Wunderland Read online

  “This is yours?” the librarian asks now, adjusting his round-rimmed spectacles.

  “Yes, sir.” Rudi ducks his head in sincere-seeming humility. “I’m very sorry. I found it on Königsstraße, just outside Israel’s this morning. It was just lying there, face up, on the street.”

  Renate darts a glance at Ilse, who returns it, frowning. They both know exactly where Rudi lives. And that Israel’s—one of the biggest department stores in the city—is not on his way to school.

  “And you picked it up,” the proctor posits. He’s moving away from Renate now, and she exhales the breath she’s been holding long enough that her lungs ache. “You picked it up,” he continues, “and then—it would seem—deemed it suitable to bring into our school.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Rudi gazes up at him brightly. The teacher pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “And why would you do that?”

  The boy leans forward, resting his flawless chin in his palm. “Well, for one thing, I of course didn’t want anyone else stumbling over this sort of degenerate image. But I also wanted to share it with my fellow students.”

  Gasps erupt throughout the room like gas hissing from multiple pipe cracks. Even Herr Steinberg looks taken aback. “You didn’t want strangers on the street to see it, but wanted to show it off at school?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “May I ask why?”

  Rudi smiles. “As a warning. About the kinds of depths to which some types can sometimes sink.”

  “And what kinds of ‘types’ and ‘depths’ would those be?”

  Renate twists her hands together beneath the polished top of the oaken table, feeling Ilse’s friendship ring digging into her palm.

  “The depths of the baser races,” Rudi says. “Jews, for instance. I’m certain that it’s no coincidence at all that the card was outside a Jew business.”

  Discernibly, at least, nothing in Herr Steinberg’s expression changes. But it seems to Renate that it compresses, tightening all over without a single feature actually shifting or moving.

  “Yes,” he says. “Yes. Of course.” His Adam’s apple moves up, moves down. “And what do you propose I do with this now?”

  “Why, give it back to me, of course,” says Rudi. “So I can warn my other classrooms.”

  The answer breaks the room’s tension, the stuffy air rippling with barely suppressed snorts and giggles. Renate holds her breath, half expecting the teacher to explode as he famously does sometimes—as when, for instance, he intercepted Martin Beidryzcki’s caricature of Frau Bernhardt, endowed with a beard and enormous Titten. But to her astonishment, he merely drops the postcard onto Rudi’s textbook.

  “Personally,” he says, “I’d suggest that you dispose of it properly, rather than springing it on other instructors who may not be as understanding as I am. Either way, my young man, I don’t want to see it—or anything like it—in my library again. Understood?”

  The words themselves are authoritative enough. But the delivery is strangely thin, like a weak recitation in a play. Rudi seems to sense this too; as he slides the card into his satchel he actually smirks. Then, catching Renate staring, he gives her a very slow, deliberate wink. Her stomach clenches as though he’s punched her in the gut.

  Next to her, Ilse manufactures a cough. “What just happened?” she murmurs beneath its cover.

  “I’m not sure,” Renate whispers back. Her heart’s still pounding, but the shock of his wink has melted into a honeylike warmth in her stomach. For actually, she is sure. Or at least, sure of one thing: Rudolph Gerhardt has just saved her life.

  * * *

  “He’s sweet on you,” Ilse says later, as they walk past the yodeling youth, dropping in Pfennige and collecting yet more Winter Relief pins. “He must be. Why else would he take the fall?”

  “Who knows?” Renate examines her lapel pin before tucking it into her coat collar next to the other three she has stuck there, carefully keeping her tone even. Secretly, however, she’s still thrumming with excitement. Let it be true, she thinks. Please, let it be true.

  “And did you see Steinberg’s expression?” Ilse continues, sticking her own pin in her pocket. “It was just too funny. Martin drew a cartoon of it for me afterward.”

  “I was too afraid to look at him. I honestly thought he was going to strangle me. Right on the spot. And by the way, you still haven’t apologized.”

  “For what?”

