Night Skies

 Part Two – The Aftermath

It was well after light when Tünde woke, stiff and cold, thirsty and hungry. Beside her Greta slept on. Tünde smelled her yeasty little head. She was afraid if she moved she’d wake her. But she had to move, had to pee, had to drink, had to eat. She had to see Hansi. Her head felt heavy from the Veronal, but today was not a day to be sluggish. She cocked her ear towards the door. It was quiet now and she prayed that the foul madness of the night before had ended. She wiggled out from beside Greta and tucked the blankets back around her. She found a crust of rye in the bread box and tip-toed out.

The air in the apartment was cold and acrid with blue smoke. What had happened in Berlin last night? And where was Hansi? And why were all of the walls bare? She went to his studio and when she saw what she saw she pressed her fist into her mouth to stifle her scream. The floor was covered in wet black paint and empty wooden frames. There was an overturned jar of dirty water and half a dozen paintbrushes splayed across the floor. She quickly changed into some warm clothes. Trousers, thick socks and boots, a high-necked jumper. She pulled a woollen hat onto her dishevelled head and went back to Hansi’s studio. She took the paintbrushes and the jar of water to the bathroom, rinsed them, grabbed their toothbrushes and dropped them into the jar. She dried the paintbrushes, wrapped them in a handkerchief and slipped them inside her handbag. Then she took the mop from behind the bathroom door and cleaned the studio floor as best she could. With a scrubbing brush in hand she followed the trail of paint drops down the hall to the kitchen door, cursing Hansi as she went, and then rinsed that too. Then Tünde went to the lounge room windows and peered out at the day. Steel grey clouds hung low over the city. The horizon was black with smoke and she could hear men yelling just a few streets away. The footpaths were strewn with empty broken schnapps bottles and gutted books with severed spines whose pages were whipped up to the tree-tops by the fierce November wind. She watched as men walked to work, some with blind determination, refusing to see the devastation, others gingerly stepping around the chaos and looking over their shoulders. A tram rumbled past with windows so misted up from the cold that it was impossible to see in or out. Tünde pulled the curtains shut tight. Fear seeped into her brain like smoke through walls. She forced herself into her coat and then went in to Greta. She scooped up her sleeping baby and pulled the front door shut behind her. She left Greta with the neighbour, and then she went out to look for Hansi.

On the street the smoke stung Tünde’s eyes and caught in her throat. She felt sick and afraid, but hungry too. A handwritten sign nailed up onto a lamp post read: “CAFÉ OPEN”. She stopped, counted her money and went in. It was filled with people, which felt both disturbing and reassuring. They seemed doubly hunched over their breakfasts that morning and everyone was whispering. She stood at the counter facing the street in case Hansi walked by on his way home. Maybe he’s only been to visit Max, she told herself as she ordered a bread roll and coffee.

“I’m in a terrible hurry,” Tünde told the waitress.

“Well then you shouldn’t have come in,” the waitress said, eyeing her suspiciously.

When the bread roll arrived it was warm and fresh, delivered only hours ago. But how, she wondered, staring out at the devastated street? Then hunger overwhelmed wonder and she wolfed down her breakfast. It tasted so good she wanted to eat it all over again. She heaped sugar and milk into her coffee and gulped it in one. Then she went to the ladies’ room, climbed onto the toilet seat and hid Hansi’s brushes inside the cistern.

Tünde hurried over to Max Muller’s. She ran up the stairs to Max’s apartment but no one answered the door. The caretaker told her that Herr Muller was away. She stumbled back out into the burning city. She saw entire streets where every Jewish shop window had been smashed in. There was broken glass all over the road and wrecked goods from the shops everywhere. It looked like an air raid had hit the city. Display cases were ripped from walls, furniture was smashed, dresses ripped, electric signs ground to pieces. The scale of the destruction was incomprehensible, and all in a single night. Grown men with black eyes and split lips cried in the streets as they took in the waste of their lives. Dirty children ran screaming down the street with armfuls of brand new toys. As she neared Friedrichstrasse she could hear mobs of people whooping and cheering. What she saw there took her breath away. A shimmering black grand piano had been hauled out into the street. It was surrounded by men and boys holding hatchets and axes and mallets and hammers. As they put the magnificent instrument to waste, well-dressed women clapped their hands in delight and mothers held up their babies to see.  She turned down a side street and vomited out her breakfast.

