Chapters (50)
- Praise
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Teaser chapter
“Do you mind?” I asked, offering him a Lucky.
He chuckled. “No, I don’t mind.” Taking a cigarette, he added. “I think most of the disciples would have been smokers, don’t you? After all, they were fishermen. My father was a fisherman, from Genoa. All Italian fishermen smoke.” He lit the gas and then my cigarette and his own. “When Christ went aboard the fishing boat and there was a storm, they would have smoked then, especially. Smoking is the one thing you can do when you are afraid that doesn’t make you look like you’re afraid. But if you’re in a bad storm at sea and you start praying or singing hymns, well, that’s hardly something to inspire courage, is it?”
“I think that would depend on the hymn, don’t you? I asked, guessing that this was my cue.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Tell me, what’s your own favorite hymn?”
“‘How Great Thou Art,’” I answered, without hesitation. “I like the tune.”
“Yes, you’re right,” he said, sitting down on the chair opposite. “That’s a good one. Personally I prefer ‘Il Canto degli Arditi,’ or ‘Giovinezza.’ That’s an Italian marching song. For a while we did have something to march about, you know. But that hymn of yours is a good one.” He chuckled. “I have heard a rumor that the tune is very like the Horst Wessel Song.” He took a little puff on his cigarette. “It has been such a long while since I heard that song, I’ve almost forgotten the words. Perhaps you could remind me.”
“You don’t want me to sing it, surely,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “If you don’t mind. Humor me, please.”
I had always detested the Horst Wessel Song. And yet I knew the words well enough. There had been a time in Berlin when, just walking around the city, you would have heard it several times a day, and I could easily remember when it was almost impossible to go to the pictures without hearing it on the newsreels. I remembered Christmas 1935, and some people had started singing it in church, during a carol service. But I myself had sung the song only when not to have done so would have been to have risked a beating at the murderous hands of the SA. I cleared my throat and began singing the words in my almost tuneless baritone:
“Flag high, ranks closed,
The SA marches with solid silent steps.
Comrades shot by the Red Front and Reaction
March in spirit with us in our ranks.
“The street free for the brown battalions,
The street free for the Storm Troopers.
Millions, full of hope, look up at the swastika,
The day breaks for freedom and for bread.”