The Invisible Victory

9

Shared intimacy between a man and a woman can be fully recalled by a glance held a second more than necessary. But Gerda never hinted that my intrusion into her bedroom was more than a dream. A month went by. We were walking towards the Schwebebahn on our way to work, at eight in the morning of the last Friday in April. She said abruptly, 'You were quite right about Hitler that night. About him being only a jumped-up corporal. Why, he isn't even German! He's an Austrian peasant from Braunau am Inn, everyone knows that.'

'I thought he was from Vienna?'

'He was only a vagabond there, shouting his mouth off that the Army hadn't lost the war, but been stabbed in the back by the civilians-'

'Which to his mind consisted only of Socialists, Communists and Jews-'

'Exactly. Anyone would have imagined him to have fought the war as a general. He picked up a following in the gutter, and wouldn't be throwing his weight about today if the Munich policemen had shot a little straighter ten years ago.'

She was talking of the famous Beer Hall Putsch of November 9, 1923, by then written with illuminated letters in Nazi mythology. It had been a squalid affair. Hitler had marched with General Ludendorff at the head of his Storm Troopers on the Munich War Ministry. Within half an hour, he had sixteen of his followers dead, Ludendorff arrested and himself cringing on the cobblestones. As a final indignity, the badly wounded Hermann Gцring was succoured in a nearby Jewish bank.

'We've all the natural resources we need to make us rich and powerful again, any of my schoolchildren could tell you that.' We had passed the Zoo, where I had in the end taken her for tea, and were hurrying up the wooden steps to the platform. She was in her discouraging black serge, with black lisle stockings and a big black leather bag. 'But Hitler's a braggart just like the Kaiser, and he'll get us into the same trouble, you mark my words. Teutomania is too expensive a luxury these days.'

'A braggart? I've heard him called a second Martin Luther.'

'Oh, Martin Luther! He was a disastrous failure. He never settled our religious differences and united our country, like your Tudor Kings and Queens. He divided it the more. Don't forget that I am a Catholic, Mister.'_

We reached the platform. 'Anyway, I shall have to support the Nazis,' she continued more soberly. 'I'm a schoolteacher, I'm employed by the State. If I'm thought unreliable politically I shall never see promotion, more likely I'll find myself dismissed. That's how everyone sees the situation at school. Though to tell the truth, most of the teachers needed little encouragement to become the wildest enthusiasts for Herr Hitler. And perhaps he won't turn out as bad as he seems. You've heard one of our German proverbs-Nothing is served as hot as it's cooked?'

'Yes. Almost everybody seems to be applying it to Hitler.'

'Well, what odds does it make?' she added resignedly. 'I'll raise my arm as the Nazis march past like everyone else. A good many heathens and sinners bow to the altar in church. Who wants to lose a job these days?'

We both became aware in the same instant of a young man staring at us. He was pale with a line of black moustache, in a dark suit, well-pressed but threadbare, and a curly-brimmed trilby, perhaps a clerk or a shop assistant. I was frightened by the hostility of his eyes. It was before, but not long before, everyone in Germany had to be careful what they said, indoors or out. But it was common knowledge that sharp words shot bravely against the Nazis were arrows which could provoke artillery. Doubtless the shabby fellow had no interest in us, or was reflecting on a morning row with his wife or had a hangover. But we instinctively stayed silent until the linked pair of cars slid into the station on their monorail. It was Rider's lasting bounty that every German grew suspicious of the next.

I always threw a glance into Domagk's room as the Schwebebahn traversed the I G Farben works, but I never glimpsed him. We crossed the Wall, the main shopping street of Elberfeld, festooned with long Nazi banners. Flags were to be flown on all days of national significance, of which the Germans had many. Some brave or foolish housekeepers or shopkeepers flaunted the red, black and white horizontal stripes of the old Weimar Republic, the flag which Hitler described with a lapse of his usual prudery as, 'a bedsheet of the most shameful prostitution'. Shortly the swastika was to fly all over Germany triumphantly alone, hoisted to the peak of its flagstaff by the law of the land.

