A Quiet Genocide Read online

  ‘Guten Morgen,’ said Catharina. There was no one else in the shop. It was only a few feet from the front door to a feast of meat separating Janus from her like a no man’s land. He looked unreachable behind the counter with an apron smartly hugging his waist below a crisp T shirt.

  ‘Herr Fleischer said to expect you,’ said Janus. ‘Two small pieces of steak, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Catharina, who felt a happy flush of endorphins flooding her frame from below.

  Catharina visited her butcher’s twice a week, every week – once on Tuesdays to buy two pieces of steak for supper that evening and once on Thursdays to purchase two cheaper pork chops for the same purpose. It was part of Catharina’s routine, part of her life and now it seemed that existence was being tossed up into the air to fall where it may. The uncertainty was unnerving but thrilling in the same breath. Years had built up, slowly depressing Catharina’s heart like a skyscraper of tombs reaching impossibly high. Now, twice a week, every week, Janus was carefully lifting those dusty volumes away.

  ‘Did you speak to anyone interesting today darling?’ Gerhard said that evening over steak and potatoes and sad green beans, which Catharina had over boiled.

  ‘No, not really,’ she answered.

  Catharina had forgotten what Janus looked like by the time she fell asleep that night, but her subconscious recalled him vividly in her dreams. She was walking slowly down country lanes. They were flanked by tall hedges which protected them from the glare of sunlight, which instead filtered through magically. She and Janus held hands, but Catharina was conscious the time they were spending together was painfully thin. The mood of her dream then darkened as quickly as the sky. Light muddied to dusk and Janus shrank by her side into a little boy while she looked away at the flickering sunset through the hedge.

  ‘Jozef,’ Catharina said when she woke.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was Friday night in undergraduate halls and Jozef felt alive and ready to go out drinking in Berlin. He could hear records playing, friends laughing and sharing a beer or a bottle of wine – happiness. Jozef’s own good mood was still tempered by depression. He was lonely. He had no one to share his anticipation of life with and the strong emotional conflict within him was something he had not previously experienced.

  It was the end of week five, halfway through the first university term. Jozef was still friendless. He had settled in relatively well, he felt. He had sunk his teeth into his course and he was on top of his work, which if truth be told bored him slightly. He wanted, no, he expected, to be taxed more in higher education. He had feared he would be overwhelmed intellectually, but instead it was the opposite. He craved something more. Maybe I will speak with Professor Zielinski, Jozef thought as he combed his hair that evening. He pulled on the little light above the mirror with a cheap click to get a clearer picture. The main light in the centre of his room only reached dimly into its corners. The sudden illumination highlighted how dusty his mirror had become and Jozef wiped it clean with his handkerchief. That was better.

  It was 7.30pm. He was wearing his smartest casuals and a deep green tweed jacket his mother had bought him as a going away present. The gesture, saved until his parents had said goodbye and left him alone in Berlin, had triggered a tidal wave of emotion. It had flooded up his legs and then his torso before finally filling his head until he overflowed with sadness. Jozef had hopelessly tried to hold it back, like a tiny figure facing a tsunami. Catharina had been distraught. Gerhard too had wanted to cry and had not expected to feel such emotion, but refrained in the final seconds, instead helping his wife deal with her upset.

  Jozef waved them off, with water trickling down his cheeks, invisible in the darkness, the first cracks in the dam. He had held his jacket up triumphantly to his mother, who had smiled and reassured her son that her boy would be alright in all this – this life at university.

  Jozef now made a final check he had the rest of his weekly budget in his pocket, safely protected ahead of tonight’s spree, and locked the door to his room behind him. He put the key in his left pocket, which slipped beneath a handkerchief he always carried, whether he had a head cold or not. It had become habit. His right pocket exclusively held his money and it hearteningly jangled in his sharp grey pants. He felt attractive and his face smiled.

