Heritage by Judy Nunn Page B

floorboards, he pictured Frau Albrecht on her hands and knees, scrubbing away with furious intent. Of course she’d have cleaned up the mess, he thought scornfully, she wouldn’t have been able to help herself. Frau Albrecht was fastidious, and pools of congealed blood were not only untidy, they were unhygienic.
    Samuel had always felt disdain for the conservative, elderly couple who’d owned the other apartment on the second floor for twenty years. The Albrechts’ front door was virtually opposite the Lachmanns’, but so assiduously did they avoid Samuel and Ruth that meetings in the hall were rare, and on the odd occasions when they misjudged their timing, they would nod politely to Ruth and pointedly ignore Samuel.
    â€˜Of course they ignore us, Samuel – they have to.’ Ruth’s defence of the couple had been vociferous from the outset. ‘I think they’re very brave,’ she’d added with that edge to her voice that defied disagreement. The Albrechts had been friends of her father’s, she’d explained, and when it had become dangerous to be friends with a Jew, they had distanced themselves. As mere neighbours it would be easier for them to plead ignorance should it prove necessary.
    â€˜And ignorance is bravery?’ Samuel’s reply had been scathing, but Ruth’s retort had been equally so.
    â€˜Yes, Samuel,’ she’d said. ‘In failing to report us they could be accused of harbouring Jews and sent to their deaths, so yes, their ignorance is most brave.’
    Samuel had shrugged his acknowledgement, but she hadn’t convinced him. Like his best friend, Mannie, Samuel believed people should stand up and be counted. ‘Too many are pleading ignorance,’ both men agreed.
    Now, as he pictured Frau Albrecht scrubbing the blood from the floorboards, Samuel wondered whether playing ignorant had proved too much for the Albrechts. Had it been the Albrechts who had denounced them? he wondered. But as quickly as the thought occurred he put it aside. He would go mad if he tried to allot blame; he and Ruth had been living on borrowed time for so long they had brought about their own undoing.
    The money was in the canister. Along with the handful of coins was the neatly folded ten-reichsmark note he’d earned that last day working at Hoffmann’s Garage. The note had been crumpled and covered in grease when he’d handed it to Ruth, he recalled, and he could hear her good-natured chastisement as she carefully wiped it with a warm dishcloth and folded it into a square. ‘Really, Samuel, you are the messiest man I know.’ She hadn’t been able to clean the grease off completely, he noticed, the money was still slightly stained.
    Mannie’s knapsack remained on the kitchen bench where he’d left it and Samuel took it into the bedroom. He packed some items of clothing, a torch and his penknife, and then, from the top drawer of the dresser, he lifted out a photograph of Ruth. He would have liked to have had one of Rachel too, but there were no photographs of the child. The past two years had not been a time for taking photographs. What was the point? To have them developed would have been far too risky.
    The picture of Ruth that he kept in the top drawer was Samuel’s favourite. It was the one Mannie had taken on campus, outside the library. Mannie had been characteristically methodical, searching for the perfect light, the perfect angle, the perfect composition, and Ruth had made fun of him, posing and pulling silly faces, until finally she’d burst into exasperated laughter. ‘Oh for God’s sake, Mannie, press the button!’ Mannie had, and he’d captured the very essence of Ruth, which, as Samuel knew, had been his intention all along.
    Samuel slid the photograph into his pocket. The picture was as representative of Mannie as it was of Ruth, for Mannie’s love was in it. Mannie had loved Ruth,