Ashes (13 page)

“It is so nice to see a young face,” the countess said graciously as she nodded at me. Then with a twinkle in her bright blue eyes she continued, “And with a bit of a sunburned nose, I see. Have you been having a fun beach holiday?”

“Yes, madame.” I curtseyed as Baba had instructed. “At Caputh.”

“Ah, Caputh! Did you see my dear friend Professor Einstein there?”

“Yes, Madame, he lives next door.”

“Oh, how delightful, and who did you say this charming girl's parents are?” she said, turning to Baba.

“Her father is the astronomer Otto Schramm.”

“Ah yes, of course! Astronomer, not astrologer?”

“Astrologer?” I almost gasped.

“Yes, my dear.” She had a tinkly laugh. “Did you not hear that Herr Hitler employs one by the name of Hanussen? Yes, Jan Hanussen. Hitler's favorite prophet.” She lifted her chin sharply. “Ah, the empress!”

An imposing woman had just arrived. She wore a sash that ran diagonally over her shoulder and down the front of the bodice with several medallions and jewels. I tried to remember as many details of her dress as I could so I would be able to help Baba with her column. I understood exactly now why Baba and many others called her the Quotation Empress. No real empress would bother outside of court with all that imperial frosting.

“Your Highness,” the countess said loudly, “how good of you to attend my little gathering.” The countess, dressed chicly and simply in an elegant gown of chiffon with three strands of pearls, was an eloquent statement in contrast to the encrusted “empress.”

“Now, I have been told, Your Highness, that your sympathies are with the National Socialists. Is it true that His Majesty has made a donation to Herr Hitler's party?”

The Quotation Empress stood perfectly still. A deathly pallor turned her face as gray as my dress. She did not answer the countess's question, and it seemed as though an ominous silence descended upon the room. The countess finally broke the long silence. “Oh, do have some champagne. I think it's awfully good. Veuve Clicquot, of course!”

Almost immediately waiters appeared with new trays of filled champagne flutes. There was the clink of glasses as guests wished one another well and a cheerful fizz of talk as conversations were resumed.

 

 

The next afternoon found us first at a luncheon and then at a tea at the Adlon Hotel, Berlin's fanciest. Baba knew all the people there, starting with the doormen, then the concierge, the waiters, and of course the manager. I felt quite stylish in my blue gored dress. I had removed the jacket after the luncheon as Baba had suggested.

“
Guten Tag
, Frau Blumenthal,” they all said as we passed by.

“My God, has this place turned into the Kaiserhof, or what?” Baba muttered. The Kaiserhof was the official Nazi hotel where Hitler always stayed when he was in Berlin. The brown sea of SA men milling about in the enormous lobby of the Adlon Hotel was punctuated by the black uniforms of the SS officers. Many seemed to be sporting a little smudge of a mustache in the style of Hitler. Some called it the toothbrush mustache, for it was no bigger than the clump of bristles used for brushing one's teeth.

“Oh dear, that dreadful man!” Baba whispered. An officer was making his way toward her. He stopped right in front of her and bowed. “Count Helldorf, what a surprise,” she said, attempting levity. Perhaps I was the only one who detected a slight strain in her voice.

“Ah, no surprise, madame. I'm here for the tea. Yes, and my wife's over there.” He nodded. “She is wearing a Worth gown, direct from Paris.”

“Ah! How elegant!” Baba exclaimed. “There is nothing like French couture, particularly Worth. So goes our watch on the Rhine!”

I nearly gasped. What in the world had Baba just said? Was this a joke she was making? A very dangerous one, if it was.

“Are you suggesting, madame, that my wife is less than patriotic because she crosses the Rhine to buy French couture?” He turned around to the few people who were standing nearby and had overheard this exchange. “Don't tell me that now the Versailles treaty forbids not only arms but fashion.”

“I am not suggesting any such thing at all, dear Count, but rather that in matters of fashion there are no borders. It only requires taste, sense of style, and well, of course, money. Now, let me alert the photographer from my newspaper that a picture must be taken of your wife and I shall get the details of the dress from her myself. It's silk faille, I believe.”

