Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one …
The pleasure he felt hanging out with the boys didn’t disappear as he grew older. He felt much more removed from the girls; there wasn’t that sense of camaraderie he had with the boys. Girls intimidated him. They kept the boys at a distance and ridiculed them. He felt at ease only with his teammates and the boys who joined him on hikes and at games. He carried that feeling into adulthood. Then he left Aachen for Düsseldorf.
There comes a point when your body decides for you. Clandestine encounters started. Some took place in public bathrooms with their weak lighting, permanently wet floors, and rusty stains in the washbasins. But now and again, there was a tender glance, a slightly less mechanical caress, a moment of fulfillment, impossible to resist. Love was like walking on a carpet of shattered glass.
Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty …
Over the years he’s tried to keep busy with his tournaments and training, organizing endless events so as to keep his mind busy and his body exhausted. One slip, and it could destroy his reputation. Keeping busy has also allowed him to disguise the fact that no matter how popular and in demand he is, he always ends up alone.
Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine …
That’s why he continues to slice through the air with his scissor-kicks, making his abdominal muscles ache, punishing himself for not being what he’d like to be, or what everyone else would like him to be.
Seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five …
A pool of sweat shows his determination, his capacity for sacrifice … his success. He sits up and, feeling more relaxed, allows his memories to fill the night’s emptiness.
And those memories take him back to Terezín.
They deported him to the Terezín ghetto in May 1942, as if he were just one more Czech. He was among the first to arrive. The Nazis also sent machine operators, doctors, members of the Jewish Council, and cultural and sports instructors. They were preparing for the transportation of massive numbers of Jews.
When Fredy reached the town, he found the urban design of a military mind: streets drawn up with a set square and quadrant, geometrical buildings, and rectangular garden beds that would probably produce flowers in the spring. He liked that logical city; it matched his sense of discipline. It even occurred to him that it might be the start of a new, better period for the Jews before their return to Palestine.
The first time he stopped to look at Terezín, a breeze ruffled his straight hair. He smoothed it back into place. He wasn’t prepared to let anything make him lose his composure. He belonged to a race thousands of years old, a chosen people.
His work with youth groups in Prague had been intense, and he wanted to continue his sports activities and Friday gatherings to encourage the Hebrew spirit. It wouldn’t be easy; he’d have to confront the Nazis, as well as the odd member of the Jewish Council who was aware of the stain he tried so zealously to hide and wouldn’t forgive him. Luckily, he could always count on the support of the council chairman, Yakub Edelstein.
He successfully put together athletics teams, classes in boxing and jujitsu, and basketball tournaments. He established a soccer league with several teams, even convincing the German guards to form a team to take on the prisoners.
He remembers glorious moments: the roar of the spectators who packed not only the perimeter of the field but the doors and windows of all the buildings overlooking the inner courtyard where the games were played.
He recalls the moments of frailty, too; there were many of them.
He recalls one game in particular, a soccer match he organized between the SS guards and the Jews, where he was the referee. There was absolutely no space in any of the openings onto the patio. Hundreds of eyes followed that game intently from every possible spot. It was more than a game. Especially for Fredy. He spent weeks preparing the team, studying tactics, preparing them mentally, putting together sets of exercises, asking people to donate milk rations for his players.
There were only minutes left in the game and the forward for the SS team intercepted the ball in the center circle. He started to run in a straight line toward the goal area and caught the midfielders on the prisoners’ team off guard. There was only one defender left to intercept him. The Nazi ran toward him, and just when he was about to confront him, the prisoner discreetly pulled back his leg so that the Nazi could get past him. The SS guard took a point-blank shot and scored the winning goal. Hirsch will never forget the expressions of complete satisfaction on the faces of the Aryans. They’d beaten the Jews—even on the playing field.
Hirsch blew the final whistle then and there with perfect equanimity, and went to congratulate the forward who had scored the final goal. He shook his hand firmly, and the SS guard greeted him with a smile so full of missing teeth that it looked as if someone had kicked him in the mouth. Fredy headed for the makeshift change rooms, faking an air of impartiality, and then stopped as if to tie one of his shoelaces. He allowed the players to go ahead of him, waiting until one particular player overtook him. Nobody noticed the quick, violent shove that propelled the player into the broom closet. Once inside, he pinned him up against the mop handles.
“What’s the matter?” asked the puzzled player.
“You tell me. Why did you allow that Nazi to score a goal and beat us?”
“Look, Hirsch, I know that corporal. He’s an absolute bastard, a real sadist. His teeth are broken because of all the bottles he opens with his mouth. He’s a brute. No way I was going to trip him and risk my neck.”
Fredy remembers every last word he said in reply, remembers his utter contempt.
“You couldn’t be more wrong. It’s not a game. There were hundreds of people watching, and we’ve let them down. There were dozens of children—what will they think? How are they going to be proud of being Jews if we grovel like worms? It’s your duty to give your all in every game.”
“I think you’re getting carried away—”
Hirsch stuck his face right up to the player’s and noted the look of fear in his eyes, but the man couldn’t retreat any farther in that tiny space.
“Now, listen carefully. I’m going to say this only once. Next time you play against the SS, if you don’t stick out your leg, I’ll cut it off with a handsaw.”
The player, white as a sheet, ducked to one side and scurried off.
Fredy gives a sigh of annoyance as he thinks back on it.
That man was useless. Adults are corrupted. That’s why young people are so important. You can still shape them, improve them.