Voices of the dead

“Today,” his father had said, “everything is.”

On the wall behind him, above the mantle, was a black swastika reversed out of a circle of white on a square of red cloth, the flag of the Third Reich. Below it was his mother’s prize Doxia clock, with its silver deco numerals and hands, and frosted silver dial.

On the opposite wall was a framed photograph of Adolf Hitler, little mustache perched like a bug on his upper lip. Harry had seen him driving through Munich on numerous occasions. His parents thought Hitler was crazy and couldn’t understand why the German people had elected him. It was a nightly discussion at the dinner table until his mother would say: “Can we talk about something else?”

There was an eight-by-ten photograph in a sterling silver frame on the end table next to the couch. Harry picked it up and studied it, an SS officer posing with his wife and twin sons, the boys about Harry’s age, wearing lederhosen. They had taken over the house and everything in it.

He went to the window and watched the traffic below, cars and military vehicles passing by. He went to the third level where the bedrooms were. His parents had the big room with the bath. Harry’s room was at the opposite end of the hall, guest room in between. His room looked the same, the single bed, the six-drawer dresser, desk and bookshelves. He looked in the closet. His clothes had been replaced by light brown shirts and dark shorts of the Hitler youth, by lederhosen and other clothes he didn’t recognize.

He walked down the hall to his parents’ room. It too looked the same. The art deco armoire, the light brown furniture with black lacquered trim, the nine-drawer dresser and oval nightstands. The same deco furniture grouping in front of the fireplace where his parents sat in the winter and read. The same double bed and white chenille bedspread.

The closet was divided between men’s and women’s clothes. On the left were military uniforms lined up on hangers. Three black jackets with black-white-red swastika armbands and matching jodhpurs. Next to the black jackets were three pale-gray uniforms cut the same way, with an eagle on the sleeve in place of the swastika. On a shelf above the uniforms were three peaked caps with the same eagle above the skull and crossbones.

Below the uniforms were two pairs of well-shined black jackboots. He got on his knees and moved the boots aside and crawled to the back corner of the closet, dug the tip of the knife blade into the seam between the floorboards and pulled back. The plank came up and Harry reached in the opening and took out a thick wad of marks, a photograph of Harry and his parents in front of the house, three sets of identification, and his uncle’s address and phone number in Detroit, Michigan, USA.

His dad had said, “If something happens to your mother and me, I have left something for you.”

It confused Harry at the time. He had said, “Papa, what’s going to happen?”

“I hope nothing. I hope the Allied forces defeat Hitler. But we have to be prepared.”

Harry placed the floorboard back in position, went back into the room and stood by the window. He looked at the ID cards, one each for him, his mother and father. Their photographs, but different names, aliases, and nothing that said they were Jewish. If his father had these documents, why didn’t they leave the country? He put his parents’ papers back in the floor. They weren’t going to need them now. He was counting the money, already up to five thousand marks when he heard voices downstairs.

Harry stuffed everything into his trouser pockets. He moved into the hall and looked over the banister. The twins were coming up the stairs, wrestling. One had the other in a headlock, crashing into the wall. He heard a woman’s voice telling them to stop or they would be punished. It didn’t seem to do any good and now the mother came up the stairs and separated them.

“Boys, go to your rooms,” she said.

Harry went back in his parents’ bedroom, crossed to a door with glass panes that led to a balcony on the alley side of the building. He opened the door and went out. There were two chairs and a table. He looked through the glass and saw the woman enter the room. She stopped and turned, yelled something down the hall and moved toward the closet unbuttoning her dress. Harry crouched and froze.

She came back from the closet wearing a robe, the curves of her body visible under the thin fabric. She had short brown hair and pale skin and heavy red lipstick. She picked up a magazine from the nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed with her back to him.