Child of the Light (13 page)

In the apartment's parlor, Friedrich told his wife what had happened, and the argument was renewed. Sol, to his surprise, was not sent out of the room. He sat quietly listening to the two men: his own father, rational and positive, trying to make his friend see that he had overreacted; Friedrich, his voice raised, maligning the Rathenau family at every opportunity.

The two men had reached an impasse when Recha and Sol's mother, apparently hearing the commotion, came upstairs from the Freund flat. Mama wiped her hands on her apron. "What is the matter?" Her house dress smelled of baked bread. Her golden hair was pulled back in a bun and perspiration traced a path through a white splotch of flour on her temple. "I heard shouting." The lines around her eyes deepened with concern as she looked from her son to her husband. When Jacob started to explain the situation, Recha interrupted.

"What's so bad about kissing? It's in all the movies!"

Her father placed his hand against the small of her back and propelled her into the kitchen. "And stay there," he said.

"Forever?" the child wailed.

Jacob smiled fondly and swung his daughter off her feet. His breath came out in a huff, the way it did when he lifted a heavy crate; he set her down awkwardly, looking at her as if he realized for the first time that this spindly-limbed young lady was no longer a toddler.

"You think you're twenty again, Papa!" Mama said.

Both men chuckled and Solomon relaxed. For once he was glad he had a sister. Thanks to her, the tension seemed broken. Now Papa will take out his snuff box, Sol thought affectionately.

His father did not disappoint him. Pinching a little snuff between thumb and index finger, he sniffed it up and sneezed loudly several times. He blew his nose on a large white handkerchief, leaving a residue of brown snuff-stain.

"Time to take care of my son." Herr Weisser stood up and opened his hand to indicate a spanking.

"Take it easy on him, will you?" Sol's papa said, the hint of a smile on his face. "He didn't do anything any healthy boy doesn't want to do."

"Maybe you'd better come along, Jacob," Herr Weisser said, "or I'm likely to lose my temper all over again."

They are just like Erich and me, Sol thought as the two men delegated their anger to that crevice they reserved for such breaks in friendship and went together to look for Erich. After checking his bedroom, they tried the library.

Erich was there, rummaging through the drawers of his father's massive mahogany desk, strewing papers all over the hand-polished parquet floor. A vase of meticulously arranged white gladioli teetered atop the desk. Erich made no effort to keep it from falling and it crashed to the floor.

"Clean that up! Now!" his father ordered.

"C'mon, I'll help you." Sol bent and began to gather up the broken porcelain from amid the water and flowers.

Erich glared down at Sol, then continued rummaging. His eyes shone with such fury that Sol stepped backwards and bumped into Friedrich Weisser.

"Mein Gott!"
Erich's father said in a tone of utter disbelief. "He's after my revolver."

"And when I find it I'll use it."

Losing all semblance of control, Friedrich Weisser hurtled forward and pushed Erich away from the desk. "Just who did you hope to shoot?" He spoke so quietly he could hardly be heard. "Me, your mother, our friends? Yourself?"

Erich steadied himself. "I hate you," he said in the same quiet voice. He held up his injured hand as if to slap his father. "You hear me, I--"

He shuddered, a slight tremor, and then blinked in surprise. Sol realized his friend had suffered another of the lightning seizures. He held his breath, but as most often happened, the slight seizure came and went so swiftly as to be almost indiscernible.

"Now you listen to me!" Erich's father took his son by the lapels. "If you ever--"

With his good hand, Erich peeled his father's fingers off his shirt. Sol watched Friedrich Weisser stand unmoving as Erich reached behind himself and, still holding up the injured hand like an icon, opened the door. For a moment, they just stood there as if posing for some ill-conceived photograph.

"Hamster,"
Erich said in a quiet, ugly tone. He turned and left the room. One door slammed as he left the apartment; another as he left the building.

His father started after him, but Jacob Freund gently restrained his friend. "Let him be. He'll be back."

Friedrich Weisser sat down heavily in one of the library chairs. Suddenly he looked to Sol like a very old man. "He'll never return. Not really. In body, perhaps, but never as my son."

As dawn approached, Sol lay awake listening for the opening and shutting of doors and for the creaking of the apartment house's worn wooden stairs. If only I had been able to talk Rathenau into taking Erich along to the Adlon or had refused to go without Erich, he thought. Maybe none of the trouble would have happened. And mentioning the Freikorps-Youth to Rathenau! He felt guilty about that too, even if Erich did not know of the betrayal.

He had to find Erich and make him come home.

There were only two places Erich could have gone--the Freikorps camp or the sewer. Looking for him at the camp would be foolish and dangerous, especially at night; on the other hand, the last thing Sol wanted to do was go to their hideout, where the voices waited.

Still, anything was better than just lying in bed feeling bad.

He rose, dressed quickly, and crept into the kitchen. The key to the shop was in its usual place, hanging from a hook on the wall. He put it in his pocket. Erich could pick his way in through the cabaret, but Sol could not. The shop was his only hope. Once inside, he would go down to the basement and call to Erich through the tobacco-shop grate. Then Erich could let him in through the nightclub by opening the door from the inside. As soon as this crisis was over, he would ask his friend to teach him his lock-picking secrets. That would please Erich...make him feel superior.

Feeling much better, he poured himself a glass of milk and ate a piece of his mother's marble cake before wrapping up a slice for Erich, along with some cheese and liverwurst and two pieces of bread. Holding the package in one hand and his shoes in the other, he turned to leave.

"Going on a picnic?" his father asked from the shadows.

Sol started to put the package down on the counter.