The count chuckled now. “Oh, that is woman's business. I wouldn't know such things. Please go ask her.”

Baba whisked me away as I marveled how she had averted what could have been a real disaster. Her fingers dug into my arm.

“Idiot,” she murmured. “All of them. These Nazis, they worm their way into everything.” She had lowered her voice and was whispering behind the small notebook she carried. “According to my sources, who shall go unnamed, Helldorf is one of the worst. He's responsible for all sorts of Jew baiting. I'll bet you anything he was behind those two SA in front of Wertheims.”

Baba stopped as we made our way to a bay in the lobby, where a long table had been set up with several immense silver tea urns and tiered platters of pastries. Several people, including many SA and SS officers, were gathered around the table balancing teacups on saucers with petit fours.

“Look at them all. And to think six months ago when they were banned they didn't dare wear their uniforms in public. Now they're a virtual sea of brown and black, and their ladies all decked out, most of them atrociously except the few who crossed the Rhine into France for French couture!”

Countess Helldorf approached us, and Baba put a big smile on her face.

“Ah, Countess Helldorf. This is not Charles Worth but . . .” Baba was scanning the countess up and down with admiring eyes.

“No. House of Lanvin. Whoever said it was Charles Worth?”

“Your darling husband. But what do husbands know?” Baba laughed gaily. “I must get your picture.” Baba turned. “Fritz! Fritzi, over here.” She waved to a man who carried a Leica camera with a coiled wire attached to a folding fan flash.

“Ah, look happy!” Fritzi said to us. “Say
Zweibeln
.”
Zweibeln
—onions? But it did make one's mouth stretch into a smile. So we all laughed and the flash fired and a galaxy of light burst in front of me. For a few seconds there were no Brown Shirts, no black-clad SS. Just white exploding light. It was as if the sky was falling down.

We see men living with their skulls blown open; we see soldiers run with their two feet cut off. . . . We see men without mouths, without jaws, without faces. . . .

-Erich Maria Remarque,
All Quiet on the Western Front

 

 

 

 

“
I
s the ‘E' right side up or upside down?” “Upside down I think.” “All right, now tell me the lowest line on the chart you can read?”

“F-E-L-O-P-Z-D.”

“And now is that sharper or not?”

I was at the ophthalmologist's office, Dr. Feininger 's. He was Papa's eye doctor, too.

“Well, my dear, the good news is that you are not nearly as nearsighted as your papa, but he seems to do pretty well even so with his stargazing. However, you do need to wear spectacles for reading, especially in school for seeing the blackboard. So now you get to do the fun part and pick out a pair of frames. My assistant will help you.”

It wasn't that much fun, for the selection was very limited. I could have spectacles with no frames, just the glass lenses. Or I could have ones with silver, gold, or black thin wire frames. The shape could be round or rectangular. Rosa had come along to help me decide. She loved my haircut and of course had come up with the perfect fashion touch.

“You must wear scarves around your neck. Scarves will set off the shape of your head with this new hairdo. Very chic!”

I had protested that it was too hot to wear a scarf. But Rosa shut her eyes tightly as if she had delivered this lecture a thousand times. “On occasion one has to suffer for beauty. What's a little heat?”

All I could think of was the famous dancer Isadora Dun-can, who a few short years back had died when her long flowing scarf was caught in the wheel of an automobile. That was suffering. It was a story that had entranced Ulla, and since I was always captivated by anything my older sister was interested in, I started reading all the news stories about her too. It had all the elements of drama and tragedy that engaged us. But it was a high price to pay for glamour.

