Heidegger's Glasses: A Novel (37 page)

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Authors: Thaisa Frank

BOOK: Heidegger's Glasses: A Novel
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After he murdered the officer, Lodenstein took turns with Lars keeping watch at night. Goebbels’s office was silent, and there were no investigations about the Compound or the missing officer. Perhaps Goebbels had ordered the officer to ask for roll call and got distracted by Germany’s losses. Or maybe Goebbels would send someone to investigate when they least expected it. And there was always the chance that the officer had come on a whim of his own, and not under the orders of the Reich. The Scribes took a gun when they went to the well and surrounded Dimitri while he was outside. Asher hardly went out at all.
Late spring came, then summer. Feverfew and milkweed spilled to the path, and purple flowers bordered the edge of the forest. Long ago they’d planted a winter garden, but now, because there was hardly any food, they planted one in summer as well. Since no one must know that anyone lived in the hut, they planted the vegetables far apart—in the clearing, in the forest, among wild flowers. Rations were fewer and fewer. Lodenstein wouldn’t let Elie go to the nearest town, but sent Lars, who came back with a paltry array of boxes. Even ersatz coffee was scarce. La Toya planted chicory to make the brew stronger.
In early autumn, some nightwalkers arrived with news that the Russians were closer to Berlin. The Compound celebrated with a feast—except for Stumpf, who sat uneasily at the end of the table polishing the glasses Asher had made him. There was excitement about the Germans and Allies getting closer to Berlin. People lifted their glasses often—even Dimitri, who sat next to Elie with a glass of water. But whenever Stumpf heard the word
defeat
, he closed his eyes. All during the feast—comprised of a few cans of tinned ham, a few root vegetables, and watered down wine—he stayed close to Hermione Rosebury. But after the meal, when people were still toasting, Stumpf asked for her help with another séance, saying: the dead must never be forgotten.
Hermione got up with reluctance, and they walked up the spiral steps to the shoebox of a watchtower, now crowded with crates of letters. Stumpf didn’t bother with the seven latches on the door, but Hermione moved slowly, lighting candles strewn about the crowded space. Hermione was expert at channeling letter writers from every century. She had channeled the button makers, coach makers, furriers, boat makers, wheelwrights, printers, illusionists, and artists. She had channeled letters from old warehouses, government offices, and dusty, forgotten shops.
And although he wanted to talk to someone whose letter came from the camps, Hermione told him to proceed slowly so the dead could assemble peacefully. It was best to start with someone long before the war, she said, perhaps the button merchant in Dresden who never answered three letters from Frau Weil, a dressmaker in Alsace, who wanted jet buttons for a faille dress. Or better yet, Herr Rahm in Köln, who had ordered a barouche coach from Herr Dichter, the famous coach maker in Stuttgart.
I don’t care who you channel, said Stumpf. He kissed a crystal ball for luck. The glass clouded from his breath.
I want to talk to the coach maker, said Hermione, lighting the last candle.
They sat on wooden crates. Hermione called for Herr Dichter and began to read him Herr Rahm’s letters. The first was deferential, hesitant…
if you please
…
would you be so kind
. Herr Rahm wanted to know whether the interior of the coach could be painted light fawn instead of the agreed-upon Prussian blue. The second asked about the possibility of glass siding on the coach. The third was abrupt and to the point…
three months and no answer…it is now well into the summer months….
Hermione read each letter, and Herr Dichter began to talk in an English accent.
I meant to write to him. But no coach is made of glass. This man was living a fairy tale
.
You should have found a way to tell him that, said Hermione.
There was silence. Stumpf, as he often did, patted Hermione’s ample bum. Hermione rapped his hand and told him to stop.
Convey my apologies
, said Herr Dichter.
I don’t think an apology is enough, said Hermione. It’s beautiful where he is. But he can’t enjoy himself because he’s waiting to hear from you.
Hurry up, said Stumpf. I don’t want to talk to him all night. Just tell him about the other letters he didn’t answer.
Don’t coach me like that, said Hermione. Even so she said:
There are other people like him there, with ears against the sky.
Stumpf tried to sit still. But news of the Russians’ advances tumbled around in his mind. It was terrible, devastating news; yet he was sure the cracks in the world leaked through to the other side and that the dead knew things the living couldn’t, even if news about Germany losing the war was a rumor. He stood up and spread his hands—addressing every member of the dead whose letter was in the crate.
Tell me what’s really going on with this war, he said. I want the truth!
There was silence. Stumpf wrung his hands.
Aren’t we working hard enough for you? Don’t you know we have crates of your letters? We answer you every day! What more do you want?
Stop, said Hermione.
I deserve to know, said Stumpf. He threw the crystal ball on the ground. It shattered, and all the candles went out. The room was filled with the smell of smoke and melted wax. Hermione jabbed him.
You should never have done that. We’ve lost them, she said.
Stumpf put his arms around Hermione. She wasn’t as willowy as Sonia, but there was more of her, and he took comfort from her body in the dark. He said this time he would let her speak and he would help her light more candles.
