Excerpt from Shadows of Berlin by David R. Gillham, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

At home, they don't really discuss the Episode.

She and her husband, Aaron, that is.

It's not really on their agenda for conversation. Rather they talk around it, as in Aaron's refrain: "We don't want a repeat of the Episode."

The Episode being the night she ended up in a straitjacket for her own protection, locked up in Bellevue's psychiatric wing. The doctor there stitched and bandaged her hand slashed by the shattered glass so that no visible scar remains. But scars are often not so visible. Since that night, the surface of the wound has healed over. Already, more than half a year has passed, and both she and Aaron have returned to the routines of their daily lives, except for one thing. One thing hardly worth mentioning really. The thin layer of dread that gives an undertone to the everyday colors of every moment. The Dead Layer below all her exteriors. Other than that? Altes iz shleymesdik. All is perfect.


For their first anniversary, Aaron's mother wanted to buy them a T.V., but Aaron is dead set against television, so it was a radio instead. A Philco 51–532 table model that sits on a shelf. If Rachel wants to watch T.V., she must drag her husband down two blocks to the window of an appliance store on West Twentieth. There's often a crowd when The Lone Ranger comes on, though it's hard to hear through the glass. Rachel doesn't care. It's an American western. Everyone climbs into the saddle. All the men have six-guns on their hips and are all expert shots, picking rattlesnakes off the rocks. The women wear long calico dresses, but even they can handle a rifle.

"We could buy a T.V.," she tells Aaron.

"Who can afford one?" he asks without looking up from the kitchen table, smoking as she cleans up the supper dishes. "Besides, T.V. is for suckers. It's all about moving the merchandise."

Rachel doesn't care about that. She likes the commercials. The cartoon giraffe with the sailor's cap selling the Sugar Frosted Flakes. You can eat 'em right out of the box! And she would like to be able to sit down while watching The Lone Ranger instead of standing outside a storefront. Or maybe watch an entire episode without Aaron nagging her about how his feet hurt after working the Thursday all-you-can-eat shrimp cocktail special lunch shift at the restaurant or that his back is getting to him standing there like a schmuck for half an hour. Aaron says, "Who needs a picture tube?" He liked Jack Benny better on the radio, 'cause he likes to use his imagination. It's cheaper.

"We could put it right there," Rachel tells him.

"What?"

"A television set. We could put it right there, across from the sofa."

"Hasn't she been listening?" he wonders aloud.

"It would fit."

"But there's a chair there."

"So we move the chair."

"No room."

"Then we give the chair to the Salvation Army."

"Thank you, no. That chair belonged to my mother's aunt Shirley and has great sentimental value."

"It was here when we moved in."

"And I've gotten very attached to it since. Besides, isn't there some Jewish charity, by the way? Doesn't the Joint run a thrift shop?"

"The Joint does not want our chair."

"Maybe not, but my point is this: Why give a perfectly good chair to the goyim? Let them buy retail."

"You're not very funny."

"No? Then go give your own family heirloom to the Salvation Army, why don't you?"

Only she has no family heirlooms. Nothing left of the elegant Klimt chairs or Biedermeier dining set. The silver Shabbat candlesticks or the Italian gilt-wood menorah. Nothing of her eema's Turkish carpets or the Silesian porcelain coffee service. Not anything. Not anything at all. Not even a speck of schmutz has survived from under the rugs. Her uncle Fritz is the only family antique that comes close to qualifying.

Excerpted from Shadows of Berlin by David R. Gillham. Copyright © 2022 by David R. Gillham. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.