidgeted with his keys.

Trudi touched the bark of the chestnut tree. Above her, she felt the
span of its branches, still bare. Soon, buds would burst into leaves and wobbly candle blossoms.

“The news we get in the paper is filtered.” He unlocked the door and turned on the light in the hallway. “Words have taken on new meanings. We learn more from whispered rumors than from the printed word. We live in a time when we all become messengers. You—more than anyone I know—are prepared for that, Trudi.”

She nodded. Ever since she had stood next to Frau Simon on the sidewalk that morning, she had felt the language becoming even narrower. There was no space for disagreement. She had become suspect just by being there with Frau Simon. Ineffective. At risk.

Her father was watching her. He was watching her with tired and empathetic eyes, and Trudi wasn’t even sure if he spoke or if she felt his concern, because what she thought she heard was,
“Be careful, my daughter”

Every afternoon, Trudi checked Frau Simon’s store and apartment on Barbarossa Strasse, but the doors had been padlocked the day after the arrest, and no one answered when she knocked. She thought about Frau Simon every time she rubbed lotion into her hands, every time she saw a woman with a hat designed by the red-haired milliner. Some people thought she was still being held in Düsseldorf, while others assumed she’d been released and was visiting her sister in Osnabrück. A month after her arrest, all hats disappeared from the display window, and the shop was turned into headquarters for the Hitler-Jugend.

When Frau Simon was released after nearly four months and returned to Burgdorf, she looked as though she’d shrunk: her face seemed smaller, and her once unruly curls lay flat on her head. Her vivaciousness was gone, and she urged caution on her friends, saying that if you kept quiet things would get better.

“You sound like Frau Abramowitz,” Trudi objected.

“Don’t—” her father said. “Unless you have shared Frau Simon’s experiences.”

Though Frau Simon’s clothes looked familiar, they no longer fit her properly and looked as if they’d been made for someone else. Eva Sturm furnished an apartment for her on the third floor of her husband’s building. The rooms of Alexander’s niece, Jutta, were right next to Frau Simon’s. At seventeen, the girl had lived there by herself
for nearly a year, ever since her mother, whose health had always been brittle, had died from pneumonia and Jutta had turned down her uncle’s invitation to live with him and Eva on the first floor.

“But we have plenty of space,” Alexander had insisted.

“I want to stay up here.”

“You’re too young to be by yourself.”

“You were running a business when you were my age.”

“She’ll visit us every day,” Eva had said. “Right, Jutta? And she’ll eat with us.”

When Jutta had agreed, her uncle had given in.

Frau Simon remained inside her apartment most of the time, and if she stepped outdoors, she’d avoid walking past her old building, where, in the center of the display window, her pyramid-shaped mirror reflected the somber smile of the Führer and the garish red of the flag. She would take a detour around the far side of the church square to get to the pay-library, where, every Tuesday, she’d check out two romances and two American Westerns.

“Have you gone to Frau Doktor Rosen about that headache?” Leo Montag asked her one mild afternoon, late that October of 1938, when she came in to return her weekly supply of books.

Frau Simon nodded. “She gave me some pills.”

He handed the books to Trudi, who marked them as returned. “And did you take the pills?” he asked.

“I don’t much believe in pills. But it’s good of you to worry.”

“Emil tells me you won’t see him.”

“Not the way I look. Not until I—”

“You are a very good-looking woman, Lotte.”

One of her hands floated up to her hair.

“And that cardigan looks lovely on you.”

“Emil gave it to me for my birthday. A few years ago.” She told him to feel the white mohair sleeve. “Fifty percent mohair, fifty percent silk. I guess some people would say it’s not proper to accept gifts from a man you’re not married to.”

“I wouldn’t fret about that,” Leo assured her.

She smiled, the first smile anyone had seen on her since she’d been released from prison. “My grandmother used to tell me that a gentleman is not supposed to give a lady any gift that lies next to her skin—except for gloves.”

Trudi laughed. “Why gloves?”

Frau Simon had to think for a moment. “Only you would ask that. Maybe it has to do with shaking hands. I mean, when I shake a man’s hand, his skin touches mine, right? Therefore, gloves would be all right because they cover a place that’s … that’s—”

“Available?” Trudi helped.

“Available, right. And any skin covered by this sweater should not be available to any man other than a husband.”

“It’s like saying the gift is like the man’s hands. Just think of all the places that cardigan touches you.”

Frau Simon did a little dance with her shoulders, and for a moment she looked as lively as she used to.

“Now you’ll have to marry Herr Hesping,” Trudi teased her.

“Stop it, Trudi.”

“We’ll have the wedding right here. I’ll bake a cake and—”

“That man will never let a woman slip a ring on his finger. Maybe that’s what I like best about him.”

“Laughing becomes you,” Leo said. “May I tell Emil that you’re looking well?”

Frau Simon hesitated. “I’ll bring the books back next Tuesday at three. That is—if he wants to see for himself.”

The second Thursday of November, Trudi woke up early—tired and agitated as though she hadn’t slept at all. She always felt more tired when winter set in as if her body needed time to adjust to the cold. Besides, her knees had been aching for nearly a week. Frau Doktor Rosen had told her the pain came from her hips.

“Then why do I feel it in my knees?” Trudi had asked.

The Frau Doktor, whose practice had diminished even more, had told her the joints in her hips were inflamed.

“But that happens to old people. I’m only twenty-three.”

“Some
Zwerge
have those problems when they’re quite young.”

“But you don’t have any other patients who’re
Zwerge.”

“I’ve made it my business to read about them.”

Trudi had stared at her. “Because of me?”

“Because of you.”

As Trudi shifted in her bed, trying to find a comfortable position to carry her into morning, she allowed herself to imagine the doctor surrounded by tall stacks of medical books, searching for information on
Zwerge
that would help her unlock Trudi’s joints and lengthen her
bones until her body would be of normal height and free of pain. Yet, deep inside, she had already accepted that there really wasn’t anything that could be done. She thought of all the people who moaned about things they didn’t like in their lives—their work, their houses, their friends—and she was envious because they could change all that.

When she opened the library, the bakery truck stopped outside, and Alfred Meier came running in to tell her that, during the night, windows of Jewish businesses and synagogues in Düsseldorf had been smashed. He’d been out making deliveries since dawn, and he’d heard that buildings had been set on fire, and that a whole block of apartments next to a Jewish jewelry store had burned down.

As the day progressed, other customers reported hearing from friends and family in Krefeld and Oberkassel and Köln. Trudi didn’t even try to work in the library: she kept circling through Burgdorf, letting people know what she had found out, while picking up news of destruction in other cities and towns. In Burgdorf only two businesses had been damaged—a yarn shop and a restaurant, both owned by Jews. It looked as if someone had tried to set fire to the synagogue, because in back of the building the stucco beneath one window was blackened.

“Maybe it won’t happen here,” Frau Abramowitz told Leo Montag while her husband buttoned his camel hair coat and left for an emergency meeting at the synagogue.