Read Online The Prosperous Thief by Andrea Goldsmith - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Andrea Goldsmith
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astonishing form and maturity her father used to joke that in addition to the usual limbs and blood and bodily organs, she had arrived in the world complete with an innate understanding of western art. She painted her way through childhood and became one of the first women to enter the Düsseldorf School of Painting. But there the dream had started to fade, or perhaps had faded earlier though no one noticed because of the long afterglow of the extraordinary work of the child.
She had been a prodigy at four and a genius at ten. At fourteen she was extraordinary and at sixteen when she entered the School of Painting, her work was described as brilliant, although no one talked about genius any more. Her technique could not be faulted, but her work lacked animus and the angels never panted at her door. It was not that her paintings were stillborn, they were simply limp on the canvas, and perhaps had always been, but one looks for different qualities in the work of a seven year old than a seventeen year old. Renate knew something was missing. She would study her mother at the piano, would sift through the sounds and isolate an out-of-this-world exhilaration which passed from Amalie through the music. Renate loved to paint, but the passion she detected in her mother’s music was of a different order. She returned with new hopes to her work, but the painting would not yield. In the end she gave it up, not being the type to dabble in something she revered.
Then soon after marrying Martin she discovered silk. Silk fired her imagination in a way canvas had not; it was as if colour itself had suddenly spilled its mysteries. As the months and years passed, it became very obvious that Renate had finally found her passion.
Krefeld, like Lyon in France and Como in Italy, had long been a centre for woven silk. For several generations the Lewins had been counted among the most prominent of the silk families, so when Renate married Martin she found herself at the heart of the Krefeld community. Just a few years ago it would have been unthinkable that a Lewin could ever be an outsider in Krefeld, but now, not only were they barred from the silk business, they were routinely shunned by people who had once been friends. Experience, history, none of it matters when the whole cultural and moral landscape of your country has changed.
Everyone in the Krefeld community had always known the Lewins were Jewish, but it was a background issue and rarely acknowledged. Renate and Martin attended synagogue in Düsseldorf for the high holidays and for the occasional wedding or barmitzvah, and that was about the extent of it. Before Hitler came to power, neither would have hesitated in putting their Germanness ahead of their Jewishness. Now as they travelled the familiar journey into Düsseldorf, keeping themselves separate but not too separate from the Germans in the compartment and trying to render invisible a Jewishness they had never strongly felt, Renate had a sense, experienced often these days, of an identity ripped out of her and shoved through a grinder. She was raised to be German, had been taught to be proud of being German, and suddenly not only was she no longer German, the whole definition of what it meant to be German had changed. She did not like what she saw of her neighbours and neither did they like what they saw of her.
She and Martin would often discuss, as if speech could render it sensible, their disbelief when people they had known for years, people with whom they had worked and socialised, revealed themselves as cold, insensitive, even brutal strangers. Had they always harboured these tendencies? And if so, what blind spot common to her and Martin and so many other Jews had caused them to miss the signs. How could they have not known? It was like discovering you’ve spent years living adjacent to a toxic chemical plant when you always thought it manufactured perfume.
Renate gazes through the window at the passing countryside. A
She had been a prodigy at four and a genius at ten. At fourteen she was extraordinary and at sixteen when she entered the School of Painting, her work was described as brilliant, although no one talked about genius any more. Her technique could not be faulted, but her work lacked animus and the angels never panted at her door. It was not that her paintings were stillborn, they were simply limp on the canvas, and perhaps had always been, but one looks for different qualities in the work of a seven year old than a seventeen year old. Renate knew something was missing. She would study her mother at the piano, would sift through the sounds and isolate an out-of-this-world exhilaration which passed from Amalie through the music. Renate loved to paint, but the passion she detected in her mother’s music was of a different order. She returned with new hopes to her work, but the painting would not yield. In the end she gave it up, not being the type to dabble in something she revered.
Then soon after marrying Martin she discovered silk. Silk fired her imagination in a way canvas had not; it was as if colour itself had suddenly spilled its mysteries. As the months and years passed, it became very obvious that Renate had finally found her passion.
Krefeld, like Lyon in France and Como in Italy, had long been a centre for woven silk. For several generations the Lewins had been counted among the most prominent of the silk families, so when Renate married Martin she found herself at the heart of the Krefeld community. Just a few years ago it would have been unthinkable that a Lewin could ever be an outsider in Krefeld, but now, not only were they barred from the silk business, they were routinely shunned by people who had once been friends. Experience, history, none of it matters when the whole cultural and moral landscape of your country has changed.
Everyone in the Krefeld community had always known the Lewins were Jewish, but it was a background issue and rarely acknowledged. Renate and Martin attended synagogue in Düsseldorf for the high holidays and for the occasional wedding or barmitzvah, and that was about the extent of it. Before Hitler came to power, neither would have hesitated in putting their Germanness ahead of their Jewishness. Now as they travelled the familiar journey into Düsseldorf, keeping themselves separate but not too separate from the Germans in the compartment and trying to render invisible a Jewishness they had never strongly felt, Renate had a sense, experienced often these days, of an identity ripped out of her and shoved through a grinder. She was raised to be German, had been taught to be proud of being German, and suddenly not only was she no longer German, the whole definition of what it meant to be German had changed. She did not like what she saw of her neighbours and neither did they like what they saw of her.
She and Martin would often discuss, as if speech could render it sensible, their disbelief when people they had known for years, people with whom they had worked and socialised, revealed themselves as cold, insensitive, even brutal strangers. Had they always harboured these tendencies? And if so, what blind spot common to her and Martin and so many other Jews had caused them to miss the signs. How could they have not known? It was like discovering you’ve spent years living adjacent to a toxic chemical plant when you always thought it manufactured perfume.
Renate gazes through the window at the passing countryside. A
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