Saul stood in Mueller’s office, by himself, breathing hard. Bits of straw stuck out from his hair, like porcupine quills. It was so warm compared to his unheated cell block that he wanted to unbutton the top of his striped coat. But that was unthinkable without first asking permission.
He wiggled his toes. The day before, he had pocketed the trimmings from a pair of wool pants he’d shortened for an SS officer and stuffed them in the holes in his boots. He was terrified that Camp Director Mueller had found out. Why else would he have been summoned so early?
Before Kristallnacht, Saul had been Munich’s most sought-after tailor. His shop,
der Schneidermeister, was two blocks from city hall, just off the Marienplatz. In addition to his Jewish customers, he catered to many of the city’s most influential men, including Mueller and several Nazi party members.
Kristallnacht changed everything. Thugs burned his shop, his three-bedroom apartment, stole his Steinway, and beat him unconscious. They took away his wife, Bayla, and his daughter, Helena. He’d heard only rumors about where they’d been taken. They sent him to Dachau Prison, just outside of Munich.
Some of Dachau’s Jews had been able to buy their way out, but Mueller wasn’t about to let a valuable talent walk out the door. He set up a tailor shop in his office, and within weeks, he was making money hand over fist from his military and party friends. Mueller would tell them
that a suit or uniform, expertly tailored by der Schneidermeister, not only fit better but made them look more commanding. Many of his so-called customers had Saul stitch a tiny SR on the back of a lapel or an inside jacket pocket as a mark of authenticity.
1938 turned into 1939, then 1940. The demand for Saul’s services never slackened. Nor did the humiliations. During a fitting for a junior SS officer, as Saul knelt behind him to chalk mark the seat of his pants, the man broke wind in his face and laughed about it. Saul clutched a straight pin, wanting to thrust it into the man’s scrotum, to sink into the soft flesh, skewer his testicles. It would have meant an excruciating death for him, and for what? Vengeance? Honor? He would have been just another dead body on the daily stack. What was the expression—better to live on one’s knees than to die on one’s feet?
The minutes crept by. No one came. He stared at an open box of chocolates on Mueller’s desk. About half of them had been eaten, judging by the clutter of empty wrappers. Would Mueller miss one more? Saul’s wife always kept the crystal dishes filled with hard candies throughout the house. For a sweet life, she said.
Saul edged toward the desk, barely raising his feet off the ground. He strained his ears, searching for the slightest noise. Prison life had made his hearing intensely acute. With a last glance over his shoulder, he snatched the nearest chocolate. He chewed furiously and swallowed the paper wrapper along with the sticky caramel bulge. He ran his tongue over his teeth, inside every cavity, to get each tiny bit of chocolate, then scraped his lips with his teeth.
Still no sound. The warmth was making him drowsy. Desperate to stay awake, he silently recited the blessings over bread and wine, and the Mourner’s Kaddish. He tried to recall the addresses and phone numbers of his aunts and uncles, his nephews and cousins on both sides of his family. Hoping the pain would revive him, he bit the inside of his lip until it bled.
The door banged open. Mueller brushed by him, carrying a package wrapped in brown paper. He dropped into his desk chair and straightened a stack of forms. A guard entered with a tray of rolls and a pot of coffee. He poured the coffee and left. The rich aroma made Saul woozy.
Mueller bit into a roll and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He ripped the package open, took out a newspaper, and flipped through the sections. Without looking up, he said, “Bring me a pair of scissors.”
Saul trotted to the far side of the large room, where his makeshift shop was set up. Two curtains, hung on metal bars extending from the corner, a one-foot-high riser, a three-sided mirror, and a sewing machine bolted to a small wooden table. With every step he took, the stolen wool bunched between his toes. It had been sheer folly to take it. Surely Mueller was laying a trap for him.
The scissors shook as Mueller grabbed them from Saul’s hand. “Why the hell are you fidgeting, Rosensweig? You need to take a piss?”
“No, Director.”