Rosa and I looked at the spectacles in the case. “There would be more of a selection,” I whispered, “if I were missing an eye.” The case next to the one with the spectacles contained a huge variety of glass eyes. It was well known that Dr. Feininger carried the best glass eyes in the city. After the Great War it was said that nearly one-fifth of the returning soldiers were amputees or had lost some body part: arms, legs, and eyes. Yes, many had lost eyes. One saw these maimed veterans of the war in the streets all the time. In Dr. Feininger's window he still had a sign, now almost fifteen years after the war ended, that announced that he provided reduced rates and easy, no-interest payment plans for war veterans.

The assistant came out and I began trying on different frames. It was a lot easier than choosing my two new dresses. I settled on black wire frames with round lenses.

“You don't think I look too owlish?” I asked Rosa.

“No. Not at all. Intelligent but not birdlike.
Très chic
.”

The spectacles would be ready by the time school started. We had just walked out the door when Rosa screamed, “Watch it!”

A splatter of red paint accidentally hit her legs. Two thuggish looking young boys were crouched by the curb. They laughed and took their paint can and started running. On the wall of the building they had painted a swastika.

We knew about the painting squads, gangs of rough-necks who went out at night defacing Jewish businesses and public buildings with swastikas and signs that screamed WE WANT HITLER or HEIL HITLER. But I had never heard of them doing this in the day.

“In broad daylight!” I exclaimed. “I can't believe it.”

“Why not?” said a woman walking by with her schnauzer on a leash. “He's a Jew doctor.”

Rosa and I turned and looked at each other in dismay. The boys were thugs, but this lady was well dressed. She wore a hat with a veil and white gloves. She could have been my mother or Rosa's, out to meet a friend for lunch at Ciro's. It seemed like she should know better, but beneath those nice clothes I felt she was as thuggish as the boys. Once again I thought of Hertha rolling out that pie crust so calmly while the radio blared the news about the destruction of the synagogue. How many Herthas are out there, and how many well-dressed ladies who would never think of leaving their houses without their gloves and veiled hats, but who think that with Hitler there might be a chance? Or, as Hessie said, how many are tired of being losers, feeling shamed by the Treaty of Versailles, and desperately need someone to blame—Jews! How easy.

 

 

On the way back to Rosa's apartment we stopped at mine so I could pick up some books Mama wanted me to bring to Caputh. I told Rosa I would find some turpentine to get the paint off her leg.

As we approached our building I suddenly remembered that I would have to see our concierge, Herr Himmel—“Mr. Hell.”

I had hardly reached the front stoop of our building when he slithered out. “Ah Fräulein Gabrielle—back from summer holiday so soon.”

“No, Herr Himmel, I'm just here to pick something up. I am going right back to Caputh.” I didn't feel he merited the details of my staying with Rosa. But of course, how could I not have anticipated he would want to share some gossipy details with me?

“Well, I guess you're too young to keep an eye on that sister of yours. Not that it would do any good.”

One eyebrow hitched up, and his eyes slid down and to one side in a suspicious glance. The left eye seemed to crowd even closer to that vertical ridge of his anvil face. But there was something different about his appearance.

“Ah!” His eyes were suddenly merry. “You noticed!” He touched the bristly smudge under his nose, the toothbrush-shaped mustache just like Hitler 's. And just like those men at the tea Baba had taken me to.

“Noticed what?” I said, and rushed through the door.

 

 

“I don't think your sister has spent an hour here all summer.” Rosa stood in the middle of the living room and looked about. There was indeed a strangeness as we entered the apartment. Even though Ulla was living there, Mama had covered much of the furniture in the parlor and the music room with summer drapery cloths to protect it from dust and sun. It was as if the air itself had not stirred since the day we all left.

“Didn't she ever open a shade or a curtain?” I whispered. The entire apartment was swallowed in a dim half light. The whole reason Mama had put on the covers was so Ulla would be able to open the shades. I didn't understand. I went into the music room. Ulla's violin case was on a table covered with a thick layer of dust. I ran a finger over it, making a trail across the top. She couldn't have opened it or practiced once all summer.
So much for Vienna
, I thought. Her audition for the conservatory would be coming up in the fall. If she didn't practice, I didn't know how she would get accepted.