Making history

'How about-... how about, say ... the twentieth? The twentieth of April? How's that?'

I wipe my palms against my thighs and nod.

'How do you like that?! Bullseye! A twenty-nine-to-one shot and I get a bullseye first time! And the place of birth? I thought at first perhaps I was looking at a typing error, and that you were born in the town of Hertford in England. But, no, perhaps your father was a military man. Perhaps you were born in Herford, Germany, where there was until a few years ago a British Army camp?'

Again I nod.

'So. You were born in Herford, Germany on the twentieth of April, 1972.'

He looks at me with a twinkle. For a horrible second he is the double of that absurd old man in braces who used to sing along with the Smurfs with his chin on the table, eyes moving left and right as they danced past him.

'What about you?' I ask, anxious to change the subject. 'You aren't a historian. What are you exactly?'

His eyes follow mine to the bookshelves. 'Very dull, I'm afraid. Just a scientist. Physics is my subject, but I have as you see ... other interests.'

'The Shoah?'

'Ah, you think perhaps to flatter me by using the Hebrew. Yes, most especially the Shoah.' His eyes return to me. 'Tell me Michael, are you a Jew?'

'Er, no. No I'm not, as it happens.' 'As it happens. You are sure?'

'Well, yes. I mean, not that it matters to me one way or the other, but I'm not a ... I'm not Jewish.'

'Forster, you know, in the thirties he wrote an essay on what he called "Jew Consciousness". How do we know, he said, that we are not Jews? Can we any of us name our eight great-grandparents and be sure they were all Aryan? And yet if only one of them was Jewish, then our lives are as absolutely contingent upon that Jew as they are upon the male line that has given us our surname and our identity. An interesting point, I thought. I doubt if even the

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Prince of Wales could name his eight great-grandparents, no?'

'Well I certainly can't name mine,' I say. 'Come to think, I can't name my four grandparents exactly either. But as far as I know I'm not Jewish.'

'Not that it matters to you one way or the other.'

'No,' I say, striving to keep a note of petulance out of my voice. There is for sure something very creepy about this whole deal, this whole line of questioning. Zuckermann is staring at me intently as if he is coming to some decision, although which way that decision is going I can't tell.

I had discovered over the course of my researches that there are plenty of really weird people in my field and some of them assume as a matter of course that you share their weirdnesses. There was a group in London who had somehow found out the subject of my thesis and sent me samples of their 'literature' that had me and Jane straight on the phone to the police.

Zuckermann laughs at the expression on my face. 'I can see that it irritates you to be jerked around like this.' 'Well, I just don't see where ...'

'Okay! No more jerking around, I promise. Straight to the point.' He leans forward in his chair. 'You,

Michael Duncan Young, have written a thesis on a subject that interests me very much. Very much indeed. So. Two things. Alpha, I should like to read it. Beta, I should like to know why you wrote it. There. It is that simple.' He leans back again to await my answer.

I swallow hard. These are deep waters, Watson. Tread carefully. Tread very carefully. 'The first thing you have to know,' I say slowly and trying without success to meet the piercing blue of his gaze, 'is that I am not a ... you know, I'm not some kind of weirdo, some kind of ... I'm not a David Irving type, if that's what you think. I don't collect Iron Crosses or swastikas or Lugers or SS uniforms or claim that only twenty thousand people died in the holocaust, any of that crap.'

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He nods, with his eyes closed, like someone listening to music and waves for me to continue.

'And you are right, my birthday does happen to fall on the twentieth of April. I suppose ever since I first knew that April twentieth was, you know, what you might call a red letter day, I've been ... fascinated, or, I don't know, guilty you might say.' I take a gulp of coffee to wet a rapidly drying throat.

'Guilty? That's interesting. You believe in astrology perhaps?'

'No, no. It's not that. I don't know. As I say. You know.' 'Mm. Also of course, it is a subject that the biographies cover in very little detail, so it is very fitting for a doctoral thesis, where one needs to pitch one's tent in virgin fields, yes?'

'There is that too, yup.'

