Heidegger's Glasses: A Novel (35 page)

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Authors: Thaisa Frank

BOOK: Heidegger's Glasses: A Novel
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The officer was lying calmly, without rancor, and looked like someone napping, with a pillow to shield his eyes from sun. Lodenstein had to fold him in half—difficult because the officer was still limp. He stuffed him into the duffel bag, shoving him so hard he heard something crack—perhaps a bone. He slung the duffel bag over his shoulders, locked his door, and took the mineshaft. He was prepared to say he was bringing extra letters to the hall—an unbelievable claim, since everyone knew he had nothing to do with the letters. But when he passed the Solomons’ and Lars saw him with the duffel bag, his incredulous expression told him he didn’t need an excuse.
Do you need any help? said Lars stepping forward.
Just keep the street clear, said Lodenstein.
Lars nodded and walked toward La Toya, who had already seen him.
He thought he heard La Toya saying
it’s about time
and couldn’t wait to get back to the
trompe l’oeil
. But when he reached it, he stood by the lock, beset by accelerating fear. Years ago, at the beginning of the war, the Gestapo often shot people in this tunnel. Sometimes the arms fire was so furious, so frequent, it sounded like typewriters. When Stumpf was in charge, the Scribes wrote as many letters as they could because they were afraid of being dragged to this very same tunnel and shot. Suppose the SS were waiting for him in ambush? Suppose the officer was someone the Reich wanted to get rid of, and they knew he’d use the room to bury him? He forced himself to open the door and once more was overpowered by the foul odor of waste. He dragged the duffel bag through the moist, endless dark.
The chairs and table had been fastened with bolts and brackets. Lodenstein unscrewed them, furious at the time it took, but grateful that nothing clattered too loudly because even though the passage was soundproof, he was afraid the Solomons could hear. When the bolts were unscrewed, he pried them apart with the hammer. But the seat of the chair—the pelvis—had been glued, and he had to smash it again and again until it shattered. One bracket stuck to a foot, and he pulverized the foot until it turned to gravel. When the bones were in pieces, he covered the duffel bag with dirt, spread the dirt with bones, and smashed the heap with his shovel.
Before guards had been sent to the front, they had lived in Mueller’s room. Lodenstein remembered it as a place of cards, drinking, and high-spirited arguments. Now it was crowded with rosewood furniture and still held a trace of Mueller’s malevolent secrecy. Lodenstein hated the room, but he was covered with dirt and bone and had to wash by sneaking to the kitchen, filling a soup pot with water, and dragging it to the room. He ripped sheets and scrubbed his face and hands and hair. The water grew thick and muddy. He sneaked to the kitchen again, refilled the pot, and dragged it back to the room. Mueller had left a green trench coat and long underwear in his closet. Lodenstein put them on and ripped the SS insignia from the trench coat. He swallowed some schnapps and listened to the Scribes getting ready for the night.
Shoes clattered and fabric rustled as people changed from one pair of street clothes to another. An argument erupted about the lottery. Then there was a barrage of typing—the last diary entry for the day or a new phrase in
Dreamatoria
.
He heard La Toya propose a game, and someone else say:
Not tonight. And no typing in that damned journal.
There’s plenty to write about, said La Toya.
People were laughing about a word in
Dreamatoria
. Then there was a lottery for cigarettes. Then more laughing about another word. Lodenstein was incensed that people could laugh. He was incensed that the ordinary world could go on.
He stormed into the hall, thinking he’d get angry at the Scribes then decided he wanted to keep everything to himself—the Scribes already lived with unbearable fear. He stood outside Mueller’s room, heard voices at the end of the hall, and, through flickering gaslights, saw Elie and Asher at the far end of the street. They couldn’t see him, so he had the detached, nearly disembodied sense that he was watching a play. They were on a wrought-iron bench, sharing a cigarette, and looked gracious, slightly mannered. When they’d finished the cigarette, Asher went to his room, and Elie came down the hall. Lodenstein turned away. He felt relieved to be distracted by a twinge of jealousy. Elie touched his arm.
For God’s sake, what happened to you? she said.
I’ll tell you later. But we’ll sleep in Mueller’s old room. What were you two talking about anyway?
Whether we’re safe, said Elie. She looked at the trench coat. Your hands are freezing. And what are you doing with Mueller’s long underwear?
I said I’ll tell you later.
She led him back into the room, closed the door, began to unlace his boots, and startled when she saw they were caked with earth and splinters of bone.
