a cheeky grimace on his little face would have been enough to last me through any misery.”
There had been a lot of misery to handle. With the arrival of spring he picked up a bit only to realize that there was a slow death ahead of him. “I won’t survive another winter.” It was as simple as that. He resigned to the idea the way he had been resigning to everything since Sachsenhausen had become his home.
His story wasn’t extraordinary. He returned hastily from America after the news of his father’s arrest. He knocked on every door, appealed to every form of authority. Some friends tried to help but couldn’t stretch too far, others completely abandoned him. And everybody without exception advised him to sail back to America without delay. All his attempts failed leaving him completely drained. It wasn’t long until he ended up in prison himself. A mistake, he still hoped. Just as it was with my father. A ridiculous misunderstanding. It will clear up soon. It didn’t. It only gained momentum downhill until one day he realized he would never return to normal life, he’d never see his family, and the world outside – inside, everywhere – would never be the same. Music, his second self, was now something alien and distant. His life, once filled with playing and composing, was like a chapter from somebody else’s biography. It was only a short matter of time before his physical death – and he thought about it only yesterday.
Today he was standing in the sunlit, spacious kitchen waiting for Frau Krauss to speak. It was late morning, the time after breakfast. The staff had apparently been sent away. An untouched cup of tea was steaming on the table. She smoked a cigarette after cigarette. She didn’t look at him because she didn’t want him to look at her. She had aged.
“So, Herr Frankel. We meet again.”
Her eyes swept over him up and down, down and up, resting briefly on his face:
“You remember Helmut?” She sipped her tea. “Answer.”
“I remember him.”
“He hasn’t changed.”
She took her time, savouring the tea.
“How long have you been in Sachsenhausen?”
“A year and a half.”
“And you belong there, you know. You belong there with other rats.”
She shivered and reached out for another cigarette. The pack was empty.
“You married?” she suddenly asked.
“No.”
“My husband is concerned that you might run away. Or do something stupid. Like make a call to somebody. Or put some ideas into Helmut’s head.” She tore open a new pack of cigarettes. “If you do run, you’ll be caught of course. And hanged.”
Frank said nothing. She looked him full in the face.
“If you compromise this family, you compromise Helmut, is that understood?”
“I understand.”
“You’d better. You wouldn’t be standing here if it wasn’t for him.”
“I understand.”
She leant back in her chair and gave him a long stare. Her face, Frank suddenly realized, expressed curiosity. Satisfaction and curiosity. She almost smiled.
“Once you said he had a great future, and you wished him happy. Do you still feel that way?”
“I do.”
“So I told my husband.”
She rose.
“Follow me. There’s something you must see.”
They went up a few stairs, through sun-soaked rooms to the part of the house where they had first met the day before. The dining-room was cool and dim.
“Open the curtains.”
Frank did. When he turned, he stopped in his tracks. The long dining table was paved with glittering rectangles of photographs. She looked back at him relishing the effect.
“Come here.”
Colour pictures were her greatest pride. She showed them first. “You don’t feel the truth unless you see it in colour. The way we, German people, see it.”
They were bright pictured of some big celebrations in the centre of Berlin. May 1st, she explained, last year. The streets and avenues were bathing in the blood-red drapery of the Nazi regalia. Frank recognized Lustgarten Park, Stadtschloss, Humboldt University. There were many other streets and parks that didn’t look familiar.
He was drawn to the photographs of people’s faces. She noticed his interest and became more excited and talkative. “I knew you wouldn’t miss those. I took them during the parade. Look carefully, they are very important.” Nicely dressed women with flowers. Cheering children. Close-ups of grinning faces. Families, groups of friends, many were not aware of being photographed. Moments of carefree joy, triumph, togetherness.
Their eyes met for a second. Hers were shining with infinite pride.
She signed him to go over to the other side of the table. “New Berlin. The Berlin of future,” she announced and pointed at a large laconic building: “This one was completed not so long ago. You haven’t seen it of course.”
“No,” Frank thought. “But I might have made bricks for it.”
“I like the clean lines. And the proportions,” she said. “I like the simplicity of the new architecture.”
Then there were idyllic scenes of the country side.
“Bavaria,” Frank recognized the landscapes. She nodded.
“Our friends invited us last autumn. I’d been planning it as a welcoming trip for Helmut, but he stayed in Britain for another year, so eventually we went without him.” There were pictures of ordinary people doing ordinary things: a woman digging in her garden, a fruit vender sorting apples, a family picnic by a lake. A small Kneipe. A group of rejoicing elderly men raised their mugs of foaming beer to the camera. That one came out particularly well. The old faces expressed some roguish, almost schoolboy camaraderie, and each in a different way – a curious display of human characters. Frank smiled.
“I don’t know these people,” she said, “but at the same time I know them very well. My fellow Germans. Over the years we were going through the same joys and hardships.”
“Olympic Games,” she introduced the next series. “The only time in eight years when Helmut came to visit us.”
There was indeed a picture of Helmut against a big stadium richly adorned with swastikas. He had that sour, toothache expression on his face. “You can always count on him to spoil a holiday.”
Finally, there were regular lines of Hitler youths doing some sort of drill. The same group having a rest in the shade, chatting, eating their snacks. Then they apparently agreed to pose: they formed an orderly group and performed the Nazi salute to the camera.
“Helmut
