Second Violin Read Free Page A

had gathered speed, roared on from one target to the next, glancing off whatever was in
the way. Hummel and Beckermann’s grandson helped Hirschel board up his window.
    ‘Is there any point?’ Hirschel had said. ‘They’ll be back.’
    But a week had passed, a week in which many Jews had been robbed of all they possessed, some Jews had fled the city and some Jews had taken their own lives, but the mob had not returned.
    At first light on the morning of the 19th, a German infantryman banged on the doors all along the street with his rifle butt.
    Bemmelmann was first to answer.
    ‘You want a suit?’ he said blearily.
    ‘Don’t get comical with me grandad! How many people live here?’
    ‘Just me and my wife.’
    ‘Then get a bucket and a scrubbing brush and follow me.’
    Then he came up to Hummel, shadowed in the doorway of his shop. Hummel had not been able to sleep and was already dressed in his best black suit.
    ‘Going somewhere, were we?’
    Hummel said, ‘It’s the Sabbath.’
    ‘No – it’s just another Saturday. Get a bucket, follow me!’
    By the time he got back from the scullery every tailor in the street was standing with a bucket of water in his hand. Old men, and most of them were; not-so-young men, and Hummel was most
certainly the youngest at thirty-one; men in their best suits, pressed and pristine; men in their working suits, waistcoats shiny with pinheads, smeared with chalk; men with their trousers hastily
pulled on, and their nightshirts tucked into the waistband.
    The German lined them up like soldiers on parade. He strutted up and down in mock-inspection, smirking and grinning and then laughing irrepressibly.
    ‘What a shower, what a fuckin’ shower. The long and the short and the tall. The fat, the ugly and the kike! Left turn!’
    Most of the older men had seen service in one war or another and knew how to drill. Beckermann had even pinned his 1914–18 campaign medals to his coat as though trying to make a point.
Those that knew turned methodically. Those that didn’t bumped into one another, dropped buckets, spilt water and reduced the German to hysterics. Well, Hummel thought, at least he’s
laughing. Not punching, not kicking. Laughing.
    He led them to the end of the street, to a five-point crossroads, where the side streets met the main thoroughfare, Wilhelminastrasse. In the middle of the star was a long-parched water
fountain, topped by a statue of a long-forgotten eighteenth-century burgomaster. Someone had painted a toothbrush moustache on the statue – it was unfortunate that the burgomaster had been
represented in the first place with his right arm upraised – and around the base in red paint were the words ‘Hitler has a dinky dick!’
    ‘Right, you Jew-boys. Start scrubbin’!’
    They scrubbed.
    When they had finished the message was still more than faintly visible. Gloss paint did not scrub so well. And they’d none of them been able to reach the moustache.
    The tailors stood up, their knees wet, their trousers soggy.
    ‘We can scrub no more off,’ Hummel said as politely as he could.
    ‘Who said anything about any more scrubbin’?’ said the German.
    He took a dozen paces back and raised his rifle. Bemmelmann sagged against Hummel’s chest in a dead faint. Hummel heard the gentle hiss as Beckermann pissed himself. Heard Hirschel
muttering a prayer.
    But the rifle carried on upwards, drawing a bead on the statue’s head, then the crack as it fired and chips of stone showered down on Hummel. The second crack and the stone head split open
and two chunks of rock heavy enough to stove in a man’s skull bounced off the cobbles behind him and rolled away.
    ‘Right,’ said the German. ‘Pick your feet up Jew-boys. And follow me.’
    Hummel roused Bemmelmann.
    ‘Where am I?’ the old man said.
    ‘In hell,’ Hummel replied.

 
§ 7
    Hummel had no difficulty seeing himself and his neighbours as Vienna saw them from the early-morning doors and