A Blow to the Stomach

I had already two years of apprenticeship with our old notary behind me, cycled day after day the 8 kilometers to his office. The good old Mr. Mayerhofer himself came from from a tiny village and had worked his way up. He often looked at me with his clever, kind eyes behind his glasses and said that I was working my way up just like he was, and how much that pleased him. Since I did the clerical work quickly and accurately, I had plenty of time to read the books on his shelves. In the third year of my apprenticeship, he got me a half–time position half a job with a notary friend in the capital, and I could now travel with my mother and study two days a week with this notary. Dr. Fenderl, that was the name of the notary, was of a completely different different opinion than the notary Mayerhofer and told me that I should study at university, only then I would become a good notary. I always did willingly, but I knew very well that I could never afford the University. What was important to me was that I learn a good profession and later earn enough to provide for my mother and myself. Maybe also for Anni and her little one.

In the city, of course, I got to hear more about the war, and the more I heard about it, the more grateful I was that Uncle Frieder and some of his friends achieved my provisional exemption from military service. I was almost ready to forgive him for having had a relationship with my mother for so long. On the other hand, I was very worried about Willi, because I had not heard from him for months.

We still lived with Mrs. Ogawa when we were in town, because the house actually belonged to Uncle Frieder and Mrs. Ogawa had to give us a room without paying rent. As time went on, I understood how things fell into place seamlessly. I had grown up in the meantime, and when my mother stayed away, I scurried down to Mrs. Ogawa, who never rejected me. On the contrary, she was no longer quite young and hardly ever had any lovers and if she did, then at most a few old veterans. She had told me so herself, and since she was quite addicted to fucking, she came to get me — as often as she could — and made me sweat profusely. But she was always good for fucking!

Since I was reading the Iliad, about Prince Paris, the three Goddesses and the Golden Apple, I was thinking about who I would give the apple to, and that's when Mrs. Ogawa came right after my mother and before Anni, because Anni was tender and sweet, but not very nerdy refined when it came to fucking. However, if I were to ranking according to how exciting was the visible of the otherwise invisible, then Anni and Mrs. Ogawa would have to exchange places, because Mrs. Ogawa had the smallest and tightest slit of all and such a tiny clit that it was almost always invisible. Even Anni's clit was often hard to find, but Mother's could grow almost as long as half a little finger limb and straightened erect stiffly like a small penis as soon as she vigorously pulled back and rubbed the hood–like fold of skin with her fingers. I loved her breasts, each of the three pairs, but even here Anni would be ranked between Mother and Mrs. Ogawa. If I had to rate the willingness separately, then again the old Japanese woman would be in first place, because I only had to knock and enter, and she would lay down spreading wide without a word; even Anni sometimes wanted to be conquered, or rather, to be won over. As I pondered back and forth like this, it occurred to me that the age of the women in no way came to mind as a criterion. As I pondered further, I was sure that I would rather not choose after all; all of them were right, right for me. And the thing with Paris went also rather wrong, as one hears so.

I concealed my affairs with Mrs. Ogawa from my mother, but Anni saw it in my face right away and told me so. I squirmed inwardly, but I admitted everything, because Anni was never jealous for long. I was a rascal, Anni sometimes breathed in my ear, a rascal, yes, who fucks old Japanese women! I grinned because she knew nothing about me and my grandmother. Actually, she always wanted to know in detail what the old Ogawa and I were doing, because she got terribly horny from it and had to be fucked right away, so I good–naturedly told everything and after fucking again and embellished it even more so that she got even hornier. I did that on purpose, although I was usually already too tired, because she had to do it herself right away, and meanly I made her horny exactly when her little treasure was lying on her breast. She jokingly scolded me a horny prankster and left me smiling the little one, so she could masturbate undisturbed.

Once or twice a week I stayed overnight with Anni. Her mother then had to sleep on the couch while we made ourselves comfortable on the big bed. We waited tensely in the dark until she fell asleep, but I sometimes noticed, that she was watching us fuck. Somehow I didn't care and on many a Sunday morning we secretly fucked under the covers even though she was already awake. Anni was afraid and endured hellish fears, although her mother pretended not to notice anything. Sometimes the oats stung me, then I uncovered Anni and made her horny with my fingers until she forgot her mother and only thought about fucking; now I swung myself on top of her and did it so that the old woman had to watch everything. I sometimes grinned at the old woman, who looked over at us with a red face and fidgeted suspiciously under the blanket.

My mother was deeply affected when Uncle Freder's wife died. She felt guilty toward her and at the same time anxious whether Uncle Frieder was likely to make good on his serious intentions. She was also depressed because Uncle Frieder's only son reacted rather angrily when his father told him about his relationship with my mother. In the meantime, he had become a youth leader in the Hitler Youth and was an ardent uniform wearer. At their only meeting so far, he had told my mother bluntly to her face that he despised her and that she was dishonorable for him.

