Judenstaat Read Online Free Page B

some acronym: DonReDox or RonDexDo, maybe a Danish corporation or one of those upstart companies financed by Soviet Jews who’d started emigrating in the past few years. That was Sokolov’s doing—some trade agreement. It was easy to get past the checkpoints now.
    Since Prime Minister Sokolov had taken office, the homely, hopeful Dresden that had been rebuilt after the war had disappeared. They were still tearing up the trolley tracks, and half of the streets were disemboweled and crosshatched with orange safety fencing. Lanes were widened, cables buried, thoroughfares constructed over the rubble of what Judit still remembered.
    Because of the construction, Judit had to get off her bus early and walk the last half-mile to her dormitory, through an underpass, around the engineering building of the Polytechnic, and across a complicated intersection where cars waited five minutes for a signal change. She liked passing all those cars on foot. Her mother always wanted her to take a taxi home. That was out of the question. Why put herself at some driver’s mercy? She could cross against the light, walk against traffic on a one-way street, and if she wore herself out, that was nobody’s business but her own.
    *   *   *
    Judit’s dormitory was built in the ’50s when everything was painted the same Judenstaat yellow. There was an old-fashioned coffee bar and canteen in the lobby, and the only available telephone was in a booth outside. Even the porter, a snarling lady in a hairnet, had been on the job since the building opened.
    â€œHello, Mrs. Cohen,” Judit said as she arrived. She feigned a brightness she didn’t feel.
    Mrs. Cohen responded by flipping a page of a movie magazine. Richard Gere was on the cover. Even the magazine was coated with dust. Her cousin in America had sent it over, and although she probably couldn’t read English, she always had it in front of her so she would look occupied.
    Judit asked her, “Would you like some brisket?”
    â€œDon’t keep food in your room. It’ll spoil,” said Mrs. Cohen, and she took the brisket for herself, and left Judit a few jars of stewed carrots and prunes and the honey-cake. That dormitory couldn’t last. It was bound to be demolished. Judit was amazed it had been overlooked this long.

 
    5
    JUDIT had lived in just such a dormitory fifteen years ago at the University of Leipzig, but back then, the porter was a crone who liked spy novels. She’d never look up from that book when Judit slipped past her after a night with Hans.
    Hans couldn’t live in a dormitory. He was distinctly unofficial. Some colleges did admit Saxons, but it was understood that the few spots in elite institutions had to go to Jews. Yet there he was, sitting next to Judit in the middle of a lecture on the Jewish revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg. He didn’t look so very different from the other students, though there was nothing on his desk but his elbows. He leaned forward with a distant smile.
    As ever, Judit was taking notes like a madwoman, and her hair kept falling in her eyes. She pushed it away compulsively. Then someone pushed it for her. She stopped short and blushed. There was Hans, looking right at her. She couldn’t decide if his eyes were gray or blue. She couldn’t take any more notes after that.
    Later, he said, “I’m glad you’re not one of those girls who uses hairspray.”
    â€œI should,” said Judit. “Or I should get it cut short.”
    â€œIt’s like lamb’s wool. The golden fleece. Or not golden. Soft, though.”
    She gathered that fleecy hair in one hand and twisted it up in a way she’d seen other girls do. It stayed in place.
    With that same grace and ease, they walked together. Hans had a loping, unapologetic tall man’s walk. He didn’t carry any books. He took her own substantial knapsack, slung it on one shoulder, and said,