Dark shop windows. Closed stores. Father’s shoe shop is dark. Isabella would like new shoes. New shoes, black patent leather shoes because Isabella is twelve and they’re giving a school dance and she has to be pretty for the dance. Father teaches her, for days on and off. Father teaches her to waltz, they practice listening to an old record of ‘The Blue Danube’, they spin, Isabella and Father, Isabella in Father’s arms, it’s safe and warm. Father’s store is called BATA. There’s a poster hanging in the window of Father’s shop, a big poster. The huge poster covers the window. Isabella does not see which shoes she would like to buy. She can’t see. The poster hides the shoes. There are no lights. The letters on the poster are black and big. Isabella reads and secretly peeks behind the poster, she searches for black patent leather shoes. For the shoes she’ll never buy.
On the 21st day of December 1935, in this shoe shop, Ilse Johanna Uhlmann, typist at AEG, purchased footwear from the Jew Peter Fischer.
On the 23rd day of December 1935, Arno Lutzner, a salesman for AGFA, bought a pair of slippers from the Jew Peter Fischer, co-owner of the BATA store.
On the 29th day of December 1935, Johannes Weichert, Head of the Isolation Ward of Chemnitz Hospital, bought three pairs of shoes.
In compliance with Act 2 of the Decree of Prohibition of the Purchasing of Goods in Jewish Stores, issued September 15th 1935, the above-listed citizens are to report at the local police station by noon of December 30th 1935, at the latest.
Citizens are informed that Jewish stores are under constant surveillance by photographers engaged by the local government. Whoever enters a Jewish shop will be photographed and will suffer all the consequences specified by law.
W. Schmidt, Mayor of Chemnitz
Isabella sits on the yellow bench in the park, opposite her father’s BATA shoe shop, singing along to ‘The Blue Danube’. Singing. The bench has been newly painted. The dance is cancelled. The dance has been cancelled for Jews. The school is closed. The bench is yellow. Isabella doesn’t go to school any more. Isabella goes into her father’s shop and sits there, she doesn’t want to sit on the yellow bench, she wants to sit among her father’s shoes. In the dark shop. In the deserted shop. It is the winter of 1935.
They cut off Doctor Johannes Weichert’s beard in the main square. People watch and say nothing. Dr Johannes Weichert wears a board on his back. Dr Weichert the sandwich man. On the board it says: Ich habe von den Juden gekauft. In big black letters.
Artur watches the woman sitting on the stone threshold of a house on the promenade with shop windows, the woman’s name is Isabella, he looks at her from above. He says: I’m rich but lonely. I have houses, three of them, I have land, I have money. We’re grown-ups, there’s no sense in equivocating. We could give it a try.
In what sense? asks Isabella.
Artur slides down next to the woman. Now both are sitting on the stone threshold, gazing in front of them at the littered promenade. There’s paper, there are coloured ribbons, there is confetti, there are glasses and bottles and tin cans. There are two tall fir trees decorated with paper bows, because baubles get stolen. Isabella and Artur are seated, leaning on a heavy wooden door. Behind the door is a long dark corridor. Behind the door it is dark. They sit leaning against the entrance in the dark. Outside. Sitting on the stone threshold, in the middle of the promenade. Their shoulders touch. Barely. Their legs are bent at the knees.
The woman lays the palm of her hand on Artur’s knee, Artur has a bony knee. Isabella’s hand drops between Artur’s legs. You wear nappies, says Isabella. You wear nappies, she says, and stretches out her legs. Then she spreads her legs apart; she spreads her outstretched legs apart. Touch, she says.
Artur touches. Nappied ones, says the woman. Slide your hand under.
Under where? asks Artur.
You have a nice hat, says Isabella. Slide it under the nappy.
The night is moonless, says Artur and slides his hand under Isabella’s skirt, he fumbles, he rummages, he muddles. This is a strange town, whispers Isabella, her heart missing a beat, she sighs, ah, and breathes deeply. Isabella sits in her nappy, her legs apart, she sits on the stone threshold and waits. Through the nappy Artur fights his way (somehow) to Isabella’s skin. Isabella has a long neck with a tiny Adam’s apple sliding up and down as she watches what Artur is doing. Isabella says: I’ll take hold of you too, Mr. Artur. We’re adults, there’s no point in beating about the bush. Isabella adds: This town is full of boredom.
The old lady is dry. Down there. All dry. I’m dry, says Isabella.
Mr. Artur, you have a fat finger.
Isabella’s hand is in Artur’s trousers. (Artur moans.) In her palm Isabella holds Artur’s small penis, his small, shrivelled penis. The nappies are – thank god – dry. Both hers and his are clean and dry. In her closed hand Isabella holds Mr Artur’s penis, she holds his penis and rubs. Up and down.
“A”
Abwehr
down
Adolf
up
Anschluss
down
Appellplatz
up
Arbeit macht frei
down
Aktion
up
Arier Rasse
down
Aktion Erntefest
Aktion Reinhard
Anschluss
up
Auf gut deutsch
Antisemitismus
Auschwitz
Isabella’s hand hurts. Isabella slows down.
A bit faster, please, a bit faster, Miss Isabella.
“B”
Blut und Boden
down up down
up down
“E”
Einsatzkommandos
Endlösnung
Eugenik
Euthanasie
“G”
Gestapo.
down-n’-up-n’-down-n’-up-n’-down-n’-up-n’-down
Genozid
“H”
Herrenvolk
Häftlingspersonalbogen
“J”
Jude
Judenfrei
Judengelb – yellow, yellow
Juden raus!
Die Juden – unser Unglűck
Judenrat
up
Judenrein
up n’ down n’ up n’ down when will he come?
“K”