At this point the gods should have intervened, but they were bickering in Olympus and did not care about the Catastrophe into which we were plunging. The gods are courting the favor of beautiful goddesses or snacking on beautiful Earth children; in any case, they all have more important things to do than worry about our fate. Perhaps they sit bored on their gilded marble benches above the clouds and watch the hustle and bustle of the people. When they have finished all the grapes in their gilded fruit bowls, they get up and shuffle off to the next orgy at Zeus. — Humans, pah! A truly failed experiment!

Long before the end of the year of mourning, Uncle Frieder announced that he would marry my mother. He presented the papers and was sure everything would be all right with that. But everything was not all right. My mother had to bring a new ancestor passport, a new Aryan certificate.

One evening, just as I was about to cycle to Anni's coming from the old Mayerhofer, mother stood in front of the house and beckoned me to come to her. Wordlessly and with a stony face she put a Letter on the table, I should read it.

It was like a punch in the stomach.

My grandmother and I were not Aryans.

We were Jews.

Hitherto I had not been aware of being Aryan. Yes, of course "the Jews" were always a topic, but I parroted what I had learned by heart at the Hitler Youth without thinking long about the meaning of the words. It was somehow a ritual far removed from reality, one ranted about "the Jews" and "world Jewry" and "Zion" and that was that. There were no Jews in our village, and in the city I minded my own business and paid no attention to the gray figures with the yellow star.

My mother put two yellow stars on the table and whispered that we now had to wear them whenever we left the house. Then she lay down in bed and howled.

I ran to the youth leader, but he already knew and advised me never to come to him and the meeting evenings again; my departure from the Hitler Youth would take place quietly and secretly, so that no bad light would fall on him.

I ran to Anni, but she already knew too. She had completely teary eyes and backed away from me at the door. She hid Little Bruno against her chest and howled, "What have you done to us, what have you done to us!". I hugged her despite her fear and stroked her back until she stopped crying. I kissed both of them on the forehead and quickly ran home. I had done nothing to her, but I, I had been murdered.

The next morning I cycled tear–blind to Mr. Mayerhofer, and he already knew. He kindly let me in and asked me to the table, where he offered me a cup of tea — the first time in over two years of apprenticeship.

"The world is a madhouse," he murmured, taking a sip of tea. "That's where you do your work and learn dutifully and diligently, to become a good and conscientious notary later, and there come these uneducated half idiots and make a Jew out of an honest Christian man, because it suits them just now. And besides, Jew — what is that supposed to be?! Have you become a monster overnight?"

I sat at his table, not touching the tea and squinting compulsively at my lapel, on which the yellow star was pinned. I understood nothing and muttered that I was now losing all my loved ones and no longer knew my way in and out. Mr. Mayerhofer drank his tea thoughtfully and pushed the porcelain cup with the cookies closer to me.

"I can't do anything for you in such a little backwater, Bruno," he said, "I can't do anything for you here. But maybe your uncle Frieder or Dr. Fenderl can help you." He thought for a while, then said, "I called both of them this morning and asked them to help you. I don't know if they want to, and I don't know if they can. It's definitely problematic!"

I listened only with half an ear. The old man muttered to himself for a while, lamenting the prevailing circumstances, but I silently cried up to Olympus where they were, the gods, and where their help was now, which they had once so generously granted to Odysseus and Philemon and all the others. The gods, I thought I saw quite clearly, continued to sit on their gilded marble benches above the clouds, eating grapes from gilded porcelain dishes, looked down at me stonily with their blue Aryan eyes and waited to see what I would come up with.

Old Mayerhofer shuffled to a dresser and returned with an envelope. "Your certificate and your money," he muttered, pushing it toward me on the tabletop, "your money I've paid you in advance until the end of the year, so be smart and don't knock it all at once!" He looked at me sadly from behind his glasses, and when I thanked him dutifully, his eyes lit up for the first time that morning. "That's all right, my boy," he said, and he made a placating gesture with his hand, "I suppose it's the least I can do for you!"

I lay on the bed dressed for hours, staring at the ceiling. I couldn't think a clear thought, I was completely overwhelmed with these facts. I held my mother tightly and warmed her, for she had lost all courage to live, was crying and freezing.

We locked ourselves up for days and stayed in bed. We held each other tightly, we hugged each other and we made love without cheerfulness and without lust, but full of sadness. With the loving fucking we comforted each other like lost souls on their last day, full of fear and full of despair.

Our lives had been shattered to pieces in a single moment.