Heidegger's Glasses: A Novel (7 page)

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Authors: Thaisa Frank

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He had been sneaking mail to his shoebox and was figuring out whether he could fit all seventeen crates of letters into his Kübelwagen when Elie Schacten knocked. Stumpf had been so appalled by his lack of privacy that he’d secured his door with gold-plated latches—seven in all. They fastened with hooks and made his door resemble hooks and eyes on old boots. Stumpf unlocked every one of them, and Elie Schacten came in holding a pair of rimless glasses with thin gold earpieces that wobbled like insect legs. She also showed him a letter that was gibberish and a prescription for the glasses.

Stumpf peered at the letter.

What gibberish, he said. And why these glasses?

Because they need to be delivered, said Elie. Really delivered.

Everything’s delivered, said Stumpf. In crates.

I mean delivered to someone who’s alive, said Elie.

She showed him the orders from Goebbels’s office, and Stumpf held them to the light to see if the paper had the seals of the offices, which he’d seen many times when he was an Under-Under Secretary. After he decided the seals were authentic, he said:

Maybe someone else wrote the orders. They aren’t even signed.

Whoever wrote them, said Elie, the outpost says it’s an order.

What does the outpost know? said Stumpf.

It’s all over the Reich, said Elie.

Stumpf sighed when Elie mentioned the Reich: he’d once been part of important conversations behind enormous doors and used the seals he’d just scrutinized—seals that pressed the swastika deeper than his metal stamp. Stumpf’s folds of skin gave him three chins and often made him look startled. Now he looked sad—even his chins. Elie patted his hand.

But why now? he said. This man went to Auschwitz in October.

It’s urgent, said Elie. Heidegger used to be Chancellor of Freiburg, and he needs his glasses.

Someone smart enough to be Chancellor wouldn’t wait that long for a pair of glasses, said Stumpf. He’d get new ones from an Aryan optometrist.

It doesn’t matter, Elie said. They want Heidegger to get
these
glasses—with an answer to his letter.

But we only answer letters to the dead!

Elie touched his metal stamp. This is an order, she said quietly. Do you know what that means?

How else could I be in charge of these scoundrels if I didn’t? But why do you suppose Goebbels wants this? It’s against our mission.

Stumpf looked genuinely puzzled—as if he always knew what Goebbels wanted.

Heidegger and the optometrist were friends, said Elie. The kind who take walks together.

But Heidegger’s not in good standing. The Gestapo’s watching him.

He still gets to talk in Paris, said Elie. Besides, he and the optometrist taught philosophy.

This seemed to faze Stumpf, and the gears in his head began to grind: If Heidegger and the Jew taught philosophy, then they wrote each other letters that were incomprehensible. And if they wrote each other letters that were incomprehensible, then, under the strict rule of
Like Answers Like
, Heidegger would need an answer from someone who could write a letter that was just as incomprehensible.

He looked at Elie and allowed himself to enjoy her tangle of blond curls and tea-rose perfume. He even imagined he could smell real weather—pine trees, fresh snow, the fragrance of light itself.

Leave everything here, he said. I’ll take it to someone higher up.

I’ve taken it to someone higher up, said Elie. He said to talk to you.

Then I’ll do something about it.

I don’t think you will.

Who will then? Not one of those down there.

He meant the Scribes. A few were writing a crossword puzzle on the blackboard.

What a miserable bunch, he said.

They’re not miserable at all, said Elie. They’re just in a miserable place.

I am, too, said Stumpf. But I still do my work.

Elie looked at a crystal ball and three candlesticks on his dresser. She touched a mailbag full of letters with her foot.

What are these? she said.

Papers to store, said Stumpf.

Elie picked a postcard from a mailbag. It was an unremarkable card, with coerced praise from a prisoner and a purple postage stamp of Hitler. Stumpf looked at Elie like a pleading dog.

Put that back! said Stumpf. I’ll find a way to answer it—I promise.

Stumpf didn’t want to talk to his replacement, Gerhardt Lodenstein, who was only there—he was sure—so Stumpf wouldn’t hold more séances. Stumpf decided never to mention the matter concerning Heidegger to anyone and bury the orders, the letter, the prescription, and the glasses at his brother’s farm. Nonsense didn’t deserve an answer. Someday Goebbels would thank him.

But when he went back to his desk, he realized Elie had taken everything except the prescription for Heidegger’s glasses. And now he saw a note on the prescription that said:
Important—for future use in the event of my disappearance, Asher Englehardt.
The note made him wonder whether Heidegger had special eye problems—he’d once heard of something called elongated corneas—so God knows what else could be wrong. And if Heidegger couldn’t see as a result of his neglect and was exonerated, Stumpf could be shot.

