Buchenwald. The prison almost ten years old but known for disease now, for more than criminals. To my mother even the air of the place would be corrupt.
‘No, Mama. It is just to view on-site the work that we do. It will be good experience.’
Etta gone from the kitchen doorway. I heard the tap running. Running louder as my father spoke. His pipe neck pointing at me.
‘And it will show how keen you are to learn. When I worked for Littman, at the pharmacy, that man would teach me nothing. Nothing I tell you. Everything was a secret to him. I was too old to apprentice so to him I was worthless. When Quermann took it over, when a German took it over, he showed me true respect. A gentile cannot work for a Jew. You just become their chattel. I have always said it. Now it is Germany for the Germans we all look after each other. Nothing to gain but a better country for us all. Working together for the good. Not for the purse.’
Mother slapped him with her cloth that was always attached about her.
‘It was Littman who gave you that job, you old fool! Me running around scrubbing floors with Ernst in my belly and you with holes in your pockets. Quermann did not hire you. You were stolen.’ She groaned back to the kitchen. ‘That man, that man.’
I finished my wine and the bottle came back, which was a first for him.
‘All the same,’ he went on. ‘You learn from these men, Ernst. They are doing well. Government contracts. Always there is work there. When we conquer Stalin think how much work will be needed.’
‘The ovens is a small department, Papa. But they design silos and malting equipment. And gas jets and aeroplane parts. That is what I want to do.’
‘And why not? Mercedes you could work for. Build me a car for my old age. This country is for the young now. My war gave us a broken country. The Bolsheviks and the Jews conspiring to destroy us. Nothing but unemployment unless you were in their families. And now it is Germany for the Germans, the best men for the jobs, not just for the good connections. And my son has a career with one of the largest companies in the land.’ He thumped his chair. ‘This is how good life begins. I am proud of you, Ernst.’
He had not said these words since I had graduated.
Women were laughing in the kitchen, and the waft of steaming food came from rattling pots, and I would not have to ask awkwardly to borrow ten marks. I realised it could be good to visit parents.
*
We walked home arm in arm through afternoon light burnishing the wet cobblestones. I waited until the river’s rushing was behind us to ask Etta why she had called my work ‘unfortunate’.
‘I only meant that you should be doing higher things. Not drafting ovens. For the SS.’ Her head down now, moved close into me. ‘Not what I want for you.’
‘I’m sure it will not be for long.’
She stopped, looked about and took my hand.
‘But what if it is? What if it is for long? Do you not think of the ovens, Ernst? Why they need so many?’
‘The typhus. The disease. The sick. Prisons need ovens, Etta. I’ve told you this. It is unpleasant but it is fact. Would you question Paul buying a new oven?’
‘Coal ovens. Yet you tell me they order gas jets from Topf. What are they for if not for the ovens, Ernst? Do they not heat with coal?’
‘I don’t know. It is not just Topf, Etta. What company does not work with the SS now? Would you be concerned if a hospital wanted gas jets?’
She dropped my hand, put hers to my back as Klein did when he wanted me to understand something, guided me along.
‘But hospitals aren’t run by the SS, Ernst. Why are the camps run by them? Shouldn’t that be a government thing?’
The beer and wine flushed on me. A temper at defending my work. Now. Before my first pay.
‘Do you not want me to work? You were the one who wanted to go to my parents to celebrate. Now you want to deride my employers? Nothing happens in this world, Etta, unless someone sells something to someone else. Nothing.’ I walked on, left her behind me until her voice came.
‘I’m sorry, Ernst,’ she said. ‘Ernst?’ Like a charm. Holding me to the street.
I turned back to look at her framed in the sun. She walked out of it to me. Took my arm again.
‘I’m very proud of you. For you. Maybe it’s that you are going to the camp tomorrow. I’m worried. For you. I am being foolish.’
We walked on.
‘I promise you,’ I said, calm now, ‘I won’t do anything for you to worry.’
‘Here. Put this on.’
Monday morning. We were in Hans Klein’s black Opel on the main road outside Kleinmolsen, the groan of the wipers unable to cope with the sheets of rain but Klein did not slow his speed. I could feel the water on the road hitting the panelling like waves. The tyres almost skating along. He had taken his hand off the wheel to pass me a Party pin.
It was plain tin, not enamelled. I did not question and put it on my lapel. His was enamelled and, again, as we slid along the road, he put it on with one hand.
‘It does not hurt to wear it,’ he said. ‘Gives a good impression. I am personally not political. Yourself?’
‘No, sir. I have not given it much thought.’
‘Prüfer is of course. And the Topfs. But then they would have to be dealing with the SS. Are you a union man?’
My interview had contained this question. The usual standard. ‘Are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party?’
Who would say, ‘yes’?
‘Are not unions banned?’
He nodded, managed to light a cigarette with one hand.
‘I’m sure that some of our workers are members of the KPD. Communists. And the SDP. There was a faction of them at the factory in the 30s. I think the Buchenwald workers are influencing ours. The camp is nothing but communists. I’m sure Sander is on top of it. But keep your own ear out and let me know if you hear anything. I will make you my top boy on the floor!’ He shifted a gear down at last. ‘I cannot trust the old ones.’
The countryside blurred past. Twenty minutes in the roaring car, a super-six, and Klein showed it off. Twenty minutes. A camp a short drive from Erfurt and Weimar. I had only been in taxis before and probably only half a dozen times in my life. I did not appreciate cars, or watches, shoes and suits, but I was beginning to think that Klein thought such things impressive.
‘It is a nice car, Herr Klein.’ I looked around as if it was the Sistine Chapel, trying to admire it as we rolled across the railway line, the rail that led to the camp.
‘Twenty-five hundred marks,’ he said for reply. I imagine that is how he judged the world. The price of things. He pivoted the car between a gap in the forest with just a gear change, no brakes, and I was braced against the door.
A good gravelled road, the beech forest cut back from it with maintained grass all along. Buchenwald. Beech Tree Forest. A name for holidays. As the camp came in sight, set in a clear plain, the rain slowed, I wiped the condensation from the window, sure that I had seen men outside, outside on the grass. They were cutting the grass, had stopped to watch the car. Mowing in the rain. Their garb unmistakeable.
‘There are prisoners out there?’ I looked at him. My professor now. ‘Outside the prison?’
Klein did not even check.
‘Of course. Why not?’