When We Danced on Water (9 page)

This was the parallel Berlin she had sensed was still there, in the shadow of modern, cosmopolitan Berlin, the one she had felt haunted by from her first days in the city. The Berlin that coughed up Jews for the slaughter, the Berlin that harbored train stations to ship the unwanted to concentration camps, the Berlin that had been sectored off differently from the way it was now, between Jews and Aryans. But this parallel Berlin was visible only to those who searched her out with diligence.

Vivi stayed out longer and longer hours with Peter, often returning after dark, when Martin was already at home. “The dwarf again?” he asked when she blew in with the cold air late, later than he, for the third time that week. She was surprised to find him reading a newspaper instead of a textbook or medical journal. Something was bubbling on the stove.

“Peter, yes,” she said, removing her coat and hat and gloves and scarf, scattering them as she moved quickly around the room. “Today we went out to the prison at Spandau, where they're keeping Rudolf Hess. Peter told me the whole inside story. Fascinating.”

“I'm so glad you've found both an occupation for yourself and a friend to share your days with,” he said with a sarcastic lilt, his voice growing louder as he spoke. “Why not bring this Peter home for a meal sometime?” He glanced over his newspaper to catch her reaction.

“I'd love to, but he won't come,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. She had suggested dinner at their place on several occasions to Peter, but he changed the subject each time.

Vivi lifted the lid of the pot on the stove. Chili, the only dish Martin could make with constant success. “Martin, did you know that Hess is the only prisoner left in Spandau, in that whole huge complex?”

“Frankly no and I don't care. Why are you so obsessed with all our ugliest characters, and that damned hideous wall? If I'd studied in Hamburg or Heidelberg, you could have become obsessed with window boxes or wooden chalets, but here it's always Berlin at her worst, doom and gloom.” Vivi, leaning on the stove, could feel the chili steaming her back, a warm current rising up her spine to the nape of her neck. Martin rose and came close but did not touch her. He was waiting for an answer but she did not know what the question was.

On a Friday morning in February Vivi and Peter met in a pleasant square not far from the southwest corner of the wall. The sky was a dark and threatening gray, but the weather was a bit warmer than usual and there was no hint of a flurry or even a drop of rain. Vivi was wearing a new cloth coat she had bought with her dwindling savings, bright red and heavy and marvelously warm. She wore a small black knitted cap, her ears tucked inside. Peter wore his usual tiny blue parka.

“This is Rosengartenplatz,” he told her. “I've been saving it until you were ready.”

“Ready for what?” she asked.

“Ready to handle it.” She did not ask what he meant and he stared up into her face for a long moment before continuing.

“A long time ago, probably two hundred and fifty years or so, a Jewish family lived on the top floor of that building.” He was pointing to a narrow, well-preserved structure five stories high with a steep, tiled roof. “Burchardt was the name, he'd made his fortune in shipping on the Baltic and came to Berlin to set up a bank. He had a beautiful daughter, Mathilde, who studied piano and voice in that building over there, right across the piazza, with a German called Franz Huber. He raped her, that Franz Huber the music teacher, and she never set foot in his building again. She lay at home, despondent, and the family did not know what to do for her. There was no going to the authorities, this was still pre-Enlightenment Germany. Then, some months later, she was discovered to be with child. The despondency of this beautiful, talented young woman grew worse by the day so that a short while after giving birth, in fact in the first moment she was alone, she dragged herself to the window and threw herself into the street. And her father, agonizing over his daughter's death and unable to tolerate this unwanted child, took the newborn baby and threw it over the wall of a small church that stood over there”—he pointed to an ugly postwar apartment building—“but which burned down some years later.

