Rough translation of MOND ÜBER MARRAKESCH (Moon over ...

Rough translation of MOND ÜBER MARRAKESCH (Moon over Marrakech) by Waldtraut Lewin
© 2003 Ravensburger Buchverlag
Moonlight in Spring
Rita
Berlin and Elsewhere
It’s the doorbell. In recent weeks I’ve had the impression that it isn’t attached to the door anymore,
but directly to me, to that place somewhere between the chest and the stomach where fear lives.
my stomach.
Whenever the bell rings unexpectedly I flinch as if someone had hit me, and I feel sick to
It can’t be the cleaning lady. She comes Thursday mornings at ten. Actually, she isn’t
allowed to work for us anymore because she’s an Aryan and the two of us, Sidonie and me, share
the misfortune of standing somewhat outside the mainstream in terms of race. But we pay well, and
so the cleaning lady claims that she didn’t come to us, but that she continues to clean for Dr.
Moebius even though he isn’t here at the moment. Dr. Hartwig Moebius. My father, the husband of
my stepmother Sidonie, our absent protector.
The milkman and the baker’s helper don’t ring the bell. They just set the milk bottles
down in front of the apartment door and hang the bag of bread from the doorknob and disappear
again.
Sometimes the mail carrier rings the bell. That gives us quite a scare. What might he have
for us in that leather bag of his? Something from the authorities? Any new restrictions and
regulations for “those of non-German origin”? Those kinds of notices have tapered off somewhat
lately. Since the German Reich has gone to war, there are more important things to take care of
than harassing the “subhumans.”
Or it might even be a letter from Switzerland, from Dr. Moebius, the distant head of our
household and provider—those tend to be unpleasant, as well. I have suggested not even opening
the envelopes, but Sidonie protests that that isn’t an option, and she’s right, too. When I see her
hands shake when she picks up the letter opener, though, I feel like crying.
Otherwise our doorbell doesn’t ring. Nobody comes to see us. No one wants to have
anything to do with us. We are completely on our own.
And now, toward evening, there is the doorbell. Dusk is already falling. A gentle, green
spring dusk in the year 1940; we have the windows wide open and don’t need to heat anymore.
This is around the time that my friends from school used to come and pick me up for the
movies after we had played tennis together. At the time I still went to high school, before my father
suddenly decided to take me out. As a half-Jew I should have attended a special school, together
with other non-Aryan kids. I didn’t want that. I preferred to stay at home instead. Later on there
was supposed to be a home schooling teacher …
different story.
After that, no one came to see me anymore. At first Ingo still did, but that’s a whole

The doorbell isn’t content to ring just once. Now it shrills for the third time, demanding,
even threatening, announcing doom.
We are both standing in the hallway, Sidonie and I, looking at each other. Sidonie holds
her permanent cigarette between her fingers and inhales nervously; when she exhales the smoke it
always blows a strand of her dark hair from her face. She doesn’t move.
“I’ll go check,” I say, “before they ring themselves to death.” She nods and I tiptoe along
the carpet toward the door, which unfortunately is not equipped with a peephole—something we
have regretted several times recently.
“Who’s there?” I call, trying to sound as chipper as possible. And then I hear something
about “official delivery” and “hand-delivered legal document.” It is a gruff male voice.
“I’m only the daughter,” I say and stare at the door as if I could magically conjure up three
deadbolts in addition to the chain and lock. “There’s no one else home and I’m not allowed to open
the door!”
“Let me, Rita,” Sidonie says quietly and pushes me aside. “This won’t gain us anything.
I’ll handle it.” She raises her voice. “I am Sidonie Moebius. Is the official delivery for me?”
I can’t understand what the guy in the hallway says. But Sidonie unlocks the chain and
turns the key in the lock. Before she opens the door she leans against its dark wood for a moment as
if to gain strength from it. She takes another deep drag from her cigarette and then hands it to me.
That’s a ritual between the two of us: I put it between my lips and pretend to take a drag, too, then
put it out in the ashtray. I don’t smoke. It’s just a gesture, a sort of transformed kiss.
The ashtray is in the living room. So that is what she wanted, that I shouldn’t even see this
“official,” or hear what they talk about. When I return to the hall she is already closing the door and
stands there with a heavy envelope in her hand. Lots of stamps. The Reich’s eagle.
“A court order,” she says. “As a matter of fact I’ve been waiting for this for quite a while.”
She looks at me and smiles. But her eyes are black with desperation.
“What does it say?” I ask. “Do you know what it says?”
