The Kaminsky Cure Read online

  Well, perhaps she can, but it’s very tempting not to.

  But now comes more confusion for Gabi, in the shape of a letter from Heinrich Schmidt’s father (Heinrich, my idol), whom she worked with in World War One and recently met in Plinden. Poor Dr Schmidt never realised back then that Gabi was Jewish. Why should he have? She wore a crucifix and went to church and seemed just like all the other German nurses. Besides, in just those years everyone was too busy cutting off soldiers’ limbs or sewing up their bodies to bother with the dormant Jewish Question. And when Gabi ran into him outside the dentist’s in Plinden, she certainly wasn’t going to tell him then. He was pleased to see her, he would like his wife to meet her and he insisted on taking her back for coffee, where she met plump smiling Aryan Frau Schmidt and young smiling Aryan Heinrich, and was politely asked to call again. She didn’t, but then she ran into him a second time, on her way to the station. She mentioned her preparations for going up the mountain as an excuse for her neglect. The mountaineer doctor was delighted and at once suggested his son should join us. How could she refuse? Afterwards she avoided Plinden for several weeks, hoping we would slowly be forgotten. But something Heinrich said on his return set an alarm bell off in his father’s cautious brain, and he’d been making inquiries. This letter is the upshot.

  Frau Brinkmann,

  For reasons that I am sure you will appreciate, I regret that it is impossible for the acquaintance we have recently resumed to continue any further.

  While I regret this personally, I must also express my surprise that you did not see fit to inform me of your racial background when we first met in Plinden. If I had not happened to discover this by chance, I might not have found out for months, and the consequences for myself and my family, not to speak of yours, could have been grave. I regard your failure to divulge the truth on this matter as a serious breach of trust.

  G. Schmidt

  ‘Heinrich,’ Martin declares bitterly when Gabi guiltily informs him that young Heinrich will no longer be his friend, ‘Heinrich is in the Hitler Youth.’ He says that in the aggrieved tone of someone God has inexplicably turned his face away from and left a shadow on the land. Gabi is more worried that Heinrich’s father will report her to the authorities. But Dr G. Schmidt isn’t spiteful or malicious. He isn’t even a Nazi, however much of a Hitler Youth his son might be. He merely wants to make his way in the world, stay out of trouble and back the winner. Unhappily for him, he’s going to lose his shirt in the final race.

  But what does Gabi make of all this? Her husband’s Nazi nephew sends her his good wishes, an acquaintance who isn’t a Nazi disowns her, and Aunt Hedwig writes mournfully of people going to places where you don’t need visas. Gabi simply doesn’t know what to make of it, and couldn’t do much about it if she did. Openly she hopes for the best, secretly she fears the worst. And all the time she lives from day to day – what else can she do? As for me, I feel I should have guessed that Heinrich Schmidt wouldn’t last. He was too good to be true.

  Willibald’s been writing letters too, letters from the field. His letters though are about, not to, us. He’s been writing to the Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess for permission to teach religion again, and to the State Office for Genealogical Research to reclassify his wife and thus us children. That’s right, the State Office for Genealogical Research. The Third Reich takes genealogical research as seriously as Mormons do, only the Third Reich’s heaven and hell are both on earth.

  It’s a frustrating correspondence.

  Now that victory in Poland and France have been assured, the army is going to discharge the oldest n.c.o. in the regiment, but Corporal (recently promoted from Lance-Corporal) Willibald Brinkmann contemplates his return to civilian life with apprehension. How can he earn his living as a pastor if he still isn’t allowed to teach religion in the schools, one of the duties on the performance of which his salary depends?