“A woman passing by spotted him and set up a cry, ‘Baby killers, the Jews are baby killers, they killed our Lord Jesus and now they need more blood!' You know, all the usual. And in minutes an angry mob had gathered, and someone brought the dead baby from the church garden and then all mayhem broke out. The rest of the Burchardt family was dragged into the street and stoned and clubbed by the mob, until all of them—Burchardt and his wife, the wife's sister, and their other two children—all lay dead. Then people simmered down and went home to their families, to a hot meal and a warm bed.” Peter was shaking his head. Vivi was numb, her breathing shallow; she felt herself to be on the edge of life, floating precariously.

“But that's not all. During World War Two a Jewish family by the name of Simon lived in the same apartment. The father was a doctor, he had a clinic on the ground floor and he was known as a compassionate and generous man. He took impressive sums from his richer clients and used them to cover free treatment for the poor of the neighborhood, who knew they could always pay him a visit if they really needed to.

“Dr. Simon didn't read the signs, or maybe it was his wife and mother-in-law who were certain no harm would come to them and preferred to ride out the Nazi storm. In any case, they stayed, through 1939 and 1940. They stayed through 1941, when they were made to wear the Star of David, and through 1942, when their home was marked as belonging to Jews. Then in June 1943, just before the very last Jews were deported from Berlin, Dr. Simon tried to arrange hiding places for his family with former patients of his. He approached this one and that, rich and poor, and not a one would help him. Maybe they were unfeeling or cruel, maybe they were just frightened of the consequences, I can't tell you. But at night on the ninth of June, as Dr. Simon and his wife and mother-in-law sat down to dinner, the Gestapo pounded on the door. They ordered the doctor and his wife downstairs, into the street. When they were standing directly in front of their building a signal was given and the old mother-in-law was tossed headfirst from the window, landing precisely on her son-in-law and killing him. A Nazi shot Mrs. Simon in the neck just as she began to scream. The three bodies were carted away the next morning.”

The day ended quickly for Vivi. She staggered homeward as though she had been delivered a hard blow. The pavement seemed to hang on a tilt and she could not regain her bearings. Each footfall was treacherous, as if she were stepping on writhing body parts or pools of blood. She walked the wrong way and wound up in an unfamiliar neighborhood. A woman hanging laundry on the upper floor of a five-story walk-up seemed to be calling her. Vivi listened more closely.

Swine
.
Murderer
.
Anti-Christ
. Was she hearing her correctly?
Vermin
.
Blackmailer
.
Jew
. Was she really raining down these words on her, pelting Vivi with verbal rocks? She began to run, turning away from the laundry woman at the first corner, and knocked down an elderly man with glasses. She stopped to help him up, apologizing and gathering his groceries. The old man said nothing while Vivi blabbed as best she could in German.
Jew?
she thought she heard him ask quietly. Vivi ran until the streets looked familiar. Here was the greengrocer, and there the man who sold her newspapers. She began to run again, afraid she might hear words she could not bear to hear from them. She burst into a shop just around the corner from home, bought some supplies and headed home.

Two hours later, when Martin came home from the university, he found his apartment transformed. The lights were dimmed and two tall candles glimmered at the center of the makeshift table. The table was set for two, as elegantly as Vivi had been able to muster, and several pots and pans sat simmering on the stove. Vivi stood stooped in a corner of the room, her back to Martin. She was swaying and mumbling.

Martin said nothing, but crept up behind her. In her hands he could see a prayer book. He stood to her side and for several minutes watched her pray the Sabbath prayers, her eyes closed to him and all the world. The words were a constant hum, indecipherable one from the other, but melodious. Finally Martin turned and went to wash up, splashing warm water on his face and neck.

At dinner he tried to be sympathetic, ask about her day, thank her for the lovely Sabbath meal. She was dispassionate. She looked at him like a stranger who had wandered in uninvited from the street, though they both knew the reality was that she, in fact, was the guest. After dinner she picked a fight.

“Am I here because of your guilt?” she asked him, two plates balanced midair.

“What guilt is that?” he asked, guilelessly.

“Germans and Jews, Germans and Jews, centuries of Germans and Jews.” She was mumbling, but Martin could hear every word.

