his wife, in order to get her to work too – a battle in which the loser would have been certain from the outset.
High mass on Sundays freed the house from Aunt Martha’s presence for a few hours. This offered Papa Rosenbaum’s youngest son the opportunity to take Anna by surprise one hot summer’s day. She had just put the potatoes and carrots in the soup simmering with a piece of bacon. All of a sudden, through the steam, she saw a boy standing in the doorway. He took a few steps into the kitchen. She recognized Daniel Rosenbaum, who had sat near her in class. ‘I’m going swimming in the Lippe,’ he said casually. ‘Can I undress here?’ Anna looked at him absent-mindedly. ‘I suppose so,’ she said, vaguely pointing, ‘you can use that room there.’ Swimming in the river, she thought with surprise, nobody ever does that. She did not know anyone who could swim. Peering at the bubbles and swirls on the surface of the simmering soup, she saw before her the life-threatening whirlpools of the Lippe. When she heard a sound behind her she turned round automatically. The young Rosenbaum was standing naked on the doormat, his erect memberwas swathed in a beam of sunlight that was entering through the window. He stared at her with defiant seriousness. The cooking spoon fell out of her hand. Independent of his thin boy’s body standing out there darkly, the thing with the eye at the top seemed to be aiming straight for her, like a rising cobra poised on the point of attack. She did not know anything like it existed, she refused it, she would have nothing to do with it and fled from the kitchen, past the salute that had been brought to her, outside, to hide behind the privet hedge. She was trembling. In the far distance the severe spire of the Landolinus church was sticking up above the trees. That was pointing upwards too. She stooped to pick a bundle of grass, and pulled the blades apart one by one. How was it possible that, while high mass was being celebrated there, here something like this could manifest itself – that both could exist in the same world?
Jesus had said, ‘Be perfect, as Our Father in heaven is perfect.’ Anna tried to keep this commandment scrupulously although her efforts were put to the test severely on All Souls’ day. All prayers for the salvation of the souls of the dead were heard on this day in November. Those who had the opportunity to do so went to church six times to make the most of the chance. But the prayers were not only for dead loved ones. The greatest sacrifice was a prayer on behalf of the godless, ‘Do something good for the sinner too.’ She had already prayed for her father, for her mother, grandfather and for Lotte too, to be on the safe side. For whom else can I pray now, she brooded, what is the very greatest penance I should do? Then the naked Rosenbaum appeared unbidden before her, on the doormat, swathed in a sunbeam. In a flash the sacrifice being demanded of her was clear: why shouldn’t she pray for one – arbitrary – dead Jew?
Lotte sipped a glass of Grand Marnier that accompanied the third cup of coffee. ‘It could just as well have been a non-Jewish boy.’
‘Of course! I am only telling you to show you how ambivalent my attitude towards the Jews was and how that was fed by the church. Now comes the worst.’ Anna tossed back the final dregs. ‘At some point they had disappeared: there were no more Jews in our village. No Rosenbaum came to buy cattle any more; a Christian cattle dealer took his place, without ceremony. Yet I never asked: where has the Rosenbaum family gone? Never, you understand. Nobody ever asked anything, not even my uncle.’
‘What did happen to that family?’
‘I don’t know! It’s true when people say “we did not know”. But why didn’t we know? Because it didn’t interest us at all! I reproach myself, now, that I didn’t ask: where have they gone?’
Lotte had been getting hot, she was feeling dizzy. Anna’s
High mass on Sundays freed the house from Aunt Martha’s presence for a few hours. This offered Papa Rosenbaum’s youngest son the opportunity to take Anna by surprise one hot summer’s day. She had just put the potatoes and carrots in the soup simmering with a piece of bacon. All of a sudden, through the steam, she saw a boy standing in the doorway. He took a few steps into the kitchen. She recognized Daniel Rosenbaum, who had sat near her in class. ‘I’m going swimming in the Lippe,’ he said casually. ‘Can I undress here?’ Anna looked at him absent-mindedly. ‘I suppose so,’ she said, vaguely pointing, ‘you can use that room there.’ Swimming in the river, she thought with surprise, nobody ever does that. She did not know anyone who could swim. Peering at the bubbles and swirls on the surface of the simmering soup, she saw before her the life-threatening whirlpools of the Lippe. When she heard a sound behind her she turned round automatically. The young Rosenbaum was standing naked on the doormat, his erect memberwas swathed in a beam of sunlight that was entering through the window. He stared at her with defiant seriousness. The cooking spoon fell out of her hand. Independent of his thin boy’s body standing out there darkly, the thing with the eye at the top seemed to be aiming straight for her, like a rising cobra poised on the point of attack. She did not know anything like it existed, she refused it, she would have nothing to do with it and fled from the kitchen, past the salute that had been brought to her, outside, to hide behind the privet hedge. She was trembling. In the far distance the severe spire of the Landolinus church was sticking up above the trees. That was pointing upwards too. She stooped to pick a bundle of grass, and pulled the blades apart one by one. How was it possible that, while high mass was being celebrated there, here something like this could manifest itself – that both could exist in the same world?
Jesus had said, ‘Be perfect, as Our Father in heaven is perfect.’ Anna tried to keep this commandment scrupulously although her efforts were put to the test severely on All Souls’ day. All prayers for the salvation of the souls of the dead were heard on this day in November. Those who had the opportunity to do so went to church six times to make the most of the chance. But the prayers were not only for dead loved ones. The greatest sacrifice was a prayer on behalf of the godless, ‘Do something good for the sinner too.’ She had already prayed for her father, for her mother, grandfather and for Lotte too, to be on the safe side. For whom else can I pray now, she brooded, what is the very greatest penance I should do? Then the naked Rosenbaum appeared unbidden before her, on the doormat, swathed in a sunbeam. In a flash the sacrifice being demanded of her was clear: why shouldn’t she pray for one – arbitrary – dead Jew?
Lotte sipped a glass of Grand Marnier that accompanied the third cup of coffee. ‘It could just as well have been a non-Jewish boy.’
‘Of course! I am only telling you to show you how ambivalent my attitude towards the Jews was and how that was fed by the church. Now comes the worst.’ Anna tossed back the final dregs. ‘At some point they had disappeared: there were no more Jews in our village. No Rosenbaum came to buy cattle any more; a Christian cattle dealer took his place, without ceremony. Yet I never asked: where has the Rosenbaum family gone? Never, you understand. Nobody ever asked anything, not even my uncle.’
‘What did happen to that family?’
‘I don’t know! It’s true when people say “we did not know”. But why didn’t we know? Because it didn’t interest us at all! I reproach myself, now, that I didn’t ask: where have they gone?’
Lotte had been getting hot, she was feeling dizzy. Anna’s
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