The Berlin Boxing Club Read online

  “Welcome to the club,” Gertz said to the four new boys. “Thanks, Piss Boy,” he said to me as they all filed out.

  That was the last time I ever used a bathroom at school.

  Barely Floating

  BY DECEMBER IT HAD BEEN SIX MONTHS SINCE THE barter. From stories in the newspaper I knew Max had been back in Berlin for several weeks. When I saw yet another gossip-page photo of Max and Anny emerging from a movie theater just a few blocks from our apartment, I realized he was never coming for me. And my hero worship turned to pure bitterness. I continued my training regimen, but now I was motivated by anger. That morning, as I dug into the coal pile, I imagined flinging each shovelful right at him. I resolved to find another teacher and become a great fighter despite Max. In my most exaggerated fantasy, I imagined myself becoming a heavyweight contender and defeating Schmeling himself, with my long arms snapping off a series of rapid-fire punches. “Remember me, Max?” I’d say, standing over his prone bloody body. “Next time, maybe you’ll honor your bargains.” And I’d strip his European Champion’s belt from around his waist and hoist it high over my head to thunderous applause. Of course, to make the fantasy complete, Greta Hauser would be sitting ringside in a tight sweater, waiting to press her body against mine.

  In late February we could no longer afford to pay Frau Kressel. The news of her departure sent Hildy into a fit of crying. My mother took the news even harder. On the day she was leaving, my mother retreated to the bathroom to soak in a hot tub and would not come out.

  My father was at the gallery when Frau Kressel came to say good-bye to me and my sister. She wore her big overcoat and a kerchief tied over her head. Hildy clung to her as if she wouldn’t let go.

  “Listen to me,” Frau Kressel said. “You both need to be good children for me. Ja? Karl, you are a man now, so you must look after your sister and your mother.”

  I nodded, but in truth at that moment I felt like a little baby. I envied Hildy that she was able to curl up in Frau Kressel’s arms and cry.

  “Be patient with your mother. She has a hard time, but she loves you. You are both good children. You will be fine.”

  Neither of us replied. Both of us were thinking: No. We will not be fine! How will we get along? Who will cook for us? Who will bandage our cuts and scrapes? Who will run the house?

  She gave Hildy one final hug, and then she hugged me and kissed me on both of my cheeks and on my forehead. Then she picked up her small suitcase and walked out of our apartment. Hildy and I stood in the silence for a moment as if hoping Frau Kressel would walk back in, but she didn’t.

  Whenever my mother retreated to the bath, my father instructed us to carefully monitor her to make sure she didn’t fall asleep. So every ten minutes or so one of us would knock on the door to make sure she was still awake, and she’d reply with a faint ja.

  On the stove Frau Kressel had left a large platter of Knödel covered with a white dish towel, along with a small bowl of thick brown gravy. She knew the potato dumplings were our favorite of her Bavarian recipes. She mixed just a touch of grated hard cheese with the mashed potatoes before shaping them into the dumplings and dropping them into the boiling water. The cheese added a little sharpness to the smooth, buttery potato. Hildy and I helped ourselves to plates and ate in silence. The dumplings were so smooth and creamy, you barely needed to chew them. But that night the flavor seemed dull and flat, and we both ate without any pleasure.

  After finishing dinner, I cleared the dishes while Hildy went to check on our mother again. She knocked on the bathroom door, but there was no reply.

  “Mama! Mama!” she called, but there was still no answer.

  “Karl!” she shouted.

  I ran down the hall and knocked again.

  “Mama!” I called.

  Hildy’s eyes met mine, and I reached for the doorknob. Steam filled the bathroom, and as Hildy and I stepped inside the damp, warm space, we saw our mother lying in the tub, her face just barely floating above the waterline with her eyes closed. It shocked me to see her small, round breasts floating up and breaking the surface of the water, her light brown hair gently swirling around her neck and chest in slow motion like sea plants at the bottom of the ocean.

  “Mama!” Hildy cried, and ran over to shake her.

  Under the weight of Hildy’s touch, our mother’s face submerged under the water for just a moment, and she choked and gasped as water went up her nose. Her eyes fluttered open. I ran over and pushed her into a sitting position.

  “Mama, wake up!” I said.

  She mumbled an inaudible reply.

  “Come on, let’s get her out of there,” I said.

  I took her by the hands and was surprised at their cold whiteness. Trying my best to avoid looking at her naked body, I hoisted her out of the tub.

  “Get a towel,” I commanded Hildy.

  Hildy wrapped the towel around Mama’s shoulders, the water dripping all over the floor and onto us both as we struggled to dry her off and get her into her robe. As we led her back toward her room, Mama was half awake and swayed from side to side down the hall like a sleepwalker. It was all I could do to keep her balanced on my shoulder. We finally got her into bed and tucked her under the covers. The skin of her hands was swollen and pruned and reminded me of the frogs preserved in formaldehyde we used in science class.

  Once she was in bed, her eyes closed, and she seemed to drift off to sleep. Just as we were finishing tucking her beneath the blankets, I heard our father enter the apartment’s entryway.