“I thought perhaps you meant last Passover. Jail.”

Vivi stopped mumbling. “That'll do, too. Are you guilty? Do you feel bad that I am dead to my family, that I ran away from them for you? That my commanding officer thought I'd betrayed my country for you?” Martin backed away as though he feared she might hurl the plates if she got any more worked up. Were those flames dancing in Vivi's eyes, or merely a reflection of the candles?

“I thought we had something special, Vivi,” he said, weighing his words carefully, “something that transcended our peoples and our histories. But this city's done something to you. The memories, the history, they're too much for you.”

She cocked her head and stared into his eyes until he looked away.

Quietly she put the dishes in the sink and slipped into her red coat. Martin did not say a word. She left the warm flat and wandered the streets for hours singing Sabbath songs to herself, mumbling prayers, reciting psalms. She walked in circles and reached the wall several times without intending to. She passed a busy beer garden where dozens of red-faced men sat noisily drinking. They called to her, they dared reach their hairy paws toward her, she who was deep inside the Sabbath behind a shimmering veil. They did not know she was untouchable, protected.
Liebchen
, they called.
Baby
, they crooned. She sang her Sabbath melodies louder, warmed herself in their fire.

It was nearly three o'clock in the morning when she returned to the flat. Martin was sleeping soundly when she lay down next to him on the mattress, next to him but apart. She thought about his hands, his shoulders, his uncircumcised penis and turned her back to him.

At precisely seven o'clock, before the sun had risen, a blackbird landed on the windowsill and Vivi snapped awake with the cold and certain knowledge that a baby was growing inside her.

That day she had no desire to walk. Her head was clear, her legs were tired, and she was afraid of the cold. But she did not wish to stay at home with Martin.

He would be on duty at the hospital that afternoon and the next, he told her, but offered to make them a big brunch in the morning. They ate eggs and toast and potatoes and read the newspaper. Martin did not ask when Vivi had returned. He was relieved to find her subdued but sane.

By Sunday, Vivi had her answers, knew her plan. Later that morning, when Martin had settled in for some studying before leaving for the hospital, Vivi left home and walked three blocks to a large cinema. She spent the afternoon and most of the evening watching one film after the next: martial arts and Westerns and science fiction and adventure movies, until her eyes glazed and her head pounded. When she was thoroughly exhausted she took herself home, walking in a roundabout way just to clear her head. She lay silently in bed feigning sleep by the time Martin straggled in smelling of beer and cigarettes.

On Monday morning Vivi was waiting at the Lufthansa office when it opened. She bought a one-way ticket to Tel Aviv for Friday before dawn. Next she found Peter. “I need your help,” she told him. Together they boarded a train and headed for a clinic in Zehlendorf. She lied when asked about having been tested. By afternoon her relief was so great that she would have floated all the way home had she not been weak and in pain. Peter helped her home, got her settled in bed and departed silently before Martin returned.

Vivi convalesced quickly, her mind running ahead to the packing—which would be little more than cramming all her belongings into any suitcase available—and to when and how she would tell Martin she was leaving. But no moment presented itself that week and so, with a taxi waiting downstairs, Vivi awakened Martin very late on Thursday, in the small hours that had in fact pushed the day to Friday, and, buttoned into her red coat, suitcase in hand, she said a hasty good-bye. Martin did not even stand from the bed as she left the flat, but she did see him step out shirtless into the cold night air on the verandah as the driver hurried her away.

It was an hour and a half before Sabbath by the time she passed through Israeli customs. Vivi reckoned the taxi would put her at her parents' doorstep just as her mother was lighting the Sabbath candles. It would take her mother and father more than a few days to forgive her, but she had no doubt they would be enormously, deeply relieved to have her home.

