A Quiet Genocide Page 9

  Catharina struggled to stop her heart from beating outside her thumping chest.

  ‘Guten Abend, Frau Diederich,’ said Janus stiffly to Catharina’s disappointment.

  ‘Janus, two things,’ said Catharina with uncharacteristic boldness. ‘First, let me order you another glass of wine – red? Second, you have to start calling me Catharina or we’ll think we’re still in the butcher’s.’

  ‘Catharina,’ Janus nodded, acknowledging her self-deprecating request.

  Catharina smiled. She climbed out of her raincoat and hung it on the back of her chair before sitting down. She ordered two glasses of red wine and composed herself, running her hands down her skirt – her favourite – to smooth out creases, which had the same effect upon her emotionally. ‘This is lovely,’ she said, looking around.

  She was grateful for the dusky light. It hid the fact that she must be Janus’ senior by ten years, give or take, but she didn’t feel it tonight. She felt she had stopped living for entire chunks of the last decade.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ said Janus.

  He was wearing a simple shirt, trousers and shoes. He was clearly not a rich man – but she did not care. Tonight, his kind eyes and soft manners were hers exclusively.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, breaking eye contact and looking at her new shoes awkwardly. She was not used to praise, especially from someone she was so attracted to.

  Janus was a hairy man and already his morning shave was overtaken by stubble. He kept his dark hair neat and tidy, and had a deep tan in contrast to Catharina’s pale skin, which she was careful to protect from sunlight for fear of getting burnt.

  The waitress carried over two glasses of blood red wine, balanced expertly on a tray. Catharina drank some of hers quickly.

  ‘I received your letter, thank you,’ said Janus, which unseated Catharina, who did not care to mention it.

  ‘Oh,’ said Catharina uncomfortably. ‘I hope you didn’t mind. I was trying to be discreet.’

  ‘You were perfectly discreet.’

  Catharina felt unnerved looking Janus directly in the eye.

  He, conversely, appeared comfortable holding her gaze. He looked and smelt different free from the formality and everyday business of the butcher’s. There, they had good reason to talk. Now, they had very different reasons.

  She was glad and felt more attracted to him than ever. There was magic in the air across their table in the café that night. Every time they caught each other’s eyes, something sparkled. Catharina knew it was unlikely to last, but she did not care. Tomorrow did not matter and felt so far away. Tonight, anything was possible.

  She and Janus talked mostly about the war. Catharina did not normally like to, but she found it refreshing with someone she had not known then and who could not judge her. The six years of the Second World War were extraordinary in many ways. People did what they had to, to survive. Catharina allowed her thoughts to drift off and consider what her husband had done to her then, what he had done to both of them. It was the first time she had pictured him since leaving home and the light she presently enjoyed quickly turned to darkness. He was trying to score points, she thought bitterly. Anger and tears were building. She took a breath and drank some more wine. She looked at Janus, who returned to focus in front of her.

  He was from Warsaw and had been a talented athlete in his youth. He had left school at sixteen, joined the army, and proudly fought in the Polish resistance. He had survived the Nazi occupation and joined the Russians when they liberated Warsaw, fighting alongside them all the way to Berlin. He was half-Jewish, but he had successfully hidden his identity, working as forced labour for the Germans during the war. Janus was a good worker and he did not trust anyone, the marriage of which had safely protected him. He had fought with his father when he was a child and he was glad to leave home.

  Catharina hid her alarm when Janus said he did not know what had happened to his parents, his only immediate family ‘thankfully’, during the war.

  But he knew going home would almost certainly have meant the death camps. He did finally return at the end of hostilities in the spring of 1945, but found another family living in their house. They became angry when he asked after the original occupants and said they knew nothing of them and that they had always lived there.

  ‘That’s awful,’ said Catharina. ‘How could they get away with it?’

  ‘It was quite common,’ explained Janus. ‘People were suspicious of Jewish homes and possessions before the war and they felt perfectly entitled to them after the Nazis shipped them to the ghettos. It was their inheritance.’