  As victory and release grow ever more certain, Corporal Willibald grows ever less so. He’s written to the church authorities, who’ve written to the education authorities to express the hope that Pfarrer Brinkmann will now be allowed to fulfil the terms of his employment. But they’ve had no answer and are vague as to what to do if the answer when it comes is no. He’s spoken to his Hauptmann, who’s as anxious as Willibald to see the stooping corporal returned to a field where his talents would be more fittingly employed, and the Hauptmann has promised to put a word in for him. He’s also casually suggested that if the corporal would only divorce his wife all his troubles would be over. But when Corporal Willibald respectfully reminds him there are the children to consider, and anyway his church doesn’t allow its pastors to divorce, the Hauptmann only shrugs his shoulders as though to say you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. But Willibald isn’t up to breaking eggs. However much the idea might appeal to him in theory, in practice he just cannot have his omelette. No, there’s nothing for it, he’s just got to plod along the strait and stony path he’s found himself on, and hope to make it a little wider, a little less stony.

  He’s also written to Ortsgruppenleiter Franzi Wimmer, who’s going to put a word in for him too. He’s even written to the Upper Danube District Chief, who’s far too busy to put in any word, either for or against. But the ultimate decision on this sensitive matter can be made only by the Führer or his Deputy. Yes, the Führer or his Deputy have to decide who’s going to teach the Protestant religion in a few schools in a rural district of Ostmark. You’ve got to give them their due – they certainly are hands-on managers. It’s a wonder they’ve got time to plan their great campaigns. Or is that why the air war over Britain isn’t going so well?

  So now Corporal Willibald has written to beetle-browed, ape-jawed Rudolf Hess, whose prognathous chin displays five o’clock shadow at all hours of the day and night, and who’s soon going to flip his lid and fly off to England – although it would be big-headed of Corporal Willibald to imagine his letter will have much to do with that.

  Herr Rudolf Hess

  The Deputy Führer of the German Reich

  Berlin.

  Sir,

  I hereby respectfully apply for reinstatement as teacher of religion for Protestant students in the state schools of Heimstatt and neighbouring villages in the Upper Danube District of Ostmark.

  In 1939 the district school authorities prohibited me from giving religious instruction on the grounds of my wife’s non-Aryan descent. Since religious instruction was an essential part of my duties, it thereby became impossible for me to act as Lutheran minister for Heimstatt and neighbouring parishes, and as the father of four children who were otherwise unprovided for, I had to reckon with the loss of my livelihood. This was only postponed by my volunteering to join the army, from which, on account of my age, I am shortly to be discharged.

  The ground of this request is R. G. B1. I. S. 607, which states: ‘The Deputy Führer may in exceptional cases permit those who are married to a Jew to remain in service.’ I therefore earnestly request the Deputy Führer to grant me such an exception. In support of my request, I respectfully draw attention to the following:

  1. My military service for the Reich

  2. My wife’s service as a nurse during the World War

  In addition I would mention that my wife’s baptism in the Christian faith occurred before I met her and caused many difficulties for her with her relations.

  Notarised copies of the following supporting documents are enclosed:

  1. Ancestry Certificate

  2. Marriage Certificate

  3. Baptismal Certificate

  4. Military Service Certificate

  In the hope that my request will be granted, especially for the sake of my four unprotected children, and with an assurance that if I am allowed to resume religious instruction I will prove worthy of the trust placed in me, I remain

  Heil Hitler!

  W. Brinkmann,

  Evangelical Minister

  Presently Corporal, Army no. 13859
>
  It doesn’t take Hess long to chew that one over. Request denied, the message comes promptly back. And the documents come back promptly too, neatly stamped and initialled. Come what may, the Deputy Führer’s going to hold the line on racial purity. But Willibald isn’t finished yet. No, he sends a different and more portentous letter now, this time to the State Office for Genealogical Research. His ultimate aim is the Aryanisation of us children, but the immediate object is pollution-dilution. He wants to get us reclassified as quarter Jews. Quarter-Jews have it better than half-Jews, and meritorious service to the Fatherland might even achieve them the status of honorary Aryans. Imagine that! Sara and me, who might well be full-Jews, becoming proper – well, nearly proper – Aryans! Considering Willibald’s doubts about our legitimacy, this really is pretty magnanimous of him. But to get us reclassified as quarter-Jews, he has to first get Gabi reclassified as a half-Jew, which is at least better than being a full one. And it would certainly make his life easier as well as ours. The means he chooses for achieving this reflect his chronic preoccupation with paternity. (But then what other means does he have?) If he can’t publicly accuse Gabi of adultery, he can at least officially accuse her mother.

