The Savior (12 page)
Authors: Eugene Drucker
Gottfried shook his head. “I wouldn't want to be in your shoes.”
Rudi looked at him for a few moments, then laughed. It was a raucous, ugly laugh, surprising from someone so soft-spoken and gentle.
“Your shoes and mine aren't that different. Look, I'm just trying to survive until this fucking war is over so I can become human again. You know what I've discovered here, in this university of hell? A new moral law. If you're forced to commit a crime that would be committed without you anyway, and by resisting you would risk your own life, then it's no longer a crime. As long as you don't enjoy it.”
“I'm not so sure about that.”
“Yeah, sure, it's easy for you to say, with a violin in your hands instead of a gun. But don't cling too tightly to your beautiful world of music. It won't protect you from everything.”
He caught Gottfried's arm and pointed to a lone, bent figure hobbling around near the back fence of the camp. “Do you know who that is? Do you know what he does here?”
Gottfried shook his head, straining to see the man in the distance. It was getting dark; he could see him only in silhouette. He was carrying a long stick in one hand.
“Is that a broom he's carrying?” he asked. “Is he some sort of janitor?”
Rudi shook his head with a grim smile. “Well, I guess you could say he's responsible for cleaning up. They call himâ”
“Rudi!” A hefty, ruddy-cheeked Oberscharführer was glaring at them from across the internal barbed-wire fence. His jowly face was already familiar to Gottfried from the “concert hall,” especially from a few minutes ago, when he had seen him beating prisoners with gusto. “The Kommandant wants to see you at once.”
Rudi let go of Gottfried's arm and dropped his hand to his side, moving quickly away from him. “Excuse me,” he stammered. “I have to go.” He disappeared with the other guard as suddenly as he had come, and the violinist was left alone, heading toward his room.
What was there between Rudi and the Kommandant? He had sounded worried, as if caught on the verge of some major indiscretion.
Gottfried kept looking for that bent man, craning his neck for a better view of him, but he had vanished behind the windowless building with the chimneys.
H
e eagerly opened the thick envelope that had arrived from England. There were several sheets inside, which led him to hope for something more substantial than the perfunctory progress reports he had already received. The firm, bold handwriting was familiar, but it sloped in uncharacteristically jagged lines across the pages.
London, 3 March 1935
Dear Gottfried,
I've meant to write you for a long time. Not another summary of how things are going for me in my professional life over hereâyou've already heard about that, and I'm sure you know as well as I do that something was missing from those letters. No: I wanted to be as open as I could with you about our last meal together at the Goldener Adler. I feel I owe you an explanation.
In my eagerness to prove I was as much a German as the rest of you, I may have given you the wrong impression: it probably seemed like I was blaming you for what was happening all around us, like I felt superior to you. But I don't believe that. No, Gottfried, I'm neither better nor worse than you. The problem is, that's not good enough, and that's why I had to leave.
Let me explain. Do you remember Siegfried Bremer? He graduated from the Hochschule just before you started there. You must have heard something about himâhe was the best violinist we had before he left Cologne, I say it freely. Not my style, perhaps, a bit on the superficial side for the classics, but he had tremendous facility, superb confidence and a real flair for the virtuoso repertoire. I heard him play an unbelievable Wieniawski F-sharp Minor Concerto at his graduation concert. Well, I always considered him one of my circle of friendsâmaybe not a close friend in whom I could confide, but a thoroughly pleasant fellow with whom I could always chat about music, our teachers, the profession. We never discussed politics, though, and now I'm glad about that.
What do you think I heard the other day? He's been cozying up to some big shots in the Party, playing dance tunes at their banquets in Berlin. The next thing you know, he'll show up at a Hitler Youth rally in the woods somewhere, playing the Chaconne for those little shits in front of a campfire. They'll all think they shared a deep spiritual experience, something that cemented the mystical “German” bond between them.
I can't understand what would lead Bremer to sell out. He should know better, and he's a good enough player that he doesn't need to do it for his career. I don't think he's anti-Semitic, not deep down, or he wouldn't have been friends with me; he must have known my background. I guess his ambition is a lot stronger than his conscience.
