Jacob's Oath (11 page)

NINE

Heidelberg,
May 8, 1945

The same day, across the Neckar, Jacob jumped off the U.S. army pontoon and scrambled
up the slippery stone bank to the main arch of the Old Bridge. A knot of “Amis,” one
of the kinder nicknames for the American troops, stood smoking by a group of German
men who were pulling bricks and rubble out of the river, debris from the three arches
blown up by the Wehrmacht at the end of March when they surrendered the town without
a fight.

Jacob hesitated at the cobbled entrance to Steingasse, which led from the historic
bridge to the even more historic market square. To his right and left U.S. army jeeps
lined the Neckarstaden along the river. Drivers sat in each jeep while soldiers milled
around, enjoying the sunny day, snapping photos, whistling at the girls. Germans walked
by as if nothing had ever happened. The hangdog faces of the refugees on the road
and the misery of the homeless in the ruined towns were replaced here by what looked
to be well-fed, well-dressed citizens untouched by war. They strolled in jackets and
ties. Take away the Americans and it seemed as if nothing had changed. The waiter
at Café zum Nepomuk on the corner even wore the same pressed black trousers and starched
white shirt. Jacob stared at his salt-and-pepper sideburns and extravagant mustache;
he might even be the same man. Jacob peered at the Germans walking by, almost expecting
to see the swastika lapel pins and to hear their Heil Hitler salutations. Instead,
they wore a different lapel pin: Red Cross.

He understood immediately. The burghers of Heidelberg had switched sides. Now it would
be hard to find a man who had ever been a Nazi. They had all been Red Cross workers.

He suddenly swayed. He sat down heavily on a pile of debris, sending a cloud of plaster
flakes into the air. An American soldier pointed with his gun: move on. He tottered
to a café chair, feeling giddy, as if he might faint. Don’t tell me I’m sick, he thought.
He heard a voice. “What may I offer you, sir?” He looked up, through a haze, and opened
his mouth but nothing came out. Jacob gestured with the flat of his hand: just a moment.
He hung his head between his knees, breathing deeply and slowly, trying to collect
himself.

Five hundred and fifty kilometers, he thought, in what? Two weeks? And now he couldn’t
walk the last five hundred meters.

Loneliness enveloped him, made him faint with worry. He had longed for this for years,
every prisoner he had ever met had yearned for home. Alone among them, he had made
it. And now what? What home? It hit him: I have nobody. If I was a German soldier,
he thought, I’d have a mother and a father waiting for me, a warm home to go to, food
on the table. Tears of joy, hugs and kisses.

And me? Nobody and nothing. Don’t even know where to go.

He sucked in air and pushed himself up from the table, which rattled on the uneven
cobbled ground. He looked around at the oblivious passersby, waiting for his dizziness
to pass. The waiter was observing him with distaste. Jacob tried to smile, made a
small dismissive gesture with his hand, and stepped away, with a heavy heart, down
the narrow Steingasse, where soldiers sat in the sun, where the Konditorei display
window was piled high with fresh loaves and buns and even a tiered wedding cake. He
paused at the open door to watch a woman inside filling her shopping bag. He breathed
in the sweet aroma of freshly baked bread and felt his mouth water. What would I give
for a bun?

As he turned, a plan began to take shape. First he would go to Marktplatz 7, the Judenhaus
where his family had been forced to live in one room after the Nazis had confiscated
their home. Nine Jewish families shared eleven rooms. At first it hadn’t seemed too
bad, living right on the market square, only a few streets from his stolen home on
Dreikönigstrasse. But it also meant that there was always a crowd outside, and in
every crowd there was some dolt who would shout or jeer or throw stones at the Jews,
especially on market days, and it was worst of all on Sundays, when the burghers came
to pray at the neighboring Church of the Holy Spirit.

He’d see who lived there now, maybe he would recognize somebody, and then go to his
real home. Dr. Berger had had the decency to look embarrassed when the Nazis had given
him their home. Not so embarrassed, however, as to refuse it. Whenever his father
had wanted to sit in the parlor, for old times’ sake, to remember the baking smells
of his childhood in the small rooms and the dark stairs, to hear the laughter of his
parents, even to summon up the spirit of his late wife, the doctor had been gracious
and polite, almost apologetic. He didn’t need to be. Most Nazis would have kicked
his father out and maybe beaten him, or more likely, would have cursed him at the
door and called the police.