  “For making me draw his attention! Why did you punch me like that?”

  “I didn’t punch you. I nudged you. A little. I barely moved at all.”

  “If you didn’t move, then why did I almost fall off my chair?”

  “Because you’re dizzy and clumsy,” retorts Ilse. “Everyone knows that.”

  Renate groans. “You’re impossible.”

  “Better than being easy,” Ilse quips, and they laugh.

  As they approach the perfumery they pause out of habit; Renate notes a new bottle—Nuit de Chine—in the showcase. She wonders fleetingly what a Chinese night smells like.

  “You know he’s Jewish, don’t you?” Ilse is asking.

  “Who, Martin?” Renate shrugs, lifts her voice in mimicry: “Everyone knows that.” As they resume walking she checks her pockets to make sure she’s got enough for their daily after-school snack cake. “I was afraid he’d be upset, actually. About what Rudi said. But he said it was all in good fun.”

  “No. Steinberg. Steinberg’s a Jew too.”

  “Really?” Renate frowns; she hadn’t known this.

  Ilse nods. “If you look carefully you can tell. Something about the nose.” She pinches her own snub button in demonstration. “My mother saw him coming out of that big synagogue on Oranienburger Straße last Saturday. He had that hat thing on and everything.”

  “The big furry thing the Jewish men wear in the Scheunenviertel?” Aptly enough, they’re now passing Herr Gerstel’s hat store, though for some reason it’s closed today. And the purple turban has disappeared from the window. Renate wonders if it sold, and if so, who might have bought it. A movie star? A wealthy sultan? A magician’s exotic assistant? Maybe they spent so much on it that Herr Gerstel has already retired. Though (selfishly) Renate hopes not. She loves his shop.

  “No,” Ilse is saying. “The little one. The kind that looks like a tea cozy.”

  The thought of Herr Steinberg with a tea cozy capping his comb-over sends them both into another brief gale of laughter. That subsides, however, as they approach Schloss-Konditorei.

  As usual, Herr Schloss’s doorway is open to the sidewalk, allowing a wafted hint of the yeasty delights inside. What isn’t usual is the sign that someone’s taped on the store window, where it obscures the carefully constructed tiers and towers of shortbread, donuts, and tarts; of fruit pies, stollen, and glistening, glazed apple cakes. Deutsche! the sign reads in cryptic-looking Gothic script: Wehrt Euch! Kauft nicht bei Juden!

  To further the point two stocky men flank the door, each holding a sign bearing the same warning. Their brown shirts and crisp red armbands identify them as Sturmabteilung, the self-appointed militia that goose-steps down Berlin’s streets, belting out songs of blood and soil and country. As the two girls hesitate, one glowers at them in silence while the other adopts a patronizing smile.

  “Sorry, girls,” he says. “No sweeties here for you today.”

  “Why not?”

  “A kike owns this business.”

  “Really?” Renate asks, once more surprised. The Konditorei is famed for its holiday displays. Not just at Christmas, when the window fills with brightly wrapped boxes, glittering evergreens, and a festive little red train set. But also at Easter, when lamb-shaped cakes and painted eggs take their turn. And of course there’s Herr Schloss’s yearly costume; the big red suit, the bishop’s hat. The sa
ck filled with nuts and candy for visiting children. What sort of Jew dresses up as Sankt Nikolaus?

  “Are you sure he’s Jewish?” Ilse asks.

  “As Jewish as Jesus,” says the trooper. “So be careful. They like pretty young girls.” He licks his lips pointedly, lewdly; then he adds, sotto voce: “But don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”

  “We don’t need protecting, thank you,” Ilse retorts stiffly. She hates being belittled.

  Renate says nothing but peers past the man’s shoulder. The bakery is indeed empty of customers, and Herr Schloss is also nowhere to be seen. But Frau Schloss—his pink-cheeked wife who is almost as round and fat as he is—stands at silent attention at the counter. She usually smiles so much that her small blue eyes disappear in a surging tide of rosy flesh. Now, though, her face is sober, her eyes fully visible. When they meet Renate’s she offers with the faintest hint of a shrug: What can one do? Is she Jewish as well? Renate wonders. Can Jews be that blond and that pink?

