The Woman Who Heard Color (32 page)

“Your fellow countryman,” she said.

“Lovely,” he said, “though some might claim him as German or French!” And then, abruptly, with a shift in his tone, “There’s talk of an auction in Switzerland early next year or in the spring to offer the remaining pieces. Word is being circulated that it might be conducted by the Fischer Gallery.”

Hanna was aware of the ongoing correspondence between Franz Hofmann and Theodor Fischer in Lucerne. Switzerland, a neutral country, had become a refuge for many artists and cultural elites who had fled Germany, and was now becoming a haven for the art. Herr Fischer was one of the few non-Jewish dealers in Switzerland who had the knowledge, the contacts, and the experience to conduct this type of auction.

“When can I see you again?” he whispered.

Hanna glanced back to the gallery entrance and could see her assistant had returned and was walking toward them.

“Oh, Johann,” she replied in a quiet, now-quivering voice, as her eyes darted about, “it is difficult . . .”

“When?”

“Not here, not now.” Their eyes locked.

“Perhaps, the auction,” he said. “We will meet in Lucerne, and . . .” His voice became even softer. “We might speak again of art, and other aspects of finding new homes for—”

They were unable to continue their discussion as Hanna’s young assistant approached. Herr Hofmann soon joined them with the other members of his group, who had questions about various works that Herr Hofmann felt Hanna was best qualified to answer.

That evening, each detail of the day replayed continuously in her mind. Over the years she had tried to convince herself that their feelings for each other had been too far removed from the real world to be authentic and true. He had come in a time of need, when she feared she might lose her son. Had he come now to rescue not only the art, but Hanna herself? Or, had she completely lost touch with reality?

Surely Johann understood her dilemma. She had heard nothing of plans for her taking part in the auction or accompanying the art to Switzerland, but now she was infused with a spark of hope. If only she were asked to assist with the paintings in Switzerland.

Late the next morning, Johann Keller and his associates paid another visit to Schloss Niederschönhausen, but he and Hanna had no time alone. Quick glances were exchanged, but no words passed between them.

That following evening, after she had eaten a light supper and was about to retire, Hanna heard a knock on the door. Her heart leapt with a hopeful flutter.

She opened it to find Helene standing before her with hair disheveled, eyes swollen, her face blotched with red.

Glancing quickly down the hall, Hanna saw that all was quiet. Her young assistant, who had taken a room a few doors down, was constantly aware of any comings and goings, though she had yet to have a guest. Hanna motioned her in. “How did you know where to find me?” She could see Helene had come with bad news, her hands twitching and shaking, picking at the hem of her jacket.

It’s Jakob,
Hanna thought. She invited Helene into the sitting room, ashamed now that she was living in such luxury.

They sat silently for a moment, before Helene said, “I contacted your former employer in Munich, and through him I knew to find you here in Berlin. I hoped perhaps you had been able to go to America, since I had not heard from you, but then I . . .” She looked around the room as if searching for something, and then she began to weep, uncontrollably, unable to continue.

Finally, she whispered, “He’s gone.”

“Jakob?”

“No, no . . .” She closed her eyes and took in several quick, deep, gasping swallows of air as the tears fell, as she rocked back and forth. “It’s Willy.”

 

 

H
anna did not leave her room the next day, nor the following. Helene and Jakob invited her to stay with them, but she knew she could not. She was given a short leave from her work—though the understanding was that she was ill. Hanna would not speak of her son.

Willy, who had lived much longer than the doctors had predicted, had come down with pneumonia, and his poor body could no longer fight. If she had been there, if Hanna had been with her son, she was sure this would not have happened.

A letter from her sister in America found its way to her. Käthe wrote of Willy’s passing. She did not tell Hanna that it had been peaceful, and did not ease her pain by telling her he had not suffered. Isabella, Käthe said, was a bright little girl, doing well in school. The fact that her daughter’s letters had become less frequent during Hanna’s final days in Munich, and seemed very impersonal, told her that she had not only lost her little boy, she had also lost her daughter.

Hanna returned to her work, to her waiting.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

 

On the morning of November 10, 1938, Hanna had breakfast delivered to her room, as she was going early to the warehouse to prepare more art to be transferred to Schloss Niederschönhausen, and didn’t want to wait to eat in the dining room. The previous evening she had skipped dinner altogether, as she often did now. She had little appetite.

As she stepped out of the hotel, the air was filled with the unmistakable scent of smoke, and in the distance dark clouds rose.

Günter pulled up in the automobile.

“What is it?” she asked as he ran around to get the door for her.

“Let’s find out,” he replied with curiosity.

They followed the smoke, which Hanna soon realized was coming from more than one single location. Günter headed toward the nearest plume. The smoke thickened as they got closer, and people ran through the streets in obvious agitation. Sirens sounded in the distance, piercing the air with blistering color.

As they approached the building, Hanna recognized it as the charred remains of an old synagogue where she knew Jakob Kaufmann, Helene’s husband, had worshipped as a child. Hanna’s heart beat rapidly and then seemed to skip a beat. She felt a throbbing in the back of her neck as they continued slowly past the building. In the nearby cemetery she could see headstones had been shoved over and desecrated.

Günter rolled down the window and shouted to a young soldier on the street, “What is this?”

“You’ve heard about the assassination in Paris?”

Günter shook his head. The scent of fire and smoke intensified as it came in from the open window. Hanna could barely breathe.

“The Jews are murdering innocent Germans.” The man coughed.

“The Jews and their property must be destroyed,” another soldier shouted, raising a fist. A dog barked a deep blue and then another howled, and again the sirens shrieked.

Günter glanced back at Hanna, and she could see the sympathy in his eyes, and she felt for a moment it was for the Jews, not the Germans. They continued on slowly, passing more men, some in civilian clothes, others in uniform, running through the streets, shouting and waving at one another in a mad attempt to control the confusion. Some appeared to be directing and encouraging the chaos.

