Second Violin Read Free Page B

windows, in the eyes of women shaking tablecloths and in the eyes
of unshaven men still munching on their breakfast roll, clutching their first cup of coffee. A raggle-taggle bunch of damp and dusty Jewish tailors led by a bantam-cock of a soldier, strutting
while they straggled – a recognisably barmy army. Every so often the German would try to kick a little higher, but, clearly, the goose step was not as easy as it looked and needed more
practice than the man had given it, and was all but impossible whilst turning around every couple of minutes to urge on his charges. It might have been better to herd them like pigs or cattle, but
Hummel could see the thrill of leadership in the way the man stuck out his chest and kicked out his legs. He’d probably never led anything in his life before. He shouted, they shuffled. Down
to the river, across the Aspern Bridge, along Franz Josef’s Kai and into the ancient heart of Vienna.
    The German yelled ‘Halt’.
    Hummel was wondering why he could not just yell ‘stop’ – as though there was any particular military relevance to a word like ‘halt’ – when he realised where
they were. Outside the Ruprechtskirche. Probably the oldest church in the city – some said it had stood twelve hundred years already. It was a small church. A simple, almost plain exterior.
Not a touch of grandiosity in its conception or its accretions. What desecration now? Of course, the final desecration would be if this idiot, this tinpot Boney at the front, were to marshal them
inside. Hummel had never been in this or any other Christian church.
    A crowd had their backs to them. The German parted a way with his rifle and Hummel found himself on his knees once more, his bucket and brush set down before him, facing a large bright blue
letter ‘H’. Beckermann plumped down next to him, the bucket obscuring the letter. Hummel looked to his left wanting, for reasons that were inaccessible to him, to know what word he was
obliterating now. The man next to him was hunched over, scrubbing vigorously, the letter already half-erased. Hummel knew him. He could not see his face, but he knew him. He looked at the blue
wide-pinstripe of the man’s back, and he knew the suit. He had made it himself not two months ago for a young violinist named Turli Cantor.
    Cantor did not turn. Hummel dunked the brush, gazed outward at the mob and bent his head to scrub. They had an audience – a crowd of onlookers who seemed to Hummel to be neither gloating
nor commiserating. He had heard that the mobs could be as vicious as the SA, jeering and kicking as rabbis were dragged from their homes to clean public lavatories. This lot showed no inclination.
They were watching with the casual half-attention of a crowd watching a street entertainer who they found just distracting enough to pause for, but who would be off the minute the hat was passed.
So that was what they were? Street entertainment. The Famous Scrubbing Jews of Vienna. Roll up, roll up and watch the kikes on their knees on the steps of a Christian church. He looked again. They
were blank, expressionless faces. Perhaps they had no more wish to be there than he had himself. The troops standing between the Jews and the mob weren’t ordinary soldiers like the one who
had led him here. They were black-uniformed, jackbooted German SS.
    Hummel was making good progress with his ‘H’ when he felt a change in the mood of the mob. He risked an upward glance. The SS were all standing stiffly upright – perhaps this
was what was meant by ‘at attention’? – and the crowd had parted to let through an officer in black and silver.
    From his left he heard Cantor whisper, ‘My God. Wolfgang Stahl!’
    For the first time his eyes met Cantor’s. ‘I have known Wolf all my life,’ Cantor said, his voice beginning to rise above a whisper, ‘Surely he will save us?’
    Cantor stood, clumsily, one foot all but slipping from under him on the wet stone flag and