Chapter 15

I
n Copenhagen Teodor settled in quickly, studying at the school of the Royal Danish Ballet and living with the Sonnenfelds, a family of Danish Jews whose prize possession, which hung at the entrance to their apartment, was a letter dated 1672 signed by King Christian V inviting a hallowed ancestor of theirs to settle and engage in trade in the Danish capital. Teodor shared a room with Peter, a year older than he, and six-year-old Bent, but he preferred the company of Peter's twin sister, Sofie. Their house at Danas Plads in Frederiksberg, a half-hour walk from the ballet school, was a cozy mess, a noisy, happy riot most hours of the day. It took Teodor no longer than a week, probably less, to feel absolutely comfortable and welcome, even without a common language. The children taught him Danish, played games with him, helped him with homework. He did chores and occasionally ran errands for Mrs. Sonnenfeld, but mostly he spent long days into the evening at the school. Still, he always managed to join the family on Friday nights, first in the synagogue and then around the table for a festive meal. The Sonnenfelds were more observant of Jewish customs than his own family, and he enjoyed their sense of fun and excitement about being Jewish.

In those days the school of the Royal Danish Ballet preferred to pay little attention to the scholastic successes and failures of its pupils; if they could dance they could stay, if they stayed they would graduate to the level of
Aspiranter
, then to the corps de ballet, and once in the corps would probably stay for life. The ballet, and therefore the school, needed dancers, not intellectuals. Teodor studied Danish with a private tutor while his peers learned a bit of history and literature, math and science.

But since the major part of the day was spent in the dance studio, Teodor was just one among many. They had a pas de deux class, repertoire class and character class, but most of their time was spent in the Bournonville Daily Class. He had been warned his style would be different, he would have to learn and adapt to the Danish style, but he was surprised at how limited, how clipped it made him feel. Where Madame Valentina had taught him the long flow of lines, the expressive arm work, the powerful leaping jumps, here in Copenhagen his teachers hounded him on minutiae. “Once again, Mr. Levin, sixteen bars. Keep the arms down at your sides, it's the toes we need to notice.” “Mr. Levin, spin with your head straight, as if it were merely the star on a Christmas tree.” “Try, if you possibly can, Mr. Levin, to dance that without looking like a Russian soldier in battle.”

Those first months at school were trying, especially on days when the entire school rehearsed according to the Bournonville system developed more than a century earlier. They had been learning it from the age of seven and knew every plié and sissonne battue and grande pirouette in its proper sequence, could start in the middle of Tuesday's lesson or at the end of Thursday's lesson without giving it a thought. It took Teodor long weeks and months to catch on. He followed along lesson after lesson, dazed and frustrated, until finally in January, after the brief Christmas holidays, he made it through a Monday lesson without a single fault. The dance mistress took note, and gave him a nod and a wink after the final tour en l'air.

After that, Teodor seemed to catch on to everything. Bournonville, pantomime lessons, making friends, the Danish language. He danced with joy and sparkle, he pushed himself, he enjoyed. The younger students looked up to him, the older ones included him in their activities, the staff felt he was making tremendous progress.

He stayed on in Denmark through the summer, unwilling to return to Poland. Rosa and Margot came to Copenhagen for a two-week holiday in August, but Teodor was often short-tempered and impatient with his mother and sister and the trip was difficult for them all. More than anything Teodor was anxious for school to resume. At the end of this school year, which would be his last, he would have the opportunity to audition for a position in the company, and he was terribly eager to stay.

In May of his second year in Copenhagen it was announced that the entire ballet company had been invited to perform a ballet from the Bournonville repertoire,
The Konservatoriet, or A Proposal of Marriage Through the Newspaper
, at a gala evening at the Berlin Staatsoper on the first night of September 1939. Students in the ballet school could audition for one of four roles, those of two boys and two girls enrolled in the ballet school of the Paris Conservatory and shown participating in a lesson. Teodor won a role by emulating flawlessly the Bournonville style with high, straight leaps and fluttering toes. A boy named Niels was selected for the other boy's role.