The month of April had jolted past fiercely. When the Germans recovered their breath from Hitler's sweeping up full political power, people began to say it was not dangerous, or even significant, because the Nazis were a minority party. But the Nazi rank and file were aghast that the Third Reich had gloriously dawned with the Jews still opening their shops, sitting in Court, teaching in school and even walking the streets. The Storm Troopers took over. On April 1, they organized a national boycott of Jewish shops. They pushed into courtrooms and forced outside Jewish barristers and judges. Hitler had to seize back the initiative by hastily signing the Aryan Decrees, barring Jews from the universities, the civil service, schools and the legal and medical professions. Hitler's scrawled signature abolished as easily the ancient German states and unified the Reich, surmounting the frustrations of Bismarck's whole lifetime and proving his own promises to be written on water. April had been a month to open the eyes of the Germans, had many cared to be roused awake.

'Hey there, old man! Aren't you going to introduce me?'

I looked up from my seat, startled, amazed and alarmed. Standing above was Jeff Beckerman. It was a warm day, and he wore his light grey English suit with chalk stripes, on his head a floppy white linen cap with a button in the middle. I had never known him to take the Schwebebahn, though he came in every day from the black and white villa he rented at Vohwinkel, out beyond Elberfeld. I had never known him to move more than a hundred yards anywhere without his car.

'I saw you get aboard.' He had pushed his way through the crowd of standing passengers, and was grinning broadly. 'I had to take the Cord into the garage. One of the brake drums has cracked clean across, it's one of the faults with that car. I hope to God the Jerries know how to fix it.'

His eyes were pawing Gerda. She gave an unsure smile, realizing that this was the American I had spoken about so often. I stammered some words of introduction in English and German. Already I saw the long-feared consequences of her meeting Jeff, whose air of wealth and worldliness picked him from the seedy passengers of the Schwebebahn like a sovereign in a handful of pennies. Jeff seized her hand, shaking it with the enthusiastic vigour he applied to his car. 'I'm sure glad to meet you, Frдulein. I've heard a whole lot about you from Jim.'

'Frдulein Dieffenbach speaks virtually no English,' I said stiffly.

'Then she must learn! Sure she must, it's not fair, a girl like her in Wuppertal and I can't speak to her. Tell her I'll hire her a teacher.'

I translated this dutifully. Gerda put her hand to her mouth and gave an uncharacteristic giggle. I supposed it was a joke. I should not have been surprised at Jeff sending a professor of English ringing the Dieffenbachs' doorbell.

Gerda's stop was before ours. By then Jeff had contrived in bilingual conversation a promise for all three of us to take a spin in his car the following Sunday afternoon-if of course the brakes were working. As she disappeared with a smile through the sliding doors, he nudged me hard in the ribs. 'It was mean of you, hiding her all this time. She's a ripping girl, _nicht wahr?'_

'She's very serious, you know,' I said discouragingly. 'She doesn't find anything worth talking about which doesn't affect the lives of five million people.'

'I don't believe it. She's schцn, she doesn't have to wear her brains like a fancy bonnet.'

'Nobody in the world takes their job more seriously than a German schoolteacher. Not even the President of the United States.'

'You're wrong, old man,' he said cheerfully. 'All women are only interested in little things, food, clothes, if it's going to rain and ruin their hair, whether a man helps them out of an automobile or takes his hat off in an elevator. That's why women make rotten politicians, they've got a proper sense of values. Anyway, I like intelligent girls.'

I grew depressed and panicky. My relationship with Gerda was insipid, but I had the comfortable feeling that she was my property, if only because I had no rival. My dislike of Sunday's expedition deepened when Jeff arrived at the Dieffenbachs' gate in bright-buttoned blue blazer and white flannels, looking readier for yachting than motoring. He grasped a huge bunch of pink, white and red carnations, elaborately arranged in a cone of frilled paper. Gerda's eyes glowed at the flowers. Her mouth opened at the Cord gleaming in the sunshine. Dr and Frau Dieffenbach came into the narrow front garden, similarly impressed with vehicle and burstingly self-confident owner. Young Gunter scurried round touching the white coachwork reverently. Even the two maids peeped in whispering admiration through the front lace curtains. I had a painful feeling of unnecessity.

