“Yes,” said Scheidler, “Himmler himself has directed that we are to send our most promising officers to Berlin. I received the order this afternoon. There is to be a course to standardize our procedures and to develop methods to make certain that when our enemies are defeated, we have the processes in place to ensure that our new territories are properly governed and are no security risk to the German state.”
Neumann didn’t have to pretend that he was pleased with the news. He smiled broadly. “I’m truly honoured by this, Herr Oberst. As I said earlier, I feel we’re at a crossroads of history, and it’s my good fortune and privilege to play a part in it.”
“Oh, we shall both be playing a part in the historic days ahead of us, and very soon. Mark my words, Reinhold.” Scheidler gestured towards his medals, nearly spilling his wine in the process. He leaned forward, until he was almost in Neumann’s face. “Your generation is much luckier than mine. We endured the Great War, only to be betrayed by Jews, socialists, and the rich; but you and your generation will enjoy our final triumph. The Third Reich is going to be something we can all dedicate ourselves to building. Before long, the war is going to heat up again. Believe me, when we are ready, we will be on the move, and we will crush the British and French and take our rightful place in Europe. This time things will be very different.”
Neumann was listening intently and waved away a waiter with canapés. Scheidler’s voice grew low and he leaned forward even closer. “We will also get ourselves ‘Lebensraum’ in the east. We will have land to expand and grow Germany in that direction. It’s our destiny. It’s not just talk, Neumann. Trust me. I heard this from Himmler himself at our briefing this afternoon. This is not just wishful thinking. The next year will be the most momentous period in all of European history. We are going to smash the German people’s traditional enemies and carve out for ourselves and future generations the Greater German Empire. Our destiny has been sleeping since Charlemagne, but not for long now. What this means for people like you and me is the opportunity to distinguish ourselves in the service of the Reich.”
Despite his previous scepticism, Neumann felt a frisson of pride and enthusiasm. The disdain he felt earlier was rapidly disappearing. He had undergone this transformation in the past. It happened so frequently now that Neumann didn’t even notice it. He had often been ambivalent about the party, but his ambition was kindled by the prospect of opportunity, and this created an uncritical kind of enthusiasm. The rapid change from cynic to disciple was no longer quite so remarkable. Reinhold Neumann had come such a long way from a Viennese slum, and now his talents were clearly being recognized for what they were. It was hard not to feel exultant.
* * *
ANNIKA’S SURPRISE PARTY for Saul was a tremendous success. Everyone she’d invited had come, and they were joined by people she had never seen before. It didn’t matter. They were all friends of friends. Saul’s sister’s house was crowded with dozens of their colleagues and associates. The air was blue with cigarette smoke, and two dozen people were talking at the top of their lungs. A gramophone trumpeting out a scratchy swing-band tune was losing hopelessly against the chattering of so many boisterous conversations.
Annika sidled up to Saul, who was talking animatedly in German with a small circle of guests. In another part of the room she could hear a conversation in French. In the background someone else was speaking English. One of the things Annika loved about the Netherlands was the nation’s fluency in so many languages. It was a skill that made them unique in Europe. It also helped keep the country prosperous, as it gave them a great trading advantage over all their largely unilingual neighbours. Both she and Saul, like all their educated friends, spoke Dutch and German, and could get by in either English or French. She slid her arm around his waist.
“Annika,” Saul said enthusiastically, “I want you to meet Pauli Herschel.” He introduced her to a tall man with a fair complexion, horn-rimmed glasses, and thinning brown hair. “Pauli has just come from Germany. I was explaining to him that next semester he could probably get a spot teaching a tutorial in the law school. I’m sure he could eventually get a job here at the university.”
Annika nodded vigorously. “Yes, of course. I don’t know what positions are open, but I hear that you have excellent qualifications. Where exactly did you come from in Germany?”
“We lived in Stuttgart, but we managed to get out three months ago via Switzerland. We’re lucky to be here in the Netherlands. Things were getting unbearable at home. I got my immediate family out. I used to have a small office specializing in business law, but I haven’t been allowed to practise law for several years now. It’s hard to believe what it was like living in that environment.”
“Will you be able to sell your house and have the money forwarded here?” someone from the circle of guests asked.
Pauli laughed bitterly. “No, not at all. We were lucky to get out with the clothes on our backs. Jews must have travel permits and special exit visas to get out of Germany. We had a phoney set of papers made up for us, identifying us as non-Jews, but I won’t tell you how we got them. Others are still using the system. But no, there’s no possibility of getting money from your bank account or from any kind of sale. Still, I think we were lucky. We had to leave home separately, without luggage, and we met at the train station. My wife took my daughters and I took my son. We travelled separately; travelling as a family would have been too suspicious.”
“What would have happened if you were caught?” Saul asked.
“Jews who break the law are sent to a special prison camp at Oranienburg. I’ve heard conditions are pretty grim there, but nobody really knows, as everything we’ve heard about it is some kind of rumour. As far as I can see, the Nazi plan is to isolate the Jews from the population and strip them of their possessions and their livelihood. We’ve heard rumours about the possibility of mass deportations, but they’re only rumours. We’ve been progressively restricted in our contacts with German society, yet we can’t legally emigrate. I don’t understand it.”
“We’ve been reading about this in the papers for several years now,” said a fair-haired woman with a bright red headscarf wrapped around a tight perm. “I believe you, Pauli, but I lived in Germany ten years ago. Things were tense, but I know the Germans: they are fundamentally decent people. I know them. I have friends in Germany. They are not so unlike us; this is just so hard to understand.”
“Hard to understand, like a nightmare is hard to understand,” Pauli said. “In the last three months, I’d have to say that most people I’ve met don’t want to believe it. It’s too inconvenient. If they believed it, what would they do? It’s only been a year since Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass. Jews right across Germany and Austria were driven from their homes, vandalized, robbed, and beaten while the police watched or helped. The rest of the world seems to have conveniently forgotten already. In Switzerland, we were treated with suspicion. We were almost sent back as vagrants. We were lucky; we went to a Swiss synagogue and were forwarded along a chain that led here; but even here, in the Netherlands, we aren’t guaranteed of finding a home. Yes, this is hard to imagine.”
The woman with the headscarf was not going to be put off. “I have a difficult time with all of this. I know the Nazis are criminal louts, but this is the culture that gave us Wagner, Goethe, Bach, the printing press. Germans are practically related to us Dutch. The Nazis are a stopgap, something to protect the Germans from communist anarchy.”
“They won’t last forever,” someone else chimed in. “Besides, the Germans were treated abominably after the war. The Treaty of Versailles was a travesty and they suffered so much. Hitler at least has led them out of all that. I’m sure the German people will sooner or later put a stop to all the rest of this. People all over the world just want to live in peace. We all know that.”
Pauli said nothing. He looked disbelieving and jaded.
Members of the circle swirled their drinks pensively or fumbled about busily lighting cigarettes or searching for lost items in handbags. Saul was the first to speak. “Well, Pauli, you’re here now, and you’re right, I don’t know