It wasn’t always that way. Since few things appeal to children more than a rich classmate who also has a never-ending supply of sweets, Leo Hartmann had been surrounded by friends as a child. They were as attracted to his peaceable temperament as they were to the chauffeured black car he came to school in. But in 1937, Austria was no longer the country of Leo’s youth. Emi was the only non-Austrian at their Catholic school, but Leo was the only Jew.
“I thought I’d tell you before everyone else did,” Leo said to Emi outside the stone building before her second day at the school began. On warm mornings, the students lingered outside, soaking in as much of the sunshine as they could before having to sit silently in the cold Gothic building. Leo looked at Emi’s pretty figure, her subtle profile, and wished they could spend the day there together.
“I don’t mind if you’re Jewish,” said Emi, sitting close to him. “Our ambassador to Germany has a German-Jewish wife, Edita. And she’s fascinating. They’ve already come to see us in Vienna twice.”
“A Jew fascinating? Our classmates would disagree,” said Leo looking around them. “But I’m very happy to hear it.” He had hoped that someone as worldly as Emi would find a difference in religion something intriguing rather than worthy of revulsion.
“Why do your parents have you in a Catholic school?” Emi asked. Her eyes were on the priests who had started to usher the children inside. “Isn’t that strange?”
“It’s the best in Vienna,” said Leo. “There used to be other Jewish students, quite a few, but none of them came back for this school year, except for me. I think everyone has been waiting for me to go, too—looking very forward to my exit—but I’m still here. As you saw, my parents like the best of everything. Even if it means that I’m a little uncomfortable sometimes.”
The morning bell rang, and Leo and Emi walked inside with the rest of the students. As she headed up to the girls’ side of the building, he stood below the stairs, watching her long thin legs move gracefully in her ugly skirt. “Can you play again today? The piano, that is,” Leo called after her.
Emi turned around and shook her head. He noticed that she was wearing a new blouse, without a hole in the shoulder. He’d wanted nothing more than to put his hand on her skin through that little hole the day before, and was sad to see that it was no longer an option. “Lessons,” Emi said. “Always lessons. But I’d rather play in your music room.”
“Maybe you can take your lessons in our music room?” he suggested. Emi promised she would ask her teacher, but as she told Leo the next day, the request was flatly denied.
“It turns out he’s an awful man,” said Emi the following morning as they gathered in the courtyard before class. “He said he knows who your father is and won’t teach in ‘Jew houses.’?”
“At least he’s honest,” said Leo trying to smile.
“He’s an anti-Semite,” said Emi. “But my mother won’t let me stop taking lessons from him, even if I tell her. He’s a very talented anti-Semite.”
“Don’t tell your mother,” said Leo. “It will only worry her.” He tried to look as happy as he had the morning before, but he was sure Emi could see his strain. He hoped that her mother was as open-minded as she was.
“I’ll come to your house and play without him,” she said, putting her hand right next to his, so that their fingers touched. “Every free moment I have.”
“I doubt you have that many,” said Leo. “I’ve seen the way the girls speak to you, asking about Japan and living all over the world. I’m sure you’ll have many invitations soon and my piano will be just as forgotten as a child’s music box.” He pretended to cry, though he was smiling and Emi reached up and touched the front of his curly hair, causing him to reach for her hand out of instinct. She held his and he looked at her intensely.
“What is this funny timepiece?” she asked, breaking their gaze. She moved his sleeve and ran her hand over the slightly domed glass of the watch. The cogs were visible underneath and the numbers were mismatched, raised Roman numerals.
“I made this with our Hungarian driver, Zalan, when I was a child,” said Leo, happy to talk about his strange but beloved driver. “His father was a watchmaker and when I was a boy, and rather lonely, he and I used to work on this. See,” he said, taking his watch off. “It says here on the back of the dial, ‘Made by Leo Hartmann.’?”
“It’s quite ugly,” Emi said laughing. “But I like that you still wear it. It should also say, ‘made by nineteen fingers.’?”
“It’s not ugly,” said Leo, holding it up to get a better look at it. “It’s unique. And it has never quit on me.”
“And you’ve never quit on it,” she said, and covered it up with his sleeve again. “I seem to quit on everyone. Since we started traveling, everywhere I’ve been, I’ve never been very good at keeping people,” she said.
“Because your life is so transient?” he said, reaching for her hand again.
“Exactly. What’s the use of getting close to someone, even a friend, if you won’t see them in a matter of years? I should get a watch to keep me company instead.”
“You shouldn’t always be thinking about the future,” said Leo laughing. “Don’t you ever just appreciate the here and now?”
“That’s what I’m trying to say,” said Emi. “With you, I think I do. I’m beginning to fall for the here and now.”
While life tucked inside the Hartmanns’ home together was as peaceful an existence as Leo and Emi could imagine, things at school were not as simple. The girls’ and boys’ sides had Mass together every afternoon, and though both Leo and Emi skipped communion, no one bothered Emi about it, while Leo was the object of increasing scrutiny for sitting it out. As the weeks went on and the calendar moved to the end of 1937, that scrutiny turned to anger.
“I’m beginning to understand why you’re a little uncomfortable at school,” Emi said when Leo explained why he preferred to walk through the halls on the girls’ side of the school. What he didn’t tell her was that he often found himself bleeding from the nose or mouth after classes, especially sports class.
He tried his best to hide his reality from Emi, going to the bathroom after he’d been punched in the face and cleaning up as best he could. He had bought more than a dozen white school uniform shirts and matching sweaters and kept at least one of each neatly pressed and laundered in his bag, in case the ones he was wearing that day got ripped or bloodied.
But as he started getting fists put to his jaw more often, the reality of his school day was harder to hide from her. And then one day in October, he could hide it no longer.
When he noticed her brown eyes peeking in at the boys’ chemistry classroom door, he knew she had been heading to the music room and stopped just a few steps past it. She must have heard the glass shatter, he thought, the test tubes that were being thrown at his feet by his usual aggressor.
“Look what I have for you to pick up today, Jew,” Fritzie Dorn, one of the most popular boys in the school, and one who spoke with reverence about the Hitlerjugend, the Hitler Youth, yelled at Leo. “You shouldn’t have knocked down another tube. Such an ugly, clumsy Jew.”