In anticipation of the upcoming holiday, everyone’s in an exceptionally good mood. My boss is breathing easily for a change—during this is make-or-break season, sales have been brisk. The staff is upbeat because she’s upbeat and because tomorrow is a paid holiday. Customers are making a concerted effort to be convivial.
At fifteen minutes to closing time, this unusually harmonious atmosphere is suddenly disrupted by an insistent banging on the glass door. I peer out to see a person in a wheelchair, frantically gesturing to me for help. From across the large room my boss yells, “Don’t answer it, don’t let him in.” But even if it weren’t Christmas Eve, it would be impossible for me to not respond.
I’ve seen this man at the federally run residence for ex-soldiers next door. He’s usually sitting outside on the sidewalk with others in chairs. Some sit on benches, their crutches propped beside them, smoking and staring at the parade of life passing them by. Their expressions range from boredom to bewilderment. If they weren’t shell-shocked before they got here, they are shocked now at how they’ve gone from the hell of war to the hell of spending the rest of their lives on this patch of concrete in the city’s core.
With the recent escalation of property prices in this area, the tension between the haves and have-nots has been steadily rising. In a surge of determination, long-time residents, artists, entrepreneurs, developers and drug addicts are all fighting it out for their piece of turf.
Except for slow variations, I’ve seen the same group of vets for years, and some have taken to smiling or nodding hello when I walk by. But not this old guy with his cadaverously thin face. His icy inspections usually make me wince and glance away.
Now I’m having trouble manoeuvering his chair to let him in and can tell from his boozy breath he’s driving drunk. When he’s stuck halfway through the door, blocking the entrance, I give up. In tones swollen with intimidation he demands,“I want Mein Kampf—in German.”
“This isn’t really happening,” I rationalize, “he must want the book for research.”
“What’s your problem?” he asks. Not looking at him, I lie: “It’s how your chair is, I can’t close the door.” He mutters something to me in a language similar to the one my parents spoke when they didn’t want me to know what they were talking about. But my honest “I don’t understand Yiddish” is met with his derisive laughter.
I can’t even begin to find my voice. All I want to do is crawl out of here into the cloister of my home, holed up with books I can open and shut, DVDs I can turn on and off to feed the illusion that I can control my world. I already find it difficult enough this time of year dealing with the endless wishes for me to have a “Merry Christmas.” My response is either a tiresome explanation that not everyone celebrates the same holidays, or, capitulating, “Thank you, the same to you.” Neither satisfies me.
Meanwhile my boss decides to treat the vexsome vet as a potential customer and delves into the inner recesses of her extensive operation. She reappears at her desk, behind a barricade of precariously piled, gravity-defying books. Her cheeks are flushed from the exertion of having been made to dig through her inner sanctum of “collectibles”; she waves me over to fetch an ornate edition of Mein Kampf—in German.
The vet’s hands are as knotty as the branches of a ravaged tree, but his fingers become light as feathers as they trace the embossed gold letters on the book’s leather cover. Nearby I fiddle, straightening shelves, waiting while he deliberates and then declares: “Sure is worth it, just don’t have this kind of money right now.” With a show of reluctance he returns the book to me, and awkwardly makes his way out backwards—this time without my help.
“See, I told you,” my boss says, and I am not sure whether she means: “See, I knew he’d be trouble”; or “see, I knew he wouldn’t buy anything.” This is a bookstore, after all. Before I have a chance to release some tension—a scream is tempting—a real beauty, a colossus in his twenties, strides over as if he’s just climbed down from the Alps. He’s carrying a massive pack on his massive back and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to hear “Val-de-ree Val-de-rah” bubble out of his mouth.
But he’s in no singing mood as he shouts, “How could you carry such an odious book? In my country, in Germany, it is illegal!” All I hear is rank Aryan anger, perverse national pride. How dare he put me in a position where I have to defend the reading of Mein Kampf ? How dare he boast about the moral superiority of his country’s “laws” when their worst crimes had all been “legal”?
In a flash I understand this young man is no more free of history than I am; he is only an innocent taking on the task of re-working the world. “Know thine enemy,” I say, and begin to elaborate on the temptations of forbidden fruit. My theorizing doesn’t placate him, my statements are gibberish. I know full well that to offer any balm is useless, but I can’t resist patting him on the arm and murmuring, “Don’t be upset.”
Until now he’s been polite, probably because of my age, possibly because of my gender. At my touch, he shrinks and stalks out. “Wait, wait,” I want to call after him. But it is the other words, the words that I should have directed at the vet that burn inside me.
On Boxing Day, I’m once more in the store filling the spaces left by books sold out of the window display. It’s early; the area is quiet on this quasi-holiday, except for one burst of activity. It’s the vet wheeling up the street.
Straddled across the arms of his chair is an ornately carved walking stick and I think, “Not only is this guy a neo-Nazi, but a faker to boot.” He moves at breakneck speed, I’m hoping in a rush to get to his residence, but no such luck. As soon as he’s opposite me on the sidewalk, he jerks to a halt so abruptly he almost topples out of his chair.
We are separated only by thin, clear glass but he pretends to be oblivious to my presence as he raises the stick tauntingly. Shards of Kristallnacht lacerate my brain—I am transfixed, a silent, shuddering witness. He brandishes the stick high above his head, twirls it once, twice before bringing it down hard and fast. Down, down it comes until at the last possible nano-second he stops its descent. Taps it gently on the pane.
His chin juts out at an ugly angle; a jeer slashes his face as he looks directly at me. At last something deeper than memory wells up and I am finally able to look right back. He lowers his eyes.