The Trap. Ludovic Bruckstein

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ sooner you will be free!’ yelled the officer.

      And the men ran down the stairs, and then laboured back up, hauling the iron bedsteads and straw mattresses.

      Up, down! Up, down! Their legs were breaking, their shoulders were aching, their clothes were tearing. They no longer felt how heavy were the iron bedsteads, they no longer felt how light and baggy were the straw mattresses, they felt only exhaustion and humiliation.

      ‘Quickly! Quickly!’

      They did not even notice when it grew dark. The lights came on. The large windows of the Palace of Culture were lit as if for a celebration, like when the town hall or a sports club or a benevolent society held a festive concert or a tea dance or a masked ball. Now, however, a strange ball indeed was being held in that fussy provincial palace, the windows were lit up festively, in stark contrast to the surrounding streets, which were plunged in darkness, and behind whose fences and dark windows waited pale folk with tearful eyes.

      The news had quickly spread through the town. The streets around the building were empty. Nobody dared to set foot there. But in the nearby lanes and streets, behind the windows and fences from which it was possible to see the palace, people had gathered to wait. The parents, wives, children of those ambushed stood and waited. They watched anxiously: perhaps some familiar outline might appear at a window, perhaps somebody might manage to give a sign, perhaps some news as to what was happening within might arrive.

      That day, many people in town did not eat their Sabbath lunch, nor their third, shaleshudes5 meal, nor the supper to bid Queen Sabbath farewell. Imperceptibly, the Sabbath, when fasting is strictly forbidden, unless it coincides with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, became a long, silent, sad, fearful fast…

      It was long after nightfall when the men finished furnishing the billet for the troops due to pass through the town. One by one they emerged through the wrought iron gates of the Palace of Culture, their heads bowed, their best clothes torn and dusty, humiliated and exhausted. The first to emerge was Rahmil-Melamed, the teacher to small children, his Sabbath caftan, so beautifully patched by the hand of his wife Sara, now in tatters. All the people from the dark side streets rushed up to him, asking what had been going on and what had happened to the others. Then Yehiel Pasternak appeared, the grocer whose hair and beard were as yellow as straw, and he was bent in two at the hips. Then came Mr Iosef Birnberg, the proprietor of Forestiera Ltd., his clothes and dignity as a former officer of a Kaiserliche und Königliche Infantry Regiment now completely rumpled. Next to slip through the palace gates were Zainvel, who worked as a porter in the fruit and vegetable market, and the cheder boy with his curly side whiskers, sucking his bleeding finger, and Natan Eisenguss, who owned a shop for ladies’ modes, and Simon Meirovici, the poor tailor and patcher. They slipped through the gates without a word of complaint, they hurried away, without looking back, heading for their homes, along with those who had been waiting for them outside, all of them breathing sighs of relief and thanking the Lord Above that they had got off so lightly.

      At the time, they thought they had got off lightly…

      3

      But only twenty-nine of the thirty Jews emerged from the gates of the palace, heads bowed, humiliated and exhausted, and went home. One alone, Ernst, remained inside much longer. His father, mother, elder brothers and sisters-in-law waited despairingly on a dark side street, from where the wrought iron gate of the Palace of Culture and festively lit windows were visible. That light, which in days gone by used to be accompanied by orchestra music, the sounds of balls, parties, merriment, clinking glasses, the rhythms of the dance, now seemed cold and ironic. It poured from the building to the accompaniment of opaque silence and spread over the street in long swaths. Why didn’t Ernst come out already? Why didn’t they let him go? Might he have defied them? He was so disobedient. And irascible. And reckless. Being the youngest son, he had always been the most spoiled. Might he have believed that he could do what he liked there too? Or that he could refuse to do what he was ordered? What could they be doing to him in there, now that he was alone with them? His old father, with his white hair and side whiskers à la Franz Josef, trembling with annoyance, and next to him his tall mother, as thin as a plank, and behind them the two elder brothers and two docile daughters-in-law, stood in the dark alley, gazing fixedly at the illuminated building. It was as if they had turned to stone. They felt neither weariness nor the passing time.

      Ernst’s parents’ concern was not unfounded. After the men had finished arranging the iron bedsteads and straw mattresses, and twenty-nine of them had been released, the SS officer, who from the very start had singled him out, perhaps because of his clenched jaw and the scowl of his green eyes as he worked, asked Ernst, without any reason, but from a certain intuition: ‘What is your name?’

      The young officer, with his immaculate black uniform, had not asked anybody else that question, and his interest did not bode well.

      ‘Ernst… Ernst Blumenthal is my name.’

      It was plain that the officer was unpleasantly surprised.

      ‘Ernst? Ernst?’ he muttered. Such first names when applied to ‘that lot’ quite simply infuriated him. Abraham, Isaak, Yakov, yes! Chaim, Shmil, even better! Israel, highly appropriate! But Ernst? Completely out of line! Barefaced cheek! And what was more, his surname was Blumenthal… Which is to say, ‘Flower Vale.’ Beautiful German surnames like that being used by Ost-Juden, by those non-Aryan Orientals, offended his aesthetic sense, nothing less. It was the same as calling a mangy, bearded billy-goat a thoroughbred stallion… The blood rose to his head, but he controlled himself and asked, almost politely:

      ‘What is your occupation?’

      ‘I’m a student.’

      Quite simply exasperating. An Ernst. And a Blumenthal. And a student to boot.

      ‘What are you studying?’

      ‘Architecture.’

      The officer in the black uniform was seething. His small green eyes were giving off sparks. His chiselled features looked even sharper.

      ‘Where are you a student?’

      ‘In Vienna. I have broken off my studies temporarily, because of the… the situation.’

      He had been about to say ‘because of the Anschluss between Austria and the German Reich,’ but stopped himself in time.

      The officer’s face turned red. This was the very limit! An Ernst, and a Blumenthal, and an architectural student, in Vienna no less. He felt like shooting him on the spot with his revolver. But he controlled himself and after a few moments said in an ironically urbane voice:

      ‘It means we are colleagues. I am a student too, of art history, in Berlin. I too have broken off my studies, temporarily, because of the situation… And since you, colleague, are so terribly knowledgeable about architecture, I shall give you the opportunity to do something for this secession style palace, à la Franz Josef, which Zarathustra alone knows why the Austro-Hungarian Emperor had built in this stinking little town! You will clean all the dirt and straw you have left on these stairs.’

      The lobby of the palace was magnificent. Broad white steps of marbled stone led to the two upper floors. The steps were edged with strips of bronze. It was true: the steps were strewn with bits of straw that had fallen out of the mattresses.

      ‘What are you looking for, colleague?’ the officer asked, sarcastically.

      ‘A broom.’

      ‘Oh, no! That would be blasphemy! This is a delicate СКАЧАТЬ