  ‘That is terrible Janus. I’m so sorry,’ said Catharina.

  ‘Do not be,’ he said.

  Janus then revealed he was 36, which secretly stunned but thrilled Catharina, who had thought him to be ten years younger.

  ‘If you thought the Germans were bad,’ said Janus, returning to the war. ‘The Russians were animals. They murdered, raped and burnt everything in their path on the way to Berlin. I knew it would be no better under them. The Russians said it was revenge for what the Germans did to their people, but it was not revenge. How do you say? They liked it. I managed to get to Berlin in 1945, in the Soviet sector at first. It was what I knew. But I escaped to the West through the subway and chose Munich. It was quite simple. Here, no one dares hate Jews for fear of being investigated as a war criminal. Before, people feared not hating Jews.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Catharina, half-laughing, which she immediately felt was grossly inappropriate, but she loved hearing him talk. ‘That is a good way of putting it. I never knew anti-Semitism was still so strong in Europe. I suppose you don’t hear it on the wireless in Germany, because we don’t want to talk about it. Why would we? We hated the Jews more than anyone.’

  ‘Shall we go?’ asked Janus. ‘I think the waitresses are keen to finish for the night.’

  They were the only customers left in the café. Most of the candles on other tables had been blown out and with them, the magical intimacy of the evening was largely gone. It felt like time to go.

  ‘Can I walk you home?’ asked Catharina.

  ‘Aren’t I supposed to ask you that?’

  The couple slowly walked the short distance back to Janus’ flat on Georg-Elser-Platz. It only took them five minutes.

  Catharina wished it could have been five hours. She did not want this evening to end. It was cold. The raincoat she had chosen for its lack of bulk was now proving too fragile against the fresh air. She wanted to grab Janus and huddle up against him while they walked, but she dared not.

  Janus wanted to offer Catharina his jacket to comfort and warm her shoulders, but he too dared not. That would seem too forward, too presumptuous, he thought.

  They stood outside the butcher’s and the sight of something familiar killed some of the romance for Catharina. Tonight had been about being different. The meat looked strange hung up in the darkness behind the large glass front.

  ‘It looks like an abattoir in there,’ she said, using her cupped hands as blinkers against the street light to peer through the glass.

  ‘I suppose it does,’ said Janus.

  ‘Would you like to meet again?’ she asked. It was now or never, she thought.

  ‘Yes, I would.’

  ‘You know I am married.’

  ‘I know you’re married,’ said Janus, smiling. ‘Your wedding ring,’ he added, pointing.

  ‘Of course,’ said Catharina, strangely relieved. She found herself looking uncomfortably at the floor for a third time this evening. She sensed Janus was close.

  ‘Catharina,’ he said.

  She looked up and held his eyes in hers this time and the world around them fell away. This was the moment she had imagined.

  Janus curved his hands around Catharina’s petite waist. She put her arms around him and felt the power in his shoulders. Janus wasn’t much bigger than her, but after the stories she had heard tonight, he was a fighter, a survivor.

>   She could not be sure how long the kiss lasted. Time drifted and she forgot where parts of her body ended and where parts of him began. They unlocked lips and Catharina felt embarrassed to have too much saliva slipping out of her mouth, like she had been greedily taking the opportunity to drink too much of him in. She smiled, glancing down like a teenager and waiting for him to say it was okay. Janus smiled back. He did not mind. He liked it. It only made her more real, more feminine. They embraced like they were about to part for a long time. She looked into Janus’ eyes. They were so close it was a blur, but only more beautiful. She picked out individual eyelashes.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was Monday morning and Jozef did not feel great. He was trying to eat a deliberately plain breakfast of cereal and cold milk, but his temporary depression, after a weekend of heavy drinking, made eating difficult. He felt breathless and panicked. His sluggish mind anchored him down and he had already vowed several times this morning to not drink the next weekend, despite it being an entire week away. At this precise moment, he could not face another gloomy start beginning to a Monday.

