Good People (14 page)

‘It's no secret that we at Milton don't see eye to eye with the German government about the Jews,' Fiske answered. Thomas was aware of the pause while the man's tongue licked his upper lip, which was always dry. ‘Listen to this, but keep it to yourself,' Fiske purred; no one loved revealing secrets more than he did. He regarded it as one of the pleasures of his position, which enabled him to fear no one. ‘One of the Milton partners is a friend of Henry Morgenthau, and Morgenthau told him that President Roosevelt once complained about the number of Jews at Harvard. In the end, thanks to him, they decided to limit the number. Cultured people solve problems wisely.'

‘And in the matter of the Jewish psychoanalyst?' Thomas focused on the subject.

Fiske, who understood that he might have insulted him, answered cordially. ‘My good fellow, a request made by one of Milton's most successful partners is sacred for me. But the State Department is under heavy siege. Yesterday I heard from our people in Berlin that their office has received a hundred and sixty thousand visa applications, and
in Vienna there are around a hundred thousand—absolute madness! And I also saw a poll that said that more than fifty per cent of Americans think that Jews are avaricious and that Jewish immigration would damage American values. So tell me honestly—I'm very careful about asking for special favours in immigration matters—will a visa for that woman clinch the deal for us?'

Thomas hesitated. He wanted to say that he still had some doubts, but he immediately understood that that would be an amateurish answer. He should have resolved any doubts before speaking with Fiske. ‘In my opinion it could be critical,' he said, keeping his voice steady.

‘Okay,' Fiske said, ‘if people from Bamberburg ask us for that Jew, I'll act on her behalf.'

‘They hinted to me that it would be better if I spoke about this delicate matter on their behalf. Psychoanalysis is a very secret matter,' Thomas chuckled. He knew that this lie might cost him his career.

‘Don't worry, my good fellow,' Fiske said cordially. ‘It'll be enough if Blum asks me, and I'll take the next step.'

The upshot was clear: Fiske wouldn't do a thing unless Blum spoke to him.

Plan C was pathetic: he met with Schumacher and asked him whether an appeal to the new Office of Jewish Emigration managed by Heidrich could help Erika Gelber.

Schumacher was horrified. ‘Apparently everyone but Thomas Heiselberg has heard the Führer's warning to Funk to stop exempting Jews from restrictions. Anyway, as a friend, I tell you that your connection with that Jewish therapist of yours has become suspicious. Soon you'll be identified as a friend of the Jews. Is she really worth that?'

Thomas struggled against the words, ‘Yes, she's the last person left to me in this world. Except for her, there are only people like you,' which, for some reason beyond his understanding, he wanted to say aloud.

There was no choice. He would have to manoeuvre Blum so that, first, he asked Erika Gelber to be included in the bank's list, and,
second, he made the Bamberburgs choose the Dresdener's offer. Those two conditions had to be fulfilled in tandem.

So here was Plan D, which was a desperate measure. There was no reason why Blum should help Erika in particular. Quite likely he had other obligations. And even if Thomas explained to him that the place was reserved for Erika and for her alone, and that no other Jew could be preferred to her, Blum would probably not believe him. He was suspicious of Thomas. One of his acquaintances once told him that Blum had said, as a kind of joke, that Thomas Heiselberg was a talented person, but he was also the best possible proof for Hölderlin's dictum that there were no people left in Germany, only professions.

Thomas decided that the time had come for a personal gesture towards the Bamberburgs. He convinced Carlson to host a friendly dinner where representatives of all the parties in the deal would sit together. But first he had to explain to Carlson that it was impossible to invite the Jews to one of the restaurants favoured by the Milton people. He felt it was unjust that he was the one who had to explain the country's laws to Carlson: if he read a newspaper now and then, he would understand everything. He teasingly asked Carlson whether he had heard that in France—where Carlson had finally bought a house—a law against foreigners had recently been passed. ‘Really? Thanks for informing me,' Carlson answered, but he invited everyone to an ‘American dinner' in his luxury apartment on Rankstrasse. He defined the event as a ‘gesture of solidarity with the people from the bank who are in trouble'.