  “I heard this was going to happen.” Ilse looks thoughtful. “I didn’t realize it was today.”

  “Heard what was happening?”

  “The boycott of Jewish businesses.” Ilse’s cook, Britta, has a son who’s a stormtrooper. She often regales Ilse with tales of his feats and distinctions.

  “So it’s not just Schloss?”

  “I don’t think so. Look over there.”

  Renate shades her eyes and looks down Unter den Linden. Sure enough, she sees more white signs—including one on the closed hat store that she’d failed to notice as they passed. The stores that are still open are manned by more Sturmtruppen. Some also have confused-looking consumers standing outside them.

  “What a bother! How long is it supposed to last?” Renate is both peeved and somewhat peckish, having forgotten to bring her lunch to school again.

  “Just today,” says Ilse. “But it’s not like it’s a law. They can’t actually stop us from going in.”

  “We shouldn’t have to stop you,” says the sullen-faced trooper. “You should be proud to support your country.”

  “I can support my country in any way that I wish,” Ilse snaps.

  Renate lays a hand on her friend’s arm. She normally loves Ilse’s Unverschämtheit, the way so little ever seems to truly scare her. But she doesn’t always know when to stop.

  Uneasy now, she looks over the two men in their tall boots. The standard-issue SA dagger each wears strapped to his belt is, she knows, supposedly just for show. But the black-handled billy club each one carries isn’t. A few weeks earlier she’d been having a coffee and cake with her grandmother on Potsdamer Straße when a group of SA troopers trundled past their window, bawling a song about Führer, nation, and pride. “It might help if they took voice lessons,” her Oma quipped (she is an amateur opera singer; it’s become her standard joke).

  But what had shocked Renate was what happened next: as the troop paused at an intersection, one of its members leapt apart to grab a passing pedestrian by the collar. Bellowing something in the man’s face, the trooper shook him several times, hard enough that the man’s head flopped atop his neck like Renate’s rag doll Alice. Then—so quickly that at first Renate thought she’d imagined it—the militiaman cracked the pedestrian on the head with his club. The blow was hard enough that the latter, when finally released, slumped to the ground, his head was bleeding profusely.

  His task accomplished, the trooper had returned to formation, falling back into line as the victim’s female companion frantically screamed for help.

  Renate tugs on Ilse’s cardigan. “I think we’ve cake at home anyway. And besides. It’s getting late.”

  But Ilse remains where she is, chewing on her lip.

  “Ilse.”

  “Listen to her,” says the first trooper. “You seem like nice girls. Go home and have cake with your Mutti.”

  Oh no, thinks Renate, as Ilse’s jaw tightens.

  “I’m going in,” her friend announces. “Herr Schloss is a good baker. I don’t really care if he’s Jewish.” She turns back to Renate, her hand extended. “If you want to wait for me here, you are welcome. But can I have the cake money?”

  Renate hesitates for just a moment, torn: if she hands over the money she’s also challenging the boycott. But if she doesn’t, she’s challenging her best friend.

  For a moment she stands motionless, her hand in her pocket, her eye on her friend’s upturned palm, the underside of the friendship ring glimmering. She starts to withdraw her little handful of coins. Then she stops.

  “No,” she says. “I’ll go too.”

  * * *

  “One of these days,” Renate tells Ilse later, “you’re really going to get into trouble.” She rolls onto her stomach. “Or worse, get me into trouble.”

  “One of these days you’ll learn to stand up for yourself,” retorts Ilse, and picks a poppyseed from her teeth.

  Renate sighs. “What I don’t understand is that I thought you and your parents liked the NSDAP. I thought you thought they were doing good things.” Renate’s own parents loathe Hitler and his National Socialist cohorts, seeing them as brutish bigots and oafs. Ilse’s parents—who suffered far more after the Defeat and the Inflation—fully believe Hitler’s promise to return Germany to greatness and credit him personally with their improving fortunes.

