Charles Lewinsky - Melnitz

Zalman asked Herr Grün to say the blessing, but he refused, on the grounds that he didn’t see himself in the position of ever acting again in his life. No one asked him what exactly he meant. Afterwards he cleared his throat right from the very bottom; he had probably got used to doing that backstage, so that his voice was clear from the first sentence of his act.

Guten Tag, Herr Blau.

‘There’s also this, Herr Kamionker,’ he said. ‘You gave me work, and I am grateful to you for that.’

Zalman, who had never been good with gratitude, gestured dismissively, as if waving away the smoke of his cigar.

‘It has caused you nothing but problems,’ said Herr Grün. ‘First of all I nearly killed that fellow Leibowitz…’

‘What?’ No one had told Adolf Rosenthal the story.

‘… and now I’m taking your best worker away.’

‘Does that mean…?’ asked Hinda.

‘He asked me.’ Quite out of character, Rachel was a little embarrassed. ‘And I said yes. But it was Felix’s idea.’

‘Felix’, she said, not ‘Herr Grün’.

‘How lovely!’ Hinda hugged her daughter, and Lea beamed at her twin sister and cried, ‘Mazel tov!’

Rachel blushed, not as a young bride might be expected to — a bride is always young, even if she’s approaching forty — but like someone who has been the victim of an awkward misunderstanding. ‘No, it’s not… You’ve got it wrong… Felix has just…’

‘Wladimir Rosenbaum wants someone for the artistic manager’s office,’ said Herr Grün. ‘I suggested Rachel.’

‘Ah.’ Lea had to polish her thick glasses out of sheer disappointment. ‘And I thought…’

‘The things you think!’

‘So we’ll have more time for each other,’ Herr Grün explained. ‘When you’re working in the same place.’

‘What did you think, Lea?’ asked Adolf Rosenthal, who had no ear for undertones. He got no answer.

The pause was long and awkward. It was so quiet in the room that everyone could hear the faint singing note when Désirée ran her fingertip along the rim of her glass. She let the sound fade away and then said quietly, ‘One left and one right shoe. Why not, in fact?’

She didn’t look at Herr Grün as she said it, but he first raised his head and then shook it, quite violently, like someone trying to wake up. Then Herr Grün shrugged and spread his arms. It was an exaggerated gesture, the kind one might make on stage to be seen from the very back row. ‘You’re right: why not, in fact?’ he repeated. ‘What do you say, Rachel? I’ll get used to it. I’m a skilled practitioner.’

The glasses of mazel tov bronfen had already been poured when Rachel was still explaining to Herr Grün that that was really no way to propose to somebody.

The three of them bullied him without making much noise about it, with a chummy cosiness that had a lot to do with their South German dialect. It had been a mistake to keep the confirmation from the Jewish congregation in his passport, of all places; one of them unfolded it, read the few sentences and then held the piece of paper out to the others, smiling expectantly, a child that has found a new toy under the tree, and is already imagining all the things that can be done with it.

The train stopped in open countryside, far from any station. There was nothing there but a shack, with a flagpole looming over it. As polite as hotel porters they asked him to get out, and please to take his little suitcase with him too, no, his papers were in order, as a Swiss citizen, that was quite correct, he didn’t need a visa, but there were a few checks to go through, nothing personal, just a few technical things relating to customs and hygiene. Yes, they understood that he was in a hurry, and really, they were sorry that the train had now left without him, but they also had their duty to do, just as the train driver did, and they wouldn’t advise him to try and deter them from doing their duty in the correct manner, that was a punishable offence, and if they had to file a complaint against him it would take even longer.

‘Meijer?’ they asked, ‘So, so, Meijer?’ and held his passport up to the light, and what had his original name been, Meierwitz or Meierssohn or Meier-Rosen-Blumen-Lilienfeld?

They left him his underpants, just peeked into them briefly, one after the other, and smiled. Then he was allowed to watch as they rummaged through his belongings for contraband. They did it thoroughly, and with a certain care. When they cut off the heels of his shoes because, you never knew, diamonds might be hidden in them, they put the severed pieces back, each tidily next to its shoe, ‘so that they don’t get confused.’

They ignored the rings. He had, so as not to lose them, fastened them to his key-ring, and they probably thought they were worthless pendants.

He hadn’t packed much, he planned, they planned, to travel back the next day, so the officials found nothing that might have been described as contraband. But then, when he was starting to think he had passed the test, they moved on to the anti-epidemic examination. In Germany they were in the process of freeing themselves from vermin, and one had to be alert to ensure that no new ones were smuggled in. They cut open the seams of his jacket with a razor blade, but found neither lice nor fleas inside, and the new tie that he had packed for the ceremony they dipped in the inkwell, for disinfection, they said.

Then, very suddenly, their examination was over, there was probably a break in their timetable, or else the game had gone stale. He was allowed to get dressed, slip into his heel-less shoes and pack his belongings again. They even gave him a piece of twine to tie up his suitcase; they had only been doing their duty when they pulled out the bottom, to ensure that it wasn’t double.

The next train left in three hours, they informed him considerately, thirty-four minutes past two exactly, and no, they couldn’t let him get in here, this was purely an official stop, and use by private individuals was not permitted. But he was welcome to walk back to the border station, it was only a few kilometres, just keep following the rails, he was bound to get there in time, although walking without heels was a bit of an effort. They waved as he left, and one of the border guards who had proved particularly humorous during the procedure, called after him, ‘Goodbye, Charlie!’ — ‘He shuffles like Charlie Chaplin,’ he explained to the others, but they weren’t cinema-goers and didn’t join in.

Breathless and drenched in sweat Arthur caught the next train. The rage that he wasn’t allowed to vent on anybody stuck in his throat, a lump that couldn’t be swallowed or spat out. On any other day and on any other journey he would have turned around, immediately, he would have gone back to Zurich and hidden himself away in his flat.

But it wasn’t just any day or any journey.

The second-class carriages were all full; in the end he found a seat in a compartment full of travelling salesmen, who bunched up reluctantly for him. With his broken shoes and the twine around his suitcase he probably looked like a tramp. As he sat down, he pushed his jacket together behind him so that they didn’t see the ragged seam.

The same three guards checked him this time again, but they left him in peace and wished him a pleasant journey. They had probably decided they had had enough fun with him for one day.

He had set off from Zurich early in the morning, because he had wanted to have enough time in Kassel to freshen up in a hotel room. Now he would get there at the very last minute. If indeed he had enough time.

No, they weren’t late, the conductor reassured him. He didn’t know what it was like in Switzerland, but here in Germany the trains were punctual.