Thirty-seven

Friedrich was already into his second beer when Robert arrived at their watering hole. On seeing Robert enter he ordered another beer and handed it to him after he had hung his wet raincoat over a chair arm and reached the bar. They sat on stools and sipped their beers as they chatted.

“She was the love of my life,” concluded Friedrich, speaking through the froth on his moustache. “I am ashamed to admit it but in all honesty I must.”

“What was her name?” Robert asked.

“Sadie.”

“Sadie,” remarked Robert with surprise, “But…”

“Yes, I know,” interrupted Friedrich. “A Jewess. That is why I am ashamed to admit it. But if a thing is true it is true. The Fuhrer has taught us that much.”

“What happened?”

“Well, it was after my discharge from the army in 1918. I fetched up in Warsaw. Don’t ask me why. That’s another story altogether. Any way, I landed a job in a shoe factory. Nothing grand, just labouring. Hired muscle. Carting heavy crates from one floor to the next. Well Sadie worked in the wages office and I used to see her every Friday afternoon when she brought around our wage envelopes. I never dreamed she would look at me as a potential boyfriend, but I harboured fantasies. She was the most beautiful girl in the world. Some of the men took small liberties with her. Well we were a rough crew and she took it in good part. I used to boil inside when someone made a suggestive comment to her but I was too embarrassed to intervene. It would reveal my feelings you see.”

Friedrich broke off his narrative to utter a deafening laugh and to clap Robert on his back, causing him to spill beer down his jacket.

“Can you imagine it, hey, Robert, my friend. Me, embarrassed. Me, shy. Hard to credit, hey?”

“Tell me more,” said Robert, when he had wiped his jacket off. “What happened?”

“Well one day one of the men went too far. As she handed him his wage envelope he pretended to stumble and fell against her, placing his hands upon her breasts. Something happened to me when I saw the distress he caused register on her face. I snapped. Shyness and embarrassment flew out of the window. I took hold of him by the throat and I would have broken his neck. If she had not restrained me I would have ended my days on the Polish gallows. Well after that we took to going out. I saw my first cinematograph with her. I went to my first art gallery with her. Eventually we became lovers.”

Taking a sip of beer Friedrich seemed to be at the end of his tale.

“Like I said,” he concluded once more, “She was the love of my life.”

Exasperated by the inconclusive ending Robert demanded to know, “What happened?”

Friedrich wrinkled his nose. He glanced down at the swastika insignia on his armband.

“Well,” he replied, “It was at this time that I fell in with a group of German ex-patriots living in Warsaw like myself. They began my education. I realised an Aryan like myself and a Jewess could never be together.” After a pause he quietly said, “I gave her up.”

With that he lifted his glass and downed the remainder of his beer in one mighty swallow. Slamming it down on the bar he shouted, his good spirits returning in a flash, “Now then good doctor. You buy the beers and I will deal the cards. Give a poor man the chance to win some money from his friend, and I promise not to send you home penniless.”