The buggers stole everything. You might not even find a meathook. I’m filth. I’m scum. We’re all scum. Dirty bunch
of Juden. Funny how my meat’s clean enough to be worth stealing and cooking.’
Hummel found the four hooks he wanted amongst the rubble and took them home. There was nothing he could say to Shkolnik, nothing he could say to anybody. Shkolnik had pointed out that there had
been Shkolniks in the shop for five generations. On the way home Kostiner at the corner café said there had been Kostiners for three generations, and Linsky at the drapers said it had been
four. Hummel was not counting. As far as he knew there had been Hummels in Vienna since the original Hummel disembarked from Noah’s ark with a pair of unicorns and caught the first passing
tram into Leopoldstadt.
He kicked about for a while in the ash and soot of the shop and found unscathed, a roll of grey Hessian, as heavy as sackcloth and closer in the weave. Then he hand-sewed a meathook to each
corner of a long strip of the cloth, doubled over for strength, and with each hook thrown over a rafter in the shed, he had himself an improvised hammock. He felt safe in the shed.
‘They’ wouldn’t look in the shed. ‘They’, in the form of ‘he’, dropped by about nine in the evening. Dark and cold and wet. Hummel was in his hammock,
buried under several eiderdowns, reading by candlelight. The door opened and Trager stuck his head in.
‘Wot yer doing?’
‘What does it look like?’
Trager shone his bullseye torch on the book, mouthing and mangling what he saw on the spine.
‘Renn Dezcartiz?’
‘René Descartes,’ Hummel said trying to keep his voice chatty. ‘ The Discourse on Method. ’
‘What method?’
‘The method of reason and mathematics.’
‘Oh. I prefer a good yarn meself.’
‘Oh it’s that alright.’
‘I see you made yourself cosy then?’
It was not the word Hummel would have chosen.
‘Needs must,’ he said simply.
‘I been thinking. About you leaving.’
‘Who said I was leaving?’
‘I told you this morning . . .’
‘It’s OK, Joe. This morning you convinced me. I just don’t know how. I have no visa for any foreign country. I’m on no one’s quota. And, as of last night, I have
nothing Herr Eichmann could possibly want in exchange for my freedom. Perhaps you were right. I should have gone with the Bemmelmanns. Did I tell you I got a letter from Palestine last week? They
are on a kibbutz near Haifa.’
‘They was lucky. Lots o’folk drowned in the Danube. One poor couple got stuck on an island between one of them there Balkan states and whatever country’s got the other bank,
and neither one’d let ’em in.’
‘Now you tell me. All the same, Joe, I would leave if I knew how.’
Trager had been thinking. He had that smug hint of self-regard of the man who knows he has had a good idea, if perhaps for the first and only time in his life.
‘I got this mate. Patrols the marshalling yard next to the railway station.’
‘Which station?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Of course it matters. I’m not getting on a train to Russia. That would be frying pan to Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace.’
‘It’s the Westbahnhof. You know . . . trains to Germany France . . . Belgium.’
No, Hummel thought, trains to England.
‘And he can get me on a train?’
‘Sort of.’
‘How sort of?’
‘He can get you on a goods wagon. Maybe. Like a boxcar.’
‘Surely they – I mean you – surely German troops have enough sense to search the boxcars?’
Trager saw his idea crashing down around him in flames as fast as the Hindenburg in New Jersey.
‘Dunno. I’ll have to ask him.’
‘Fine. And when you do, ask him for the measurements between axles on a small wagon.’
‘How the hell are we supposed to find out that?’
‘To the nearest pace will do. Half a metre either way. Put your jackboots to good use for once. Pace it out from wheel to wheel.’
Trager went away
of Juden. Funny how my meat’s clean enough to be worth stealing and cooking.’
Hummel found the four hooks he wanted amongst the rubble and took them home. There was nothing he could say to Shkolnik, nothing he could say to anybody. Shkolnik had pointed out that there had
been Shkolniks in the shop for five generations. On the way home Kostiner at the corner café said there had been Kostiners for three generations, and Linsky at the drapers said it had been
four. Hummel was not counting. As far as he knew there had been Hummels in Vienna since the original Hummel disembarked from Noah’s ark with a pair of unicorns and caught the first passing
tram into Leopoldstadt.
He kicked about for a while in the ash and soot of the shop and found unscathed, a roll of grey Hessian, as heavy as sackcloth and closer in the weave. Then he hand-sewed a meathook to each
corner of a long strip of the cloth, doubled over for strength, and with each hook thrown over a rafter in the shed, he had himself an improvised hammock. He felt safe in the shed.
‘They’ wouldn’t look in the shed. ‘They’, in the form of ‘he’, dropped by about nine in the evening. Dark and cold and wet. Hummel was in his hammock,
buried under several eiderdowns, reading by candlelight. The door opened and Trager stuck his head in.
‘Wot yer doing?’
‘What does it look like?’
Trager shone his bullseye torch on the book, mouthing and mangling what he saw on the spine.
‘Renn Dezcartiz?’
‘René Descartes,’ Hummel said trying to keep his voice chatty. ‘ The Discourse on Method. ’
‘What method?’
‘The method of reason and mathematics.’
‘Oh. I prefer a good yarn meself.’
‘Oh it’s that alright.’
‘I see you made yourself cosy then?’
It was not the word Hummel would have chosen.
‘Needs must,’ he said simply.
‘I been thinking. About you leaving.’
‘Who said I was leaving?’
‘I told you this morning . . .’
‘It’s OK, Joe. This morning you convinced me. I just don’t know how. I have no visa for any foreign country. I’m on no one’s quota. And, as of last night, I have
nothing Herr Eichmann could possibly want in exchange for my freedom. Perhaps you were right. I should have gone with the Bemmelmanns. Did I tell you I got a letter from Palestine last week? They
are on a kibbutz near Haifa.’
‘They was lucky. Lots o’folk drowned in the Danube. One poor couple got stuck on an island between one of them there Balkan states and whatever country’s got the other bank,
and neither one’d let ’em in.’
‘Now you tell me. All the same, Joe, I would leave if I knew how.’
Trager had been thinking. He had that smug hint of self-regard of the man who knows he has had a good idea, if perhaps for the first and only time in his life.
‘I got this mate. Patrols the marshalling yard next to the railway station.’
‘Which station?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Of course it matters. I’m not getting on a train to Russia. That would be frying pan to Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace.’
‘It’s the Westbahnhof. You know . . . trains to Germany France . . . Belgium.’
No, Hummel thought, trains to England.
‘And he can get me on a train?’
‘Sort of.’
‘How sort of?’
‘He can get you on a goods wagon. Maybe. Like a boxcar.’
‘Surely they – I mean you – surely German troops have enough sense to search the boxcars?’
Trager saw his idea crashing down around him in flames as fast as the Hindenburg in New Jersey.
‘Dunno. I’ll have to ask him.’
‘Fine. And when you do, ask him for the measurements between axles on a small wagon.’
‘How the hell are we supposed to find out that?’
‘To the nearest pace will do. Half a metre either way. Put your jackboots to good use for once. Pace it out from wheel to wheel.’
Trager went away
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