Child of the Light by Janet Berliner, George Guthridge

to them, a man raised his glass of drinking water. "To your good health, gentlemen." He and the others at his table gargled their water and spat it into their finger bowls.
    Sol mumbled something about never before having realized the bowls' proper purpose, and Rathenau laughed. "An end-of-the-meal fashion established by the Kaiser," he whispered. "I wouldn't suggest you do it elsewhere. Your hosts might not understand."
    During the course of their meal, a variety of people had stopped at the table. Rathenau introduced him to each one. Earlier, walking toward the dining room, he had cautioned Sol to give more attention to listening than to eating. "Disregard anti-Semitic slurs," he had said. "Hear what they're saying behind the bigotry. Don't overlook a single nuance or inflection...and don't forget a word you hear."
    Forget! As long as he lived, he would remember this day. These were men who could open doors for him--and for Erich--with a word or a wave of the hand. Not that it was all that important for him; he was going to be a scholar--study, teach maybe. But Erich...he was going to be "something big!" Anyway, that's what he said. With the right education, the right clothes, the right connections, you could do anything, Papa said, and these were surely the right connections--here in this room.
    "Come along, Sol." The Foreign Minister led him into the lobby of the hotel. "Bear with me. I have some business to conduct as we leave. Then we'll take a Spaziergang --a stroll. Konnie will pick me up at your flat."
    Sol followed him across the lounge toward two men seated in wing chairs, smoking and reading newspapers. A third man, dressed in the blue and gold of an officer's uniform, sat reading in the corner, his back to them and his boots on a hassock.
    "I tell you it's a disgrace," one of the men said as they approached.
    The other, blond, with a Tartar mustache that only partially concealed a scar along the edge of his mouth, looked up and nodded. Rathenau extended his hand. "Good to see you again, Auwi."
    The second man, a rotund fellow with steel gray eyes and the downturned mouth of a carp, leaped to his feet and shook hands with the Foreign Minister.
    "Glad you're here, George." Rathenau looked at Sol. "Solomon Freund, I'd like you to meet George Viereck, literary executor for the Kaiser, and," he nodded toward the seated man, "The Kaiser's son, Prinz August Wilhelm. 'Auwi' to his friends."
    The Prince raised a desultory hand in greeting. Viereck pumped Solomon's hand so heartily that Sol found himself backing up.
    "I think you'll recognize this lazy old soldier over here," Rathenau said.
    A pasty, doggy-cheeked face sporting a drooping white mustache peered out from around the side of his chair.
    Solomon swallowed thickly.
    Field Marshal von Hindenburg!
    Von Hindenburg cast a rheumy eye at Sol, cleared his throat, and reopened the weekend edition of the Börsen Zeitung. "Protégé, Herr Minister?" he asked. "Send him out on the balcony to wave to the masses like Jackie Coogan. You're his countryman, George. Is the Coogan boy really so talented, or is our city simply in love with youth for youth's sake?"
    "I'm afraid neither Prinz Wilhelm nor the Feldmarschall is in a very good mood." Viereck's German was edged with an American accent. "The price of newspapers has gone up again. I remember when a single mark bought a quart of Fauwenhauser."
    "Third time this week," the prince said sourly. "All this babbling and squabbling, inflation out of control--" he slapped the paper--"revolutionaries and reactionaries running amok, foreigners and Jews and post-war profiteers stealing the country from under us!"
    Stung by the racial slur, Sol looked to Rathenau for guidance. The Foreign Minister flashed him a look that said stay calm.
    "We Germans were like the woman in the Aladdin story, too quick to give away the old lamp." Von Hindenburg cleared his throat huskily and adjusted his purple sash. Four starfish-shaped medals gleamed