Garden of Beasts

stopped. Her breathing grew more regular. “I cannot leave.”
    “Why not?”
    “It’s my country,” she whispered simply. “I can’t abandon it.”
    “But it’s not your country any longer. It’s theirs. What did you say? Tier. Beasts, thugs. It’s been taken over by beasts. . . . Leave. Get away before it gets worse.”
    “You think it will get worse? Tell me, Paul. Please. You’re a writer. The way of the world isn’t my way. It isn’t teaching or Goethe or poetry. You’re a clever man. What do you think?”
    “I think it will get worse. You have to get out of here. As soon as you can.”
    She relaxed her desperate grip on him. “Even if I wanted to I cannot. After I was fired my name went on a list. They took my passport. I’ll never get exit papers. They’re afraid we’ll work against them from England or Paris. So they keep us close.”
    “Come back with me. I can get you out.”
    Words between lovers . . .
    “Come to America.” Had she not heard? Or had she decided no already? “We have wonderful schools. You could teach. Your English is as good as anyone’s.”
    She inhaled deeply. “What are you asking?”
    “Leave with me.”
    A harsh laugh. “A woman cries, a man says anything to stop the tears. Ach, I don’t even know you.”
    Paul said, “And I don’t know you. I’m not proposing, I’m not saying we live together. I’m just saying you have to get the hell out of here. I can arrange that.”
    In the silence that followed, Paul was thinking that, no, he wasn’t proposing. Nothing of the sort. But, truth be told, Paul Schumann couldn’t help but wonder if his offer wasn’t about more than helping her escape from this difficult place. Oh, he’d had his share of women—good girls and bad girls and good girls playing at being bad. Some of them he’d thought he’d loved, and some he’d known he had. But he knew he’d never felt for them what he felt for this woman after such a short period of time. Yes, he loved Marion in a way. He’d spend an occasional night with her in Manhattan. Or she with him in Brooklyn. They’d lie together, they’d share words—about movies, about where hemline lengths would go next year, about Luigi’s restaurant, about her mother, about his sister. About the Dodgers. But they weren’t lovers’ words, Paul Schumann realized. Not like he’d spoken tonight with this complicated, passionate woman.
    Finally she said dismissively, irritated, “Ach, I can’t go. How can I go? I told you about my passport and exit papers.”
    “This is what I’m saying. You don’t have to worry about that. I have connections.”
    “You do?”
    “People in America owe me favors.” This much was true. He thought of Avery and Manielli in Amsterdam, ready at a moment’s notice to send the plane to collect him. Then he asked her, “Do you have ties here? How about your sister?”
    “Ach, my sister . . . She’s married to a Party loyalist. Shedoesn’t even see me. I’m an embarrassment.” After a moment Käthe said, “No, I have only ghosts here. And ghosts are no reason to remain. They’re reasons to leave.”
    Outside, laughter and drunken shouts. A slurring male voice sang, “When the Olympic Games are done, the Jews will feel our knife and gun. . . .” Then the crash of breaking glass. Another song, several voices singing this time. “Hold high the banner, close the ranks. The SA marches on with firm steps. . . . Give way, give way to the brown battalions, as the Stormtroopers clear the land. . . .”
    He recognized the song that the Hitler Youth had sung yesterday as they lowered the flag at the Olympic Village. The red, the white and the black hooked cross.
    Ach, surely you know. . . . 
    “Oh, Paul, you can really get me out of the country, without papers?”
    “Yes. But I’ll be leaving soon. Tomorrow night, I hope. Or the night after.”
    “How?”
    “Leave the details to me. Are you willing to leave immediately?”
    After a moment of silence: “I can do that. Yes.”
    She took his hand, stroked his palm and interlaced her fingers with his. This was by far the most intimate moment between them tonight.
    He gripped her tightly, stretched his arm out and struck something hard under the pillow. He touched it and, from the size and feel, realized that it was the volume of Goethe’s poems that he’d given her earlier.
    “You won’t—”
    “Shhhh,” he whispered. And stroked her hair.
    Paul Schumann knew