Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

It would all have been wonderful, if the editor of the Kuranzeiger hadn’t announced in bold letters that a real veteran would deliver a speech for the occasion, relating his own experiences in the great battle.

None of the musketeers wanted to be that speaker, and each of them had a different excuse. Von Stetten argued that the memories of a private soldier would be much more effective than those of an aristocratic officer. Kessler mentioned a stammer that always afflicted him when he appeared in public, Neuberth, he had learned that trick in the men’s singing club, suffered from hoarseness, Staudinger had witnessed none of the crucial events because of his injury and Hofmeister blushingly admitted to his comrades that he had been with the baggage train and not with the fighting troops. So that left only Janki, whose detailed accounts of the battle they had all listened to with such fascination.

‘But he’s a Frenchman!’ Kessler protested. His objections were eloquently demolished by the others. The former enemy being allowed to speak on such an occasion, von Stetten said, was a proof of genuine chivalry, and Neuberth supported him, saying that after the Battle of Sedan even Bismarck had treated the defeated French emperor with exquisite politeness. And in any case, said Staudinger, Comrade Meijer wasn’t really a true Frenchman, because after all he came from Alsace-Lorraine, and that had been a solid part of the German Reich for over forty years.

Which prompted von Stetten to observe that Meijer was also a good German name.

Janki demurred, but not very violently. He already saw himself marching into the ballroom to the sound of the Hohenfriedberger , limping but brisk, he already saw himself standing behind the lectern, supporting himself on his walking stick, whose story he would of course tell, he already saw the expectant faces and already heard the applause. So he drained his beer glass in one go, as he had learned, rose to his feet and said, ‘Comrades! When duty calls, a soldier cannot shirk.’

At the table d’hôte Chanele wanted to tell her husband the funny story of Hersch Wasserstein’s surprise offer, but Janki’s thoughts were so focused on the planned party that he didn’t hear her words. He was very disappointed — he hadn’t expected otherwise, but he was disappointed none the less — that his wife was not at all enthusiastic about his plan, and was even trying to put him off the whole idea. She had never understood, he said, how important it was in this world to be accepted, and what acceptance could be more complete than to be allowed to give the ceremonial address at a Sedan Day party?

‘But you weren’t even at Sedan!’

Janki gave his wife a censorious look and then said in his most charming voice, which had previously been reserved only for his best lady customers, ‘Why don’t we order another bottle of wine, my dear? We have something to celebrate.’

The next day, when the six musketeers were in the Strandcafé again, discussing the details of the big day — in what sequence were they to march in? Did one shake the mayor’s hand after the badge of honour had been awarded, or did one give a military salute? — a strange man approached their table. He was wearing a white linen beach suit with brown street shoes that didn’t match. A straw hat a couple of sizes too small sat ludicrously on his curly hair.

‘Please excuse me,’ said the man, ‘but I had something urgent to discuss with Herr Meijer.’

His voice had an unpleasantly foreign accent.

‘As you see, we are very busy,’ Staudinger said dismissively.

‘It won’t take long,’ said the man, who was clearly used to having things that he had got into his head sorted out on the spot. ‘Five minutes, if we agree. And if we don’t — well, we will have finished even more quickly than that.’

‘We really have no time for business right now,’ said Staudinger.

‘Which one of you is Meijer?’ asked the man, and when everyone looked at Janki, he shook his hand like that of an old friend and said, ‘Be moichel me, I should have explained straight away. I’m sure your friend mentioned it to you.’

‘May I ask what it’s concerning?’

‘Chaje Sore, of course. A pearl of a daughter. Exactly the right one for your Arthur. A shidduch — made in heaven, God willing.’

Von Stetten rose to his feet, a judge getting up to deliver his verdict. His voice suddenly had the same booming commanding tone that Staudinger had used on the train to Hoyerschleuse. ‘Comrade Meijer,’ he said, ‘Do you know this Jew?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘No idea he says he has, this Herr Meijer,’ said the persistent stranger, ‘when our children are to marry.’

The echoing laughter that these words provoked around the table faded quickly away. They saw Janki’s embarrassed face and knew that there was nothing to laugh about here.

‘Meijer,’ said von Stetten — the ‘comrade’ had been lost along the way — ‘Meijer, I have just one question for you: are you a Jew?’

‘What does that have to do with anything? I’m also a Frenchman, and you said…’

‘I would prefer it, Herr Meijer,’ said Lieutenant von Stetten, ‘if you would address me formally from now on.’

Afterwards, Arthur couldn’t and wouldn’t forget, afterwards, which was always a before as well, when they were able to breathe again, and their hearts no longer hammered as if they had climbed a summit, and it was a summit, every time, an impassable summit which one fears, while it draws one irresistibly, different each time and each time more familiar, with paths that one would yearn to walk again, and again and again, were one not afraid that one might exhaust oneself before exploring others, afterwards, when one did not yet wish to open one’s eyes, as one tries to prolong a dream even though one already knows that one will not be able to bring it back, not until the next time, when it will be different again, yet more beautiful, yet more mysterious, yet more dangerous, afterwards, when the fine hairs on the skin still bore that charge, and drew sparks beneath the wandering fingertips — wait! not now! not yet! — afterwards, when the everyday seeped once more through the closed shutters with its weary smell, that stench of reality that one can drown out for a few minutes but not really expel, when self-evidence fell from them like a badly stitched coat, when their nakedness was nakedness again and liberation no longer, afterwards, when they got up and lingered for a few seconds, afterwards, when they sat side by side and dangled their feet in the air, as if it were not the couch in Arthur’s consulting room, but a shore, a lake, a sea, and really cold water into which they were now to jump — not yet! please not yet! — as they both stared at the glass cabinet of medical books because they did not yet have the courage to let their eyes meet, afterwards, when it was over and slight disappointment rose up in them, the kind that belongs to happiness as age does to life, afterwards, when time stood still and yet must start again, they covered over the seconds of their sweet embarrassment with the unchanging sentimental ritual.

‘Oh please, Doctor,’ Joni had to say, ‘when can I have another appointment with you?’

And Arthur had to take the black diary from the desk, had to flick through it as if he didn’t know the answer, as if he were not the only answer in his life that he did not doubt, and had to say, ‘Whenever you like.’

They had met here, here in this room with the smell of disinfectant and the freshly printed diploma on the wall. Arthur had just furnished the room, but it felt too old for him, he felt like a little boy putting on his father’s trousers, far too long for him, and a jacket his arms couldn’t find a way out from, who paraded like that through the flat and imagined he’s grown up. Back then Janki had shouted at him for dragging the carefully ironed trouser legs over the freshly waxed floor, and he had only wanted to try out what it was like if you…