Carlson's chef prepared meatballs and other roasted chunks of meat, wrapped in rolls dripping with sauce and embellished with lettuce. There were fine china bowls overflowing with fried potatoes. But, despite the cheer that Thomas tried to inspire in the guests, the atmosphere was gloomy: the Bamberburgs complained the whole time, and Carlson made some venomous remarks to the Dresdener people. Towards the end of the evening, Blum told Thomas that if the Dresdener people promised that, when conditions in Germany improved, the Bamberburgs could buy their bank back, the directors
would regard this as a noble gesture and would accept Dresdener's offer.

Thomas thought this was just another of Blum's delusions, and mentioned it to Carlson, who backed Blum up. ‘That sounds fair,' he declared.

At a meeting with the directors of the Dresdener bank he suggested they add a clause to this effect, explaining that in any case it was unenforceable, and could do nothing more than warm the hearts of the Bamberburgs a little. The directors refused even to consider the proposal.

He conveyed their answer to Carlson.

‘Why are you telling me this?' Carlson muttered. ‘Just take care of it.'

These days Carlson was sending everyone away with the response: decide for yourself. Carlson's secretary told Thomas that in a letter to his wife he had cursed Fiske and boasted that he hadn't lifted a finger ‘for that stinking Bamberburg Bank deal'. The days passed. Thomas was running out of ideas. Multitudes of Jews were looking desperately for countries that would accept them—one day they were all talking about Switzerland, and the next about Shanghai. New regulations were published every day, amid an aggravating buzz of whispers and plots, gossip and slander. Rumours circulated about agents who had obtained visas in return for the property of the fleeing Jews, about doctors, scientists and businessmen who had escaped Germany, which was shedding Nobel prize winners like someone who straightens a wrinkle in his cuff, and about embassies whose policies were about to change. But one fact remained: the supply of Jews exceeded the demand by thousands of per cent.

Thomas had another session with Erika Gelber. ‘I feel that my steps have been clumsy,' he complained to her. ‘They lack my characteristic drive.' He could feel the odour of failure wafting from his body. ‘You understand, I'm assailed by doubt, I take steps and then regret them, as if I were a foreigner in Berlin. And Frau Tschammer is getting in my way. For ten years I've been striving to get rid of that woman,
and she's still there. The trouble is that thousands of people are concentrated on this subject of the Jews: government people, private companies, businessmen, go-betweens, Jewish organisations all over the world. I'm looking for new areas, you understand, where I can act freely, areas that only exist because of me. I'm not one of those mediocre souls who opens another department store or restaurant in a city that already has a hundred like them.'

They would both have to ask Blum directly, he told her. He would host a dinner for them at his house. ‘Blum admires you, Erika. He says that therapy helped him to understand a lot of things.'

In the past Thomas had taken pleasure in sorting out tangled situations. He always believed that his most impressive ability was to grasp lots of strings—the source of a certain organisation's power, people's desires (sometimes contradictory), greed and a host of other weaknesses—and to wrap them up in a ball which only he could unravel. But now he was worried: the lack of time was forcing him to make imperfect plans.

…

Clarissa blushed. Too much rouge, he was disappointed to see. This girl—you could give her the most expensive cosmetics in Europe and she'd still look like she was plastered in cheap paint from some discount shop in Wedding. She appeared in the parlour in a blue dress she'd bought with his money especially for the occasion. It was a bit too tight and emphasised the roll of fat on her lower abdomen. Her steps wobbled, and it looked as if she was going to stumble.

‘Dear, do you need help?' Erika Gelber asked.

‘Thanks, I'm all right,' Clarissa laughed.

Clarissa poured wine into Blum's glass. He leaned back in his chair. He was clearly ill at ease. Thomas studied her: rounded face, tufts of blonde hair, tied in a ribbon, curled around it. An expression of gentle puzzlement, trying to look severe and thoughtful, along with the solid evidence of a decent home, respectable parents and a model education.
Girls like Clarissa were sheltered by a deeply rooted knowledge that in the end the puzzlement would fade away to their satisfaction, and they would find their place in the world.