Gerhardt, she said. Tell me what happened.
But he couldn’t say a word. His throat felt clogged with dirt.
Gerhardt, tell me.
He turned and held her shoulders.
Are you sure you want to know? he said. Are you sure you’d want to know if something I did helped turn you into a murderer? Tell me—would you really want to know?
Elie began to cry, and he let go his grip and held her. Her collarbone moved effortlessly, like wings. But the curve of her bones beneath took him back to the dark, moist room and the chair in a beam of bone-white light. He felt something else too—an ineffable place inside her that held all the unseen mechanisms that let her dream and walk and breathe and be Elie. Then he was crying too.
Gerhardt, please, said Elie. Whatever you did is in a good cause.
I don’t know what’s in a good cause anymore, he said. We’ll never wake up to an ordinary morning.
You mustn’t think like that, said Elie.
But he was convinced he would never have her the way he wanted, and his sobs spilled into the hall and reached the Scribes and the kitchen and echoed with the pots and pans. It was a mournful cry that carried through the keys of the typewriters and the loose sheets of paper and the meters of dead dirt above them. It was the sound of a man breaking apart. It stunned the Compound into silence.
Adelajda,
Two people from our cellblock have disappeared without a roll call, a hanging, or a warning. No one has mentioned them. There have been no public hangings. We don’t know how they left without a trace.
Love,
Kacper
Elie held Lodenstein until he drifted into a restless sleep. When he began to breathe calmly, she eased into the covers but was beset by an image of his boots: mud, dirt, and splinters of bone. She closed her eyes, and the boots became more vivid. She moved toward Lodenstein and smelled earth.
No sleep tonight
, she thought.
But when she opened the door, she wasn’t sure she could stand the silence of the Compound. It was pristinely, uncharacteristically silent without typing, lovemaking, night cries. She wanted to speak to Asher again. She sensed that something terrible had happened in the Compound, and Asher, who’d lived through shootings and hangings, would probably sense it too. She remembered he had a way of listening with great calm. He had listened to her this way in Freiburg when she started to worry about the war. And even though his own wife had disappeared, he could listen with an ineffable sense of peace.
Elie walked to the crates on the wall that dead-ended into the tunnel. The shadows of the large boxes were almost solid on the floor—light from the stars mere pinpricks. She traced her hands over the arched
trompe l’oeil
and knew, beyond any rational knowledge, that a dead officer was in the tunnel beyond her. It was why Lodenstein had cried. It was why his boots were caked with mud and bone. It was why the Compound was silent. She heard a door open. Asher came over and stood beside her.
How’s Lodenstein? he asked.
You heard him, said Elie. He says I’ve turned him into a murderer. She sat on the cold floor and moved a crate over to make room for Asher.
People don’t say what they mean when they come apart. And they usually put themselves back together again, said Asher.
He sat next to her by the crates. No one’s a murderer here, he said.
I don’t know what I think anymore, said Elie.
Asher took out a cigarette.
I’ve never heard this place so quiet, he said. The Scribes aren’t even fucking.
They have a lot to think about.
At least they’ve stopped with their questions. And their typing. A few of them just went to sleep, and a few others talked about their families. I don’t even know what happened to most of mine. I’m just grateful Daniel’s here.
You must miss your wife, Elie said.
All the time, Asher said. My mother too.
I have no idea what’s happened to my parents, said Elie.
And your sister?
Elie waited, listening to pulleys and gears creak so the moon could rise. Then she said:
You met Gabriela more than ten years ago.
Yes, said Asher. He looked at her directly, and his blue eyes took her back to Freiburg. Do you remember the time we went to that coffeehouse? he said. Gabriela was imitating Hitler. She was a great mimic. We laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe.
I don’t want to remember, said Elie.
She would want you to, said Asher. You were so close.
Elie lit a cigarette and leaned back against a crate. You’re the only person I know who remembers her, she said. Maybe that’s why I think of her whenever I see you.
You’ll find her again, said Asher. People will come together when this war is over.
Elie began to cry. She cried without moving, as though she imagined Asher wouldn’t notice. Asher had seen people cry this way at Auschwitz: the slightest movement attracted attention, so they cried as if they were not.
He didn’t try to hold her. Talking about her sister, stuck in this place, the crates around them filled with letters to the dead—everything overwhelmed him. All he did was offer another cigarette.

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