Leni brought in the second course, her voice ringing with reproach. Her oblivious husband hadn’t even cleared the table. What a useless creature he was, while in Leni he had a real woman with a plentiful supply of everything a man could need. He was halfway through his second glass and already reaching for the bottle.
‘Top up my glass while you’re at it,’ said the mother.
‘How are things with your husband?’ Heinz inquired.
Leni hurriedly began serving up helpings of meat. ‘There’s more in the kitchen if this isn’t enough. The butcher always gives us more than we order. That swindler knows I can’t just send him away once he’s here at the gate. Might as well pick our pockets and be done with it.’
‘Your husband was a first-rate sportsman,’ said Heinz, dodging his wife’s behind. ‘Far and away the best long jumper at the club! No one else came close. You know what he should be doing with his talents?’
‘Do tell,’ said the mother, icily.
‘Kraft durch Freude! Now there’s an organization that can use people like him. Excursions, activities for the working man. Sport in the open air, and then it’s back to serving the fatherland with renewed energy!’ He slammed a triumphant fist down on his blacksmith’s apron. In the silence that fell, he quickly drained his glass and continued his rant.
‘We cannot allow ourselves to be overtaken. Negroes winning medals at our Olympiad: it should never have been allowed to happen. What did your husband make of that?’
‘I have no idea. I didn’t ask.’
‘We missed the boat, me and my Leni. KdF didn’t exist when we were younger, all we had to join was the union. Oh, I would have loved to go on a trip like that, even if it was only to the cabaret. Matthias Schmidt tells me the whole club is off to the Baltic coast next month. Imagine! And for free! They don’t have to pay a pfennig!’
Leni huffed. ‘Matthias Schmidt is always shooting his mouth off about something. Raeren beats the Baltic coast any day. Am I right, sir?’
Von Bötticher’s face was drawn as he chewed his meat. I sensed his anger brewing. Two pale-brown moths fluttered in front of his face, heralding the approaching dusk. Anyone else would have swatted them aside, but because von Bötticher let them be—perhaps this was a mating flight—they seemed to give him the gravitas of a man of nature. Next to him, Heinz looked more threadbare than ever. But the sickly biscuit baker, condemned to the natural world in spite of himself, was busy taking all kinds of liberties with the lady at his master’s table. She went to light a cigarette and he provided the flame. He must have thought they had something in common, an urban brand of savoir-vivre or something of the kind. There was no stopping him.
‘Be sure to pass my recommendation on to your husband. About the KdF. Tell him Heinrich Kraus urges him to do so. I know his heart is in the right place. He’s not one for jumping on bandwagons. He was a member of the Party from its earliest beginnings. I can ask around if you like, find out from my old chums who he should get in touch with.’
No one said a word. Not even when the twins left the table and darted off toward the field, like a couple of colts let loose.
‘Why, I made a similar recommendation to you. Remember, sir? Fencing lessons for the working classes. Raeren would be ideal. Bags of room for Kraft durch Freude.’
‘Freude,’ von Bötticher muttered. ‘Joy has nothing to do with fencing. Fencing is an art, a world away from seeing who can jump furthest in a sandpit. How can I explain in terms you might understand? It is the difference between my Megaira and a carthorse.’
‘Oh, I would have loved to go on a trip like that. If only to the cabaret.’
‘Free time controlled by the state can hardly be called free time.’
‘You and your imperialist cronies don’t want the workers to have anything, you old Stahlhelm rogue.’
The word crackled in the air. I had no idea what it meant, but Leni leaped out of her chair, grabbed the first thing she could lay her hands on—the carving fork—and waved it in Heinz’s face. ‘Sir, you must forgive him. You know he can’t hold his drink. Just look at the old mongrel, all bark and no bite. He’ll never interfere in your affairs, sir. You know that don’t you? Heaven forbid.’
Von Bötticher let out a deep sigh. ‘It’s fine, Leni. His Communist prattle is fascinating in its way. Stahlhelm rogue? Interesting choice of words. Lest you forget, Heinz, we fought for this fatherland of yours.’
‘As did we all,’ said Heinz. ‘And I am anything but a Communist.’
‘Communist, socialist … what exactly did you do during the war? I don’t believe I’ve ever asked you. Wait, let me refresh your glass. This, in case you hadn’t noticed, is an outstanding Riesling from the Rheingau. A great German wine, with more than a hint of National Socialism, after all I am sharing it with you, my worker.’
Leni was still wielding the carving fork. She did not look at her husband: he had become someone to be spoken about, not spoken to, a point she was eager for their master to grasp. ‘No more drink for him. Does him no good at all. See for yourself, he’s no use to anyone.’
‘Surely a real man can handle a glass of wine? Even the ladies are drinking it! Come, Heinz, enlighten me. How did you spend the years between fourteen and eighteen?’
‘Twenty-fifth reserve corps, Lodz. Until I wound up in the field hospital.’
Out on the grass, the twins were spinning around like mad, hanging from each other’s arms. It was a game I knew from the school playground. As the paving stones whirled beneath your feet, you clung to your partner’s wrists for dear life—by that stage slowing down was no easy matter. It was best to close your eyes, and give in to the blur of terror and delight. The twins had long since surrendered to centrifugal force. They were perfectly in balance, so what had they to fear?
‘Take a leaf out of our book,’ said von Bötticher. ‘We find joy in the close companionship of a select company. Why invite the masses in? What is there left to enjoy if everyone is doing the same? The new politics is focused on the neutral. The faceless masses.’
‘Look who’s talking,’ giggled the mother. ‘Faceless, indeed.’
‘The anonymous multitudes. Who wants to devote their energies to them? We are all prepared to help our fellow man, provided we are free to decide which fellow we help. Where’s the good in depriving people of their natural instinct to love their neighbour?’
‘Matthias says factory strikes are a thing of the past,’ said Heinz. ‘They’ve fixed everything up. Life’s getting better, brighter. Showers, bigger windows. That is what the Führer has done for the worker. Oh, if only I could … ’
Von Bötticher dashed his glass to the ground. ‘Then go, man! Don’t let me hold you back. I gave you work when you were out on the street, when that union of yours could do nothing for you. And now I have to put up with this? Run on back to your stinking city, perhaps they’ll have a job for you now.’
This was the last straw for Heinz. He rose melodramatically to his feet, untied his apron and tossed it aside. He must have had an entirely different image of himself, the image of the worker on the posters, gazing off into the distance, sun rising behind his broad shoulders. He was drunk, his eyes were watery, and the veins were pulsing beneath the thin skin of his forehead. ‘No sooner said!’ he roared. ‘I am not your property. Come Leni, our work here is done.’
Leni ran off and Heinz tottered along behind her, putting an end to any pretence of manliness by bending down to pick up the carving fork she had dropped in the gravel.
‘Well, this is turning out to be quite an evening,’ said the mother. She sat on the chair with her knees drawn up in front of her, the red coat dress draped around her shoulders. Cleopatra. Hadn’t she given birth to twins after a fling with Mark Antony, a married man, and wooed