Two Brothers (29 page)

‘They don’t want to scare their new chums in industry and the banks,’ Wolfgang said.

Jewish businesses were no longer picketed, arbitrary public beatings and robberies were no longer tolerated on the streets and the number of people abducted from their homes and spirited away to ad hoc concentration camps had also declined dramatically.

With care, and treading softly, Jews felt safe to go about the city once again.

This is not to say that life was any fun. It may have become a little less dangerous but it was no less demeaning or irksome. The various bans and exclusions on Jews and gypsies remained in place. Access to the professions was closed to them. There would be no more Jewish judges or lawyers. Jews were banned also from the army, the police and most commerce. University places were restricted to a tiny quota and books written by Jews were not merely banned but publicly burned.

But life was not impossible.

Frieda had, to her immense surprise, even been able to resume her work at the Friedrichshain Clinic, now called the Horst Wessel Medical Centre, the whole district having been renamed after the SA’s favourite ‘martyr’, who had been a local boy. It was true that Frieda was only allowed to treat Jews, but there were plenty of them to keep her busy as Jews were no longer allowed to be treated by Aryans. Even wealthy Jews who previously would not have been seen dead in a public surgery came to her now. Sadly this did not enrich Frieda or the centre since private medical insurers were excused from reimbursing Jewish doctors, and so effectively every premium any Jew had ever paid was stolen by the state overnight.

However, to Frieda’s astonishment she herself was still paid her salary. She was discovering that the vast pre-Nazi German bureaucracy would continue to function until told otherwise, and told not just once but in writing and in triplicate. It was going to take the State a long time to get round to officially de-Jewing everything and in the meantime she remained on the public pay roll, which enabled life in the Stengel household, for the time being at least, to return to something vaguely resembling the pattern it had followed before.

Paulus and Otto still attended the same school they had during the days of the Weimar Republic, although they now had to be constantly ready to defend themselves against attack from bully gangs, and lessons had acquired a more sinister tone. The law required that each school day now begin with the National Anthem followed by the Horst Wessel song and that every classroom display a picture of the Leader. Teachers were expected to greet their classes with the ‘German greeting’, which had to be returned
en masse
on pain of beating. The children of Jewish families, though still tolerated, were ‘excused’ History classes during which their ‘blood race’ was systematically blamed for every wrong that had ever beset the Fatherland.

But despite the deeply unpleasant nature of all of these pressures, none of them were, for either Paulus or Otto, the principal frustration of that summer. What really bothered them was that they had not seen Dagmar for months.

The object of their mutual obsession had almost completely disappeared since her terrible experience at the hands of the SA. The boys had heard that she scarcely attended school now and she had certainly not turned up for her Saturday music lessons at the Stengel apartment. Apart from the occasional note in response to the boys’ regular letters, poems and gifts, the twins heard nothing from Dagmar at all.

‘I’m afraid that poor girl will never entirely get over what happened to her on that dreadful morning,’ Frieda said.

‘But she wasn’t badly hurt, Mum,’ Otto protested. ‘We saved her before they could do anything.’

‘It’s not the physical violence, dear. It’s the
shock
of it. It’s what a man called Freud calls
trauma
, which is something that affects the
psyche
. Something so powerful as to actually change it. Perhaps damage it permanently.’

‘Psyche, Mum,’ Paulus asked, ‘what’s that?’

‘Well, I suppose you might say it’s the soul.’

‘Soul!’ Otto gasped with deep concern. ‘You think Dags has got a damaged soul?’

‘Yes, in a way. Certainly a very badly bruised one and it’s going to take a long long time and a lot of love and care for it to be better again.’

The two boys exchanged glances. Instinctively aware of what the other was thinking. If Dagmar needed love and care then it must be they who supplied it. If her soul was bruised and damaged then the brave and noble Stengel twins would make it better.

Then quite suddenly, on the last Saturday in August, the very girl herself arrived at Paulus and Otto’s door in a state of breathless excitement.

