Jutta felt anxious. 'I hope those poor children don't keel over in the heat.'
'Oh, they'll hold out.'
'Little Muller too?' Dieter Muller was one of the pupils Jochen coached, a slight lad who was known as Didi. Jutta had a soft spot for him.
'He's as tough as the others. The young people of today aren't mollycoddled the way they used to be.' His tone was new to her.
'Tough as leather and hard as Krupp steel,' she quoted Hitler's saying with irony. 'Sorry, I forgot — fast as greyhounds too, of course. Specially your head Pimpf, Drechsel. Has it ever occurred to you that he isn't exactly the living image of the ideal young Germanic male?' Jochen's colleague was a thin man with a vacant, infantile face and sandy hair.
'Drechsel's all right. He's offered to back my application to join the National Socialist party. As a Party Comrade I'll get promotion faster. We could do with the salary of a teacher on the next stage up the scale — what do you think?'
'I think you're a good teacher anyway. Your pupils and your colleagues like you. You'll get promotion without the Party.'
She was right. Jochen was duly promoted. It happened just before the summer holidays of the year 1937, when the former King Edward VIII of Great Britain married Mrs Simpson after abdicating, when the Japanese conquered Peking, and the airship Hindenburg exploded on landing at Lakehurst near New York. There was lively discussion in Frau Gerold's bookshop. Was it an accident or an assassination attempt? Herr Lesch knew who to blame. 'The Americans, of course. It wouldn't have happened if they'd sold us helium gas. But instead we had to fill the buoyancy cells with highly explosive hydrogen, and then a spark was enough.' Where that spark came from, Herr Lesch couldn't say.
He knew who to blame next year, too. 'Joe Louis's Jewish promoter, of course. He put a horseshoe in the black's left boxing glove. Otherwise our Max Schmeling would never have been knocked out, he'd be world champion now.'
If Jutta had been asked what event she remembered most vividly from the last years before the war, she would immediately have said the German Book Trade Association ball in the summer of 1939. Jochen had hired tie and tails from Koedel in Kantstrasse and looked fabulous. Her own long, white evening dress was a dream.
Jutta's boss had invited the young couple. She and her ash-blonde girlfriend went entirely in black. They created quite a sensation, and several gentlemen showed an interest in them, but Diana Gerold and Anja Schmitt had eyes only for each other. All we need is for them to dance together,' Jochen said mockingly.
'You're getting more narrow-minded all the time,' she exclaimed. Injured, he was about to say something, but the orchestra started to play. Jutta clapped her hands, delighted. 'The Lambeth Walk — the latest thing from London. Isabel showed me how you do it.' She led her husband on to the dance floor. Jochen soon got the hang of the simple steps — somewhere between the Tiller Girls and a Prussian military march — and enjoyed the dance. Suddenly he was the carefree young man she loved again.
Then Kurt Widmann and his band played a hot foxtrot. 'Oh, wow, wonderful jazz, or degenerate Negro music to you!' cried Jutta exuberantly. To Jochen's relief, her words were drowned out by the percussion. Some things were better left unsaid.
Frau Gerold bought them each a ticket for the sweepstake. Drinking sparkling wine and eating lobster mayonnaise, they waited in suspense for the draw. Diana Gerold laughed till she cried. She had won a book by Beumelburg. Jochen won a Waterman fountain pen.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, for the main prize. A red fox fur donated by Kaiser Furriers. If you please. Nadja Horn!' The popular actress, laughing, put her hand in the tub and told the announcer the number of the ticket she had drawn. He spoke in a theatrical voice: And the big prize, ladies and gentlemen, please listen carefully now, the big prize goes to number 1481. I repeat: one — four — eight — one. Who has the winning number 1481?'
'I do,' said Jutta, barely audibly. She let her arm droop feebly.
Jochen kept cool. He took the ticket from her hand. 'You're right. I think you have to go up there now.'
It was like a dream. Past the applauding guests, up the four steps to the platform, the announcer kissing her hand, the actress congratulating her as she helped her into the coat with sisterly feeling, more applause. They were delighted at her table. 'I think I know someone who'll be looking forward to colder weather,' Diana Gerold teased her.
Jutta hugged her. 'Thank you, Frau Gerold, thank you for your wonderful present.'
They went home, happy and slightly tipsy. Jochen helped Jutta up the few steps to their apartment door. When he came into the bedroom she was lying naked on the fox fur on the floor. They made love as passionately as they had back in the Mitropa railway car, and didn't find their way to bed until early on Sunday morning.
Jutta went home at twelve-thirty to make lunch. Frau Gerold stayed in the bookshop, lunching on a little fruit. 'See you tomorrow; she told her assistant.
Jochen called at two. They had just got a telephone. 'Don't wait for me for lunch. Someone from the air-raid defence league is coming to check that the school building's fireproof. As the youngest member of staff it's my pleasure — I don't think — to show the gentleman round.'
She sat under the sun umbrella on the balcony with a plate of risotto. The window boxes of begonias shielded her from prying eyes. After lunch she allowed herself a Juno. She didn't inhale, but blew the smoke into the air. The packet of twenty would last her a whole year. Feeling relaxed, she dozed in the sun until Herr Schnorr, who was hard of hearing, turned his radio to full volume. The lunchtime concert from Reich Radio, conducted by Otto Dobrindt, rang out pitilessly from the open window. No one dared complain. Herr Schnorr was a long-standing Party member, an 'Old Campaigner'. It was said that he had almost entirely ruined his hearing in street fighting against the Communists. Jutta closed the balcony door. She'd talk to Jochen about the noise. They didn't have to put up with that kind of thing, even from someone like Schnorr.
Little Didi Muller rang the bell at four. He came for coaching every Thursday. 'Oh, goodness, I entirely forgot you. My husband is late today. Do you want to wait?' Didi didn't answer. He seemed upset. 'What's the matter, Didi? Aren't you feeling well? Go into the kitchen and I'll make you a peppermint tea.'
The boy obediently went ahead of her. She saw blood on the seat of his trousers. 'My God, Didi, did you hurt yourself?' The twelve-year-old shook his head. 'Don't you want to tell me what happened? Have you been fighting with the other boys? No, what am I saying? I know you've been having coaching with Herr Drechsel.' Didi sobbed. Jutta stroked his hair. 'What happened? You can tell me. I won't tell anyone else, word of honour.'
The boy was rigid as a board. Only after a good deal more encouragement did he relax slightly. Hesitantly, he said, 'He told me to take my trousers down.'
Jutta was shocked. She wouldn't have expected Drechsel to resort to the cane. It was taboo, particularly among the younger masters. And to cane the boy until he bled was barbaric. She got some disinfectant and cotton wool out of the bathroom cupboard. The boy bent his head. 'Don't want to. I want to go home.' Something told her that it was better to let him go.
That evening she told Jochen what had happened. He dismissed it. 'Drechsel doesn't beat the boys, I could swear to that.'
"'He told me to take my trousers down." That's what Didi said. He didn't pluck those words out of thin air.'
'I'll ask Drechsel what happened.'
He brought it up at lunch next day. 'I knew it would be perfectly innocent. Drechsel was just as worried as you. so he told Didi to take his trousers down. Not a trace of blood. The boy had been eating too many sour cherries. They colour the stools red. He'd dirtied his pants.'