Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

Désirée had been right: Herr Grün had changed. Whether it was for the better — Rachel wasn’t so sure. Previously he had been taciturn and hard-headed, now he seemed talkative, but she could have sworn he was no less stubborn.

‘I thought you were ill.’

‘Convalescent. Dr Meijer says the sun will do me good. Except I can’t climb down all the steps to the street and then back up again quite yet. So I’d rather come up on the roof.’ He had rolled up his newspaper, and was now using it to point, like a tour guide, at the panorama of surrounding houses. ‘The view is glorious.’

‘Nothing special.’ All that could be seen were parapets, chimneys and washing lines. A poor area of town isn’t the sort of place to find historic buildings.

‘Exactly,’ said Herr Grün. ‘Nothing special. That’s the wonderful thing about this country: that it doesn’t want to be anything special. You can’t imagine how much I envy you that ordinariness.’

Rachel wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment or a veiled criticism, so she changed the subject. ‘I hear interesting things about you.’

‘I envy you that too,’ said Herr Grün.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Your curiosity.’

‘I am not curious!’

‘Yes you are,’ said Herr Grün. ‘Believe me. I’ve had to learn to assess people correctly.’

‘You flatter yourself!’ Rachel took a furious step back, and came into unpleasant contact with a wet sheet. ‘If you think that even for a minute I would…’

‘Curiosity is a fortunate quality in a person. If someone is curious, he also hopes that something good might happen. I’m not curious about anything any more.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘You see,’ said Herr Grün, ‘back in the cabaret… Did Fräulein Pomeranz also…? Stupid of me. Of course she did. You’ll have got everything out of her.’

‘I have absolutely no…’

But Herr Grün had started telling stories again, and heard no objections. Arthur had said that a blockage of words is like an abscess; once it’s pierced everything comes pouring out, and only then can the cure be lasting.

‘Back in the cabaret,’ said Herr Grün, ‘Blau was always the popular one, not me. I got the punchlines and he just supplied the prompts. You know why that was? Because he asked the questions and I gave the answers. If you ask questions you’re curious, and if you’re curious you’re likeable.’

If Rachel had been even slightly interested in Herr Grün, that could have been the link for some teasing banter. But as it was, she just folded her arms and tried to find a rather more relaxed position on the smooth metal of the roof. Her shoes were elegant, but they were also uncomfortable.

‘What happened to your Herr Blau?’ she asked.

‘Blau is dead. His name was Siegfried Schlesinger. Siegfried, of all things. I always teased him about his cufflinks. He had had his monogram engraved on them, and I said, “It’s outrageous, making me work with the SS.” It was a good punchline at the time.

‘Then we ended up in the camp. That was a scene we hadn’t performed before. Grün and Blau at the races, we’d done that one. Grün and Blau at the zoo. And so on. But now: Grün and Blau in the camp. A lousy sketch.

‘You know what bad comedians do when their punchlines don’t work? They slap each other. Kick each other in the backside. So that the audience have something to laugh at. Slapstick. The stick you slap someone with. Beatings always go down well, it’s an old stage rule. It’s a hit, a smash.

‘Blau got the biggest laugh of his life when they broke his nose. Had them rolling in the aisles. And then they tore into him again. Da capo .

‘Yes, Blau is dead.’ His voice was quiet now. ‘And Grün should be too. He just missed his prompt.’

His feelings were stowed away in jars, sealed and screwed tight. But now one of the jars had opened. The jar in which Herr Grün kept his tears.

Kassel, 28.6.37

Dear Dr Meijer!

I have had to read your last letter over and over again. In it you have written something that moved me very much. It would really be a great comfort for me if my husband’s death had been something impersonal.

But the car that drove him over didn’t come along by chance, and my husband didn’t stumble into its bonnet by accident. That’s just what I’ve told the children, to make it easier for them.

It was one of those open trucks that they used to drive around the streets in to kick up a row and intimidate people. Twenty men in the back, always ready to leap on somebody and beat him up.

My husband was a lawyer and had brought some cases against them. He even won a few. In 1932 such things were still sometimes possible.

It was on Königsstrasse here in Kassel, right in the centre of town, just in front of the town hall. My husband and I were walking side by side along the pavement, arm in arm. They drove by and recognised him. The driver wrenched the wheel around, I could see his face as he did it. His face open wide as if he were sitting on a roller coaster, in delighted panic or panicking delight. The car swung over and rode up onto the pavement, the uniformed men in the back all bounced up in rhythm, and then it was there, so close that I could smell the petrol, hot metal and the rubber of the tyres.

I can still smell it.

My husband let go of my arm. It all happened so quickly, but I’m sure he did it on purpose so that I wouldn’t be dragged along. Attentive until the final thought. And then there was that blow, not even particularly loud, just like a big suitcase falling off a luggage trolley. Then the truck hopped again, back into the street.

At first it looked as if nothing bad had happened. My husband was lying on his back, eyes open. There was no sign of an injury.

Until the blood started spreading beneath his head.

So much blood.

I told the children a different version. They couldn’t have borne it otherwise.

We filed an action against the perpetrators, we were still as naïve as that in those days, but by the time the case came to court it was 1933 and they were in power. I was advised to withdraw the accusation, but my husband wouldn’t have wanted that. The result was that he was given a fine. He was. Posthumously. For damage to property. Because a brownshirt truck got a dent in its mudguard.

I paid the bill for the repairs. With interest.

You’re right: it would have been easier if it had really been an accident.

That’s all five years ago now, but since the court case I’ve never told anyone about it in such detail. The memory hurts, but I realise: it’s also good to share it with someone.

I trust you because I don’t know you. No, that sounds wrong. I meant: although I don’t know you.

I’ve since been to Berlin. Nothing about my situation has changed, except that I’m now on some waiting lists. I haven’t been to the Swiss Embassy. Everyone tells me there’s no point.

A shame Goliath doesn’t really exist.

With warm regards

Yours

Rosa Pollack

Zurich, 2 July 1937

Dear Frau Pollack,

I would dearly love to say something consoling to you, but I don’t know how. It’s so terrible, what people do to each other.

Arthur Meijer

Zurich, 3 July 1937

Dear Frau Pollack

Don’t think ill of me for sending you such a stupid letter yesterday. I found no words, and still needed to say something to you straight away.

In the letters that my nephew Ruben writes from Halberstadt, there has been much talk of bullying, of a thousand perfidious little pinpricks, but he’s never said anything about spontaneous violence. From his reports I had the sense that lots of terrible things are happening in Germany, but that for each fresh outrage a law or a bill had first to be passed. Until now I couldn’t have imagined anything like what has happened to you. (That may be naiveté, or simply just cowardice.)