  Mathias’ door, across the hallway, was wide open as usual. Mathias spied Jozef coming out while he drank wine and entertained guests of both sex, which irked Jozef, who thought in the scheme of things his share of first year friends had been stolen by Mathias, who had enough for two or even three undergraduates. Martyn, a rich foreign undergraduate who lived next door to Jozef, came out at the same time and in the same conscientious manner locked his door and put the key safely in his trouser pocket. Martyn had soft red hair and was in one of Jozef’s seminars – European Power Politics 1871-1914. He smiled at Jozef, who returned the compliment but felt unsure still.

  Jozef walked up the narrow corridor.

  Martyn’s head surged. He wanted to invite Jozef to join them drinking. He had thought about doing so for the last week, but he had not found the right opportunity. This was it, he thought. ‘Jozef!’ he cried.

  Jozef seemed decent and he instinctively felt that they would get along. He was not like other undergraduates. He spoke less and yet it was always worth listening to what he said. He talked with intelligence and made his arguments accessible, rather than wrapping them in words Martyn did not fully understand. Martyn was drowning intellectually, like he had feared all summer. His plea now made Mathias look up from the cosy party being conducted in his room across the hallway.

  Jozef continued striding through the double doors and away to the left. The sound had not carried.

  Monday morning and Jozef sat, as usual, alone in lectures. He liked it that way. No distractions. It was the busiest of the four courses he was taking this year – The Fall and Rise of Inter-War Germany 1919-1933. Seductive, yes, but it seemed patently clear the university would really rather stop when Adolf Hitler had become chancellor.

  ‘Let’s leave it there, shall we?’ Jozef pictured university chiefs deciding behind discreet doors.

  * * *

  It was 9am and grey and chilly outside. Buses and trams could not operate safely without their headlights on. Jozef was sat in the university’s main lecture hall. There was nowhere else on campus which could happily host the 100-plus undergraduates gathered. Jozef felt awake, fresh. The main lecture hall banked steeply up from below where professors took centre stage and preached from their pulpit. The worn wooden boards were too big and grand for less skilful lecturers, Jozef thought in the opening weeks of term. A small stand held lecturers’ notes at eye-level and a modest lamp shone on them on days like today.

  Jozef felt safe but still close enough to the speaker, not too removed. He was an undergraduate and starting to feel rather proud of the fact.

  A young man yawned openly a few rows down from Jozef. He was quickly admonished by the irritated professor giving today’s lecture. ‘Do that again, without using a hand to cover your mouth young man, and you can go and yawn somewhere else,’ barked the professor, who was perhaps in his 40s and wearing a grey, thick beard.

  Jozef made a mental note – hold yawns in, which always made Jozef feel like he was trying not to regurgitate a small mammal, wriggling alive.

  ‘Adolf Hitler was 24 in 1913,’ began the professor. ‘He lived in Munich, but he was Austrian by birth. He struggled to get by selling drawings of local landmarks to tourists. He was bitter he could not make a better living from being an artist. A flatmate at the time remarked that Hitler was angry then and would ‘pour fury over everything’.’

  Jozef was scribbling notes voraciously with his best fountain pen, which smudged a little while the ink was still fresh. Few undergraduates took notes quite so conscientiously and Jozef was beginning to realise as much, but no matter. Jozef preferred to have too much information and sift out less vital snipp
ets when it came to writing his essays. The formula was labour intensive but working for him so far. His lowest mark had been 59 out of 100, a C+ in old money. The majority of his work had scored in the low 60s, a B-.

  ‘In May 1919, immediately after the end of the Great War, Hitler was desperate to remain in the German army. He was devastated the war had been lost. A Captain Karl Mayr came across him at the time and remarked how Hitler was ‘like a stray dog, looking for a master’. Mayr saw something in Hitler. He felt he could work in propaganda and sent him to university in Munich to take a short course in public speaking. Hitler was 30 and now began to articulate his views in public, initially to German soldiers, about the dangers of communism.’