He nodded to an adjacent bathroom. “Damn it, go if you need to. I can’t have Jew piss on my floor.” Mueller clipped a column from the newspaper. “Damn good article. Written up just right.” He leaned back in his chair. “Captain and Mrs. Heinrich Mueller of Munich are pleased to announce the upcoming marriage of their daughter Katrina to Lieutenant Franz Kepfer, son of Colonel and Mrs. Joseph Kepfer, also of Munich. Captain Mueller is a highly decorated war veteran who is currently serving…and so on and so on…are you listening to me, moron?”
“Yes, sir.”
“At least you could say congratulations.” “Excuse me, sir. Congratulations.”
Mueller shook his head. “That was pathetic. Put some enthusiasm into it. No, wait. Don’t you Jew scum have a word for it?”
“Sir?” “Congratulations.” “Yes, sir.”
Mueller slammed his fist on the table. “Then say it.”
As if he were reading from a dictionary, Saul said, “Mazeltov.”
“Mazeltov! That’s the word. Ha. Wait until I tell my wife.” He burped. “What the hell is the matter with you today? Haven’t had the delicious breakfast we give you?”
“No, sir. I was brought here before the food came.” Had Mueller counted the chocolates?
His bowels clenched.
Mueller pushed his frameless glasses up on his beak-like nose. “Something is troubling you, tailor. You’re more miserable than usual. Here. For the breakfast you missed. I’ll bet this beats turnip soup. Here, doggy. Catch!” He lobbed a cinnamon roll high in the air. Saul caught it before it hit the floor. Mazeltov! Well, don’t just look at it, eat it.”
Saul gulped down half the roll. He tasted butter, cinnamon, and sugar. It was like the rolls he used to buy first thing Sunday mornings, hot out of Alois Dallmayr bakery, a treat for his daughter before he walked her to Sunday school.
“You see? I’m not half bad. If only the miserable scum in this damn hole realized it, I’d get a hell of a lot more work out of you. You think it’s easy being in charge here? Do you?”
Saul wanted to ask Mueller if perhaps he’d like to change places with him; if he’d like to sleep on a lice-infested, rat infested straw mat, next to three other starving skeletons that stunk of sweat and shit; if he would enjoy it when his teeth crumbled on a petrified crust of ersatz bread;
if he’d be happy to go without word from his family for what seemed like forever. Instead, he said, “No, sir.”
” And now my daughter’s wedding. It’s only a week off. Damn fool kids, always in a rush…good Christ, I hope she’s not pregnant.” He stuffed two chocolates in his mouth. “So why am I bothering to tell this to a piece of shit like you? My wife hired a seamstress who is a total incompetent. She can’t get the damn wedding gown to fit properly. My daughter is panicking. I know the shop is scheduled to the hilt, but the hell with that. Katrina’s wedding gown is our priority.”
Sweat rolled down Saul’s back again. He raised his hand and whispered, “Sir?” “What?” Mueller blew his nose with a cloth napkin. “Speak up, for God’s sake.” “As you know, I am a men’s tailor.”
For a moment, Mueller’s face contorted, as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “I don’t give a damn. It’s all needles and thread, isn’t it? Two hundred and fifty wedding guests. High- ranking officers and party officials. The dress must fit her perfectly.” He walked up to Saul and smacked him on the back of the head. “Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
He lit a cigarette and spat a bit of tobacco on the floor. “Tailor, this truly is your lucky day. I’m giving you a new uniform and a warm shower, with real soap. And why?”
Saul knew he had to speak up. “Why, sir?”
“My daughter is coming here tomorrow morning for a fitting—you didn’t think I’d bring you to Munich, did you? Anyway, I can’t have you smelling like the beast that you are.” He took a thick magazine titled die Shon Braut out of the wrapping paper. A red ribbon extended from the center of the magazine. Mueller flipped it open and said, “Look here.” When Saul hesitated, he
said, “Come here, stupid.”
It was a photograph of Hollywood star Jean Harlow in a form-fitting white satin gown.
The photo caption read, The Dazzling Miss Harlow.
