The Enemy Within (9 page)

‘What shall we do now?’ he said, as he came back into the room.

She smiled. ‘I don’t know. What do you want to do?’

‘I want to draw you.’

‘What now?’ He could see she was pleased.

Just then, they heard footsteps thudding on the stairs, from the flight below. Manny looked at her, in alarm.

‘It’s Max,’ Tinie said. She recognised his tread well enough.

Manny frantically gathered his belongings from the table up into his arms.

‘Manny! What are you doing?’

‘Quick, help me.’

‘But it’s your Uncle Max, Manny!’

‘Maxie has regular meetings with Rauter, and with the NSB. It’s not safe.’

Tinie nodded. She thought he meant that Max might be pressurised, even tortured, into betraying him. But Manny meant that Hirschfeld might betray him voluntarily.

They
frantically threw Manny’s possessions into the upper bunk-box, under Tinie’s clothes. Manny then eased himself into the hollow that cupped his body, lying flat out. Tinie replaced the bottom of the lower bunk-box over him. She stood there anxiously, worried that Manny couldn’t breathe. But he let out a muffled ‘I’m OK.’

Tinie drew the curtain across the niche, and curled up in the armchair, just as Hirschfeld came in. She hoped he wouldn’t need to use the toilet. Manny, in his hole, heard Hirschfeld tell Tinie about the Hirschfeld List. He heard him boast about having found Simon Emmerik a job. And then he heard what Hirschfeld made Tinie say and do. He cried, silently, there in his diver’s place, lying on top of his drawings of Meijers and Cleveringa. He hated Hirschfeld.

*

When Hirschfeld had gone, it took Tinie a long while to calm Manny down. Through his sobs, he kept saying, ‘I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him.’ Tinie had folded the camp-bed back against the wall. She sat in the armchair, with him half in her lap, half on the floor, cupping his head in her arms, bending over him, pushing the top of his curly-haired head into her small, mauled breasts. And after a long, long time like that, Manny stopped crying.

Gently disengaging herself, Tinie gave him some weak tea and made him eat some rusks. Then she said ‘Why don’t you draw me now?’

‘What after … is that what you want?’

‘Yes. But don’t draw this room. Draw me at the party.’

There had been many parties, but he knew which one she meant. It was late in April; the last party before the German invasion. Her father was still in his job, her family reasonably prosperous; she was still a flower of a girl, with a young girl’s vivacity and a young girl’s dreams.

It was Truus Bosse’s twenty-first birthday party. Truus was a classmate – one of the gang they had known since childhood. Her father was something high up in the railways, so they lived in a great wedding-cake of a place near Vondel Park.

In the elegant drawing room, they had drunk glasses of Pimm’s Number 1 Cup, greatly improved by being made with Dutch Bokma
jenever
. They had eaten canapés, then, at midnight, a hearty fat sausage buried inside a mound of cabbage – a clever idea by Truus’s mama, to sober the young people up.

Tinie was a good dancer – a fluid and graceful mover, which stood her in such good stead at the sports she loved so much. She did the Charleston; then danced the Black Bottom with Cas Blom, another of their circle. She had spent the end of the evening on Cas’s lap, kissing him. In the middle of one kiss, she had given Manny a wink, and a cheeky wave. He had burst out laughing.

‘Do you want me to pose?’ Tinie said. A tinge of pink appeared in her cheeks at the memory of the party.

‘No … Yes.’

‘Which?’

He didn’t need her to pose, but sensed it would make her happy. ‘Pose.’

She posed. He began to sketch her, humming a Charleston rhythm the while. ‘Do you remember Cas?’ he said, innocently.

She stuck her tongue out at him.

He knew she was delighted with the finished sketch. He could tell when she was faking - she wasn’t. Manny took his block of drawing paper and began sketching something else.

‘What are you doing?’ she said.

‘It’s private.’

‘Meanie!’