“I’m going to read it now,” she responds. “And then I’ll come to your room and we’ll talk,
okay?” She speaks completely calmly. But I glance at her hands, and they are shaking as they hold
the legal document.
She walks past me and softly brushes my arm as she passes by. Then she closes the door
behind herself. It is quiet. And I’m standing there, scared. Such a horrible fear.
This is a feeling I don’t want to admit to anyone else. It is new. By nature I’m not a timid
person at all. But now, during the last few months, fear has become the center of my existence. If I
could do something, anything, surely it would be easier to deal with this disgusting feeling in the
pit of my stomach. But what? The only thing left for us, her and me, is to stay put and wait it out.
On my lips is a trace of bitterness from Sidonie’s cigarette, mixed with the sweet taste of
the violet pastilles she likes so much. A strange mixture, come to think of it, this bittersweet. But it
is hers. My stepmother, friend, only companion in recent months. Sidonie’s taste on my lips.

I wait. Naturally I could go to my room, but I’d rather stay here in the hall, with no real
purpose, and listen for any sounds from her room. But it’s still quiet in there. Deathly quiet. It’s so
silent that I can hear my own heart beat.
I don’t know how long I’ve been standing around like this. Suddenly Sidonie is there. She
stands right next to me and says quietly, “I guess I’ve been waiting for this. Your father, that is, Dr.
Moebius, has annulled our marriage.”
I almost choke. “You mean, he divorced you?” I ask, hardly able to believe my ears.
She shakes her head. “Oh no. Divorce—that’s not necessary any more, Rita. Marriage
between Aryans and Jews can be declared null and void at the request of the German partner
without many formalities. Your father has just done that. And we know what that means.”
We do, indeed.
There are only very few Jews left in Berlin. Some emigrated in time, if they had enough
money to do so. The others are—picked up. Deported somewhere eastward. Into ghettoes, work
camps, into new cities built exclusively for Jews. Nobody has any exact information. We only
know that no one has ever returned from such a work camp. Sometimes there is an official death
certificate. Coronary failure or pneumonia. Usually nothing at all. No sign of life after the first
couple of postcards.
If you are married to an Aryan, though, you are protected. Then they won’t come get you. That’s
why they haven’t come for Sidonie—as long as she continued to be Mrs. Councilman of
Commerce Hartwig Moebius, even if he had been away for more than half a year. He’s the German
representative in a Swiss bank. A big shot. And now he is abandoning his wife. The Jewess Sidonie
Moebius ceases to exist.
My mind is empty; I can’t formulate any thoughts. And Sidonie is so calm, so calm that it
scares me even more. “I expected him to do it eventually,” she said half aloud, as if speaking to
herself. “After all, I’ve been a stumbling block for his career for a long time, a veritable ball and
chain. But you—what will happen to you? Doesn’t he have any plans for you? Why doesn’t he just
send for you to join him in Switzerland? You are half Jewish, and Berlin isn’t exactly what anyone
could call a nice home for you, either.”
I hadn’t even thought of myself. Half Jewish, yes, of course. But also the daughter of
Hartwig Moebius. Surely nothing serious could happen to me … and my home? That is with
Sidonie. I was afraid for her sake. And I would never, ever, have wanted to go to that man. Never.
Finally I’m able to talk again. “I’m going with you when they come for you!” I say. “That
miserable scoundrel didn’t take into account that I won’t leave you. That traitor, that …”
Sidonie lays her hand on my arm. “He is your father!” she says with something like a
small smile, “and he has been protecting me since 1933. Even though there hasn’t been anything
like love between us for a long time. That’s seven years. Most marriages fall apart after seven years
…”
But that’s just a Sidonie saying, that about the seven years, because she was married to
him for nine years. I was seven when my mother died and he brought Sidonie into our house, the

young one, the beautiful one, whom I hated at first and then so quickly learned to love, like
shedding a thick winter coat under the warm sun. And now he is sending her away, the foreigner.
Now she can be picked up. Now she is destined for deportation.
I notice that she was still talking. “… and before I sit here and wait to find out what’s in
store for me, I should do what I neglected to do instead.”
“What you neglected to do?”
“Yes. Leave, if I can still make it.”
She could have been long gone, with her parents. At least two years ago. But she counted
on the ongoing protection of my father—and of course, for my sake. Because of our love for each
other. Sidonie and Rita. Rita and Sidonie. He protects her and she protects me. That’s how it was.
And now we’ve been betrayed.
“I hate him,” I mutter with numb lips. “And if you go away, then I’m going with you.”
