Sirius (5 page)

“Here’s his number.”

He beams from ear to ear. “We shot a movie together once.
M – A City Hunts a Murderer
. I was still relatively unknown back then. It was my first speaking role.”

“
A City Hunts a Murderer
,” murmurs Liliencron. “Now it would be called
: A City Becomes a Murderer
.”

Where can Georg be? Every one of them is still picturing themselves standing before that window. Else sees the men with the iron bars. Liliencron sees the policeman nonchalantly smoking a cigarette. Sirius can’t forget the youth in front of whom Albert Salomon fell to his knees.

Is Georg in the hands of these monsters? It is a terrible, unbearable thought.

Lorre!

“I’ll call him,” says Rahel.

She dictates a series of numbers to the woman at the telephone exchange. “It’s a long-distance call,” she says, with a self-important air.

The line rustles, crackles, rattles – then, all of a sudden, an unfamiliar, crystal clear ringtone can be heard at the other end.

“Hello?” says a voice.

“Peter?” asks Rahel hesitantly. It’s him. The last time Rahel spoke with him was ten years ago, only very briefly, on the sidelines of a film premiere. He always used to call her “sausage”. “Sausage!” he cries again now.

Rahel immediately tells him about the severity of the situation. The hell in Berlin. Georg.

Else imagines every single word racing along an unimaginably long cable which lies in the depths of the ocean, eyed warily by huge fish, before emerging again in front of the coast of America, spanning the entire continent, and eventually ending up in that very telephone receiver.

A miracle.

But can the cable perform miracles too?

If so, then this is the decisive moment. Their last hope.

Lorre listens. He keeps saying “how awful,” again and again. “How awful.”

“Help us!” pleads Rahel. “Can you help us?”

“I’ll try,” says Lorre. “I promise.”

Then he adds: “Don’t waste any time getting out of there. You need to leave Berlin at once. Come to Hollywood!”

Hollywood!

Rahel closes her eyes. “What’s wrong with you?” asks a voice. It’s Clark Gable.

“Nothing,” answers Rahel in her dream. “I’m just a bit tired.”

“May I introduce my friend, Humphrey Bogart?” says Gable.

“Only if I can dance with him!” says Rahel.

“It would be my pleasure,” smiles Bogart. They dance a mambo. More wildly than Rahel has ever danced in her life.

Peter Lorre winks at her.

“What’s wrong with you?” asks Liliencron. “I thought you fainted.”

“No, I was just dreaming a little,” replies Rahel.

Sirius barks.

Someone is rattling the garden gate.

Benno Fritsche steps out onto the terrace. He sees a young man in the neighbouring garden and challenges him: “What do you want?”

“I’m looking for the Liliencron family,” says the man.

When Sirius wags his tail, the stranger begins to make a better impression on Fritsche.

“Andreas!” cried Else, running into the arms of her beloved.

“You’re mad!” she says. “Going out on the streets like this? You’re putting your life in danger!”

“I have important news for you,” says Andreas. “For all of us.”

“Andreas Cohn,” he says to Fritsche, introducing himself.

“Benno Fritsche,” says Fritsche.

“Of course. I recognise you from the movies,” Andreas replies. With those words, he instantly wins Fritsche’s affections.

“Pack your things!” cries Andreas. “It’s time to go.”

Liliencron stares at him in disbelief. “Where?”

Andreas: “To America!” He explains: “My father has already prepared all of the papers. Tonight we go to Basel. After that, I’ll accompany you to Genoa, and you’ll travel on by ship to America.”

“I’m afraid that just won’t be possible,” says Liliencron. “Georg needs to be back with us first.”

“Georg?” asks Andreas in horror. “Where’s Georg?”

“We don’t know,” says Liliencron flatly. “We just hope he’s still alive.”

*

Willy Kaminski is stunned by the crowd of people gathering in front of his bakery on Erasmusstrasse. He makes good bread, granted, but not so good as to explain this. The pavement is filling rapidly. What’s going on?

The people want to watch the Jews passing by.

