Martin turned away, pressing himself up against the wall. He followed his steps back to the street and made his way to where he’d left the auto. A 1936 Opel “Super Six” convertible roadster, it sat under a streetlight, its hood and long-sweeping fenders spotted with the evening’s dew.
Dieter was leaning against it, waiting.
“How did you know this was mine?” Martin asked as he approached.
“I didn’t. I thought, since you said you had an Opel, who else could possibly be driving something like this?”
“So you concluded it was mine?”
“I hoped it was,” he smiled, and Martin thought he saw the shadow of a dimple caught up in the streetlight. He wondered how he’d not seen that before.
“So what was all that about?” he asked.
“What?”
“Are you a National Socialist, or is that just your idea of a fun night? Because it’s not mine,” Martin said, opening the door and sitting down.
“I’m not a National Socialist, I just don’t like Jews. You don’t have to be a Party member to not like the Jews,” Dieter said, opening the passenger door and sitting down beside him. “Nice,” he said, looking at the interior.
“Thanks. But I’m not that man,” Martin said softly. “Beck feels the same way you do about the Jews. Calls them a waste of air and blames them for everything that’s wrong in the world today. He says the whole world hates Jews, that’s why no country’s willing to take them in.”
“He’s not wrong.”
Martin turned to look at him.
“Let me at least take you home,” he said.
“So that’s it, then? I’ve frightened you away? I promise you, I’m not like that.”
“Like what?”
“A violent man.”
“No? I just saw you kicking a man in the street, and you’re telling me that’s not violent?”
“He was a Jew.”
“So, that makes him not a man?”
“No. It makes him a Jew,” he smiled. “There isn’t more than a handful of people in this country who tolerate the Jews, and I happen to find one.”
“Am I supposed to feel bad about that?”
“I don’t think it’s up to me to try and change your outlook. Maybe you need to rethink things?”
“Has the whole world gone mad?” Martin said softly. “You think I need to change my outlook, is that it? And because I believe in the Christian tenet of ‘Love thy neighbour,’ I’m the one found to be wanting? Don’t you think there’s not something fundamentally wrong with that? Are you listening to what you just said? Let me take you home.” He turned the engine over, listening to the vibrant purr of the motor, smiling. He looked at Dieter as he pulled the door closed.
“Where to?” Martin asked.
“Kurfürstendamm.”
“Near the train station?”
“Behind it, actually. Closer to Fasenenstrasse.”
“Really?”
“Are you shocked?”
“A little. I suppose you do know that you live near the Jewish Quarter? Nah. Why would I be shocked?” Martin laughed.
“It wasn’t someplace I chose,” he said. “It’s an apartment.”
“I might understand that better than you think I do.”
“Oh? And why’s that?”
“Well, when Hitler and his cronies came to power, the first thing they did was pass the Enabling Act. After that, it was just a short step to the Nuremberg Laws.”
“It’s part of the promise he made to get rid of the Jews.”
“You mean a good excuse to take away their properties. So who owns it?”
“I’m taking care of it for a friend of mine.”
“A friend?”
“An old lover, then. He’s a doctor, hiding behind his wife’s skirt, and his children. Does that shock you?” Dieter laughed.
They made their way through wide boulevards and narrow streets that were brightly lit with the soft light of street lamps and storefronts windows. On display, female mannequins were dressed in the latest fashions, each of them dripping with jewels and seated on new furniture; there were restaurants, and coffee shops, as well as beer halls, and book stores. The streets were crowded—overcrowded, Martin thought—as people on the sidewalks looked furtively behind them, as though they were intent on escaping some great calamity. The women were clutching their purses tight, the men with them were holding their arms and leading them through the crowded streets.
“Is it always this busy here?”
“Not normally, no. You can park over there,” Dieter said, pointing to a dark shadow that proved to be an empty lot.
Martin shut the motor down and looked out at the streets. He rolled the window down and his breath fogged around his face as he pulled a cigarette out of the loose package he had in his breast pocket. He found his lighter in another pocket.
He offered a cigarette to Dieter.
The lighter lit up the inside of the Opel and both men sat back for a moment, listening to the sibilant sounds of the auto as it hissed in the night. Martin could hear voices coming from the street. There was the noise of breaking glass somewhere in the distance—a window by the sound of things—and he could sense the panic as the people on the street and sidewalks began moving at a faster pace, looking over their shoulders with quick, nervous, glances.
Martin thought he saw the glow of a fire somewhere in the distance, and then the sound of more breaking glass. For a moment, he thought the rich cacophony of shattering glass was getting closer. The people on the streets were anxious to get away, some of them darting through the shadows and alleys—only to come out again in a mad panic.
And then he heard it, the singing, raucous, voices; there were screams and shouts of anger, of pain, and fear. There was more shattering glass as store fronts exploded a block away. He looked at Dieter.
“Maybe we should leave?” he said, and turned to key the ignition switch.
“It might be better to go inside,” Dieter said, looking up the street.
There was a mob of Brownshirts coming up the alley singing at the top of their lungs, the end of the chorus concluding with the breaking off glass windows. Another group was coming from behind. There were more windows being smashed. Martin watched a man running the length of the alleyway being chased by a mad scattering of men throwing broken chunks of cement and bricks, as well as large, decorative rocks. Some of the shards of stone struck the man, the ones that missed smashed into sheets of plate glass, shattering them.
“You’ll never get through that mob. We have to leave. Now!” Dieter said, and opening the door, made a mad dash for the apartment building behind them.
“Come on!”
Martin took the key out of the ignition and ran toward the building where Dieter stood holding the door open, fastening it closed behind him. Together, they dragged a small couch across the lobby, jamming it in front of the door. Martin crossed the room to switch the light off.
It was a newer building, the decor was modern. Dieter stood in the shadows behind the glass doors, watching as both groups of Brownshirts converged in the middle of the tiny square. Martin stood across from him, watching a man throw a can of paint across the front door of a small kosher diner. Someone smashed the front window and a great cheer went up from the crowd.
A truck arrived and three men jumped out of the back as the truck stopped in the small square. Another man in the back of the truck threw out handful after handful of books and scrolls while another poured gasoline on the pile and the books exploded into flames. The pile seemed to grow as more and more people smashed windows and took whatever they could burn and threw it on the pile.
“We can’t stay here,” Dieter said. “It’s only a matter of time before they smash the windows and drag us out.”
“Why?”
“Those are Jewish shops they’re tearing apart. Jews used to live in this building. We’ll be safer up in my apartment where we can barricade the door and lock ourselves in,” he said, turning away from the madness.
THE TRUTH OF WHO WE ARE