Forever Fleeting Page 3

  He, Erich, and Heinrich slept most of the bus ride home and arrived back in Berlin at nearly nine o’clock at night. Despite sleeping for almost the entire eight-hour ride to Berlin, they had nothing but sleep on their schedule when they returned.

  The next morning, Wilhelm woke to a large yawn and got ready for another day of building the Reich. He had enjoyed the job much more in September than he had in October. Cold gusts ripped through his clothes and caused the scaffolding to shake. But still, he could hardly complain. Less than ten years ago, there were hardly any jobs to go around and even less food. Plus, he was able to work outside with his best friends. Fresh air beat inside air any day of the week. While some refused to climb the scaffold for a fear of heights, Wilhelm loved it. He, Erich, and Heinrich could talk about anything and the boss, on street level, could not scold them if they happened to take a quick break.

  On Thursday, a black car pulled alongside the curb and halted to a stop. As he was nearly four stories off the ground, Wilhelm was the first to see the car approach.

  “It’s the Führer!” a man yelled from ground level.

  “Get down here!” another hollered.

  Rushing down a scaffold was not safe or smart, as any quick change of weight placement could turn it into a teeter-totter. But they did not want to be the only ones not standing with respect for the Führer.

  The Führer was the most famous man in Germany. Apart from his driver, who stood by the car, the Führer was accompanied by only two other men. One was nearly as famous as Hitler and the other, unheralded by a large majority.

  The known was Joseph Goebbels—the Minister of Propaganda. He was a thin, short man and extremely loyal to Adolf Hitler. The unheralded was Albert Speer. Wilhelm had seen him before—often, actually. He was the designer of the Reich Chancellery.

  “Hail, Hitler!” the workers shouted while raising their right arms in the Nazi salute. It was mandatory for civilians and punishable if not done. It was the reason Wilhelm, Erich, and Heinrich were willing to risk falling off the scaffold.

  Hitler nodded and smiled.

  “Back to work,” the boss commanded.

  After the three were back up on the scaffolding and above earshot, they criticized the laziest of the workers who had finally found the motivation to actually work. Men who had done nothing but scratch their heads and rearrange their underwear now moved with annoying frenzy.

  Wilhelm had never taken notice of the traffic before, but after the Führer’s visit, he kept looking at the streets below. When a black and white Ford Eifel drove past, his mouth dropped open. He immediately fell in love with that car—the way the paint glistened in the sun and the sound of the engine as it drove by.

  “That’s what I want to do,” Wilhelm said.

  When neither Erich nor Heinrich answered, he tapped the latter on the shoulder. Heinrich turned to look at the car and did not give it a second look.

  “Drive cars?” Heinrich asked.

  “No, sell them,” Wilhelm corrected.

  Heinrich gave a half-nod and returned to his conversation with Erich. Though Wilhelm enjoyed the work, he could not help but think of what winter would be like. Working outside in the freezing cold and snow did not seem like fun, nor did standing four stories up on a sheet of plywood held in place by aluminum cross beams when winter winds blasted through. Being able to escape the cold inside and being surrounded by cars was a much better alternative.

  Wilhelm finished his shift and, while Heinrich and Erich went home, he went to the nearest car dealer. It was called “Der Berliner Autohändler.” Though the cars were used, they were washed and cleaned, and everything possible to make them appear more enticing was done. Wilhelm opened the door and walked in. The person behind the front desk had his face covered by the day’s newspaper.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked.

  “I want to work here,” Wilhelm said.

  “Know anything about cars?” the man asked, still reading the newspaper.

  “No. Not really. But these cars will sell themselves. I will just stay out of the way,” Wilhelm said.

  The man lowered the paper and gave it a shake so he could fold it back up. He was balding and overweight.

  “How much do you want to get paid?” the man asked.

  “How much do you want to pay me?” Wilhelm asked.

  “I do not know. If you sell nothing, I wish to pay you nothing,” the man said.

  He rose from his chair, tucked his shirt that was two sizes too small back into his pants, and hobbled toward Wilhelm.

