Child of the Light (15 page)

His father smiled and increased his pace. Minutes later they were in the foyer of the synagogue, greeting the beadle at the door and donning their
yarmulkes.
Skullcaps in place, they slipped into their assigned seats near the
bimah,
the pulpit.

Sol craned his neck and looked upstairs where the women sat, just in case Miriam had come to services. There were rarely women at morning services, even on Saturdays. They came mostly on Friday nights and holidays, when services were as much a social as a religious event. As Papa had often explained, even an Orthodox temple like this was not designed simply for prayer; it was a gathering place for Jews, a center of safety where they could exchange ideas--a meeting place. While the men did their socializing on the steps of the temple, in the community room, and on the grounds, many of the women--restricted from the acts of ritual in the synagogue, though not less dedicated to God--were not quite as disciplined. Like most boys, until he had begun his bar mitzvah studies Sol had prayed upstairs with his mother and sister. He did not quite understand why the men and women were separated, but he had rather liked it up there in the balcony, where he could watch the sunlight on the stained-glass roof of the tiny
shul
and look down proudly on the congregation of men wearing hand-embroidered skullcaps and wrapped in
tallis,
silk shawls that covered the shoulders of their
Shabbas
suits. They bent over prayer books and sang in deep and varied voices to their God and the God of their fathers. While the men repeated the ancient words that gave them such extraordinary comfort, he would listen as the women quietly gossiped, commented on each other's hats, decried the behavior of their children, and defended themselves against the shushes of the more devout women who had come to pray.

When Sol was sure Miriam was not there, he opened his prayer book. The Hebrew letters swam around on the page as if defying him to set them in place. He had the feeling someone was staring at him, and it was all he could do not to swivel around and look up again.

Deciding that he might as well practice his Hebrew, he concentrated on the Service. As always, once he gave himself over to it, he enjoyed the songs and the familiarity of the prayers. Even the sermon did not bore him, and by half past ten, having wished the rabbi and various members of the congregation a good Sabbath, he was almost sorry to be going home.

"Aren't we staying for the
Oneg Shabbat?"
he asked, referring to the bread and wine served after Sabbath Services.

"Not today," Jacob said. "We have been indoors enough.
 
It's such beautiful weather. We shall walk home through the Tiergarten."

The day may have been beautiful in his father's prayer-misted eyes; in truth it was typically overcast. Even so, Sol enjoyed walking, especially in the Tiergarten when the smell of oncoming rain heightened the scent of the trees and masked the city's noxious odors. He liked to watch men in their double-breasted suits move arm-in-arm with their fashionable ladies toward the restaurants that dotted the Tiergarten's western edge. Sometimes he made bets with himself about which of them would end up at The Cigar Box, just beyond.

Surrounded by city and smoke, Berliners considered the two-hundred-hectare park their Eden, a notion the boys shared. They loved the arboretum and zoo, the restaurants and lake and open fields. There was plenty of room for playing ball, for roller skating and riding bicycles. On lazier days they filled their pockets with acorns and chestnuts or simply watched the passengers riding past in open-topped, double-decker buses that rang their way from Potsdamer Platz to Pariser Platz and the Brandenburg Gate. Sometimes they lay near the lake on a palette of daisies and pansies and watched the young lovers who drifted by in rowboats, walked hand-in-hand along the narrow pathways, or monopolized benches that prostitutes considered their private domain.

Sol felt good strolling with his father in companionable silence up the Konigsallee, each in his own way enjoying the rare opportunity of unhurried time together. Perhaps when they reached the Tiergarten, he would broach the subject of Erich's unfathomable anger. Perhaps even confide in Papa about the sewer.

Jacob Freund slowed to indulge in a pinch of snuff. "Our city is all business and energy," he said. "Men must have cigars to consummate business deals, and women cigarettes to contemplate how to spend the money their husbands make. On weekends they smoke to assure themselves the past week has been successful and that next week shall be even more successful. It is a good arrangement, an excellent legacy for you someday, Solomon, despite these inflationary times. For Erich, too."

