MEIN STERN
Copyright © 1991 by D.L. Berner
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author.
First Printing, September, 2002
Printed in the United States of America
PROLOGUE
Little Schicklgruber!" the macabre face’s shrill voice screamed as it floated above a massive oak bed. Below, a twisting, tortured body–arms flailing in the air–fought to escape sleep and the nightmare. The voice and the ethereal face were disjointed yet somehow belonged together, but it was the look on the face that terrified and enraged the sleeping man. Suddenly, he bolted upright–instantly awake. Now he remembered!
It had been a year ago! A man had yelled “Little Schicklgruber” at him! He crawled to the furniture’s edge and sat, his body covered in cold sweat beneath his long, white nightgown. For seven nights now he had been tormented by this same specter. This one was new among the many that haunted the dark recesses of his mind. It was from his recent life and more evolved and menacing than the others that came back from his past. Although grossly distorted, they seemed to be distinctly familiar faces, but faces he somehow could not quite recognize. Unable to drive them away, he could feel himself being driven to the edge of madness. In his dreams he used all his strength, beating at them in an insane rage, but his blows were ineffectual. Part of his mind threw his punches with all his might, yet another part drained his fists of the power he knew he possessed and a great impotence overwhelmed him.
He wiped his hand across his brow and looked down at it in the light from the small desk lamp that had been left on. His hand was trembling and wet with sweat, but at least he was awake and back in the saving sanity of consciousness. He was awake–and this time he remembered; he would do something about this dream. He held his hand out level in front of him and stared at it. It took a full minute, but he willed it to stop shaking. His heart was pounding in his chest and, just as he had stilled his hand, he slowed the organ’s beat.
“Little Schicklgruber.” He had read it many times in the press and heard it on the radio. The word had stung, but he had shed it like water from his back. When he announced in February of 1932 that he would be a candidate for the presidency, those who opposed his political ambitions, the Marxists and other liberal elements, had campaigned vigorously against him. “The little Schicklgruber” is what they had derisively dubbed him. “Little bastard” was its meaning. It was a reference to the fact that his father had been born illegitimate and had to use his mother’s maiden name until able to rightfully claim his true surname. But all that had been long before he was even born. His enemies had dug deep in his past for this information.
Still, no one had ever called him the name to his face until that May afternoon, exactly a year ago this day, in Nuremberg. He was in a small convoy of three motorcars that were escorting him to an auditorium. In the front and rear cars were the forerunners of what would soon be his “own” police force. The address he was to give to a waiting assembly had been unplanned and he found himself late and racing through the backstreets of the city. There had not even been time to plan the strategic, propagandist pageantry of a parade. It was a warm day and the automobile windows were opened to catch some breeze. He was alone in the back seat. In the front were a driver and his personal physician.
As the vehicles came to a momentary stop for traffic, he had looked up from the notes he was making for his campaign speech. They were beside a butcher’s shop. A Mogen David, the six-pointed star of the Jews, was painted in yellow on a window filled with the hanging carcasses of plucked fowl. A man passing the store stopped, turned and stared at him. The pedestrian’s eyes filled with recognition and he cupped his hand to his mouth and shouted, “Little Schicklgruber!” then ran down the street.
Bodyguards tumbled from the autos to give chase. “No. Go on. We are late,” he had shouted to them as his cheeks flushed from the fury that welled within him. It was then he sensed someone’s stare.
A diminutive, wizened old man wearing a skullcap stood in the doorway of the shop. Shaking his head side to side, he slowly wiped his hands on his soiled apron. He had witnessed the entirety of the incident and his face was grieved.
For a moment, that seemed to last an eternity, their eyes locked and he felt the shopkeeper look deep into his soul and sense his pain. The old Jew’s eyes filled with pity and he opened his hands as if to apologize. For a brief instant, he forgot who he and the old man were and felt himself drawn to the offered comfort, a comfort he had never found in life.
Then his mind exploded. How dare a Jew–a Jew–have the temerity to pity him–to know his innermost self! He was furious with himself and began to scream curses unintelligibly and bounced in his seat, banging his head against the auto’s roof. His face contorted, turning a bright red, and saliva spilled from the corners of his mouth. He beat at the back of the front seat and against the door.
Mistaking the violent outburst as a reaction to the name-calling, the Doctor leaned back and tried to calm his almost maniacal patient but was struck in the face for his efforts. He hastily reached into his bag and withdrew a hypodermic and a small vial. Plunging the needle through the rubber stopper, he quickly filled the hypodermic and pulled it out, tapping the air from its contents. In one swift practiced motion, he pinned a swinging arm and administered the medicine. Grabbing the other free arm he held both tightly so as not to be hit again and, in seconds, the drug began its work and his charge slumped back against the seat, his head tilting crazily to one side. He would sleep for an hour.
The assemblage in the auditorium waited patiently that hour; they would have waited ten for their new messiah. Their wait did not go unrewarded. He had awakened, invigorated, with no memory of the incident. He had blocked it from his consciousness.
But these past few nights it had come back to him and, now, he remembered. Placing the fingers of his right hand on the inside of his left wrist, he took his pulse then got up and walked to a small desk in the sparsely furnished room. He wrote a note to Ernst Rohm for the arrest of all shopkeepers in the Jewish sector of Nuremberg–for contemplating a plot against the government. A night or two in jail and a humbling march through the streets of the city would teach them a belated lesson. It seems he would have his parade after all. He chuckled to himself, pleased with his wit. There would be much more to come. Now, in 1933, he was chancellor with absolute power. If the Jews remained in Germany they would wear the yoke their forefathers bore in Babylon and Egypt. Germany would become their new house of bondage. He turned his thoughts to something even more pleasant. An abridged English translation of the book he had written in prison would be released in days. All–would soon know of the new course he had charted for Germany and the world.
