Wunderland(82)

“Wolves, sheep, et cetera,” Pooh adds darkly.

“And spontaneous my ass,” says Kinge. “They have government lists of every Jewish business and residence in the city. And it’s happening all over the country. I hear in Munich they’ve told all Jews to leave by sundown.”

“What, like the sheriff in a Karl May novel?” Renate asks, but no one laughs.

She sinks into her seat, struggling to process. Dwarf means Propaganda Minister Goebbels (one of the many pleasures of her new school is that one can speak ill of the Party without worrying about repercussions). Ernst vom Rath is the German diplomat shot the other morning in Paris by a Polish Jew barely older than she is. Renate hadn’t realized vom Rath had died, though. Chewing on one of her braids, she tries to remember more from the BBC broadcast the family had surreptitiously listened to. She wishes she hadn’t been reading Rebecca under the table.

Kinge, meanwhile, is quoting from the V?lkischer Beobachter: “We shall no longer tolerate a situation where hundreds of thousands of Jews within our territory control entire streets of shops, throng places of public entertainment, and pocket the wealth of German leaseholders as ‘foreign’ landlords while their racial brothers incite war against Germany and shoot down German officials…” Usually he reads Party news in a whining and sycophantic voice. Now, though, he reads it straight. And he sounds worried. “That’s from last night,” he says, looking up. “They planned it all. My uncle’s wine shop in Munich was smashed to bits. Every bottle.”

“Same with my father’s friend in Leipzig,” says Piglet. “He has a shoe store there.” Looking apologetically at Renate, he adds: “They took shits in all of the shoes.”

Revolted, Renate covers her ears and turns away, searching the rest of the classroom for some sign that the boys are lying, or at least exaggerating; some sign that her life isn’t about to take another of the sickening jolts for the worse that have periodically marked the last three years. Please, she prays wordlessly, to No One in Particular. Please don’t let it happen again.

As if in answer, the door flies opens and Herr Lawerenz limps in, his cane pounding the floor with even more vehemence than usual, his gray hair sticking up on his head in two places, like tufted horns on a crochety fawn.

“Achtung!” he bellows.

As feared as he is, it normally takes the teacher at least two tries to get the jittery classroom to quiet down. Now, though, the silence is so sudden and so complete that Renate hears a bird chirp chidingly from a distant tree. Even the instructor seems momentarily taken aback: his rheumy eyes widen behind his spectacles. But he quickly recovers.

“All right, then,” he snaps. “Pack up your bags.”

Baffled, the students exchange glances.

“For the day?” asks Piglet finally.

“No, for a holiday,” the instructor growls. “Yes, for the day. You are all being sent home. Doktor Goldschmidt has determined that it’s not safe for the school to remain in session.”

As the buzz starts up again he slams his cane against the floor. “However.”

He waits as the room falls silent once more. “You must go out the back entrance, not the front. Do not all go at once. Avoid large groups. Find a partner, and go two-by-two. Two-by-two. Out the back. Do you understand?”

“Why can’t we go in groups?” asks Kinge.

“You’ll make for too obvious a target.”

“A target?” Renate repeats, incredulous.

The question is lost in the flurry of papers being hastily pushed back into satchels, of chairs being pushed back from the desks. Someone in the back shouts: “When is the Mann essay due?”

“When school resumes.”

“When will that be?” asks Renate, thinking again about her exam.

He just shrugs. “You’ll be notified.”

“How about the smaller children?” someone asks. “How are they getting home?”

“Some of their parents have already fetched them. If necessary, the Doktor is prepared to take the rest home with her driver. You just worry about yourselves.”

For a moment he glares at them each in turn. A little uncertainly, Renate raises her hand.

“Yes, Fr?ulein Bauer,” he says, looking pained.

Renate licks her lips, almost afraid to repeat the question. “What are we too easy a target for?”

Something in his expression shifts. And suddenly, he doesn’t look so much furious and vengeful as tired, and brittle, and even strangely fragile.

“Just get home,” he says. “Go straight home. No loitering. No stopping. No talking to strangers. No matter what. Am I understood?”

Renate nods. But her heart is pounding again. Not because she is terrified by her teacher but because it dawns on her that he—a veteran of the Kaiser’s war, held captive by the Russians, twice decorated for bravery, is terrified. He is clearly terrified for them all.



* * *





They ride the tram car like frozen players in a game of statues: two standing in the front, two in the back. Two seated on each bench on either side. Though they’d left the school in pairs they’d all ended up at the same stop within minutes. When the first tram came along they’d hesitated for just a moment before clambering on together in silence. Now they don’t speak with or even look at one another, or any of the other dozen-odd riders in the carriage. Renate can’t help thinking that anyone seeing them could deduce the truth at a glance: that they are students, out of school, on a regular school day. In other words, that they are in all likelihood Jewish. She is almost tempted to point it out: how silly they all must look, sitting stiff and pale in frightened silence. But as the tram squeals and hums toward Charlottenburg no one will even so much as catch her gaze.