I Sleep in Hitler's Room (18 page)

There’s a woman behind me and she’s crying, bitterly. Why is she crying?

It’s Prayer Time. People sit, people stand, over and again. I guess that’s the way God likes it. T-Mobile wants your money to connect you, God wants you to exercise.

An old priest takes hosts and puts them in the people’s mouths, as if they were infants. These hosts are supposedly the Body of Christ and the priest puts his body in your mouth, if you are Catholic. Protestants are not welcomed to eat Christ. At the
Kirchentag
a few weeks ago in this very city, Protestants told me they were offended. I am not. It’s OK with me if I don’t eat him. My culinary taste is quite different.

I’d rather eat at Schumann’s Bar. I was told that this is the place of the Beautiful and the Rich. Sounds more Godly to me than the host. God, after all, must love the rich and the beautiful, otherwise he wouldn’t give them so much money and so much beauty. Right? Right. I leave the church to meet the beauties.

The first beauty I meet is Charles Schumann, the owner.

What’s special about this bar?

“Nothing.”

How did you get the name?

“I worked so many years. Not like the fucking Americans. Thirty years! I never wanted to be famous. Maybe I am famous now, but I didn’t work for it. There are no bartenders in America; they are mixologists.”

American bartenders are not the only people on his I Don’t Like list. He has no respect for the cooks of Germany either. “There are no cooks today,” he says derisively, “only food designers.”

What do your clients get out of your thirty-year experience?

“Nothing. Schumann’s now is too big.”

Who are the average clients here?

“Everybody.”

Poor too?

“Yes. The prices are low here.”

I look around at the people; they are as poor as he is.

What’s the philosophy behind a bar, what’s the idea?

“To be your home, without having your wife tell you, ‘Tomorrow we have to go to the cinema.’ The barmen should not be too close to clients, I say this to my employees.”

Why do people come to the bar?

“To forget everything.”

These rich people are not happy?

“No. This is the mark of our time. We live in a very superficial world. Bars are too loud, including Schumann’s, and people can hardly talk to each other. Most people come to watch people. They sit and watch, they look, and they feel good when they see nice-looking people. They get a vibration. Sometimes I do this in the afternoon. I sit outside and watch people walk by. And sometimes I say: I wish the world would drown.”

Why?

“Because people behave so badly. And some of them are dressed so badly!”

What did you learn about human nature after thirty years of watching people in the bar?

“I am not a friend of humanity.”

Explain, please.

“Very few people are not egotistical. I see how they act. They are not polite. They are not gentlemanly. They are badly dressed, without taste. All the same.”

If you could choose to be of any nationality, which one would it be?

“Not German.”

Why not?

“The Germans are too heavy. They don’t know how to relax.”

I just realize that I forgot to pray for my students. Oh gosh. But there’s no time for remorse now. Charles invites me for lunch in the court outside. I must accept. You can’t refuse lunch.

I’m happy I accepted. It is here that I get the real taste of Schumann’s Bar. First, it’s Charles. He’s involved in everything. He knows his clientele and greets them personally. If he missed them when they came in, he pinches their faces later as he walks by their table. He enjoys waiting on people and he is constantly at it. The rule of not getting too close doesn’t apply to him. The food, moderately priced, is superb. And unlike Cohen’s, this restaurant is full. Actually, this is not a restaurant, nor is it a bar. This is a club. A club for a certain class of people. And he, King Charles the First, rules over every detail. Not a table empty, not a glass unused. Ages ago it was King Ludwig who ruled here, but now it’s Charles. And King Charles I rules that I won’t drink Coke. Wine is better. White wine, not a dark cola. I obey. King Charles pinches my face. I become a full-fledged citizen. Proud to be Schumannist.

The
Rucola-Kartoffel-Salat mit Pulpo
travels from my mouth to my belly express, as every part in between says Thank You for the delight. The
Hacksteak mit Spitzkohl
is every bit satisfying. But the best on this hot day is the drink to close the stomach. This is made of lillet lacaanon—mixed with Campari, much ice, and a tiny rind of orange on top—that mesmerizes your sense of smell as you drink it. “I am a bottle,” says Charles to me, “and I gravitate these ingredients into me.” The man is a poet.

Suddenly I remember the students. Again. I promised that I’d participate in their demo. I must go! But before I go, Charles has something to tell me:

“There is one thing I can’t teach my employees, the ability to spot the interesting people walking into the bar. This I do, and I befriend them.”

He certainly does.

I go to my students. I, too, demonstrate. Not a very hard job. All it takes is beer. I spot two new young students, whom I didn’t see before. They are Kerem and Lisa, and they sit aimlessly watching people passing by. He is an atheist Muslim, she is an atheist Christian. Both are sworn communists. They want Germany to be a communist state. “Communism is good,” they say in unison. “People should decide for themselves and not the politicians.”

They’ve known each other for many years, these two twenty-something youngsters, and that’s why “we cannot become a couple.” Never. But they are good friends and they share the same values. They both visited Cuba. Cuba is good. Heaven on earth. They saw it with their own eyes. “Cuba is really democratic, not like Germany. In Cuba the people decide, in Germany it’s the corrupt politicians who decide for us. In Cuba, if the politicians are corrupt, people go to the polls and throw them out. Did it ever happen in Germany? Can you vote out corrupt politicians in the middle of their term? In Cuba you can.”

The interesting thing is that both Kerem and Lisa are sober.

I leave Munich.

Let the train take me. Where to? Nürnberg. Nice name.

It’s 75 euros to Nürnberg unless, that is, you want to pay only 10. The price of train tickets in Germany is very complex. In order to figure this out you need twenty years of chess-playing experience before buying your first ticket. Or, luck be on your side, be a native of this land. For this particular trip: You can buy a normal ticket—that’s if your papa is Charles Schumann—or a “Bayren Ticket,” if he isn’t.