He smiled. "You know how his father came to be with me? I advertised for help on Saturdays. He was hired to be our
Shabbas
goy, our Sabbath Gentile, as Mama called him. By the time I was inducted, he knew the business...I thought running it while I was away would stabilize him. Six years, it has been...."

Sol had heard the story many times. He nodded and mumbled once in a while as if he were listening, and returned to thinking about the events of the past week. He was pleased to be forgiven for the fuss he had made about playing the cello. As for the spanking, Papa had told him that was a matter of a lesson to be learned rather than punishment. They had not talked much about Rathenau or the luncheon--

What about Rathenau? Sol asked himself, as they passed the small local police station. Would there be more luncheons? Would the statesman keep his promise to make him a member-in-training of a generation of German Jews committed "to God and good government"?
 
Or had Erich--and Miriam--ruined that?

"See that man? Chances are, even he buys a cigar now and then." Jacob pointed at a house being constructed across the street, next to the trolley stop. A bricklayer in coveralls lifted his peaked cap and grinned down at two women in nurses' uniforms who had stopped beneath his scaffolding.

"How goes it, Helene?" the workman shouted, balancing precariously.

The shorter of the two women smiled and waved. "Fine, Krischbin!" She had her hands cupped near her mouth to be heard above the late-morning traffic. "Still slapping up bricks, I see. You must like it up there."

"Who's your friend with the big blue eyes?"

The women grinned at each other. The second woman laughed and straightened her gray skirt. "Fräulein Steubenrauch," she called out. "Judith."

"Steubenrauch, huh! Related to the general?"

The women nodded and Krischbin looked impressed. "I did a job for him once. Liked him well enough. But his son was--" The man touched his temple as if to indicate derangement. "Fancied himself a revolutionary. Kept talking to me about joining his organization and helping to rid the Fatherland of--"

The woman's face soured. "Hans is just a boy."

"He has a mean mouth," the man said. "You should--"

A Daimler Benz neared, drowning out his words.

Sol pulled at his father's sleeve. "In the car, Papa--it's Herr Rathenau!"

"And why not? His house is practically around the corner from
shul.
For shame he is never seen in synagogue when he lives so close. It might do the girl good, too, to be taken there once in a while."

Sol imagined Miriam dancing the cancan on her way to services, making partners of the birch trees, their trunks encased in silver leotards. As the car cruised past them, he waved, but the Foreign Minister was not looking his way.

"Do you think he will ever bring Miriam to see us again, Papa?"

A second convertible, this one with the top down and carrying three young men, closed on Rathenau's car as it slowed for the S-curve.

"Maybe someday. For now, he'll probably seclude her at his estate or send her to his sister in Switzerland. A word in the wrong ear, and Berlin will buzz with talk of Jewish immorality. Herr Rathenau can ill afford that kind of--"

Screeching tires interrupted him. The second car was overtaking Rathenau's, forcing it to the side of the road. The Foreign Minister, looking angered, shook his walking stick. They're in for it now, Sol thought, staring in disbelief at the rudeness of the rowdy occupants of the other car.

One of the youths--all three of whom were wearing leather jackets and caps--leaned toward Rathenau's car. Probably to apologize, Sol thought, looking at the young man's healthy, open face and reassuring smile.

"No!" Fräulein Steubenrauch screamed.

Tucking a machine pistol in his armpit to steady it, the young man fired point-blank at the statesman, who threw back his arms and collapsed.

Um Gottes Willen."
Jacob knocked Solomon to the sidewalk and landed on top of the him.
"Don't move!"

From beneath his father, Sol blinked up at a crazy-tilting,slow-motion world. He could see the workman gesturing frantically at the nurses as he flattened himself on the swaying scaffolding.

Another of the leather-coated men stood upright. Clinging to the top of the windshield, he threw an egg-shaped object. It bounced on the tonneau and fell from the roof of the enclosed rear compartment of Rathenau's car into the street, where it lay spinning.