  Jozef looked up. His wrist was starting to ache from writing so intensively. He waggled it quickly to try and shake off the numbing paralysis and adjusted his jacket, which had slipped uncomfortably into a crumpled pile behind the small of his back. He suddenly spotted Mathias below sat smugly between two attractive girls, one blonde, one brunette. What was he doing here and so early? Mathias did not like early mornings and was reading German literature, not modern history.

  Jozef noticed Mathias spent an uncomfortable amount of time around girls. It seemed obvious to Jozef that he was sweet on most of them and if not them, then their best friend. His motives always seemed selfish. Mathias and the two girls were giggling and did not appear overly interested in what was being said. Jozef’s conscience could not help tutting.

  The professor finished his glass of water.

  ‘Hitler began speaking in beer halls in Munich in 1919 and soon got noticed. People were angry after the defeat in the war and wanted someone to blame. Here was someone telling them who – communists and Jews.’

  * * *

  The next day Jozef had a seminar with Professor Zielinski and six other undergraduates on his course. He had lectures every week, but seminars only once a fortnight. That equalled six timetabled hours a week. The rest of the day Jozef was left to manage himself, wading through long reading lists and tirelessly producing the not insubstantial essays his courses demanded each month. The fact that no one from the university policed the students to ensure they were diligently doing their work was the downfall of those who lacked discipline.

  Jozef was blossoming. He relished the independence of managing his days and applying himself when he was most alert, first thing in the morning and through the early part of the afternoon. A lot of undergraduates ploughed on through the evenings, but Jozef could not work at night.

  This morning Jozef was first to knock on Professor Zielinski’s door.

  ‘Guten Morgen Jozef,’ the professor said.

  ‘Guten Morgen,’ answered Jozef, who liked Professor Zielinski.

  He had a kind, round face and was of average height and weight, but that was where averageness stopped and charming idiosyncrasy took over. The professor was in his 50s, Jozef guessed. His curly mop of hair was coiled tightly and his smile was disarming with a hint of rebellion about it. Jozef enjoyed the combination. He was the first person he had come across who could hold a candle to Herr Slupski, his old German teacher in Munich.

  ‘How are you today?’ asked the professor, fiddling with a bow tie, which clashed with his tweed jacket. Scruffy brown shoes let the professor down a little, but clearly he did not care and confidence hid a hundred flaws, thought Jozef, who was struggling to master that mindset. At university confidence was king and the currency most undergraduates traded in.

  Jozef looked about himself after settling into his seat. He enjoyed Professor Zielinski’s cluttered office with whole book cases teetering up instead of walls. It felt lived in. Jozef was five minutes early, an eternity for some undergraduates who timed entrances to the second, not wishing to invite extra work upon themselves. Small talk was required to avoid the interval quickly becoming uncomfortable.

  ‘How are you finding university Jozef?’

  Jozef felt like being honest. ‘Gut. Tough at first, being away from home, but gut. I’m happy I feel I’m in the swing of things now workwise. I was worried I wouldn’t…’ Jozef broke off, searching for the right words.

  ‘Be intelligent enough?’ suggested the professor.

  ‘Be intelligent enough,’ repeated Jozef smiling. He wasn’t entirely sure they were the exact words he would have chosen, but the professor had chosen them and they were good enough all the same.

  Jozef sat opposite Professor Zielinski in the circle of chairs prepared to, one, encourage debate, but, two, because physically there was little choice – unless the professor was going to tidy up properly. He shuddered at the thought, like someone had just walked across his grave. It was bitter outside but beautiful. The professor had pulled down a blind to block sunlight from a modest window looking out of his office. Another showed a clear, blue sky like the sea.

  ‘I like to think that being conscious of one’s own shortcomings is in itself a higher form of intelligence,’ noted the professor.

  Jozef nodded gently in agreement. ‘I’d never thought of it like that,’ he said.

  ‘How are you finding the work?’ probed the professor, sipping his coffee. Tiny wisps of smoke weaved up out of his mug.

  ‘Work’s okay. I have to be honest, I thought it might be tougher. I feel I want more; I want to know more,’ said Jozef.

  ‘What about?’ asked the professor, puzzled.

