The Runaway Family (17 page)

Helga opened the door, and burst into tears as she gathered her daughter into her arms.

“It’s all right, Mutti, it’s all right,” she soothed, not even noticing she had reverted to the childhood name, as she tried to console her. “I’ve got everything we need. We leave for Vienna tomorrow.”

Kurt stood for a moment, dumbfounded, outside the slammed door and then walked slowly back down the stairs to the street below. His mind began racing. Where were Ruth and the children? Where could they have gone now? And what had happened to Herbert? Why had he been arrested? Was it simply because he, too, was a Jew? Or was there something more? Was he even now learning how to survive in Dachau, or some other such camp? Where were Ruth and the children? Where were Ruth and the children?

Kurt stepped out onto the pavement and for a moment looked up at the building. Which was Herbert’s flat? Third floor. And then he knew exactly which one it was, as the old woman stood there by the window, staring down into the street. When she saw him looking up she gave him a triumphant Heil Hitler and then drew the curtains across, as if to shut him out.

What a vile woman, Kurt thought furiously! How had she come to be living in Herbert’s apartment? She had referred to Kurt’s family as “the Jewish orphanage”. Clearly they had been made homeless yet again, so where had they gone?

It was dusk now, and Kurt knew he needed somewhere to stay. He doubted if he would be able to pick up the trail tonight, even if there was one. People were more than reluctant to open their doors to a strange man after dark. He set off down the street at a brisk pace, looking for a small hotel or guesthouse where he might stay for the night. He was loath to spend the money, but although there was no official curfew that he knew about, it would be foolhardy to be out alone after dark. For a while he wandered the streets, looking for somewhere suitable, and finally saw a card in a window. Room to let.

He knocked on the door and waited. At length it was opened by a young woman in an apron. She peered at him as he stood in the dim light in her hallway. She clearly was not impressed with what she saw.

“Yes?”

“Good evening,” Kurt said. “I’m looking for a room, and I saw the card in your window.”

The woman eyed him suspiciously. “How long for?”

“One night, maybe two.”

“Only let by the week,” she replied and began to shut the door.

“I may stay a week?” asked Kurt hurriedly. “How much would it be?”

The woman paused and then told him the price. “Week in advance! No meals! Take it or leave it.”

Kurt took it. He realised that she knew he was a Jew and the price she had asked reflected that, but he had to have somewhere to stay, and he didn’t know how long it was going to take him to track down his family.

The room she showed him was small and poky, furnished with a single bed, a chest of drawers with a mirror and a washstand on which stood a bowl and a ewer of water. The bathroom was down the landing. However, Kurt was grateful to be off the street. He knew that with the way he looked and no luggage, nowhere more salubrious was going to take him. When he looked in the mirror and saw the hollow-cheeked, stubble-faced, pallid ghost that returned his stare, he was amazed that the woman had agreed to let him have the room at any price. Clearly she, too, was facing hard times and couldn’t be too choosy about her guests.

Longing to see his family, Kurt had travelled straight to Munich with little thought given to his appearance. He had only the clothes he’d been arrested in, and they were grubby, hanging off his emaciated frame. His hair had begun to grow again, but sprouted in tufts over his head, where the rough strokes of the camp barber’s razor had shaved him unevenly. His reflection told him that he must change his appearance, and fast. Looking like a convict was as dangerous as looking like a Jew, and he looked like both. First thing in the morning he must do something about it.

As he lay in the narrow bed that night, he considered how to set about finding his family. Where would Ruth have taken them? If it had been him, where would he have gone? His parents were both dead, and Herbert was his only sibling. He had no other family, so there was no lead there. Ruth’s father was dead, but her mother lived in the old family house in Vohldorf. Perhaps Ruth might have taken the children there. Or there was her sister, Edith, who lived in Vienna. Could she have gone there? They’d be safer there, but it was a long way to travel with four small children, and there was the problem of crossing into Austria without passports for the twins. No, he decided, it was more likely that she had gone to her mother’s… if she’d been able to go anywhere. What money had she? If she were destitute where would she go for help? She knew no one else in Munich. To the synagogue, that was the obvious place. But which synagogue? Where were the synagogues here? There was no question of asking. In the morning he would have to wander round and find them for himself.

At last he closed his eyes, and managed to sleep several hours before the nightmares began to crowd his dreams and he woke, as he did so often now, drenched in a cold sweat and shaking.

