The Day the Flowers Died (26 page)

Rebecca nodded and Eli pulled her to him with his arm around her
neck.  Rebecca nestled her head in between the sheets and
Eli’s chest, a comfortable position which they had grown to
enjoy.

The rest of the month, radio stations lost their right to
broadcast and the Nazi paper, Voelkische Beobachter took their
place, filling the news with their propaganda.

The twenty fourth, Eli sprinted downstairs to pick up the
morning paper before heading off to work.  The newspaper’s
front page spelled out a historic day for the Nazis.  The day
of the Third Reich has come!  Eli ripped the paper in half and
tossed it in the trash can in front of the building while a
neighbor from across the street watched him with careful eyes.

Saturday, April 1, 1933

Saturday morning, Rebecca awoke under her thin silk sheets in
Eli’s arms just where she wanted to be.  She curled her
shoulders and rolled into Eli’s chest, his comforting chest that
provided warmth like the sun and protection like a soldier. 
She longed for nothing more in this moment, this perfect
moment.  The sunlit air was warm and the wild flowers outside
were beginning to blossom and grow on their own again.  Her
wide smile bunched up into Eli’s face in need of a morning shave
and she brushed her cheek across his chin and giggled.

“What’s so funny?” Eli squished his face up to hers as he rolled
toward her body.

“I’m just happy, in this moment with you, despite all of it, all
of the chaos around us.”

Eli traced his fingers across her brow, down her jaw line to her
lips.  “Me too.” He only needed to say two words to delineate
the feelings between them, to make them real and alive. 
Though Eli and Rebecca were in the habit of skipping many Synagogue
services for sleeping in and spending the day together, Eli wanted
to take Rebecca to service today.  They slipped out of bed and
bathed.  Rebecca lifted the water drenched sponge and squeezed
it over Eli, watching the water trickle down his back.  She
dabbed soap on his body and Eli rubbed the scented cleanser into
his skin and then squeezed the saturated sponge over Rebecca’s back
and chest, washing her.

Rebecca twirled her hair up and pinned it on top of her head and
dried off before slipping on a cotton lavender skirt draping over
her knees and a white silk blouse with the lace enveloping her
neck.  Eli pulled on beige slacks and a caramel brown shirt
with well ironed sleeves and collar.  Rebecca tended to his
clothes when she could despite her busy schedule at the hospital
and despite the insistence from Eli to forget the ironing and allow
him to do it.  But Rebecca enjoyed tending to Eli and aiding
him in his comforts.

They sauntered over the street in the cool April breeze. 
With the Synagogue just blocks away from their apartment, they
preferred walking to driving.  Many shops along the street
were closed because of the Shabbos.  Eli pulled Rebecca close
to him with a tug on her hand.  Rebecca’s heels clicked
against the pavement and Eli’s loafers softly patted the
cement.

From behind, the sound of jackboots disturbed the rhythm Rebecca
and Eli had between them.  As the sounds approached, they
pushed past the two of them.  The SA soldiers stopped in front
of the closed shops and businesses, their hands filled with
pamphlets.  A few couples walked ahead of Eli and Rebecca and,
as they passed one of the shops, two members of the SA pushed
pamphlets into their hands.  The soldiers declared, “Protect
German blood and German honor! Don’t buy from Jews!” Across the
street, several SA members no older than Jacob painted a sign in
red ink across the window, Don’t buy from Jews!

The streets flooded with picket signs and demonstrations
boycotting Jewish businesses and Jewish products.  Some who
held the signs were teenagers and young boys with smiles on their
faces like they had achieved something great — the acceptance of
their country and government.

Eli kept Rebecca close with an upheld confidence, a forceful
will pushing him forward into morning Synagogue.  Rebecca’s
hand clenched Eli’s.  Her smile dropped and tightened. 
They briskly ambled past a few shops decorated with newly posted
derogatory Jewish remarks.  Two SA guards handed out
pamphlets, the taller one fixing his grey blue eyes on Eli and
shouting, “Jew boy!”

Ignoring him, Eli reassured Rebecca’s safety with a touch of his
hand to her lower back.  They hastened around the corner to
the Synagogue before a fight broke out.  The synagogue service
provided both Rebecca and Eli with a comforting peace not
accessible on the streets of Munich anymore.

Rebecca had grown accustomed to the long service, and today felt
most grateful for that fact.  She didn’t want to return to the
streets where discord waited on every corner, where at any moment
she or Eli would have to fear for their safety.

Sometimes she awoke in the middle of the night in terror with
images of Eli being dragged away in one of those Nazi vehicles
taking him to the Dachau Concentration Camp.  For Rebecca
there were only two places she could entirely feel like herself
anymore, two places that offered sanctuary, synagogue and her
apartment.  The streets held an uncertain future.