He walked to the large double windows and pulled back the heavy drapes that he had special ordered to block all light. He held his arms straight out at his sides and, tilting his head back, let his body bath itself in the pale light of the moon–and his mind drench itself in celestial providence. Deep within the bowels of the old, stone mansion a grandfather clock began to strike the hour of midnight.
I
Jubal catapulted upright in bed, awakening instantly in the darkness. A malevolence hung oppressively in the air and his half-naked, thirteen-year-old body trembled. He knew there had been a sound and as his eyes adjusted to the night, he deliberately cocked the right side of his head to the front of the house and the street, listening attentively. Like his father he had been born totally deaf in the left ear, a hereditary defect that skipped down through the male generations of the Bergmann family, missing some–touching others. There were only the normal night sounds, factories and trains in the distance, which he had long ago grown accustomed to. Other than their familiar dissonance there was only silence, but Jubal knew better. An awareness, compensating for his hearing loss and more attuned, had awakened him. There had been something. It had not been a motorcar; it was rare that a vehicle traveled down this side street late at night. It had been more of a soft tramping and there was no denying the malignity that he sensed.
He looked up through the glass that covered the length of the huge open loft and, for a brief moment, indulged himself in the beauty of an April half-moon stealing glances from behind fragmented clouds. From its position he determined it to be not long after midnight.
Jubal turned his head back to the room and, in the lunar light, scanned the length of the immense open second floor–past the small boxing ring to the stone sculptures whose forms were always changing. When Jubal had first decided to make the front of the spacious garret his bedroom, the exaggerated figures had frightened him, causing him to sleep fitfully, but as he watched them take shape under his father’s skilled hands, they had become familiar companions. He looked over to the large opening in the floor where the stairs led to the main living quarters on the lower level and where Mother and Father slept. He was sure the ominous sound had not come from there.
A chill was in the night air. There was condensation on the inside of the glass roof that sloped across the width of the building, from the top of the huge 20-foot wall on one side to the floor on the other. But Jubal did not feel the cold and slept without a sheetcovering or pajama top. The heavy masonry wall, that ran the length of the building, stored the sun’s heat that came in through the south-facing glass roof all day, and then slowly radiated the absorbed warmth at night.
He swung his bare feet over the side of the bed and padded cautiously across the floor to the multi-paned glass triangle that comprised the loft at the front of the house. When he reached it his face filled with terror and he dropped immediately to his belly away from the window, hugging the wooden floor. He inched his way back to the glass, rested his chin on the sill and looked down.
It was the sound of boots that had awakened him! Many boots! A long column of soldiers, at ease in a ragged formation, stood in the narrow cobblestone lane that snaked below him. But, these soldiers were not the regular army. They were the Sturmabteilung: Stormtroopers, better known to the townspeople as the Brownshirts because of their distinctive uniforms. The Stormtroopers were rumored to number a million–throughout Germany, but they had never before been on this street. Jubal knew they were here in Hannover and had seen them from a distance in other parts of town, but they had seemed somewhat surreal until now. Unlike the real military the men below did not carry weapons, but were armed with clubs and carried buckets. Jubal recognized some of the faces that filled their ranks–town toughs, drunks and the unemployed who hung about the streets besieging passersby for handouts of money and food.
On February 28, an emergency government decree had given the Stormtroopers, Schutzhaft, “protective custody”, allowing them to seize and imprison anyone. Anyone! There did not even have to be charges! Jubal had heard stories of the intimidations and beatings the Brownshirts administered preceding the March 5 elections in an attempt to help the Nazi party gain control of the government.
Just last night and the day before, for whatever hellish purpose, gangs of the worst of them had shut down all of the town’s Jewish businesses in a boycott and painted the yellow Star of David on homes of Jewish residents. City officials had given assurances that there would be no such reoccurrences, but from the number of Brownshirts below they seemed to be out in the streets tonight in even greater force than before.
Under the glow from a nearby street lamp three officers were gathered at the head of the column. Their heads were huddled in quiet, studious conversation over a small tablet of paper. One of them, evidently their leader from his manner, looked up and Jubal’s heart froze. It was Ulric’s older brother, Armand Heiliger. Jubal’s terror gave way to shock and disbelief. Ulric was a member of the Myrmidones, a Jewish club of teenagers, and Armand used to keep a watchful, brotherly eye on the adolescents though he had not been around the group for many months. Armand’s presence with the SA gave the Brownshirts a contradictory air of credibility.
One of the other officers gave a hand signal and three of the soldiers separated from the rank–two with bludgeons and the other with a pail. There was another hand signal and, filing down the street with the officers at its fore, the balance of the troop stepped softly off; generating the same muted tramping that had awakened Jubal earlier.
The three Brownshirts left behind waited under the street lamp and watched their comrades march out of sight. The two with the clubs leaned against the post and produced wine bottles from inside their shirts. They drank heavily as they passed the two bottles around among themselves. Something was afoot and Jubal decided to go outside for a better view.
Pushing himself back away from the window he stood and looked up at the latticed girders that supported the glass roof. It was a rigid framework comprised of iron beams and rods, reflecting advanced construction techniques for the early 1800’s when the building had been erected. Over his head, out of reach, was one of the several hinged sections of glass that were alternately spaced over the whole of the roof. They were opened to let cool air in on warm days. There was a pole that reached the latch and opened these windows within a window, but Father, suspecting Jubal of nightly excursions with his friends, now kept it downstairs.