When Tünde had recovered herself she straightened up and quickly looked around. She felt ashamed. She didn’t want to go back to Friedrichstrasse. At the end of the street the footpath was covered in glass. An old man was slowly sweeping up the shards. A frigid wind howled down the street and up ahead something flapped against the broken shop window. She turned her coat collar up and started walking towards it. It looked like a kind of poster, but it had been hand-painted. She was curious, and uneasy too, because before she even got to the old man’s shop she recognized the brushstrokes. Whimsical, frenzied, determined. She saw vines and wings. She saw words too but could not make sense of them. What was Hansi’s painting, an unfinished painting, doing out on the street like that? What had Hansi done? She remembered his face as he’d kissed them good night. How his eyes had glistened with mania, how her fingers had gripped the Veronal with desperation. She had not planned to stop, or to even look at the painting. She wanted to walk straight past it, to disown it, but it stopped her. She smacked a hand over her mouth. Hansi had signed the canvas! She tore it down, jammed it under her coat and ran.   

A week later Max Muller came to see her. A week after she’d scuttled between hospitals, police stations, prisons, asylums and back again, with Greta screaming in her arms, lurching from despair to panic. A week after she’d run out of money and hope and courage and calm. Max would not sit down and he would not look at Tünde either. The lapel of his jacket was smeared in cigarette ash and he stank of wine.

“Out with it Max!” she practically screamed at him.

“Hansi was arrested on Kristallnacht and taken to Dachau.”

“No! You’re wrong! How do youknow?!”

“My aunt, she’s married to a policeman who…”

“But why? He’s just a painter! What do they want from a penniless painter? When is he coming home? What did they tell you?!”

Max shook his head, “I’m sorry, I know nothing more.” He looked over her shoulder and mumbled, “Do you need some money?”

“Yes! How much can you spare?”

That night when she’d finally gotten Greta to sleep she sat up in bed beside her and tried to imagine Dachau. It was in the south, somewhere near Munich. She’d heard of Jews and Communists being taken there, gypsies, and maybe gays too, but never painters. Fear spread through her body like mould spores in a dank, airless room. 

Dawn did not bring clarity or strength, but it did bring reality. It brought a hungry screaming baby that demanded a full breast. It brought bills that she could not pay. It brought more fear, sharp and cold as a butcher’s blade. She gave Greta what little milk her body had made overnight and put her in the painted cradle on the floor. Then she telephoned Leo Handlsmann. She needed money. She needed Hansi’s paintings.

Somehow she had believed that the Ostbahnhof would be less crowded. That all of those who were fleeing Germany would be fleeing west. But the truth was that Tünde had no inkling of the extent of the catastrophe until she got to the train station. It was just after dawn, ten days after Kristallnacht. The chaos, so alien to Germany’s love of order, was chilling. The sheer volume of people and things was staggering. Suitcases, boxes, carts, sacks all stuffed to bursting with the worldly goods of the dispossessed. And then, attached in every way imaginable to all of these were more things still. Lampshades and pillows roped onto suitcases, cutlery hanging from sacks, loaves of bread tied on top of boxes. There were babies and small children, wizened old men and women and every age in between, all of them marked for death.

Vast lines extended out from each and every ticket booth like an ailing centipede who can no longer keep its legs in check. Policemen barked at the crowds. “Ordnung! Ordnung! Ordnung!” They punctuated their orders with swinging truncheons, apathetic as to where they landed their blows. Tünde took Greta out of her pram and tucked her into her coat. She entrusted the empty pram to an old lady selling newspapers. Then she picked the line she thought looked shortest and waited. She found that if she held Greta outwards she was less restless as the scenes that the baby beheld with her three month old eyes were mesmerising. When Greta got hungry she relied on the kindness of an elderly couple behind her to hold her place. They were religious, and in their hands they carried prayer books like compasses, as if they could guide them to a better place. There was nowhere to sit and feed Greta so she fed her standing up in the toilets. All day long hope came and hope went as trains were added and subtracted as if by a demented station master hidden high up behind the vast cold walls, laughing at the ease with which he could manipulate all those insignificant playthings down below. It was well after dark when Tünde left the station, a ticket to Prague clutched in her fist. From there she would be able to get a train to Bratislava and then to Budapest. She would leave Berlin late tomorrow night.