And she nods. What else? What should she say to that?
Night has fallen in the meantime. We haven’t turned on any lights and still stand in the
hallway, as if we were already two strangers in this apartment. A faint light from the streetlights
shines through the half-open door to the living room. We need to pull down the dark shades before
we turn on lights inside. A new ordinance, everything has to be made dark because of the threat of
air attacks. I yawn. Suddenly I’m overwhelmingly tired from the whole commotion.
Sidonie grabs the keys from their hook, takes her coat, the dark winter coat she still wraps
herself up in—when she goes out—even now in spring, as though she wants to make herself
invisible.
There is another ordinance: In the German-occupied areas all Jews have to wear a yellow
star on their clothing. When I see how Sidonie enfolds herself in her coat, to me it’s like the star
has already made its way to Berlin and she had already sewn it onto her blouse. Of course, what
hasn’t happened may still come about …
“Where are you going?” I ask. I can hardly bear the thought of being alone right now.
She gathers her hair, her curls, and tosses a scarf over her head. “There are still a few
people here,” she says indefinitely. “I’m going to ask around.” She puts her arms around my neck
and presses her forehead against mine. “Go to bed, Rita. It looks to me like this has taken more out
of you than me. We need to figure out what to do. Tomorrow.” She smiles at me. Smoke and violet
pastilles and the warmth of her body.
Even before she pulls the apartment door closed behind her she lights the next cigarette,
and disappears as a glowing red point in the dark stairway.
Yes, I am exhausted. I drag myself into the bathroom with shuffling steps like an old woman, don’t
even turn on the light, wash myself in the dark. I go to my room and throw myself on the bed
without pulling back the blankets.
I thought I would fall asleep immediately. Instead I lie there with wide-open eyes and stare
at the shadows on my walls made by the nut tree in the courtyard. The leafless branches make
sharp, filigree silhouettes on the light wallpaper. It must be moonlight.

That was one of the first things she did when she became Mrs. Councilman of Commerce
Moebius: she had the wallpaper redone everywhere; she had the old wall coverings with ornate
bouquets of roses or pompous ornaments stripped and had them replaced with these delicate stripes
or light pastel patterns of strewn flowers instead. The room where my mother died—I couldn’t bear
to go in there after her death. To me it seemed the smell of her heart medicine still hung in the
room, and on the burgundy-red wall next to her bed I knew you could still see the stripes that her
fingernails had made as she shredded the wallpaper, half unconscious from pain, to keep from
crying out.
And then Sidonie was there and transformed the chamber of horror. I came home from
school one day and she took me by the hand. “Come, I want to show you something, Rita!” I
resisted when I saw where she wanted to lead me, but she didn’t let go. “Come!” she repeated,
“don’t be afraid.” She opened the door. It wasn’t the dying room anymore. It was changed. The old,
heavy furniture was gone, replaced by wicker and mahogany, yellow curtains at the windows
instead of the heavy velvet ones, no rug on the floor—and wallpaper in silky, bright splendor.
“Do I have your permission to live here?” she asked me. I felt it was a serious inquiry, not
just asked as a formality. If I had said no, I think she would have complied with it. I couldn’t
answer at all, just nodded. She had redeemed the room where my mother died. Now it belonged to
her.
The outlined shadows of the branches play their game and my thoughts ramble on. There
was moonlight the night we lost the oar on Lake Wann, too …
Sidone wanted to quiz me on French vocabulary and make a little conversation with me.
She speaks French as if it were her native tongue; I think an uncle of hers lives in France or in a
French colony, and she spent part of her childhood there. Neither of us felt like closing ourselves in
a room to study, so we took my father’s car and drove to Lake Wann, rented a boot, paddled into
the cattails, and diligently did our work there. Then the swan showed up and came toward us. We
steered toward open water, but it followed us. I don’t know why. Maybe its nest was nearby and it
was protecting its young. Anyway, it seemed very dangerous to me; I was a child. Sidonie said later
that it could hardly have been a real danger for us, but because I was screaming and carrying on she
fought the animal off with the oar. She almost fell overboard in the process, and we lost that blasted
oar. We floated helplessly on the lake. Evening fell, the moon rose, and I started to cry. How would
we ever get home again?
Ah, how she could soothe me! So lightly and gently. I think that was the first time she
took me in her arms like she still does now: her forehead pressed against mine, rocking me back
and forth as if I was still little. Until then I had tolerated her, then liked her, but I had avoided any
tenderness between us. From then on, it was different. From then on she could give me what was
once reserved for my mother alone …
And eventually there was a motorboat out there on the water, and Sidonie took off her
white shirt and waved it in the moonlight over her head to attract attention to us, and of course we
were “saved” and I had an adventure to tell everyone in school.

