The Day the Flowers Died (27 page)

The rituals had become like second nature to Rebecca and she
even remembered many of the colloquial expressions and Hebrew words
used during the feast.  Many of Eli’s other relatives arrived
for this feast, contributing to the food and drink.  Outside
the house, the country crumbled under a façade of righteous
persecution.  But inside the Levin home, familial tenderness
shrouded each child and each adult, making this country still feel
like home.

Wednesday, May 10, 1933

“All the authors that we had treasured — and of course still do
treasure — were suddenly supposed to be valueless.” Elfrieda
Bruenning, aged 93.

Rosalyn and Robert stood on the outskirts of a fire blazing into
the once quiet evening German sky.  Oxcarts crammed with
forbidden books traversed throughout the German streets to various
bonfires for destruction. University students, considered some of
the finest in the world and once well studied in a variety of
intellectual persuasions, plundered unwanted books and threw them
into bonfires to the ominous sounds of Nazi music.

They poured gasoline over the books, torched them and watched
them go up into smoke.  Bands and parades marched and their
sounds permeated cities across Germany.  The music surrounded
the crackling fires. Students took oaths and sang Nazi songs,
declaring their disregard of unGerman ideas.  Freud, Einstein,
Thomas Mann, Jack London, H.G.  Wells, and many others went up
in flames to Nazi anthems and salutes.

Fires burned January evening on torches of Germans parading at
the announcement of Hitler’s chancellorship. Fire burned the
Reichstag down in February.  Now fire destroyed ideas and
words in May.

Towards the end of the book burning, Rosalyn and Robert heard
Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister for Public enlightenment and
Propaganda, speak at the bonfire in Berlin.  “German men and
women! The age of arrogant Jewish intellectualism is now at an end!
You are doing the right thing at this midnight hour — to consign to
the flames the unclean spirit of the past.  This is a great,
powerful, and symbolic act. Out of these ashes the phoenix of a new
age will arise…Oh Century! Oh Science! It is a joy to be
alive!”

Rosalyn grabbed Robert’s hand and pulled him back when he
attempted to make his way to the bonfire.

Robert turned his head to her and tilted left in a weakness he
had for her desires.  “I have to try to save some books,” he
whispered.

She held his gaze for a moment and then let him go.  Robert
tunneled through the crowds until he pushed his way to the
fire.  He pulled the book of poems by Heine Henrich out of one
student’s hands and brushed off the ash.  The blond, young
student stood firm in his perverted ideals and, with a strained
grimace, lunged forward at Robert and knocked into his
shoulder.

“Give back the book!” the student said.

“No!” Robert pulled the book of poetry to his chest like he was
protecting a wounded bird. The student lunged forward again,
grasping for the book but, in Robert’s retreat backward, only
grabbed air.  A few other students noticed the scuffle and
joined their peer’s efforts to retrieve the book for burning.

Robert surveyed the area and saw four students stare at him with
eager intent to harm. Seconds stood still and then Robert twisted
around in Rosalyn’s direction, pushing and clawing his way out of
the maddening crowd.

The four students followed Robert and shouted, “Get him! Get
him!” Their jaws clenched and they hissed their words like an
animal about to kill its prey.

Rosalyn stretched her arm toward Robert as he stumbled forward
onto the street.  He grabbed hold of her hand which pulled him
away from the chaos. They raced down the dark street full of
exuberant Nazis, and the students followed. A few street lights and
Nazi torches carried by the marching parade broke the night. The
crooked red crosses glimmered under the burning light and the wave
of Nazis and German citizens flooding the roads washed over
them.  Robert grabbed hold of Rosalyn’s arm, clinging to her
dark wool jacket, and pulled her into an alley.

“Stay quiet.” Robert held her close. The four students plowed
through the parade, pushing forward until they stopped on the
street.  The sounds of the band’s Nazi anthems pervaded the
roads until they turned the corner and left the street in
silence.  Robert watched them before retreating further into
the alley and ushered Rosalyn inside an open door.

The dark room smelled musty. Robert clicked the door shut and
locked it. He clutched a table and squatted next to Rosalyn, then
brushed his hands over the saved book.  From the moonlight
seeping through the cracks in the door, he admired its simple
cover.

