Ben Elton - Two Brothers

Despite the nightmare situation, Herr Fischer almost chuckled when he announced his plan to his wife that evening. ‘Let’s see if we can’t turn this nonsense into a business opportunity,’ he said. ‘If I know Berliners the offer of twenty-five pfennigs in the mark off all goods will be too much to resist.’

Fischer’s plans for passive resistance, however, were not confined to banners. They included Dagmar, who to her dismay had been called to the drawing room after supper and informed that she would be excused school on the following morning and was to attend the shop instead.

‘You and your mother will stand together with me at the doors of our building and we will personally welcome every single customer who graces our premises. The Fischers of Berlin will show these hooligans and the world what a respectable German family looks like.’

Later, before getting ready for bed, Dagmar phoned Paulus and Otto. She had a telephone in her own bedroom (a refinement the Stengel boys found almost bewilderingly grand) and she often chatted to the boys after she had finished with her homework.

Paulus and Otto usually fought over the phone when Dagmar called, sometimes quarrelling so hard about who would speak first that she got bored and hung up. Tonight, however, understanding the seriousness of the situation, the boys didn’t fight but clustered together around the receiver trying to offer comfort to their friend.

‘It won’t be so bad,’ Paulus said. ‘And a day off school’s pretty good news, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe you’ll get something from the cake department for lunch,’ Otto added. ‘See if you can grab any stales and keep them for us at the weekend.’

It was a very one-sided conversation and after a little while Dagmar said she’d better go because she wasn’t supposed to use her bedroom phone after eight o’clock.

She put the little pearly white-handled receiver back into its polished brass cradle and prepared for bed, holding tight to the frayed woollen monkey that she had held tight to every night of her conscious life.

And then it was morning and breakfast which she was allowed to take in her room as a special treat but which she couldn’t touch a crumb of, and then the hated sailor dress and the white socks and her mother’s insistence on flat shoes. And suddenly it was time to go.

Her parents were waiting for her downstairs in the large entrance hall of their beautiful town house.

Father trying hard to look as if this was a day like any other.

Mother looking noble but nervous.

Dagmar took her hat and coat from the butler and went outside to where the great shiny black Mercedes car was waiting.

‘Ten past eight,’ her father said to the waiting chauffeur. ‘I wish to draw up in front of the store at precisely 8.29 that I may personally open the doors exactly on time.’

‘Of course, sir.’

The chauffeur held the door open as the proud, elegant family got into the car. Dagmar first and then Frau Fischer, who paused in front of the impassive, uniformed servant.

‘Thank you, Klaus,’ she said.

‘Ma’am?’

‘For working for us today.’

‘I am not working for you today, madam,’ the chauffeur replied. ‘As you know, I am instructed by the Leader not to do so. I have already informed Herr Fischer that today’s pay must be deducted from my monthly salary.’

‘But—’ Frau Fischer began.

‘I am, however, honoured to serve you today,’ the chauffeur continued, ‘in my own free time and of my own free will.’

There were tears suddenly in Frau Fischer’s eyes.

‘Thank you very much,’ she said, getting in beside Dagmar, who was also struggling not to cry.

Then Herr Fischer joined them and their short journey began.

‘Such a lovely day,’ Herr Fischer observed. ‘Perhaps we might later ride together in the park, dear, if the evening remains clement. The horses will forget who is their master if they only ever exercise with the grooms.’

Frau Fischer attempted a smile in reply but could do no better than that.

Herr Fischer was right, it was a lovely day, one of the first fine mornings of spring and Dagmar found that her spirits, while not exactly rising, at least ceased to plummet as their splendid car purred its way through the expensive district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. The buds were beginning to show on the great parallel lines of plane trees that graced the grand old Kurfürstendamm as the Fischer family drove along it, and all the splendid shops and cafés so familiar to Dagmar and her rich school friends looked as normal and as exciting as ever.

Except not quite normal. There were exceptions to the familiar atmosphere of bustling well-being. A few of the businesses were closed, their beautiful plate glass, polished wood and brass facings disfigured with dripping paint, and outside their doors were standing young men in brown uniforms clustered around swastika banners.

‘Mandelbaum, Rosebaum,’ Fischer muttered as he stared out of the window. ‘Even Samuel Belzfreund, I thought he’d have more nerve the way he struts about and throws his weight at the Chamber of Commerce, but every one of them has stayed at home.’

‘Perhaps we too should rethink this, darling,’ Frau Fischer said gently, ‘if everyone else has—’

‘As I have already explained, we are not everyone else . We are the Fischers, of Fischer’s of Berlin,’ was all her husband would say, grim-faced and tight-lipped.

‘Don’t you know, Mother,’ Dagmar said, trying so hard to sound cheerful, ‘the empress might come from exile in Holland requiring gloves for her ladies-in-waiting.’

‘Exactly,’ said Herr Fischer. ‘Imagine if the empress found us closed.’

And for the first time that morning all three of them managed to smile at once.

Then suddenly the time had come. The limousine was drawing up alongside the famous Fischer’s department store on the Kurfürstendamm, a shop often compared with Harrods of Knightsbridge or Macy’s of Manhattan. Not this morning, however. This morning Fischer’s store bore no resemblance to those other splendid emporiums. This morning Fischer’s was on its own, in the middle of a unique and terrible nightmare.

Dagmar gasped in horror as she saw that every single one of the splendid plate-glass windows which she had always so adored with their ever-changing tableaux of fashion and luxury had been daubed and disfigured. Stars of David, crude insults and everywhere Streicher’s leaden, doltish, spite-ridden slogan for the day: Death to Jews .

There were also at least twenty SA men gathered beneath the coloured-glass canopy which stretched out over the pavement from the shop’s entrance. They were clearly surprised to see the great Mercedes pulling up directly in front of them. Some even gave the German salute, obviously under the impression that this must be some Nazi bigwig come down to check on the progress of the day’s ‘action’.

This impression remained for a moment longer as the uniformed chauffeur got out of the car and, without a glance at the arrogant brown figures, opened the passenger door. Many arms were raised in anticipation of who might get out, only to be dropped again in angry astonishment as the family Fischer, recognizable from numerous slanderous articles in the Nazi press, emerged from the car. Herr Fischer was first, and stepping out behind him Dagmar could see that beyond the SA men the shop staff were already in the shop, looking out through the big central doors in terror. Doors that had been barricaded from without with rubbish bins. There were, as far as she could see, no customers attempting to get in.

There was certainly no sign of the ex-Empress Augusta Viktoria.

‘Good morning,’ she heard her father saying, ‘my name is Isaac Fischer and this is my shop. Where is my banner?’