On April seventh, a new Nazi law forbade employment to all
non-Aryan civil servants.  Silent frustration and anger
lingered in the minds of many non Aryan workers now out of a job,
but the German citizens complied.  Opinions divided. 
Some Germans held sympathies for the non Aryans, yet many remained
adamant in the Nazi’s convictions.

The decline of civil liberties affected everyone.  Life
would only get worse for non Aryans.  This theft could be
tasted in the air.  It could be heard in the whispers. 
It could be felt in the stares.  No longer a place for
business and strolling Sunday mornings, the streets became a maze
for many, with roads leading to fear, some to retreat, and some to
Nazi beatings.

On April twenty-second, Nazi law prohibited Jewish lawyers from
practice throughout the country and, without tears, Ezekiel boarded
up his firm and locked it for the last time.  He had a few
boxes filled with important papers and his black briefcase. 
Eli, along with Aaron and a friend Kevin, helped his father lift
the boxes into the car.  Not many supporters remained for
Ezekiel by the time he locked the doors.  Employees he had
worked with, some for many years, departed month after month until
he had very few employees left to pay.

When the firm closed, so did Eli’s ability to earn his living,
and the weight of the country fell like a heavy stone upon his
already wavering shoulders.  Eli arrived at the apartment with
a forlorn look of desperation and defeat.  Already hearing the
news at the hospital, Rebecca rushed to his side as he plodded
through the door.  Rebecca was used to comforting and aiding
patients so, when Eli’s face lost its color and he slipped in a
faint, she caught him before he hit the floor.

“My papa had to close his firm today, a firm he managed and
owned most of his life.” The words flowed heavily out of Eli’s
lips.  “There was such sadness in his face.”

Rebecca walked him to the sofa, pulled off his coat and laid it
across the sofa’s back.  Then she hugged him, drawing his
tired face to her chest.  A few minutes later, she boiled a
pot of tea and Eli sat in a worrying daze.  When Rebecca
handed the cup to him, he drank slowly and began to warm up. 
The gold brown hint of color replenished the earlier paleness and
he refocused on Rebecca.

“We have to get out of here.  Things are only getting
worse.  Papa might listen to me now and take the family to
America.” Eli’s reasoned tone returned and Rebecca could see the
lawyer in him pondering his next moves.  “I’ll look for forged
visas for my family.  We don’t have time to wait for all of us
to be approved.”

“Is it safe?”

“What else can I do? Papa hasn’t turned in the family paperwork
for a visa and the chance of immigration approving all five of us
is unlikely.” Eli’s voice scratched, “Roosevelt is tightening the
quotas.  The immigration rate is rising.  If we had a
famous scientist or athlete in the family, we could rely on being
approved, but we have no one influential.” His words flowed like he
argued a case before the courthouse.

“You must be extremely careful, Eli.” Rebecca squeezed his
arm.  “It would be very dangerous if you were caught. 
Jews opposing the Nazis are already disappearing.  If anyone
found you out, you…you… ” She couldn’t say the words.  She
couldn’t think the words.  Her eyes teared at the unbearable
thought.

“No one will find out.  Aaron knows what to do.  He
has a Jewish friend who’s good with documents.  He’ll be able
to find something for my family.”

“And you?” Her eyes watered and wrinkles stretched over her
forehead.  “What if your application is denied?”

“If it is, Aaron will find the paperwork I need.” Eli whispered
the sentence as if someone might hear and Rebecca rested her head
on his shoulder.  The evening drew upon the country and
Rebecca closed the curtains over the kitchen window.  They
rested in the bedroom that held their secrets and that had become
their sanctuary.

Saturday morning, many shops and restaurants refused service to
Jews.  Placards placed around businesses stated, Jews not
admitted and Jews enter this place at their own risk.  Because
of Nazi insistence of public school overcrowding, they limited Jews
in the number that could attend.  Many knew this meant Jews
would eventually be banned altogether.

They [the Jews] have no business being among us true Germans,
explained one Nazi teacher to his students.  A dark cloud
situated itself over the country and the country succumbed to its
darkness.  Those not especially adverse to Jews still followed
the Nazis out of fear for their own livelihood.

Some parts of the country banned Jews from public parks,
swimming-pools and public transport.  Laws prevented
universities from keeping Jewish educators, and campuses across
Germany removed Jewish teachers from the buildings.  Teachers
who had spent most of their adult life educating were no longer
welcome, and the sting like a wasp did not end with the simple
request from the Nazis.

The sting stabbed much deeper as feelings wavered among
non-Jewish students.  Some felt the discriminations in the new
laws were unjust, unfair and yet many felt them necessary to ensure
Germany returned to the hands of German blood.  The very
students who many Jewish educators dedicated their lives to teach
turned against them.