  “Then pay me nothing. But I will take five-percent commission,” Wilhelm said.

  “Five percent? Pull your pants up, son. I do not have to see them to know that you have them,” the man said, “So, you know nothing about cars, but you want to make five-percent commission?” He shook his head while laughing.

  “Pay me what you feel I have earned,” Wilhelm said.

  The man stared long and hard. He had exactly twenty-five cars on his lot, and he washed each one every other day. He hated it. And with winter coming, he would have to scrape the snow off the cars and shovel the lot. He loathed that.

  “Do you have a suit?” the man asked.

  The man himself wore a dress shirt and tie that hardly looked presentable. The shirt was already untucked, as there was only a mere inch of extra shirt to tuck into his pants. Maybe some number of years and pounds ago, it had fit.

  “No,” Wilhelm answered.

  He had not realized how underdressed he was in a pair of dirt-covered slacks and a white shirt that now looked closer to gray or brown. He most certainly had grime on his face, dirt under his fingernails, and was stained with an invisible layer of offending body odor. One of the drawbacks of working on a scaffold was that the sun hung only a foot over his shoulders.

  “Get a suit,” the man said.

  “Yes, Sir,” Wilhelm said, beaming with a smile.

  “Come back here tomorrow at eight. My name is Hans. Hans Rabe,” the man said, extending his hand.

  Wilhelm shook it and remembered what his father had said about handshakes … “A handshake reveals the man. Be firm and look the man in the eye.” He waved goodbye and left the dealership in prime spirits.

  Though he had lived in Berlin for almost two months now, his knowledge of places was limited to his work and the places Erich had shown him on his first night. So, Wilhelm wandered aimlessly on the street. He had taken too many lefts and rights to know where he was. But as fate would have it, he came across a strip of stores—a bakery, a jeweler, and a shop with a modest sign that read “Tailor, Tux, and Touch Up.”

  The full-length glass windows of the two-story building were spaced with red bricks. Wilhelm opened the door of the shop and looked around. There were mannequins dressed in sharp, elegant suits and tuxedos and women’s jackets of leather, cloth, and wool in varying shades of brown, black, gray, silver, and red. Each showcased a fine eye for fashion and a sure hand that measured, stitched, and sewed. But for how immaculate they looked in the early evening, the mannequins must have looked equally creepy at night.

  “Just a minute,” a man’s voice yelled from somewhere in the back.

  Wilhelm tried looking beyond the register and the black curtain that hung behind it. The voice had come from somewhere behind it. As he waited, he ran the suits between his fingers to get a feel of the different fabrics.

  A bald man with a thin onyx-colored beard, speckled with white hair, bound through the black curtain, around the register, and to Wilhelm.

  “A good day to you, young Sir, and welcome. My name is Josef. How may I help you?” the man asked and offered his hand.

  “I need a suit, Sir,” Wilhelm said, shaking his hand.

  Josef wore glasses that sat on the tip of his nose, and Wilhelm thought if he leaned too far forward, they would slide off his face.

  “You have come to the right place,” Josef said.

  He held his arm out, gesturing Wilhelm to follow
him. Wilhelm did, and they walked to the back end of the shop. The wooden shelves against the wall were filled with different fabrics. When they reached the back, Josef pulled a cloth ruler, appearing to be nearly seven-feet long, from his breast pocket. “Step up here if you would please,” Josef said.

  Wilhelm stepped up onto a circular platform and observed himself in the mirror in front of him as Josef pulled shut the sliding door behind him. There was a mirror on the door as well so customers knew exactly how things fit and looked.

  “Cough please,” Josef said.

  Wilhelm’s face contorted.

  “Bad tailor humor. Just relax, son,” Josef reassured.

  He used the cloth ruler to measure Wilhelm’s neck, chest, waist, seat, shirt length, shoulder width, arm length, wrist, hips, and inseam. He jotted the measurements onto a sheet of paper attached to a brown clipboard. He was so thorough that Wilhelm thought he could tell him down to the exact millimeter. Josef had a soft voice with great diction and uttered phrases like, “Very good, Sir,” “There it is,” and “Fantastic.” The man was warm and gentle in a way entirely different from Wilhelm’s father.