When Greta was asleep, Tünde dragged the three suitcases out from under the bed and into the lounge. She sat on the floor beside them. There was one for Greta, one for her and one for Hansi. Packing his suitcase was an act of hope. She opened them up and made sure that everything was neatly folded, that everyone would have what they needed. Then she went to the bookcase and scanned the shelves until she found a volume of Heine, Hansi’s favourite. For Greta she packed a book about farm animals from Hansi’s parents. For herself she preferred diversion, so she took Simenon and Wodehouse. Then she went to the kitchen and emptied the pantry shelves. There were some old onions and potatoes left. She cooked them all up and forced herself to eat. She stuffed the few remaining cans of herring and mackerel into the suitcases. Whatever else she would not eat tomorrow and could not take with her she put in a box for her neighbour, along with the rest of their clothes and shoes. Then she walked from room to room to make sure nothing of value remained. The Herendi tea set they’d received on their wedding day from one of Hansi’s patrons had been sold, as had her pearls and the crystal fruit bowls. And yesterday Max Muller had bought their radio. What was worth most was hidden in Leo Handlsmann’s apartment.

On the mantelpiece a single framed photograph remained. It was taken in late 1936 at an opening at Leo’s gallery. Hansi and Tünde stand side-by-side. She wears a simple, dark georgette dress with a small string of jet. Her shoulder-length, wavy hair is pinned back neatly behind her ears, emphasising her high cheekbones and feline eyes. Although she is young and a woman and newly arrived in a country not her own, she looks out confidently. Beside her Hansi is grinning and handsome. A silk handkerchief spills out of his breast pocket. They are newly in love. Behind them hangs Hansi’s painting, “Clematis”. Tendrils and vines curl about the couple’s head like a protective blessing. She picked up the photograph and pushed it down inside her handbag. In the morning she would send a telegram to her mother in Budapest, then all would be ready.

The following night Max drove Tünde to Kurfürstendamm, to Leo Handlsmann’s apartment. Tünde rang the doorbell. As she waited, she peered inside what had once been the gallery window. The glass was newly replaced just the day before. Leo had only managed to get the glazier to come after the glazier’s wife had come to pick out a sofa, three occasional tables, two armchairs, a rug and a set of cutlery. Where once Paul Klees and Hansi Königs had graced this window, now there were dusty, moth-eaten rugs stacked on top of one another. Since the Gestapo had closed down his gallery the year before, Leo had survived by selling off the worldly goods of Jews who were fleeing the country every day. There was no shortage of things to sell, even after the looting on Kristallnacht, but most of it was worthless. Anything of real value had already been stolen by the state.

Leo Handlsmann took off his glasses and rubbed his dark, bloodshot eyes. He was a small, wiry man with narrow shoulders and surprisingly large hands. His hair that he usually wore neatly cropped had now grown long and unruly. Unwashed grey curls flopped down across his sallow cheeks. His perfectly hooked nose glowed red with a persistent cold.

“I spoke to Fräulein Waldburg to arrange your meeting…”

“Oh, thank you Leo…” 

He waved aside her thanks. “When exactly will you be arriving to Budapest?”

“If the trains run on time I should be in Prague by tomorrow morning and from there maybe another day to Pest, if all goes well.”

“Fine. Fräulein Waldburg stays at the Hotel Gellért in Buda, so she can be near her boyfriend. He’s the one that has the money.”

“And you’re quite certain she’s in Budapest at the moment?”

“If she isn’t yet she will be on November 23rd.”

“In two days’ time?”