But Hermione pulled away and bolted to the corner of the shoebox. Stumpf felt an electric presence in the room. He couldn’t see Hermione, but heard her gasp. She said she had a message from the future—a disconcerting message because she wasn’t clairvoyant. She buttoned her blouse, ran down the spiral steps of the watchtower, and shouted for everyone to listen. Her voice was wild, unleashed, and echoed through the enormous room. Scribes froze and looked at her.
Germany is going to lose the war, she shouted.
How do you know? the Scribes asked—almost in unison.
I just saw, said Hermione. Cities were burning everywhere. The Allies broke into the camps. Yes, she said. I just
saw
.
Only one person in the Compound wasn’t excited about Hermione’s vision, and this was Elie Schacten. True—as Lodenstein argued—Germany was losing the war, and there was always the storage room for Asher, Daniel, and Dimitri if warrant troops arrived. Still, nobody felt safe, and once again the Compound turned silent. Rations were dwindling; the gardens had to be replanted constantly. Lars installed an extra lock on the door of the shepherd’s hut, and they were so afraid of intruders they hid dry food beneath coats along the far wall and in desks where the Scribes pounded away at
Dreamatoria
.
The more Elie thought of what the nightwalkers had said, the more the Compound became two worlds. By day a place of silent anticipation and the spinning out of a novel in
Dreamatoria
. By night a solitary hell, where she paced the cobblestone street and still tried to think of people who would help Asher, Daniel, and Dimitri go to Denmark.
Night was especially dangerous at this stage of the war. Deserters were everywhere, and so was the Gestapo, hunting them, shooting on sight and at will anything that moved. Elie and Lodenstein cleaned the bed where the officer had been murdered. They laundered sheets and left the quilt to air. Then they moved back to the room to be close to the shepherd’s hut. No one was supposed to go out at night, but the Scribes craved warm summer air, and Lodenstein left two guns in a bucket by the door.
Elie went out at night alone. She took her own revolver and placed it in the shallow pocket of her coat while she smoked cigarettes under cover of a scarf. Sometimes she thought she saw figures moving in the woods—the SS, fugitives, Gestapo, deer—she couldn’t know. Lodenstein often came looking for her—chiding her, pushing her back to the hut. And Scribes still came out to smoke.
No one stayed for long. The Scribes measured time by one cigarette, Elie by three. Now and then someone rooted for vegetables. Before going to bed, she took the mineshaft to the Solomons’ house and looked at Dimitri through the window. Dimitri had become her touchstone: if she saw him sleeping, she believed the Compound would be safe for another night.
In this frame of mind, she sometimes forgot she was Elie Schacten, bringer of food as well as disaster, and became Elie Kowaleski, renegade daughter of two Polish Catholics with a sister who was a pianist. Both Elies made lists and walked on the cobblestone street. Both Elies looked at the Scribes under the cover of her scarf. And it was from this vantage point that she watched Stumpf disappear, with twenty-two crates of mail packed in the back of his Kübelwagen.
One late September night, the air was unseasonably warm, reminding Elie of summer nights when she was a child. She took a deep breath and felt the world had forgotten the war. The pine trees were swaying and breathing with the wind—they reminded her of notes on a piano. Indeed the entire forest had no sense of fugitives, deserters, or SS who might be weaving through it. The warm air lulled Elie. She felt free of lists and schemes and worries.
Until she saw the door to the shepherd’s hut open slowly and a figure step over the threshold. It was Lars. He carried a large duffel bag and crossed the grass in the direction of the woods. Elie was about to call out to him, but he was surrounded in an aura of secrecy, almost absolute silence. So she waited and watched him move toward the thicker part of the forest. When he came to a copse of trees, she saw an arm reach out, grab him, and shove him against a pine.
Where are you going? said a voice.
I’m going to find my father, said Lars. This war is shit.
Elie startled when she heard a shot. Lars fell to the ground in a heap. He twitched; she heard another shot, and his body was still.
A figure in a long coat emerged from the woods. It came closer, and Elie put her hand on her revolver. It was Mueller.
Fraulein Schacten, he said. I’m so sorry you had to hear that commotion.
Believe me, I’ve heard everything, she said.
I admire your perspective.
Mueller smelled of gunpowder and pine needles—the combination made Elie’s stomach lurch. He asked for a cigarette, and Elie handed him hers. She kept a hand on her revolver.
Where did you come from? she asked.
From the trees, said Mueller.
Like a troll, said Elie.
Like the Reich, he said.
He put an arm around her and asked how she was managing. Elie said she was managing very well, and Mueller said she probably wasn’t managing as well as she thought.
Elie looked at Lars’s body, still as a fallen tree. She wanted to rush over to him—the desire was strong, like a heartbeat, but she forced herself to stand still.
I’ve been lucky in this war, she said.
And you may still be lucky, said Mueller. If you listen to me.
He took her arm and walked her toward a large pine. He walked with verve, as though they’d just left an opera and were promenading down a boulevard. The air had a stale, cloying sweetness.

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