Two Brothers (54 page)

Dagmar put her free arm around Otto and held him tight. He could feel her thigh against his.

Another roar rose up out of the ongoing noise as, far away across the hugeness of the stadium, Hitler approached the microphones. At such a distance he was but a tiny figure, and yet unmistakable. The most famous man in the world. Otto thought he would have been recognizable from across a continent.

The man just held himself in
that way
.

That particular
Hitler
way that cartoonists and comedians around the world had been ridiculing for a decade but which for all their efforts remained undeniably uniquely impressive.

Stern. Detached. Separate.
Alone
.

Few men who had come so far could have borne themselves with the same measured and quiet confidence at such a time. To stand before a hundred and ten thousand people greeting him as a deity and still remain somehow detached.

No triumphalism in his stance. No glee. Plenty around him of course, but not him. For him just the manner of a man who finds things in order and had expected no less.

The Leader’s voice rang round the stadium.

‘I proclaim open the eleventh games of the modern Olympic era,’ he said, ‘here in Berlin.’

Again a brilliant choice. Simple, like the white of his team. No ranting and raving. No spitting passion as the world had come to expect. Just the quiet authority of a man in absolute charge.

The Leader’s brief address unleashed another verbal cannonade of siegs and heils which rang once more around the stadium. The Olympic flame was lit and the games themselves began.

Many spectators left at that point, preferring political theatre to athletics, but Dagmar and Otto intended to stay and watch every single moment that their tickets allowed.

‘If only I could be one of them,’ Dagmar said when finally it became possible to communicate at anything less than a scream. ‘Imagine it! To be in the middle of all this. Ready to compete. Representing Germany. Dressed in pure white.’

‘Ah,’ Otto replied, ‘but if you were competing, you wouldn’t be able to stuff yourself with beer and sausages, which is what I’m going to get for us right now!’

They sat and watched the events all day. Finding themselves cheering on the German team despite themselves. Despite the fact that each athlete turned to the podium and gave the Nazi salute before and after they competed.

‘Who else are we supposed to cheer for?’ Dagmar asked, her mouth full of bratwurst and beer.

They drank all day without anybody seeming to mind their youth. Possibly the stallholders didn’t recognize Otto’s black Napola uniform was a school one, and Dagmar could easily have been twenty-one.

They were drunk of course by the time they drifted out of the stadium, and so instead of going home took the tram into the Tiergarten for coffee.

The whole of Berlin seemed to be celebrating the successful opening of the games and also the surprising number of early German victories, and Dagmar and Otto forgot their cares as they strolled together through the packed and happy throng.

‘Don’t you have to be back at school?’ Dagmar asked.

‘Fuck ’em,’ Otto replied.

Dagmar’s face fell. ‘Otto, you can’t say that.’

‘Why not? They sent me to that school. I didn’t ask to go.’

‘Yes, but you have to stay there now, Otts. For my sake. The better a Nazi you are, the more you can take me out and we can have fun – that was Pauly’s plan.’

‘Oh yes of course,’ Otto said quickly. ‘I know that. Don’t worry, I know lots of windows I can sneak back in through, and if they catch me I’ll tell them the tram got stuck in the crowd or something. If I get a beating it’ll be worth it. Just to spend a bit more time with you.’

‘Oh, Ottsy. That is such a
romantic
thing to say. I remember the first beating you took for me. At Wannsee when poor Pauly got four extra for being too clever.’

Dagmar put her arms around Otto and kissed him. There were many couples doing likewise in the exciting twilight of the park and she kissed him long and hard.

‘It’s been so wonderful getting to go out again, Ottsy,’ Dagmar whispered. ‘I feel like I’m alive again.’

Otto felt alive also and hugged her closer and more desperately.