Jubal crouched then sprang up, catching the lip of the lower T section of one of the trusses with the fingertips of both hands. He pulled his muscular body up and grabbed one of the many iron bars that crisscrossed through the beam and held himself there with one hand as he reached out with the other and released the latch. He pushed on the window and it swung easily and silently upward; he kept the hinges well oiled.
Hanging suspended, Jubal took a deep breath then chinned himself strongly up and through the opening then lowered himself gently out on the glass roof. He lay flat, distributing his weight over the many double-thick, glass panes. Reaching to his left with hand and foot, he gripped the ridges of one of the main beams and pulled himself over onto it. He stood slowly, balancing himself with his arms outstretched as if he were walking a tightrope. The footing on the steep slope was treacherous and he clung with his toes to the small, metal lip on the cold iron to keep from sliding down. When he did start to move he would be committed; there would be no stopping his motion.
Across from him the wall of the neighboring building rose another six feet above and three feet away from where the angled roof of his own home ended. There was a small area on the top of the parapet opposite him where the protective ceramic tile caps had broken away, exposing the brick surface. Jubal teetered forward, then took two long quick steps down the beam and pushed powerfully off the edge of the roof. He was airborne for only an instant and then his grappling fingers found the striated brick at the top of the adjacent wall and his feet a toehold on a familiar decorative stone ledge that ran alongside the building. Jubal took only a second to catch his breath, then pulled himself up and over onto the neighboring roof.
Father had guessed right about his occasional, nocturnal journeys. The neighbor’s roof stepped down three times in the back. Jubal would lower himself silently to each level and then, using a rope he kept secreted on the last roof, lower himself the last twelve feet. The home’s occupants were elderly and suspected nothing. But tonight, Jubal would not this take this route. Instead, he crept stealthily to the front of the building, conscious for the first time of the cool night air. Clad only in his pajama bottoms, he wished he had thought to put on more clothing, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him, causing him to hurry.
Jubal peered over the low wall in front. He was higher here than in his room and he could look out over the tightly compacted rooftops of the city and see the smokestacks in the distance. Some sent gray, willowy wisps straight up into the night and others belched dense black columns, adding to the darkness. He looked down and watched as the three Brownshirts left the lamp’s circle of light and stagger before the Rosenblatt home directly across from his vantage point. The one with the bucket went to the front door, and then reached in the pail pulling out a wide brush laden with yellow pigment. With slow deliberate motions he painted the six-pointed Star of David on the door. When he had finished the soldier stepped back to survey his work and took a wine bottle from one of his accomplices, upending it high over his mouth. The bottle was near empty and in his drunken hand the last of its contents missed his open lips and poured onto his chin. He angrily threw it against the home where it shattered on the brick facade. No life stirred from within the house.
The other Brownshirts laughed at their comrade and then the three turned as one and began walking across the street toward Jubal’s home. They were halfway there when the door opened, splashing light out over the smooth, rounded cobblestones and onto their shoe tops. A familiar shadow filled the spilled light and, though he could not see the doorway, Jubal knew that Father too had been watching the proceedings. The soldiers stopped cold and the two sides eyed one another in wary silence.
A small panic clutched at Jubal; he had to get back and help his father. He thought about dropping down the back roof like he normally did, but he would have to run around the long block to get back to the front and there was no time for that. He had to make the difficult and more dangerous return trip.
Jubal went back to the side wall and lowered himself over until his feet found the stone ledge. With one hand still over his head holding the brick, he turned his back to the wall and with a mighty shove, leaped off. His feet landed expertly on the same girder he had jumped from earlier and he fell face forward on the sloping roof, reaching out to the ribbed spine of the beam. As always, he started to slide back down the roof and he dug his fingertips in to slow him. Sometimes he was not able to arrest his momentum until his feet touched the raingutter on the roof’s edge, but tonight he stopped almost immediately. Slowly he worked his way back up the girder until he was parallel to the window opening. Jubal lowered himself back in the same way he had come out and dropped to the floor.
Arming himself with an oversized steel chisel from Father’s work area, Jubal crouched near the top of the open stairwell. Below, he could see his father’s back in the doorway and beyond him the leering Brownshirts. One of the drunken soldiers broke the silence, hurling a barrage of obscenities and curses. Father bore the verbal assault in stony silence, but Jubal saw the muscles in Father’s back tense as one of the soldiers bravely took a menacing step forward. The Brownshirt was restrained by one of his companions who cautioned, “That is Major Bergmann … the war hero.” The one holding the bucket took a step back and froze, dropping the pail. It overturned, sending small, slow-moving, yellow rivulets between the stones of the street.
The liquor-induced bravado drained slowly from the eyes of the soldier who had advanced and his manner became more guarded. “He is but one man,” he turned and prompted his comrades, but the others had already begun shrinking back into the darkness. He spun back to face Jubal’s father. “We will be back, Jew lover,” he spit, and retreated to the middle of the street. There was a brief moment of silence and then the last wine bottle came shattering through a pane in the front window of Jubal’s home. Tiny glass shards fell on the wood floor, sounding like an oriental wind chime against the backdrop of the echoing laughter and boots of the Brownshirts as they ran down the street.