I don’t remember how old I was then. The world was still in order: school, tennis, piano,
riding lessons, and friends. I wasn’t yet a “first generation half-breed,” but the pampered daughter
of a well-respected man.
A man who “had developed a weakness for pretty Jewesses.” That’s what I heard them say
about him once, guests, men with hushed voices, in the room where the men were gathered, while
he himself had stepped outside for a moment.
“Our Hartwig!” they said. “A man like him, good looking, wealthy, a fine catch, and now
such a lapse for the second time! A weakness for Israeli women! The first one at least had some
wealth. But this beauty now, she’s poor like a church mouse—more like a synagogue mouse!”
They laughed. “What do you want, my friend. You can’t do anything about it. There’s supposedly a
minister who has a Negro …” I didn’t want to hear anymore. I slammed the door with all my might
so they would know someone had heard them and ran to Sidonie, to throw myself in her arms.
A few years later, I must have been eleven or twelve, other women appeared, blonde
women in silk, and mornings the empty champagne bottles in the kitchen … Separate bedrooms for
Mr. and Mrs. Moebius. A household allowance grudgingly given. The command: Don’t go out of
the house anymore, Sidonie! I do not wish it …
And then there was still Ingo. Why do I have to think about him now, too! Just the thought
of him immediately gives me a stomachache. Ingo was nice, a big guy with curly hair. We had been
classmates since elementary school, and at some point we started “going steady” with each other.
We held hands at the movies, kissed occasionally at the door to the apartment, the stuff you do.
Then, when everyone began to withdraw from us, when my father took me out of tennis and riding
lessons (“We don’t want to provoke anything!”), and when my girlfriends stayed away, Ingo
continued to come. Loyal and good. Granted, we didn’t meet in public anymore. But he visited me
at home, and if I had only liked him well enough before—it was just the thing to do, to have a
boyfriend—that touched me so much that I thought I was really in love with him.
Ingo got more and more demanding during his visits, more pushy. Not that I really liked it,
the kissing and touching and his panting. But I tolerated it, out of gratitude for standing by me, and
because I thought it had to be like that.
One day—we were alone at home, and I think he had planned it that way—he attacked
me. Suddenly all gentleness, all tenderness was gone. I didn’t defend myself, no, that’s true. I was
paralyzed by shock and shame. When it hurt I bit into my pillow. (The same one I’m lying on now;
I move my head back and forth, as if to shake off the memories of it …) And then, when it was
over, he simply got up, got dressed, and left without a word. I threw away the bloody sheet and
cried myself to sleep.
He never came again. But a few days later I met two of his friends on the street. They
whooped and asked if they could have some, too.
It had all been a bet—that he would “lay the Jewish slut.”
I never even told Sidonie about it. But I think she knew.
After that I basically stopped going out of the house, just like Sidonie—at least not to the
streets and places where I was afraid to run into old acquaintances.

Something else! Think of something else! How can anyone fall asleep with such memories and this
moonlight! This is no ordinary moon. It is so glaring, so bright, so strange as if it were borrowed
from another land. From the tropics, maybe. From somewhere where it’s warm and calm and where
you don’t have to have such worries. Where …
I sit up straight. Moon over Marrakech. The postcard taped to the mirror in Sidonie’s
room. Suddenly it occurs to me where Sidonie’s French-speaking relative used to live: in Morocco,
in Marrakech. All thoughts of sleep are suddenly gone.
Sidonie’s parents! Now I remember. They emigrated to Marrakech, too, right after that
night two years ago when the synagogues burned and the storefronts of Jewish shops were broken
and the people were taunted and beaten, the “Night of Broken Glass.” I think for a moment; the
uncle was said to be dead already.
I can hardly recall the two of them. They attended Sidonie’s wedding to my father, but at
the time I was still too young, first of all, and secondly I didn’t want anything to do with them. For
me they were just a result of the “occupier” that she was for me at first, the one who was trying to
take my mother’s place. I didn’t want to know anything about them and I didn’t want to see them.
Very quickly my father must have forbidden them to come to our house, to visit their
daughter at our home. He had married a woman, not a family. Once or twice Sidonie secretly took
me with her to Charlottenburg, where her parents lived. He was a piano teacher; I think she was a
librarian. All I can recall is a small apartment, much too small, such low ceilings, and it smelled
like coal in the hall, like in poor people’s apartments. And I had something against piano teachers
anyway. They torture children. I suffered under one of them every week.
