The Dreeson Incident(44)
The captain nodded; started to say something.
In the back of the room, someone stood up. Henry peered through his glasses. Sergeant Hartke's wife? The Danish woman, Dagmar?
"It is work righteousness to attack the Jews!"
Everyone in the room blinked.
"These men in the taverns are not good Lutherans! Think, only think!"
Her German was beginning to fray a little at the edges, but she clearly had something to say. Cunz Kastenmayer slid, as inconspicuously as possible, away from his post. He had been standing behind Mayor Dreeson's left shoulder, translating whenever a conversation between the Grantvillers and the leading lights of Frankfurt politics became too complex for either the councilmen's limited English or Dreeson's less limited, but still far from fluent, German.
"Think of the words of Paul Speratus!"
Every Lutheran in the room, obediently, thought of the words of Paul Speratus. They could do that effortlessly, of course. The hymn "Salvation Unto Us Has Come" had been a staple of the Lutheran liturgy for a century. They all knew it by heart.
"Think!" Dagmar boomed again. She started reciting in Danish, but Cunz repeated the German after her.
"It is a false, misleading dream
That God his law has given
That sinners can themselves redeem
And by their works gain heaven.
The law is but a mirror bright
To bring the inbred sin to light
That lurks within our nature.
"See!" Dagmar proclaimed. "These men who attack the poor Jews. Like little Riffa's parents, who are the sutlers at Barracktown now. Or her husband, David Kronberg, at the post office. Who has an aunt and uncle who have adopted him . . ." She paused for effect. ". . . and who live right here in Frankfurt!" Her voice, deep and stentorian at most times, rose to a shrill dramatic screech. "They are trying to earn heaven by their works, these anti-Semites, as you call them. But, remember—
"Christ came and has God's anger stilled,
Our human nature sharing.
He has for us the law obeyed
And thus the Father's vengeance stayed
Which over us impended.
"It is Christ's atonement that saves us. Not actions such as killing usurers. Which means," she concluded triumphantly, "that these men, these mutterers against the Jews, are doctrinally unsound!"
Cunz would have been struck dumb with admiration if it hadn't been his duty to keep translating. No one could possibly have come up with a condemnation of attacking the ghetto that would have a deeper resonance in a Lutheran city. Anti-Semitism as "doctrinally unsound" work righteousness. How . . .
Inspired.
Dagmar sat down. He returned to his assigned place at Mayor Dreeson's shoulder.
* * *
"What are you planning to do then?" the militia captain asked. "Create what Nathan Prickett would call a 'thin blue line' around the ghetto?"
He hadn't been in the planning meeting. He had been off getting his lieutenants to agree to go along with the program. Whatever the program might prove to be.
"Ach, nein." The BĂĽrgermeister gestured expansively. "There are not enough of us in the city government to surround it if there is a coordinated attack. Besides, since the ghetto is armed this time, not to mention reinforced . . ."
The militia captain nodded. A fair number of Frankfurt's CoC members had somehow managed to be inside the ghetto when the elders of the Jewish community barricaded the gates.
". . . we might be caught in crossfire. Which would be stupid of us. Dreeson, the Grantviller, mentioned that his daughter had many favorite words. One of them was proactive. This means that we do not wait for the mutterers to finish getting organized. We will not wait for an attack on the ghetto."
The captain was pretty sure that he would not like what came next. "So, then . . ."
"We shall be proactive. We march on the taverns where the mutterers gather. Tonight."
"Your cane will slip on a cobblestone wet with this mist. You will break your hip."
Henry Dreeson shook his head. "Nonsense, Ronnie. Anyway, if the hip has to go one of these days, at least it'll be going in a good cause. And 'march' doesn't mean 'be carried along in a litter.' Anyway, there'd be just as much chance that one of the litter bearers would slip on a wet cobblestone, fall, and throw me out. That would be a longer way down and a harder landing than if I trip myself."
Veronica glared at him. "Then," she said, "I am marching with you. Only to hold your other arm, mind you. Only to steady you if your cane should not be enough. Not for some stupid heroic cause such as the one that led Hans to his death."