  “Excellent. Do you have a preference in color?” Josef asked as he rolled the cloth ruler back up.

  “I love black. But something stylish. And I am not embarrassed to say that my funds are not as deep as my pockets.”

  Josef smiled. “It is always a pleasure to help a man buy his first suit—a suit you make a living in, a suit you live in. Perhaps, a suit you fall in love in,” Josef said, arching his eyebrows for effect.

  Wilhelm smiled. It was a strange thought, but Wilhelm would have loved to hear the man read some of his favorite books because he delivered his words like poetry.

  “Now, about your thin pockets. To create a tux from new, I fear will be out of your price range. But we can use an existing suit, and my wife can tweak it to your measurements,” Josef added.

  “That would be appreciated,” Wilhelm said.

  “I shall return,” Josef said, disappearing behind the black curtain once again. He sifted through the suit coats on the rack before finding one similar to Wilhelm’s measurements. It was indigo and would need some adjusting, but Wilhelm smiled approvingly when Josef brought it to him.

  “It is not black. But I think it will look sharp on you,” Josef said.

  “It is excellent. But how much?” Wilhelm asked.

  “It is your first tux. We can work something out,” Josef reassured him once again.

  “Thank you.”

  “Pay for half the tux now. My wife will adjust it. Come back tomorrow and pay the remaining half.”

  Wilhelm put the coat on and examined himself in the mirror.

  “You, my fine good Sir, are my last customer for the day,” Josef said.

  As Wilhelm stepped toward the register, Josef hurried toward the door to flip the sign and turn the lock to stop anyone trying to sneak in before the sign was flipped from “OPEN” to “CLOSED.”

  “You’d be surprised how many don’t read the sign,” Josef added.

  He walked to the register and took the sheet of paper from the clipboard and attached it to the indigo suit.

  “I did not get your name, son.”

  “Wilhelm Schreiber.”

  Josef wrote the name on the sheet of paper. His handwriting was as Wilhelm had expected it to be—almost calligraphic.

  “Well, young Wilhelm, I smell my wife’s brisket. My daughter will finish up. I shall see you tomorrow, my good young Sir,” Josef said, nodding politely.

  “Good night, Sir,” Wilhelm said.

  Josef disappeared in the back. The floorboards creaked as he ascended the stairs. Wilhelm waited patiently by the glass counter. One thing was for certain—you could not beat Josef’s commute to work. It consisted all of twelve steps. The black curtain was brushed open once more, and Wilhelm’s mouth fell agape before awkwardly forming a smile.

  “Hannah,” he mumbled.

  “Wilhelm,” Hannah said with a paralyzing smile.

  “You are the tailor’s daughter?” Wilhelm asked, struggling to speak.

  “Yes,” Hannah said, laughing at his choice of words.

  Erich had warned Wilhelm that if he continued to think of Hannah, he would go crazy and start seeing her in the clouds and in his beer. Wilhelm stood dumbfounded as he considered this possibility.

  “What is the suit for?” Hannah asked.

  Her question snapped him out of his temporary paralysis. He took out the required amount of money from his pocket and put it down on the counter.

  “I am going to be selling cars,” Wilhelm said.

  Josef’s phrase, “a suit you make a living in,” came to mind but was quickly replaced by “a suit you fall in love in.”

  Hannah took the Reichsmarks from the counter, opened the register, and placed them inside.

  “I looked all over for you in Munich,” Wilhelm said.

  “That was my last night there,” Hannah said.

  “You live upstairs?”

  Hannah nodded and held out his change for him. Wilhelm took it, their fingertips caressing one another as he did.

  “I have to take you out, Hannah,” Wilhelm blurted out.

  “I have to ask my father,” Hannah said.

  “I will ask him.”

  Hannah nodded and disappeared behind the black curtain and came back moments later with her father by her side.