  ‘About Adolf Hitler, about National Socialism and about what they did in the death camps,’ said Jozef suddenly.

  ‘The death camps you say,’ said the professor, raising an eyebrow. ‘How do you know they even existed?’

  ‘I suppose I don’t – but I’d like to,’ said Jozef.

  A fellow undergraduate then bundled through the door, gasping for breath and hurriedly unwrapping a scarf from around her neck. ‘Sorry I’m late professor,’ she said.

  ‘No problem. Myself and young Jozef here were just enjoying a meeting of minds.’

  Jozef was flattered but didn’t grasp the professor’s full meaning. The girl was jealous and frowned before burying her hands into one of a clutch of bags and producing a pen and worn notebook.

  ‘Shall we begin?’ said the professor.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Guten Morgen Frau Diederich,’ said Janus from behind the counter.

  There was another customer ahead of her peeking at the meat but failing to make a decision. Catharina found herself silently riling at the woman, who was wearing a scarf which cloaked her irritating head, ducking and fussing about. Her own anger surprised Catharina. She could not help wanting Janus all to herself. Janus seemed to mirror the sentiment, smiling when he caught her eye and half rolling his in jest at the other woman’s indecision.

  Catharina tried desperately to not let the woman spoil her mood, which had been brilliant upon first entering the shop. She had been excited. She wanted to be buoyant for her, however brief, exchange with him – but the woman continued to dally between decisions. Catharina would have gladly handed her over to the Gestapo had the war still been on. She certainly looked like she might have ‘Jewish tendencies’.

  ‘Will the ham keep?’ asked the lady.

  ‘Of course it will,’ Janus replied.

  Catharina was forced to hover awkwardly behind.

  ‘And the sausages?’

  ‘The sausages will keep as well.’

  Finally. The lady scuttled out of the shop tucking the meat carefully in her bag, which she seemed almost to crouch over as an added layer of protection.

  Catharina breathed a sigh of relief and returned her focus to Janus and she held his look. She had not studied his face closely before. She had been too embarrassed to do so. Now she did, Janus seemed more comfortable in the intimacy of the moment, more confident of his looks.

  ‘Alone at last,’ Catharina joked.

  Janus laughed and Catharina was thrilled. She couldn’t recall the last time she had made someone happy.

  She fantasised about Janus in be
d before falling asleep that night. She imagined what he might do to her and what she might do to him, exploring soft, nude skin. It only felt more thrilling knowing that her husband lay right next to her and had no idea what was racing through her head. Catharina’s mind was running away from her. All too brief dalliances in the butcher’s, potentially in front of other people, people Catharina was acquainted with, were not enough anymore, nowhere near. She pictured how she might take her relationship with Janus further. She was becoming quietly convinced Janus felt the same way. The smiles were returned too quickly from across the counter in the shop, too warmly, for her not to be right.

  This was a second chance in love. Catharina had to try and take it. The alternative filled her only with emptiness; the alternative was growing old with Gerhard, who she could never forgive. Catharina considered waiting for Janus to leave work one day and approaching him when she knew he would be free of other people. She thought about inviting him out while buying meat one day, although that was both dangerous – the shop owner, who Gerhard knew, could quite easily hear – and terrifying. Catharina would not be able to live with herself if she faltered and fluffed her lines. Her entire happiness was on the line.

  She thought about secretly passing Janus a note along with her money. This idea was terrifying too, but also the most appealing. She could articulate exactly what she wanted and how she wanted to say it. Janus would get the message. The answer was then up to him. Catharina’s conscience at least would be safely beyond reproach if it was a crushing no.

  * * *

  The next evening, she sat at her bedroom cabinet holding a pen over an empty sheet of possibilities. The mahogany cabinet was grand, rather too grand, for the modest surroundings it found itself in in their bedroom. Still, Catharina was fond of it. Gerhard had bought it for her when times were better. She cast her gaze down wistfully for a moment. Catharina’s loneliness lay around her bare feet like petals. She was 17 again and writing a love letter. She could not quite believe her boldness.