Mueller continued. “My daughter is fixated on this woman. God knows why, the woman died years ago. She says she wants to look like this picture. Take this magazine and study the gown. That’s why she wants.” Mueller banged on his desk twice.
Two guards rushed in. They gave Saul a chunk of rough soap and marched him into the shower adjacent to their quarters. On the wooden bench were a clean striped prison uniform and a new pair of boots. Saul dried himself and saved the remainder of the soap to trade with. He ran back to his block with the magazine. The other men from his cabin were out, shoveling snow at the quarry.
The magazine article began, “A generous helping of Hollywood glamour, this sizzling gown is cut on the bias, and true to Miss Harlow’s style, blouses at the bust, shimmers past the hips, clinging like a second skin, and falls to the floor in a puddle of crepe-backed silk satin.”
The scale of the gown was impressive. The train was eight feet long, with a nine-foot circumference, silk satin buttons, and yards of embroidered French lace. The alterations would be tricky. Strangely, he relished the challenge.
He read the rest of the magazine, studying every page as if it were the Talmud. There were the articles: Should You See Him the Night Before? Why would you? It might bring bad luck to the wedding. The bride and groom would be spending the rest of their lives together. They could stay apart one last night. Your First Home Together: Dos and Don’ts. Now this was full of good, practical advice. What did young people know about buying furniture, or real estate,
or the real world, for that matter? There were so many thieves out there ready to prey on the young and naive.
What a wedding he would have given Helen, with friends and relatives regaling the bride and groom, dancing the Hora around them. He would have spared no expense to ensure her happiness. How wonderful it would have been to feel her arm resting on his as he walked her down the aisle. To raise her veil and see the love in her eyes. To feel the sweet sorrow as he gave her away. And grandchildren. How he longed for them to carry on his name. But now? Better that there were no grandchildren if they had to live in a world like this.
On the inside of the back cover was an advertisement for a tropical resort. He traced his fingers over the tanned young couple in their bathing suits, stretched out under a palm tree on a white sand beach with tropical blue water. The caption read, “Picture yourself down in Havana.”
He tried to imagine the fragrance of oranges and tropical flowers, the delicious freedom of floating in the sea, or simply meandering along the shore with his wife, watching his daughter skipping in the sand. He tore the page from the magazine and ripped it into pieces.
Smoked fish, breads, eggs and bacon, coffee cakes, and a coffee urn had been set up on a long table in Mueller’s office that morning. When Saul arrived, he averted his eyes, fearful he might faint with hunger if he stared too long. If all went well, perhaps Mueller would give him another scrap.
A buxom young woman, chewing on a piece of strudel and struggling with the sleeve of her gown, caught his attention. Somehow, she had managed to pull the gown over her right shoulder, and her arm was stuck halfway down the sleeve. The more she tugged, the tighter it got, like Chinese handcuffs. Drops of sweat dotted her upper lip.
“Katrina,” Mueller said, “this is the master tailor.” “Papa, I’m stuck.”
“What? Wait, I’ll help you.”
The thought of Mueller’s greasy fingers touching the silk fabric distressed Saul. He waved his hand. “If you please, sir, allow me.”
Mueller raised his hand behind Saul’s head as if to smack him, but instead, he clapped him on the back and said, “Well, go on, go on then.”
The smell of lilac wafted over him as he approached her. It was his wife’s favorite scent. She would dab lilac perfume behind her ears and knees before they made love. Saul thought of how he caressed the curves of her body as she lay naked under the top sheet. Just a light touch of her fingers on his thigh or abdomen was enough to arouse him
Saul pointed to the riser. “This way, Miss,” As she entered his work area, he snipped the sleeve at the seam and pulled it off her arm. She gasped, but Saul said, “It’s of no concern. I’ll re- attach it later.” He placed it on top of his sewing machine and picked up some pins and a tape measure. Looking at Mueller, he said, “May I go on with the fitting, sir?”
Mueller’s pleasant tone took Saul by surprise. “Of course, tailor, of course. You’re in charge. Work your magic.”
