Blut und Boden

There’s a half-smoked cigarette on the ground in front of Kurt Baumann.

He inches out his foot, back still leaning against the wall, and covers it with the toe of his boot. Brand new, shining leather. He twists, feels the tobacco grind under the pressure, and pulls his foot back. He polished them just this morning, and the sheen still hasn’t faded. The cigarette is a dry heap of specks on the pavement. He’s proud of his boots.

He’s smoking his own cigarette. It’s cold, and the tips of his fingers are numb, and he blows loose clouds out through his nostrils, like he’s a coal-burning factory. The weather’s the kind of crisp that comes with autumn, with browning foliage and dry leaves heaped underfoot. The leather of his coat is soft as he runs his free hand down to his pocket, burrowing for warmth, a hedgehog hiding from the winter winds.

It’s half past eleven in the morning, and the sun is a wiry, pallid thing among the clouds, and for a minute Kurt abhors it, abhors its weakness, and then he smiles, because he’s a forgiving kind of man. He breathes his smoke into the air and watches it thread into nothing, caught by the wind and snatched away. There’s a boy selling copies of Der Stürmer on a street corner.

Kurt doesn’t like Der Stürmer, because last week there was a missing genitive inflection, and when he was at school, a missing genitive inflection was equal to a strike on the back of the knuckles with a ruler, and he doubts Julius Streicher subjected himself to that. Professing Deutschland über alles is all well and good, but, Kurt thinks, how can one truly be a patriot if one cannot even write accurately in one’s own language?

He only has to be here until twelve o’clock, midday, and then he can leave, because Schmitz is taking over then. And he can’t lie, not even to himself: he’s excited to see her, his little Irena. He’s missed her face, her sweet little face, and her laugh, the one that sounds like a strawberry would sound if it could laugh. They’re meeting where he used to sit and read Der Stürmer, until the missing genitive inflection, which, on any other day, would really tamper with his good mood.

“Excuse me, Officer?”

There’s a woman standing in front of him. Hair pulled into an intricate bun, coat clasped tight around her, toting a grubby boy in one hand and a paper bag laden with groceries in the other.

Kurt stubs out his cigarette on the wall behind him. “Ja, Madam?”

She leans closer, tugging the boy. “There’s... well, I don’t know exactly how to say it. And,” she continues, and her face has adopted a worried expression, “I’m not even sure that this is the correct procedure. You are Gestapo, are you not?”

“Natürlich.”

“Oh, good.” She relaxes visibly, hitching the bag higher up on the platform of her waist where she is resting it. “There is a Jew on my street. I am sure of it. Not my neighbour, but his neighbour, you see.”

Kurt digs in his pocket and pulls out a notepad, and he smiles at her over the lip of it and says, “Name and address, please.”

“Bridget Fischer. Motzstraße vierundzwanzig.”

“And the suspect lives at...?”

“Achtundzwanzig. Motzstraße achtundzwanzig.”

Kurt writes down Motztraße 28, and he smiles, and he nods and says, “Don’t worry, Frau Fischer. By tomorrow the Jew will be gone.”

Bridget Fischer says, “Danke schön,” and then, “Klaus, did you hear that? Mutti helped the soldier!”

Kurt says, “Bitte sehr,” and lights another cigarette.