“Yes. Her boyfriend’s father, Horthy…”

“Do you mean His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary?” Tünde asked with just a hint of a smile.

“Is that really what they call him?”

She nodded and rolled her eyes. “I read in the paper that there’s going to be an unveiling of some sculpture of him, or more likely a monument. It was supposed to be for the old man’s 70thback in June, but what with the usual chronic bungling in Hungary it’s five months late so they’re dedicating it on the 23rd.”

Leo nodded. “Now if for some reason you miss Fräulein Waldburg in Budapest you must go to Vienna to see her. Or else Carinthia. That’s where she keeps her collection.”

“But what if Hansi comes home and finds us gone?”

“Then he’ll join you in Budapest, or wherever you are. There’s nothing here for you. The Nazis don’t like foreign nationals either. And if you have anyopportunity of getting out of Europe, go for god’s sake! Another war is coming. If it were in my power I would leave Europe with my family tonight. But you know they’ve confiscated our passports. They’re fining all of us Jews a billion Reichsmarks. It’s so much money, it’s impossible to imagine where we can find such a sum when they’ve stolen so much from us already, when they deny us our livelihoods.” He sighed with infinite weariness. “They say that in Vienna the Nazis are going from apartment to apartment seizing Old Masters and antique furniture and crating them up on the spot. No explanation, no compensation, just outright theft. It’s all so unbelievable how they just get away with it, isn’t it? I will never forgive myself for not leaving earlier. I should have gotten my family out in ’36, like Nierendorf.”

“We didn’t know in ’36…”

“We knew and we didn’t want to know. But no one could have predicted that Germany could become so savage, so depraved. My children are forbidden to attend school, so instead they stand freezing in lines outside embassies looking for a way out. Today Oskar was at the Argentinian Embassy, David was at the Paraguayans. Nothing. The rumours were false. They’re not giving Jews visas. My wife was at the Indian Embassy. There is some hope there, maybe, but it’s better to be an engineer than an art dealer. I will leave my family at home tomorrow and go to the Chinese Embassy myself. They say the Consulate General Dr. Ho is issuing visas. A year ago that would have been unimaginable, now nothing is any more. It’s so exhausting to be desperate and anxious all the time, to constantly fear for your life and the lives of your family, to not be able to protect your own. Every day Jewish men disappear off the streets and are swallowed up in Dachau…”

Tünde began to weep.

“Forgive me,” he said, “I am so consumed by my own problems I forget you have your own. Now,” said Leo, standing up and looking around the room, “let’s get to work. You have a train to catch.”

Leo walked over to the fireplace. Above it hung an ugly still life, with hares on hooks and pike heads on a platter. It was by an obscure German Realist from the nineteenth century who was enjoying a tepid revival. It sat in a bulky frame. He lifted the picture from the wall like one who is accustomed to handling art, firmly and with sure footing. He carried it over to the sofa, leaned it up against the soft cushions and then checked to make sure the curtains were closed. Then he went to the radio and turned up the volume.

“Won’t it be too loud now Leo?”

“No. Not for this time of night. Any softer and my neighbour ‘Frau Sturmabteilung’ might hear me banging about. After Kristallnacht I met her on the landing and she said to me, ‘Herr Handlsmann, what a surprise! I thought you’d be in Dachau.’ She looked terribly disappointed. She has three children and three rooms. I have two children and four rooms. This upsets her. I believe she needs her Lebensraum.” He smiled bitterly.

Leo turned the painting over. A new piece of timber sheeting had been nailed onto the back of the frame. He took a small claw hammer out of a vase on the sofa table and pulled it off. Inside were half a dozen Hansi Königs from his Utopian Gardens series. Tünde gasped when she saw their blazing colour, their extravagant optimism. It seemed impossible that the world in which these paintings had been created and the one in which they now found themselves were one and the same. Leo lay them down across the dining table and re-hung the eyesore. He pushed the timber sheeting under the sofa and moved onto the next painting.

In all there were 16 Hansi Königs: four landscapes, three portraits, six gardens and three night skies. 

“Now, let’s see which ones would be best to take,” said Leo, surveying the beauties.

