Two Brothers

The lift outside clanked. Paulus was home from school.

‘Post!’ he said. ‘One from Australia, one from Britain.’

‘Keep the stamps, don’t forget,’ Frieda said. ‘The little Leibovitz boy absolutely loves them. He steams them off so beautifully — you should see his collection. He’s so proud of it.’

‘Yeah.’ Wolfgang smiled. ‘Little Jewish kids certainly have the best stamp collections. All the countries that don’t want any Jews. Plenty of those.’

Paulus was already reading the letters.

‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘It’s from Government House in Darwin, Australia. The Northern Territory is definitely interested in doctors.’

‘Well, they do need people down there. Why shouldn’t it be us?’ Frieda said as she unbuttoned Wolfgang’s shirt and pulled the tails from his trousers. ‘You’ve heard of Steinberg?’

‘Yes, of course, Mum,’ Paulus said. ‘The Freeland League; he wants to buy a bit of the Kimberly and establish a colony of us. Believe me, there isn’t a rat hole I’m not looking into.’

‘Please don’t call it that, Pauly.’

Frieda studied Wolfgang’s chest and couldn’t help making a little noise of concern. There were black bruises down one side of his white bony torso.

‘Anyway,’ Paulus went on, ‘the point is they need working men as well as professionals. Maybe I’ll end up shearing sheep and studying for the Australian Bar at night.’

‘Ow!’ Wolfgang gasped as Frieda applied a bandage.

His chest was so skinny and hollow and the flesh so sensitive that it was impossible to tie the bandage tightly enough for it to stay on.

‘This one from England looks interesting too,’ Paulus said. ‘From the Central British Fund for German Jewry. They’re happy to help us with visa applications but first we have to find people over there who’ll put us up. I need a list, Mum. A list of every doctor you’ve ever been in contact with in the United Kingdom, in the States, France, Canada, everywhere. You’ve got to think back over all your years at the clinic. You went to international conferences back in the twenties. Forums on public health. Who did you meet? I don’t care how briefly. I want their names, and especially any correspondence. We need somebody to focus on us specifically, that’s the only way to do it now. Too many people are scrabbling for an exit. We have to find a champion, someone who’ll take up our case. I need a list, Mum.’

‘I know. I know,’ Frieda said.

‘You say that but you have to focus on it, Mum. We can’t even apply for any foreign-entry visa unless we can prove that someone will take us in when we get there.’

‘I have a lot to do, Pauly! I have patients.’

‘There’s plenty of sick kids in Britain and Australia that you can worry about.’

‘Pauly. Those kids are not excluded from society. My patients have no one else. They need me.’

‘We need you, Mum. We have to find someone who’ll help us look for a place. We don’t want much. Ottsy can stay here till we’re established and Pops and Grandma won’t leave so it’s just three of us. You’re a doctor, Mum! That’s a huge plus. I’m young and fit and in a year I’ll have graduated school, and I’m going to get top marks if it kills me. We have a lot to offer…’

Paulus’s voice trailed away. As it so often did at this point in their desperate discussions. There was an elephant in the room. A poor half-crippled elephant. All three of them knew that Wolfgang’s chances of convincing anyone that he could fulfil a ‘useful occupation’ had been slim enough when he was healthy but they were less than zero now.

‘Don’t worry,’ Wolfgang said, laughing and trying to cover his son’s embarrassment. ‘I’m sure they have dishes that need washing. That’s what most musicians do for a living anyway.’

‘Yeah, Dad. That’s right,’ Paulus said. ‘We’ll be OK.’

‘And in the meantime,’ Wolfgang announced with exaggerated cheeriness, ‘while you’re trying to get us a bolt hole and Mum’s attempting single-handedly to ensure the health of every Jewish child in Berlin, I’m going on holiday!’

Whatever Frieda might have been expecting her husband to say, it certainly hadn’t been that.

‘A holiday? Wolf, kindly explain.’

‘Just a short one. A holiday for the soul.’

‘Wolf,’ Frieda said, smiling but with a touch of impatience, ‘I don’t really have time for games. What holiday? Where are you planning on going?’

‘To the ends of the earth and to the edge of the conscious.’

‘Wolf! I don’t have time for this!’

‘Into the minds of genius and to the furthest corners of my soul.’

He was almost laughing now.

‘Right, that’s it!’ Frieda said. ‘I’m not listening any more. Sorry, but I have to read up on rickets and juvenile malnutrition.’

‘All right! All right!’ Wolfgang said, producing a newspaper from his pocket and showing it to Frieda. ‘I’m going to Munich to look at this. The Entartete Kunst — the Exhibition of Degenerate Art. They’re actually mounting an exhibition of art they want people to hate. It’s incredible. Every artist I ever loved — Kirchner, Beckmann, Grosz of course. Amazing names: Matisse, Picasso, look, Van Gogh! Can you believe it! All in one exhibition! And for free. All I need to find is the train fare to Munich.’

Frieda took the newspaper and looked over the article.

‘I always, always think,’ she said with a sigh, ‘that they can’t surprise me any more.’

‘But they just keep on doing it, don’t they?’ Wolfgang replied almost cheerfully now. ‘And for once, gawd bless ’em for it! I mean, this really is incredible. They’ve raided every museum and gallery in Germany. They’re that confident in their Philistine vision that they’re putting the best art on the planet on display on the presumption that people will laugh at it.’

‘Incredible,’ Frieda said, looking at the list and shaking her head. ‘No rhyme nor reason, everybody in together. It says here it’s all Jewish Bolshevist but most of these artists aren’t even Jewish, or Communist for that matter.’

‘Ah, but read on, it turns out the Leader has decided that it’s possible to paint like a Jew even if you aren’t one. Apparently it was our influence that created decadent art. I’d say we should be proud, only Pauly would leap down my throat. Anyway, Jew, Commie, Cubist or Expressionist, I want to see that bloody exhibition! So thank you, Herr Goebbels, for organizing that I may be suitably’ — he quoted from the article — ‘revolted by the perverse Jewish spirit which once penetrated German Culture.’

‘Wolf,’ Frieda said with a look of concern. ‘Do you really think it’s wise? If they suspect you’re not there to hate but to admire, and find out you’re a Jew?’

‘Frieda,’ Wolfgang assured her with absolute confidence, ‘I don’t think I’m going to be the only one.’ Wolfgang was right.

He travelled from Berlin to Munich the following week on the night train, squeezed into a third-class carriage amongst a group of noisy soldiers who were being moved south to be deployed on the Austrian border.

During the night, bouncing along on the hard wooden bench, every jolt shooting agonizing pains through his chest, Wolfgang found his mind dwelling on memories of Katharina. She had made this very same train journey from Berlin to Munich in order to see Brecht’s first play. Rattling through the darkness in search of spiritual balm, just as he was doing. That had been fifteen years ago and in a different country.

Arriving early in the morning, Wolfgang freshened up at the station lavatory, treated himself to one cup of coffee from the cafe and began making his way to the exhibition. This was being held in what had previously been the Institute of Archaeology, but the Nazis had closed that. They had no need of it. Clearly, having established their own thousand-year civilization, they saw no need to study any previous ones.

Wolfgang arrived very early at the venue, but it was fortunate for him that he did, for as he had predicted the exhibition was proving an enormous hit. Many thousands of people each day were struggling to have the chance to