ARNOST LUSTIG
311
"They say that if you leave on Wednesday it'll be a long and easy trip."
"Of course," she said.
"Are you going to take your cards with you?"
"I don't take a step without them," she smiled .
"They could take you into an office somewhere, like the bosses here
pick the prettiest and most capable."
And 1 told her again that the Nazis got confused when they saw
somebody with golden hair and blue eyes like hers (at the very least,
they gave those people preference) .
It
was an advantage in some way.
Even if all their talk about the Nordic races was probably wearing off
by now, since they themselves were a far cry from it. Just look at Hitler
or Himmler, or at Goering or Goebbels, and Rosenberg. 1was desperate
try and find a little honor at least in something. Maybe 1 even believed
it a little. The poison of the greatest lie which had been repeated a thou–
sand times had most likely infected everything including its victims and
the subject of the lie itself.
It
was a lie of the ugly.
"I have no doubt they'll want to surround themselves with people like
me," she said and the uncertainty in her voice didn't even sound like she
was throwing it back in my face.
"If
their plan is to get rid of people with
black and brown hair by mating them with pure blondes, I've got some–
thing to look forward to. No one has ever been able to regulate every–
thing from the first to the last as they have. What you do, what you don't
do, how and when you breathe, what you eat or love. From the cradle
to
the grave. All our pleasures, interests, and feelings. Desires and who is
allowed to do what. They dictate how everything is supposed to be until
there is a long list of all the things you can't do anymore."
She smiled her porcelain smile and glanced at her suitcases. She knew
how unforgiving the Nazis were just like everybody did. And she knew
that if we all didn't come out to stand in line at the same time, each per–
son would get it in the end.
Jedem das seine.
It
was and always would
be a question of time, not of what color hair or skin or how beautiful
or how ugly a person was, not even a question of luck or misfortune.
"So you see that a woman will cross the written and unwritten laws
for a man-or against him-any place and any time."
"Am 1 supposed
to
ask why?"
"Not me," she replied, as if she were saying that why didn't exist for
her anymore. Again, 1 somehow felt the presence of somebody or some–
thing else, a third thing.
It
wasn't only her partner, my friend and enemy,
or a child that Lea and 1could have together.
It
was the omnipresent pres–
ence of something or somebody that isn't born, whenever two people,