He opens his eyes. 'We haven't said the Word, have we?' 'So sorry?'

'The Name. We have avoided the Name. As though it might be a curse.'

'Oh, you mean, er, Hitler? Well

'Yes, I mean "er, Hitler". Adolf Hitler. Hitler, Hitler, Hitler,' he says, with increasing volume. 'You scared of him? Hitler? Or maybe you think I don't allow the name Hitler in my rooms, like it's saying "cancer" in a lady's boudoir?' 'No, I just ...'

'Sure.'

We sink into a silence until I realise he is expecting me to say more.

'Um ... as for your being able to read it. My thesis, I mean. It's with my supervisor at the moment, Dr Fraser-Stuart, and obviously he's got to go through everything, check it all out, you know, before it gets sent off to Professor Bishop. And then I think it's going to Bristol. Professor Ward. Emily Ward. I see you've got one of her books there

... anyway, this lunchtime I had to print out a fresh copy for Dr Fraser-Stuart, after ... you know, what happened in

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the car-park and everything, but I could run off another for you if you like. Um. Obviously.'

'Well, I tell you the truth, Michael. You still got those pages I saw?'

'Yes, but they're all out of order and in a bit of a state.' 'I am so eager to read your work that I'll take all you

got and put it together myself. I imagine there is page numbering?'

'Sure,' I say, reaching for the briefcase, 'help yourself

He takes possession of the fat bundle of tyre-marked, torn, scrunched and grit-pocked papers and places them carefully on the table, gently smoothing out the top page as he speaks. 'So Michael Young. Would you say that you knew more about the young Adolf Hitler than anyone else alive?'

I blink and try to consider this as honestly as I can. 'I reckon that would be going a bit far,' I manage at last. 1 got over to Austria last year and went through as many records as I could find, but I don't think I came across anything that hadn't been seen before. It's a very narrow window of time that I'm interested in, you see. I think I can say I found out more about his mother's background, Klara Polzl, than was known before, and some stuff about the house in Brunau where he was born, but that's very early and had no real influence over his life. See, they moved to Gross-Schonau when he was only one, and then to Passau a couple of years after that, and when he was five they went from Fischlhalm to a village near Linz, and everything that can be known about his schooldays there is known, I would say. The historians in the late forties and in the fifties had the advantage of being able to talk to people who knew him as a boy. Obviously I only had old records to go on. So ...'

'Still you avoid the name.'

'I do? Well, it's not deliberate, I promise you,' I say, definitely rattled by now. The foregoing has been a pretty long speech for me. 'To answer your question, I

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think I know as much about ADOLF HITLER's childhood as anyone, and in some areas, yes, more.'

'Uh-huh.' 'Why?'

'I'm so sorry?'

'Why do you want to know exactly?'

'Well, I shall read your work first if I may,' he moves towards the door, signalling the end of the visit, 'and then maybe, you will do me the favour of coming to visit me again?'

'Sure. Absolutely. Okay.' 'Fine.'

'I mean,' I look again at his bookshelves, 'you're obviously something of an expert yourself, so your opinion would be of great value.'

'Kind of you to say so, but I am not a professional,' he says, granting me an equally unconvincing academic courtesy.

I stand awkwardly by the door, not sure how to say goodbye.

'Actually,' I blurt out, 'my girlfriend's Jewish.'

Not pink this time, but scarlet. I can feel the full flush spreading through my back and chest, surging up my throat and then flooding the whole face until it is a great flashing beacon of misery and confusion. What a turd! Why did I say that? Why did I say that?

He surprises me by putting an arm round me and patting me gently on the shoulder. 'Thank you, Michael,' he says. 'She's in biochemistry. This college. Perhaps you know her?'

'Perhaps. And she is still your girlfriend? After what you did to her car?'

'Oh. Well. She's very forgiving. It amused her in fact.'

'It amused me, too. Such a chivalrous compliment, if the truth be told. So, you'll come visit me again? And maybe next time you'd like to see my laboratory, hey?'