The march of the “protective custody internees” begins at the collection point in Levetzowstrasse and leads up to the Putlitzbrücke, where the freight trains are waiting to take them to Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

As the procession passes the bakery, Willy Kaminski runs out to stand before the death squadron.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves!” he shouts. “Shame on Hitler!”

His corpse is found a short while later. Executed in sight of the gawking onlookers, who stand by the side of the road and pelt the Jews with stones.

Moabit freight train station. At platform No. 69, the carriages stand ready.

The police separate the convoy into groups of a hundred men, directing each towards a wagon. An SS-Obersturmführer is overseeing the proceedings.

Georg is still managing to walk upright. But he has lost almost all his strength. Others are crawling with exhaustion and have to be kicked up the platform, the older men in particular.

A rabbi walking with a stick is beaten into a wagon with the butt of a rifle.

“
Caracho, caracho
!” call the SS men. Everything has to be done quickly; they want to get back home to their families in time for dinner.

Towards midday, the train sets off.

The wagon in which Georg is imprisoned is normally used for transporting cattle. It has grills. Georg watches the north of the city rushing past him. Reinickendorf. Frohnau. Waidmannslust.

A completely normal day in Berlin.

The Rabbi sings a Yiddish song softly to himself.
S’brent. Undzer Shtetl brent
.

“Don’t stand there, brothers, looking on,

not lifting a hand,

Don’t stand there, brothers, douse the fire,

Our little town is burning.”

Georg thinks of caretaker Zinke, who handed out the petrol canisters used to set the city on fire.

Suddenly, the train comes to an abrupt halt.

Birkenwerder station.

A big black limousine is waiting by the platform. A chauffeur is stood next to it, his hand raised in a Hitler salute.

An SS man jumps out of the train and goes over to him. They speak to one another briefly, then the SS man comes back.

Minutes pass by.

Then the SS man steps back out onto the platform again. He has a loudspeaker with him.

“Attention, announcement!” he bellows into the loudspeaker. “Prisoner Georg Liliencron! Please make yourself known immediately!”

Georg cannot believe his ears.

He rattles at the bars. “Here! Here!”

The sliding door of the wagon opens. The SS man orders: “Come with me!”

The chauffeur salutes as Georg approaches and takes a seat in the back of the limousine.

“Personal chauffeur of Reich Minister Dr. Joseph Goebbels,” says the man by way of introduction. “Where would you like to go?”

“Home,” says Georg.

*

It is just before midnight. The Liliencrons go into their house, for the first time since the inferno, for the last time before their journey into the unknown.

The two empty beer bottles still stand on the glass table. It is a sight even more monstrous than that of the destroyed settee.

Liliencron goes and stands in front of his bookshelves. He wants to take a book with him as a memento, but which one? He chooses Heinrich Hoffmann’s
Struwwelpeter
. This was the book he learnt to read with.

He sinks absentmindedly down into the armchair, next to the two empty beer glasses, and leafs through
Struwwelpeter
.

“Carl!” cries Rahel. “Have you lost your mind?”

“No, no,” murmurs Liliencron. “I’m just nostalgic. But perhaps that is a kind of insanity.”

He puts the book back on the shelf and chooses instead, pragmatically, his own work
Phytoplankton and Photosynthesis
. After all, you never know when it might come in useful to be able to prove yourself as a plankton expert.

He leaves the golden Cothenius Medal hanging on the wall.

Rahel stands in front of her wardrobe, wishing she could take everything. The pink outfit would be ideal for cocktail parties. And the blue evening gown is an absolute dream.

Don’t be foolish, she determines: A new start is a new start. She packs her jewellery. And a few framed photographs.

Else packs only sheet music into her suitcase. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Violin Concerto, Op. 64. Her love story.

Georg takes nothing. Nothing at all. And yet his baggage weighs the most.

In the end, just
one
suitcase stands by the door. One small suitcase. The past must be condensed if it wants to make it to the future.

Sirius senses that this is a farewell to yesterday. Perhaps forever. He slinks out of the house and runs off to the tree,
his
tree.

How does a dog say goodbye to a tree? He doesn’t know.

Sirius is sure he sees the tree bowing down softly. But perhaps it was just the wind.

Liliencron fetches the car from the garage.