Father closed the door, locking the latch and driving home the heavy bolt that the family had never before used. As he turned from the door he stopped and stared into a corner where Jubal could not see. A smile formed on his bearded face. “I was wondering why those bastards took flight so quickly; a smart foot soldier never goes against heavy artillery. I would have felt no fear had I but known you were there.”
It was then that Jubal saw his mother. She stepped from the shadows holding her favorite square, cast-iron skillet in one hand. Jubal had never seen Mother like this before; her jaw was clenched tight and her eyes blazed with fury, like some Valkyrie from Norse mythology. Mother’s body still trembled from the violation of her home and fear for her husband. Too shaken and enraged to respond to Father’s attempt to make light of the situation, she turned away from him and bent to pick up the broken glass. She laid each piece carefully into her open hand as if they were precious gems, which in a sense they were to her; this was her home. Father came and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Leave it for the morning, Bess.”
It was then she allowed the tears that anger and fear had so far held back. They came quietly and softly, falling on the glass in her hand as she turned it over letting the fragments spill back onto the floor. Father raised her gently by the shoulders and she turned and clung tightly to him. “Meshugener. My Meshugener,” she whispered into his chest. With their arms about one another they walked slowly to their bedroom. Jubal drew silently back from the opening as they passed the stairs.
He went back to the loft window and looked down the street to make sure the Brownshirts had truly left. A creaking door turned his attention and he watched as Mr. and Mrs. Rosenblatt scurried quickly outside their home. They scrubbed furiously at their door and picked up the broken glass of the wine bottle, going so far as to wipe up the small residue of liquor that wet the building and street. They reminded Jubal of ants that always instinctively, almost mechanically, repaired their mound after it had been violated, eliminating as swiftly as possible the traces of an intruder’s visit. Though the Mogen David was a symbol of the Rosenblatts’ faith, in the Nazi’s hands it had become a yellow defilement and had to be erased quickly to preserve the Star’s integrity.
The Rosenblatts were finished in a matter of minutes and, as they closed the door behind them, no signs remained of the trespass of their home and religion. Jubal returned to bed and lay with his hands behind his head; he could not sleep. Although it had not kept pace with his other schooling or his embryonic search for the meaning of his young life, Jubal was slowly acquiring an awareness of the current political environment. He could not believe that in this year of 1933, these kinds of things could still happen in the world. There seemed to be no reason or purpose for these random acts of violence.
It was a subject he would raise with his mentors: Rabbi Aschner and Father Krings, with whom he talked on a regular basis. And, of course, his father’s comrade-in-arms: the black-skinned warrior giant, Subet, whom Jubal had never met, but had communicated with via Father’s letters. He would question all of them, before he went to his father.
Father had told him, “No one else in this country has access to such diverse minds as you. Go to them first and learn from them as I have. Then, you will understand as I do and together we can discuss and examine the many afflictions our poor world suffers.” As he grew older Jubal saw through Father’s small ruse to expand his horizons, but he also began to appreciate the wisdom of these men, although there were still some answers he sought only from his father.
He would start with Rabbi Aschner. Jubal did not consider himself of any religious persuasion, but his mother and grandmother, who were Jewish, set great store by the Rabbi and at a young age Jubal was sent to receive private tutoring in whatever the sage chose to teach. The Rabbi had much time for Jubal; he had been relieved of most of his congregational obligations. One of four rabbis of the large synagogue mother attended, Rabbi Aschner was the least popular. Yet he would not leave. He once told Jubal, “A rabbi whom the congregation doesn’t want to drive from the synagogue is not a rabbi and a rabbi who is actually driven out is not a man.” His admonitions on the loss of true Jewish values and beliefs in Germany were intensely unpopular among the Jews of Hannover. The Rabbi felt that Jewish thought could not harmonize with German idealism and that only the practices of Judaism were being taught while theology was being ignored. Though Rabbi Aschner did not force religion on Jubal and mostly told stories when they were together, his parables were subtly and deeply rooted in Judaism and its relationship with God.
Jubal’s father had not pushed his own Catholic background, but Jubal was nonetheless introduced to the religion and the philosophy of Jesus by Father Krings. Father Krings was a definite radical in the affluent Catholic Church hierarchy and could be found, more often than not, among the poor of Hannover. He oversaw a small soup kitchen in the impoverished section of town and routinely beleaguered the city’s merchants for donations of food and clothing. Jubal often wondered why the Catholic Church offered so little assistance. It was through the rabbi that Jubal met the Priest. Rabbi Aschner was an unseen advocate of Father Krings in his aid to the less fortunate. The two had formed a bond between Jew and Catholic that existed nowhere else in Hannover–a bond that was based on a mutual respect for each other and a love for God and humanity. Both men were considered too idealistic by their respective religions.
The black giant, Subet, was considered a great seer and philosopher among his tribe of people in East Africa and, although many thousands of kilometers away, he was considered family by Jubal’s father and mother. His beliefs were those of reason and logic. He had studied the major religions, his education derived from a select library of books brought to the African continent by a missionary, but he professed none personally. Outside of his father, Jubal considered these three the wisest men he knew. From them he would try and fathom the new disorder in his country.
Jubal knew he must sleep; the Myrmidones would be meeting later on. There would be no school today. The school district had declared a two-day holiday as they studied the new edict that would allow only 1.5% of the school population in Germany to be Jewish. It would make little difference in Hannover, that was just about the ratio of Jews in the town’s population overall, but the Myrmidones were glad for the time off. Deborah had received new phonograph records from the United States and, as they had done for the past year, they would listen in wonder and dance to these new sounds called swing and jazz that were developing in a country on the other side of the world. At the meeting Jubal would question Ulric about his older brother Armand whom he had seen with the Brownshirts.
