This is a work of fiction.
The teakwood-decked police launch bumped gently against the white sides of the luxury liner anchored off Aden in the Arabian Sea as bright moonlight danced on the black waters. Two Arab harbor policemen stood, straight as lamp poles, on the narrow rear deck of the launch, their white-gloved hands on a shiny chrome railing to steady themselves. They wore tall red fezzes, which, to the curious European passengers aboard the Italian liner, created an exotic atmosphere, if not the pomp of colonial British rule.
The year was 1939 and although no state of war existed in Europe, Nazi Germany had expanded its hegemony into Austria and Czechoslovakia the year before. Jews in Nazi-occupied countries did not need to wait for actual combat; they already felt the assaults of hate, arrest, and banishment since Hitler came to power in 1933—and many had emigrated. By 1939, only a few countries allowed Jews to enter and most of the Italian liner’s passengers were refugees headed for the Orient to places like Shanghai
The Lehrmanns were one of the refugee families and, at the moment, Manfred Lehrmann leaned over the wooden rail and observed the swaying police launch. His wife, Hilde, stood next to him. They knew the senior British police official had boarded the liner an hour ago and they hoped he would give his permission for them to go ashore—just for two hours. They had handed their passports to the ship’s purser with the request that he approach the official. It was a tradition, they had said to the purser, and showed him the two small stones they had brought along.
Now they waited, both standing on the promenade deck by the rail. They looked at one another, but their eyes did not meet. Manfred knew what was on Hilde’s mind. Certainly the same thing that was on his.
“Yes, and imagine how he must have felt—his wife and small son left behind and the Gestapo on his tail.”
“It is too bad…” Hilde did not finish the sentence because out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of the purser in his white tropical uniform as he emerged from the door to the ship’s reading lounge behind him.
~
I am crouched low to the handlebars of my old BMW R-16 motorcycle. It is cold and dark on this stretch of road, the big oaks standing silent like sentinels as I speed by, the noise of the engine the only sound in my ears. Thank God I was able to quickly find my leather cap and the precious goggles. I dare not think what I would have done without them. I am still wearing a suit and tie under my old dark brown leather jacket which, with its lamb’s wool collar, keeps my upper body quite warm. But only the lower side shields of the motorcycle deflect the cold air from my legs.
There had been no time to search for the heavy canvas pants and the boots. And now the metal clamps that I hastily snapped around my ankles to secure my pants legs feel like bands of ice. But that cannot be helped and I better keep my eyes on the dark road. It is difficult because I have not slept in almost two days.
Something is racing across the road. I can see a streak of white. Ah, only a fox—and it disappears into the woods. The headlamps are not very strong but they must have frightened the animal. I know how the fox feels.
The road seems endless and I strain to look out for bumps and holes. But my thoughts meander. Strangely, lines from Goethe’s “The Erlking” begin to scroll through my mind. They flash by in bright red, like a warning. Who’s riding so late throughth’ endless wild? Then the next line follows quickly like the crack of a whip: T_he father ’tis with his infant child_.
As I try to push the vision away, I see the image of my father laughing. He used to take mother and me for motorcycle rides on the dirt roads around Zellheim. We would ride in the sidecar.
Oh! There is black ice ahead. It glistens in the light of the half moon. Careful now, slow down. I must not slip.
The road is clear again and the poem forces its way back into my thoughts. I know it by heart. Herr Volker had drummed it into us boys as we sat in the bare classroom of the ancient stone schoolhouse. My son, my son, no one’s in our way,/The willows are looking unusually gray. The sixth stanza. It always made me anxious. I hold tight to the handlebars, my body tense, because I know what is coming.
My son. He is asleep, I hope, in our warm house in Zellheim. The little fellow does not know his father is racing to Berlin 200 kilometers away on this terror-struck night of November 9, 1938. No, the boy is not aware that a neighbor, a Storm Trooper no less, had whispered a warning: “The Gestapo will come to arrest you this evening.”
Me? A Jewish pharmacist with three generations of family born in Zellheim? But I am no fool. I know what will happen. They will search the house, harass Emily, my wife, and force the sale of my business for token change—just to be able to say they officially bought it.
Dear father, ohfather, he seizes my arm!/ The Erlking, father,has done me harm. Father’s face appears before me again. The deep lines on his face portray a strong man, but the hazel eyes are weighed with sorrow. I swing my head rapidly from side to side to make the image go away. It does, but I can feel a line of cold sweat form on my brow.
There are lights ahead. A car approaches. Steady now, better slow down a bit, but not too much. The car passes, but there are more lights. I am hungry, but I cannot risk a stop. And I pray there is enough fuel to reach Manfred’s house in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin. Perhaps I will be safe there, at least until Emily and our son can follow me.
Snowflakes suddenly sweep by with a roar of angry wind that bellows the last line of Goethe’s tragic poem—The infant son in his arms was dead.
~
“Manfred,” Hilde gasped in the grip of fright. She tried to shake Manfred awake.
“Manfred, wake up. There is a knock at the door.” Her husband, roused from sleep, could feel his wife tremble. Even in the half light of the darkened bedroom in their apartment located par terre—on the ground floor—of the apartment house he could see the terror on Hilde’s face.
“Yes? What?”
“There is a knock on the front door,” Hilde repeated.
Manfred rolled out of bed and bent over the nightstand.