But here's an example of a different sort of fellow. Hugo Albers was one of the concertmasters in Berlin. I knew him before he got that job, from a chamber orchestra in Düsseldorf that I used to play in. We shared the first stand, and I always thought he was a bit of a stiff. Too serious, no spark of inspiration. You know the typeâpencils always sharpened, bowings always worked out before the rehearsals. Whatever I thought of him as a colleague, though, I completely misjudged his qualities as a person.
I found out later that he was married to a Jewish woman, and they weren't getting along so well. Maybe that's why he was always so quiet, so reserved. Anyway, he was quite reliable as a concertmaster and even a decent soloist, absolutely solid technically. So I wasn't surprised when he got the job in Berlinâthat's the kind of player they'd look for. Things were going well for him until the spring of last year, when the Ministry of Culture began to get very interested in the personnel of the top orchestras.
He was called to the manager's office, where a few officials from the ministry were waitingâI have this on good authorityâand offered the chance to keep his position with a big pay increase if he would divorce his wife immediately. He told them he'd think it over. The next week he and his wife packed their bags and left for America. They got divorced within a month of their arrival.
I understand he's concertmaster in Baltimore nowâa decent enough orchestra, I'm told. Nothing like Berlin, of course. But what should that matter to him? He can always move up over there, to New York or Boston, I suppose. And his hands are clean. That's the important thing.
I'm not sure you or I would have had the guts to do what Albers did. Believe me, I put myself in Bremer's place, and in Albers', and I don't know which of them I would have acted like if I'd been Gentile. These times bring out the best and worst in people. You find out the truth about them, and about yourself, too. For those of us caught somewhere in the middle, neither bastards nor heroes, maybe the best thing to do is to find a way out.
I have to be honest with you, Gottfried: when you tried to stop me from writing that letter to the Völkischer Beobachter, it made me think less of you. You were so worried I'd embarrass you in front of the strangers sitting across from us in the Goldener Adler. Maybe you thought there was a spy at one of those tables. Do you think it has come to that? Are there spies planted everywhere? Maybe by now that's true. Thank God I'm in England!
But what bothered me most was your insistence that since the Nazis don't have universal support, things will get better. How? How is that possible when they have Germany in a stranglehold? How will things get better without a war?
When we parted company that day, I was so glad I'd be leaving the country within a week. It's the passivity that I was so desperate to get away from, because I recognize the same thing in myself. I could no longer trust myself to be a decent human being if I stayed in Germany.
I think you're a talented violinist, Gottfried, and I look back fondly on some of the times we shared. But as for the continuation of our friendship, I really don't know what the future has to offer us.
Ernst
It was only after Gottfried tore up the letter and the envelope it came in that he wished he'd checked to see if anyone else had opened it first.
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Frankfurt. How different it seemed to him now. When he was there with the chamber orchestra a few months earlier, he had wandered dreamily in the Old City and walked for hours along the river, feeling as if the world was smiling at him that brisk, sunny day. His head and heart were full of Marietta, full of his new idea of playing recitals with her, fantasies of touring together: making music for hundreds of people and then making love in their hotel room.
Now he knew better, this cold, dreary afternoon in March. Four days ago she had given herself to him in his apartment in Cologne, but even if they were already married, they wouldn't be able to stay together in the same hotel anymoreâher identity papers wouldn't pass muster in a respectable Aryan establishment. Now his eyes were open as he walked around. He saw banners with swastikas all over the place, and hastily skirted a street-corner rally where an SA officer was exhorting his countrymen to purify themselves and take charge of their destiny. He wondered why all the different people at such rallies were supposed to have only one destiny.
But the main difference in Frankfurt was not between a beautiful day and an ugly one, nor did it lie in his greater awareness of the Nazis. If the world seemed to have lost its innocence, it was because he had changed. He couldn't believe how naïve he'd beenâhe must have had blinders on.
Struggling against the wind, he went down to the river, hands thrust deep into his pockets, shoulders hunched up, his chin pulled down toward his chest. The water was churning with angry little whitecaps; the sky was opaque with dark clouds. He could have turned back toward his hotel, but kept walking farther and farther along the river even as freezing rain began to fall.
The difference was that a few short months ago, he had believed that if Marietta returned his love, he would be happy. More than thatâhe had believed the potential for immense happiness existed within him, had walked along this same stretch of river so convinced of his ability to love that nothing he could imagine would get in its way, unless his love were not returned. And that was why the world had seemed fundamentally good to him that day, despite its manifest evil, which even he wasn't blind enough to be totally unaware of.