As sleep began to steal silently upon him, Jubal turned his thoughts to more pleasant subjects: the sisters Tamar and Tirzah Steenbergen. Tamar was the oldest and bestowed with dazzling beauty and flashing brown eyes. She had shoulder length, jet-black, ringlet hair like his own mother, and had the provocative habit of tossing it with a slight flip of her head. Tamar was an athlete and exercised regularly. She was firm, tanned and Jubal was infatuated with her, even though she was over a year older than he and so much more mature and worldly. As wild and unpredictable as the wind fronting a storm, Tamar had no real ambition other than to have fun. Though barely a teenager, she was slipping away to see young men in their twenties.
Her sister, Tirzah, was not possessed of the almost blinding good looks of Tamar, but rather of the beauty that inspires artists and poets to greatness. At a gathering you would see Tamar first and stare open-mouthed, but later find yourself admiring Tirzah for the rest of the evening. At least that’s how it was with Jubal. Tirzah had wavy long black hair and was dark like her sister, but hers was a natural olive complexion. Her eyes were different too. They were almond-shaped and black as night. Her lithe, supple figure moved with catlike grace. She aspired to be a great dramatic actress and pursued her goal avidly. Already, she had appeared in small roles, walk-ons, in the German cinema. Jubal was captivated with Tirzah, also. “The two sisters are a pleasant dilemma,” he thought, as his eyes closed against his will.
“Jubal?” he heard his mother call, softly and melodically. He liked the sound of her voice drifting through his sleep. He knew that if he did not answer, her voice would not rise, but take on a subtle inflection as she called his name again. That was as much as it ever changed, regardless of moods or emotions. Experience had taught that it was wise to obey the first voice, one learned to differentiate immediately. But still, it was a voice that could hold Jubal spellbound. At times, when she cooked, she talked of her past–and Father’s. Jubal would sit in the kitchen and listen to her for hours, spellbound as the waves of her stories gently lapped and broke over the thirsting sands of his mind. Over time Jubal had acquired her quiet vocal mannerisms and ability to tell stories.
Jubal awoke, blinking his eyes in the daylight. It was morning already. He walked to the window and looked sleepily out. Outside, the remains of a fine mist dampened the city and it looked as though there had never been anything amiss, but he knew he would find a broken window in their front room.
“Jubal?”
“I am awake, Mameh,” he shouted, using the Yiddish for mother he knew she favored. The smell of the sausagelike kishka drifted up the open stairwell, but he knew it was not kishka. It was time for breakfast and that smell could only mean Mameh was making his favorite: meat filled blintzes. She made them only for Father and him. Father had talked her into using meat as a filling rather than the traditional cottage cheese or fruit. It had seemed quite logical to Father and he loved eating them daylong, warm or cold. Jubal followed his father’s lead with great relish. Mameh considered it almost an abomination, but there was nothing she would not do for Father and, after all, he was Catholic–what could he know, not having been raised on good Jewish food.
She had prepared the pancakelike blintzes earlier, browning them only on one side. When the kishka was ready, she did not place it in the traditional intestinal casings, but down the centers of the cooked sides of the blintzes. She then folded over the edges and fried them, both sides, to a golden brown.
Nose in air, Jubal followed the aroma down the steps and into the warmth of the kitchen. His mother looked over from the stove and smiled knowingly. She knew her son’s weakness for her cooking, the same weakness his father had. Sheepishly, Jubal returned her smile. He could not help himself, even when he was angry with her. But then, she had never been able to keep from returning one of his smiles. It was a special understanding they shared–a bond that transcended all arguments.
She turned her head back to the stove. At thirty-eight, she still looked as though she was in her mid-twenties. Her perfect rich, milk-colored skin accented her ebony eyes and long jet-black hair that tumbled about her face in cascading ringlets. The convexity of her nose divulged her Jewish heritage, lending an aristocratic touch to her beauty, and her body spoke flatteringly of the equestrian training, swimming and diving that she had begun at an early age. Her complexion and figure were the envy of the townswomen, but to Jubal, Mameh was Mameh and he mainly saw that she was not fat like most of the other mothers. Still, he was conscious that men, young and old, would stop their tasks, captivated in her passage, until she was long out of view.
Mameh was the sole child of one of the wealthiest families in Hannover. Educated at the renowned Ruprecht-Karl-Universitat Heidelberg, she was to have been an attorney. To know this about her and then see her with beads of perspiration on her brow and standing over a burning stove in her favorite plain, green and white gingham dress with its long full skirt and shortened sleeves, was an incongruity to Jubal. Mameh had never cooked until she married father. Jubal also found that hard to believe. She loved the kitchen and when she was in it was the only time she could be heard singing.
Jubal sat at the table set for two. It was early and it would be just he and Mother eating breakfast together. She would not wake Father until 10:00 a.m. Father was an artist who felt his most creative period was from noon until late evening; eccentricity was only one of the many facets of his personality. Besides, he had been up late last night.
“Mameh, I was awake last night. I saw. I heard. What does it mean Mameh?
“It is nothing, Jubal. Just a bunch of drunken idiots playing soldier,” she lied. She knew it was more serious than that, but not how much. It was best Jubal not concern himself with these matters.