He started laughing. ‘Stop it! I can’t draw when I’m shaking. You know Hein Broersen, don’t you?’

‘Which one’s he? Oh yes. I think so …’

‘You can’t remember where he lives, can you?’

‘Um … I think so. Why?’

‘I’m not telling you.’

‘Man- NEE!’

‘OK. I’ll tell you. I heard he’s going to try the crossing tomorrow. To England.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Old Kokadorus.’

‘Kokadorus is mad.’

Manny was sketching, concentratedly. ‘Yeah, but that doesn’t make him inaccurate.’

‘True! When do you want to go and see Hein?’

Manny finished his sketch. ‘How about now? Well, in minutes, or so. I just want to write a letter to my father, first. I’ll give it to Hein, to give to him. If he makes it to London.’

*

Hein lived on Rapenburger Straat – right opposite the Jewish Seminary. As they arrived, he was just going out. Manny solemnly handed over his letter to his father, and the sketch, which he had steadfastly refused to let Tinie see – also for his father. The morose, lugubrious Hein took them with no particular interest or reaction. He said he intended to spend his last night in Amsterdam at the Tip Top theatre. He asked Manny and Tinie to come with him.

‘We can get tickets at the door,’ he said. ‘All together.’

Manny and Tinie looked at each other. So far, the
Moffen
had left the Tip Top alone, as well as all the other Jewish cabarets and cinemas – the Tip Top was both. It was inside the Jewish Quarter, so they wouldn’t have to cross a checkpoint. Being lost in the crowd there could be safer than staying in Tinie’s room, as well as more fun. They decided to go.

As the three of them walked there, through the clear starlit evening, they talked about Hein’s trip to England. All the
Engelandvaarders
- the escapees to England – were invited to tea with Queen Wilhelmina. The Queen introduced them to all the others who had made the trip. All being well, Hein could be meeting Manny’s father as soon as tomorrow.

That excited Manny, but he rapidly lost interest in the mundane Hein himself - a tall, bony, horse-faced figure, plodding along in huge boots. Manny and Tinie left him behind, arm in arm, skipping and bouncing along the pavement

There was a long queue outside the Tip Top, even this early in the evening. Like many enterprises in Jewish Amsterdam, the place was owned by émigrés from Germany – Jozef Kroonenberg and his son, Barend. Barend and the Tip Top’s projectionist, Piet Wessendorp, were outside, working the crowd. They greeted Manny and Tinie by name, but could not quite remember who Hein was.

‘So what have you got for us tonight, Barend?’ Manny asked.

‘You haven’t heard? Where you been, Manny?’

‘Down a hole.’

Barend shook with laughter. ‘Down a hole, he says! You’re a hoot, Manny. A hoot! Top of the bill is Leo Fuld. See? It don’t get any better than that. Tip-top at the Tip Top, boychick – as ever.’

‘As ever!’ Manny echoed obligingly. Tinie squeezed his arm, proud of him.

While still in the queue, Manny bought peanuts and shared them with Tinie and Hein. They bought cheap seats in the top balcony. But the ornate décor and red plush seats still lifted Manny’s spirits.

Tinie dug him in the ribs, nodding with her head. There was a sprinkling of German soldiers in the audience -
Wehrmacht
given leave-time in Amsterdam, before catching a train back to Germany. Most of them had girls with them. Manny grimaced.

The curtain went up on a diamond worker called Jakob Goubitz, in evening dress, with a red cummerbund round his ample middle. Goubitz was semi-professional. He often did the warm-up at the Tip Top:

Manny and Tinie had heard most of his jokes before. There was the one about Saint Nicholas and
Zwarte
Piet
– Black Peter – giving the good children presents and the bad children a smack on the saint’s day.