A secret police began watching the citizens. 
Gestapo.  If they found anyone not abiding Nazi decorum, the
Gestapo assaulted them or they disappeared, assumed to have been
tortured and left at a concentration camp.  The Protestant and
Catholic press described the papers’ ambivalent feelings towards
Hitler’s anti-Semitism.  They denounced banishment of Jews,
violence and persecution and yet, argued Germany’s Jews had brought
these consequences upon themselves because of their dominating
presence in the press, as well as in the economic and financial
world.

* * *

While Rebecca was at work, Eli met with Aaron at an archaic
building owned by an older Jewish family, long time friends with
Aaron.  They had operated a legal advice office, but the
business closed and chains lay across the doors.  Eli followed
Aaron into the back alley and saw a man with a cigarette standing
beside a door.  The man nodded at Aaron in recognition and
squeaked the door open.  He dropped the cigarette and twisted
it under his foot while Eli and Aaron slipped into the
building.

Eli followed Aaron through the corridor and into an office
toward the front.  The room, musty from a lack of operation in
the past weeks, carried the sounds of distraught and frustrated
voices.  Two men with short dark hair and heavy mustaches sat
on a short sofa against the left wall.  An elderly woman
holding a cup of tea stood in the right corner where a kettle sat
on small table.  Three younger men sat on a long sofa against
the right wall.  An elderly man with a grey mustache and grey
hair directed the meeting from the middle of the room.  As
Aaron and Eli entered, the loud discourse softened and eyes focused
on them.

“Aaron, come in, come in,” the older man said and gestured for
Aaron and Eli to sit on the middle sofa.  The man stood next
to a small coffee table with papers spread over it.  His long
black trench coat dangled below the table.  “This must be your
friend, Eli.” He reached to shake Eli’s hand.  “I’m Mr.
Reiner.” He then returned to the papers.  “I guess we are all
here for the same reasons.”

One of the men on the right sofa spoke, “Our visas were denied
and we were told the quota has been met for this year.  But we
have to get our wives out of Germany.”

“This is not a guarantee,” the director said.  “You have to
realize this is dangerous.”

“We know, but there is no other way for us,” one of the two men
implored while the other cleaned one of his fingernails with his
other nail.

“And Aaron, you two are here for the same reason?”

“Yes.”

Eli cleared his throat and declared his predicament. 
“There are five in my family and they won’t have the time they need
to get the documents required to exit Germany this year.”

The older man nodded and his heavy brows quirked. “And this
family, does it include yourself?” he asked.

Eli shook his head. “I’m waiting on my paperwork from
immigration.  It shouldn’t be much longer.”

“And if you’re denied?” The older man said these words as if
they were a certainty.

“I’ll have to come back to you.”

Mr. Reiner spoke to the room. “I’ll need pictures of everyone
requiring visa documentation. I will also need birth certificates
and passports and three hundred marks for each manufactured
approval.” Eli’s brows arched at the request of money.

Aaron patted Eli’s shoulder.  “It’s alright.  The
money isn’t for him.  It’s for the officer in immigration
who’ll help with the documents.  He’ll stamp the passports
with the needed visas and approvals and provide a forged letter
from the American Embassy.”

“I’ll get everything you need.  Just help my family get out
of here,” Eli declared.  Mr. Reiner adjusted his mustache and
then handed Eli a paper from his coffee table.

“Drop off what I need at this mailbox address.  Come back
to this building in June and the paperwork will be ready for
you.”

“In two months?” Eli’s voice stressed.

“It is as soon as I can get it done.” He laid his wrinkled hand
on Eli’s shoulder.  “These things take time.”

* * *

The Passover fell on April eleventh and, though the synagogues
closed and Jewish services were refused acknowledgement, the Levin
family made a feast to celebrate much like they had the previous
year at their own home.  Rebecca clung to the invitation with
delight.  She missed her own papa, Mildred, and Rueben and,
despite her mother’s faults she missed her as well.  She had
hoped in time they would come to accept her decision to stay with
Eli.  Then she would be able to confess their marriage.

But no call since last Christmas arrived for her from her mother
or her father and this disappointment weighed on her spirits. 
The Jewish holiday of Passover came for her as a needed
interruption, providing the warmth of family again, though not her
own.

The distance she felt sometimes between herself and the Levin
family vanished at their wedding.  Any resistance she felt in
Deborah and Ezekiel had melted into affection and acceptance. 
Sarah, Leah, and Miriam became like her own sisters and Eli’s
Jewish friends like her own brothers.

Rebecca clung to Eli’s warm hand as they walked into the Levin
home for the second Passover together.  More familiar to her
than the last time, she knew what to expect and how to
behave.  She knew how long everything would take and what
culinary elegance would be present. Though this year was laden with
financial burden, political unrest and social uneasiness, the Levin
family managed to provide a lush course for the dining enjoyment
they called the Seder.  All the expected food was present,
cooked by Ada and Deborah with some help from Sarah.