  “Hallo?” he called.

  Hildy and I came out to meet him, both of us dripping wet.

  “What is this? You’re getting water all over the floor.”

  Hildy started crying.

  “What is it?”

  “Mama fell asleep in the bathtub, and we had to get her out,” I said.

  “Verdammt,” he cursed under his breath.

  He strode down the hall and entered their bedroom and closed the door. He emerged a few minutes later and returned to the kitchen.

  “Hildegard, make your mother some tea. Karl, come with me.”

  He walked to his small office off the living room and opened his briefcase. He unzipped its hidden compartment and removed a package wrapped in brown paper tied with twine. He placed them on the table.

  “I have a delivery to make tonight. And since I have to look after your mother, you’re going to have to make it for me.”

  The Countess

  I HAD NEVER MADE A DELIVERY FOR MY FATHER BEFORE. Every week he and my mother printed material for private clients on the old press at the gallery; I knew these pages didn’t have anything to do with gallery business. They always kept the contents secret from Hildy and me. They’d wrap the pages in brown paper and deliver them around the city at odd hours. I never knew who any of their customers were. And they were always careful to conceal their deliveries beneath other things in case the police stopped them. Papa’s briefcase had a secret zippered compartment along one of the sidewalls, and my mother hid her deliveries in a grocery bag under some pieces of fruit and a box or two of dry crackers. As the deliveries became more frequent and more secretive, my curiosity intensified. Now I would finally get a peek inside this secret world.

  No matter who they were, I knew we were lucky to have the printing customers, because business at the gallery had all but dried up. My father had not staged an opening since Hartzel’s and had only been dealing with private clients looking to buy and sell specific pieces. Most of his customers were Jews looking to liquidate their art collections to raise money to leave the country and bargain-hunting collectors looking to take advantage of that desperate market.

  My father handed me the package, which appeared to be a simple sheaf of papers, maybe a hundred sheets at most. I measured the weight in my hands as if it might give me a clue as to what was printed on them. My father helped me load the package into my rucksack, concealing it beneath a stack of schoolbooks and papers.


  “Go to Fourteen Budapesterstrasse,” my father in-structed. “Ring apartment number three and ask for the Countess.”

  My mind came alive at the memory of the torn flyer with the suggestive message I had found in the gallery basement. Would I actually get to meet this mystery woman?

  “The countess of what?”

  “Just the Countess.”

  “What if she’s not there?”

  “Walk around the block a couple of times and try again. But she’ll be there. The Countess rarely goes out. And she’s expecting the delivery.”

  “What if I get stopped? What if the police want to see what’s in the bag?”

  “They won’t.”

  “But what if they do?

  “Tell them you’re making a delivery for someone who approached you at the train station. He just gave you a few marks to make the delivery.”

  “What’s in the package?”

  “It’s better that you don’t know. If you get stopped, you’ll not have to lie as much.”

  “But what if—”

  “Karl.” He cut me off. “Just do as I say. Now, when you get there, don’t ask questions or stare at anybody for too long. Just drop off the package and go.”

  I hefted the rucksack onto my back and headed out. Once out on the streets, I carefully glanced about to make sure no one watched or followed me. A strange electric feeling coursed through me at being part of a covert mission. Most of the people out at that hour were commuters coming home, newsboys selling the evening editions of the paper, and a few fruit vendors trying to unload their last few apples and pears. I stiffened as I passed a pair of police officers, but they didn’t give me a glance.

  As I walked toward the Budapesterstrasse, the sky turned from the dull yellow of the winter sunset to the gray-blue of early evening. The air was cold, and I tried to blow rings with the steam that huffed out of my mouth as if I were smoking a cigarette in a spy movie.

  The package wasn’t heavy, but it weighed on my back as if I were carrying a living, breathing organism that was calling out to me, “Just open me up and take a look. I won’t bite.” My mind danced with possibilities. Perhaps my father was working with a monarchist resistance movement led by a rich countess, and he was supplying them with arms and ammunition and this was a catalog of his latest line of weapons. Or maybe the Countess was an underworld figure like a character from a Jimmy Cagney gangster movie, and the papers were some sort of numbers racket or a price list of illegal narcotics.

  Most likely the Countess was just another art collector and the papers contained images of banned paintings or sculptures my father was trying to sell. Even that scenario had an air of danger and excitement to it. My father was a black marketeer, living outside the law, and now I was to be a cog in his underworld operation. But why would the Countess not come to the gallery or the house like other collectors?

  The package continued to squirm and call out to me until the temptation became too great. I furtively ducked into an alley behind some garbage cans and ripped open the rucksack. My fingers twitched as I slowly peeled open the tape that sealed the brown paper wrapping, careful not to cause any rips and keep the tape unfolded and flat, so I could reseal it. The first couple of pages were blank, but when I lifted them off, I caught an image that took me completely by surprise. It was a simple illustration of two people dancing. What made the image so strange was that both of the people were men with slicked-back hair, wearing tuxedos. The caption above the image read:

  THE COUNTESS PRESENTS ANOTHER PRIVATE WINTER BALL FOR THE BEAUTIFUL BOYS OF BERLIN

  Printed beneath the image of the men dancing were a date, a time, and an address, with instructions to “Knock three times, pause, and then knock four more to gain entry to paradise. If you forget the knock, you can forget the ball, boys!”