Considerable debate ensued in the press about sending the Danish troupe to Berlin. Hitler's Anschluss with Austria and the annexation of the Sudeten and then the whole of Czechoslovakia were noted with worry in Denmark, Germany's close northern neighbor, and the Danish public was repulsed by the racial laws enacted there years earlier. But the Danish ballet master, in radio and newspaper interviews, stressed the apolitical, bridge-building nature of art, especially in the atmosphere of growing European belligerence, as well as the importance of bringing a thoroughly Danish ballet to the German capital, and so the public was appeased and rehearsals continued.

The dancers, for the most part, were absorbed in the perfect, stylized beauty of their ballet and paid little attention to the mounting tension around them. Teodor in particular was too excited about having landed his first role to consider the implications. But the Sonnenfeld parents would not let it go by so easily.

At dinner one evening Henrik Sonnenfeld said, “Teodor, Dina and I have been discussing this and we don't think you should travel with the troupe to Berlin.”

Teodor stopped chewing and placed his fork on the plate.

“We are responsible for you, Teodor, and entering the Reich could be dangerous.”

“I'll be traveling with the Danish ballet, I'll be perfectly safe,” he said, as evenly as he could muster.

Now Henrik returned his fork to his plate.

“Teodor, German Jews have been leaving their homeland in a steady flow for years, especially now. You've seen how many have come to Denmark, the synagogue hasn't been this full for years. It's simply not safe for you. We've written to your parents on this matter and will act according to their wishes.”

Teodor pouted but at the same time started to form a plan of action. Indeed his parents wrote back immediately with a plea for him to remain in Copenhagen, but before their letter arrived Teodor spoke with the ballet master. He was willing to assume full responsibility for Teodor's safety. Teodor, with the ballet master's backing, fought the Sonnenfelds and his parents for many weeks and continued attending rehearsals until it was simply too late for him to withdraw. He was immensely pleased at the fait accompli he had staged, relieved that he would, in fact, be performing with the company.

The Konservatoriet
, an 1849 vaudeville-ballet in two acts, was a nostalgic look at Bournonville's own student days in Paris. The costumes and sets paid homage to Degas, the style graciously elegant with a touch of silly humor. Teodor loved the short white jacket and floppy black neck bow that were his costume, and was thankful he would be dancing in plain tights allowing freedom of movement. Much of his time on stage was spent loafing tastefully near the tall curtained windows or lifting one of the girls for low leaps. He also had a short mirror dance with Niels, in which they did some typically strong, low Bournonville leaps, and a pas de deux with a girl his age. And then there was his solo.

Barely three minutes long, it meant everything to Teodor and he worked on it incessantly. He understood the role as an audition of sorts, a young Parisian boy hoping desperately to impress the ballet master enough to give him a chance to join the corps de ballet, and the lesson for himself and his own career was not lost on him. The choreography, flashy for Bournonville, was still controlled and stylized. Dancing it was a matter of technical expertise, not emotion, so Teodor spent his time refining his tendu, sharpening the point of his toes, pulling his tailbone under his pelvis. He watched the mirror for perfectly curved fingers, the angle of the head, chest up but not thrust forward. Even his face he shaped into a look of courtly disdain.

In spite of all he had heard about Germany, Teodor could not help but feel excited as the Danish bus roared off the ferry onto the soil of a country he had never visited, his second, third if you counted a short field trip across the Oresund to Malmö to catch a performance of the Royal Swedish Ballet. The dancers were abuzz as they passed through pastures and forests and into Berlin by nightfall.

The Adlon Hotel was a short walk to the Staatsoper and the troupe was too impatient to wait for a tour in the morning. En masse they flowed to the theater. Technicians working late to prepare the stage with sets shipped earlier were hard at work, clearly pleased to host the young and attractive Danish troupe. Several husky workers stopped their hammering to engage the ballerinas in conversation.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday the troupe was engaged in final rehearsals from morning to night. Thanks to heavy promotion by the Nazi party the dancers learned that the performance had been sold out for at least a month. They worked harder than ever to smooth out every flaw, even the tiniest. The ballet master was unusually testy and the flight of weeping ballerinas in a rush to a quiet corner or the dressing room became more and more common with each passing day.

