A Pious Killing Page 15

  “Our teacher said that today the whole class will be practising for Family Day celebrations. She said we could not take part because ours is only a Jewish family. So she sent us home.”

  Grete felt herself go hot and cold. She was dumbfounded. She could not find an instinctive motherly reaction to shield her children from the experience they had had.

  “Come in and close the door,” was all she could find to say.

  As she helped the children out of their coats she hugged each one and told them not to worry about their teachers, who must be very ignorant individuals if they could behave in this way.

  However, before the children were out of their coats, Grete made a sudden decision. She knew she had to go to the school and confront the teacher. She was sure that the Principal would be outraged when he heard what had happened to her two children. If people like her did not stand up to injustice, how far would things go?

  “Put your coats back on children,” she said. “You’re going back to school.”

  “But Mama…” began David.

  “No buts,” interrupted Grete. “We’re going to sort this out straight away. Come along – coats on.”

  And so they had walked back to the school. Some of Grete’s confidence had waned as she passed the shops with SS men outside and the big posters telling Germans to defend themselves. But at the same time her indignation grew. Besides, the Principal had always been kind and respectful to her and Raul. And he had always praised her children as intelligent and diligent pupils.

  When they arrived at the school, Grete presented herself at the administration office. As she stood at the reception desk she was not sure if the receptionist had seen her or not but she had made no move to come to the desk and deal with her. Grete waited patiently for a couple of minutes. Then she coughed. Still no response. Eventually she called across the desk, “Excuse me, please.”

  Reluctantly the receptionist stood and came towards her.

  “What do you want?”

  Shocked by the abruptness of her tone, Grete politely asked to see Frau Schulze.

  “Frau Schulze is teaching right now.”

  “Nevertheless, I need to speak to her.”

  “Wait one moment.”

  The receptionist disappeared through a door at the back of her office while Grete, Lisa and David waited. And waited. After five minutes Grete said to Lisa, “Come on, show me the way to your classroom.”

  “But Mama…”

  “Lisa! Now!”

  Lisa reluctantly led the way along a corridor and up one flight of stairs. As they were ascending, a group of boys were coming down. As they passed the family they started a low chant of , “Juden, Juden, Juden, Juden.”

  Grete was horrified. As she turned to upbraid them they ran away laughing. What hurt her most was the way her children seemed to be unaffected by the abuse – as if it was something quite normal.

  On an upper corridor they stopped at the door to Frau Schulze’s classroom. Grete knocked and went in. Frau Schulze was seated at her desk and she turned to look at the group shuffling into her classroom. The children who had been working when the Hildbergs entered stilled their pens in mid-sentence and raised their heads to witness the interruption.

  Frau Schulze rose, “What are you doing here? You have no right…”

  “Oh but I think I do,” interrupted Grete. “You turned my children out onto the street after I entrusted them to your care. I have the right to know why. I want to know the reason for your outrageous treatment of my children.”

  From the back of the room a child called out, “Juden!”

  Frau Schulze ignored the call and turned on Grete. “How dare you burst into my room lecturing me about your rights? You have no rights. You are an undesirable presence and we have tolerated your like for too long. Now get out of my room and get out of this school. I will be informing the Principal that I will no longer agree to your offspring being under my tutelage.”

  “But what has my child done? I think you owe me at least the courtesy of telling me.”

  “I think you know very well what this is about. Your children don’t have to do anything. It is what they are. It is what you are. This is a new era. Your time is gone.”

  “How dare you speak to me like that? What makes you so superior?”

  Frau Schulze did not answer. She looked past Grete and the children to the doorway where two security guards had appeared.

  “Security,” she called. “Remove these Jews.”

  Instantly Grete was grabbed by one of the guards and the children by the other. As Grete tried to pull her arms free of the man’s grasp, he seized her around the neck and holding her in a headlock, dragged her from the room. The class full of children all began to cheer and chant, “Juden, Juden!”

  Tears of humiliation sprang from Grete’s eyes. Her children were dragged behind her also in tears. As they passed the reception area the Principal was there to observe their ejection. The guards paused beside him and Grete was permitted to stand upright and face him.

  “You and your children will not be welcome here again.” Then turning to the guards he ordered, “Remove them.”

  Grete, Lisa and David were taken down the steps of the entrance onto the street.

  As Grete finished her tale she began to cry again and Sean found himself comforting her in his arms.