  State Office for Genealogical Research

  Schiffbauerdamm 26

  Berlin N. W. 7

  Re.: Clarification of parentage of Gabriella Brinkmann, née Brandt.

  I hereby respectfully submit a request for the revision of my wife Gabriella Brinkmann’s parentage record.

  According to the records, she is a full-Jew. But there are good grounds for the belief that she is only a half-Jew. She was born on the 29th August 1896. Thus the date of her conception must be between the beginning of the last week of November and the end of the first week of December 1895. But at that time the supposed father Friedrich Brandt, a cloth merchant, was away meeting clients in Russia. He cannot therefore be my wife’s father. As, according to the supposed father (now deceased), the marriage was an unhappy one, there are strong reasons to suspect that the true father of my wife was Herr Brandt’s Swedish business partner, Herr Morning, of Stockholm, who was known to have an intimate relationship with my wife’s mother, and was in Berlin at the relevant time. Herr Morning was a Nordic Aryan.

  This view is further supported by the fact that my wife of her own will converted to Christianity before I knew her, although this was against the wishes of her supposed father. Moreover, it is a remarkable sign of her moral disposition that she served the Fatherland as a nurse in the 1914-18 War. Finally, the appearance and character of our four children strongly supports the view that my wife is not a full-Jew. None of them displays any of the recognised features of that race.

  I therefore request a re-examination of my wife’s parentage which would lead to a reclassification of her as a half-Jew. I hope that my service in the military will be taken into account in the consideration of this request.

  Heil Hitler!

  Poor Willibald. This tissue of inventions won’t get him anywhere either. Whatever else Friedrich Brandt was, he was the father of Gabi. Did Willibald make up the Swedish Herr Morning as well as his adultery, or was there really a business partner of that name? Gabi has never heard of him, nor of the branch in Stockholm, but she plays along. As for Willibald’s children displaying none of the recognised features of Jewry – you’ve only to apply to the primary school principal in Heimstatt to get the goods on that. Mark you, the primary school principal himself might not pass those skull-calibrating tests, and nor might Hitler, Goebbels, Hess or half the Party members for that matter. But then they don’t have to.

  You can imagine Willibald’s application being handed round the desks at the State Office for Genealogical Research, the widening ripples of derision ruffling the holy silence in that Temple of the Aryan Race. When they’ve had a good chuckle they send back their negative answer, and Willibald plunges headfirst into the slough of despair. That, as usual, generates muffled echoes of Schiller, the model for all his literary productions. Here, for instance, is a sentence from one more letter that he writes to the Church authorities:

  Whatever becomes of me, I shall always have the consolation and pride of this one thought: I was allowed to play my part as a soldier in the greatest victory of my Fatherland’s arms.

  Yes, that patriotic heart still thumps inside his narrow chest, even if his spirits are down in the dumps. That greatest victory by the way (which you would hardly expect a clergyman to single out as his consolation and pride) consisted in twenty-ton Panzers rolling over outnumbered lance-wielding cavalry whilst Stukas bombed undefended Warsaw into smoking heaps of rubble. Not that Willibald got any closer to the action than checking the accounts in the officers’ mess of that reserve regiment well in the rear.

  But after all that is not the end of things. Willibald’s children aren’t going to starve, his wife isn’t going to be dragged off to a concentration camp. Not yet, anyway.

  He gets his discharge from the army in the autumn of 1940. He lifts me up in his arms as I come unsuspectingly home from school. Feeling the rough sweaty texture of his uniform against my cheek and smelling the heat of stale schnapps on his breath, I turn my head away from his slobbery kiss.

  ‘Won’t you give Papa a kiss?’ Willibald asks with accusation flaring in his eyes.

  I shake my head.

