Songs of the Dead (24 page)

She almost doesn't want to ask him about the blood in the garage, but her curiosity is up, and he has been so very wonderful and so very wise about the other two, explaining them in ways that make so much sense, that she goes ahead and asks.

He says, “I'm not sure what you mean. Will you show me?”

They go to the garage, where after a few moments she says, pointing, “I would have sworn they were there, and there, and there.”

He looks at her lovingly. “You were so tired.”

“And your truck,” she says. “I remember it being about a foot farther forward. I had to walk around it.”

He shakes his head. “I've been with you all morning, and I don't think the truck drove itself.” He pauses, then says, “Maybe the bleeding, breathing ghost took the truck out for a spin.”

“Maybe,” she says, laughing with him at her own silliness.

She sees herself the night before, getting out of her car, sees herself walking across a pristine floor, sees herself not stepping around the truck. Everything Jack says feels so right. She almost makes a joke about the truck being driven not by a ghost, but by Jack's secret lover, but at the last moment she doesn't, because she wants to be sensitive to his unfounded suspicions about her. She doesn't want to make him feel bad.

They go back inside, finish breakfast.

It isn't until hours later that she remembers the feathery stain on the doorjamb. She goes to look. When she sees it's still there, she does not question everything Jack said that morning—which, after all, had made so much sense—but instead begins to remember that she has seen this stain for days, for weeks, for months, and for the longest time she has been meaning to clean it up.

She does. For as old as that stain is, she's surprised at how easily it comes off.

seven teen

more miracles

In March, 1943, Hitler made another visit to the Eastern Front, this to discuss the Kursk offensive. Security was extremely tight. Men with submachine guns were everywhere. Some of the security squads, however, were under the command of Georg Freiherr von Boeselager, the pentathlete who had joined the resistance. The squad chosen to line the path where Hitler was to walk to and from the meeting place was made up of members of the resistance. They were to shoot Hitler as he walked back to his car.

Hitler took a different route to his vehicle.

Another assassination attempt took place that same day. During lunch Lieutenant-Colonel Henning von Tresckow, center of the resistance on the Eastern Front, asked Lieutenant-Colonel Heinz Brandt, who was going to be on the same plane as Hitler, to take a package to Colonel Stief. This sort of favor was routine. This sort of package was not: unbeknownst to Brandt, it contained a live bomb.

The bomb consisted of two pairs of British “clams”: adhesive explosives the size of very small books, yet powerful enough to penetrate a one inch steel plate or twist a railway line.

Shortly before the plane took off, Tresckow's assistant, Lieutenant Fabian von Schlabrendorff, surreptitiously used a key to press through the wrapping and break the acid capsule, which began the timer. He then handed the package to Brandt, who got on the plane.

The fuse was set to detonate in thirty minutes.

Several hours later Hitler landed in Prussia.

The conspirators faced a problem: they needed to retrieve the package before its delivery to Stief, who knew nothing of the plot. Tresckow called Brandt and told him to hold on to the package: the wrong one had been sent. Schlabrendorff then flew to Prussia and exchanged the package for one containing a gift for Stief. When he was alone, Schlabrendorff opened the package. The fuse had functioned perfectly, eating through the wire and releasing the striker onto the detonator. The striker had struck precisely as it was supposed to. The detonator had gone off: it was burnt and black. But the explosive had not ignited.

Another attempt was made eight days later. Each year during March, the Nazis held a “Heroes Memorial Day” in a large hall, during which Hitler would give a speech (in which he could state that victory was now assured over bolshevism, capitalism, Asiatic barbarians, criminal warmongers, Churchill, and the Jews), watch a guard battalion parade by, listen to the national anthem, speak very briefly with war-wounded, and inspect captured materials.

The potential assassin this time was Colonel Freiherr von Gersdorff, chief of the Intelligence section organizing the materials captured from the Russians. When Tresckow asked him to make a bomb attack on Hitler, the recently-widowed Gersdorff assented after being reassured that if the attempt succeeded, the plotters would not stop at Hitler, but overthrow the entire Nazi government.

Gersdorff's first option was to plant a bomb to go off during Hitler's speech, much as had Georg Elser. He rejected this option because he only had access to small bombs (and couldn't hide a big bomb, anyway), and the venue was very large, meaning the shock of the explosion would dissipate too much to guarantee a kill. Further, he had only a vague notion of Hitler's timetable, which would make setting a fuse impossible.

This meant the attack would have to be made during Hitler's inspection of Gersdorff's exhibit. It also meant the attack would of necessity involve Gersdorff's suicide.

Gersdorff and Tresckow faced more difficulties. At this point they had access to plenty of explosives, but not to appropriate fuses. Most of the fuses had delays of up to thirty minutes, and of course it would not be possible to set the fuse, then try to chat up Hitler for a half an hour. They had access to a fair number of German pioneer explosives with very short fuses, but these fuses had to be activated by an extremely conspicuous pulling motion. Even a hint of this movement and Gersdorff would be shot, Hitler whisked away. Another possibility would be for Gersdorff to use a German hand grenade, with its four-and-a-half second fuse, but this fuse made a distinctive hissing sound which would similarly get Gersdorff shot to no avail.