Thomas waved his wine glass—a cheap purchase, he grumbled to himself. At least she had remembered to remove the labels. He was seized by the urge to explain to the guests that these common articles had entered his house after it was trashed by the savages who had killed Frau Stein, their beloved Jewish housekeeper. But he clung tightly to that card, their shared fate, to be played only if there was no choice. He hadn't told Erika about Frau Stein's death.

‘This morning I accompanied Wohlthat to a meeting with some Japanese businessmen,' Thomas said. ‘I reported to him that the negotiations for the sale of the Bamberburg Bank were proceeding with great purpose and would soon conclude.'

Blum sipped his wine and nodded. He was a broad man whose body terminated in a huge skull, which was now jutting out of a rough, grey sweater. Carlson once said that Blum ‘dressed like a Communist'.

‘I believe the decision is close,' Blum said. ‘We also spoke with Wohlthat yesterday. Naturally he once again expressed reservations about the role he is required to play.'

‘What impression did Dresdener's latest offer make on the bank's board?' Thomas asked. If Blum wanted to flaunt his connections with Wohlthat, let him. ‘We worked hard to convince them to raise the price.' ‘The offers we are examining are very similar,' Blum answered. ‘I watched our colleagues from the Warburg Bank sell their splendid institution for pennies. We're smaller, and we have no illusions. After the tax and all the government's other tricks, we'll be left with less than fifteen per cent of its real value.'

Clearly Thomas was not the person to whom such complaints should be addressed. Blum was stuck in a world where his bank was worth another eighty-five per cent. Some people hovered between this world and another one that once existed or that they imagined, and afterwards they bargained with this world with the logic of their imagination.

‘No, that's definitely not enough,' Thomas agreed. Restrained anger grated in his voice. Once again, as in Carlson's office, it was incumbent on him to convey the spirit of the time.

‘Some people on the board argue that it would be better not to sell the bank at that price.' Blum's right shoulder leaped up, and he pinched it with the fingers of his left hand. ‘If Germany wants it so much—let her confiscate it.'

‘Listen, Blum,' said Thomas. It annoyed him that Blum had hissed the word ‘Germany' like a curse. ‘To be honest, the country is in trouble. And, aside from that, there isn't a single Germany. Germany is this way now, and once it was different, and in a few years maybe it will be something else. The company I work for is taking a heroic stand against the pressure to leave Germany. The economy is moving away from the world, and I believe that this is bad for all of us.'

Now he looked at Erika Gelber for the first time in some minutes. She gave him a puzzled look in return. Blum sipped again and exhaled a gloomy breath.

Clarissa's approach interrupted his thoughts. A plate of cutlets sprinkled with silver grains of salt and breadcrumbs was laid on the table. ‘Please, veal cutlets such as are served only in the finest restaurants in Germany…' Her clear voice filled the parlour.

‘Fräulein Engelhardt is from the educated bourgeoisie of Hamburg. In my opinion, they produce the most remarkable young women in the country,' said Thomas.

‘Young lady, it looks delicious,' said Blum, waiting impatiently for Clarissa to serve him. Blum liked cutlets.

Clarissa minced around the table, returned to Blum, and topped up his glass. Thomas wondered whether she might be laying it on too thick. She had told him that she excelled at every task she took on, and stuck to her agreement to play the role of cook and waitress even after he let her know that the guests would be Jews. But they knew that she wasn't a servant, and hamming it up might give them the impression they were being made fun of. Jews were on the lookout day and night for changes in every glance from a friend or acquaintance. That was
completely logical: the shattering of their status as Jews had modified all their human connections. They were forced to scurry about to discover how everyone they knew was responding to the new spirit. Clarissa hummed a tune when she leaned over them, withdrew and straightened up. Now he was reconciled to her little exaggerations—the thick make-up, the clumsy movements, the twisted collar of her dress—the play-acting of a young thing who had disguised herself as a servant and as a woman.

Blum didn't look at or speak to Erika Gelber. Thomas, though he wanted nothing more than to bring the evening to an end, was drawn to Erika. She seemed so lost, with her dishevelled cinnamon hair, her light make-up emphasising her dark eyes: here was Erika Gelber, greeting the night. The same woman but not exactly.