"I won't keep you from sneaking food to him, nor will I say a word to Herr Weisser. But if you do this thing, you do so against my wishes. Whether or not you believe it, helping that boy defy his papa may not be in his best interests. Herr Weisser is not always right, we both know that. He is a difficult man. But Erich has to learn that he's not yet grown up--"

"But, Papa--"

"No arguments, Sol. Do what you must. However, if you go, I shall put you over my knee when you come home and spank you until my arm aches too much for me to lift it."

The emotionlessness of his father's voice bespoke his sincerity. This is all Erich's fault, Sol told himself. He gets out of line, and I am damned if I do and damned if I don't.

He hesitated. Then, trembling, he crept outside quietly, wanting to run but knowing the noise would upset Papa all the more.

Sol's plan to get into the sewer worked perfectly. Erich was there, heard him at once, and let him in through the cabaret. In their hideaway, a single candle was burnt down almost to its holder. It was too dark to see for sure, but judging by the sound of his friend's voice, he had been crying. He was wearing his uniform.

"Go home, Erich," Sol said. "Your papa will forgive you."

Erich seated himself cross-legged on the flooring crates, his hands sagged in his lap. "He'll forgive me, all right. He always does. But who needs forgiveness? I'm going to live in the camp. They'll let me stay there permanently if I promise to care for the dogs."

"Dogs can't take the place of family."

"For me they can."

Solomon handed the food package to Erich, who immediately devoured the cake.

"He just stood there looking at me," Erich said after a time. He put the cheese and meats in one of the knapsacks the boys kept among their other things in the hideout. "Never came after me or really tried to stop me from leaving. Some papa
he
is!" He wiped a tear from his cheek and glanced at Solomon as though daring his friend to comment on his crying. "Well, I know where I'm not wanted. Some of the other boys are already living at the campsite, even though we're only supposed to use it for meetings."

"Those are boys without families."

"And some who don't want families. They're the ones I want to be with." He whirled the knapsack around to his back and slipped his arms through the straps. "Come with me, Sol. You'll love it there."

"Don't be dumb! Everyone knows how your leaders feel about Jews."

Erich waved his hand airily. "That's just talk. The real toughs have joined a new unit, the Storm Troopers or something, and won't have anything to do with us."

"Forget it."

"Your
loss." Erich picked up the candle and, apparently unconcerned that he was leaving his friend in darkness, hoisted himself onto the two-by-twelve and struggled up through the drain. He looked down at Solomon from outside the sewer; the candle cast shards of light across his face, and to Sol's surprise there was hurt in his eyes. Then he was gone.

Sol leaned against the damp wall and felt the darkness suffuse him. Exiting the sewer required only a grope and a quick climb, but the events of the past twenty-four hours had sapped his energy. He closed his eyes, painfully remembering the hope for his future--God and good government--that had fluttered in his imagination like a small bright bird as Rathenau ushered him along Wilhelmstrasse. Now the Foreign Minister and his niece were gone from him, probably forever. And the Weissers...would things ever be the same between the two families?

And what about Erich? Had he lost his best friend, too?

Oh God, let me die.
A woman's voice.
I did not know...I did not know.

Sol lurched away from the wall, flailing his arms in search of the two-by-twelve. He clutched at the plank, too distraught to scramble up, and peered around desperately in the dark. "You did not know
what?"
His words emerged as a strained croak.

My mother dug ginger roots with her bare hands.

An old man's voice, and a woman's, a different one, heavy with accent.
Looks like sweetbreads, eh Margabrook? Hungry enough to eat it?

Lice, the old man said quietly. Lice. Let the dead dream their dreams in peace.

"Who
are
you!" Sol yelled in frustration, his voice resounding through the sewer. As it died away, the infant shrieked at him from the sewer's far reaches, followed by laughter and a low growling.

Snarling and snapping, something moved toward him.

A chill crept up his back and turned into a trickle of sweat. Spurred by terror, he fought to get up on the plank, kicking wildly in an effort to boost himself. His feet found the side of the sewer but failed to gain purchase on the slick bricks.

The breathing drew closer.

He gained the plank. Below him the breathing resonated strong and regular as a bellows.

His hands beat at the darkness. "Get away from me!"

Gripping the plank he frantically arched his back, straining to reach the drain. Somehow he found the power to stand. Balancing precariously he slid his hands up along the slime of the wall toward the edge of the hole and pulled himself through with an ease and strength he did not know he possessed. Then he slammed down the grate and pushed his sweat-soaked hair away from his forehead.

The creature was caged. He was safe...but from what? Would he ever understand?

What is the price of five sparrows, Solomon?

"Erich?" Sol whispered.

Laughter answered him--Erich's laughter.

The sound flooded the sub-basement with a horror far more terrifying in its familiarity than whatever unknown thing lurked beneath the grate. In some deep-down part of him that made no sense, he knew with absolute certainty that the laughter was Erich's--and that it was not human.

A ginger cat meandered from the shadows and into the amber light the street lamp cast on the cracked sidewalk. Arching its back as if trying to gain warmth from the lamplight, the cat cocked its head slightly and waited as though expecting to be petted.

After glancing around to assure himself that no one would witness his avoiding the animal, Erich crossed the street and did not look back to see if the cat were still watching. Much as he loved dogs, he mistrusted cats. He had never been able to reconcile his pleasure in their sleekness and independence with their lack of loyalty.

After pulling up his shirt collar against the unexpectedly damp wind that caught him as he left the lee of the buildings, he rubbed his neck, trying to work out his exhaustion and tension. He glanced at his watch. Half past six. He had been walking for over an hour. If only he had taken Hawk, his bicycle, he would be in his camp bunk by now, dreaming of roller-skating with Miriam in the Grünewald or of sitting with her in the Schauspielhaus, watching her while she watched Rudolph Valentino play
The Sheik
--though he could not understand why she thought his effeminate looks so wonderful. As far as he was concerned, only dog and horror movies were worth seeing.