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Berlin smokes Junos!—
and rise into the streets of the largest city Werner has ever
seen.
Berlin! The very name like two sharp bells of glory. Capital of science, seat of the führer,
nursery to Bohr, Einstein, Staudinger, Bayer. Somewhere in these streets, plastic was invented, X-
rays were discovered, continental drift was identified. What marvels does science cultivate here
now? Superman soldiers, Dr. Hauptmann says, and weather-making machines and missiles that can
be steered by men a thousand miles away.
The sky drops silver threads of sleet. Gray houses run in converging lines to the horizon,
bunched as if to fend off cold. They pass shops stuffed with hanging meats and a drunk with a
broken mandolin on his lap and a trio of streetwalkers huddled beneath an awning who catcall the
boys in their uniforms.
Frederick leads them into a five-story town house one block off a pretty avenue called the
Knesebeckstrasse. He rings #2 and a returning buzz echoes from inside and the door unlatches.
They come into a dim foyer and stand before a pair of matched doors. Frederick presses a button
and something high in the building rattles and Werner whispers, “You have an elevator?”
Frederick smiles. The machinery clangs downward and the lift clanks into place and Frederick
pushes the wooden doors inward. Werner watches the interior of the building slide past in
amazement. When they reach the second floor, he says, “Can we ride it again?”
Frederick laughs. They go down. Back up. Down, up, to the lobby a fourth time, and Werner is
peering into the cables and weights above the car, trying to understand its mechanism, when a tiny
woman enters the building and shakes out her umbrella. With her other hand, she carries a paper
sack, and her eyes rapidly apprehend the boys’ uniforms and the intense whiteness of Werner’s hair
and the livid bruises beneath Frederick’s eyes. On the breast of her coat, a mustard-yellow star has
been carefully stitched. Perfectly straight, one vertex down, another up. Drops fall like seeds from
the tip of her umbrella.
“Good afternoon, Frau Schwartzenberger,” says Frederick. He backs up against the wall of the
elevator car and gestures for her to enter.
She squeezes into the lift and Werner steps in behind her. From the top of her sack juts a sheaf of
withered greens. Her collar, he can see, is separating from the rest of the coat; threads are giving
way. If she were to turn, their eyes would be a hand’s width apart.
Frederick presses 2, then 5. No one speaks. The old woman rubs the trembling tip of an index
finger across one eyebrow. The lift clangs up one floor. Frederick snaps open the cage and Werner
follows him out. He watches the old woman’s gray shoes rise past his nose. Already the door to #2
is opening, and an aproned woman with baggy arms and a downy face rushes out and embraces
Frederick. She kisses him on both cheeks, then touches his bruises with her thumbs.
“It’s all right, Franny, horseplay.”
The apartment is sleek and shiny, full of deep carpets that swallow noise. Big rear windows
look out into the hearts of four leafless lindens. Sleet still falling outside.
“Mother isn’t home yet,” Franny says, smoothing down her apron with both palms. Her eyes stay
on Frederick. “You’re sure you’re all right?”
Frederick says, “Of course,” and together he and Werner pad into a warm, clean-smelling
bedroom and Frederick slides open a drawer, and when he turns around, he’s wearing eyeglasses
with black frames. He looks at Werner shyly. “Oh, come on, you didn’t already know?”
With his glasses on, Frederick’s expression seems to ease; his face makes more sense—this,
Werner thinks, is who he is. A soft-skinned boy in glasses with taffy-colored hair and the finest
trace of a mustache needled across his lip. Bird lover. Rich kid.
“I barely hit anything in marksmanship. You really didn’t know?”
“Maybe,” says Werner. “Maybe I knew. How did you pass the eye exams?”
“Memorized the charts.”
“Don’t they have different ones?”
“I memorized all four. Father got them ahead of time. Mother helped me study.”
“What about your binoculars?”
“They’re prescription. Cost a fortune.”
They sit in a big kitchen at a butcher’s block with a marble cap. The maid named Franny
emerges with a dark loaf and a round of cheese, and she smiles at Frederick as she sets it down.
They talk about Christmas and how Frederick was sorry to miss it, and the maid passes out through
a swinging door and returns with two white plates so delicate that they ring when she sets them
down.
Werner’s mind reels: A lift! A Jewess! A maid! Berlin! They retreat into Frederick’s bedroom,
which is populated with tin soldiers and model airplanes and wooden crates full of comic books.
They lie on their stomachs and page through comics, feeling the pleasure of being outside of
school, glancing at each other now and then as if curious to learn whether their friendship will
continue to exist in another place.
Franny calls, “I’m going,” and as soon as the door closes, Frederick takes Werner by the arm
into the living room and climbs a ladder built along tall hardwood shelves and slides aside a large
wicker basket and, from behind it, brings down a huge book: two volumes enfolded in golden
slipcovers, each as big as a crib mattress. “Here.” His voice glows; his eyes glow. “This is what I
wanted to show you.”
Inside are lush full-color paintings of birds. Two white falcons swoop over each other, beaks
open. A bloodred flamingo holds its black-tipped beak over stagnant water. Resplendent geese
stand on a headland and peer into a heavy sky. Frederick turns the pages with both hands.
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