They made great efforts with me, these people. But the woman wanted me to call her
Grandma, and I didn’t feel like it in the least. I was as rude as I could possibly be, and that is saying
something. I remember I even made the woman cry.
After that Sidonie never took me with her again. It must have hurt her, but she never said a
word to me. That wasn’t her way. Something like that gets swept under the carpet.
The two of them were probably quite poor. But still they were able to emigrate. I don’t
know how they managed that. It just didn’t interest me at the time. Did Sidonie ask my father for
money to help them? Or did she secretly save something? She herself didn’t possess anything—just
as little as she has now. A household allowance. Her jewelry, but her husband knows it exactly, so
that couldn’t be sold. Did someone have other relatives in Marrakech who might have helped? Or
did other people here in Berlin do something for her? The people Sidonie is going to now? No idea.
There is so much I don’t know about her.
At any rate, one day after they had left an envelope arrived with a lot of official stamps
and foreign postage. And in this envelope was nothing but this postcard. A cityscape straight out of
A Thousand and One Nights, pink, with minarets and towers, and above that the full moon. Tacky.
“Moon over Marrakech” was written on the back, in French; and in shaky handwriting a phone
number.

Sidonie tried to call the number several times, but she never got a connection. First the
operator let her wait an eternity, then declared that the number wasn’t in service anymore. I only
caught this in passing. Sidonie tried not to involve me in it. Maybe she thought I didn’t want to
know anything about matters involving her parents anyway—and she apparently she didn’t get
more news from them. Or she didn’t want me to be concerned about her, Sidonie, staying here. In
any case, there is Marrakech. If mail can arrive from there, then it isn’t just a fairy-tale land, but
someplace very real. And there are people who were able to go there.
I wait for Sidonie to return. I want to ask her about this postcard, about her parents. I wait
for the news that she’ll bring from outside. I wait so intensely, so impatiently, that it hurts …
Did I finally fall asleep after all? The phone rings. Its ring is loud and penetrating. My
heart beats like crazy as I sit up, and in the first moment I think that it’s finally gone through, this
phone call to Marrakech. Just at the right moment! Then I realize that I’ve mixed dream and reality.
My eyes still thick with sleep, I glance at the lit face of the alarm clock. Ten thirty.
Nothing moves. Sidonie appears not to have come home yet. And it continues to ring.
On bare feet I pad into the hallway, where our phone stands: an object that has sunken into
a slumber worthy of Sleeping Beauty recently. No one has called us, and anywhere I called there
was always some excuse—delivered in a very friendly way—to hang up quickly. “I’ll call you
back!” they assured me, my girlfriends. Or their parents: “I’ll let her know you called!” No one
wanted anything to do with us anymore, neither with the half-Jew Rita nor with her “non-Aryan”
stepmother. Such acquaintances were not desirable; they could get you into trouble.
Finally we called to hear the time, just to find out whether our line had been disconnected.
Now I stand here and stare at the noisy thing. Ten thirty this evening. What if something
has happened to Sidonie out there! Or if she … For a moment I think maybe she won’t come back,
she’s gone into hiding somewhere and is calling to let me know. Goodbye, Rita. Please understand,
for you it’s just a matter of inconveniences, unpleasantness. Your father will take care of you. But
for me, my life is in danger from now on … And even though I know that something like that
would be the best possible thing for her, my stomach ties in knots of fear and horror. What will
become of me without her?!
Determined, I pick up the receiver. I have to clear my throat before I can speak. Not my
name, but a hoarse, croaked “Yes?”
“Is that you, Rita?”
No, it’s not Sidonie, but a man’s voice, soft and resolute at the same time, a voice that is
sure of its effect. The voice of Hartwig Moebius, my father.
I hold the telephone receiver firmly with both hands. How dare he! After what he has done
to us, just today! And before, for weeks on end, not so much as a word. Whenever we called
Zurich, Mr. Councilman of Commerce was unavailable at the moment.
“I don’t want to talk to you!” I say. But I don’t hang up.
“Well, you’ll have to,” he says. “The way you’re reacting, Rita, your former stepmother
must have been informed already. Good.”
“Good? What’s good about it? You’ve—you’ve delivered Sidonie to the dogs.”

“Those are exaggerations,” says the self-confident and convincing voice in Switzerland,
infinitely far away. “I”ve gotten myself informed. In reality, nothing at all is happening to the Jews.