“I want to take them all.”

“All of them?” He looked at her in alarm. “But where will you put them?”

Tünde pointed to the suitcases. Then she leaned over to him and whispered, “The ones with the false bottoms.”

He nodded. “But you won’t be able to get more than three in per suitcase. Where will you put the rest?”

Tünde cocked her head over to the pram where Greta lay sleeping.

“Under Greta’s mattress,” she whispered.

“Really?”

“I tried it at home already. If they search me they won’t think to look there.”

Leo shook his head and walked to his desk muttering, “Such times to be alive…”

He pulled out a consignment book and turned to a new page. Then he inserted a clean piece of carbon paper and took a deep breath. He began to write out a list detailing each painting: name, date, materials, description.

“In the drawer of the china cabinet you’ll find some paper and oilcloth,” he said to Tünde over his shoulder, “you’d better start packing them up.”

“But don’t you need to see the paintings?”

He shook his head no. He remembered everything, saw each and every one of his beloved Hansi Königs in his mind’s eye. He did not want to see them being rolled up and stuffed into dummy suitcases.

Leo left the final column of the consignment note blank until the end. How much was a painting worth? As much as someone was willing to ask and someone was willing to pay. He sat back and sighed, tapping the pen gently against his temple. The Reichsmark was so unpredictable. Maybe he should write the value in Swiss francs? Or in American dollars? Should he put their pre-’33 value down? Or should he put down what he believed they would be worth today? Or in the future? What would that future look like? And in the final analysis how could he, Leo Handlsmann, predict taste? Quality, on the other hand, he knew. He consulted his own catalogues, and Nierendorf, Goudstikker, Wildenstein and Kahnweiler. He worked quickly, but he allowed himself to linger just a little over a colour reproduction of Cézanne’s apples. For a moment he closed his eyes and tried to picture freedom. It looked a lot like a white-walled gallery filled with Modern Art. Then he opened his eyes and wrote numbers on the page. 

Tünde found that she could fit four paintings in each suitcase when she rolled them up tightly. She saved the smallest pieces for the pram because they would need to lie flat under Greta’s mattress, below Hansi’s pillow which she’d taken at the last minute because she thought she could still smell him in it. His mix of paint and sweat. Gently she lifted her sleeping baby out and hid the last four paintings. Now, only one painting was left. One final Hansi König. It lay coiled in her travel bag. She had tried to burn it, had very nearly done so, but in the end found she could not. Nor could she leave it behind. She was afraid it would be found and handed in to the police and that Hansi would be further punished. But the real fear, the one that sat darkly behind the other, was that this painting would be Hansi’s last. beneath fear liberty awaits. She did not like it. To her it was nothing but delirious scribbling, like a piece made by one of Prinzhorn’s psychiatric patients. But she could no more abandon it than a mother her dull-witted child. She looked over at Leo. He was bent over his desk. She pulled out the painting and pushed it to the bottom of Hansi’s pillowcase. Then she laid Greta back down in the pram.

When Leo had finished writing the consignment note he asked Tünde to sign it and then he did the same. He tore off the top sheet and folded it into his breast pocket. He handed the second copy to her and looked at his watch. She nodded and tucked the note into the inside pocket of her handbag. Leo and his sons carried her suitcases and the pram down the stairs and put them into Max’s car. Then Leo sent his sons back upstairs. He apologised for not seeing her off at the station, but it was no longer safe for Jews to be out at night. As he bid her farewell he said, “I have never had much faith in human goodness and less so now than ever, but I have never stopped believing in art. No matter how desperate you may feel, do not under-estimate their worth.”

Then he waved goodbye to her and watched as his last Hansi Königs were swallowed up by the Nazi night. He reached inside his breast pocket and felt the neatly folded consignment note. Behind it sat the four little ampoules of cyanide.

“We will not be trapped,” he whispered to the indifferent darkness, “we will not be trapped.” ◊

Night Skies, part two, was first published in Evening Street Review #21, Summer 2019

https://eveningstreetpress.com/?s=Nicole+Waldner

Night Skies, part three, will be published in Evening Street Review #22.