“What bombing?”
“Hamburg.”
Jack remembers — that’s where Froelich is from. “Your wife?” he asks quietly.
Henry breathes evenly, eyes still closed. Memory is lapping up. The whisper of shells, combings of silent seaweed and stray shoes, are they teeth or pearls that shine down there, pebbles or bones? The wash of lost objects, memories cut adrift from their owners, memories released by death. If he kept his eyes closed long enough, would all the lost memories find their way through Henry Froelich, as through a living portal?
“My wife was safe from the camps. And so was I, for a time.”
Jack has the curious feeling that, if he rose to leave now, his body would stay behind, seated at the table, a shell.
“She was, according to Nazi classification, Aryan. Which is ironic because, when I brought her to meet my mother, my mother did not approve. My mother was sehr rafiniert.” He smiles. “Annie was a peasant.”
“What was your father’s view?”
“He was killed in the Great War.”
“My father fought. My uncle was killed.”
Froelich nods. Jack sighs. Something has been understood between them, so he feels he can ask, “Henry, why didn’t you leave Germany when Hitler came in? Why did you stay?”
“I am Deutsch. This does not change. You are right, Jack, it is a beautiful country, it is my country. We were Deutsch, you see. Then slowly we find that we are not. This does not happen over one night, there is not an invasion. Friends — those one has eaten with, at the table, as you and I here. One realizes, too late, this is the enemy.”
Jack feels the headache coming on. Like muffled footfalls on a metal staircase. Froelich is saying, “And my mother refused to leave Germany. When she died we tried to come to Canada but we were not admitted.”
“You couldn’t get into Canada?”
“We were admitted nowhere, and my wife refused to leave without me.”
“But you were a professor or something, you should’ve had your pick.”
Froelich shrugs. “I was a Jew. Not a very good Jew, but from 1933 it did not matter. Good or bad, when the knock comes at the door in the middle of the night, you are a Jew.”
“How did you wind up at Dora?”
“We had a good apartment in Hamburg. The block warden did not have such a good apartment. He reported me for listening to the BBC. I was arrested and taken away in April 1942. In July 1943 came the bombs.”
Jack recalls the name of the mission: Operation Gomorrah. British and Canadian bombers dropped nine thousand tons of explosives on Hamburg in three days. Forty-two thousand civilians died in the firestorm — incinerated, asphyxiated, crushed, swept away by thermal winds. Jack does not ask if Froelich had children.
“I love Canada,” says Froelich.
It seems Oskar Fried is the farthest thing from Froelich’s mind at this moment. Jack eases his chair away from the table, but Froelich is still talking. “So. I did not fight in the underground. But at Dora I do what I can.”
At the mention of the factory, Jack sinks back onto the spent vinyl of the kitchen chair as quietly as possible.
“Nobody sees the entire rocket, only the piece he works on, but I am in the Elektriker Kommando. My job is to spot-weld the skin — the casing, and also to fix the welding machines, therefore the rockets are near to me and I have … opportunities.”
“Sabotage?”
“You put a bad piece for a good, loosen a screw, perhaps you can urinate on some wires to make rust. Maybe you weld not always perfectly at the seam. This helps me to survive. I knew a Pole who was hanged for making a spoon. But I am more afraid of my Kapo.”
“Is that who he was? A Kapo?”
“What?” Froelich shakes his head, impatient. “A Kapo is … a Kapo. He is a prisoner also, in stripes, rags, ja? But with a green triangle, for criminal. He has power. This one tries to kill me. Every day with the Gummi—this is a hose — black, thick. He says, ‘No Jews on my Kommando,’ he wants his squad should be judenrein. Not only guards and Kapos, the engineers also enjoy to beat the prisoners. It is not necessary to hang a man, most starve and the sick are selected for extermination.”
“Did this man you saw in the market, the engineer — did he beat prisoners? Did he personally order any hangings?”
“I know this Kapo would have killed me if it had not been for him.”
“He saved your life? How?”
“The engineer points at the Kapo. The guards take him and hang him over his machine.” Jack waits.
“You see, the engineer knew I am skilled. The Kapo was sabotaging a valuable worker, so the engineer points at him. Whenever the engineer points, the guard takes the prisoner away, and one morning soon you will meet that prisoner again, at the mouth of the tunnel, when you walk beneath his feet. I saw him point many times. Once when a prisoner offered him a cigarette. Once when one said, ‘Good morning.’ So when he hangs the Kapo, I do not say thank you.”
“… Henry? Are the police still looking for this man?”
“No. I told you, they don’t believe me.” Froelich’s eyelids are heavy, his mouth stained purple.
Jack stands, reaches for his hat. “I believe you.”
Froelich gets up and takes his hand. “Thank you, Jack. For everything. This is my country now. I will call up the newspaper, I will tell them what I have seen and who is living in this free country with us. I will tell how the police persecute my son, and I will have this man to prison.”
“What does your lawyer say about all this?”
“My lawyer?” Froelich rolls his eyes. “He says, ‘Keep quiet. You prejudice the case.’ I don’t think he believes me either.”
Jack pauses halfway to the door, remembering the money, changed to large bills and weightless in his pocket. He puts his hand inside his jacket and removes a small brown pay envelope.
“What is this?” asks Henry.
“Please accept this—”
“No, no I can’t.”
“A lot of good men have contributed. I can’t go giving it back to them.” He places the envelope on the table, among the bills.
Henry stares at it. “My lawyer says, even if it is true, my son appears more guilty with this alibi since I have claimed to see the same car.” He takes a big breath. “When I think through the eyes of strangers…. They do not know my son. They don’t know me. We are from … elsewhere. His alibi, I think … it sounds like a Märchen—a fairy tale.”
Jack clicks his tongue. “You’re probably right, Henry.” He sticks his hands in his pockets and with a shock he feels the lone car key.
“I think I take my lawyer’s advice,” says Henry.
“He’s the expert.”
“Then afterwards, I tell the newspapers what I have seen. And this air force man, whoever he is, I make him to feel it.”
Henry walks Jack to the door. “I never forget a face, Jack. In April the Americans came. I remember a soldier who reached down his hand and I think every day, I hope this boy has a good life. I hope he has children.”
“Henry, I’m sorry.”