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“when”. But if you think it’s all over in Vienna you’re very much
mistaken.’
    ‘Oh . . . I don’t think I meant that at all. I mean . . . it’s not over till it’s over is it?’

 
§ 13
    5 April
Leopoldstadt, Vienna
    It was about two weeks later. Whilst every day brought fresh outrage, Hummel was coming to the conclusion that now the radicals and toffs among Vienna’s Jewry were under
lock and key, Leopoldstadt was being left largely to its own devices. True, all Jewish assets at the banks were frozen, but Hummel did not come from a class that kept money in banks, he came from a
class that kept it under the mattress – yet the kosher butchers remained open, and the Jewish cafés and restaurants were still doing a lively trade. And he still had his shop window
– albeit now somewhat obscured by the word ‘Jude’ in yellow letters a foot high. It was, he thought, an odd normality. As if to prove him wrong a bang on the door at dusk, some
half-hour or more after he had shut up shop, gave him that hubristic shiver down the spine. Less speaking too soon, than thinking too soon. He opened the door wide. Better to let them walk in than
have them smash it in.
    In the street stood the German, the infantryman whose beat Krugstrasse seemed to be.
    ‘Can I help you?’
    ‘I want to get measured for a suit.’
    ‘You have the wrong address. It was Bemmelmann asked you if you wanted a suit. Two doors down.’
    ‘Nah. I heard you’re the best. I want a suit from you.’
    Hummel beckoned to the man to come inside. Fine, he was going to let the man steal a suit. So what?
    The infantryman said little as Hummel measured him up. When Hummel had finished and was jotting down figures on a notepad, he said ‘How long?’
    ‘Three days. If you can wait.’
    ‘I can wait.’
    ‘And the material?’
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘You haven’t chosen the swatch.’
    The German looked confused. Out of his depth. Hummel pointed to the wall of swatched cloth behind him. The German turned, peered at the ends of rolls in the dim light and said,
‘What’s . . . respectable?’
    ‘You want respectable?’
    ‘Yeah. Nothing flash, just . . . respectable.’
    ‘Blue. Blue is respectable.’
    ‘OK. You pick me a blue then.’
    Hummel approached the shelves with a ‘This one might . . .’ bursting on his lips, but the German said, ‘No. Just pick one and make it up.’
    Hummel showed him to the door.
    The man breathed in the night air, shouldered his rifle, turned to Hummel and said, ‘I never owned a suit before.’ Then he strolled off as though he and Hummel had conducted a
perfectly customary business transaction.
    Three days later he was back, knocking on the door at the same time of day.
    Hummel handed him the finished suit in a blue worsted, and waited while he dressed. The man stood in front of the full-length mirror. A stocky brick-shithouse of a man, exuding a mixture of
pride, pleasure and nervousness.
    ‘I never wore a suit before.’
    ‘Of course not,’ Hummel said. ‘If you never owned one . . . you never wore one . . . except for your uniform, of course.’
    The man gazed at his own arse in the mirror and seemed not to hear the jibe in Hummel’s voice.
    ‘Good,’ he said. ‘It’s good. Good to be in something that ain’t grey.’
    Another twirl to look at his barrel chest under the double-breasted jacket.
    Then he said, ‘What do I owe you?’
    ‘I’m sorry?’ Hummel said.
    ‘How much?’
    ‘You mean you want to pay?’
    Hummel knew he had not kept the utter incredulity he felt out of his voice.
    ‘Course I wanna pay. Or did you think I was a thief?’
    ‘You will understand,’ Hummel said, ‘if I say that there are those among us who might think that you are all thieves.’
    The soldier had to think about this. Hummel thought about it too, hoping that it was too subtle, too shot through with conditionals, to be taken for an insult. Far be it from Hummel to point out
that robbing Jews was legal