Ben Elton - Two Brothers

He stood looking at her for a moment, his eyes flicking from her feet to her head and back down again. She was standing in the middle of the room on the big blue rug. He still hovered close to the door.

‘Or coffee perhaps? Or I have some chocolate I made for the children — it’s a chilly night. Please, come in. Sit down?’

But he just kept staring. Or at least Frieda presumed he was staring, his eyes were hidden in the shadow cast by the broad brim of his hat.

‘Turn around,’ he said finally.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Ten years is a long time, thirteen in fact,’ Karlsruhen went on. ‘You were twenty or twenty-one as I recall when you modelled in my studio. Now of course you are in your thirties. Most women lose their bloom and their shape during those years. I knew you wouldn’t, though. Yours is a beauty that will take many more years to fade. Won’t you turn around?’

Frieda swallowed once or twice but then did as she was asked, rotating a single turn on the carpet where she stood and ending with a desperate, selfconscious little flourish.

She had decided she must humour him. At least until she knew more. Any hope, no matter how tenuous, was worth grasping at. This man wore the party badge. If he wanted her to turn around and to pay her ridiculous compliments as he had done when she was young, then of course he could.

Karlsruhen breathed deeply, sucking in air in a kind of reverse sigh. Frieda felt almost as if he was trying to smell her.

‘You are still beautiful, my dear,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘That’s very sweet.’

‘You haven’t changed so much you know,’ Karlsruhen said. ‘Your figure is still beautiful, at least, I think it is. One cannot tell for sure of course until…’

He left the unfinished sentence hanging in the air. Frieda knew that she was going red and hot and flustered and fought against it. It was obvious that for whatever reason he still desired her. Perhaps somehow she could play that to her advantage.

He was a party member after all.

‘I have come,’ Karlsruhen said majestically, ‘to ask you to take up modelling for me again.’

‘Modelling? But why? Can’t you find younger girls than me?’

‘I have never forgotten you, Frieda, my dear. Despite the — difficulty — of our parting I have never forgotten how you — inspired — me and often since then I have longed to be inspired again… I see you have one of our pieces still,’ he said, turning to the little statuette that stood on top of the piano. ‘Your father acquired it. For a fraction of its worth, as I recall. But then he is a Jew and so one shouldn’t be surprised at that. It is the way of your people.’

Despite still being prepared to try to ingratiate herself, Frieda found herself protesting the slur.

‘He paid what you and your wife were asking,’ she said. ‘You were offering the same prices to anyone in the market.’

Karlsruhen studied the end of his cane for a moment. He clearly did not wish to discuss the statuette. He flicked some invisible speck from the moulded silver knob while clearly considering what best to say next.

‘Let us not fall out, my dear,’ he said finally.

‘Have you come here after dark to offer me employment, Herr Karlsruhen?’ Frieda asked. ‘Wouldn’t a note have been a better beginning to our reacquaintance?’

‘I will speak plainly. I have never forgotten our last, ahem… encounter. Not at the market… I mean at my studio.’

‘No, Herr Karlsruhen, nor have I,’ Frieda replied, ‘but let’s not dwell on the past, you had been drinking and—’

‘By rights I should be angry with you, and in many ways I am.’

Frieda had been trying to appear forgiving but now her mouth gaped wide in astonishment. ‘ You , angry with me!’

‘You deceived me,’ Karlsruhen whined piously. ‘I thought you were a German girl.’

‘I was a German girl! Herr Karlsruhen. I am a German girl. It’s only this last year or so that anyone has presumed to say I’m not and they have no right.’

‘You are not German, Frau Stengel, and you know it. You are a Jew. Shortly there will be new laws at Nuremberg and you will lose your citizenship as all Jews will…’

‘Herr Karlsruhen, have you come here to tell me what I can read every day in the Völkischer Beobachter ?’

‘I have come here to tell you that I still desire you, Frau Stengel! I wish to finish the business I began in 1920. It has stayed with me all these years like no other need. You denied me then but I hope you will not deny me now. There, I have said it. I know that it is wrong but—’

‘Of course it’s wrong—’

‘You are a Jew, so such things are rightly forbidden. Your blood is not my blood, your race inferior. And yet you bewitch me. You always did and I have never forgotten the feel of your body when I laid my hands upon it.’

Frieda knew that she would have to decide.

It was a dreadful, impossible prospect, one which would have been unimaginable, even an hour before. But Wolfgang was in the hands of the SA. She knew that she would do anything to save him. Anything .

‘Well… that’s very… flattering, Herr Karlsruhen,’ Frieda said, trying to keep her voice steady, ‘and perhaps I was a little brusque with you all those years ago. But now, well, the thing is, my husband—’

‘Ah yes, your husband,’ Karlsruhen said with triumphant malice. ‘Once there was a time when you told me your husband would kill me for what I would like to do to you. But he can’t help you now, can he, Frau Stengel? He can’t even help himself. For where is he? Do you know, Frau Stengel? I don’t think so.’

And the dreadful truth dawned on her. Incredible that it took so long for the devilish penny to drop. It was so obvious. Him turning up that very night. Scarcely an hour after…

‘What do you know about my husband? Tell me!’

‘I know that he is a decadent and a purveyor of corrupt Jew filth and he has been rightly taken into custody and—’

‘It was you! You reported him!’ Frieda hissed. ‘You evil bastard, you had them get him out of the way so you could force yourself on me!’

‘Your husband has been arrested, Frau Stengel, that is all we know. Meanwhile, there is the matter of you and your children to consider. I have influence. I am highly regarded in official circles. You may in fact have read that I have recently been elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts… I am perhaps not quite an Arno Breker but nonetheless I have been told even the Führer has—’

‘Can you help my husband? If I do what you want, can you help him?’

She had decided. She would let his plan work out the way he wanted if only he would bring back Wolfgang.

But of course he couldn’t.

‘Your husband is gone, Frau Stengel. Into the abyss,’ Karlsruhen said. ‘His fate is now beyond you or me to influence. It is now for you to consider your own position and that of your children. If you will agree to meet me in secret from time to time I can help you. I can protect you and gain you privileges. Believe me, your kind will be in need of such things quite soon now. I can make sure that your sons are allowed to complete their studies. I can see that the local SA are warned off.’

‘Herr Karlsruhen, can you help my husband? He has only just been taken! Surely it is not too late!’

‘That Jew is gone!’ Karlsruhen said angrily. ‘Forget him. Think only of yourself. Do as I say and I will help you. Deny me and I swear I will do the opposite. How old are your boys now? Fourteen? Old enough to go to Dachau I can assure you… You must succumb to me. You have no choice. You must finally allow me to do to you what you deserve, you little Jewish slut! You whore! Do you think you can deny me? You are Untermensch . You must crawl or die. I’ll break your Jew pride. I’ll show you how a beast should be tamed. You will let me use you as I wish or your boys will follow your husband to Dachau!’