As soon as it was daylight Kurt left the house and went in search of food. He’d eaten nothing since the previous morning and he was very hungry. He found a workman’s café where he ate some breakfast, after which he felt better and went in search of a street market. He had to conserve the money he had found in the bread oven, but new clothes and some toiletries were a must, and he reckoned that street traders would pay less attention to him, and be cheaper than trying to buy from shops, many of which wouldn’t even let him cross the threshold. He found what he was looking for in a small square, flanked by tall medieval houses, where market traders’ stalls of all sorts were set up round a central fountain. He bought himself a change of clothes from a second-hand clothes stall, a razor and some soap and a small case to carry them in, and hurried back to his room. Once he had washed and shaved and changed into his new clothes, he felt infinitely better. Now he could set out to search for his family without looking like a scarecrow. He pulled his new hat down over his ears so that his peculiar haircut was less visible, buttoned his overcoat against the chill of the wind and headed back out onto the street.

He spent the day looking for synagogues. Once he had found the first one, though the rabbi knew nothing about Ruth, it was easier. Each rabbi he spoke to pointed him in the direction of someone else. Rabbi Rahmer was the fourth that he visited.

“Yes,” said the rabbi. “Your wife was here. She and the children stayed a night in our meeting room and then went to stay with her mother. Somewhere near Stuttgart, I think she said.”

“Vohldorf,” said Kurt.

“Yes, that’s right. Well, she asked us to tell you where she’d gone if you ever came looking for her.” The rabbi gave a sad smile. “I didn’t really think you would.”

“How long ago was she here?”

“Four… five weeks?” The rabbi was vague.

Next morning Kurt took the early train to Stuttgart, and reached Vohldorf by mid-afternoon. It was a cold wet day, but he didn’t mind. The thought of seeing his family, of holding them all in his arms again, buoyed him up, and when he got off the bus in the market square his heart was racing. He had been to his parents-in-law’s house only twice, but he thought he remembered where it was, and set out at a brisk pace. With only one wrong turn, he reached it and saw welcoming light flooding from a window into the damp dusk. The gates were shut, to stop the twins from straying, Kurt supposed, as he opened them and then closed them carefully behind him. For a brief moment he stood outside the front door, then he drew a deep breath and rang the bell.

“What do you want? We’ll have no vagrants here!” The man who had come to the door stared at Kurt belligerently. He was tall and broad, a much larger man than Kurt, and he thrust his head aggressively forward as he spoke.

Kurt took an involuntary step back. “I’m… I’m looking for my wife…” he began.

“Well, she’s not here! Be off, before I set the dogs on you.”

“Frau Heber…” Kurt tried again, though he didn’t like the sound of the dogs he could hear barking inside the house.

“No one called Heber in this house,” snapped the man. “Get lost.” He turned inside and called, “Lotte… let the dogs out!”

Kurt beat a hasty retreat.

“And don’t come back, Jew. We don’t want your sort in this village.”

Kurt hurried away from the house, the sound of the dogs loud on the evening air. He had always liked dogs, until he went to Dachau. There the guard dogs were terrifying, and Kurt knew he would never look at a dog in the same way again.

Once he was out of sight he slowed his pace. There were tears in his eyes as he realised he had lost them all again, and this time he had no trail to follow. Helga Heber had lost her home, and he had no idea where she had gone, nor if Ruth and the children were with her.

“Think!” he admonished himself. “There must be some way I can pick up the trail again. Just take time and think.”

With leaden feet he walked back into the market square. The dusk had deepened to darkness now, but there were still lights in the shops that edged the square, and Kurt decided to ask in those. He chose the grocer’s, and pushed open the door. A large woman in an enveloping white apron was standing behind the counter, chatting to a customer. They both turned as Kurt came in and looked at him with interest. A stranger. Not someone from the village.

“Good evening,” said the shopkeeper pleasantly. “Can I help you?”

“Good evening,” Kurt replied with a smile. “Yes, I am looking for Frau Heber, Frau Helga Heber.”

The shopkeeper’s face hardened. “Are you, indeed?

“Yes,” Kurt kept his smile fixed to his face. “She’s my mother-in-law.”

“Is she now?” The woman waved her hand about the shop. “Well,” she said, “she’s not in here, is she?”

“No. It’s just that she’s moved and I wondered if you could tell me where she is living now. Is she still in the village?”

“No.”