As she served him breakfast she asked, “So, are the Myrmidones meeting again today?” The Myrmidones were a tightknit group of children (although not so much children now): Jubal’s chevra, his companions. They had named themselves after the fierce and devoted Thessalian warriors who had served Achilles, the bravest, most handsome and greatest warrior in Agamemnon’s army. In the beginning the children had fancied themselves invulnerable like Achilles, dipped into the River Styx, held by one heel (their only weakness) by their mothers. Now mature, they were no longer interested in Homeric tales and their fantasies were long forgotten.
“Yes Mameh, at Deborah’s.” he responded, not looking up between wolfish bites. It looked as though Mameh was going to make no mention of the events of last night. He had waited for her to broach the subject. Sometimes she was a little too protective of him.
“Deborah’s?” Mameh questioned. “Perhaps you should not go today, Jubal. In fact, I think I prefer that you do not.”
“I will be careful, Mameh. Besides, Deborah has new phonograph recordings sent by her sister from the United States of America,” Jubal said, emphasizing “the United States of America” so that Mameh would not miss the enormity of such a journey.
“I thought Deborah was forbidden to listen to phonograph records other than gospel ones, much less receive them.”
“But Mameh, that’s why Deborah’s sister ran away from home; because her parents were so strict,” Jubal patiently explained. “That’s why she sends Deborah records. She knows how much she loves the music and I … I just have to go.” He really did, too. Deborah’s parents suspected she was listening to records and had taken to removing the crank from the phonograph player whenever they left the house, but Jubal had painstakingly fashioned another out of hardwood and kept it at his home.
“Please, Mameh?” He looked up at her with his father’s dancing, green, long-lashed eyes, winning her over instantly.
She smiled and ran her hand through his dark brown hair and he returned to his breakfast. Yes, he would be much like his father, she thought. Already he was possessed of enormous strength, but his fluidity, grace and gentleness were more her. The young girls had followed him home from school since his first year, but he had given them no consideration, thinking them merely silly. She noticed that he walked with them now. “Too soon he was becoming a man,” she thought to herself.
Standing up, Jubal bolted his last bite of food and darted through the house to the front door. “Bye, Mameh.”
“Jubal, wait!” she called after him. “I’ve packed you some fruit to eat later and I’ve received no kiss.”
Jubal walked repentantly back, took the paper sack, kissed her cheek and then sped out the door, forgetting to close it behind him. He lost his footing on the slick cobblestones and slid crazily, his arms windmilling. He recovered his balance with an athletic pirouette and gave the empty thoroughfare a mock bow in response to an imagined applause at his agility. He began to run at a leisurely gait, one that would not tax him. Deborah’s parents had moved to the other side of town and he did not want to be soaked with perspiration when he arrived. Tirzah and Tamar would be there. Aged fourteen and fifteen, they were blossoming into beautiful young women and the transformation had not gone unnoticed among the boys of the group.
Bess walked to the door and closed it, watching her son’s back as he loped effortlessly down the lane and out of view. In the past he would have turned and looked for her, giving one final wave.
“It is those two nekaivehs, Tirzah and Tamar who are to blame for Jubal’s neglect,” she thought to herself. “Especially the older one, Tamar; she is advanced beyond her years.” Then Bess smiled. Here she was, acting like a typical Jewish mother, calling these two beautiful children, tarts, because they had gained part of Jubal’s affection from her. She wondered if she were one of those clinging mothers. It did not seem likely. She had seen very little of her own mother during the early years of her growth, having been raised primarily by her governess, Serah. It was not that her mother did not love her; she was devoted to her daughter. Rather, in the early years, the great wealth Mother had come from and married into not only detached and insulated her from the reality of the world, but also from close relationships. It was not until Bess was a young woman that she and her mother began to form a tighter bond.
As her thoughts returned to the two sisters, she felt an innate precognition telling her that in the future (she selfishly hoped it was the distant future) Jubal would spend his life with one of the two sisters. But, her prophecy did not reveal which one.
Like his father, Jubal was Bess’s neshoma–her soul–her source and breath of life. She was more than a little jealous. When the girls came to visit Jubal, it was as if God had reached down and struck all three temporarily stupid. “Yes,” she thought, “Stupid was the only fitting word. They became three shmegegis when together. This was no ordinary pubescent feeling they were experiencing.”
Bess had known the same feeling when she first met her husband, Peter. As she took a sip of coffee her ruminations turned to Peter and a pleasured smile crossed her face. She allowed herself to drift back.
II
I t was a bright, crisp day in late March in the year 1912 at the stately Rothman family home outside Hannover. At one time its setting had been called a forest but, as the civilization of the city and nearby farms gradually encroached on it, it was now called the countryside. Though its manor house, with only twenty-seven rooms, was relatively modest in comparison to others in the vicinity, its almost one thousand acres of rolling woodland and small lakes made it one of the larger estates.
Its main structure of rough, large gray stones, set off by the massive, smooth, rust-colored quoins (cornerstones) that comprised the external corners and the building’s many archways, had been built in the late 17th century when the Dukes of the House of Guelf permitted settlement of several wealthy Jews in and outside of the city. The Rothman banking family had been among the first to locate in the area, as Hannover became the residence for many important Jewish figures in the financial world in the late 1800’s.
To the side of the manor a huge, sorrel horse cantered across the lush green grounds, its vibrant red-mahogany color contrasting with the tight white pants of the small rider it carried. It was 16-year-old Bess Rothman. The jacket of her riding habit was buttoned tightly against her full bosom and narrow waist, its black color capturing what little warmth emanated from the noonday sun on this cool day. It felt good pressed against her smooth, alabaster skin. She loved to wear black. The sun’s rays were sometimes unkind to her complexion, but she could still absorb its radiant energy through the dark color she favored wearing. Adjusting the bill of the small black cap strapped securely under her chin, her long-lashed, dark brown-black eyes surveyed the ground before her.