As he turned left behind the church, Jacob found the market square crowded with more
sellers than buyers. Amis in uniform browsed at stalls that sold church trinkets of
no value. What they wanted were Leica cameras, gold and jewelry cheap at black market
prices. He stared at everyone, searching in vain for the comfort of a familiar face.
He noticed a small American flag flying from a jeep outside a side entrance to the
church. Two soldiers stood on either side, and another Willys with more soldiers was
parked ten meters away, providing cover. A crowd of refugees in rags waited silently
in line. Good job I requisitioned these clothes, he thought, or I’d look just like
them. He walked over to see what was up.

Behind a heavy wooden table in the high-ceilinged room a U.S. army officer was speaking
to each refugee individually, through an interpreter. They were holding mugs with
drinks. Jacob couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but it gave him an idea.
This time he joined the back of the line.

As he neared the front, Jacob noticed the small crosses on the officer’s jacket lapels
and on his cap. A good sign. His job was to help. Jacob’s hopes rose. He greeted the
chaplain in English with a rehearsed question: “Good afternoon, sir,” Jacob said in
his best accent, “I have just arrived in town and I wonder whether you could advise
me how to find accommodation. Nazis have stolen my home.” As he expected, this prompted
a flood of questions and Jacob gave the barest outline of his story. The chaplain,
a bullnecked man with tight cropped hair who looked more like an infantry sergeant
than a man of God, listened with growing horror and sympathy, but what Jacob didn’t
expect was his response. Basically: Get lost.

“Nothing we can do about it, not yet anyway,” the chaplain said. “The only government
here is military, and there’s no regulation about Jews getting back their property.
We just don’t have the power yet. And there’s no mechanism for you to sue to get it
back either. You can ask at the mayor’s office, maybe. But don’t hold your breath.
Frankly he’s an old Nazi, nothing we can do about that yet either. We will, trust
me, but not yet. Other things to worry about.”

No, he couldn’t help with an ID card. That’s the local police. No, he couldn’t help
with a ration card. You only get it with an ID card. No, couldn’t help with transport.
“Look, I’ve got Jewish blood myself, believe it or not,” the chaplain said. “I want
to help. But I can’t. So far, absent any new regulations, Jews are treated like any
other Germans. I’m sure that will change. It has to. We know what you’ve been through.
But until we get new orders, that’s the way it is. I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

Jacob thought of one more thing. “Sorry,” the chaplain said. “We don’t use native
translators. Can’t trust Germans. Don’t take it personally.”

Jacob forced a smile and thanked the chaplain, said he hoped to meet him again, and
left, cursing him under his breath. If the Amis didn’t help him, nobody would. Outside,
Jacob recognized somebody at last, the postman. He looked the same, his big head on
narrow shoulders, that same silly long mustache with vain twirls at the ends as if
he were some kind of Hapsburg aristocrat, carrying his bag over one shoulder, hurrying
as usual, except when it came to the Jews. He had refused to deliver mail to the Jews’
House. They had to collect it themselves from the post office. He always made them
come back at least three times for each letter. Too busy. Lunchtime. Teatime. Jacob
stared at the postman’s jacket as he passed and laughed to himself. Yes. In his lapel
was a Red Cross pin.

A thought came to Jacob. He should have left his name and address with the chaplain
in case the rules changed. But anyway, he didn’t have an address. All he had was his
name, and the chaplain hadn’t asked.

He stood outside the Jews’ House, which looked like any of the others, tall and narrow
with pots of flowers on either side of the entrance door, clothes drying on the railings
and a line of grimy yellow plaster cracking where the terraced house joined its neighbor.
They still hadn’t fixed it, he thought. Pity it wasn’t bombed.

The door opened and a lady pushed a pram into the street. She wore a green-and-red
dirndl dress and a hat with a flower. He snorted. Didn’t look very Jewish. He had
no interest in the house. He wanted to go home.

He walked past the fish market and along Unterestrasse. The streets were crowded,
but with strangers. Probably refugees from Mannheim. He was happy to see that the
café where he used to read the Sunday papers, until Jews were banned, was boarded
up. He walked on and three minutes later reached the corner of Dreikönigstrasse.