Rosalyn stared into Robert’s eyes and pushed herself closer to
him.  His fingers caressed her blonde hair pinned up in a pony
tail and he then returned his attention to the book.  This
quiet moment between the two of them and a forbidden book reminded
them of the many clandestine meetings of children and adults
gathering to read their favorite banned authors, many reprimanded
when caught by Hitler’s youth leaders.

“I think they’re gone,” Rosalyn whispered.  Robert peeked
out of the crack in the door and eased it opened, noticing the
streets had become more silent and still.

“Let’s get going,” he said with uncertain anxiety. He grabbed
Rosalyn’s hand and helped pull her to her feet.  The two of
them walked out through the alley and returned to their car parked
a few blocks from the bonfire.

* * *

Sunday morning found Rebecca up early in the kitchen, preparing
a basket of food.  She wanted to go on a picnic at the lake
Eli had taken her to for Valentine’s Day.  Eli awoke to the
sounds of her dressing and watched her lace her legs with nylon and
clad her breasts with a silk blouse and pale blue skirt.

“What are you doing up so early on Sunday?” Eli squinted his
eyes and yawned, struggling to cover his mouth with his hand
currently nestled under his leg.

“We’re going on a trip to the lake.  I’m in the mood for
swimming.” Rebecca braided her long hair.

“We are, huh?” Eli leapt out from under the sheets and ambled to
the bathroom.  “Then I’d better get ready.” The sounds of the
falling water complimented the sounds of the tea pouring into two
cups by Rebecca’s hand.  She shouted to him from the kitchen
area, “I’ve put your swimming trunks in the basket with my swimming
garb and two extra towels.”

“Thank you, my dearest Rebecca.”

“Hurry up.  I want to get there early,” Rebecca scolded as
she put the homemade sandwiches into the basket. Eli appeared in
the kitchen and picked the basket up from the counter.

“Well, let’s get going then.” They walked down the steps to
Rebecca’s car which Eli drove whenever they went anywhere
together.  Rebecca did not enjoy the stress of the road.

Eli found it a pleasure to sooth her concerns and provide a
state of comfort for her if only temporary. Rebecca relaxed while
Eli chauffeured her to the lake.  Eli pulled into the park and
situated his car next to one other car in the lot.

The park was quiet and the early morning air fresh. Eli and
Rebecca changed in the changing rooms marked for women on one side
and men on the other.  Eli left the room first and then
Rebecca met him out in front by the lake.  The short grass
softened against their feet.  The turquoise water glistened
under the morning sun and shimmered with little waves washing up to
the shoreline and over the white, brown sand resting just outside
the border of the short blades of grass and sun capped shrubs.

A distant couple snuggled in the water.  They twirled
together before swimming side by side further off.  Eli drew
Rebecca to him with a tug of her hand and they splashed as they
dove into the water in unison.  Blue jays chirped in trees and
sometimes as they flew over the lake.  Wind rustled branches
and leaves.  Clouds hid the intensity of the sun and provided
a welcomed shade.

They swirled together arm in arm in the blissful freedom of the
water and, on occasion, Rebecca splashed Eli’s face with a kick of
her foot or childlike movement of her hand.  Eli dove
underneath, disappearing and Rebecca swarmed around the lake
looking for him.  He popped up next to her and grabbed her
shoulder.  She screamed and then splashed Eli’s face again in
retribution.

As the afternoon approached, more cars piled into the park’s lot
and the lake soon filled with children and adults playing beach
ball, Marco-Polo, and wading in the water or relaxing on the park
grass.  The distant couple whom Eli noticed earlier vanished
and so did the quiet stillness.  Two young ladies swam past
Rebecca and Eli, their long blonde hair pulled tight into pony
tails.

They glared at Eli as they swam and then returned to the shore
where two young short blond haired men helped to towel dry
them.  Eli noticed one of the young ladies pointing in his
direction and his lips tightened.  One of the young men sped
to a lifeguard and the discourse lasted a few minutes before the
lifeguard hastened to the edge of the lake and called out to
Eli.