Not content to sit and atrophy as slowly as money could buy, like the other young women of gentry that she knew, Bess had pursued an active role in equestrian and water sports, her two passions, with the surprising approval of her parents.
Today she was mounted on Dohna, her personal jumping horse. No one else had helped to train Dohna and very few besides Bess were allowed, or were able, to jump her. As the horse maneuvered among the jumps it responded instantly to the gentlest of physical leads, mostly out of love, but it knew the great strength and forceful nature its rider could command when necessary. Dohna’s ears perked and she pranced as Bess bent forward and spoke, her small, yet full, lips cooing mellifluously to the horse. Positioning herself, in what one day would be commonly called the forward seat, Bess’s hands surged forward with the movement of Dohna as she came to the last obstacle on the small course laid out especially for her on the estate.
On the other side of the hedge Bess’s father, Aaron Rothman: professional financier and avid, amateur photographer–waited with his forehead pressed tightly to his tripod-mounted, Foth Derby camera.
As she increased Dohna’s speed for the jump ahead, Bess raised her seat from the saddle and, as they vaulted in tandem, arched her back parallel to the horse conforming to her mount’s every movement. Bess focused on flowing as one with the horse; she had felt the powerful drive from the hindquarters and knew from experience that they would clear the jump easily.
Through the viewfinder Aaron Rothman’s eyes were riveted as the horse and its young rider glided effortlessly over the hedge. A ray of sunlight reflected from the small, gold Star of David that hung about her neck. It had been given to her on her thirteenth birthday by her mother, who had received it from her mother. At the top of their crest he snapped the shutter. “It was a very good photograph. No! Great!” he exulted to himself.
Still raised from the saddle, Bess absorbed the impact of the landing through her legs. She lightly reined Dohna toward the woods at the end of the estate and a path known only to her, strewn with logs and wild, natural, brush fences broken only by an occasional small meadow. After the rigid confines of the course, she enjoyed the freedom of jumping in a natural state. There, she would rid herself of jacket and cap and unbutton her blouse daringly low. Father would not miss her. When he was able, he would rush back to his small lab and develop his photographs immediately, particularly those of her. She liked that. Later, when the two of them were alone in his immense study, she would sit on the floor by his aged, leather-upholstered armchair, her head resting on his leg, and study the newest photographs under his attentive gaze.
Aaron Rothman watched as his daughter disappeared into the treeline. He knew of the secret trail. He could not help but marvel at her fierce independence and athletic ability. She looked too small to control such a horse. Dohna was a cross of German Holstein and Hannoverian, and stood seventeen and one-half hands high. However, if one were to look closely at Bess, the tightness of the riding habit revealed the developed musculature of her legs, and the strength of her upper body, sparingly used with Dohna, had kept many an overspirited horse (and suitor) in check. Her fierce look of determination as she rode the course, could not belie the, almost, seventeen-year-old’s inherited beauty from her mother. He had captured it all on film and he smiled.
Bess had trained passionately for the last two years in jumping. There had been talk of women being allowed to compete in the Equestrian events at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm. A handful of women had been allowed to compete in golf and lawn tennis at the 1900 games in Paris; there was a small archery competition for women at the 1904 Saint Louis World’s Fair where the Olympic games had been held; and at the last Olympics, the 1908 games in London, the number of women allowed to compete had grown to an astounding thirty-six.
Then the weight of troubled thought slowly pulled the corners of Aaron’s mustached smile into a pensive frown. Tonight he was going to disappoint his Bess, perhaps break a small piece of her heart. But, before he left the house today to meet Bess at the jumps, he had received a telegram that would help to comfort her.
Earlier in the week another telegram had come with a message that he had not yet shared with Bess. There would be no competition for women in the Grand Prix Jumping at this Olympics. The decision had been made over a month ago. Aaron Rothman had hoped the International Olympic Committee to be more enlightened in this day and age, but it seemed they were not. Unintentionally adding salt in the wounding process the National Equestrian Federation of Germany requested that Dohna be placed at the disposal of another rider, a man named von Krocher, for the event. A Federation official, hearing of the prowess of Bess and Dohna, had visited the estate earlier in the month, ostensibly to screen her as a candidate for the Olympic team. Bess had been flawless, but it seemed from the date of the IOC’s decision, the Federation’s intents had been other than honest. The official had known that women would not be allowed to compete and he was only looking to recruit the horse
Aaron Rothman was outraged. Bess was their only child. He had all but given up hope of having children, when he and his wife had been blessed with Bess in their mid-thirties. She was the star of his life. There was nothing he would not do for his daughter and Aaron had brought his wealth and connections to bear on the several national sporting federations that comprised the haphazard and still embryonic German National Olympic Committee.
The telegram he had received today confirmed his negotiations. Although there would be no equestrian events, three swimming events for women had been established for the 1912 Olympics and, even at this late date, he had been able to secure a position for Bess on the women’s swim team in exchange for Dohna. All she need do is qualify in the regional preliminaries and that seemed assured. Though Bess had not tried out for the swim team, preferring to concentrate on her jumping, she was easily the fastest woman swimmer in the Hannover area.
It would be insufficient balm (it was a certainty she would have medaled in the jumping event; as good as von Krocher was, no one rode Dohna like Bess). Though perhaps not world-class in the swimming, at least she still had a chance at participating in the Olympics. She must begin training immediately; she had only until June to prepare for the Olympics. Tonight he would divulge all to her.