  ‘He’s shy,’ Gabi says quickly. ‘Give him time to get used to you again.’

  But Willibald has already dropped me and turned away, muttering something about unnatural children, as Ilse, who has just entered the room, dutifully offers her chaste cheek for the full wet paternal smacker. At least he has no doubts about who sired her. I feel ashamed but relieved at the same time. How could I kiss that uniformed stranger?

  Willibald can’t teach religion to thoroughbred Aryan schoolchildren, but the church does somehow continue to pay him a diminished salary, and the local Aryan children do somehow continue to get instruction in religion, if not from tainted Willibald. So though we’re worse off than we were, it’s not the end; the worst is still to come.

  However, though things aren’t as bad yet as they might and will be, something’s happened to Willibald. Whatever stomach he might have had for the fight, it’s gone out of him now. He’s given up trying to get round the Nazis, and now he’s merely going to drift with the current, wherever it takes him. That is, when he isn’t railing against his fate and the wife it’s brought him. He’s still got stomach for that all right. In fact, now that he can’t fight on the Eastern front in the Wehrmacht any longer (not that he ever really did), he’s got more energy for fighting on the home front. His first campaign, if we discount the incessant guerrilla warfare of his marriage, is going to be against –

  5

  Jägerlein, Annchen and the French prisoner-of-war

  Gabi’s food coupons are stamped with a J. And she gets fewer of them than the rest of us. ‘the Jew’, Goebbels has declared, an abstraction he’s much addicted to, ‘The Jew has battened on the German nation long enough.’ And she doesn’t eat her ration’s worth even so. She gives some of it to her children and her husband. But still Willibald isn’t satisfied. Something, he feels, is missing from his diet. He’s learnt about filching in the Officers’ Mess, which is certainly a good school, and his experience there has convinced him: Jägerlein must be filching from us. The margarine ration and the egg and meat rations that go onto the kitchen table just don’t all come through onto the dinner plates, and he’s sure Jägerlein’s the one who’s responsible for the deficit. So is Gabi sure, she’s been sure of it ever since Jägerlein’s been with us, but she takes the indulgent view that people brought up with servants are apt to adopt. ‘It’s part of the household expenses,’ she keeps telling him. ‘You just have to accept it.’

  But this is the philosophy of the Officers’ Mess, not of the Officers’ Mess Steward, and Willibald, who was brought up in the back court of a Berlin tenement, will have none of it. ‘I want some proper accounting done here
,’ he declares, not quite out of Jägerlein’s hearing. ‘I’m going to search her bag.’ He slams first his fist on the table then the door to the study, from where after a short time little barks of satisfaction tell us that King Saul is getting back on track after the military year of neglect. But next morning, when he appears as usual on the stairs in a night shirt about half-a-metre shorter than modesty requires, his mutterings rise again.

  ‘We have a thief in the house … She’d better look out or I’ll call the police in … A search under the mattress would turn up a bit more than a bad smell … If no one supervises them it’s no wonder the place is like a Polish-Jewish pig sty …’ This last is slope-shouldered Pfarrer Kretchmann’s phrase, the one he used when Brutus and the bunnies were removed from our contagion. Considering he’s married to a Jew, Willibald’s use of it – presumably he learnt it in the army – seems less than friendly. But at least it does sound more plausible in his mouth than in Pfarrer Kretchmann’s, since Willibald may at least have seen a Polish pig sty, though scarcely a Polish-Jewish one, whereas untravelled Pfarrer Kretchmann can hardly even have seen that.

  Jägerlein seems not to notice these rumblings, although my mother augments the drama by following Willibald down one step after another, shushing and clucking like a flustered hen. Perhaps that’s because Jägerlein has other things on her mind – two, to be precise: Annchen, the girl she’s adopted, and François, the French prisoner-of-war she’s fallen in love with. Not to speak of the poetry she keeps reciting and all the work she has with us children always under her feet. Annchen lives with Jägerlein in the room behind our kitchen. François works on Jägerlein’s sister’s farm four kilometres away on the other side of the lake.