  Jozef had a lecture in just under an hour at 9am. The university dining hall was sparsely filled by only the most conscientious undergraduates like Jozef, who were not going to let a hectic weekend affect their attendance.

  Others, including Pierre and Mathias, were not quite so scrupulous. Martyn was free until 11am and could afford to lie in a little longer. They had each pulled the covers over jetlagged heads and were hoping to sleep it off.

  Experience had taught Jozef you only ever really felt better after facing up to the world. At least now he could sit alone with his thoughts. He could not have handled someone bleating in his ear, overcompensating for not feeling well by trying to talk their way out of it. Jozef wanted to quietly overcome his unease.

  ‘In the late 1920s,’ began the bearded professor, who Jozef had grown to quite like. ‘Hitler visited a professional photographer’s studio to have a set of portraits done. He wanted to show Germans how dynamic he was; he wanted to show them that he was a real revolutionary. In hindsight, given even Hitler’s terrible heritage, he does look ridiculous.’

  Muted laughter from the galleries could be heard as the professor clicked through a brief slideshow of portraits Hitler had had taken. He did look ridiculous, thought Jozef.

  ‘Hitler developed a habit of holding people’s gaze an unnaturally long time when they met. He wanted people to remember him; he wanted them to believe in his awe. Hitler was helped at this time by communism to the East and Russia. The German political and social elite backed Hitler not because they were so impressed by him, but because they were afraid of communism.’

  Outside of lectures, Jozef really liked Pierre. He could not believe someone so cool wanted to socialise with him.

  Pierre felt the same. He could not believe someone so together, so grounded wanted to spend time with him.

  * * *

  The pair of them were enjoying a quiet drink in a pub not far from campus. It was a Tuesday evening. They were both about a third of their way through a beer. Pierre lit a cigarette and, as he often did, inadvertently blew smoke up into his eyes, which made him squint fiercely. Jozef loved the look. He thought Pierre was uber fashionable. Pierre himself thought he was a mess and drowning in a degree in German literature which seemed increasingly beyond him. He could not discipline himself to hand in essays on time and on the odd occasion he did, he felt his hard work went unrewarded, which only spiralled him back down into depression, ensuring he would be late with his next piece. So the cycle had repeated itself in his first year.

  Jozef believed everyone at university was more intelligent than him and was still to learn that the odd fierce opinion and constantly smoking cigarettes did not mean someone automatically had a spectacularly high IQ. He was still to miss a deadline in Berlin. He was usually early handing in his papers and had found the odd untidy professor did not want them so soon. It threw them. They wanted work handed in strictly on deadline – not before, not after. The day itself. Jozef could not help himself. He preferred to incur a little wrath for being a day early rather than suffer what he assumed would be terrible admonishment were he a moment late.

  ‘How are your courses going?’ Jozef asked, taking a mouthful of beer and enjoying early sparks of intoxication in his head.

  ‘Okay. You?’ Pierre said, conscientiously stubbing out his cigarette so Jozef did not have to inhale second-hand wisps whirling up from the ashtray separating them. Pierre appreciated Jozef was one of the few people he knew who did not smoke and did not like cigarettes, especially in midweek when there was no wild drunkenness to increase his tolerance.

  ‘Fine, I guess,’ said Jozef. ‘I feel I should be doing more; I feel I should be doing better.’

  ‘Jozef,’ said Pierre. ‘You’re one of the hardest working people I know. You always get good marks for your papers and you’re on course to get exemptions from every end of year exam. You’ll be able to go home early while the rest of us are stuck here, sweating it out.’

  ‘I guess,’ said Jozef uncertainly. ‘I’m not sure I want to go home.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Are these two dead?’ interrupted a round barmaid. She was holding the two empty glasses up to the light like she was checking for forged Deutsche Marks.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pierre.