  “Is there a problem, Mr. Schreiber?” Josef asked.

  “With your tux? No, Sir. I would like to take Hannah out for dinner if you would permit it,” Wilhelm said, taking a deep breath to summon his courage. He could sense the change in Josef’s demeanor. He was no longer a tailor. He was now a protective father.

  “You do,” Josef said grimly.

  It was obvious he did not approve of Wilhelm’s desire to take his daughter on a date after having only seen her for thirty seconds.

  “I have met Wilhelm before. Mother and I had gone to his father’s flower shop when we were in Schönfeld last spring and when I visited Aunt Clara in Munich just a few weeks ago,” Hannah mentioned.

  Wilhelm’s spirits soared higher than any Luftwaffe pilot ever had. Hannah was attempting to talk her father into allowing her to go on a date with him.

  “And would you like to go out with him?” Josef asked.

  “Very much,” Hannah gushed.

  The feeling of being able to fly swept over Wilhelm once again. It would take getting hit by a dump truck to wipe the smile off his face, and even that was not a certainty.

  “You may take her out tomorrow when you pick up your suit. Hannah, you will be home by ten. Not a minute later. And, Mr. Schreiber, you have lost your discount,” Josef said, pointing his finger at Wilhelm.

  His face was stern, and whether he himself decided to crack the smallest remnant of a smile or Hannah non-verbally pleaded with him to do so, Wilhelm could not tell. Josef disappeared behind the black curtain and clambered up the steps with plodding feet. Something told Wilhelm that Josef would not enjoy his brisket nearly as much.

  “Will you be here tomorrow? Or will you vanish like before?” Wilhelm teased.

  “I will be here tomorrow. Come at five,” Hannah said.

  Wilhelm smiled and left the shop, taking one final glance at Hannah before he did. One thing was for certain—tomorrow would take forever.

  Italy in Berlin

  Time became lethargic—it barely crept by. It was his first day at his dream job, and Wilhelm could have sworn he had been at work for at least three hours, but every time he looked up at the clock, he was forced to face the reality that only minutes had passed. He was tempted to ask Hans if his clock was broken.

  Hans went through every car on his lot in great detail. His sales philosophy, which he said was similar to that of a snake, was to play dumb and indifferent, and when the customers were close to buying, unhinge your jaws and bury your fangs in them. He showed Wilhelm how to fill out the paperwork and instruct
ed him on the three tiers of pricing—above market for the desperate and dumb, market for the interested and educated, and below market for parking lot mold (the cars that weren’t selling). Wilhelm did his best to seem interested, for he truly was, but his mind kept his upcoming date with Hannah at the forefront. Though he retained much of what Hans said, the minutia of it went in and out. Hans was displeased when Wilhelm showed up without a suit, but Wilhelm assured him a suit was being tailored for him.

  “I do not expect you to remember everything,” Hans said as they ate their lunch.

  Hans had brought in sauerkraut and bierwurst for the both of them. Hans did not look like a man who knew how to cook, but Wilhelm gave an approving nod as he chewed.

  “Are you having second thoughts about the job?” Hans asked, bits of food shooting from his mouth.

  “No. Not at all. My mind is on a date I have tonight. I am sorry,” Wilhelm said.

  Honesty was his best play.

  Hans smiled, and bits of his bierwurst squeezed out of his mouth and onto his plate. “Where are you taking her?” Hans asked with a mouthful. He grabbed a napkin and wiped his face.

  “An Italian restaurant and then to a park by the river for music and dancing,” Wilhelm said.

  He had gone over every detail nearly fifty times. He was excited about it all but most excited to learn more about her.

  “To be that smitten…” Hans said, reminiscing in his head about when he had looked at his wife in the same way. He said he still loved her, but a house full of five children was as noisy as the train station, and for that reason, he did not mind working six days a week. He would spend the first hour upon returning home arguing with his wife about it and spend the next two hours begging for forgiveness. By the time she was done cleansing him of his sins, they would be in bed, drifting off to sleep, and the cycle would start over the next day.