  “Where is Raul?” Sean suddenly asked.

  “I don’t know. Soon after we got back from the school he returned from the Tiergarten and I told him what had happened. Well you can imagine his reaction. He went mad. He stormed out. He’s gone to make a formal complaint to the police. I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

  “What will his complaint be?”

  “I don’t know. Assault? Negligence? He was just so angry. He said that Hitler might have taken power but there were still laws in Germany and they had to be obeyed.

  Sean, I’m frightened. What will happen?”

  “Look, don’t worry Grete. You stay here and look after the children. I’m going to the police station to find Raul. I’ll bring him back soon.”

  Sean took a shortcut to the police station through side streets and alleyways. He dodged pallets that workers were unloading from trucks outside factory entrances and he hurried past bales of rags. Nearing the police station he emerged from an alleyway onto the Haupstrasse. Anxiety rose in him when the sound of shouting and jeering invaded his ears. In the distance he could see a crowd shuffling slowly along towards him. It was lining the pavements and seemed to be watching the middle of the road as if a parade was passing by. As he drew nearer his pessimism was confirmed. The crowd would be more accurately described as a mob. And the parade was Raul.

  By the time Sean had jostled his way into the crowd and got himself in a position on the pavement where he could see Raul clearly, the damage was irretrievable. Walking alone down the centre of the Haupstrasse was Raul. He wore a hastily improvised poster around his neck made out of cardboard and string. In black letters the board read: This Jew dared to challenge the behaviour of an Aryan. Never again!

  His jacket was covered in spit and he was stained from the tomatoes, eggs and rotten vegetables that had been thrown at him. All the time men and women stepped out of the crowd and approached him in the middle of the street. Some spat in his face. Some kicked his legs or pushed him in the back. Many dropped items of litter and the police who were escorting him forced him to pick them up. One well-dressed woman dragged her dog, which had begun to defecate at the side of the road. She dragged the reluctant terrier into Raul’s path and allowed it to complete its bowel movement in front of Raul. When it had completed its movement the woman screamed, “Now pick that up!” The police escorts forced Raul to pick it up with his bare hands and put it into his jacket pocket. The mob screamed in delight.

  If Sean had been able to step out into the street and machine gun the mob and the police down into the dirty gutters, maybe the rest of his life would have been different. But in truth
he never got over the feeling of absolute impotence he felt in the face of that mob. He never forgave himself for standing by and watching Raul’s utter humiliation.

  Eventually, when the police had had enough of this sport, they dispersed the mob, not without some difficulty, and then with a kick in the back they dismissed Raul the way a child discards an old toy. Sean rushed over to Raul and assisted him to his feet.

  “Come on, my friend,” he encouraged. “It’s over now. Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  He walked along beside Raul, holding him upright with an arm across his shoulders, ignoring the stares and sneers of strangers they passed. Raul did not speak. All the way home he did not speak.

  When they arrived at the apartment and Grete answered the door still Raul did not speak. Grete let out a gasp of horror and threw her arms around him. She took him into their bathroom and Sean was left alone for over an hour.

  Grete came through to the sitting room saying that she had put Raul to bed. She believed he was in shock. Sean suggested that he take a look at him but Grete shook her head.

  “I suggested that to him,” she whispered. “He can’t stand to see anyone. He has prescribed himself a relaxant and a sleeping draught. He will sleep now. He will need help in the next few days Sean if he is to overcome this.”

  “Don’t worry. I will be around.”

  Grete, overcome with gratitude came forward to embrace Sean. They hugged and gave each other comfort. Then, from out of nowhere it was more than comfort. Their bodies moved together and Sean was kissing Grete’s neck. It was not something he had decided to do. It was something that happened to him. Grete did not pull back. She leaned her head back, opening her neck and inviting Sean’s passion. Suddenly Grete pulled away and looked to the doorway. Sean looked over his shoulder and saw Raul standing there in his pyjamas. Raul looked down and walked out of sight back into his bedroom. Sean moved to follow him but Grete restrained him.

  “No,” she whispered. “It will be all right.”

  That was the last sight Sean ever had of Raul. Two days later he killed himself whilst Grete and the children were out attending a church service. David found his father lying in the bath, his wrists opened and the water blood-red. There was an envelope lying on the bath mat beside him.

  David ran out of the bathroom with the note and gave it to Grete saying, “Papa’s having a red bath and he sent you a letter.”

