Heidegger's Glasses: A Novel (26 page)

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Authors: Thaisa Frank

BOOK: Heidegger's Glasses: A Novel
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The SS officer nodded, and they shook hands. The Commandant looked sadly at Heidegger.
I’d like to have him shot, he said. But after the war they might make him a national treasure.
He has immunity, said the officer dryly.
Indeed, said the Commandant. And I happen to have some good news for you, he said turning to Heidegger. You and your friend can talk in peace.
Where? said Heidegger.
On the way to the train. Without this damned noise.
I can’t leave without my son, said Asher.
My God, said the Commandant, pretty soon you’ll be asking for caviar. What’s his cellblock?
Asher told him. It was different from his.
You inmates, said the Commandant. Every night’s a talkfest, and we keep working.
He opened the door, collared a guard, and shouted:
I’ll send you to the front if you don’t get me this prisoner in five minutes.
Then he swallowed brandy from the bottle, not passing it to anyone else.
Nothing has gone the way we planned, he said. I told them not to make any noise for once, but they never listen. Those fucking disorganized transports.
There was a huge map of Germany on the right side of the fireplace. The Commandant walked to it, unmasked a vault, and began to pull out food. Asher saw enormous hams, bottles of champagne, cases of wine, gargantuan rounds of cheese, heavy blocks of chocolate. The Commandant pulled randomly, threw everything into a duffel bag, and shoved it at the SS man.
Take it. Take it all, he said. And keep the fuck quiet about this.
Then he opened the door and yelled: Where’s that goddamn kid in the cellblock?
The cellblocks were far away from the officers’ quarters, but within minutes the guard brought in a boy. He was thin, with shrewd blue eyes like his father. The Commandant threw him a coat.
You’re about to travel, he said. Put this on.
Daniel’s face went white.
Put it on, said the Commandant. You’re going with your father.
Asher looked at his son. For over four months he’d been a shadow, reaching for food by the barracks in the dark. Now he was in a warm room, not unlike the room he’d grown up in, with music his mother once played. Who knew what would happen? Who knew where they were going? Still, Asher mouthed the words:
you’re safe
.
A door opened. A Kübelwagen appeared. They entered a snow-covered field without searchlights, guards, or fences. Asher had a vague sense that he was part of something that was never supposed to happen. But all he could see was his son.
Heidegger grew small as the train gathered speed, and Lodenstein watched him disappear. He was alone in the station, illuminated by one light from the platform shelter. Heidegger paced back and forth, jabbed the snow with his walking stick, and lectured to the dark, still without glasses. Eventually he became a speck, and then the station disappeared. Lodenstein turned back to the car, which was mysteriously empty. Perhaps the Commandant had ordered it that way, so no one could hear Heidegger’s rants or see two skeletons from Auschwitz. With Heidegger gone, only Asher and Daniel were left, asleep in near-darkness. For a moment Asher woke up, and Lodenstein handed him sausage. He shook his head and went back to sleep.
And now a porter appeared and asked Lodenstein if he was thirsty. He ordered lemonade, and the porter seemed startled—no one ever drank lemonade in winter. But he brought it to him quickly—the SS uniform impressed him—and Lodenstein gulped it down, wishing it would go to his blood like an instant transfusion. He felt empty, like a bag of flour that’s been pummeled and pounded, and neither he nor the train seemed quite real. He’d had to listen to Heidegger’s rants since leaving Auschwitz and was more than glad to see him exit at the last stop—barreling off the train, gesturing with schnapps, still pontificating. Lodenstein couldn’t believe Asher had slept through the whole thing. But now everything was quiet, and the train rumbled through the dark with a soft, comforting rhythm.
The lemonade reminded Lodenstein of summer, and he wished he could slip back into a summer childhood, where the only evidence of war was trenches he built with his friends. At dinner, his mother had fits about his muddy shoes, and his father tried to convince him that deciphering codes was far more exciting than battle. But he couldn’t slip away into anything because the past three weeks felt ground into his body like glass.
He was seared by his memory of the cell, where he’d floated to the ceiling, and Goebbels’s eyes and the Commandant’s hair -pulling and gunshots and blood on the snow—all of which he’d endured to save Elie Schacten’s life.