  “I like the Party,” says Ilse. “That doesn’t mean I like Brownshirts. They’re overgrown thugs half the time. And all this stuff about Jews…pfft.” She waves a hand dismissively. “You get extremists with every movement. My grandfather says they’ll grow past it.”

  “Hmm,” says Renate, wondering whether her parents are in agreement. Somehow she doubts it. She’s heard them talking tensely in their bedroom, their exchanges peppered with words like laws and retirement and Juden—many of their friends and colleagues are Jewish.

  “And actually,” Ilse continues, “I think I’m going to join the BDM.”

  “Really?” Renate turns to look at her. They ridiculed the new group in the past: the mindless marching, the silly songs. “Is that your mother’s suggestion?”

  “Mine, actually. Mama wants me to join the League of Louise. She believes it’s got more class. Or something.”

  “Ugh.” Renate pulls a sour face. The Louise Leaguers are even worse than the Bund Deutscher Mädel. They dress in cornflower blue—supposedly Queen Louise’s favorite color—and gather weekly, supposedly in memory of her reign. But from what Ilse and Renate have discerned after spying on the group for several days, the members do little more than discuss French fashion and American swing dance steps. “Pampered daughters of bankers and lawyers,” she sniffs now.

  Ilse shakes her head. “Can you imagine spending six whole hours a week with them?”

  “Not even for one second.”

  “But the BDM might be all right. I hear the camping and sports meets and the crafts part are all supposed to be great fun. And they do loads of joint activities with the Hitlerjugend.” She folds her arms behind her head. “Besides. I’m curious.”

  “What about?”

  “About what it would be like to be part of something…bigger.”

  “Bigger than what?”

  Ilse waves a hand at the scattered shoes, pages, and books around them. “All this. This endless cycle. School, studies, sleep. Broken up only by the occasional silly birthday party. It all feels—I don’t know. Weightless, somehow. Like I’m not changing anything.”

  Renate frowns. “What is it you want to change?”

  “I don’t know. Something. Oh. And guess what.” She lowers her voice. “Erika says last summer they went camping with the Hitler Youth and she snuck out of her tent and went swimming with Rudi and three others.” She lowers her voice further. “In their underthings.”

  Something sour stirs in Renate’s stomach. She tells herself that it
’s not just because Erika went swimming—nearly naked!—with Rudi, but that she got to go camping at all. Renate’s own parents wouldn’t in a million years take her overnight in the woods. For one thing, her mother can’t stand nature walks (“boring, pointless”). She also can’t cook to save her life—and that’s in the kitchen; never mind on a campfire. There is also Franz’s limp, left by childhood polio. He already has to walk with a cane, even on flat surfaces. As for Renate’s father: he claims to have spent enough time in tents along the Russian Front to last him for the next several lifetimes.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Would you join if I did?”

  “You know how my parents are.”

  “You wouldn’t have to tell them!”

  “Don’t I need their approval?”

  “You know what your father’s signature looks like, don’t you?”

  “Seriously?” Renate gapes at her. “And what about all the records? I can’t get those by myself.”

  “I’ve heard they’ll order them from the Census Department for you if you need. You just need to give them enough notice.”

  Stretching, Renate cracks her neck: first one side, then the other. She is trying to imagine herself following Ilse’s suggestion: Lying. Forging Vati’s signature. Making up excuses twice weekly and on Saturdays as to why she needs to be out. The thought alone makes her queasy. Her most rebellious act so far has been sticking her tongue out at the back of her mother’s head five years ago, really just to see whether she could. Apparently she could not: Renate, Lisbet Bauer snapped. Your tongue belongs in your mouth. She hadn’t even bothered to turn around.

  She decides to deflect. “The real question is how I get that stupid postcard back. Franz will kill me if he finds out I took it.”