  Whilst Grete started to open the envelope, wondering what game Raul was playing, Lisa went into the bathroom, saw her father and screamed. Grete dropped the letter and ran to the bathroom.

  It turned out to be much later on in the day, half way through the evening in fact, that Grete opened the envelope and read her husband’s last words. “I am not strong enough to be a Jew in today’s Germany. I love you. Goodbye.”

  Sean’s mind drove him insane as it repeatedly ran over the events in the apartment on his last visit there. He could not be sure how much Raul had seen. There were times when he could convince himself that Raul had seen nothing. Grete had pulled away in time. There were other days when he squirmed in the full knowledge that Raul had witnessed every last moment of his and Grete’s passionate embrace. Anyone seeing that would have been left in no doubt as to the feelings being expressed. If that was the case then the cause of his suicide was possibly nothing to do with his treatment by Nazis earlier on that day, and everything to do with what he saw happening between his wife and his friend.

  The guilt for the betrayal of Raul was worsened by the knowledge that part of him was rejoicing in the knowledge that Grete was in love with him every bit as much as he was in love with her. Even if he had wanted to he could not have prevented himself from following up the love he had felt being reciprocated by Grete during their brief embrace.

  When the news of Raul’s suicide had reached Sean he had been at work. It was Max who informed him. He threw off his doctor’s coat and ran out of the clinic. He ran all the way to Grete’s apartment.

  She answered his knock and when she saw him standing there she stepped back into the hallway and he followed her in. All the way there Sean had fought against a feeling of triumph. He was ashamed to feel it. It clashed with a terrible sadness he felt for Raul, for Lisa and for David. For Grete too! It mingled with a shocking feeling of responsibility for something too immense to grasp. But always coming round again on the cycle of feelings was an unbelievable elation. Grete was his. She was his and he was hers.

  “Where are the children?” he asked as they stood together in the living room.

  “They are in their bedrooms doing some school work I have set them,” she replied.

  She stood leaning against the back of a chair, her arms folded. She looked cold. Instinctively, and with no sense of inhibition Sean walked around the chair towards her and reached out to pull her into his embrace. To his surprise Grete pulled away in horror.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered. “Please, don’t touch me.”

  Sean’s arms fell to his side. He froze. Something like fear ran through him. He shrugged it off. He had been inconsiderate. He should have known better.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Grete looked at him over her shoulder. Her eyes were wet but she was not crying.

  Eventually she said, “What have you come for, Sean?”

  “I came to see you. I have only just heard the terrible news. I came straight here.”

  He moved towards her again, but again she stepped away. She walked across the room and seated herself in an upright chair against the wall. Sean stood in the middle of the room and stared at her.

  “I have been… thinking about you,” he said, leaving much unsaid.

  The intensity of Grete’s response was a shock to Sean.

  “Stop! I will not listen to you. I know where you are trying to take this and I want you to stop.”

  She got up and paced the floor to the door and back before she spoke again.

  “What did we do, Sean? Did we kill Raul? Are we to blame? I know I blame myself.”

  Her tears fell now and her ribs shook with bitter regret.

  “I had no right to respond to you the way I did. On that day of all days. You are a man and you have no ties. You have made no vows. But you were his friend. You and I are both guilty of betrayal.”

  Sean’s pulse was pounding in his temples.

  “You are right,” he said. “We did betray Raul. But it was because we could not help ourselves. You know and I know what passed between us during that short moment.”

  “Stop!” Grete whispered again. “I will not listen to this.”

  “No,” shouted Sean in retaliation. “I will not stop. What has happened is tragic. But it was not just about us. Raul experienced humiliation and degradation in the street that day. That was what turned his mind.”

  “Yes,” interrupted Grete, “and when he came back to the one place where he should have felt safe and loved and wanted, what did he find? His wife enjoying the kisses of his best friend.”

  “Grete,” pleaded Sean. “Everything you are thinking and saying is right. But you did not intend it. I did not intend it. But I love you and you love me. That is the surviving fact. You can’t deny it. If you reject your true feelings now we will both suffer for the rest of our lives.”

  Grete listened to Sean’s words and seemed to be considering them in great detail.

  “If we suffer for the rest of our lives it is because we deserve to. I did love you Sean.”

  The use of the word ‘did’ sent a shock wave through Sean. He felt his knees waver.