A Ladder to the Sky(22)

‘Why bother?’ I asked. ‘Oskar and I will be off to war soon. We’ll be lucky if we’re still alive to see 1940. I don’t want to waste whatever time I have left trying to impress some tart.’

A silence descended on the table. Alysse’s smile faded completely and Oskar stared at me as if he could hardly believe that I’d said such a thing.

‘I’m just being realistic,’ I said, unable to look either of them in the eye. ‘They’re setting up more and more recruiting stations around Berlin as it is. A year from now, we’ll be eighteen, and what hope do we have then?’

‘They can set them up wherever they like,’ he said. ‘I won’t be entering any of them.’

‘Oskar!’ said Alysse.

‘But it’s true.’

‘Oskar,’ she repeated, quieter now, a note of warning in her tone.

‘What are you talking about?’ I asked.

They looked at each other and finally Alysse shrugged her shoulders. ‘You must keep this to yourself, Erich,’ she said.

‘Keep what to myself? What’s going on?’

‘We’re going to get out of here soon,’ he said. ‘We plan on living somewhere else.’

‘But where? Another part of Germany?’

‘Of course not. Away from Europe altogether.’

Alysse glanced at her watch and shook her head. ‘I should go,’ she said. ‘I have to collect my brother from school. I’ll see you later, Oskar, yes? You’re coming for dinner?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there at six.’

‘Erich, it was nice to meet you,’ she added as she stood up and put her coat on. ‘But please talk about something else, all right? Something cheerful. It’s Oskar’s birthday, after all.’

I nodded and watched her leave.

A sound from outside made us both look out the window. Alysse had been stopped by the tall, red-haired SS guard and he was beckoning her towards him.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Oskar, frowning.

The guard said something to her and she reached into her pocket for her papers, handing them across, and he took them from her, staring at her for a long time before directing his attention to the pages themselves.

‘I’m going out there,’ said Oskar, standing up, but I grabbed his arm immediately.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Just wait. Let it play out as it will.’

He paused and we watched as the guard flicked through the papers, then removed his gloves and slowly reached up to run a finger across Alysse’s face. I could see him smiling and recognized the desire in his eyes.

‘That fucker,’ hissed Oskar, and it took all of my strength to hold him back.

‘If you march out there now, it will only cause trouble for you both,’ I told him, my lips close to his right ear. ‘Give it another minute and he’ll probably let her go.’

He relaxed a little and, as I had predicted, the guard eventually handed back her papers and she continued on her way, only turning around once to glance anxiously in our direction.

‘Well?’ I asked, when she was gone and we’d sat down again. I could tell how incensed my friend had grown; I had never seen such strong emotion on his face before. ‘What’s going on? You can’t possibly leave Germany.’

‘I have to,’ he said.

‘But why?’

‘Because of Alysse.’

‘What about her?’

He looked around nervously and, although the tables nearby were empty, he lowered his voice as he spoke. ‘I’m only telling you this because you’re my friend,’ he said. ‘You must promise not to breathe a word to anyone.’

‘You have my word,’ I said.

‘Alysse isn’t like you and me,’ he said. ‘You’ve read the Nuremberg Laws, haven’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘She’s a first-degree Mischling. She has two Jewish grandparents,’ he added for clarification. ‘And two German.’

‘But so what? The Führer himself has said that first-degree Mischlings will not be arrested.’

‘No, Erich, he’s said that they will not be arrested “at this time” but that he will decide their fate after we win the war. Which might be only months after it begins. And who knows if he will even stick to his word? He could change his mind in a moment and Alysse would be taken from me. As would her entire family. Jews are already being deported and sent to work camps. I’ve heard that some are even being shot.’

‘And because of that you’re going to abandon both your duty and the Fatherland?’

‘Don’t you ever feel,’ he asked, leaning forward now so our faces were practically touching, ‘that the Fatherland has abandoned us?’

‘No,’ I told him, retreating a little, feeling a mixture of anger, devastation and hatred. ‘No, I don’t feel that at all.’

‘You felt hatred?’ asked Maurice from a distance of some fifty years, sitting in that hotel room in New York as I told him this part of my story. His hair was lying flat on his head, dry now. His plate was empty, his knife and fork thrown to one side, and he was looking directly at me as I stared through the window at the skyline of the city. ‘But hatred towards whom?’