As the larger car started to roar away onto Wallotstrasse, the man tossed a second grenade, arm swinging with a follow-through.

The bomb went through Rathenau's open window and landed in the back seat. Konrad, screaming for help, tacked crazily to the left and pulled up on the tramlines near the entrance to Erdener Strasse.

"Herr Rathenau!" Sol yelled.

An explosion erupted. Rathenau's car seemed to rise and jump forward. The body in the back tossed upward like one of Recha's rag dolls, and Sol heard himself screaming.

Shrieking, Helene left her friend and ran toward Rathenau's car. She climbed in and bent over the Foreign Minister. Sol imagined him slumped, gazing toward the gray sky, mouth open, face covered with blood.

Konrad mashed gears and sent the Daimler squealing in reverse. He jammed the gears again, did a screeching U-turn onto the wrong side of the street, and raced away in the direction of the police station.

"They've killed him, Papa!"

Jacob Freund rolled off his son and sat on hands and knees, watching in shock as the workman climbed from his scaffolding and helped Fraülein Steubenrauch to her feet. As Sol started to stand, Jacob grabbed him by the lapels and pulled Sol's face close to his own, which was chalk-white.

"I wish you long life." His words were the ones Jews use to cover that moment of shock when death reminds you that you are not immortal.

"I wish you long life too, Papa!" Sol desperately wanted to cry, but no tears came. "Herr Rathenau, Papa! Wasn't he a good man?"

Shaking with fury, Jacob held Sol's cheeks, fingernails digging into the skin. "There is nothing Rathenau can do for us anymore," he said in a hoarse whisper, "but there
is
one thing you can do for him. Remember this day. Remember that we Jews can never be safe from our enemies. And may God help you, Solomon Freund, if you ever forget!"

Sobbing, Sol struggled to free himself. He watched Fraülein Steubenrauch stumble across the tram tracks and stagger in a daze down the street. Seeing the unexploded grenade lying on the pavement like a
dreidel,
he jerked from his father's grasp and ran toward her, waving frantically. "Get back!"

The world roared.

Instinctively he threw himself against the curb, sobbing with fear and sorrow as bits of metal and dirt rained against the back of his jacket.

Then silence filled the morning as if a storm had abruptly stopped. Summoning his courage he turned his head and saw the woman sprawled, twisting and squirming, on the pavement.

"Please don't be dead." He crawled toward her.

She momentarily lifted herself with her arms, blinking as though she were waking. Her nurse's uniform was shredded, her face and shoulders splotched with blood.

"I convinced myself they wouldn't do it," her lips told Sol. "I could have...have...warned Herr Rathenau, but I was afraid to get involved. I was afraid...."
 
She laid her cheek against the pavement as if it were a goose-down pillow, and sighed.

Whimpering, Sol picked up one of the cartridge cases scattered along the street. "Don't be...dead."
 
He held it out to her between forefinger and thumb, like an offering.

She looked up at him, her cobalt-blue eyes shining with tears. He felt himself swimming inside them, drawn into her dying. Filled with terror, he felt something rise from her and fight to enter his body as she shuddered, sighed, and lay still. He began to shake.

"There was nothing either of us could do," his father said, coming up behind Sol. Stooping he took the woman's pulse. Then, releasing her wrist, he held Sol in his arms. When Sol's sobs had quieted, Jacob shrugged off the jacket of his
Shabbas
suit and draped it over her. He glanced around anxiously as police-car klaxons rang through the Grünewald.

"This is no place for a Jew to be found." He took Sol's hand and led him away. "May God rest her soul."

"Something happened to me, Papa!" Sol was sobbing. "I could feel--"

A fog enveloped his mind. In a world that seemed a dream, he was aware of a taxi, its door yawning. The glass that separated passenger from driver seemed to hold an image of Walther Rathenau, composed and elegant and gracious as they threaded their way toward the Adlon; and superimposed upon that was a vision of the statesman, slumped over and covered with blood. When they stopped on Friedrich Ebert Strasse, he recognized the shop and the need to vomit.