“If you would be so kind as to step up on the riser. I need to take your measurements.”
As he leaned around her with his tape measure, he felt the warmth of her body. He measured across her chest and bust, her upper arms, her shoulders and back, against her hips and thighs. Occasionally, his hands brushed her bare skin. His fingertips tingled, and for the first time in months, his groin stirred. In a blood rush moment, he imagined how good it would feel to have this fleshy young woman right there on the floor.
Katrina said, “The moment I saw this gown, I had to have it. Isn’t it gorgeous? This is going to be the most important day of my life. I want so much to look glamorous for Franz. Oh, Papa, before I forget, Mama said to tell you that Uncle Kurt and Aunt Hilda are coming in early and staying at our house.”
“What?”
“Mama said you wouldn’t like it, but she said, too bad, they’re family.” She turned to face the mirror. “I don’t know why you don’t like Uncle Kurt, Papa. He tells the funniest stories.”
“Your funny uncle owes me a lot of money.”
“So? You have plenty, right? He does, doesn’t he, Mr. Tailor?” She looked at her father. “Is he allowed to answer, Papa?”
“Answer her, scum…er, tailor.”
The money Mueller was making from his tailoring was considerable, but he said, “I wouldn’t know about money, Miss.”
“Well, I do.” She spoke to her reflection. “Anyway, I hope the weather is nice for the wedding. I want the sun to shine on us. Like a blessing. Sometimes I think I should have held the ceremony later in the spring, outdoors, with millions of white and pink roses everywhere. But Franz and I, we couldn’t wait. He is so handsome. We want to have lots of children for the Fatherland. They’ll be so beautiful.” She looked at the tailor’s reflection. “Do you have children, tailor?”
The question struck him like a dagger. Keeping his eyes lowered, he said, “I have one daughter, miss.”
“What’s her name?”
He hesitated. “Answer her.”
“Her name is Helena.”
“Helena. I love that. You should have named me Helena, Papa. Katrina is so common.
Tell me about her, tailor.”
Helena had music in her voice and a bounce in her step. As a little girl, she loved to turn cartwheels. How she learned to do them, Saul couldn’t say, but her nimbleness delighted him. She started piano when she was four, and she practiced for an hour a day. She never had to be coerced; she took to the instrument instinctively. Saul made her a crushed blue velvet jumper, trimmed with white lace, for her Sunday school recital when she was eight. He beamed as he watched her play a three-minute version of Ein Kleine Nachtmusik from memory. The other parents congratulated him on having such a beautiful, talented daughter. Saul said, “She enjoys playing the piano.”
“Oh, she’s talented. What else? How old is she?” “She is eighteen now.”
“Is she as pretty as I am?”
The first time Saul realized his daughter had become a woman was at her grandmother’s funeral four years ago. At fourteen, she stood taller than his wife, with hazel eyes and honey- colored hair and an elegant, long neck. The best, brightest young men from the synagogue flocked by their house to see her. He said, “She is very pretty.”
Katrina frowned. She smoothed her hair back from her forehead and preened at the mirror. “Of course you would say that. You’re her father. But honestly, how pretty could she be? I mean, nothing personal, but all your Jewesses, it’s well known that they’re swarthy. Not fair,
like me. It’s the curse of your race.”
His nostrils flared, and he felt something snap inside him, a release from the fear that yoked him to the sewing machine, and from this horrid place where he was destined to die. “I am saying, my daughter is beautiful.”
“Fine, she’s beautiful.” Katrina sighed, “Papa, I need a break. I’m starving.”
The image of this chunky woman squeezing into this sleek gown suddenly repulsed him.
What did it matter now, what he said? In his old voice, the voice of der Schneidermeister, he said, “No eating.”
“What?”
Saul knelt to move the hem away from a bit of dirt on the floor. “This gown is designed to fit quite closely to the body. If you indulge yourself with heavy foods before your wedding, you will look like a sausage stuffed into a satin casing.”
For a moment, she looked as if she were going to break out in tears. She yelled, “Papa!
Did you hear what this pig just said?”