‘Dagmar,’ he half gasped, ‘do you think maybe … maybe some time we could …’

‘Yes!’ Dagmar whispered. ‘But not now. Some time … I want to. Really I do. But not tonight …’

‘We could go to your mum’s place,’ Otto blurted. ‘She never comes upstairs—’

‘No, Ottsy!’ Dagmar said, disengaging herself with reluctance. ‘It’s too dangerous. If you were seen there we’d be punished. Besides, you have to get back to school. You mustn’t lose your privileges. You’re amongst the elite.’

‘Do you think I care about that?’ Otto protested.

‘You may not, darling. But I do. I like having an elite boyfriend.’

‘Did … did you just call me “darling”?’ Otto said, a huge half-idiot smile spreading across his face.

‘Yes, I did … darling. Because that’s what you are. My darling. All mine. Now you get back to school and
don’t
get caught sneaking in. Because if they gated you then you wouldn’t be able to take me out, would you? And that wouldn’t do at all.’

A Holiday in Munich

1937

FRIEDA BLAMED HERSELF. It had been she who had persuaded Wolfgang to leave the apartment for the first time in a month and go for a little walk. The result had been a nasty encounter with a Hitler Youth squad. He had limped back in agony and it was clear that whatever tiny improvements he had been making in his health and self-confidence had been set back tenfold.

‘The little bastard just pushed me out of the way,’ Wolfgang explained, his voice hovering between tears of anger and tears of despair. ‘It was at the market. They were marching right through the middle, stamping and singing. What else do they ever do except stamp and bloody sing? I just couldn’t get out of the way in time. I’d dropped some coins and I needed them. I was trying to pick them up. They could have gone round me but of course they didn’t. The front kid just gave me a kick and I went rolling.’

Frieda was probing gently at his ribs. ‘Well, it’s either very bruised or you’ve cracked one again,’ she said, trying to speak as if this was just a medical matter like any other, trying not to dwell on the fact that her husband had been sent sprawling in the gutter by a squad of adolescents.

The lift outside clanked. Paulus was home from school.

‘Post!’ he said. ‘One from Australia, one from Britain.’

‘Keep the stamps, don’t forget,’ Frieda said. ‘The little Leibovitz boy absolutely loves them. He steams them off so beautifully – you should see his collection. He’s so proud of it.’

‘Yeah.’ Wolfgang smiled. ‘Little Jewish kids certainly have the best stamp collections. All the countries that don’t want any Jews. Plenty of those.’

Paulus was already reading the letters.

‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘It’s from Government House in Darwin, Australia. The Northern Territory is definitely interested in doctors.’

‘Well, they do need people down there. Why shouldn’t it be us?’ Frieda said as she unbuttoned Wolfgang’s shirt and pulled the tails from his trousers. ‘You’ve heard of Steinberg?’

‘Yes, of course, Mum,’ Paulus said. ‘The Freeland League; he wants to buy a bit of the Kimberly and establish a colony of us. Believe me, there isn’t a rat hole I’m not looking into.’

‘Please don’t call it that, Pauly.’

Frieda studied Wolfgang’s chest and couldn’t help making a little noise of concern. There were black bruises down one side of his white bony torso.

‘Anyway,’ Paulus went on, ‘the point is they need working men as well as professionals. Maybe I’ll end up shearing sheep and studying for the Australian Bar at night.’

‘Ow!’ Wolfgang gasped as Frieda applied a bandage.

His chest was so skinny and hollow and the flesh so sensitive that it was impossible to tie the bandage tightly enough for it to stay on.

‘This one from England looks interesting too,’ Paulus said. ‘From the Central British Fund for German Jewry. They’re happy to help us with visa applications but first we have to find people over there who’ll put us up. I need a list, Mum. A list of every doctor you’ve ever been in contact with in the United Kingdom, in the States, France, Canada, everywhere. You’ve got to think back over all your years at the clinic. You went to international conferences back in the twenties. Forums on public health. Who did you meet? I don’t care how briefly. I want their names, and especially any correspondence. We need somebody to focus on
us
specifically, that’s the only way to do it now. Too many people are scrabbling for an exit. We have to find a champion, someone who’ll take up our case. I need a list, Mum.’

