Читать книгу We're in America Now - Fred Amram - Страница 10

III. NUR FÜR JUDEN

MUTTI AND I PEEKED INTO the ice cream shop window as we did each time we passed on our way to Goethe Platz, an island of trees and flowers at the end of Goethe Strasse—our busy commercial street. We lived on Goethe Strasse, shopped on Goethe Strasse and caught the trolley right in front of our house on Goethe Strasse.

“Will we stop in for ice cream on the way home?” I asked. We almost always did.

“If you’re a good boy,” was Mutti’s answer. That meant I had to hold her hand all the way to the park and all the way home.

I held Mutti’s hand tight and we walked to a corner, watched for traffic, crossed the street and walked another block and then another. Mutti liked to window shop and so did I. We checked for new displays.

“Look. There’s a new black hat we could get for Papa to wear to the synagogue.”

“Would your father like that striped tie for his birthday?”

But we never bought anything.

There were a few dress shops with manikins. Once we saw a bright red dress that I promised to buy Mutti with my first earnings. She said she hated the color. She wanted the burgundy colored one to wear to the opera.

We always stopped at WMF, an elegant cutlery shop. When we had company for dinner we used knives and forks and spoons from the WMF store. We also owned one of the store’s silver butter dishes and a candy dish. These only came out for visitors.

“Can you read the letters on the sign,” Mutti asked, pointing at three big letters over the shop.

“W—M—F.”

“And they stand for…,” Mutti began.

I interrupted. “F is for Fabrik. M is for Metallwaren. W is for…” I made some funny sounds and Mutti laughed. I couldn’t pronounce the six-syllable word so I faked it.

“Good boy,” she kvelled. “Can you say Wurtemburgische?”

I couldn’t and we walked on.

A few stores had the letter J painted on them. Others spelled out JUDE. People were supposed to boycott those stores. I didn’t know why and Mutti always evaded my questions about the J. She just walked faster.

Manfred (Freddy) at Goethe Platz

We crossed the last street and just as we stepped into Goethe Platz I let go of Mutti’s hand and ran. I hid behind a fat bush twice my size and watched Mutti walk by. She was supposed to look for me as she did on most of our outings. But this time she pretended to ignore me. I knew she was only pretending to ignore me because she always whistled songs when we played “Find Me.” Her whistling said, “I’m looking for you” so I knew she really was. Mutti was a really good whistler. She could whistle a whole song and then sing it in French or in German.

When Mutti was a few steps past my hiding place I jumped out behind her and hollered, “Boo.”

“Oh, you frightened me. I may faint.” Mutti fainted sometimes but this time I knew she was teasing.

I ran ahead to my favorite bench. It was hidden in an alcove surrounded by tall trees. I liked it because it was shady and lots of birds lived in the trees. Mutti sometimes pointed to the nests and identified many types of birds. I gave them individual names like Suzie or Hannelore. There was one bird that came often and Mutti identified it as a boy bird. I named it Little Manfred because it was smaller than me and I really liked it. Sometimes Mutti called and Little Manfred came and tilted his little yellow head.

Sitta (Mutti) at Goethe Platz

The birds whistled songs and Mutti whistled back at them. I think they liked Mutti’s whistles.

On this day I ran ahead and when I reached my bench I jumped up and sat as if I’d been waiting there for hours. “Oh, you’re here, finally.”

“Thank you for waiting for me,” Mutti said with a big smile. Then her face changed. Her mouth opened and her eyes darted around nervously. “We have to go now.” She emphasized “now.”

“Why? We just arrived. I want to play with the birds.”

“We must go.”

I caught her looking past my head so I turned around to see some letters printed on the top board of the bench. Words that had not been there before.

I had never been to school because Jewish children weren’t allowed to attend school. Nevertheless, I could read pretty well unless the words were too big—and some German words have many syllables. When the words were too long, I’d forget the beginning before I reached the end, like the W word in WMF.

I sounded out the short words printed on the bench. “N-u-r f-ü-r J-u-d-e-n,” I said slowly. Then I put the words together in a sentence. “Nur für Juden.” Only for Jews.

“Wow! Boy! A bench just for me.” I was so excited that I jumped up and down on the bench. Mutti looked to see if we were being observed. No. No one was near. I loved the bench and the new sign.

“Are we so special that we can have our own bench? Are the Nazis apologizing for telling people to boycott stores with the J mark? Whoopie! My own bench. They can’t use it.” I said all these things to Mutti and to the birds. I wasn’t sure who they were, the people who couldn’t use my bench, but I was too happy to care.

Mutti wasn’t happy at all. She was even paler than usual and she was leaning against a tree. Perhaps she would faint. Tears were coming from her eyes and she was dabbing at her face with the little lace hankie she always carried around. It had her initials: SA.