He decided on ten-minute fuses attached to clams, one in each pocket of his greatcoat. He was able to smuggle them in on the day of the speech. Because he did not know how long Hitler would talk, he kept his hands in his pockets, but didn't start the fuses until Hitler approached his exhibit. Then, Gersdorff gave the Hitler salute with his right arm, and with his left hand still in his pocket set off that fuse. The explosion would, he thought, set off the clam in his other pocket as well.

They entered the exhibit. There were a few other people with Hitler—Göring, Keitel, Dönitz, Himmler, aides, and bodyguards—all of whom were fair game to be blown up. But at the last moment Hitler asked Field Marshall von Bock to come along with them. This concerned Gersdorff, because Bock was a member of the resistance, yet did not know about this assassination attempt.

Gersdorff decided to go ahead with it. Now, he merely had to stay next to Hitler for the final ten minutes of their lives. This would not be a problem, since this was precisely his duty: to explain the various pieces of equipment.

In contrast to all previous years, Hitler literally ran through the exhibit hall. He would not listen to a word Gersdorff said. Not even Göring—acting innocently—was able to get Hitler to slow down. Hitler was out of the room in less than three minutes, surprising even the radio announcers, who were unprepared for his quick return.

All that Gersdorff could do was excuse himself into the lavatory and remove the fuse. He never made another attempt on Hitler's life.

eight teen

the land

I wake up. Allison lies next to me. A cat presses against my other side.

Allison says, “Did you have any dreams?”

I smile. “I did, as I drifted awake. A wonderful half dream, half memory.”

“What about?”

“You.”

“That's nice.” She presses toward me, tighter even than the cat. “Tell me.”

“Do you remember that time we made love next to a cemetery?”

She says, “I. . . .”

“That's what the dream was about. It was so beautiful. That was one of my favorite times ever.”

Part of me feels her slightly stiffen, but the rest of me doesn't quite notice.

I continue, “Remember, we found that mossy space at the edge of some trees? Do you remember how soft that moss was?”

“Derrick.”

“And it was a little bit cold and windy and we put down our coats so we could lie on them?”

“Derrick.”

“The dream was so wonderful. I wish I could fall back in it. Or maybe we can just make something similar happen now.

“Stop. Please stop.”

I do. “What's wrong?”

“That wasn't me.”

“What do you mean, it wasn't you?”

“That was someone else.”

“No, I see you so clearly. I can see your face and your breasts and the goosebumps on your belly and on your hips, and I can see where we join together. . . .”

“Why are you giving me those images? I don't want them. I tell you it wasn't me.”

“You really don't remember this?”

“You're confusing me with someone else. Please stop.” She pauses. “What's the name of the cemetery? I've probably never even been there.”

I hesitate. I don't remember. That's odd. Everything else is so clear.

She says, “Don't tell me. I don't want to know the name. I don't want to make the connection.”

“I understand. I'm sorry.”

Memories live in places. They live in trees, stones, soil, water, birds, mice, insects, air. They live in us.

When I put my face to the ground, and when I keep it there long enough, I can feel the memories moving from my bones to the soil's, and from the soil's bones into mine.

When I put my face into the wind, I can feel the memories move back and forth between us, too, only this time the memories are different.

Memories are living beings, like salamanders, like snakes, like stones, like storms, like flowers, like flames, like breaths of wind, like mice, only different.

Memories are spiderwebs, shining, delicate, translucent, sticky, binding grass to grass. They are stones, solid, buried or exposed, worn away by water and wind. They are water, and they are wind. They are droplets. They are hurricanes.

They are as alive as you or me. Put your face to the ground. Leave it there. Feel the memories move bone to bone, yours to theirs, theirs to yours.

I lie face down in a small patch of forest behind our home. A fire swept through maybe a dozen years before we moved in, and the new trees have grown tall in the time since. I smell small plants, and soil, and the calming brown smell of duff. I feel plants on my face, and a small stone against my cheek. I shift slightly so it doesn't poke me.

Almost immediately—literally within two or three seconds— I have to fight an almost frantic boredom. For all I've written about a relationship with the land, and for all I've tried to live in relationship with the land where I live, I still feel an overwhelming urge to get away, to do
anything
but stay where I am, to do anything but touch the ground. I want to go back to the house, play some poker online, check my e-mail, call a friend. I think about the sound of distant cars on the interstate. I think about the phone bill I need to pay. I think about the celery I need to buy (my prostate is pretty much fine by now, thanks to Doctor Lu, the miracle-working Chinese herbalist, and part of the maintenance program is that I'm supposed to drink a fair amount of celery tea and eat lots of watermelon).

I am anywhere but where I am.

It shouldn't be so hard to stay where I am, but it is. What am I afraid of?

I try to bring myself back. I'm not trying to meditate: I've never really liked meditation as such. People ask me if I meditate, if I sit silently with my breath and try to still my mind, and I always tell them I live with trees and butterflies, and I like to sit with
them
.

That's true enough, so far as it goes, but all of my time touching trees now seems superficial to me, as though I was looking at them and even seeing them as well as I could, but still not seeing them at all.