  The worn woman, with impossible breasts spilling out from a low-cut top, quickly placed two full glasses of beer in their place.

  ‘Danke,’ said Jozef, but the lady was already gone and sharing laughter with two men closer to her age nearby. One of them squeezed her bottom, which was bigger than the moon. Jozef gulped some beer queasily and tried to look away.

  ‘Can I tell you something?’ he asked his friend.

  ‘Of course you can,’ said Pierre, reaching a kind hand forward.

  A man drinking and smoking religiously alone on a neighbouring table did not miss the moment.

  ‘Puffs,’ he said bitterly under drunken breath.

  Neither Jozef nor Pierre heard him, which was good on either part.

  ‘Promise me you won’t tell anyone,’ said Jozef, looking Pierre deliberately in the eye and raising the old drunk’s suspicions further.

  ‘I promise. I won’t tell anyone. You can trust me.’

  Jozef felt he could trust someone for the first time since Sebastian and then his parents had betrayed him. There had only been Michael left and Jozef was unsure if his childhood relationship with his father’s friend was going to translate so easily into adulthood.

  ‘I know I can,’ he said.

  Taking a deep breath, he said, ‘I grew up an only child in Munich. My parents, I suppose, are working class. They both have their problems, but my relationship with both of them has been good. They told me something the night before we came to Berlin. They told me I wasn’t their son by birth. They told me I was adopted.’ Jozef finished and breathed deeply. He had tried to be as clinical and economical with the truth as he could. He did not want to add unnecessary emotion to his confession, because he was not sure it would have been either appropriate or truly reflective of his feelings. The truth was Jozef did not know yet what he felt.

  ‘Blimey,’ said Pierre. ‘I thought I had problems. How old were you when they adopted you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was too stunned to think to ask. The next day we came straight here and university was all I was trying to think about.’

  ‘That’s understandable. Do you know any more?’

  ‘I don’t know anything else. But I think I want to know now.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Gerhard and Catharina were having supper. Neither of them was saying much. Both, for once, were perfectly content. Gerhard was happy satisfying the huge hunger he felt after work and Catharina was quietly thrilled reliving her kiss with Janus. She had briefly seen him in the butcher’s earlier this morning while shopping. The two of them had enjoyed sharing a momentary look an
d making teasing eyes. They did not feel alone anymore among the stress and drudgery of their daily lives. They had someone who understood how and what they were feeling; they had someone to look forward to. The transformation in Catharina’s general mood was unbelievable. She could suffer Gerhard more; she could suffer chores more; she could suffer life more.

  ‘Michael has invited both of us out for a dinner in the city,’ Gerhard said without looking up from his newspaper. ‘Next Thursday.’

  Next Thursday? No. Next Thursday, Catharina thought. Janus.

  ‘I have to sing, darling. We’re really very busy at the moment with the choir. The conductor has big plans for us this year,’ she explained as casually as she could.

  ‘I know,’ said Gerhard. ‘But this sounds important. How often does Michael invite us out?’

  Catharina started to resign herself to defeat and in her head agreed with her husband. Michael never invited both of them out together. She felt frustrated and low getting ready for bed that night. Reality had reminded her that any affair she was about to have – and how she craved it now – was not going to be as simple as she had naively begun to believe. She knew she had a safe hour before Gerhard would follow her up, so Catharina sat in front of her mirror and wrote to Janus.

  * * *

  Dear Janus,

  * * *

  I am afraid I will not be able to make our date next week. I have to go to dinner with my husband and the man who gave us our adopted son. I am sorry. I feel terrible. I will be at the café instead a day later, same time. If you can make it, it would be wonderful to see you. I have been thinking of you. Catharina x

  * * *

  That Thursday, Catharina dressed for dinner with Michael in the city with trepidation. She did not like Michael. She never really had. Her instincts had demanded that.

  ‘Darling, are you nearly ready?’ called Gerhard, who had been nearly ready for half an hour.