III
The train from Malmo settled in slowly as it arrived at the Stockholm station, jostling its cars amid great clouds of steam as it concluded its trip from the southern tip of Sweden. In a final flurry of activity it disgorged its load of passengers, sending them milling over the platform. Among them were Bess Rothman, now seventeen, and her new friend and teammate, Margarete. The month of June and the Olympics had arrived far too quickly and Bess felt ill prepared for the contest ahead. She knew that her swim training had been hurried and that she was far from her peak. Her performance would definitely not be up to her own previous highs, but she was happy just to be participating. The disappointment in not being able to compete on the equestrian team had cut Bess deeply, but Father’s intervention had fashioned a surgeon’s skilled scalpel from a blunt kitchen knife. The wound was healing quickly and would leave little scarring. On the train she sensed something exciting in the air and here at the station it was almost overwhelming; people from so many countries gathered in one place. It was said there would be over 2500 competitors from 28 nations! Better yet, this was going to be competition. “Come on Grete,” Bess called back to her new, tall blond friend. Grete was a member of the swim team also. It was only because she was older and had agreed to chaperon that young Bess had been allowed to go without someone from the family in attendance. Grete was the daughter of an old friend of Father’s, an acquaintance he had made on his yearly business trips through Germany. Though Bess had never met her before and despite their age difference, Grete was much like her and they became instant friends. Having Grete chaperon was like putting the cat in charge of the cream. This would be an adventure! Bess could restrain herself no longer and with luggage in hand, ran down the platform.
At a club pool near their hotel Bess continued working out three hours, twice a day. Before she left Germany she and Father had decided that her total efforts should be concentrated on the 100-meter freestyle. It was a short race and would make full use of her explosive strength. Still, because of her late appointment to the team, she was far behind the others in her training for the event and had barely been able to qualify. But, now, when she raced head-to-head with Grete, she was sometimes only a stroke behind at the finish. She did not think she could catch or surpass Grete, but–what if Grete finished first?
She had just finished her workout and swam to the side of the pool, draping her arms up on the apron to catch her breath.
“Hey little one.” called a now familiar voice and Bess looked up to see Grete smiling down at her. “We’re going to take a break for the rest of the day and see the sights.”
Bess knew what that meant. They were going to watch the men train. Grete’s eye had been caught by a young American army lieutenant who was competing in the Modern Pentathlon. Bess thought him rather plain and dull and could not understand Grete’s fascination, but her body had been signaling her that it desperately needed a recuperative rest and she decided to go with Grete.
“Let us go to the Gamla Stan (Old Town) today,” Bess tormented, knowing where Grete really wanted to go.
“No,” Grete pleaded. “I’ve had my fill of old buildings.”
“Then how about the National Museum.”
“. . .and old relics,” Grete added.
“Does that include 26-year-old American army lieutenants?”
Laughing, Grete kicked Bess’s towel into the center of the pool. “I guess twenty-six does seem old to little children,” came Grete’s retort as Bess splashed water on her in return. “Hurry and dress, Bess. They’re on the cross-country riding course today.”
At that same course a young man placed his hand on the top rail of an unused jumping fence that had been placed to the side and vaulted his body effortlessly astride it, his muscular legs straddling the obstacle. Peter had taken a small break from his training as one of Germany’s representatives in the Pentathlon and gotten out his sketchpad and charcoal. It was already half-filled with his Olympic images–some to be redone in oils when he got back to the farm. A small breeze riffled through his long thick brown-black hair as his light green eyes looked over the temporary jumping course that had been constructed for the Pentathlon contestants to use for practice. The day was bright and very warm, with only an occasional shadow passing swiftly over the landscape as isolated, wind-driven, white billows raced tauntingly in front of the noonday sun.
It was a little too hot and Peter removed his shirt, revealing a tanned and farm-hardened, muscular body. It would not be indecorous here. There were only male contestants about and the course had been placed in a small clearing, distanced from the city proper and the other Olympic practice sites. He was self-conscious about the thick tangle of hair on his chest. With him since his youth, the early and profuse growth of hair on his body had made him the object of much derision in his younger days at school. He laid his shirt across the rail and basked in the sun, feeling his body infuse itself with its energy.
Peter began to sketch his new American friend, George, as he rode his mount through the course. This would be Peter’s weakest event of the five, but George was performing flawlessly, as usual. George was versed in German and likewise Peter in English (thanks to the travels of his Uncle Hubert). Their ability to communicate was not the only foundation for their relationship. They had also formed a bond in a quest to beat the Swedes.
The Swedes, on horseback, were out in force today. Again! There were so many of them and they were strong competitors. They would be the ones to beat, but if anyone could do it–it would be the American. The Swedes knew this also.
Peter wished he were able to ride and jump more skillfully. His only exposure to horses had been to the huge Norikers used for heavy labor on the farm and the smaller carriage horses that one was allowed to ride occasionally. They were working animals and not suited for racing or jumping. He had taken up jumping late, only after it was discovered how high he scored in the other events that comprised the Pentathlon.
Raised on a sweeping, moderately prosperous farm in the country; shooting, swimming and running became second nature to Peter. His two uncles, Hubert: an aged fencing master and Adler: a spreading, middle-aged, former heavyweight boxing contender, had rounded out Peter’s physical education. It was with great regret that they were unable to accompany him to Stockholm. His competing meant as much to them as it did to Peter.