For a moment, his actions seemed opaque, as if he were watching someone he didn’t understand. He looked carefully at Asher and Daniel, who were close together, as if carved from a single stone. They seemed like an ordinary father and son on the verge of starvation. But they weren’t just a father and a son. They were two more fugitives on the way to the Compound.
Lodenstein kicked the duffel bag the Commandant had given him, then realized it had enough food for almost two weeks. La Toya could make soup from the sausage. The chocolate would delight Dimitri. Everyone would enjoy real coffee. He understood Elie’s excitement about bringing extra loaves of bread, an abundance of ham. He’d always worked to keep the Compound safe—written ridiculous letters to Goebbels, been civil to Mueller, who probably wanted him shot. He’d even let Stumpf make Scribes imagine Goebbels because it would soften his rants. But bringing food to the Compound and helping cope with hunger—this was new. He’d started to think like Elie.
Yet in truth, he could hardly remember her. She was a haze of blond curls and tea-rose perfume. He imagined reaching for her in the dark, telling her about being thrown in jail, and talking to Goebbels. And then about the shots at Auschwitz and Heidegger’s rants on the train. He was holding her while he talked. And she was listening. But whom would he be telling this to? The Elie who flirted with officers? The one who’d once known Heidegger? Or the Elie he made love to under the grey quilt? He’d always tried not to think about what Elie did to get what they needed on forays. He tried to make whatever she did outside the Compound into motes that barely touched her. Elie did too: he could feel her shaking them off with her coat when she came back.
Lodenstein kicked the duffel bag again. Daniel and Asher made whimpering noises in their sleep. It was the whimpering of people who’d been beaten, abused, and didn’t know if they’d wake up the next day. Yet the sound annoyed him, as did the odor of sausage from the duffel bag and the warm air in the train.
He walked between the cars and looked out to the snow and pines. Now and then he saw a house leak light from blackout curtains just like cracks in Hanussen’s globe. He supposed the train had crossed from Poland into Germany but wasn’t sure. He could be anywhere.
Before he’d left, Heidegger had shoved Mikhail’s letter at him, and he was still holding it—a catalyst in this absurd chain. It had traveled from the Compound to the Black Forest, then to offices in the Reich and to Auschwitz. It had been stolen, crumpled, shoved into a soup tureen. It was creased and blotched with dried soup. It looked as if it couldn’t survive another journey.
Lodenstein raised the letter to the light and tried to read it, but the words made no sense at all. Indeed each letter of the alphabet looked like a tiny person in Hanussen’s theater. Some were crowded in the middle, others were alone at the end of the aisle. But a few tumbled into a string of words:
The triangle is the most paradoxical of human situations. It is the secret of all covenants and a cause of betrayal. Indeed, it’s a great challenge to the human heart because it has the power to create incredible good and cause incredible grief, as well as induce states of ecstasy and lunacy. Making a triangle with integrity is in the service of God.
He found the letter bizarrely true, as well as ironic, because the letter was the essence of betrayal. By Elie. And by the Solomons, whom he’d trusted. It was the reason he’d traveled to Berlin, seen Goebbels, gotten thrown in jail. It was the reason he’d taken Heidegger to Auschwitz and heard gunshots accompanied by Mozart. It was the reason he’d trashed his room and for all the fights he’d had with Elie. It was the reason for everything. This letter would never get an answer. It should never have been written in the first place.
He opened his hand and let the letter loose. For a moment it was pinned to the car by the wind. Then it fluttered in the dark until the train gained distance and it disappeared.
FUGITIVES
Dear Grandma and Grandpa,
I have been here for just a week and already I am filling out my clothes. There are woods to play in, lots of snow, and a special place where they keep rabbits with long hair. I even get to feed them. There is plenty of water and a lot of interesting people. It was a long journey to this wonderful place. It’s the best place in the world.
Love,
Rene
One afternoon blond, wasted Gitka leaned over Maria’s desk and offered her a white velvet rose.
We’re both Poles, she said, and we know how to sleep our way in the world.
Maria had never told anyone she was Polish. She spoke German without an accent and only answered letters in Italian and French. It frightened her that Gitka read her like an X-ray.
I want to teach you about silence, Gitka said.

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