‘I know. I
know
,’ Frieda said.

‘You say that but you
have
to focus on it, Mum. We can’t even
apply
for any foreign-entry visa unless we can prove that someone will take us in when we get there.’

‘I have a lot to do, Pauly! I have patients.’

‘There’s plenty of sick kids in Britain and Australia that you can worry about.’

‘Pauly. Those kids are not excluded from society. My patients have no one else. They
need
me.’

‘We need you, Mum. We have to find someone who’ll help us look for a place. We don’t want much. Ottsy can stay here till we’re established and Pops and Grandma won’t leave so it’s just three of us. You’re a doctor, Mum! That’s a huge plus. I’m young and fit and in a year I’ll have graduated school, and I’m going to get top marks if it kills me. We have a lot to offer …’

Paulus’s voice trailed away. As it so often did at this point in their desperate discussions. There was an elephant in the room. A poor half-crippled elephant. All three of them knew that Wolfgang’s chances of convincing anyone that he could fulfil a ‘useful occupation’ had been slim enough when he was healthy but they were less than zero now.

‘Don’t worry,’ Wolfgang said, laughing and trying to cover his son’s embarrassment. ‘I’m sure they have dishes that need washing. That’s what most musicians do for a living anyway.’

‘Yeah, Dad. That’s right,’ Paulus said. ‘We’ll be OK.’

‘And in the meantime,’ Wolfgang announced with exaggerated cheeriness, ‘while you’re trying to get us a bolt hole and Mum’s attempting single-handedly to ensure the health of every Jewish child in Berlin, I’m going on holiday!’

Whatever Frieda might have been expecting her husband to say, it certainly hadn’t been that.

‘A holiday? Wolf, kindly explain.’

‘Just a short one. A holiday for the
soul
.’

‘Wolf,’ Frieda said, smiling but with a touch of impatience, ‘I don’t really have time for games. What holiday? Where are you planning on going?’

‘To the ends of the earth and to the edge of the conscious.’

‘
Wolf!
I don’t have time for this!’

‘Into the minds of genius and to the furthest corners of my soul.’

He was almost laughing now.

‘Right, that’s it!’ Frieda said. ‘I’m not listening any more. Sorry, but I have to read up on rickets and juvenile malnutrition.’

‘All right! All right!’ Wolfgang said, producing a newspaper from his pocket and showing it to Frieda. ‘I’m going to Munich to look at this. The
Entartete Kunst
– the Exhibition of Degenerate Art. They’re actually mounting an
exhibition
of art they want people to hate. It’s incredible. Every artist I ever loved – Kirchner, Beckmann, Grosz of course. Amazing names: Matisse, Picasso, look, Van Gogh! Can you believe it! All in one exhibition! And for free. All I need to find is the train fare to Munich.’

Frieda took the newspaper and looked over the article.

‘I always,
always
think,’ she said with a sigh, ‘that they can’t surprise me any more.’

‘But they just keep on doing it, don’t they?’ Wolfgang replied almost cheerfully now. ‘And for once, gawd bless ’em for it! I mean, this really is incredible. They’ve raided every museum and gallery in Germany. They’re
that confident
in their Philistine vision that they’re putting the best art on the planet on display on the presumption that people will laugh at it.’

‘Incredible,’ Frieda said, looking at the list and shaking her head. ‘No rhyme nor reason, everybody in together. It says here it’s all
Jewish Bolshevist
but most of these artists aren’t even Jewish, or Communist for that matter.’

‘Ah, but read on, it turns out the Leader has decided that it’s possible to
paint
like a Jew even if you
aren’t
one. Apparently it was
our
influence that created decadent art. I’d say we should be proud, only Pauly would leap down my throat. Anyway, Jew, Commie, Cubist or Expressionist, I want to see that bloody exhibition! So thank you, Herr Goebbels, for organizing that I may be suitably’ – he quoted from the article – ‘
revolted by the perverse Jewish spirit which once penetrated German Culture
.’