Wunderland(102)

She has procured affidavits of good conduct from the Charlottenburg police office, and from four other “responsible and disinterested” parties in America and Germany. She’s collected school certificates to confirm Renate’s passing of her Abitur last year and Franz’s completion of three years of university. She’s obtained proof of passage to the Western Hemisphere, included certified copies of Bauer family tax records and two copies each of the two children’s birth certificates. Most recently, she brought home the petition Renate is currently working on for the office of Berlin’s chief financial president, itemizing every object Renate plans to take with her when she boards the SS Columbus in two weeks. It must be submitted to, checked by, and approved by a Reich official against the actual items in her trunks and carry-on luggage, after which she’ll face another tax on the estimated value of those items and the pitifully small cash amount Jews are permitted when they leave.

All in all, it’s been a heroic performance on a two-front bureaucratic battlefield that these days defeats almost everyone. Rita Oelburg’s family, for instance, was approved for U.S. visas and secured boat passage, but had no money left for the exorbitant Reich “escape tax.” Kinge Lehmann’s father, a former banker, could cover the escape tax and visas but couldn’t secure passage before the visas expired. Bernhard B?hr was rejected because he’d had acne radiation treatments and the U.S. consulate physician labeled him a cancer risk. And the affidavit supplied by Karolin Beidryzcki’s New York sponsors—pledging all their assets as bond in the event Karolin was unable to support herself—was deemed inadequate by U.S. authorities, forcing her to start the whole application process again.

“It’s as though they’re trying to find reasons not to let us in,” she’d complained, as she and Renate mixed peroxide, honey, and baking soda into a paste that their instructor guaranteed would lighten even the most “Jewish” of dark-haired heads. Renate hadn’t had the heart to tell her that according to Franz, at least, this was precisely what “they” were trying to do. And when she and Franz had finally secured transportation, visas, and exit documents, she’d almost wanted to hide that fact as well. For despite everyone’s congratulatory envy, despite the soul-crushing and steadily growing list of life restrictions in Berlin, when she thought about their departure date—November 25, 1939—all she felt was a chill sense of emptiness.

“I don’t want to leave,” she repeats (18, she prints fiercely; Sanitary pad belt, 1). And bites her lip to keep it from trembling. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“You’ll have Franz. And your Tante and Onkel.”

“It’s not that. It’s about not knowing what’s going to happen to you and Vati. You always said we would all stay together.”

“I said that before knowing how impossible it would be,” her mother says. “And nothing will happen to us. What more could happen to us?”

It’s such a drastic departure from her mother’s prior, dire warnings that Renate snaps her gaze up in disbelief. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

“It was rhetorical,” her mother says curtly. Pulling her cigarettes from her pocket, she starts to shake one out before frowning and returning it to the pack. Since tobacco rationing was implemented she’s restricted herself to two a day, a sacrifice that has made her on-edge and snappish enough that Franz has taken to calling her Frau Havisham. Needless to say, the days of Renate pinching the odd smoke from her mother’s purse are long gone.

“You know they’re banning Jews from Aryan buildings next?” Renate continues. “They’re going to crowd us—meaning you—into specific houses. Judenh?user. They’re making Aryan spouses go too. They’re already doing it in other cities, supposedly. And in Poland they’re making Jews wear a yellow star.”

“They couldn’t do it here.” Her mother waves dismissively. “It’d be a logistical nightmare. On both fronts.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, they are rather good at logistics,” Renate retorts. “Unlike you two.”

Her mother frowns. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Just that for all your degrees, for all your books, for all your ‘understanding’ of history and human psychology, you weren’t prepared for any of this.”

Her mother tightens her lips. “Not many of us were, Renate.”

“But if you had been, even a little more, we might be able to stay together.” Renate blinks, hard, before adding: “And maybe we’d even still have Sigi.”

Her mother flinches. A month earlier she’d announced abruptly that she was having the dog put down. Her reasons were multifold: veterinary care for the aging Schnauzer was expensive and increasingly hard to find, and their reduced rations made it hard to even feed themselves. “It’s also better we do it kindly,” she’d added, “rather than risk someone else doing it cruelly.” It was an oblique reference to Jewish neighbors who over the summer had found their cat stone-cold on their doorstep, a bloody J carved into its matted pelt.

Renate and Franz protested vehemently; she with tears, he with brittle fury. Each argument was gently but firmly countered: Yes, Sigi was only nine, but he was already limping with arthritis and struggling to digest the cheaper, coarser food they were forced to feed him these days. Yes, she’d thought about giving him away—but to whom? All the Jews they knew were leaving the country, and those who weren’t were facing the same harsh decisions they were facing. No one from their shrinking circle of Aryan friends had expressed any willingness to take an ailing, elderly dog from a Jewish home. And when Renate, desperate, offered to eat less herself, her mother turned on her with her old imperiousness. “You’re suffering enough because of the animals in charge now,” she’d snapped. “I won’t let you starve to death over one as well.”