'Mm!' I say, 'that'd be fascinating.'

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He throws back his head and laughs. 'Actually, my boy, I think, much to your surprise, that it would be fascinating.' 'Well, right. And thanks for the coffee ... oh, I didn't finish it.'

'No bothers. Whatever it was like before, it sure is cool now.'

Making Threats School report: I

Klara, despite herself, touched Alois' arm in urgent appeal.

'You'll be kind? You won't be angry?' 'Let go of me, woman! Just send him in.' She dipped her head sadly and left the room. As she closed the double-doors on Alois, she saw him take up his pipe. Klara bit her lip sadly: the pipe was reserved for stern, fatherly moments.

Out in the hallway Anna was dusting a glass dome under which, their wings frozen in triumphant splay, two goldfinches peered brightly out. Klara nodded to her shyly and climbed the stairs, the tight, black, shining oak cackling like a hag beneath her feet.

He was on the bed, lying on his stomach reading, hands pressed over ears. In spite of the creak of boards he had not heard her, so she watched for a while in love. He read at tremendous speed, turning the pages and talking to himself all the while, little laughs and gasps and snorts of disgust accompanying every paragraph. She supposed it was another history book. At the birthday party of a school friend recently he had impressed the Linz librarian by talking with detailed knowledge about the Roman Empire while the other

children danced and tumbled over each other to piano music. 'Gibbon is quite wrong,' she had heard him say reprovingly, at which the librarian had laughed and patted him on the shoulder. He had writhed and glowered under this treatment and complained about it bitterly on the walk home. 'Why must they treat me as a child?'

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'Well, darling, you are a child in his eyes. People believe that children should behave as children and grown-ups as grown-ups.'

'What nonsense! The truth is the truth whether spoken by a ten-year-old country boy or an ancient professor in Vienna. What possible difference can it make how old I am?'

He was quite right. After all, had not Our Lord as a child argued with the priests in the temple? And did He not say, Suffer the little children to come unto me? She did not tell him this, however. It would only encourage him to say something arrogant to antagonise Alois.

As she watched him now, he suddenly stopped turning the pages and raised his head.

'Mutti,' he said matter of factly, without looking round. She laughed. 'How did you know?'

He turned to face her. 'Violets,' he said. 'You come to me on the air, you know.' He winked at her and sat up on the bed.

'Oh, Dolfi!' she said with reproach, noticing a rip in his lederhosen and grazes on his knee. 'You've been fighting.' 'It was nothing, Mutti. Besides, I won. An older, bigger boy too.'

'Well, you must clean yourself up. Your father wants to see you.'

She laid out one of Alois Junior's cast-off suits for him while he washed in the bathroom. A little too big for him perhaps, but he looked very smart and serious in it. She picked up the book he had been reading and was surprised to see that it was the children's story Treasure Island, all about pirates and parrots and rum.

He came back from the bathroom, a towel round his waist. He frowned when he saw her holding the book. 'I have to get changed now,' he said, without moving. She sighed and withdrew. A year ago he would let her bath him, and now he could not even dress in her presence. His voice was breaking too and every day he became more secretive and private; that was the trouble with

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boys, they grew away from you. She went slowly downstairs and into the kitchen. Anna was there, preparing little Paula's tea. Klara decided to go outside and tend to the garden. There was, conveniently, a flower bed outside Alois' study that needed weeding.

'Come in, please!' Alois was wearing his icily polite customs officer's voice. Klara knelt below the open window, her hand around a tendril of convolvulus, and heard the study door open and close.

A long silence followed. His childish trick of pretending to read, while poor Dolfi stood there, marooned on the carpet.

'Are your shoes dirty?' 'No, sir.'

'Then why do you polish them against your trousers? Stand on both legs, boy! You aren't a stork, are you?'

'No, sir. I am not a stork.'

'And you can take that impertinent tone out of your voice at once!'

Silence again, broken by a theatrical rustling of papers and the dry clearing of a throat as Alois began to read.

