The Price of Escape Read online

  The Price of Escape

  This is a work of fiction. Certain liberties have been taken regarding historical events and characters for the sake of the narrative. All other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination.

  Published by Akashic Books

  © 2011 David Unger

  ISBN-13: 978-1-936070-92-3

  eISBN-13: 978-1-617750-43-4

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2010939104

  All rights reserved

  First printing

  Akashic Books

  PO Box 1456

  New York, NY 10009

  [email protected]

  www.akashicbooks.com

  To Anne: whose love and devotion continues to nourish me.

  To Andrea: for her critical eye, friendship, and support.

  In memory of Luis, my father (1898–1991).

  He never forgets himself

  In what he feels,

  So that he never feels anything great.

  —André Gide

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  PROLOGUE

  Samuel Berkow could have sent one of the clerks to check on why the Martin belts hadn’t been delivered to the store just yet, but he wanted to go out. The warehouse was in the St. Pauli district near the Elbe shipyards a short distance away. Despite the whorehouses and raucous bars, Samuel liked the docks. It was the only place where he could feel some resistance to the Nazis; at least the fed-up workers still had the guts to protest.

  Though it was June, the sun was nowhere to be seen. In fact, it felt like a day in January. It wasn’t raining, but there was smoke and fog everywhere and it seemed as if soot belched by the cargo ships and factories was drizzly dripping down the sides of the buildings. Samuel walked quickly, past the fish shops and restaurants, and more than a few beer joints and cheap hotels that lined the dreary streets to the river. When he was still a few blocks from the docks, he saw the tower of the Landungsbrücken building on the shores of the Elbe. The clock marked four o’clock. He would be seeing his Uncle Jacob at seven.

  The port area, after sundown, was a dangerous place for anyone who didn’t belong. It was full of sailors, spies, and agents, not to speak of thieves and muggers who preyed on the emigrants, many of whom were from Eastern Europe and paid exorbitant prices to live in the hotels. They hid gold and silver sewn inside their jackets, which they would give to dubious smugglers who promised to get them on ferries to London or Rotterdam.

  It was here near the Überseebrücke jetty on the waterfront square where the radio had said trouble was brewing. It reported that one of the munitions factories was running well short of its quota and some workers—Communists and anarchists, the radio commentator had said—were claiming they had been working nonstop. They hadn’t been paid for five weeks or given a single day off—so they said—and felt that they had been unduly asked to sacrifice for the soldiers on the front.

  When Samuel reached the square, he saw trouble. A group of workers in green overalls had gathered in front of the customs and shipping offices near the Landungsbrücken building and erected a makeshift stage out of pallets and plywood taken from the nearby warehouses. Speakers were hectoring the workers, stirring them up.

  A dozen stevedores in blue outfits soon joined the factory workers from the shipyards on the other end of the square. Samuel, wearing a raincoat over his suit, looked out of place here, and so he decided to watch the demonstration from under a wooden canopy by an empty loading dock. To his right he saw two other men watching the demonstration; one of them leisurely smoked a cigarette on the running board of a black car and looked through binoculars, while the other spoke animatedly into a wireless radio—he seemed to be reporting on what he saw.

  Otherwise, the square was ominously empty.

  From where he stood, Samuel could see that the demonstrators had sticks, pipes, and wooden struts in their hands. A few were brave enough to carry signs protesting the lack of pay or brandishing a gigantic clenched fist.

  Mass gatherings had been prohibited by the authorities and on several occasions strikers and protesters had been beaten and shot. They were provoking the government. Nothing good would come of this.

  Suddenly the wind blew hard and the voices grew quiet. Samuel heard the creaking and jangling of wires from the cranes in the shipyard across the river and one or two foghorns sounding in the distance. The snapping of the flags that flew above and from the standards of many buildings could also be heard.

  Samuel felt his blood beating faster and then heard a rumbling behind him. The noise grew increasingly louder until his eardrums vibrated. The first thing he saw was the boots, almost in unison, pounding the cobblestones like the running of bulls. And then he saw a dozen men with Nazi armbands passing him with billy clubs and rifles in their hands.

  If he had crossed their path, they would have trampled him.

  A larger group of policemen appeared, rushing the protesters from across the square. They seemed to come out of nowhere, but clearly they had been hiding in the Altereb Tunnel connecting Hamburg to the other docks across the Elbe. They had been waiting for the signal to charge.

  The stevedores suddenly moved back, pulled out their guns, and began firing at the workers as well. They were surrounded now, with nowhere to escape. Bullets and billy clubs started flying and the workers did all they could to protect themselves with their sticks and signs. One or two tried to scale the walls of the customs building and were shot down. Sirens sounded and five or six jeeps with soldiers pulled into the square.

  But the soldiers weren’t needed. The massacre was over. Samuel could see only shadows because of the blue smoke and fog, but he knew that thirty to forty men had been mowed down.

