It's Release Day for The Decision! (That's the Amazon Kindle link, and the paperback is just one tab over -- but if you prefer to buy your paperbacks elsewere, here's the bookshop.org link.)
This book has a special origin. Of all the amazing family stories I could feature in a novel, this is the only one where the main character is not a family member, and not even known to our family -- except for the crucial few minutes described in the scene below. That lets me dive into what might have been his background, thoughts, and motivations without the creepiness of putting words in the mouth (or thoughts in the head) of someone I know and love.
So here's the book's Introduction, after which the narrative goes all the way back to 1915.
(As before, I'm not trying to fix the formatting Blogger imposes. Paragraphs in the actual book are indented and are not separated by a line of space.)
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Aside from a few unknown details, the incident presented at the beginning of this narrative is true. I know because the three boys with bicycles were my father and two of his brothers.
This incident cries out for explanation, but all I have —
all my family has — is conjecture. So conjecture is what follows.
The bicycle accident
It was October of
1938, a cloudy day, not too warm and not too cold. A few weeks later, on
November 9th and 10th, would come Kristallnacht, “the night of broken
glass,” when mobs — including but not limited to SS troops — rampaged through
Berlin and other cities killing Jews and destroying Jewish places of worship,
schools, hospitals, shops, homes, and even businesses formerly owned by Jews.
Kristallnacht would mark a turning point after which anti-Jewish laws, already
proliferating, multiplied greatly and violence against Jews became widespread.
Already, it was increasingly difficult for Jews to leave Germany, and it would
only become more so.
The street was not one of Berlin’s broadest boulevards,
but it had two lanes each way, with a central divider broad
enough for die Elektrische — the electric trolley cars — to run down it. Big
double-decker buses could often be seen going east and west. Those walking down
the street or standing on the corner could occasionally hear the trolley
conductor’s bell warning pedestrians to stand clear, or the
screeching noise the car made as it rounded a curve. They might see, also, the
little sparks that sometimes flew from where the rods touched the power line.
On this October day, three boys sped along the avenue on
what looked like brand new bicycles, the kind a Jewish family might buy with
the money they would not be allowed to take out of the country. The two older
boys deftly avoided all obstacles, while the youngest appeared less experienced
and skilled. The older boys took turns glancing back at the youngest, but they
had little attention to spare from the vehicles and the small number of
pedestrians — and the youngest boy had less.
And then a wobble or a swerve brought the youngest boy’s
path across the path of an older man, his hair a mixture of gray and white,
riding his own bicycle. The wheels entangled and brought both bicycles crashing
to the ground. The clash and grinding of metal, the thud of falling bicycles
and bodies, soon blended with mutters and gasps from the few onlookers as they
saw that the old man’s bicycle had fallen close to the path of a bus
approaching from behind.
The bus driver slammed on his brakes and jerked the
steering wheel to the left, away from where the old man lay entangled with his
bicycle. But meanwhile, a trolley bore down on bus, bicycle, and man. For a
moment, the watchers fell silent as if each of them was holding his or her
breath. All that could be heard was the warning clang of the trolley, and then
the squeal of its brakes as it shuddered to a stop mere inches from the old man’s
arm.
The few spectators became a crowd as passengers from both
bus and trolley disembarked to see what had happened. Those who had seen the
actual accident and the near disaster made haste to inform the newcomers in a
babble of curious or excited conversations. The crowd now had leisure to look
at the two older boys, who had dropped their bicycles, and the youngest boy
climbing to his feet; the youngest was white and shaking. The smaller of the
older boys stood straight and wide-eyed; the tallest and biggest boy looked
quickly from side to side as if assessing the scene. Next to the biggest boy
stood a tall man in a white raincoat, still in service among the Traffic Police
after its introduction during the 1936 Olympics. The policeman wore his uniform
beneath the raincoat; he had loosened the tie that came with it. Visible
beneath the partly open collar of the uniform was the brown shirt of a Nazi
Party stormtrooper.
The older boys glanced at the man and then went rigid and
looked away. The biggest boy and the youngest boy could have passed for Aryans,
but no one in the crowd could have missed the fact that the thin, wiry boy with
the tightly curled black hair was Jewish.
The biggest boy assumed an air of conspicuous innocence
as the policeman asked in a relatively quiet voice, “Did
you boys have anything to do with this?”
The biggest boy opened his mouth, but the wiry boy was
already saying, “Jawohl, Offizier." (Yes, Officer.)
The policeman looked at all three boys in turn, studying,
scrutinizing, before he said, “Are you boys Jewish?”
The biggest boy twitched, as if longing to silence the
one who had already spoken but knowing it would only make things worse. The
wiry black-haired boy answered, “Jawohl, Offizier.”
Muttering arose from the crowd. The policeman bent closer, then stood up again. Softly, but in German’s command mode, he ordered, “DISAPPEAR.”
The boys’ bodies jolted with the shock. Then they seized their bicycles, righted them, and rode away, the two older boys neck and neck and the youngest straggling a little behind.
They survived.
The boys never knew the policeman’s
name. But let’s call him Hans.
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I may well owe "Hans" my very existence. But all I can give him is this book.
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