Now he knew better. Marietta had returned his love, and had offered him a future that he wasn't prepared forâone whose requirements upset the comfortable fantasy he'd woven for himself. A few days ago she had hurriedly “married” him in his room in Cologne and then rushed off, sure of herself, purposeful, to catch the evening train back to Frankfurtâso her father wouldn't suspect what she had done. Things had to remain calm between them until after the audition.
Within the next few days, she assured him, she would get some forged documents to prove that he had a Jewish grandmother. Who would question them these days? After all, nobody would lie about such a thing unless it was in order to prove the
absence
of Jewish blood. The grandmother plus an imminent marriage to a Jewish woman (if somehow she could inform the jury members of their plans without her father's knowledge) should provide enough of a necessity to emigrate to Palestine: they would let him audition.
“No Aryan in his right mind would try to claim Jewish descent,” she had said, laughing as she got up from his bed and began to button her blouse. There was a richness in the music of her voice that he hadn't noticed before, still bell-like but deeper: now it was the voice of a woman who had willingly and successfully passed from one stage of life to the next.
But he hadn't been able to make that passage with her. He wasn't sure if she had noticed, swept up as she was in her newfound power, the power of her sensuality so perfectly in tune with her emotions and even with her plans. At first his body had reacted eagerly enough to the warmth and softness of hers. He buried his face in the whiteness of her neck, inhaled the fragrance of her hair. His arms relaxed as they enfolded her; it was no longer an effort to keep his fingers from curling into a fist. Her beauty and his animal response to it were enough to distract him from the violent impulses that had clouded his mind a few minutes earlier. He was grateful to her for this, grateful there was no more talking, planning, nothing but the language of their bodies as they came together.
But then he began to think of Ilse, a violist in the chamber orchestra, who had been his girlfriend briefly the year before. She was completely different from Mariettaâa big, buxom blonde, and they had shared the fleeting, purely physical passion of two acquaintances who decide to try it as lovers for a while. Her body had given him great pleasure, especially the rubbery resilience of her breasts. Sometimes he had her stand naked at the foot of the bed for minutes on end so he could gaze at her. He would imagine he was in some imperial garden, about to make love to a statue whose marble perfection had magically turned into flesh.
Suddenly he was afraid that if he didn't pretend Marietta was Ilse, he would lose his potency. This had happened to him occasionally with other women, though never with Ilse, and he was damned if he'd let Marietta see that side of him as well as all his other doubts. So he kept picturing Ilse as he moved on top of her. When it was over and they lay there spent, and her hands continued to explore his chest and belly, he felt cheated, as if this event he had so long dreamt of had passed him by and he'd barely experienced it.
It wasn't only Ilse that had distracted him. The memory of his meeting with Marietta's father had cast a shadow over their lovemaking. Only as her head rested on his chest and she fell asleep for a few minutes did Gottfried understand why he had gone to see him. Her father was right: it wasn't really in order to benefit the Jewish community, or even to get closer to Marietta through performing together. He had gone there in order to ward off a fear he couldn't fully explain to himself.
Something was happening to his playing. He'd never had so much trouble practicing, never felt so uninspired. Every day, as he took the instrument out of its case, he dreaded the fruitless repetitions, the sense that his work was going nowhere.
He had known that Herr Lupescu's approval was probably too much to hope for; he wasn't going to accept an Aryan into his family, not now. But Gottfried had wanted at least to avoid his disapproval. He would have welcomed some cue from him, no matter how indirect, that he was on the right path. Her father wouldn't be a member of the jury, but he might attend the auditions in an administrative role. Trying to sneak around him made Gottfried nervous, and he didn't need to be more nervous about this audition than he already was.
Of course, his attempt at bridge-building had failed and made things worse, wedging a guilty secret between him and Marietta. His visit had probably contributed to her father's complete rejection of their relationship. He felt a wave of resentment as he thought of him and the jury members, all Jews, sitting in judgment, perhaps in some corner of their minds holding him responsible for what was happening in his country.
Did the Jews secretly consider themselves superior to Aryans? he wondered. Germany had the tradition of great music, of course, but were the Jews more talented performers than “pure” Germans, better equipped to communicate that legacy to an audience, able to breathe life into it with more flair, more fluent virtuosity, more soul?