He gestured with his hands and said, “You need to come out of
the water, young man.”

Rebecca turned her head to Eli.  “Is he talking to
you?”

“You need to come out now,” the lifeguard demanded.

Eli complied and swam to the shore.  Rebecca followed
closely behind him.  Pulling himself out of the water, he
walked over to the lifeguard and asked, “What’s the problem?” Eli’s
smile curled down in reluctance.

“No Jews aloud.  You need to vacate the area.”

Rebecca’s mouth gaped and her disposition became agitated. 
“You can’t do this!  He has a right to swim here.”

“The Nazis have made it clear he has no such right and, unless
you want to talk to the SA about this, I would prepare to leave,
Miss.” The lifeguard spoke with military rigidness. His short
trimmed, blond hair and blue eyes told Eli he was one of Hitler’s
Youth and Eli yanked Rebecca back.

“It’s fine.  We were just leaving.” Eli placed his hand on
the small of Rebecca’s back and pushed her in the direction of the
car.  He lifted the basket of food and towels from the picnic
table and wrapped Rebecca in one of the towels.  The once
rhythmic cadence of the park’s sounds of nature had been disturbed
and became like the streets of Munich, ripping the two of them back
into the world they tried to hide from if just for a moment.

“They can’t do that,” Rebecca declared and she slammed the door
shut.

“They can and they have.” Eli reasoned with his lawyer tone and
laid a towel over the seat before he started the engine.

“This isn’t right,” Rebecca insisted as Eli drove them home in
silence.  The walk up to their apartment felt long and heavy,
each step in a direction they had not chosen and did not want.

Eli shut his eyes and plopped on top of the bed.  Rebecca
sighed like the lungs within her constricted and she found it hard
to breathe.

“Are you alright?” Eli asked and sat up on the foot of the bed,
watching her in the living area through the open door.

“I’m fine, Eli.  Don’t worry about me.” She brushed his
concerns off her like she brushed the dust off the objects in her
room.  She did not want sympathy or unwarranted fret.  He
was the one in danger, the one whose civil rights were violated
every day since the chancellorship of Hitler.  He needed her
sympathies.  She climbed into the bed with him, though it was
still afternoon.  They snuggled like the couple at the lake in
the distance, swirling and twirling and swimming toward the
shore.

But the bedroom only offered a momentary peace, passing hours
that soon fell into the next day when Rebecca needed to report to
work and Eli began to feel cooped up inside the apartment.  He
needed to feel normal again, busy with work for his father. 
He didn’t graduate University to lie in bed all day and he didn’t
enjoy the lack of intellectual stimulation from being absent from
the courtroom.  He did not want to become a prisoner in the
country he was born and raised in.  He felt as German as his
Aryan neighbors and, with exception to his observance of Jewish
Holy days and Shabbos and avoidance of pork, he was very much
German.

But the days filled with an absence of many things for Eli, an
absence of Rebecca, an absence of the courtroom, an absence of his
office, and an absence of fresh air.  Since the boycott and
riots in April, fear and violence escalated with Jews the primary
target.  Eli swore to Rebecca he would not linger outside for
too long in the mornings without her and he would not walk the
streets unless necessary.  Gestapo, SA, and Hitler’s Youth
patrolled the streets now.

He spent much of his time reading from banned authors and
reviewing the law.  This law no longer existed under Nazi
control and radical reform, but he grew up with and knew it, and
hoped it would return someday.  He sipped his morning tea
which Rebecca prepared for him before a succulent kiss on the lips
and a wave goodbye for the day.

He went downstairs, slid his coin into the vender and pulled out
the day’s paper, Hamburger Tageblatt newspaper, Friday 31. The
Nazis not only controlled parliament, the streets and public
opinion, but controlled journalism, too, to ensure no one spoke
against them.  As Eli read the paper walking back to the
apartment, he realized no words were untainted anymore.  Nazi
propaganda slanted all the news on the radio and in the papers and
he ripped the paper in half before tossing it into the waste basket
in the corner of the fourth floor.  He headed to the room,
vowing to never read the paper until the Nazis no longer held
power.

Monday, June 16, 1933