  My throat went dry, and a deep knot of nausea formed in my stomach. My father was not running guns or in league with exciting criminals like in a Jimmy Cagney movie. He was somehow in league with homosexuals. It was risky enough being Jewish, but associating with homosexuals would put us at an even greater risk. Even Jews didn’t like homosexuals. It was the one thing everyone seemed to agree on.

  I felt the strongest urge to throw the pages into the trash and walk away and let my father and the homosexuals deal with the consequences. But I knew we needed money. I carefully resealed the package and returned it to my rucksack and made my way to the Countess’s apartment building.

  When I rang the bell, a strange voice called from inside: “Just a minute, love.”

  A few minutes later the door opened to reveal the Countess, a tall woman approximately my mother’s age, with striking blue eyes and platinum blond hair tucked under a fancy turban. She wore a long dressing gown made of white fabric with a strange blue and black geometric pattern running up and down the front that looked vaguely Egyptian. I followed the pattern down to the bottoms of her legs, which were sheathed in fishnet stockings. Her rather large feet were sandwiched into gold high-heeled sandals.

  “Ja?” she said.

  “I have a delivery for the Countess.”

  “I am she. Come in, come in.”

  She beckoned me inside, and I stepped into the dimly lit hallway. A strange smell—heavy, sweet, and smoky—caught my nose..

  “Oh, how lovely, Sig finally sent a delivery boy,” she purred. That’s when I saw the Adam’s apple bobbing in her throat and the faintest outline of five-o’clock shadow beneath a layer of makeup. Then I noticed a few stray chest hairs on the otherwise smooth skin.

  I did my best to conceal my shock and quickly removed the package from my school bag and handed it to the Countess. He reached inside the top of his dressing gown and pulled out a roll of bills that was somehow tucked inside. I accepted the bills, which to my distress were warm and slightly moist. I turned to exit, wanting to flee as fast as possible.

  “Wait a minute,” the Countess said. I considered ignoring him—or her? What were you supposed to call those people? But then he placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “Are you Karl?”

  I froze. How did this person know my name? He turned me around.

  “Yes!” he said. “You must be.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “The Countess knows all, mein Liebster.”

  He touched the bottom of my chin, assessing my face. His manner had lost all pretense of flirtation, and he seemed to be examining me with sincere interest, almost affection.

  “You don’t look much like your father, but I can see a little bit of his expression in your face.”

  I subtly jerked my head aside.

  “How do you know my father?” I asked impulsively. Part of me dreaded hearing the answer.

  “Ah, Sig and I go way back, dear. He’s never mentioned me?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he is a secretive man in many ways, I suppose. And a great man, but don’t tell him I said that. Wouldn’t want to swell his head. You can tell him I said that his son was a very impressive young man.”

  He touched my cheek again, and I instinctively jerked away from the caress. I had no intention of telling my father any such thing.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  A young man with short blond hair appeared at the other end of the hall. He wore a knee-length bathrobe and appeared to have nothing on underneath. He held up a plate of food and called: “Komm, Baby! Your food is getting cold.”

  “All right, Fritz! I’ll be there in a minute,” the Countess called over his shoulder. He reached into the top of his dressing gown and pulled out another couple of bills. “Here, something extra for you.”

  He pressed the money into my hands.

  “Be safe out there,” he said.

  I walked out of the apartment and stumbled back out onto the street, feeling dazed and sick to my stomach. How did my father know this person? Was Papa a homosexual himself? My most disturbing private fears about my father came crashing into my head. He did have a flamboy
ant way about him. I had always thought that the blue silk scarf he loved to wear was a very girlish affectation. He had represented artists who did male nudes. If my father was a homosexual, what did that mean for me? Did I have homosexual blood in my veins too? And what about my poor mother? Did she have to suffer through the humiliation of having a homosexual husband? Perhaps that was the reason for her “moods.” My skin crawled under the places where the Countess had touched me, and anger rose up in me against my father for exposing me to that world.

  When I arrived back home, the front of the apartment was dark. I decided just to give my father the money and go straight to bed. I heard muffled voices from the kitchen, which lifted my spirits slightly because it meant my mother had probably emerged. I took the money out, careful to withhold the tip the Countess had given me, and walked toward the kitchen to present it to my father.

  Then I heard a familiar voice, though I couldn’t place it at first. I paused and listened. The voice was low and manly and boomed with a hearty laugh at something my father said. I slowly wound my way down the hall. The voice grew louder, clearer, and more familiar, and my heartbeat quickened. I entered the kitchen and saw my father sitting with Max Schmeling at our table over cups of tea. I was so shocked to see him, I was literally struck dumb, unable to move or speak for a moment.

  “Ah, there he is,” my father said. “Out making mischief again, Karl?”