A Castle in Brooklyn(45)

It took Papa a minute before he could find his voice.

“Herr Reichert! To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit on this fine morning?”

At the sound of the German words leaving his papa’s mouth, Jacob came swiftly out of his room. There Reichert stood, somehow more stooped than he remembered, the face etched with jagged lines. Nevertheless, he was a commanding figure as he filled the doorway with his polished boots and shiny medals.

“Just a matter of business, dear sir,” he said in German, a language that had become all too familiar, as he strode into the small apartment as if it were his own. Meanwhile, Mama’s face took on such a deathly pallor as the colonel smiled (or perhaps sneered) down at them. Jacob, who long ago had learned to tamp down his feelings, sensed his heart quicken. Almost immediately, though, Mama’s face resumed the mask of friendliness as she dropped the magazine onto the table and stood up. Never before had Herr Reichert visited the apartment in the little town whose walls now embraced a fearful silence. But soon, Jacob realized the colonel’s eyes had set upon him, seeming to analyze each pore of his skin.

“My, my, Sarah! How your son has grown!”

Jacob realized he was expecting some response, but like his papa, he could muster only a glob of saliva, which stuck in the bottom of his throat. But soon his mama’s voice captured the awkward silence.

“Yes, he is quite a tall one. He takes after my brother, God rest his soul. Certainly, my husband and I are no giants.” Her response triggered the colonel’s attention, and remembering the reason for his visit, he cleared his throat.

“Sarah, you are wanted back at the office. It seems a virulent flu, what with the change of seasons, has swept across the staff, and the girls, neither Vera nor Bertha, can lift a head from the pillow. And, as you well know, with the war effort surging, swift correspondence to the front is of the utmost importance. So since, dear Sarah, my typing skills are not nearly as proficient as yours, I’m afraid that you are urgently needed at this moment.”

Jacob cringed inwardly at the endearment referenced toward his mama, but when he glanced at his papa, who still stood fixed next to the shut front door, and could detect no flicker of a response in his eyes, Jacob felt his own face redden with a burning resentment. At that moment, he did not know which one of his parents he despised more. He heard his mother’s voice then, softly placating, rising into the still air.

“But, Fritz, tomorrow is the Sabbath. And even though there is no need of attending synagogue any longer, might I not have one day with my husband and son?”

The corners of Herr Reichert’s lips dipped slowly downward, the pits in his cheek deepened, and his eyes emptied of color and darkened toward black. It was then and only then that Jacob felt his first premonition of the tragedy that would soon befall them all.

“Sarah, you are needed.” Four words only. Low and swift. The imperative was set.

Mama’s face looked on the verge of collapse.

“I’ll just get my purse,” she said, and disappeared into the bedroom. When she next appeared, she was wearing her cotton tan coat, a small black purse draped across one shoulder, her red lipstick impeccably applied.

“No! She is not leaving.” His voice, his legs that had sprung up, had him glowering directly above the colonel, seeming to come alive as through a will of their own.

Jacob stood, fists clenched at his sides, looking down at the German, who in that instant seemed old, shrunken, smaller than he had when he’d first entered the room. For a split second, Jacob thought he saw the colonel shrink back, before a smile that could only be described as sinister enveloped his face.

“Well, well,” he said, “who would think that the boy has grown this much?” The eyes, two rolling beads of black now, the cheeks curled like a well-traveled road. Jacob felt as if his face might burst into flames.

“It’s all right, Jacob. It will not be for very long. Perhaps a day or two, isn’t that right, Colonel?” Her voice was calm, steady.

But Jacob ignored her. Frozen to the spot, his eyes riveted on the German’s still-grinning face. And before he knew what he was doing, his fists were punching that face, falling easily into the putty that was his skin. Jacob’s fists pummeled the stalwart soldier, and continued to beat him, until amid the frantic shouts of his parents, his father’s arms pulling him back, the veil of outrage finally slipped from the boy, until Colonel Reichert lay crumpled on the living room floor, a tired, quivering old man, senseless.

“Jacob! Jacob! What have you done? You have ruined us all!” his mama cried out, frustrated tears smeared across her cheeks. His papa, who had not uttered a word since he’d first opened the door to the chaos, stood silent still, then rushed to help the colonel slowly, arduously, to his feet. Once risen, his cap tenuously placed on the back of his head, he left the apartment, Mama quick at his heels, imploring, her cries racing down the hall.

Jacob stood for many minutes, fists raised, his breath coming fast. Somewhere far away he heard a door shut. Papa. He went back into his room and looked at the tidily made bed that was Leon’s. What would his brother have done to the Nazi in their home? Probably worse.

Jacob thought there was nothing more despicable at that moment, and he blamed both of his parents for this breach in loyalty, for Leon’s exit to join the Polish army, for the burned buildings, the isolation, the dead air that choked him by day so that he was forced to escape outdoors, and the terrors that plagued him at night. He blamed them for all of it.