‘We’re going to America!’ she told the twins with a little shriek.

‘New York! Mama has a cousin there! We leave from Bremerhaven on the SS
Bremen
in a fortnight. Imagine it, boys! I shall have my own cabin on the voyage next to Mama and Papa’s!
My own cabin!
Just think of it, with a steward!’

Dagmar gave another squeal and clapped her hands together. It was as if all the accumulated misery of the previous seven months had been transformed into a single moment of pure joy.

‘My goodness, Dagmar,’ Frieda said from the hallway. ‘Come in and tell us all about it. Have you got the visas then? Is everything in order?’

‘Yes! Daddy’s been working on it since …’ Dagmar did not say since when. Even in her relieved and happy state she could not bring herself to speak of what had happened to her. ‘Well, he’s been working on it for months anyway and it’s all come through. Exit and entrance. Getting into America doesn’t seem to have been half as hard as people are saying it is.’

‘Well, Dagmar,’ Wolfgang said with a smile, ‘I think it might have something to do with money. It’s not as if you’re going to be a burden on the American State, is it?’

‘Gosh I hope not!’ Dagmar laughed. ‘I don’t think I’d do very well in a hobo city like on the news reels.’

Frieda and Wolfgang could not help but exchange rueful glances. They too had been looking into the possibility of emigration but it was not so easy if you weren’t Isaac Fischer of Fischer’s of the Kurfürstendamm. The Great Depression was showing no signs of easing and foreign countries were far from anxious to encourage immigration when millions of their own people were already out of work. As a doctor Frieda certainly had a skill to offer but she came encumbered with two school-age sons, a husband with no ‘practical’ skills and two ageing parents who would certainly not be able to find work. Therefore, while the Nazis were allowing Jews to leave (having first taken a substantial portion of their assets), it was only possible to do so if you could find somewhere to go.

‘How exciting, Dagmar,’ Frieda said, putting on a brave face for the excited girl’s benefit. ‘America! I’ve always so wanted to visit.’

‘Well, now you can!’ Dagmar gushed. ‘You can all come and visit us. Father is arranging for us to have an apartment in Manhattan but I’m sure we will have somewhere out of town as well so there’ll be plenty of room. Anyway, never mind that for now. The
first
thing is that I’m having a party! Well, my parents are but it’s my party too and of course you absolutely
have
to come. It’s to be a ball! We’ve taken the grand room at Kempinski’s and I’m allowed to invite whomever I like, so of course I’m inviting absolutely
everybody
. Well, I have so many people to say goodbye to and this way I can do it all at once. Although of course it’s really just
auf Wiedersehen
, not goodbye, because I’m sure everything will be all right in the end.’

Dagmar was actually slightly hysterical with excitement and relief and gabbled on and on about the arrangements, assuring the boys that there would be more delicious food at the party than either of them had ever dreamt of.

‘And of course since it’s mainly a grown-up party there’ll be gallons of champagne too and I’m going to sneak some! You wouldn’t mind, would you, Herr Stengel? Frau Stengel? If I give the boys a taste?’

‘Not as long as you leave some for me,’ Wolfgang replied. ‘Now since you’re here, do you think we should try a bit of music? The band’s been a bit thin lately what with you not coming and losing our singer to the League of German Maidens.’

‘Is Silke in the BDM?’ Dagmar gasped. ‘The bitch!’

‘That’s not a nice word to use about anyone, Dagmar,’ Frieda said. ‘I don’t think your mother would like it.’

‘And come on, Dags,’ Paulus insisted. ‘You know Silke’s stepdad forces her. She sneaks off all the time.’

‘Yes, well, that’s as may be,’ Dagmar observed tartly. ‘But she’s still marching around with a swastika on her arm, isn’t she? I’ll bet all that Aryan blonde hair looks lovely under the black beret.’

Otto and Paulus let it go. They knew that Silke was no Nazi but were far too caught up in the joy of seeing Dagmar again to waste any more time defending the fourth but absent member of the club.

