Juan Gomez-Jurado: The Traitor's emblem

“… Fraulein?”

“Sorry, Doris. What were you saying?”

“The master will receive you in his study. He did have a visitor with him, but I think he’s leaving.”

Someone was coming down the hallway toward them. A tall, solid man wrapped in an elegant black frock coat. Alys did not recognize him, but behind him was Herr Tannenbaum. When they reached the entrance, the man in the frock coat stopped-so abruptly that Alys’s father almost bumped into him-and stood staring at her through a monocle on a gold chain.

“Ah, and here’s my daughter! What perfect timing!” said Tannenbaum, giving his companion a complicit glance. “Herr Baron, allow me to introduce to you my daughter, Alys, who has just arrived with her brother from America. Alys, this is Baron von Schroeder.”

“A pleasure,” said Alys coldly. She neglected to give the polite curtsey that was almost compulsory when faced with members of the nobility. She didn’t like the baron’s haughty bearing.

“A very pretty girl. Though I fear she may have caught some of the American manners.”

Tannenbaum shot his daughter a look of outrage. The girl was sad to see that her father had barely changed in five years. Physically he was still thickset and short-legged, with hair in conspicuous retreat. And in his manner he remained as obliging toward those in power as he was firm with those under him.

“You can’t imagine how much I regret that. Her mother died very young, and she has not had much of a social life. I’m sure you understand. If only she could spend some time in the company of people her own age, well-bred people…”

The baron gave a resigned sigh.

“Why don’t you and your daughter join us at our house on Tuesday around six? We’ll be celebrating my son Jurgen’s birthday.”

From the knowing look the men exchanged, Alys got the sense that this had all been arranged in advance.

“By all means, Your Excellency. It’s such a lovely gesture on your part to invite us. Allow me to accompany you to the door.”

“But how could you be so inconsiderate?”

“I’m sorry, Papa.”

They were sitting in his study. One wall was covered with bookcases that Tannenbaum had filled with books bought by the yard, based on the color of their bindings.

“You’re sorry? A ‘sorry’ doesn’t fix anything, Alys. You need to understand I’m doing some very important business with Baron Schroeder.”

“Steel and metals?” she asked, using her mother’s old trick of taking an interest in Josef’s business whenever he flew into one of his rages. If he started talking about money he could go on for hours, and by the time he had finished he’d have forgotten why he’d been angry in the first place. But this time it didn’t work.

“No, land. Land… and other things. You’ll find out when the time is right. Anyway, I hope you have a pretty dress for the party.”

“I’ve only just arrived, Papa. I don’t really feel like going to a party where I don’t know anyone.”

“Don’t feel like it? For the love of God, it’s a party at the house of Baron von Schroeder!”

When she heard him say that, Alys flinched slightly. It wasn’t normal for a Jew to take the name of God in vain. Then she remembered a small detail she had not registered when she came in. There was no mezuzah on the door. She looked around her, surprised, and saw a crucifix hanging on the wall, beside a picture of her mother. She was struck dumb. She wasn’t particularly religious-she was going through that stage of adolescence in which she sometimes questioned the existence of a divinity-but her mother had been. Alys saw that cross beside her picture as an unbearable insult to her memory.

Josef followed the direction of her gaze and momentarily had the decency to look embarrassed.

“It’s the times we live in, Alys. It’s hard to do business with the Christians if you’re not one of them.”

“You were doing enough business before, Papa. And I think you were doing well,” she said, gesturing to the room.

“Things have turned ugly for our people while you’ve been away. And they’ll get worse, you’ll see.”

“So bad that you’d give up everything, Father? Converted for… for money?”

“It’s not about money, you insolent child!” said Tannenbaum, no longer sounding ashamed and thumping his fist on the desk. “A man in my position has responsibilities. You know how many workers I’m in charge of? These idiotic wretches who sign up to ridiculous Communist unions and think Moscow is heaven on earth! Every day I have to tie myself in knots to pay their wages, and all they can do is complain. So don’t even think about throwing in my face all the things I do to keep a roof over your head.”

Alys took a deep breath and again succumbed to her favorite fault: saying exactly what she thought at the most inopportune moment.

“You needn’t worry about that, Papa. I mean to leave very soon. I want to return to America and make my life there.”

When he heard this, Tannenbaum’s face turned scarlet. He waved a chubby finger under Alys’s nose.

“Don’t you dare say that, you hear me? You’ll go to this party and you’ll behave like a polite young lady, okay? I have plans for you, and I won’t have them ruined by the whims of a badly behaved girl. You hear me?”

“I hate you,” said Alys, looking straight at him.

Her father’s expression didn’t change.

“That doesn’t bother me, as long as you do what I say.”

Alys ran out of the study, tears welling in her eyes.

We’ll see about that. Oh, yes, we’ll see.

“Are you asleep?”

Ilse Reiner turned over on the mattress.

“Not anymore. What is it, Paul?”

“I was wondering what we’re going to do.”

“It’s half past eleven. How about getting some sleep?”

“I was talking about the future.”

“The future,” his mother repeated, almost spitting out the word.

“I mean, it’s not as if you really have to work here at Aunt Brunhilda’s, do you, Mama?”

“In the future I see you going to university, which happens to be just around the corner, and coming home to eat the tasty food I have prepared for you. Now, good night.”

“This isn’t our home.”

“We live here, we work here, and we thank heaven for it.”

“As if we should…” whispered Paul.

“I heard that, young man.”

“Sorry, Mama.”

“What’s up with you? Have you had another fight with Jurgen? Is that why you came back all wet today?”

“It wasn’t a fight. He and two of his friends followed me to the Englischer Garten.”

“They were just playing.”

“They threw my trousers in the lake, Mama.”

“And you hadn’t done anything to upset them?”

Paul snorted loudly but said nothing. This was typical of his mother. Whenever he had a problem, she would try to find a way to make it his fault.

“Best go to sleep, Paul. We have a big day tomorrow.”

“Ah, yes, Jurgen’s birthday…”

“There will be cakes.”

“That other people will eat.”

“I don’t know why you always have to react like this.”

Paul thought it was outrageous that a hundred people should celebrate a party on the ground floor while Eduard-whom he hadn’t yet been allowed to see-languished on the fourth, but he kept this to himself.

“There will be a lot of work tomorrow,” Ilse concluded, turning over.

The boy watched his mother’s back for some time. The bedrooms in the service wing were at the rear of the house, down in a sort of basement. Living there instead of in the family quarters didn’t bother Paul that much, because he’d never known any other home. Ever since he was born, he’d accepted as normal the strange sight of watching Ilse wash her sister Brunhilda’s dishes.