In Goubitz’s joke, Saint Nicholas asks each child his religion: One child says Protestant, and gets a present. The next child says Catholic, and gets a present. Then a little boy says he’s Jewish. Saint Nicholas tells him, in Yiddish, to take two presents. Black Peter tops that, telling him, also in Yiddish, to take three –
nimm
dray
. Goubitz had Black Peter speaking Yiddish in a negro voice - the joke brought the house down. Hein Broersen was rocking in his seat, laughing open-mouthed.

After the comic, there were extracts from an operetta called
De
koningin
van
Montmartre
. That took them up to the interval. Manny chatted to Tinie, when the lights went up, ignoring Hein altogether. But Hein didn’t seem to mind. Tinie tried to include him in their stories of past visits to the Tip Top, but when Manny started speaking to her in a private shorthand which amounted to code, she gave up.

The second half was opened by the Nelson Cabaret, singing in German. Before the invasion, Manny had heard them singing political songs, one in particular, by Harold Horsten, was about the tramp of boots coming ever closer. Another went ‘better to wash dishes in America than live a life of fear in Berlin.’ Now they were more circumspect, keeping to anodyne German folk standards – like
Hoch
auf
dem
gelben
Wagen
. Manny was amazed they were there at all.

Then top-of-the-bill Leo Fuld appeared on stage. Manny heard people behind him saying this was his last appearance before he sailed to America. To massive applause, he sang a medley of Jewish hits, kicking off with the classic
My
Yiddishe
Mama
, which brought the house down.

‘Wonder what the
Wehrmacht
made of that?’ Manny whispered to Tinie.

‘They seemed to like it,’ Tinie whispered back, nodding.

Ahead of them, a middle-aged
Wehrmacht
officer was indeed applauding hard, leaning over to talk to a girl half his age, next to him. Some of the rest of Leo Fuld’s repertoire – like
Mein
Shtetele
Belz
,
Resele
and
Az
Der
Rebbe
Tantst
- may have left the
Wehrmacht
rather more puzzled, but they applauded loudly enough.

As the three of them left the theatre, Manny and Tinie still arm in arm, Hein getting lost in the crowd behind them, Manny bumped into the middle-aged
Wehrmacht
officer, who smiled apologetically. Hanging on his arm, her face thick with make-up, lips bright red, they recognised Truus Bosse – the girl who had held the twenty-first birthday party, just before the invasion. .

Manny glared at her. ‘
Moffenmeid
! ‘ he shouted.

The
Wehrmacht
officer looked bemused. Truus flushed scarlet, pushed her long thick brunette hair back and muttered ‘Let’s get out of here’ to her escort.

‘
Moffenmeid
!
’
Manny yelled again. ‘How could you, Truus? You whore!’

Tinie looked horrified. ‘Manny!’

The crowd carried Truus and her enemy soldier away from them. Hein did not seem to have noticed anything. ‘Let’s stop for a beer somewhere,’ he said.

‘No!’ Tinie said. ‘Manny’s wanted by the
Moffen
.’

When they had parted from Heim, Tinie broke Manny’s grip on her arm. ‘Oh, Manny, you shouldn’t have done that.’ Manny looked sulky. ‘You put yourself at risk. And what about Hein? Suppose you’d got him arrested, just when he was due to sail for England. ’

Tinie never got angry, but this was the nearest to it Manny had seen. He hit himself on the head. ‘Tinie, I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I’ve always been an idiot. Tinie, please …’

‘When we get home, you can fetch the washing water for both of us, that’s your punishment.’

He pulled a contrite, little-boy face. ‘Alright. Willingly!’

When they got back to Batavia Straat, Manny crept up the last flight of stairs in his socks, so as not to alert the woman next door. Tinie looked happy again, once the door had closed behind them. Her cheeks were tinged pink, her eyes were wide and shining, as she looked at him. When he made for his curtained niche to sleep, she called him back.

‘Will you lie next to me, in bed?’ she said. ‘Don’t do anything. Just hold me. Will you do that, Manny?’

‘Of course!’ he said, easily, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Which to him, it was.

PART II