Jerusalem March 1933 Kohler, the receptionist, eyed the large brown paper package stamped, postmarked, and tied up with string that sat on the front desk between his silver bell and a diminished pile of the local German-language newspaper, the Mitteilungsblatt. He shifted it to the side in order to make room for two additional sets of newspapers, popular items for guests on their way in to breakfast even though the news they carried was always a week old. He had no interest in the bland front page of the London Times, but a photograph of a thin-faced figure with his hair swept back and its accompanying headline in the Frankfurter Zeitung briefly caught his attention: Josef Goebbels had been appointed minister of information and propaganda in Hitler’s new government.
He switched on the overhead fan and a wisp of smoke fell from the gears. Early morning light filtered through shade and touched the brown and mahogany furniture in the lobby, spinning dust motes off its armchairs. Kohler opened the blinds, returned to his desk, caught the sleeve of his jacket in his hand, and ran it across the polished wood to accomplish an extra shine. The newly admitted light spilled through the front windows and cut sharp white diagonals onto the wall behind him.
Kohler banged his hand on the bell and the two Arab boys, Ahmed and Ibrahim, who acted as weekday porters, clattered upstairs from the basement and appeared in the lobby. They looked around in vain for guests to assist and luggage to transport.
“Here,” Kohler said, handing over the package, “take it up.” He muttered some instructions to the boys and then they were gone. Easter was a month away; the great rush of pilgrims, mostly German, some British, was yet to arrive. Soon they would swell the congregation in the Church of the Redeemer, crowd the Via Dolorosa, and fill the Hotel Fast to capacity. Kohler, as Ellrich the manager had requested, was doing what he could to ensure that these tourists of the Holy Spirit received a rousing and congenial welcome upon their arrival.
The boys stood behind a balustrade that topped the ornate stone parapet on the second floor. Together they lowered the banner attached to the flagpole, removed the old flag, and replaced it with the new. A stiff breeze blew in from the desert to the south; the sky, shot through now with blue morning light, shimmered over the walls of the Old City. From their vantage point the boys could take in the distant bustle of activity around both the Damascus and Jaffa Gates. They winched the flagpole back into place.
Kohler stepped out of the hotel and crossed the cobblestone street, shooing a mongrel dog from his path. There was the Union Jack, and now hanging alongside it was the new German flag with its striking black swastika snapping in the March wind high above a broad swath of the streets of Jerusalem. Kohler observed it with pride. Perhaps, he thought, it might even be visible from his own home where it sat tucked in among a row of stone houses that his grandfather Stefan, a dutifully committed Templar from Ludwigsburg, had helped to build on the Street of Ghosts.
Two British soldiers in steel helmets, rifles in hand, approached on Kohler’s side of the street. He had an impulse to stop them and point out the new flag, but he held back, and they passed by without looking up
Copyright © 2023 by Jonathan Wilson. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