They are just being isolated from the German community for a short while. When the war is over
the situation will relax. I’m sure you’ll see her again soon, your Sidonie.”
I almost scream. “She’s isn’t gone yet!”
“Of course not, Rita. Please don’t get excited. I know how much she means to you. This is
just a temporary separation. Believe me.”
I can’t say anything. I have a lump in my throat.
On the other end of the line he takes a deep breath and then says calmly and firmly:
“Listen. I’m bringing you to join me in Zurich.”
My hands on the phone are icy cold. “To Zurich?” I repeat like an idiot.
“Yes, to Zurich. You sound like you’re asleep. Wake up, Rita.”
“But why, and how …”
“That’s what I want to tell you. Please leave the emotions out of it, let’s be objective,
okay?” A certain irritation creeps into this soft voice for the first time. I know this tone all too well.
Councilman of Commerce Moebius always uses it when he’s getting to the heart of a matter.
“Can you follow me, Rita?”
“Yes,” I mumble.
“Tomorrow you will go to our bank in Wilmersdorf. If the official statement has reached
Sidonie, everything must be ready and waiting for you. It’s all been arranged. Mr. Hafermas will
give you travel money and a train ticket to Freiburg. You will take the train that I’ve reserved for
you. In Freiburg you will stay overnight in the Hotel Zur Post. The business manager there will
inform you further then. You will be picked up there. Have you understood everything?”
“No,” I say, and my rage strangles my voice. “I didn’t understand anything and I don’t
want to understand anything. What about Sidonie?”
“Sidonie!” He sighs with impatience. “I think we just discussed that!”
“You are such a miserable …”
“Watch your mouth, Rita! Think before you speak! I have been considerate beyond the
limits of what is humanly possible! At some point I have to think of myself, as well. My life, my
life’s work, is at stake. I am no longer acceptable with a Jewish wife! Is that so hard to understand?
I have experienced enough inconvenience because of this vexing matter. It’s a shame that she, too,
will have to experience some now. But it can’t be changed.”
“You betrayed us!”
“Strong words, Rita. Strong and childish words. Don’t you understand that I’m in the
process of getting you out?” Suddenly he screams, shouts in my ear. “I expect that you follow my
orders, is that clear? My God, you can’t possibly be so dim-witted! When I submit an application to
allow you to leave the country it takes forever—not to mention the costs. Do you know what’s in
store for you, a half-Jew, and not yet an adult at that, if you stay on in Germany? There are places
there where such people aren’t treated particularly well. The institutions for cases like that aren’t

quite what you’ve become used to as a “privileged daughter.” Instead of school, hard labor. And
they will come get you, you can be sure of it. In the long run I can’t protect you from it.”
Suddenly he changes his tone again, stepping off his high horse, and sounds soft and
pleading. “Rita, come to me! I’ll get you out. Germany can be very unpleasant right now. But the
times will calm down. You’ll see Sidonie again, I promise you. But believe me—when you aren’t
there anymore, she won’t be there, either. I’ve made sure of that. This is one process.”
bumps.
What does he mean by that? He sounds so determined, so threatening, that I get goose
“I don’t understand. What will happen to Sidonie?”
“Everything is arranged for her.”
“I’m not going without …” It’s over. He just hung up. A dial tone and nothing else. Then
the voice of the operator: “Party in Berlin, are you still talking?”
“No,” I say and carefully lay the receiver on its hook. Then I sink down very slowly onto
the floor. This way at least I can’t fall over. Now I know how it is supposed to happen. Sidonie will
be deported and I’ll go to Switzerland, through some loophole or another. He’ll know how to get
me across the border. He can do things like that. To a boarding school, I imagine; a fine school, no
“institution for such cases.” You’ll see Sidonie again. Lies. This is all one process—Lord only
knows what he has arranged! I wish I could hate him less. He is my father, after all.
I’ve clenched my hands together so tightly that my fingernails penetrate the flesh of my
opposite hand. I feel so helpless! The pain replaces the numbness.
With great effort I try to organize my thoughts. No. I will not go to Mr. Habermas at the
bank. I will not travel to Freiburg. I will not leave Sidonie. If they really come get her (but who can
imagine something like that? It’s unthinkable!), if they pick her up—then I’m going with, no matter
what that means. I don’t have anyone else in the world. Where should I go? A few distant relatives
of my—biological—mother, whom I can hardly remember … who knows where they are by now?
Sidonie is all that I have left. We won’t let ourselves be separated.
