“Well, then,” George demanded, puzzled, “what’s the trouble? Why should they bother you? Why worry about it if you’re a German?”
Heilig was silent a little while, and the look of wry, wounded humour in his small, puckered face had deepened perceptibly before he spoke again.
“My dear Chorge,” he said at last, “now I may tell you somesing. I am completely Cherman, it is true. Only, my poor dear mozzer—I do so luff her, of course—but Gott!” He laughed through his closed mouth, and there was bitter merriment in his face. “Gott! She is such a fool! Zis poor lady,” he said, a trifle contemptuously, “luffed my fazzer very much—so much, in fact, zat she did not go to ze trouble to marry him. So zese people come and ask me all zese questions: and say: Where is your fazzer!’ And of gourse I cannot tell zem. Because, alas, my dear old shap, I am zis bastard. Gott!” he cried again, and with eyes narrowed into slits he laughed bitterly out of the corner of his mouth. “It is all so dretful—so stupid—and so horribly funny!”
“But Franz! Surely you must know who your father is—you must have heard his name.”
“My Gott, yes!” he cried. “Zat is vhat makes it all so funny.”
“You mean you know him, then? He is living?”
“But of gourse,” said Heilig. “He is living in Berlin.”
“Do you ever see him?”
“But of gourse,” he said again. “I see him every veek. Ve are quite good friends.”
“But—then I don’t see what the trouble is—unless they can take your job from you because you’re a bastard. It’s embarrassing, of course, and all that, both for your father and yourself—but can’t you tell them? Can’t you explain it to them? Won’t your father help you out?”
“I am sure he vould,” said Heilig, “if I told zis sing to him. Only, I cannot tell him. You see,” he went on quietly, “my fazzer and I are quite good friends. Ve never speak about zis sing togezzer—ze vay he knew my mozzer. And now, I vould not ask him—I vould not tell him of zis trouble—I vould not vant him to help me—because it might seem zat I vas taking an adwantage. It might spoil everysing.”
“But your father—is he known here? Would these people know his name if you mentioned it?”
“Oh Gott yes!” Heilig cried out gleefully, and snuffled with bitter merriment. “Zat is vhat makes it all so horrible—and so dretfully amusing. Zey vould know his name at vonce. Perhaps zey vill say zat I am zis little Chew and t’row me out because I am no Aryan man—and my fazzer”—Heilig choked and, snuffling, bent half over in his bitter merriment—“my fazzer is zis loyal Cherman man—zis big Nazi—zis most important person in ze Party!”
For a moment George looked at his friend—whose name, ironically, signified “the holy one”—and could not speak. This strange and moving illumination of his history explained so much about him—the growing bitterness and disdain towards everyone and everything, the sense of weary disgust and resignation, the cold venom of his humour, and that smile which kept his face almost perpetually puckered up. As he sat there, fragile, small, and graceful, smiling his wry smile, the whole legend of his life became plain. He had been life’s tender child, so sensitive, so affectionate, so amazingly intelligent. He had been the fleeceling lamb thrust out into the cold to bear the blast and to endure want and loneliness. He had been wounded cruelly. He had been warped and twisted. He had come to this, and yet he had maintained a kind of bitter integrity.