On Friday morning the troupe stretched, did a straight run-through with the full orchestra and conductor, and retired to the hotel for a light meal and some sleep. In Teodor's room, which he shared with Niels and with Lars, a member of the corps, there was too much excitement for slumber.

The troupe met in the hotel lobby at six and walked the three long blocks to the theater down the Unter den Linden. On the way Teodor spotted a small sign nailed to a tree that he had not noticed before, even though they had walked this way several times already. He thought he understood its meaning, but for confirmation he asked his dance partner—who read German well, thanks to her Austrian mother—to translate it. “The Unter den Linden,” she intoned, “is forbidden to Jews.” They stared at the sign while the troupe flowed past them. Finally she grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the theater. “Forget it,” she said, “the Germans are idiots.” She kept her arm linked with his as they walked on. “Don't think about it. You've got a debut to worry about now.” He was grateful for her arm and her smile, but was disturbed nonetheless.

At the Staatsoper the troupe limbered, applied makeup, dressed, peered through the curtains at the gathering audience. Every chandelier was lit. Teodor was quieter than the other dancers, pensive. He was thinking his dance through, his feet and hands twitching with movement, though sometimes he turned a pirouette much as a person alone might be talking to himself when suddenly, to his own surprise, he will say something out loud.

At five minutes to eight the dancers took their places. The audience was in place and precisely at eight the lights dimmed and the crowd fell silent.

A tall blond man in uniform pushed past Teodor, parted the curtain and disappeared into the lights. The dancers could hear his voice, slightly muffled, as he addressed the audience. “
Damen und Herrn
, good evening. As vice-minister of culture for the Third Reich I am pleased to welcome you tonight to an historic performance by our northern neighbors, whose long tradition of superb ballet is a source of pride not only to their own nation but to the Aryan races of every nation.” Most of the troupe could understand the speech and several of the dancers smiled at one another at the minister's praise. Teodor's German was quite good enough to take offense.

“I am also here tonight in place of our beloved Führer, who planned to enjoy this performance but who was called away on urgent state business. He has asked me to inform you, his dearest and most beloved subjects, that today the Army of the Third Reich staged a major retaliation against our belligerent neighbor to the east, Poland, which was carried out to great success and with lightning speed and agility. We can expect our troops to reach Warsaw by the end of the week.”

A burst of spontaneous applause exploded through the heavy curtain to the dancers. Now no one looked pleased, and several glanced toward Teodor. Teodor himself stood stunned, his mouth open and his head tilted slightly backward, his eyes focused on the top of the curtain where it met rows and rows of colored lights. But before he could think to react, the minister of culture was taking his leave.

“Let us now celebrate this momentous day with a lovely performance by our Danish friends. Please welcome the Royal Danish Ballet, in
The Konservatoriet
!”

The curtain rose and Teodor gathered himself quickly into position. He could see the ballet master in the wings, a wistful grin of sympathy on his lips. He put his hands together as if in prayer, but Teodor did not know whether the ballet master was wishing him a successful dance or safety for his family.

At first it was hard for Teodor to focus on the ballet and indeed the entire troupe took a few minutes to recover from the news. But the orchestra was outstanding, and the audience, exuding excitement, was supportive and uncritical, so the troupe warmed quickly and left the world behind.

Teodor jumped into position, moved away from the wall to lift a girl, then glided back to his spot. He sailed through his pas de deux with Niels in perfect synchronization, the best they had ever danced it. They smiled exuberantly at one another at its conclusion.

His partner was dancing her short solo now, and Teodor prepared to step into the spotlight once again, first to partner her and then for his own solo. He thought briefly of tanks and troops roaring over bridges on the Vistula River and then pushed these visions from his head. He stepped forward.