Juan Gomez-Jurado - The Traitor's emblem

There were more murmurs of assent. Paul saw Furst rise from his seat.

“Brother, you have been away a long time and you don’t know what’s happening in Germany!”

“You’re right. We are living through a dark time. But in such times we have to cling strongly to what we believe.”

“What’s at stake here is the survival of the lodge!”

“Yes, but at what cost?”

“If we have to-”

“Brother Furst, if you were crossing the desert and you saw the sun was getting stronger and your canteen was getting empty, would you piss in it to stop it from running out?”

The roof of the temple quaked with the outburst of laughter. Furst was losing the match, and he seethed with rage.

“And to think that these are the words of the outcast son of a deserter,” he exclaimed, furious.

Paul took the blow as best he could. He squeezed hard on the back of the chair in front of him until his knuckles turned white.

I must control myself, or he will have won.

“Most venerable Grand Master, are you going to allow Brother Furst to expose my statement to this cross fire?”

“Brother Reiner is right. Stick to the rules of debate.”

Furst nodded with a wide smile that put Paul on the alert.

“Delighted. In that case, I ask you to withdraw the floor from Brother Reiner.”

“What? On what grounds?” said Paul, trying not to shout.

“Do you deny that you only attended the lodge’s meetings for a few months before your disappearance?”

Paul became flustered.

“No, I don’t deny it, but-”

“So you haven’t reached the degree of Fellow Craft, and you do not have the right to contribute to meetings,” Furst interrupted.

“I’ve been an Apprentice for more than eleven years. The degree of Fellow Craft is gained automatically after three years.”

“Yes, but only if you attend the Works regularly. Otherwise you have to be approved by a majority of the brothers. So you have no right to speak in this debate,” said Furst, unable to hide his satisfaction.

Paul looked around for support. Every face looked back at him in silence. Even Keller, who had seemed to want to help him moments earlier, was quiet.

“Very well. If that’s the prevailing spirit, I renounce my membership in the lodge.”

Paul stood and left the bench, walking toward the lectern occupied by Keller. He removed his apron and gloves and threw them at the Grand Master’s feet.

“I’m not proud of these symbols anymore.”

“And nor am I!”

One of the others present, a man by the name of Joachim Hirsch, stood up. Hirsch was Jewish, Paul recalled. He, too, threw the symbols down at the foot of the lectern.

“I’m not going to wait for a vote on whether or not I should be expelled from a lodge I’ve belonged to for twenty years. I’d prefer to leave,” he said, standing at Paul’s side.

Hearing this, many others stood up. Most of them were Jewish, though there were a few non-Jews, Paul noticed with satisfaction, who were clearly just as indignant as he was. Within a minute, more than thirty aprons had piled up on the checkered marble. The scene was chaotic.

“That’s enough!” shouted Keller, beating the mace in a vain attempt to make himself heard. “If my position allowed it, I’d throw this apron down too. Let us respect those who have taken this decision.”

The group of dissidents began to leave the temple. Paul was one of the last to go, and he left with his head held high, though it grieved him. Being a member of the lodge had never been particularly to his taste, but it hurt him to see how such a group of intelligent, cultured people could be split apart by fear and intolerance.

He walked in silence toward the entrance hall. Some of the dissidents had gathered in a huddle, though most had collected their hats and were making their way out into the street in groups of two or three so as not to attract attention. Paul was preparing to do the same when he felt someone touch his back.

“Please allow me to shake your hand.” It was Hirsch, the man who had thrown his apron in after Paul. “Thank you so much for setting an example. If you hadn’t done what you did, I wouldn’t have dared do it myself.”

“No need to thank me. I just couldn’t bear to see the injustice of it all.”

“If only more people were like you, Reiner, Germany wouldn’t be in the mess she’s in today. Let’s just hope it’s only a passing ill wind.”

“People are scared,” said Paul with a shrug.

“I’m not surprised. Three or four weeks ago, the Gestapo got the power to act extra-judicially.”

“What do you mean?”

“They can detain anyone they like, even for something as simple as ‘walking suspiciously.’”

“But that’s ridiculous!” said Paul, astonished.

“There’s more,” said another of the men who was about to leave. “After a few days the family receives a notification.”

“Or they’re called in to identify the body,” added a third gloomily. “It’s already happened to an acquaintance of mine, and the list is growing. Krickstein, Cohen, Tannenbaum…”

When he heard that last name Paul’s heart leapt.

“Wait, did you say Tannenbaum? Which Tannenbaum?”

“Josef Tannenbaum, the industrialist. Do you know him?”

“Sort of. You could say I’m… a friend of the family.”

“Then I’m sorry to have to tell you that Josef Tannenbaum is dead. The funeral is being held tomorrow morning.”

“Rain should be compulsory at funerals,” said Manfred.

Alys didn’t reply. She just took his hand and squeezed it.

He’s right, she thought, looking around her. The white gravestones shone under the morning sun, creating an atmosphere of serenity completely at odds with her state of mind.

Alys, who knew so little of her own emotions, and who so often fell victim to this emotional blindness, did not quite know what she was feeling that day. Ever since he had summoned them back from Ohio fifteen years earlier, she had hated her father from the depths of her soul. Over time, her hatred had acquired a variety of shades. At first it was tainted with the indignant hue of the angry adolescent who was always being contradicted. From there it progressed to scorn when she saw her father in all his egotism and greed, a businessman prepared to do anything in order to prosper. Last came the evasive, skittish hatred of a woman afraid of becoming dependent.

Ever since her father’s henchmen had caught her on that fateful night in 1923, Alys’s hatred toward her father had been transformed into cold animosity of the purest kind. Emotionally drained after her breakup with Paul, Alys had stripped her relationship with her father of all passion, focusing on it from a rational point of view. He-it was best to refer to that person as “he”; it hurt less-was ill. He didn’t understand that she had to be free to live her own life. He wanted to marry her off to someone she despised.

He wanted to kill the child she carried in her belly.

Alys had had to fight with all her strength to prevent it. Her father had slapped her, had called her a filthy whore and worse.

“You’re not having it. The baron will never accept a pregnant whore as a bride for his son.”

So much the better, thought Alys. She withdrew into herself, roundly refusing to have an abortion, and informed the scandalized servants that she was pregnant.

“I have witnesses. If you make me lose it, I’ll turn you in, you bastard,” she told him with a self-possession and certainty she’d never felt before.

“Thank heavens your mother isn’t alive to see her daughter like this.”

“Like what? Sold to the highest bidder by her father?”