  Just then a man and a boy came into the square holding hands, wearing dark suits, white shirts, and black hats. Samuel made a vague gesture to try to get them to turn back, but they were striding quickly and talking to each other. He saw the Nazi with the wireless radio wink to his colleague before pulling a gun out of his coat pocket. Without hesitating, he fired three or four shots point-blank and the Hasidic Jews staggered to the ground.

  Samuel fell back against the wall. He heard laughter and clapping. His throat and tongue were dry, his chest ached. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. Two people killed in a flash, like ashes flicked from a cigarette.

  He felt disgust, but there was nothing he could do. If the Nazis had seen him, he too would’ve been killed.

  When the car drove off, Samuel turned up his collar and hurried back to the store the way he had come. He would be seeing his Uncle Jacob in a few hours. What would he tell him? That he had come within an inch of being killed, or that the Martin belts had never made it from England?

  * * *

  “Come in, come in,” Jacob welcomed his nephew into the foyer of his apartment hours later. His reading glasses w
ere perched on his deeply lined forehead. He helped Samuel off with his raincoat and hung it on the metal rack behind the front door. “What’s it like outside?”

  Samuel knew that his uncle was not referring to the Hamburg weather. “You know that I wear it more for warmth than rain—”

  “Stop it. You know what I’m talking about. What I heard on the radio.”

  Samuel sucked his teeth. “There was a big confrontation between factory workers and the S.S. Several men were killed near the docks; at least that’s what I heard.”

  “Last week it was a Nazi rally claiming that no country in the world wanted to accept the Polish Jews that Hitler was only too happy to deport. You mix beer with stupidity and before you know it, ten Jews are dead.”

  Samuel shook his head, saying nothing of what he had seen.

  “The only power we have left is to leave—and even that is quickly disappearing,” his uncle went on. He led Samuel by the hand toward the den where he and his cousins were never allowed to play when they were kids. The room hadn’t changed much: the old peeling upright, never played now; the bookcases filled with dusty tomes in gold and brown leather; and the two armchairs where his father and uncle sat when they needed to discuss things privately. On the wall were two Dürer etchings of a printing press seen from different angles.

  His uncle called out as they passed the kitchen: “Lottie, bring the tea to the den. Two cups. My nephew’s here. And any of those English toffee cookies we have left.”

  “Yes, Herr Berkow,” she called back.

  Samuel took the blue chair his father normally occupied. Jacob sat down across from him. He removed his glasses from his head and placed them on the table. “I’ve called you over, Samuel, because any day you’ll be arrested. I want you to leave Germany now.”

  The curtains had been drawn back and pinned behind hooks. The cool June air entered the room; his uncle always left the windows slightly open. Samuel could see the row of chestnut trees that lined Lutterothstrasse down below his Uncle Jacob’s apartment. Across the street was a small park full of linden trees. Samuel had played with his cousins in the park, holding on to the iron bars laughing and squealing as the red carousel spun. It had been a more innocent time.

  He wanted to tell his uncle what he had seen, but he couldn’t. “I don’t know if I’m ready to leave.”

  Jacob put his hand on Samuel’s leg. “I’ve written to Heinrich to tell him you’re coming. Guatemala City is obviously not Hamburg, but Heinrich seems to think it is a welcoming environment for Jews in general. One thing is certain: you can’t stay here. I’ve already bought your ticket for the boat to Panama.”

  “Uncle Jacob, don’t you think I have a say in this? I’m a grown man.”

  “I promised your father to keep an eye on you. There’s no other choice.”

  “I could go stay with my mother and sister in Palma. Mallorca is quiet and Franco is ignoring Hitler’s orders to arrest Jews.”

  His uncle shook his head. “You have to leave Europe, Samuel. Once Franco consolidates power, he will begin rounding Jews up.” Jacob shifted in his armchair, trying to find a more comfortable position. “Besides, your mother’s coming back to Hamburg this week. I’ve tried to dissuade her, but she and your sister, well, they are so much alike that they can’t get along. Ha ha. Two years with your sister is enough. I’m sure you know what I mean,” he said smiling.

  Samuel nodded. He didn’t understand his mother. Why had she refused to come back for her husband’s funeral after thirty-five years of marriage?

  “There’s no future for you here.”

  “And what will you do, Uncle?” Samuel asked, trying to change the subject. “Will you join Erna and Greta in London?”

  Jacob was dressed in the same three-piece herringbone suit he had worn to work two days earlier. The only change was that he now wore black slippers instead of shoes. “No, I want to stay and keep watch over the store. The moment I leave, the Nazis will confiscate everything just like they did in Berlin. And you can forget about compensation—all the time and money your father, God rest his soul, invested will be gone.”

  “If I can leave, Uncle, so can you.”

  “I’m an old man. What’s the point of moving to London now? The change alone would kill me. No, I am staying here. Besides, I need to get your mother out.” “That’s my responsibility.”

  “No, no, no,” his uncle replied. “You remind her too much of your father. I’ve already begun making plans for her to go to Cuba with her sister. I will get her out, I promise you, on the St. Louis.”

