think Iâve heard of that.â
I was beginning to get a glimmer of what Hessie was up to. He was going to use these louts to get us through the blocked street with nothing nasty happening.
âOf course you have heard of it, my good man!â boomed Uncle Hessie. âPrussian Auto Works. I am the president.â I blinked. Hessie wasnât the president of anything. He had never worked a day in his life. He was now slapping his motoring coat as if searching for something. He reached for an inside pocket. â Aachh! Left my card at home. But hey, would you boys like a ride?â
âA ride?â The seriously drunk one staggered.
âI know youâre not quite in shape to drive, but hop on the fender, boys. Iâll give you a ride to the next intersection.â
They did, and so we made our way through streets jammed with SA, two Brown Shirts clearing a path for us, one on each forward fender like hood ornaments, waving and shouting their disgusting slogans about death to Jews, Communists, and on and on, and then breaking from the slogans and lurid rants to join in the scattered choruses of the SAâs favorite song. It was called the âHorst Wessel Songâ and was being broadcast more often on the radio recently.
Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!
SA marschiert mit ruhig festem Schritt.
Kamâraden, die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen,
Marschierân im Geist in unsâren Reihen mit.
Â
Â
Die Strasse frei den braunen Bataillonen.
Die Strasse frei dem Sturmabteilungsmann!
Es schauân aufs Hakenkreuz voll Hoffnung schon Millionen.
Der Tag für Freiheit und für Brot bricht an!
Â
Â
The flag high! The ranks tightly closed!
The SA marches with a firm, courageous pace.
Comrades, shot dead by Red Front and Reaction,
March in spirit within our ranks.
Â
Â
Make the streets free for the brown battalions.
Make the streets free for the SA man.
Already millions are looking to the swastika full of hope.
The day of freedom and bread is dawning.
The two SA men slid off the car when we arrived at the next intersection. Hessie pressed on the accelerator and shifted into a higher gear. His face was grim. From the corner of my eye I could see the small throb of a pulse beating in his temple. Neither one of us looked back. There was a sign indicating the direction to Potsdam and thus Caputh. We were going out of Berlin, to the country, away from all that, the brown sludge of the flooding river, the stomp of jackboots. There was still beer slobber from the SA men on the roadster. Hessie drove faster as if to dare the wind to clean it. The landscape flowed by. I put my head against the back of the seat and tipped my face up toward the sun. I am going away. I kept telling myself. I am going away!
I briefly wondered what Herr Doktor Berg had done with my books, if he had read The Call of the Wild . I was just about to ask Hessie if he could get me another copy when I heard his rather high but sweetly scratchy voice carrying above the rush of the wind.
Pack up all my care and woe.
Here I go, singing low
Bye bye blackbird.
I knew these lines. They were from a very popular American song. Josephine Baker had brought it to Berlin and it swept through the city from the cabarets to the fanciest parties, to Mama playing it on the piano when she and Papa had dinner guests. I loved this song. I looked over at him and he winked at me. I joined in.
Where somebody waits for me.
Sugarâs sweet, so is she.
Bye bye blackbird.
Â
No one here can love or understand me.
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me.
Make my bed and light the light.
Iâll be home late tonight.
Blackbird, bye bye.
If only I could have driven to the ends of the Earth with Hessie singing all the way, the peach chiffon scarf fluttering at the edges of my face, looking though the amber-tinted goggles as Germany slid by.
chapter 11
Â
Â
Â
Â
My darling, we sat
I was beginning to get a glimmer of what Hessie was up to. He was going to use these louts to get us through the blocked street with nothing nasty happening.
âOf course you have heard of it, my good man!â boomed Uncle Hessie. âPrussian Auto Works. I am the president.â I blinked. Hessie wasnât the president of anything. He had never worked a day in his life. He was now slapping his motoring coat as if searching for something. He reached for an inside pocket. â Aachh! Left my card at home. But hey, would you boys like a ride?â
âA ride?â The seriously drunk one staggered.
âI know youâre not quite in shape to drive, but hop on the fender, boys. Iâll give you a ride to the next intersection.â
They did, and so we made our way through streets jammed with SA, two Brown Shirts clearing a path for us, one on each forward fender like hood ornaments, waving and shouting their disgusting slogans about death to Jews, Communists, and on and on, and then breaking from the slogans and lurid rants to join in the scattered choruses of the SAâs favorite song. It was called the âHorst Wessel Songâ and was being broadcast more often on the radio recently.
Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!
SA marschiert mit ruhig festem Schritt.
Kamâraden, die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen,
Marschierân im Geist in unsâren Reihen mit.
Â
Â
Die Strasse frei den braunen Bataillonen.
Die Strasse frei dem Sturmabteilungsmann!
Es schauân aufs Hakenkreuz voll Hoffnung schon Millionen.
Der Tag für Freiheit und für Brot bricht an!
Â
Â
The flag high! The ranks tightly closed!
The SA marches with a firm, courageous pace.
Comrades, shot dead by Red Front and Reaction,
March in spirit within our ranks.
Â
Â
Make the streets free for the brown battalions.
Make the streets free for the SA man.
Already millions are looking to the swastika full of hope.
The day of freedom and bread is dawning.
The two SA men slid off the car when we arrived at the next intersection. Hessie pressed on the accelerator and shifted into a higher gear. His face was grim. From the corner of my eye I could see the small throb of a pulse beating in his temple. Neither one of us looked back. There was a sign indicating the direction to Potsdam and thus Caputh. We were going out of Berlin, to the country, away from all that, the brown sludge of the flooding river, the stomp of jackboots. There was still beer slobber from the SA men on the roadster. Hessie drove faster as if to dare the wind to clean it. The landscape flowed by. I put my head against the back of the seat and tipped my face up toward the sun. I am going away. I kept telling myself. I am going away!
I briefly wondered what Herr Doktor Berg had done with my books, if he had read The Call of the Wild . I was just about to ask Hessie if he could get me another copy when I heard his rather high but sweetly scratchy voice carrying above the rush of the wind.
Pack up all my care and woe.
Here I go, singing low
Bye bye blackbird.
I knew these lines. They were from a very popular American song. Josephine Baker had brought it to Berlin and it swept through the city from the cabarets to the fanciest parties, to Mama playing it on the piano when she and Papa had dinner guests. I loved this song. I looked over at him and he winked at me. I joined in.
Where somebody waits for me.
Sugarâs sweet, so is she.
Bye bye blackbird.
Â
No one here can love or understand me.
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me.
Make my bed and light the light.
Iâll be home late tonight.
Blackbird, bye bye.
If only I could have driven to the ends of the Earth with Hessie singing all the way, the peach chiffon scarf fluttering at the edges of my face, looking though the amber-tinted goggles as Germany slid by.
chapter 11
Â
Â
Â
Â
My darling, we sat
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