I arrive in Nürnberg after midnight and immediately thank Allah for the Arabs. No, not because I changed my mind about going to Palestine. Has nothing to do with
those
Arabs. Everything has to do with the Arabs here. You see, there’s a law in this town, routinely enforced by the local police, which calls for owners of restaurants and cafés to close the outside portions of their businesses by midnight. But the Iraqi owner of the Turkish restaurant here, so touched that I spoke to him in Arabic—“He speaks my tongue,” he says to a young German lady, his eyes shining with pleasure and delight—that he keeps a couple of chairs and a table outside for me to enjoy. And the food he prepares for me, I must say, is heavenly. He also introduces me to a sweet Turkish concoction, which is 100 percent nonnatural but really good. I eat and drink while I enjoy the view across the street from me: St. Klara.

This church was originally built in 1273, the sign says, was destroyed in 1945 and reconstructed by 1953. A characteristically German story, I might add. The sight of the church causes me to be a little philosophical: There is a reason for madness in this land. As I travel from city to city in this big country, my eyes encounter a repeated image: destroyed properties of past millennia reconstructed in recent years. Hundreds of years of history, their history, was wiped out in one cloudy day, courtesy of World War II. This story of loss, no doubt, will stay with the people here for eternity. Wherever they live—south of Germany, north of Germany, east, or west—World War II’s mark of Cain will never disappear. Their old buildings, their pride, had to be reconstructed.

I go to my hotel, the Drei Raben (Three ravens), which is a theme hotel.

It’s time to sleep. I’ve been thinking too much today. I check my surroundings. In my room there’s a wooden box, with a knob that I can press. I do so and a child’s voice speaks. He tells the story of this hotel in 1945, how it caught fire and burned down. He is talking about the Allied bombardment of Nürnberg.

I guess now I can have a good night’s sleep. That’s the intention, no?

When I get up in the morning, I meet Daniela Hüttinger, the owner.

She tells me of the events in 1945. Her father tried to quench the fire but did not succeed. Only the first floor survived. They left the city immediately thereafter and came back after the war.

“My father told me the story many, many times.”

What else did he tell you about the war?

“There were dead bodies all over the streets.”

Did he tell you why this happened?

“No.”

Nothing?

“He told me that his father was not part of the Nazi party.”

That’s all?

“Yes.”

All?

“He was a simple hotel owner, he was not a student, he was not a critical person.”

I see—

“My grandmother was half Jewish, maybe you should write this, this might be interesting. When one day the Nazis came around to investigate the family, because the grandfather was listening to a foreign radio station, he yelled at them, he was an actor, you know: ‘I will call Julius Streicher [the famous publisher of the Nazi weekly
Der Stürmer
], what do you want from me!’ And they left.”

Slowly, slowly I realize that this country has more Jews than Israel. From Rabbi Helmut Schmidt down. Except, maybe, for Half and Half. But I say nothing to Daniela; can’t hurt a fellow Jew. Instead I ask her: Why “Three Ravens”?

“My father, when asked by guests, used to tell a story: There was a gallows near the city station ages ago, and ravens were flying over, seeing it all, and afterward they came to this building, went to the chimney, and told the story of what they had seen.”

This city has an interesting history, and some nice stories too.

“When I lose an eyelash,” she says, relaxing, “I make a wish. The wish is that it stays the way it is, because I am very happy. Because life is perfect. I am happy with life, despite being German.”

Hard to be German. Yes. One day you wake up and your city, Nürnberg, is bombed.

But enough of that period. Enough of the Nazis. I don’t want to hear about Nazis anymore, I don’t want to think of them, I don’t want to read about them. Nothing. Enough is enough. I didn’t come to Nürnberg for its Nazi history. I came to see the train. Yeah. I was told that the first train that ever ran is stationed here. A German friend told me and I am here to see it.

But Daniela says I should go to the Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds Museum. Wow, this is a long name for a museum. I tell Daniela that I’ve finished my chapter with Nazis, that for me it’s over. But she is not impressed. “You must go,” the Jewess orders me, shaking her head. “You must!”

Jewish women can get very tough. You better obey them.

That’s how I find myself listening to Göring testifying.

He is asked: Did you know about the mass murder of Jews?

No, he did not. The man had no clue. Didn’t see, didn’t hear. This is one of his last comments on earth, his last will and testament to the German nation. He didn’t know. Total news to him. Nobody told him. Nobody knew, especially him.

Like Daniela’s father.

Let me run out of this place!

To the DB museum, right now! Trains are better than Nazis.

Let me see the First Train Ever!

First train, says the DB man standing at the info desk of the DB museum, was in Manchester, in 1824. The first one in Germany was in 1835, and that one was the world’s fifth. In this museum you can see a 1953 replica of a train built in 1935, which itself is a replica. The original was sold in parts in 1851 to a textile factory in Augsburg.

He says, he knows.

There you go. I came to Nürnberg for nothing.

But kill me, I am not leaving. I made the trip, am here already, so let me see trains. Original. Replicas. Whatever. Every ancient church in this country is also a replica. Big deal.

First things first: At the entrance to this museum there is a welcome sign, on shiny glass. The DB welcomes you. Me. In many languages, including two Semitic ones. The Welcome in Hebrew, interestingly, has three mistakes in it. This could be a Guinness record, I believe. Some of the letters don’t even belong here.

How could the DB make so many mistakes in one “Welcome”?!

Well, I’m the last one who should complain. I paid only 10 euros for my ticket to Nürnberg. The “Welcome” in Arabic, by the way, is well written. Not one mistake.

I guess Arab tourists buy the 75-euro tickets.