I continue to sit there, in the hallway, on the floor, with my head leaning on my knees, and
wait for her to come home at last.
Someone whispers next to my ear. “Rita, my little one, my sweet girl.” Someone frees me from this
position, in which every bit of me hurts. Someone breathes her warm breath on my cheek, my ear,
my neck. Sidonie sits next to me on the floor and holds me in her arms. Her hair hangs in front of
my eyes. The open coat smells of night air and coolness.
“Why didn’t you go to bed?”
“I did,” I say. My neck hurts, as if someone had punched me in the back of the neck with
their fist. I carefully turn my head. “But there was a phone call.”
“A phone call?”
“Yeah. Not important.” It suddenly becomes clear to me that I won’t tell her anything
about it; I won’t breathe a word of my father’s command to leave her. She would probably even
urge me to go.

“What about you? Did you achieve anything?” I free myself from her arms and stand up,
stretching myself.
Sidonie’s fingers search for her cigarettes. “Let’s pull down the dark shades and turn on
some light,” she says. “I almost fell over you just now.”
The moonlight throws the patterns of the bars on our windows into the room, making us
both striped and turning us into zebra creatures until we’ve pulled the blinds and turned on the little
table lamp next to the fireplace. My stepmother lets herself fall into the armchair and stretches out
her feet, taking a deep drag on her cigarette. She’s still wearing her coat, as if she was only here for
a visit …
“There isn’t much to tell,” she says. “It was—somehow ghostlike. I’ve hardly had contact
with anyone for a while. Most people are gone.”
“What does that mean, gone?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “I don’t know, Rita. Emigrated. Picked up. Hidden. Locked
apartment doors and strange faces, that’s what I found. Then I went to two friends from my college
days, Aryans. They asked me not to put them in danger by visiting them, even though I came in the
thick of the night. They … do dangerous things. Things against the Nazis. They told me they would
hide me if I would work with them, help them. But that doesn’t solve our problem.”
She blows a cloud of smoke into the air. It’s not just the dim light of the lamp that makes
her look so pale, so tired, so fragile. With deep shadows under her eyes and the blueish net of veins
at her temples, where the skin is transparent. Her eyes are so black that the white glows.
“What they offered you—why do you think it wouldn’t work?” I ask cautiously. I sit
opposite her in the other armchair. I’d much rather crouch at her feet and lay my head in her lap.
But I need to practice being rational, need to show strength.
Sidonie sighs deeply. “I’m just too cowardly for something like that, Rita,” she says
helplessly. “It sounds silly, I know. One way or another I’m in danger. But I don’t dare do it.” And
after a brief pause: “The offer would only be for me. Not for you.”
This is the real reason, I feel it. Now I am the stumbling block, the ball and chain for her.
But for her it’s not about her career, like it is for my father. For her it’s much more, maybe even
survival. That phone call! Maybe it did come at just the right time …
I take a deep breath. “I want to … I need to tell you …” and start stuttering. “Sidonie, if
there is somewhere you can go where you’ll be reasonably safe—then don’t think of me!” I have to
swallow hard. “Moebius called me earlier. He wants me to go to Switzerland.”
Now it’s out in the open.
She looks at me. “He called you? Earlier?”
“Yes,” I say. “Yes. It looks like he knew exactly that this divorce, I mean the annulment of
your marriage, would arrive here today. He expected it, so I would start to panic and run, straight to
him. He threatened me that terrible things would happen if you—in case you aren’t here. And that
he had arranged everything, with you and me. He scared me, terrified me. What an evil, calculating
man he is! I’m ashamed of him, Sidonie.”

“But how is that supposed to work?” she asks, without responding to what I said about my
father. Her cigarette has burned so far down that she can only hold it carefully with two fingers at
its very tip. She takes a drag nervously.
“He’s thought everything through—like always! There’s a train ticket to Freiburg waiting
for me at the bank. Then he’s having me picked up somehow.”
She nods. “Yes. Then I guess that’s what you need to do, Rita.”
We are both silent, but our silence stems from utterly different sources. I feel that Sidonie
is consumed by a deep, deep sadness. That she’s resigned. And that outrages me. My silence stems
from anger, and helplessness. But I don’t want to accept it just as it is.
“Just come with me!” I say defiantly. “If we’re lucky, no one will collect tickets on the
train from here to Freiburg, and no one will ask for your identification. And then …”
“Rita, stop it!” she answers, and hands me the stub so I can put it out according to our little
ritual. I almost burn my lips, the ember is so close to me. “You know we don’t have any money.