And Dagmar was far too full of her party and the glamorous new life that beckoned in the USA to waste any more time talking about Silke either, or to do any music for that matter, so Wolfgang gave it up, poured himself a schnapps and announced that school was out.

‘There’s a few marks,’ he said giving some money to Paulus. ‘Go and get me a pack of Lucky Strikes and don’t smoke more than half on the way home.’

Delighted at this unexpected pass out, the three thirteen-year-olds tumbled out of the apartment into the lift and then out into the local streets. Just as they had done so often during happier times.

Although Dagmar in fact had probably never been happier than she was that very afternoon. And as the three of them wandered the streets together, she held the boys’ hands and almost danced for joy.

The boys, however, were not dancing.

They wanted to look happy for her but could not prevent themselves from kicking moodily at the kerbstones as they walked and even Dagmar’s offer to stand them each a Coca-Cola to go with the cigarettes didn’t seem to raise their spirits.

‘So you’re really going then,’ Paulus asked. ‘I mean all the way to America?’

‘Of course I am. What possible reason could anyone have for wanting to stay here?’

‘No,’ Paulus conceded sadly, ‘I suppose that’s true.’

They had wandered as far as the Volkspark and were standing beneath a favourite tree. A great plane around which they had chased each other a hundred times. Paulus picked up a stick and threw it angrily at a squirrel. Otto picked up another and snapped it over his knee, thus giving him two shots, both of which were as futile as Paulus’s effort had been.

‘Are you jealous, boys?’ Dagmar asked, her tone no longer gleeful but quieter now, almost gentle. ‘I’d understand if you were. I know I’d be terribly
terribly
jealous if it was you that had got your visas and not me.’

‘Of course we’re not jealous,’ Paulus replied angrily. ‘How could we ever mind anything that made you so happy?’

‘We only want you to be safe,’ Otto added. ‘It’s all we care about.’

‘We love you,’ Paulus muttered. ‘You know that, we’ve told you often enough.’

‘I do know that, boys,’ Dagmar said, her eyes glistening wet, ‘and you must promise to always love me because I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t. You saved me after all. You risked everything for me.’

Standing between them now she took their hands.

‘That was nothing!’ Otto said, reddening fiercely and staring at the ground. ‘We’d do it ten times … a hundred.’

‘Except now we won’t need to,’ Paulus added, ‘because you’re going to be safe, which is really brilliant and just the best thing … It’s only that we’re going to miss you, that’s all.’

‘Oh, boys,’ Dagmar said, squeezing their hands, the glistening in her eyes turning to two single tears, one for each cheek, one for each of them. ‘Dear darling boys, I shall miss you too. Every single day. And I’ll write, I promise, every day if I can and send you lots of chewing gum.’

‘Yes, but the thing is …’ Paulus said and then hesitated.

‘Yes?’ Dagmar asked.

‘The thing is …’

‘What?’

Paulus was also red in the face now, a rare sight indeed, his colouring being so much darker than Otto’s. He kicked at the dry grass and stuck the hand that wasn’t held by Dagmar deep into his pocket.

‘Just so long as you know … That one day …’

‘Yes, Pauly,’ Dagmar said, smiling again now. ‘One day what?’

‘One day you’re going to marry me, that’s all.’

‘He means me,’ said Otto quickly.

‘Yes, all right,’ Paulus conceded. ‘One day you’re going to marry me or Otto. That is, one or the other of us. We’ve talked about it. Lots as a matter of fact and we’ve decided.’

‘Yeah,’ Otto added. ‘We’ve decided. We need that to be clear.’ Dagmar’s face spread into the broadest smile. She plonked herself down beneath the tree pulling both boys down beside her. Her skirt billowed out around her on the grass. She let go of their hands and drew her bare legs up to her chest, throwing her arms around her knees. Her shiny painted toenails twinkled through her open sandals.