He looked down the cobbled street, barely four meters wide, with narrow terraced houses
in each other’s shade. They had all lived so close they could smell each other’s cooking,
hear each other fighting, almost touch each other through the windows. He’d played
in this street, and it got bad only when he was about thirteen, when the Nazis took
over. He remembered the celebrations when Adolf Hitler, who had been chancellor only
a few months, was made an honorary citizen of Heidelberg. There were swastikas hanging
across the alley and flowers and street parties. It didn’t take long for the cursing
to begin. “Jews Out” quickly turned into “Kill the Jews,” and then—well—then they
were rounded up like cattle and that was it.

What happened, happened.

Has anybody else come back?

At number 9, the curtains were drawn but he sensed movement. He looked around and
saw a head pull back from the window in the house opposite, where the Kohns used to
live. Two Amis strolled by, taking photos of the picturesque former Jewish quarter.

He sighed as deeply as he ever had, steeling himself. This was it. He’d walked five
hundred and fifty kilometers to come home. Could Papi be here? Ruth? He took the lion’s-head
knocker, paused as his heart thumped, rapped twice, and stepped back.

Is Papi home? Is he even now bustling to answer the door? His prayers answered too,
his son here in one piece? As Jacob waited tensely at the door he knew: I can hope,
but this is the end of my dreams.

His father was a tailor and had lived well on a small devoted clientele of wealthy
people who appreciated his perfectionist stitching and especially his eye for fashion,
a strange quality given that haute couture, at its height in Paris and Berlin, was
a world away from the isolated Jewish quarter of Heidelberg. But he worked from the
latest designs mailed to him by contacts in the trade. In retrospect, it had occurred
to Jacob as he walked, there probably hadn’t been much demand for high fashion among
the professors and lawyers who frequented his father’s little workshop. Anyway, they
soon stopped coming to the Jew.

He glanced over his shoulder and caught another light movement at the window opposite.
As he wondered who lived there now, and what had happened to the Kohns and Gustav,
their nuisance little son, the door opened.

It was Schmutzig, grown up. The Bergers’ boy, he must have been twelve or thirteen,
eighteen or so now, with the same blank face. For a moment Jacob was lost for words.
He hadn’t really expected his father anyway. It was just a fantasy. He couldn’t remember
his real name so he said, “Hello, Schmutzig.” Dirty—because the boy was always dirty.
Now he looked well scrubbed. Plump even.

“Remember me?” Would he? He hadn’t shaved since Hanover.

Schmutzig’s mouth was open. He’d always been a bit slow. It took him a moment to close
it.

It came back to Jacob. When the Jews here had been rounded up, they had waited in
the Heumarkt at the top of Grosse Mantelgasse, next to the Weisser Bock restaurant.
The tables outside were crowded, even though it was a cold October day, and their
neighbors had laughed and toasted each other as the Jews shivered with fear. Jacob
remembered because at the time a gang of young boys on the edges threw stones at the
Jews until the waiter told them to stop. Schmutzig was one of them.

Schmutzig swallowed and said, “I thought you were all dead.”

“Apparently not.”

Schmutzig stepped into the street and gestured with his hand. “You’re the only one
here.”

He heard Frau Berger call, “Who is it?”

Schmutzig didn’t answer; he wasn’t sure how to put it. Jacob waited.

She came to the door, took one look at Jacob, and shouted, “Oh, my God. He’s alive,”
before covering her mouth with her hand.

The lady opposite shed all pretense. She stood at the open window.

“They told us you were all dead,” Frau Berger shouted. “Willi, Willi,” she called.

He heard careful footsteps down the staircase and the voice of Dr. Berger calling,
“Ein Moment,” and then he was at the door. He took in the little group of people gathered
stiffly on the doorstep; his eyes lingered on Jacob and widened. “Ach, Du liebe Gott,”
he said.

He stepped forward with his arms raised and Jacob flinched.

“Dear boy,” Dr. Berger said, throwing his arms around Jacob. He noticed the neighbor
at her window staring wide-eyed at the commotion outside, and put his arm in the small
of Jacob’s back. “But come in, come in, where have you come from? Ilse, make some
tea, or would you like coffee? Come in, come in,” and he propelled Jacob through the
door and into the drawing room that faced onto the street.