“No. Do you know where she went?”

“No. Now if you aren’t going to buy anything, you can get out. I’ve got work to do.”

Kurt left the shop and stood outside in the square. He saw, now, the sign in the window, which he hadn’t noticed before:
No Jews
. As soon as he’d mentioned Helga Heber’s name, the woman had realised he must also be a Jew. He looked in through the window of the shop next door, a small general store. Inside a man was unpacking some boxes. There was no sign on this window and Kurt was about to go in when someone bumped into him from behind. He spun round to see the customer from the grocer’s.

“Kreuzstrasse,” she murmured. “She’s in Kreuzstrasse.” But before Kurt could answer, the woman had hurried away across the square without a backward glance and disappeared into the darkness.

Kreuzstrasse. Had he heard her right, and if so where was Kreuzstrasse? It was clear that she didn’t want to be seen talking to him, so he did not try to follow her. She had done what she could. He would have to try and find the place himself. Feeling the eyes of the grocer’s wife upon him, he moved out of the light and walked across the square towards the church. As he reached it, the door opened and the priest came hurrying out. When he saw Kurt, he hesitated and then turned away.

The hesitation was enough. Kurt called across to him, “Excuse me.”

The priest stopped and turned back, “Yes?”

“I’m looking for Kreuzstrasse,” Kurt said. “Please can you tell me where it is?”

For a moment the priest said nothing, and Kurt was about to ask again when he pointed down a lane that ran off the square. “Down there,” he said. “There’s an alley at the end of the lane, that’s Kreuzstrasse.”

“Thank you,” Kurt said fervently, “thank you very much.”

The priest seemed about to say something else, but thought better of it, and with a brief nod, he, too, turned and hurried away.

Kurt followed the directions he’d been given, and found himself in the alley. There were three tiny houses there, each clothed in darkness. Surely this couldn’t be where his mother-in-law was living. He stood outside in the silent street, wondering which house she lived in. There was no sign of life in any of them, no smoke from the chimneys, no chink of light from the dark windows. Was everybody out? Surely someone would be at home on such a cold and miserable evening. Kurt walked up to the front of the middle house. In the faint light of a streetlamp at the end of the alley, he could see that the front window had been broken and had been patched with cardboard. Despite the dampness in the air, the cardboard was still relatively dry; it couldn’t have been there for very long. Someone must be living here. He knocked on the door. The sound of the knock seemed swallowed by the darkness, so he knocked again, more loudly, but there was no reply. He pressed his ear to the door in the hope of hearing movement inside, but there was nothing. He was about to turn away and try one of the other houses, when, on impulse, he tried the handle. To his astonishment the door opened. He pushed it wide and then stepping just inside, called out.

“Is there anyone there?” His words hung in the silence, but there was no reply. Cautiously he went inside and found himself in a kitchen, the only room downstairs. He felt for a light switch, but when he pressed it nothing happened. Feeling his way across the room he found the stove. It was cold. The last fire had been some time ago. As he felt round the top of the stove his fingers found a stub of candle on a saucer and a box of matches. Kurt struck a match and lit the candle. Shadows jumped around him as he held it high to look at the room.

There was a wooden table, two old chairs, some plates on a shelf, and a tin basin on a stand. He looked at the window. It had been carefully patched, but when he looked on the floor he found several tiny shards of glass. Kurt went up the narrow staircase to the two tiny rooms above. Here there was no furniture at all, but in each room an old mattress lay on the floor. The rooms were freezing cold, but the mattresses were not damp. They had been used fairly recently, Kurt thought. He went downstairs again. Had Ruth and the children really all been living here with her mother, or had they been in one of the other houses? Shielding the flickering candle with his hand he went back out into the alley and looked at the other two houses. He tried the one on the left, and when there was no reply to his knock he tried the door. It opened reluctantly, squeaking on its hinges. This house was the same as the other, except that it was clear no one had lived here for months. Cobwebs festooned the ceiling, there was no furniture at all, and the stale smell of damp pervaded the room. Holding the candle high, Kurt saw that there were a few sticks heaped beside the stove, but otherwise the room was empty. He did not bother to go upstairs. No one lived here, it must have been deserted for years. Carefully he closed the front door and turned to the third house. The door to this one did not open, and there was no reply when he knocked. He pressed his face against the filthy window that gave onto the kitchen, holding the candle against the glass, but the flame reflected back at him, and he could see nothing.