No one in the kosher clothes factory knew anything about the event that would have influenced the betting more than any other. For Rosh Hashanah, the New Year festival, Herr Grün had been invited to Zalman and Hinda’s for an official lunch. Désirée, Arthur and the Rosenthals were also coming to Rotwandstrasse; on such days the family should be together. Such an invitation, one would think, is not a special occasion among adults, but in the run-up Rachel was as touchy as a teenager who is about to present her boyfriend to the family for the first time. Even so, Herr Grün refused to put on anything but the suit he always wore. Stilclass="underline" he put on the new bow tie she had bought for him, and even brought flowers, even though that isn’t really appropriate for Rosh Hashanah.
Hinda had, as always at family occasions, taken a great deal of trouble cooking, and was disappointed that her guest ate so little. Until he explained to her that someone who has had to go hungry for a long time has only two options: give in to the unstinting desire to eat yourself to death, or else to keep strict control of yourself, not only when eating, and to keep a tight rein on your emotions. ‘It isn’t a wonderful life,’ said Herr Grün, ‘but being alive at all is more than I was allowed to expect.’
Of course the conversation turned to the situation in Germany. Adolf Rosenthal, who never turned down the opportunity to deliver a lecture, wanted to explain his favourite thesis over soup, namely that National Socialism would be destroyed by its internal contradictions, but Herr Grün just looked at him, from the side and without uttering a word of disagreement, which made the mathematician, who could not otherwise be interrupted, stutter and quickly change the subject.
It was exactly the way the drunk in the White Cross had reacted to Herr Grün’s calm voice, Rachel thought proudly. Hillel too was full of admiration for the man from Germany and said smarmily, ‘I’ve been in jail as well.’
‘No,’ said Herr Grün, ‘you were on holiday.’
It wasn’t really a comfortable meal; they weren’t living in comfortable times. They had, as is customary, begun the meal by dipping a piece of apple in honey, but no one thought it would be a sweet year because of that.
When the talk turned to Ruben, Herr Grün said, ‘Get him out of there. If you have anyone at all important to you in that country, get them out!’
Arthur took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
‘He doesn’t want to leave his congregation,’ said Hinda. Herr Grün reacted with so impatient a gesture that he knocked over the yontevdik salt cellar. ‘Go and fetch him back,’ he said to Zalman. ‘Rachel tells me you’ve fetched him back once before. From Galicia.’
Whereupon of course all the old stories had to be told, about the soldiers who ate soap in order to be signed off sick, and about the smokers looking for cigarette papers in the latrine, ‘this one’s clean, this one isn’t.’ Even though today was New Year and not Seder evening: stories about old deliverances are always welcome.
Zalman asked Herr Grün to say the blessing, but he refused, on the grounds that he didn’t see himself in the position of ever acting again in his life. No one asked him what exactly he meant. Afterwards he cleared his throat right from the very bottom; he had probably got used to doing that backstage, so that his voice was clear from the first sentence of his act.
Guten Tag, Herr Blau.
‘There’s also this, Herr Kamionker,’ he said. ‘You gave me work, and I am grateful to you for that.’
Zalman, who had never been good with gratitude, gestured dismissively, as if waving away the smoke of his cigar.
‘It has caused you nothing but problems,’ said Herr Grün. ‘First of all I nearly killed that fellow Leibowitz…’
‘What?’ No one had told Adolf Rosenthal the story.
‘… and now I’m taking your best worker away.’
‘Does that mean…?’ asked Hinda.
‘He asked me.’ Quite out of character, Rachel was a little embarrassed. ‘And I said yes. But it was Felix’s idea.’
‘Felix’, she said, not ‘Herr Grün’.
‘How lovely!’ Hinda hugged her daughter, and Lea beamed at her twin sister and cried, ‘Mazel tov!’
Rachel blushed, not as a young bride might be expected to — a bride is always young, even if she’s approaching forty — but like someone who has been the victim of an awkward misunderstanding. ‘No, it’s not… You’ve got it wrong… Felix has just…’
‘Wladimir Rosenbaum wants someone for the artistic manager’s office,’ said Herr Grün. ‘I suggested Rachel.’
‘Ah.’ Lea had to polish her thick glasses out of sheer disappointment. ‘And I thought…’
‘The things you think!’
‘So we’ll have more time for each other,’ Herr Grün explained. ‘When you’re working in the same place.’
‘What did you think, Lea?’ asked Adolf Rosenthal, who had no ear for undertones. He got no answer.
The pause was long and awkward. It was so quiet in the room that everyone could hear the faint singing note when Désirée ran her fingertip along the rim of her glass. She let the sound fade away and then said quietly, ‘One left and one right shoe. Why not, in fact?’
She didn’t look at Herr Grün as she said it, but he first raised his head and then shook it, quite violently, like someone trying to wake up. Then Herr Grün shrugged and spread his arms. It was an exaggerated gesture, the kind one might make on stage to be seen from the very back row. ‘You’re right: why not, in fact?’ he repeated. ‘What do you say, Rachel? I’ll get used to it. I’m a skilled practitioner.’
The glasses of mazel tov bronfen had already been poured when Rachel was still explaining to Herr Grün that that was really no way to propose to somebody.
71
The three of them bullied him without making much noise about it, with a chummy cosiness that had a lot to do with their South German dialect. It had been a mistake to keep the confirmation from the Jewish congregation in his passport, of all places; one of them unfolded it, read the few sentences and then held the piece of paper out to the others, smiling expectantly, a child that has found a new toy under the tree, and is already imagining all the things that can be done with it.
The train stopped in open countryside, far from any station. There was nothing there but a shack, with a flagpole looming over it. As polite as hotel porters they asked him to get out, and please to take his little suitcase with him too, no, his papers were in order, as a Swiss citizen, that was quite correct, he didn’t need a visa, but there were a few checks to go through, nothing personal, just a few technical things relating to customs and hygiene. Yes, they understood that he was in a hurry, and really, they were sorry that the train had now left without him, but they also had their duty to do, just as the train driver did, and they wouldn’t advise him to try and deter them from doing their duty in the correct manner, that was a punishable offence, and if they had to file a complaint against him it would take even longer.
‘Meijer?’ they asked, ‘So, so, Meijer?’ and held his passport up to the light, and what had his original name been, Meierwitz or Meierssohn or Meier-Rosen-Blumen-Lilienfeld?
They left him his underpants, just peeked into them briefly, one after the other, and smiled. Then he was allowed to watch as they rummaged through his belongings for contraband. They did it thoroughly, and with a certain care. When they cut off the heels of his shoes because, you never knew, diamonds might be hidden in them, they put the severed pieces back, each tidily next to its shoe, ‘so that they don’t get confused.’