Not even to buy a ticket to Freiburg.”
She’s right. That’s one of Moebius’s dirty tricks. He transfers just enough money to our
account each month to allow us to survive, precisely calculated, so that we don’t get any funny
ideas. His prisoners.
“He left some travel money for me at the bank. Maybe I can persuade this Haberman, who
I am supposed to talk to, to give me a little loan. After all, I am the daughter of one of the big
bosses.”
She smiles wistfully. “You’re sweet, Rita. Those are all just fantasies, forgive me for
saying so. If we really wanted to escape—through France, I would think, and on to Marseille—we
wouldn’t need a little loan but lots and lots of money. We would need to buy passports and bribe
people and I don’t even know what else.”
with me!
Suddenly I’m warm all over. That means she has also thought about escaping! Escaping
“To Marseille and then …?” I say, and hold my breath. She doesn’t answer. “Haven’t you
ever thought about it further?” I push.
She sighs. “Actually, yes. You know that my parents went to Morocco, to Marrakech. I
haven’t ever heard anything from them, or about them, no more than the postcard with a phone
number that arrived here. I’m sure mail was intercepted. But I do think that they made it.”
“Yes, but then …”
“Rita, that was years ago! In the meantime everything has gotten much more complicated.
The possibilities to leave Germany are just about zero since the war began. Especially for Jews.
And fake passports are more valuable than gold. We’re stuck in the trap.”
“How did your parents make it?”
“It was still easier then. They had a man in Marrakech vouch for them. He organized their
emigration and paid for their passage.”
“Your uncle was already dead!”

“No, he wasn’t an uncle. Arthur Gründstein was a third cousin of my mother. But a kind
man, what we Jews call a just man. A rich man who gave with both hands when someone was in
need. A real mensch. I lived with him for almost three years when I was about your age. He lived in
southern France then, and he put up the money for my parents. But there hasn’t been any contact
with him since he went to Morocco. And you know how often I tried to call Marrakech.” She stares
ahead of her, lost in thought.
to lose?”
“But we have to try something!” I say impatiently, and in desperation. “What do we have
“You, my young one, still have a tremendous amount to lose, because everything is still
possible for you,” she says gently. “And for me, everything is lost.”
“No!” I pound on the table with both fists like a stupid child, but I can’t control myself. It
makes me crazy that she is giving up without having fought. Feverishly I search for a way out.
“Couldn’t we convert something into money? Here from the apartment maybe? The paintings? The
china?”
“All of that takes too long, and I believe there are laws now forbidding Jews to sell public
property. The black market—I’m just not familiar with it. And your father put my jewelry in the
safe-deposit box at the bank as a precaution. The jewelry I have is all fake. Worthless imitations.”
I gasp for air. Jewelry fascinates me, and Sidonie’s jewelry … “All the beautiful things,
the rose-cut amethyst, the 3.5 carat one? And the diamond armband I love so much?”
“In the safe-deposit box,” she answers calmly.
“In the bank’s safe-deposit box?!” I stare at her. All at once a thought strikes me like a bolt
of lightning. The safe-deposit box! I know something. I know a few numbers, a word.
I have an excellent memory. For a long time, before my father left us and went to
Switzerland, even before the awful “Night of Broken Glass” two years ago, I rummaged around his
desk for no particular reason, except that I wanted to get behind his secrets. He had changed so
much over the months. He had long since ceased to be the polite and considerate husband, and now
he treated Sidonie only with coldness. He despised her. More and more often he brought these
other women into the house … the squealing and laughter coming from his room, and in the
morning the empty bottles in the kitchen. So cheap, all of it. A man who walked by us with his
head turned away.
I rummaged through the drawers, wanting to spy on him. There I found a little card,
hidden between business cards of strangers and pleading letters from old friends begging him to
help them leave the country. They asked for money, for protection, for a recommendation … he
certainly never lifted a finger.
He thought the little card was well hidden there. Anyhow, he screamed when he came in
and snatched it from my hand. I think he wanted to hit me. I ran away. But the number and the
word were already in my head. And then I didn’t think about it anymore. But now, now is the
moment when it occurs to me again, and this is exactly the right moment.
It could well be, as suspicious as he is, that he changed everything after that incident. But
it may also be that he didn’t.

Tomorrow I’ll be at the bank to pick up my train ticket. It’s worth a try.
“Do you know what, Sidonie?” I say quietly. “I know the password and the combination
for Moebius’s safe-deposit box. I’m curious to find out what’s in it tomorrow.”