The green Mercedes swallows up Carl, Rahel, Georg, Else, Andreas and Sirius. Just like the suitcase swallowed up their past.

*

The meeting place is a barn in Hohentengen, a village on the Rhine not far from the Swiss border. At 15:00 on the dot.

“A man called Ernest Prodolliet will be expecting you.” Andreas has in front of him the notes from the telephone conversation he had with his father yesterday.

Sure enough, the barn door opens punctually to the very minute, and a silver Bentley comes driving out. A man in a suit and tie climbs out.

Ernest Prodolliet is Chancellor of the Swiss Consulate Agency in Bregenz. He asks the Liliencrons for their papers, then stamps every one of the documents without a word.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to leave the car here,” he says. “Please put it in the barn.”

He closes the barn door again and motions for them to get into his car.

No-one can beat Herr Prodolliet when it comes to radiating calm and authority. He drives towards the border.

The German border officials salute.

Herr Prodolliet shows his diplomat pass and says: “The ladies and gentlemen have the appropriate papers.”

An officer inspects them, nods and opens the barrier.

“Is that the Rhine, the one you told me about?” asks Else as they drive over the bridge.

“Yes, that’s the Rhine,” responds Andreas. “Welcome to freedom!”

There’s not a dry eye in the car, apart from those belonging to Herr Prodolliet, of course.

Dinner in Lucerne.

The waitress suggests “
G’schnätzlets
with
Röschti
.”

“We’d best not,” replies Liliencron. “That sounds too aggressive. I’d prefer something more peaceful. Soup, for example.”

Herr Prodolliet takes care of the bill. He knows that Jews are not permitted to take more than ten Reichsmarks with them when leaving the country. Their entire fortune is forfeited to the state. He knows because he stamped this document too.

This place smells different to Berlin somehow, thinks Sirius. He can’t define exactly what it is, but it must have something to do with the fresh manure on the fields.

Their journey leads them over the Alps towards Italy. In the early morning light, they reach Genoa.

The
Conte di Savoia
is already docked in the harbour. The ship is an imposing sight. It measures 300 metres in length, can take 2,200 passengers and is one of the biggest ocean liners in the world. The two mighty funnels are already steaming for the long journey to New York.

The area around the terminal is heaving with people. Passengers, chauffeurs, porters, sailors, photographers, policemen, musicians, pickpockets, ice-cream sellers, souvenir hawkers. And, of course, all the onlookers who want to witness the behemoth setting sail.

“Take care of yourself,” whispers Else. “Promise me that we’ll see each other again!”

Andreas gives her a kiss which says: Yes, I promise.

The Liliencrons are now crossing the last bridge. Into the belly of the
Conte di Savoia
, where they find themselves in a majestic hall of marble columns. By chance, they spot Ludwig Mies van der Rohe amongst the crowd, who has also left Berlin. A steward accompanies the passengers to their cabins.

The captain sounds the ship’s horn three times and fires up the engines. They’re off.

The Liliencron family goes over to the ship’s rail. A mighty gorge of sea spray gapes open behind the stern.

The crowd of people cheer and wave. One of them is Andreas, their saviour. And Herr Prodolliet, of course.

Sirius deliberates. The smell he liked best of their journey so far was in Lucerne.

If everything goes on like this, then it will be fine.

WHILE
BERLIN
STILL
lies buried under snow, in Hollywood the magnolias are already blooming and the air is fragrant with jasmine. The Pacific mixes a pinch of salt into the air, but this is only perceptible for those who live high up in Beverly Hills, like John Clark.

John Clark is the “next Gary Cooper,” people say. He has the kind of looks any man would love to have, and women have gone crazy for him ever since he was just a lifeguard in the Garden of Allah hotel.

He was discovered by Jack Warner himself.

“Do you have to be in water?” Warner asked him from the edge of the swimming pool. “Or could you imagine doing something on dry land?”

You would need to shift completely into the mindset of a lifeguard in order to understand that, at that moment, he really had no idea what the world outside the swimming pool had to offer.

He stared at the business card which the older man pressed into his hand: Jack Warner, Warner Brothers Film Studios, Hollywood.