Child of the Light by Janet Berliner, George Guthridge Page A

upon a chest once more massive than his belly.
    "The Kaiser's greatest wish is to return and march with the workers against the government," Viereck said.
    The American looked from Solomon to von Hindenburg, who drew his bushy brows together in an exaggerated frown. "Can the boy be trusted?" the general asked in a rough voice. "He has the features of a Jew."
    You have the jowls of a bloodhound, Sol thought, stiffening.
    "He is a Jew. Therefore I trust him as I do my own judgment," Rathenau said. "Fully."
    "You think too highly of Jews, Herr Foreign Minister," von Hindenburg said.
    "Perhaps not highly enough," Rathenau replied in an even tone.
    Solomon lowered his gaze. For a while he had felt invisible; now he was certain everyone in the room was staring at him.   He pretended to examine one of the massive tapestries hanging on the wall.
    For all the times Sol had walked past the Adlon, this was the first time he had been inside. The outside was simple, a plain building with long wrought-iron windows, but the inside--tapestries and floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with leather-bound books, crimson curtains, walls wainscoted in mahogany and vaulted ceilings buttressed by elaborate plaster trellises. Words like putsch and purge and anarchy seemed to float in the air and he would not have been surprised to find the Kaiser walking across the candelabra-lit lounge.
    "The Kaiser cannot regain the crown, he knows that," he heard the prince say. "He seeks only Heldentod, the hero's death he was previously denied."
    So the Kaiser had desired Heldentod after all! Sol could hardly wait to tell Erich. Other boys at school had claimed the Kaiser was a coward. At the expense of several black eyes and split lips, Sol and Erich had insisted otherwise.
    "Our beloved Wilhelm shall have his wish," von Hindenburg said. "I shall serve as scapegoat for our military humiliations and the sheep shall flock to someone--perhaps Walther here--who will lead Germany if not to higher heights then at least to solidarity."
    He snapped his fingers and a waiter appeared with a tray of brandy snifters and a decanter. "Let us drink to solidarity," von Hindenburg said.
    The four men drank, and Sol was filled with awe at how calmly and quickly history could be rechanneled.
    Within moments he was out on the street, following Rathenau, who moved silently and at an energetic pace.
    Sol's notions of a Spaziergang underwent a dramatic change. His father's penchant was for leisurely constitutionals along well-worn paths, conversing as he walked or pausing at benches to rest and argue a particular point, while Rathenau hiked wordlessly along Wilhelmstrasse, as if allowing the city's penury and seething anger to be his mouthpiece.
    His senses opened by the Adlon luncheon, Sol took in everything with a tourist's unease: the farmers and fishmongers near the Ministry of Justice, hawking wilted wildflowers, lettuce, and oily, overpriced herring; the air, filled with grit and the stench of exhaust; the buildings' gray austerity. The streets seemed more littered with garbage and more asprawl with drunks and other dispossessed than he recalled: Schieber --foreign blackmarketeers--worked every street corner; political saviors wearing red cockades or black armbands stood on principles and soap crates, embracing immutable ideals Sol was sure they would be willing to discard for a meal or a few hundred marks; scurrying urchins poked and pleaded, offering shoeshines, sisters, the wisdom of white powders, the serenity of a syringe.
    There were women, too, posing as ladies while promising to raise skirts but not prices, offering heavenly communions to be consummated in the privacy of the nearest alley.
    "What this nation needs is a generation of reasonable Nationalists--Gentiles and Jews--willing to work together for God and good government...the dream of a true democracy," Rathenau said. He slapped his walking stick against his palm. He was walking so fast that Solomon had to run