Child of the Journey (5 page)

November

M
iriam glanced around Friedrich Ebert Strasse at the aftermath of
Kristallnacht
.

Seven months ago,
she thought,
moonlight shone through the glass of Schloss Gehrhus. Now all windows everywhere are shattered.

The sun shone on remnants of broken glass, still unswept after gangs of young Nazis, many of them driving cars, went on a rampage.
Cars,
for God's sake, she thought. They actually
drove
during the riot. Leaned out of motorcar windows to smash thousands of store fronts belonging to Jewish merchants and destroy hundreds of Jewish homes. Looting, robbing, killing. When would such carnage end!

How ironic that a young Polish Jew, Herschel Grynspan, had inadvertently sparked this recent night of so-called retribution. Distraught over the treatment his parents had received in Germany and intent on assassinating the German ambassador, Grynspan had murdered Ernst von Rath, a minor German official living at the Parisian consulate--only to find out, Konnie had told her, that von Rath was been under Gestapo scrutiny for
opposing
anti-Semitism.

According to news reports, Grynspan, under arrest in Paris, said, "Being a Jew is not a crime. I am not a dog. I have a right to live and the Jewish people have a right to exist on this earth. Wherever I have been, I have been chased like an animal."

"What a goddamn mess. About time you got here." Erich's father unlocked the door of the shop and signaled her inside. "I'll be leaving right away." He adjusted his tie and buttoned the waistcoat of his Sunday suit. "And you can tell your chauffeur this will be the last time you'll need him here. After what happened earlier this week, I've requested a security guard for the shop at night, and for Sundays."

At least the synagogue in her suburb, Grünewald, had not been desecrated, not yet. Still, with so many synagogues stoned and Berlin's main synagogue burned to the ground, she was worried about her friend, Beadle Cohen, the custodian-scholar who had taught Solomon so much about religion and about life.

"You don't need anyone else here on Sundays," she told Herr Weisser, afraid that acceptance on her part would endanger the already tenuous safe-house of the ancient sewer that ran beneath the tobacco shop and what had been the cabaret, below the furrier's next door. In the seven months that had passed since Hitler's birthday party at Schloss Gehrhus, she had provided sanctuary for an ever-increasing number of people.

Konnie was essential for her to continue such work. He was the only one she could trust to guard the shop while she guided transients through the deserted cabaret and into the sewer. After last Wednesday's terrors, there was sure to be increased demand for a place to hide until night claimed the streets.

Needing access to the sewer, she had traded on the fact that the Weissers also accorded her, their son's wife, no more status than an animal. She was right. They had jumped at her offer to be their unpaid Sunday Jew, to keep the shop open while they went to Mass and cleansed their souls. They equally readily agreed to let her stay on for the rest of the day while Friedrich played poker with the other newly affluent merchants of Friedrich Ebert Strasse, whose poker stakes also came from tills conveniently "neglected" by Jews.

As she had known it would be, her offer was irresistible: free labor from someone who knew the shop, someone it pleased them to denigrate. Six days a week she moved in the same circles as Goebbels and even the Führer; on Sunday she stepped down from her high-and-mighty pedestal and assumed her true identity--a Jew dancer turned shop girl after she had frittered away her fortune; the seducer of their beloved son and the reason he never visited, ashamed to face their disapproval for his poor matrimonial choice.

Miriam turned on the lights and readied herself for another ten hours at the shop. She glanced at herself in the counter glass as she removed the two crossed diamond hatpins she had placed in her hat as carefully as if she were going to a garden party. It was a navy-blue picture hat. The soft waves of her auburn hair were visible in front, but the rest had been pulled into a severe bun from which only tiny wisps escaped. The heron feathers that decorated the hat were the latest fashion, and the hue made her eyes look the color of iodine. Her dress was a low-cut navy woolen affair with a white lace collar and a fitted waist. Where her décolletage ended, she had clipped a lavender shell cameo; each of her high-heeled boots was decorated with a dozen tiny buttons. The boots, long out of fashion, reminded her of her grandmother.

She had told Erich she'd found the boots on the estate and the hat and dress on a pile of discarded clothes and furniture outside the home of the Weintraub family, who had been transported from the apartments across the street the previous Saturday. The truth was, the clothing was a gift directly from Frau Weintraub in gratitude for being hidden downstairs in the sewer one Sunday. She had waited there to be spirited out through Kaverne in the early hours of the following morning. Where she was now was anybody's guess.

"I'm hungry," she told Konrad, who stood at the door staring impassively out on the street.

He nodded at the code and went to the car. When he returned, he carried a large shopping bag which held their food for the day. Without further discussion, he went downstairs to add that to the supplies they had already secreted in the sewer.

"I really am hungry," she said, when he came back upstairs.

"Me too. Should I go back down and bring up something for us?"

She shook her head. "There's little enough in the way of supplies. Whoever's there next will need it more than we do. You know what I'd really like? A Berliner
Bulette!"
 
Unlike many other Germans, who derided Americans for calling the beefsteak
ham
burger, Miriam knew that the sandwich had originated in Hamburg, New York. She had lived in the United States, touring the country and learning American dances, for four years following the Great War.

Reaching into her own shopping bag, she pulled out a bar of chocolate and a package that contained one of the new so-called unbreakable gramophone records. She had bought the old kind first and clumsily dropped it on the sidewalk; the record had shattered like a Jewish windowpane.

"How long should I go on believing Erich wants to protect Sol, Konnie?" She split the chocolate bar and handed him half. "Sometimes I think his protestations are about as solid as that record I dropped yesterday. For all I know, Solomon's dead...."

It had been two years since Erich learned that Sol had not made it out of Germany, that he was in a camp. Two years since, to protect Sol, she had consented to a marriage ceremony and moved into the estate with Erich. At first, thinking Sol safely in Amsterdam and believing that Erich was working on getting her out of the country--she had lived as a virtual prisoner in his apartment.