“A quarter to five,” he said. “What…?” Then he too heard the knock. It was not loud, but the image of two Gestapo agents in black leather coats shot into his consciousness. Their usual tactic, he knew. Grab people before they could think. Arrest, interrogate, and torture them to admit to any trumped-up charge they invented.
Hilde’s eyes pleaded, “What do we do?”
Recently, as Gestapo arrests had escalated, Manfred had occasionally slept at the home of his two maiden aunts in the hope that the Gestapo would not think to look for him there. But Hilde was so afraid of being alone.
There was the knock again. A light tap, tap. The Gestapo, he knew, banged on doors. But perhaps they were playing coy tonight.
“Put something on quickly Manfred and get out through the back door.”
The back door in the kitchen led to a common corridor, which opened on to a field behind the apartment house. When Manfred had slept away from home, he would come back that way and Hilde would turn the kitchen light on and off a couple of times to signal that no one had asked for him and that it was safe to come home.
“It is no use Hilde. If it is them, they will have a man in the back, too.” Hilde stood in her dressing gown. Neither had switched on the light
“I will go and look to see who it is.” Her determination surprised Manfred and he slipped into a pair of pants, then reached for a shirt from the chest of drawers near the window.
With the shirt in hand Manfred tiptoed out of the bedroom. He heard Hilde fumble with the latch. The front door was solid wood and Manfred knew that the next second could determine his destiny. He clenched his jaw.
“Ludwig!” The tension drained instantly as Manfred heard Hilde’s whisper.
Manfred ran toward her to disengage the chain.
“Quickly, Hilde, let him in before the neighbors hear us.” He put his fingers to his lips.
“God! Ludwig. What are you doing here?”
Ludwig Wolfson, his cousin Emily’s husband, wore a leather jacket and held a leather motorcyclist’s cap in his hand as he staggered inside. His face red with cold, eyes glassy with fatigue, Ludwig nodded a few times as if trying to find his voice.
“You did not answer my knocks,” the hoarse voice struggled out of his throat.
“We thought it was the…” Hilde said, her eyes wide with anxiety, but Ludwig’s lips cracked into a faint smile.
“I know, I know,” he said. “I was not sure if I could make it here without being caught.”
Hilde walked into the kitchen and pulled down the shade before she switched the light on. She reached for the coffeepot as Manfred opened the metal breadbox.
The weary Ludwig sat down and in between bites he told Manfred and Hilde what had happened in Zellheim.
Hilde got up from the kitchen table and peeked out from behind the window blind.
“Dawn is fast approaching, but you must get some sleep Ludwig.”
“God! My motorcycle, it’s still outside, in front.”
We have to hide it,” Manfred said as he looked from Hilde to Ludwig. “It must not be seen by anyone. The neighbors on both sides are Aryans. They will report us.” With that he got up and headed for the front door. “I will wheel it into the apartment. That’s our only choice.”
You can sell it, Manfred,” Ludwig called after him wearily. “Once Emily gets here we will not stay very long. I did manage to book passage on an Italian ship bound for Shanghai. It is our only chance to escape. I only hope nobody saw me come here.”
“Ludwig, please, everything will be all right. Now lie down on the couch in the living room. Manfred will bring the motorcycle in.”
Still dressed in his suit—he had taken off the tie—Ludwig stretched out and put his head on the beige velvet pillow at the foot of the couch.
As he fell asleep, the characters of Goethe’s poem appeared before him again, but the faces were blurred.
~
“I hope the British police official will allow us to land,” Hilde said to Manfred as the ship’s purser made his way toward them.
“Excuse me, Herr Lehrmann,” the purser said, affecting an official smile as he struggled with his German. “The English police major did not understand what you want. He wants to see you himself.” With that he handed the passports back to Manfred. “Come with me.”
“Well, Hilde, my English is very poor,” Manfred said. “But let us try.”
We have to do it for Emily,” Hilde said.
“Yes, for Emily and the boy,” answered Manfred. They had been shocked by the news when the telegram, sent from Singapore, had arrived. Ludwig—a heart attack just as their ship had entered the Suez Canal on its way to Shanghai. The ship’s captain had ordered the body taken ashore at the next stop—Aden—for burial. And when the ship reached Singapore, a distant relative of Emily’s had arranged for her and the boy to remain there, pending further travel.
“No one will ever visit here again, Hilde. The least we can do is leave the small rocks to show that someone has visited the grave.”
“Perhaps we can even arrange for a headstone.”
Manfred nodded his head solemnly at Hilde’s suggestion, and as he turned to follow the purser, he whispered, “I hope so.” But he knew that would not be possible.
The British police officer sat stiffly behind a rosewood desk in his vestibule near the ship’s entry port. A tan tropical helmet sat on the desktop, its gold badge of service exuding authority. The man’s pale blue eyes squinted at the approaching couple, led by the purser.
“Yes? What do you want?” The clipped accent was meant to intimidate.
Manfred tried to explain, but the officer made no attempt to understand the German words that crept into the plea and demanded Manfred repeat himself
Finally, Manfred thought, the man had understood.
The police major stretched out his hand in a gesture that indicated he wanted to see the passports.
He opened one, then the other.
With his right index finger he pointed at the large red letter J—which the Nazis had stamped into the passports of all Jews.
“Sorry, His Majesty’s government does not allow Jews without entry visas to debark on British territory.”