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“Hey, you got that right, Herr Gunther. Sure, I remember you now. You came to see me fight. You was with another cop. A cop who could fight a bit, right?”
“Heinrich Grund.”
“Sure, I remember him. He used to work out at the same gym as me. Right.”
“We came to see you fight Paul Vogel, at the Sportpalast, here in Berlin.”
“Vogel, yeah. I won that fight on points. He was a tough customer, was Paul Vogel.” He looked at Mrs. Charalambides and shrugged apologetically. “Looking at me now-it’s hard to believe, ma’am, I know-but I used to win a lot of fights in those days. Now they just want to use me as a punching bag. You know, put me up in front of someone for target practice. I could beat some of these fellows, too. Only they won’t let me fight my own way.” He raised his fists and went through the motions of ducking and diving on the chair. “You know?”
She nodded and laid her hand on top of his welder’s mitt.
“You’re a pretty lady, ma’am. Isn’t she pretty, Herr Gunther?”
“Thank you, Rukelie.”
“That she is,” I said.
“I used to know a lot of pretty ladies on account of how I was a good-looking guy for a fighter. Isn’t that right, Herr Gunther?”
I nodded.
“None better.”
“On account of the fact that I used to dance around so that none of these other fellows could land a glove on me. See, boxing’s more than just hitting people. It’s about not getting hit, too. But them Nazis don’t want me to do that. They don’t like my style.” He sighed, and a tear appeared in the corner of his bovine eye. “Well, it’s all over for me now as a professional fighter, I guess. I ain’t fought since March. Six defeats in a row, I figure it’s time to hang up the gloves.”
“Why don’t you leave Germany?” she asked. “If they won’t let you fight your own way.”
Trollma
She bought four. After her remarks outside the T-gym, I wasn’t sure she actually wanted to see a fight, and I imagined it was her way of kindly putting some money in Trollma
“Here,” she said, handing them to me. “You look after them.”
“Do you remember fighting a fellow named Seelig?” I asked Trollma
“Sure, I remember Erich. I remember all my fights. It’s all the boxing I got now. My memories. I fought Seelig in June 1932. And lost. On points, at the Brewery. Sure, I remember Seelig. How could I forget, right? He had a pretty rough time of it himself, did Erich. Just like me. On account of the fact that he’s Jewish. The Nazis took his titles away, and his license. Last I heard, he fought Helmut Hartkopp in Hamburg and won on points. In February last year.”
“What happened to him?” She offered him a cigarette, but he shook his head.
“I du
I showed Trollma
“This ain’t Seelig,” said Trollma
“The Turk.”
“Solly Meyer? That explains it. The Turk is blind in one eye. Detached retina. You give him a chess set and he couldn’t tell black from white. Don’t get me wrong, the Turk is an okay guy. But he don’t see so good no more.”
The place was filling up now. Trollma
Trollma
“I know this guy. And it ain’t Trollma
I told him about the healed fractures on the knuckles of the dead man’s little fingers and the burn mark on his chest, and he nodded sagely.
“You’re a clever man, Herr Gunther. And you were right. This guy is a pug. Name of Isaac Deutsch. A Jewish boxer, sure. You were right about that.”
“Stop it,” said Mrs. Charalambides. “You’re going to make his head swell.” But she was writing now. The pencil was moving across the page of her notebook with the sound of an urgent whisper.
Trollma
“So he wasn’t a professional fighter?” I said.
“What’s the difference?” asked Mrs. Charalambides.
I groaned. But patiently, like he was talking to a little girl, Trollma
“Zak, he wanted a medal before he turned professional,” he said. “Might have won one, too, if he’d not been Jewish. Which makes it ironic, I suppose. If ‘ironic’ means what I think it means.”
“What do you think it means?” she asked.
“Like when there’s a difference between what is supposed to happen to a man and what actually happens to him.”
“That covers it pretty well in this case,” she agreed.
“Like the fact that Zak Deutsch couldn’t box at the Olympics for Germany because he was a Jew. But he ended up being a construction worker at Pichelsberg, helping to build the new stadium. Even though he wasn’t supposed to be working there. See, only Aryan Germans are allowed to get jobs on the Olympic construction site. That’s what I heard, anyway. And that’s what I meant about it being ironic, see? Because there are lots of Jews working at the Pichelsberg site. I was going to have to work there myself before I got this job. You see, there’s so much pressure to get the stadium finished in time that they can’t afford to turn any able-bodied man away. Be he Jew or Gentile. That’s what I heard.”
“This is begi
“You’ve got a strange idea of sense, Herr Gunther.” Trollma
“Me, too,” murmured Mrs. Charalambides.
“What I meant was that I’m begi
“I been giving this some thought,” said Trollma