That was better, she thought; being at the estate hurt too much. At least at the flat they had made one person happy: Erich's landlady. She had been delighted with the extra money he had given her to keep her mouth shut.

"Don't worry, mein Herr," the landlady had said. "For my part, Satan can hump the Virgin Mary in this house, as long as the authorities stay away. I have nothing against Jews--only against
poor
Jews."

What might she have said had she known Erich was housing Walther Rathenau's only living relative!

Two figures approaching the shop distracted Miriam from her thoughts. When they got close, she saw that one of them was Beadle Cohen. He carried a satchel and held a boy by the hand, a gamin of about nine who wore black pants and a gray shirt, and whose eyes looked glassy. Blank. The look, she fearfully realized, of shock.

"We need help, Miriam," the beadle whispered without preamble. "This is Misha Czisça." Leaning forward, he whispered, "His parents, Rabbi Czisça and his wife...transported."

The beadle stopped and released the boy's hand. He bent down. Looking into the child's eyes, he said, "Listen to me, Misha. We do not know where your parents are, or if they are. You must do whatever Miriam and I tell you. Now go and sit on the linoleum behind the counter, where you will not be seen, and practice your Hebrew lettering. Before you know it, you will be thirteen. You cannot neglect your bar mitzvah studies."

The boy did not answer, nor did he move. He stood in the middle of the shop, dry-eyed, a picture of stoicism. In one hand he held a notebook and a pencil.

"The main temple has been destroyed. Mine will probably be next," the beadle said, standing up. "The boy and I must get out of Germany. I have papers that, with luck, will get me to Copenhagen." He lowered his voice. "Somehow I'll get the boy through, too."

"And then?"

The beadle smiled.
"L'shanah haba-a b'Yerushalayim."
 

"Next year in Jerusalem." Miriam repeated the ancient words that symbolized the Jews' hope for a safe harbor where they would always be welcome.

"Perhaps the following year." The old twinkle momentarily returned to the beadle's eyes. "Via New York, I hope. I intend to get to Holland first--I'll have the best chance of a berth from the Port of Amsterdam. While I wait, I'll find Sol's mother and sister."

"Don't tell them about Sol," Miriam said, "not even Recha. She might let it slip."

The beadle looked puzzled. "Surely you correspond with them--?"

"I did, while Sol was with me. When Erich told me that Sol was captured...his mother has been in such a precarious state, I thought the truth might--" She stopped.

What
was
the truth? At first she had rationalized that the news of Sol's internment would kill his mother, that Sol would be out soon, that they had not known Sol was en route to Amsterdam in the first place. And there was Erich. Her life with him was so public. She had crumpled page after page of attempts to explain why she was with Erich. No matter what she wrote, her words sounded like a hollow series of excuses for choosing a soft life. She had finally dashed off a note, saying simply that Sol was safe and that they should not expect to hear from him until, with God's help, they saw him. Her letter had crossed with one from Recha, his sister. She had seen Miriam on the Movietone News, flanked by Erich and Hitler, laying a wreath at the foot of the memorial to her uncle's assassins. Further correspondence from Miriam, Recha said, would be returned unopened.

She had written back twice. Recha remained good as her word. She had not written again. And telephoning? Out of the question. She couldn't. She simply couldn't.

"Come with us to Amsterdam," the beadle said. "I am sure it can be arranged."

Miriam shook her head and thought about another letter, the one Erich had agreed to have delivered to Sol at the camp. He had censored it, made her phrase it so it would seem that she had chosen to be with Erich because she loved him. By the time she had determined to find a way to send an uncensored letter to Sol, someone--according to Erich, it was probably Goebbels or Hempel--had arranged for Sol's transfer to another camp. Erich said he had been unable to ferret out which one, and she had tried, too, with equally fruitless results. Since Sol had no way to communicate with her, she might never know if she had succeeded in her attempt to convey the truth between the heartless lines Erich had forced her to write.

"I'm sorry, Beadle," she said. "If I stay, Sol has a chance."

The beadle took her arm. "I understand. We must each be true to ourselves." Unexpectedly, he kissed her cheek. "Now, to the business at hand. You said that if I ever needed help, to come to you. You said you could hide me." He looked at the boy. "I must ask you to hide
us
."

Miriam was happy to replace words with action. "Of course," she said. "At once. But you must leave the safe-house before first light, through the empty cabaret next door. We jimmied the cabaret door, so you can slip in or out if need be. The sewer is not exactly the Hotel Kemp--"

She saw the boy stiffen and stopped in mid-word, mentally slapping herself on the wrist for her own thoughtlessness. The Kempinski was practically next door to the temple the ruffians had destroyed, and to the boy's home. Any mention of it would naturally cause him more pain.

"Ah yes, the Kempinski," the beadle said, as if by saying the word out loud he was removing her guilt at her tactlessness. Or if not removing it, make it a shared guilt, "The price and the service are better here."

"You are right on both counts," Miriam said. "I'm forced to breakfast there tomorrow, my once-a-week concession to Erich's insistence that we be seen out regularly together in public,
like any other married couple.
" She was struck, as always, by life's inequities. Where was it written that this good man and this innocent child had to hide like rats underground, while she, by accident of a somewhat skewed birth, lived out her social exile in physical comfort? "You'll be safe here for one night," she said.

"One night it is." The beadle smiled sadly, and tapped a fingernail against a tattered manuscript he drew out from under his coat. "I will make it as worthwhile a night as possible. And you and I, Miss Rathenau...will meet again."

Miriam also smiled, picturing the beadle and his charge huddled beneath candlelight over Hebrew lettering; even now, the learning would go on.