  Lottie came in carrying a tray with a covered teapot, two mismatched cups, and a small plate of toffee cookies. She had arrived from Leipzig thirty years ago—already thin and tired—and had grown only thinner and more tired over the years. When Jacob’s wife Gertie died years ago, she became a family fixture, taking care of Jacob, along with his son and three daughters. Now that all the children were gone, Lottie was in charge of him.

  Jacob stood up to take the tray from her hand. “You can go now, Lottie. It’s late.”

  The maid looked down at Samuel and offered a faint smile, barely an acknowledgment. He couldn’t understand how his uncle tolerated her all these years since she was always in a bad mood. She rarely talked and when she did, she snapped.

  “Your dinner is on the stove—corned beef and cabbage. If you don’t eat it by eight o’clock, it will be a soggy mess.”

  “Thank you,” Jacob said, tapping her hand and putting the tray on the butler’s table. “I will see you tomorrow at nine, as usual.”

  “As usual,” she echoed, taking the cover off the pot and pouring the tea into their cups—it was mint tea, the family tradition.

  The sweet aroma comforted Samuel.

  As soon as the maid was out of earshot, his uncle said: “I’ve paid a lot to get you visas for Panama and Guatemala. At another time, this would be called a bribe. It may take a month, maybe more, to get them.”

  Samuel didn’t know what to say. He had just witnessed murder. He had not foreseen the threat to the Jews of Germany till Kristallnacht. There had always been anti-Semitism—odd remarks, strange insinuations, even direct declarations—but the idea that hating or killing Jews could become state policy he could have not imagined. And there were rumors of camps where Jews were both starved and forced to work at hard labor. But he still didn’t want to believe it—not in the Germany he had fought for, nearly died for, during the Great War.

  “Himmler is just trying to impress Hitler.”

  Jacob raised an eyebrow. “Samuel, you yourself saw the bricks and crates being thrown through the windows of our Berlin store. The wives of our customers were there with their poodles, cheering and applauding … Himmler is the head of the S.S. He’s the man behind it all. The architect of the Final Solution. Listen to me: you have to wake up, son.”

  “I am awake, Uncle,” Samuel said, bristling. He had half a mind to explain what he had just seen on the docks to both gauge his reaction and to convey that he knew exactly what was going on.

  “I appreciate that you had a hard time of it during the war, your incarceration. Then the situation with Lena must have been very painful. May I be blunt?”

  Samuel shrugged his shoulders.

  “You’re thirty-seven years old. When I was your age, I was already married with children. You walk around as if waiting for something to change your life and fill the big hole inside of you. We all love you, but this love will turn to pity unless you do something with your life. I know what I am telling you. You think your story is written, but it isn’t. You’d be surprised at what you’re capable of doing, if only you would stop being so cautious. I don’t know, maybe those six months in the sanatorium after the war took the life out of you.”

  Samuel walked over to the window and looked out. The streetlights had been lit and he could see the tram stopping at the intersection of Lutterothstrasse and Hagenbeckstrasse. A few people clambered up the tram to head downtown. He
had seen quite a bit—as a soldier, as a wounded veteran, as a buyer for his father’s store after Hitler became president and chancellor. What his uncle said about him was true. He had seen too much unexpected suffering. What would another departure mean? If he left now, he would never return to Germany.

  “I know your mother’s angry your father left me the store, but after all, I was his partner. Your father knew I would look after you. Berta would give all the money to your sister or some stupid cause to save dachshunds or poodles.”

  “I’ve never understood my mother.” Samuel knew this was a strange thing for a son to say, but his mother only showed emotion when she played Beethoven’s Appassionata over and over again on the piano. She never touched human hands with as much feeling as she touched the piano keys. She was incapable of expressing affection, much less love. His father had deserved a hundred medals for putting up with her all those years.

  Samuel sat back down and watched his uncle reach for the teapot. He missed the handle. Samuel had observed this at the store. His uncle’s eyes were failing.

  “Can I serve you more tea?”

  His uncle waved him away. “I can take care of myself.” He grabbed the teapot and poured the tea, hand shaking but hitting the target.

  “Samuel, you should’ve been born with more guile.”

  “What do you mean, Uncle?”

  Jacob smiled. “You’re too trusting. You’ve always been. You’re a goodhearted person, someone who believes there’s a correct way to behave. You’re what some people would call a straight arrow.”

  Samuel sipped the hot tea, then took a cookie and dipped it in the cup. His hand was shaking too, his scalp felt hot, but he would not contradict his uncle. “I will take that as a compliment.”

  Jacob smiled again. “Of course it is. Now take my son Heinrich. He’s nothing like you—all guile and no heart.”

  “That’s not fair, Uncle.”

  “Now, now, Samuel. I think I know my own son.”

  Though Samuel defended his cousin, Jacob was right. He was thinking now how he had contributed to Heinrich’s suspicious nature. He had once left his cousin in the lurch, yet he had never owned up to it. In truth, Samuel had betrayed his cousin, and he knew that before Heinrich would lift a finger for him he would have to make amends for his betrayal—he would do it when they came together in Guatemala.