Hanna saw that buildings had been vandalized, glass broken out of the windows, shards scattered about in the streets. She could hear it crunch under the automobile tires.

They passed more young men shouting, throwing rocks, dashing into damaged buildings. Their car rolled by a scene of building after building, smoldering, vandalized, windows shattered. It all seemed to move in slow motion, as if it were not even real, but rather a morbid, gross dream from which Hanna would soon awaken.

They drove on through neighborhoods that Hanna knew were filled with Jewish businesses. Men were running out of the buildings, hands filled, larger items tucked under their arms, obviously looting. Günter attempted to turn down a side lane, but it, too, was filled with men dashing about, clogging the street. As they approached a familiar area of exclusive shops, Hanna held her hand to her mouth. She was going to be ill.

She needed to get out of here. She needed to escape.

She grabbed for the door handle, yanked, and gave it a shove. Her hand froze and a putrid stench rose up as she gazed down. The blackened remains of a person lay in the street. The scent of burning flesh.

The entire contents of her breakfast lurched violently from her stomach onto the ground, the car door, the car seat.

She looked up in horror to confirm what she already knew. The sign above the building, covered with black, might have been illegible to one who did not know. But Hanna knew. She knew it was the business of Jakob Kaufmann, jeweler.

She must have fainted. When she woke, Günter was fanning her with a piece of paper clutched in his large hand. His eyes were wide with horror. Moisture glistened on his brow.

Hanna glanced out the window, tinted with soot, and realized they were no longer in the area that had been torched and vandalized, that Günter had managed to get them out. The smell of her own vomit filled the car, though she could see the poor boy had attempted to clean it up.

“What happened?” she asked him.

“You must have fainted,” he said.

“No, I mean—”

“I’m sorry. I should not have taken you there.”

Hanna didn’t have words, but she knew the young man was correct. He should not have taken her there. His duties, as well as hers, were dictated by others. He had no permission to drive off his assigned course and route. He could be severely reprimanded by his superior for not taking her directly to the warehouse this morning.

For a long moment they stared at each other.

Finally, he said, “May I request that you not mention this to anyone?”

Another stretch of silence, and Hanna asked, “May I ask of you one favor?”

He nodded.

“The store, the jeweler’s shop. Kaufmann Jewelers. Will you inquire for me—the proprietor?”

Again, he nodded.

Over the next few days, in the dining hall, talk was of nothing other than what had transpired in Germany on the night of November ninth.

“Why should it take an incident such as this?” a thick man in military uniform told another sitting at his table. “This Jewish conspiracy against the Reich should have been put down long ago.”

“The Jews should have paid long before the assassination,” the man’s companion replied with a mouthful of food. “They must pay for what they have done.”

Hanna generally took her meals with her assistant, but could always hear the conversations going on around them. Sometimes she was invited to sit with others in the dining hall, which she found repulsive. Often she skipped meals altogether. But she realized this was the only place she could learn what was really going on in Germany.

The Nazi-controlled newspapers, which Hanna often found left behind in the dining room or in the lobby at the hotel, ran stories of a young Jewish man living in Paris. The man had gone to the German embassy to assassinate the ambassador. Finding the man had not yet arrived, he shot another official who died of his wounds two days later.

In retaliation, Jewish businesses and synagogues throughout Germany were torched. Cemeteries and schools were vandalized. Many Jews murdered. And this was all presented as if it were the logical, correct, just reaction.

From the guests, in bits and pieces of conversation, Hanna learned that the man was disturbed by the forced removal from Germany of all Jews of Polish citizenship. They had been arrested, their property seized. They were all sent back to Poland.

“They are Polish Jews. Not Germans,” one of the diners at the hotel complained. “We must make space for the true Germans.”

From his companion, as he gulped down a swallow of beer, Hanna heard, “Their own people don’t want them. The Poles have even refused these Jews.”

A third voice came in, as knife and fork noisily chopped away at a steak. “If Hitler thinks he can get rid of the Jews by forcing them to leave, he may have to reconsider. No one wants them. No one wants this pollution in their own country.”

Hanna guessed these Polish Jews were somewhere in limbo, waiting to get into Poland, unable to return to Germany.

Insurance payments to the Jews for the damages were confiscated by the state, and additional fines were imposed. All of this she learned from other guests at the Hotel Bellevue who were quite intent that the Jews must pay.

“Herr Goering insists that the Jews not get their hands on these insurance payments,” Hanna heard a man announce one day as he sat enjoying his dessert. “They’ve stirred up all this trouble and should not be rewarded for it.”

Hanna thought of her many encounters with Herr Goering as he examined and then selected the art as if he were a refined gentleman.

“He’s imposed a fine for all the damage. If it weren’t for the Jews’ greediness, none of this would have happened,” another replied. “It’s only fair that they be held accountable. If it means getting rid of the whole lot, so be it.”

Hanna and Günter exchanged looks, and she excused herself and went to her room. Could there be any doubt now of the dangers to the Jews in Hitler’s Germany? Was the rest of the world aware of what had happened?

Hanna lay on her bed shivering, praying that she might survive to go to her daughter.

She knew now that many Jews had been arrested and sent to Hitler’s camps after the night of November ninth, and feared that Jakob and Helene might be among them. Or were they dead?

The following day, Hanna’s assistant informed her, sadly, reluctantly, as they were driving to the warehouse, that he was able to obtain the information she had sought. Jakob Kaufmann was dead, killed in the riots of November 9.

A tear welled in Hanna’s eye, but she felt more rage than sadness. “His wife, Helene?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I must go to her.”

The young man nodded. “Tomorrow.”