Saul went on, feeling slightly lightheaded, unable to stop. “You will listen now. The gown is too tight. I can alter it so that it fits properly. If you restrict your appetite, so much the better.
Then it will be perfect.”
Katrina put her hands on her thighs and bent at the waist, so that her breasts were within inches of his nose. “It had better. Jew.” She spat in his face.
Saliva slid down his cheek. “I’m finished. Step down now.”
Minutes after Katrina, Mueller and the guards clubbed Saul across his back, legs, and sides with a nightstick. However, following Mueller’s instructions, they left his hands and eyes untouched. Even as he listened to the blows smack against his ribs and knees, he hardly felt
them.
Two days later, he could barely breathe without clenching up. His abdomen was distended and painful to touch. Blood surged into his mouth when he coughed.
The pain and the blood on his lips forced him to work slowly and carefully, lest he soil the gown. He barely acknowledged Mueller’s shouts to hurry up and finish.
After three days, water was all he could take. Every time he reached to reposition a button or let out a seam, he felt his insides tear a little more. He tried to remember basic anatomy. Some organ had burst, he was sure. For minutes at a time, the pain would dissipate, as if to tease him, then come roaring back twice as strong. It was only the thought of finishing the gown that kept him from passing out.
How strange it seemed to craft such a beautiful thing for such a horrid creature. But Then, isn’t that precisely what he’d been doing since he’d been brought there, skillfully crafting clothes for these monsters? How could he have allowed himself to do it for so long? If only he could undo every stitch, tear down every hem, rip out every pleat. The gorge rose in his throat at the ignominy of it all, and tears came to his eyes, but he fought them back. Tears were stupid and meaningless now. This gown would be the last time he would please his master. Of this, he was certain.
In his growing delirium, he imagined Helena dressed in this gown on her wedding day.
How the satin would ripple and flow behind her as she walked down the aisle. How heads would turn and nod at her beauty and grace. Helena deserved this dress, not the Mueller sow.
Mueller left for Munich three days before the wedding for last-minute preparations. Alone in the office, Saul added his final touch, a row of decorative stitching. He snipped the
extra thread and allowed himself a moment to admire his work.
He packed the gown carefully inside a large box to minimize wrinkling. Despite the pain roaring from his belly to his throat, he managed to shuffle to the office door and knock. A guard entered. Saul said, “It is finished.” The guard lifted the box as gently as if it were a newborn baby. Twenty minutes later, it was on its way to Munich.
Alone in the office, Saul sat down behind Mueller’s desk and slowly reclined in the chair, breathing in short, quick gasps. Like Passover, he thought, where we recline because we can, because we are free men. He found the box of chocolates in the top drawer and dropped a piece in his mouth. He let it melt on his tongue. He rested his hands lightly on his belly and smiled.
Hours later, the guards found him splayed over Mueller’s desk, dark blood trickling from the side of his mouth. The smile was still on his face. Before they tossed his body on the pile outside the infirmary, they yanked off his boots.
The photography session was about to begin. In a little alcove next to the chapel, Katrina and Lena, her maid of honor, removed the gown from its packing. Katrina had eaten almost nothing since the fitting and now, even the bothersome sleeves slipped on like silk gloves. She cupped her breasts in her palms and pursed her lips at the mirror in her best Harlow pout. The girls giggled.
As she turned to admire her profile, Katrina noticed some gold and blue embroidery, about an inch high and six inches long, running across her left buttock. It looked like lettering. Still watching herself in the mirror, she asked Lena to see what it was.
Lena knelt and squinted. She said, “It’s some kind of word. It says, ‘Mazeltov—SR.’” She covered her mouth with her hands, suppressing a laugh.
Katrina clawed at the stitching. She threw open the dressing room door. “Papa!”
Marc Simon’s short fiction has appeared in over fifteen literary magazines. Five of his one-act plays have been winners in new works contests. His debut novel, The Leap Year Boy, was published in December 2012. His novella, According to Isaac, is now published on Amazon.com. See more at https://marcsimonwriter.com