It was a glorious afternoon. The sun shone from a blue Sunday sky unhazed by smoke, and Wuppertal hardly smelt at all. The streets were full of strollers in their sombre Sunday best, the walls thick with Nazi banners, and streamers with the repeated exhortation, _Honour Work and Respect the Worker!_ The morrow was May Day, declared a national holiday by the new Government, there were to be parades and rallies all over Germany. Hitler was himself to address a hundred thousand pairs of ears on Tempelhof Airdrome in Berlin, plus countless more in every home and, through lamppost loudspeakers, in every public square of the Reich. The pomp was to show the Nazis as neither puppets of the capitalists nor conspirators of the bourgeoisie, but true champions of the German worker. On the following day, May 2, Hitler emphasized this by taking over all German trade unions, occupying their offices with Storm Troopers, sequestrating their funds and jailing their leaders

We had the car roof folded back, the warm breeze tugging the brim of Gerda's black straw hat and running its fingers through wisps of her pale hair. She wore the ankle-length blue and white striped cotton dress which I had imagined bought for my own benefit. I sat in the back, still with my Trinity scarf. Jeff drove eastwards along the river, which flowed through Wuppertal like its gut, growing progressively filthier. Beyond Barmen the grimy town fell away from us and the valley became walled with the unspoiled woods of the Marscheider Wald. We stopped amid the huddle of steep red roofs against a lake which composed the village of Beyenburg. It was overshadowed by a fifteenth-century sandstone church, barnlike without transept, which we perfunctorily inspected before Jeff found a cafй where we could sit outside under a brightly striped umbrella _а la franзaise._ He ordered coffee, cream cakes and brandy. Nazi-dominated Germans enjoyed the freedom denied Englishmen of sipping spirits on a Sunday afternoon.

Gerda refused the brandy but ate several cakes. I found myself translating Jeff's compliments and gallantries, and her shy, smiling replies. When Jeff tried asking her through my own mouth to take dinner with him the following Saturday, I jibbed.

'What's the matter, old man? You're not engaged to her, are you?'

'No, but I'm rather keen on her.'

'Oh, bull! Maybe I should tell her about that little brunette in Cologne?'

'I never touched that woman.'

He looked mockingly. 'You don't say?'

'We sat in the kitchen and talked about the drugs they're experimenting with at I G Farben.'

He jerked his head across the table. 'Would she believe that? _Du lieber Gott!'_

'How about you and that tart in Berlin?'

'I keep telling you, Heike wasn't a professional.' He arrogantly stuck out his legs in their spotless white trousers. 'Anyway, women prefer a really experienced man of the world.'

Gerda was searching both our faces, puzzled and disconcerted by the tone of our exchanges. 'Genung!' Jeff exclaimed. He commanded the waiter, _'Bitte, bringe noch zwei Glases Cognac.'_ I noticed that he was beginning to use more German.

My tide of jealousy rose. My anchor was Gerda's personality. How could a level-headed schoolmistress with a mind and will of her own fall for the dash and extravagance of Jeff? What touching faith I had in the constancy of woman! The next Sunday afternoon Jeff appeared in beautifully cut plus fours with knitted brown socks and hand-made English brogues. He invited Gerda for another drive. This time I wasn't asked.

I decided to relinquish Gerda. In love affairs I withdraw at the gentlest rebuff, like a snail in a shower. I told myself sourly that a handsome young man with splendid clothes, a feeling for flattery and with the only Cord car in Germany was irresistible. I was not wholly fair. Jeff had charm and vigour, and he was American. He brought to old-fashioned, contorted, introspective, stiff-necked Germany the fresh wind of boundless prairies, endless highways, topless skyscrapers and unlimited money. To Gerda, he was _Blondie of the Follies._

'Herr Jim, you must have a poor opinion of me,' she confessed one evening when we found ourselves alone. I made some demurring remark. 'Jeff is very insistent. And I don't get many luxuries here in Wuppertal,' she said artlessly. 'But I feel very guilty, because you are so nice and quiet, and so much more intelligent than Jeff.'

My relations with Jeff remained amicable. They had to be. He seemed to regard his snatching Gerda only as a good joke at my expense. On May 10, Nazi students lit a bonfire from their libraries. Dr Goebbels benignly inspected the flames in the Franz-Josefplatz, while they shouted _Brenne Heinrich Heine! Brenne Karl Marx! Brenne Sigmund Freud! Brenne Heinrich Mann!'_ But both national and domestic disarray seemed trivial some six weeks later, when I thought I was about to lose my right hand.