So he went to talk to General-Major Mueller who’d come to the Compound to do mysterious work for Goebbels and was about to go back to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. He took off his wooly bedroom slippers, put on his boots, and walked from his shoebox down the spiral stairs. He had to pass through the main room to reach Mueller’s quarters and tripped when he opened the door to the street. But no one gave him the slightest notice.

General-Major Mueller, who looked like a raccoon in a dark coat and black leather gloves, was eating fleischkonserve with gherkins in spacious quarters to the left of the main room of the Compound. His room had a rosewood bed, a matching dresser, a mahogany desk, and two gilded mirrors to simulate windows. Mueller had fourteen gherkins on his plate—twelve more than the daily ration. He was eating them as revenge for not having been asked to the feast.

Mueller didn’t like Stumpf or Lodenstein but shared some passions with each of them. With Stumpf he shared a passion for Elie Schacten and the Reich. With Lodenstein he shared a passion for Elie Schacten and solitaire. He was annoyed that Lodenstein could satisfy both his passions while he only got to satisfy one. This was solitaire, which he played when he read his mysterious papers, made his mysterious phone calls, and when he ate. When Stumpf came in, he was playing a game called Czarina and didn’t bother to look up from his desk.

I need to talk to you, said Stumpf.

Mueller swept a stack.

Quickly, then. I’m leaving.

Stumpf wasn’t smart but was blessed with a skill that made him first indispensable to the Reich, and later undesirable: he remembered everything he read—word for word, comma for comma—and recited the orders precisely. When he’d finished, Mueller said:

Your job is to answer letters from people who are dead. And Heidegger’s not dead yet.

Just what I thought, said Stumpf.

People lose sight these days, said Mueller. Even Goebbels.

You shouldn’t talk about him that way.

Why not? said Mueller, picking up another gherkin. Himmler has gone haywire. And Goebbels is acting deluded. Like rain on a dark night.

Mueller often compared things to the weather, and Stumpf was never sure what he meant. Rain fell in the same place whether it was night or day.

I don’t think you understand, he said. Heidegger and this man were friends. Who cares? said Mueller. On the other hand—he closed his eyes—Goebbels has reasons for everything.

What are they now?

I would be violating his trust if I told you.

A hint, then, said Stumpf.

Even a hint would be wrong, said Mueller, who had no idea what Goebbels wanted. Besides, said Mueller, patting his head, I must hang on to this, and giving away secrets is a good way to lose it.

Elie Schacten says it’s because they were friends, said Stumpf.

Elie Schacten is admirable, said Mueller. But she’s trying to make sense of something she can’t understand.

There was a moment of silence in which both men observed their reverence for Elie Schacten—provider of their schnapps, wearer of tea-rose perfume.

He doesn’t deserve her, said Mueller, meaning Lodenstein. He shoved his cards into a tooled-leather case.

Fucking Berlin, he said. Lodenstein should be going there.

Maybe he will soon, said Stumpf.

Not with his luck. He’ll play cards and sleep with her forever.

Goebbels is after his ass, said Stumpf.

He’s after almost everyone’s except mine, said Mueller.

Stumpf coughed. Then could you ask him about the orders? he said. And the letter to Heidegger?

Are you crazy? I’d be shot. People aren’t themselves these days. They make ridiculous demands and hold séances.

The mention of séances made Stumpf so nervous he ate a gherkin off Mueller’s plate. He’d often thought it was Mueller who had told Goebbels’s office about a séance he’d held where a candle fell over and started a fire in a corner of the upstairs room. Mueller helped put out the fire and was the only person who knew about it.

I don’t think you should do anything, Mueller continued, locking the black leather case where he stored his mysterious papers. The optometrist went to school with Heidegger before Heidegger knew the optometrist was a dog. Besides, Heidegger’s pissed off everyone. I say to hell with him.

You’re telling the former Chancellor of Freiburg to go to hell! I should report you.

Go ahead. Let them shoot me.

This was a lie. Even though Mueller worried that his days were numbered, he wanted as many of them as possible and was angry that he, not Lodenstein, had been called back to Berlin. He was so angry he thought about putting a bullet through Stumpf’s head. But he couldn’t just throw him in the forest and cover him with leaves. There would be an investigation.

Do whatever you want, he said, yanking on his boots. Bring him the damned glasses. Leave them outside his little hut. I’m sure Heidegger believes in elves.

But don’t think the Scribes are going to help you, he continued. They’re useless with their lotteries and word games. You should shoot them.

You can’t shoot the Scribes! There would be no one to answer letters.

Do you really believe these records matter?

Stumpf, who never forgot his inferior position, drew back.

I’m sure the dead are waiting to read them, he said.

No one believes that, said Mueller.

Himmler does.

But not Goebbels, said Mueller. He doesn’t believe that at all. He dusted a boot and handed Stumpf a miniature ivory box and a deck of cards.

Tell Lodenstein the cards are a good-bye present, he said. And the box is for Elie Schacten.