Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

And yet…

She was already lighting her fourth cigarette, and still couldn’t calm down.

She had gone to the pub, Kanonengasse was just around the corner from the Posmaniks, three steps led from the street up to the front door, the door had been open, it was a mild evening, she had pushed aside the curtain, a piece of fabric, heavy and saturated with cigar-smoke, she had gone in, a woman like a thousand others in a perfectly ordinary pub, no one had paid her any attention, not at first, she had gone up to the counter, the landlord no different from other landlords, his shirt-sleeves rolled up and fastened with a rubber band, she had asked him for the telephone, and he had pointed the way with his thumb, without taking the Brissago out of his mouth, not very polite, but that was nothing special, it was just his way.

The phone was fixed to the wall, opposite the corridor to the toilets, she had dialled Arthur’s number, other numbers and names were scribbled in pencil on the wallpaper, and an there was an enamel sign for Wädenswiler beer, even though they served Hürlimann here. She hadn’t had to wait long. Arthur answered immediately, with his mouth full, he was just eating, she told him what she had to say, he promised to come, it only took a minute, two at the most, but when she hung up and turned round again, all the people were sitting at the table with their heads raised, they’d picked up a scent, they looked at her, almost pleased, as one might look at an unexpected gift, one of them got up and was about to walk towards her, another held her back, she felt it more than she saw it, and then there was the landlord who didn’t want her to pay for her call, ‘you can keep your dirty Jewish money,’ the Brissago still in his mouth. Ash fell into a half-poured beer glass, she saw it as if there was nothing else to see.

And then another one got up, and another one, no one was holding the men back now. Faces that frightened her, and then she had run away, had stumbled down the three steps and almost fallen into the street. Behind her they had laughed, a jeering, barking laugh, and if she had broken her neck they’d have been really happy.

How had they known? Rachel couldn’t work it out

They might have listened to her conversation, but she didn’t talk any differently from anyone else from Zurich, and she didn’t have a crooked nose.

She didn’t give anyone a reason, a cause, she didn’t stand out.

And even if she had stood out… That still gave them no right. If someone walked through the city in peasant costume, he stood out. If someone was big or small or had a hunchback. That couldn’t be a reason.

‘If you stand out, it’s your own fault,’ Joni Leibowitz had said, and Herr Grün had taken an iron and hit him on the head with it.

Herr Grün, with his teeth chattering under the blanket.

Luckily it wasn’t pneumonia, Arthur had said, not quite. With peace and attention and good food everything would be cured. Herr Grün had had an injection, and already his breathing was calmer now, and he didn’t try to get up again. He slept, or at least he was anaesthetised.

Arthur had written out a prescription for a medicine that was to be collected from the chemist’s, and had pressed the money for it into Frau Posmanik’s hand. He had done it secretly, almost awkwardly, not because he was embarrassed about his generosity, but because he didn’t want her husband to see it, when he would probably have converted the few francs into alcohol. The little boy — who was dressed now — asked him for cough sweets, and Arthur actually did conjure something sweet for him and his two siblings out of his case.

Later, when he drove Rachel home in his little Fiat, he asked her, ‘Did he ever say anything about being in a re-education camp?’

Re-education camp. Some also said: concentration camp.

‘He never says anything. What gives you that idea?’

‘His back is covered with scars. From beatings, I would say.’

Of course.

Four thousand eight hundred and ninety-two.

What importance does one’s own name have if one has been given a number in one of those camps? ‘Grünbaum, Grünfeld — just choose something.’

His suit was made for a fat man, and that fat man had been Herr Grün himself. Before he…

Of course.

Joni had claimed that it was your own fault if you ended up in a camp, and he had torn into him.

Of course.

But why didn’t he say so?

In one of his letters Ruben had written, ‘The ones who come back don’t talk about it.’

Just like Herr Grün.

Only he must have told Zalman about it, after he had waited for him for so long, he must have told him everything he’d been through, and then Zalman had decided to help him. Even though Herr Grün couldn’t sew. He was a learned man. Someone who had had to learn to deal with everything.

Rachel had only been verbally abused, that was all. And even that could have been avoided if she’d listened to Frau Posmanik’s warning. But why shouldn’t she go wherever she wanted to go? This was Switzerland, not Germany.

‘With the difference you can make Shabbos,’ said Uncle Melnitz. He was standing behind her, looking at himself over her shoulder in the mirror. ‘When they come marching in with their boots on, then you just say, “Gentlemen, this is Switzerland.” And then they’ll say, “Oops, sorry, we didn’t know that.” And they’ll march back out again. One, two, one, two, yes.’

He looked at himself in profile and let his nose grow until in the mirror it looked like the caricatures in the Stürmer display case outside Ruben’s synagogue. ‘Everything’s very different in Switzerland,’ he said. ‘Yes. They don’t even notice if someone’s a Jew. It doesn’t even strike them. Not if you dye your hair and put on clothes from the latest collection. They don’t notice it, do they, Rachel?’

‘That was an exception. They were Frontists.’

‘There’s always an exception,’ said Uncle Melnitz, standing closer behind her. ‘They’re always good citizens. Orderly people. Pillars of society. Until they get the opportunity not to be. It’s like that everywhere in the world, yes. Except for here in Switzerland, of course. Except in the good old Confederacy. They love us here.’ He let his face swell until it turned into the fat, sated face of an exploiter. ‘In Switzerland they have no prejudices.’

‘Of course here too…’

‘Of course,’ repeated Uncle Melnitz. ‘We don’t want to ask too much. When they help us wherever they can. When they have opened their borders to all refugees. When a red carpet is rolled out at every border crossing, whenever someone comes and needs a new homeland. Of course. Everything’s different in Switzerland, you’re quite right, Rachel, my child.’ And he made a wart sprout from his nose and a hunch from his back.

‘You have to understand that too. There are so many emigrants.’

‘Correct. And it would be undemocratic to let one into the country and not the other. Much better for them all to stay out. Dear God, make my excuse a good one.’

Zurich, 16 May 1937

Dear Frau Pollack,

My name is Dr. Arthur Meijer. I am a general practitioner here in Zurich, and I also sometimes treat the children in the Wartheim in Heiden. I am a member of the B’nai B’rith, for which you yourself have also worked, and it was they who asked me to take on this task.

I am writing to you because I have just had a copy of the letter in which the director of the Wartheim informs you of the state of your daughter Irma’s health. I fear she may have alarmed you unnecessarily. Fräulein Württemberger is not especially gifted when it comes to dealing with other people. (But then who is?)