“Perhaps I should take Mutti home after all,” I thought. I took her hand and we started walking away from my bench. I picked a few yellow flowers that smelled especially sweet even from a distance of several feet. I gave them to Mutti. She started crying harder and sat on a bench that didn’t say, “Nur fur Juden.” It didn’t have any words printed on it. Only my bench had that sign.

Suddenly she jumped up as if she remembered something. She pulled me off the bench even hurting my arm a little. She started walking toward home really fast and we didn’t stop at the ice cream store even though I’d been a very good boy. But Mutti was not herself that day.

When we arrived home, Mutti went to her bedroom and closed the door. I went to my room to play with my lead soldiers. I didn’t know what had come over my mommy, but I knew that I needed to be especially well behaved until Papa came home to fix what was broken.

Papa finally arrived several hours later, I told him about Mutti’s crying. He went to the bedroom and ten minutes later, Mutti came out saying that she would cook supper while Papa washed up. While eating, they discussed the day’s events but no one could or would explain to me why we Jews were allowed to have our very own bench.

Papa and Mutti argued about leaving the country. Mutti wanted to leave as soon as possible. She said this often, especially after reading a newspaper or hearing a radio news program.

“Bad things are happening in the country. I saw more broken store windows today. The Jewish paint store, for example.”

“Everything will be better soon. This can’t last,” Papa reassured.

“Today the milkman said he had to give his Jewish customers less milk because there is a shortage. The boy needs his milk. And each week we have fewer ration stamps. Even fewer than they get. We’ll starve. Manfred is a growing boy and needs good food.”

“All this will change at the next election. I still have my business and it’s going very well. I can always trade fabric for food if we need to.” Truly Papa’s textile business was going well. His storeroom, which was also my playroom, was filled with many beautiful fabrics. His daily sales trips to the farms and suburbs around Hannover made him happy and each evening he counted out a bundle of money.

But Mutti wasn’t satisfied. “Perhaps we could go to Holland for a while to visit my sister. Perhaps we could even go to America.”

Papa, as usual, assured us that everything would be fine. “This too will pass,” he said.

A week later, Mutti and I were both tired of being cooped up in our apartment. I finally persuaded her that it was time to return to the park. I wanted to play on my bench. At several dinners during the week, Papa had joined me in arguing that we should go back to Goethe Platz to visit the bench that welcomed me. So one morning Mutti and I dressed for the park and off we went. Papa went to his business.

On the way we looked into the shop windows, just like always. Mutti promised ice cream if I were a good boy. Everyone had to limit their shopping and Jews received fewer stamps than others. I asked why, but no one gave me an answer. On the radio an official delivered a speech that explained that the food shortage was the fault of the Jews. Papa said, “Nonsense!” Ice cream certainly would make me feel better.

When we arrived at the park I ran directly to my bench. It still had its sign, “Nur für Juden.” It was the only bench in the park reserved for me. But then I noticed that today all the other benches had words printed on them too. I walked close to one bench and sounded out the words. “Nur für Arier.” Only for Arians. When Mutti reached our bench I saw that her fists were clenched, her lips were tight and she looked angry—the way she looked when I broke a favorite vase.

“What’s Arier?” I asked.

“The Nazis,” she answered brusquely. “Why do we have only one bench and they have all the rest?”

“I can’t understand it either. They hate us.”

On the way home we saw a trolley stopped on busy Goethe Strasse. The conductor was letting off passengers at the back door and the driver was helping an old man on at the front door. Proud of my recent reading successes, I slowly sounded out a sign I had never before seen on the trolley, “Für Juden Verboten.” I read it aloud to Mutti. “Für Juden Verboten.” To Jews Forbidden.

I loved trolley rides to the countryside on Sunday with Papa or with one of my grandmothers. I had been such an extraordinarily good boy and I was being punished. No more trolley rides. Why? I put my face into Mutti’s skirt and sobbed. I could hear Mutti crying too. We watched a few more trolleys. They all had the same lettering.

“We need a treat,” Mutti announced.

Holding hands, we stepped into the ice cream store and sat at one of the little tables. Ice cream was served in a little glass dish with a wafer standing in its middle. Mutti said she would order coffee-flavored ice cream. I wanted chocolate.

The owner, a tall, fat, jolly man knew us from our many previous visits. He tried to make all the children believe that he was Kris Kringle. No one believed him but we all called him Herr Kringle. He always called me Struwwelpeter because I once stumbled into his shop during a rainstorm looking very wet and windblown. Struwwelpeter was a messy looking boy in a story that my Oma, Papa’s mother, used to read to me. Mutti sometimes called me the same name because I hated to have my fingernails cut.

On this day, Herr Kringle didn’t look jolly. He came to our table with a long face looking as if he, too, were about to cry. Very quietly, so that the other customers wouldn’t hear, he said, “I’m very sorry. We can’t serve Jews.”