' "Some brain, but he lacks self-discipline ...

cantankerous, wilful, arrogant and bad-tempered. He has clear difficulty in fitting in at the school. He adopts enthusiasms with a zealous energy which evaporates the moment he realises that thought, application and study are required. He reacts, moreover, with ill-concealed hostility to any advice or reproof. A thoroughly unsatisfactory term's work." Well? What have you to say to that?'

'Doctor Humer. That's Doctor Hiimer's report, isn't it? He hates me.'

'Never you mind whose report it is! Have you any idea how much the Realschule charges me for the dubious honour of teaching you? And this is how you repay me? "Nor can his influence on the other boys be said to be healthy. He seems to demand unqualified subservience from them, fancying himself in the role of leader."

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Leader? You couldn't lead a kindergarten paperchase, boy!'

'What about Doctor Potsch? What does he say?' 'Potsch? He says you have talent and enthusiasm.' 'There!'

'But he also accuses you of indiscipline and laziness.'

'I don't believe you! He wouldn't say any such thing. Doctor Potsch understands me. You've made that up.' 'How dare you! Come here. Come herd'

Tears filled Klara's eyes as she heard the whip swish through the air and smack flatly on the tight cloth of Alois Junior's old suit. And Dolfi shouting, shouting, shouting, 'I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!' Why could he not learn to submit as she did? Did he not understand that the more he protested the more the Bastard liked it? .

'Go to your room and stay there until you learn to apologise!'

'Very well,' Dolfi's cracked half-child half-man voice did not waver. Only the sound of liquid bubbling from his nose defiantly sniffed back betrayed his fury and his pain. 'Then I shall stay up there until you are dead.'

'No, no, darling!' Klara whispered, hugging herself in distress, terrified that Alois might raise up Pnina again. Instead she was surprised to hear him give a queer little laugh. 'Your mother may spoil you and flatter your disgusting vanity, but believe me, Adolf, I shall break you yet. Oh yes. Now get out.'

'Don't you ... dare ...' she could hear a tremble in Dolfi's voice as he fought back the tears, 'don't you dare touch her. I'll kill you, I'll kill you!'

Open sobbing now.

Alois laughed again. 'Oh run along, little boy, before your snot dribbles onto the carpet.'

Making Mistakes School report: II

Sweat dripped off my nose and onto the floor. Stuff this for a plover, I thought to myself.

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Doctor Angus Alexander Hugh Fraser-Stuart liked to gather his long white hair in a net. He favoured silk kimonos, white cotton happi-coats and ballooning trousers of black satin. His rooms, a spacious set of chambers occupying the corner of the Franklin building that overlooked the Cam, let in a great deal of light: direct sunlight dazzled through the windows, reflected light from the river rippled on the ceiling and white spotlight from modern tracks funnelled onto studiedly arranged pictures and prints on the plain white walls. All around the room, on sills, ledges, tables and copra matting, cactus plants were disposed in trim lines. A huge Arizona specimen, as from a Larsen cowboy cartoon, dominated one corner of the room, thrusting up two asymmetric arms like a deformed traffic policeman. Above the fireplace, a smeared Bacon portrait leered with dissipated glee at a pair of crossed Turkish cavalry sabres on the opposite wall. Over all, a huge heat sat like a throttling fog. The day outside was searingly hot, the sky a sinister, cloudless sci-fi blue and within the room convection radiators threw dry boiling air at

the cacti. More sweat ran down from my armpits and into the gap between shorts and hips. I saw then, prickling with horror, that things were preparing to get very much worse.

Fraser-Stuart, cross-legged on the floor, without looking up from the Meisterwerk spread on his lap, stretched out a hand towards his cigar box. When I had first sat in this room five years before, on just such a violently hot day and drowning in a thick ocean of Havana smoke, I had wondered if a window might be opened. The old man had looked sadly at his cactus collection and asked, blowing out a disappointed cloud, if I was wholly given over to my own comfort. A son of a bitch I had thought him then and a son of a bitch I thought him now.

I watched the smoke transmute from soft, round blue billows into elongated, yellow ellipses like the tops of

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