The Berlin Connection (12 page)

He was at mother's funeral and stood to one side. Now I should have hated him even more, now that mother was dead. Hate him? On the contrary. Now that mother was dead I did not see any reason at all to hate him. I tried to talk with him but at that moment he showed more character than I; he turned abruptly and left.

I had no pride about him at all in the following years. Repeatedly, I invited him to live with me in the large house in Pacific Palisades. He refused. "I need my freedom, you know, Peter." I would have liked to impress him more than anyone else, with my money, possessions, and fame.

"My son is very lucky," he told people. And when one of them admired my talent, he answered smilingly, "A child is only a child, not an actor." I was told this story and have never forgotten it.

He must have thought of himself as a talented actor but he never talked about that. Whenever he came to visit me, he was always friendly, always charming, and always aloof. He never stayed long. I transferred money to his account in New York where he lived. He was now working for a radio station. We corresponded, we telephoned and we saw each other from time to time. Then he was always accompanied by a different girl. Each seemed to adore

him. He smiled; he took nothing and no one seriously. He called me "My dear boy," just as he would say "My poor wife." A young girl was with him when he died, not I who had long forgotten what he had done to my mother. From year to year my memory of him, a dark-haired man in shabby or expensive clothes but always looking like a gentleman, became more and more idealized.

With his casual elegance, his beret, reminding me of my father, this man looked at me through the car window and said, "Good evening." *"

His voice was soft and deep. Now I could understand why the voice had seemed so familiar on the telephone. I answered, "Good evening, Dr. Schauberg."

"May I see your passport?"

I gave it to him and he read it in the light of the dipped headlights. It was uncanny how much he resembled my father! He wore an old coat, the collar turned up.

"Fine. Now, what is it you want?"

"I can't tell you that out here on the street."

"You'll have to tell me here or not at all, my dear Mr. Jordan." ("My dear boy." My father again.)

"I'm ill. The day after tomorrow I am going to be examined by the doctor of an insurance company. Could you fix me up so I'll get through the examination?"

"What's wrong with you?"

"Heart. Liver. Circulation."

"Are you a drinker, my dear Mr. Jordan?"

"Yes."

"Have you been examined by a doctor in Germany?"

"No," I said. "Only in the U.S."

"You're lying."

"It's the truth," I Ued.

He hesitated.

"Do you think I'm that crazy? To attempt an insurance fraud if a doctor had examined me here in Germany?"

That did it.

"The moment I have the slightest suspicion, I'll stop treating you."

"All right.*' Natasha Petrovna was leaving for Africa in two days. Or I would not have risked it.

"Do you have money?"

"Yes." I showed him a roll of bills. He walked around the car, his coat flying in the wind, his old trousers baggy, his shoes dirty. He opened the car door and got in.

"Drive through the village. Then make a right. What's in the bag?"

"Whisky."

"How convenient. You don't mind if I help myself."

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The high barbed wire fences had toppled. The barracks were without windows, doors, or roofs. The paths, overgrown with weeds. Against the moonlit sky, I saw a watchtower, broken flagpoles, a parade ground with cracked cement surfacing.

"This is where you live?"

"This is where I work, dear Mr. Jordan."

We had left the road at Reinbeck and had driven into the open country. For a while, we followed the rain-swollen, fast-flowing Elbe. I saw two roadsigns. curslack 6

KILOMETERS, said OnC, NEUENGAMME 17 KILOMETERS, the

other.

Now we had reached the broken entrance doors of a deserted camp.

"I have a room in the Goldenen Anker in Reinbeck," said Schauberg getting out of the car. "But I work here. I'm sure Mr. Gehzuweit told you what happens if one does not keep those things separate. We'll have to walk a little now; I'll carry the bag.''

Schauberg walked fast. I saw more and more barracks, groups of trees, a little lake, a dynamited air-raid shelter.

"And you're not afraid someone might surprise you at your . . . work?" '

"No one even comes here. The few farmers around fall silent went the camp is mentioned. They wouldn't come even if there were buried treasures."

"Why not?"

"They are superstitious. They say the dead walk here. Have you any idea how many are buried over there, near the woods? Thousands and thousands!" The barge whistle came to us from the nearby river. "There were camps outside almost every large German city. Another seventeen kilometers and you'll be at the concentration camp Neuengamme. But no one in our beautiful country knew of those camps. Even the Fuhrer himself did not know. Right outside our cities . . . And we? Concentration camp? Never heard of it. First we heard of them was in 1945. Everybody only did his duty ..."

We passed a second shelter and more and more paths and trees.

"The farmers here had a parish priest who upset them. He told them, unless the living did not honestly repent, the dead would not rest."

"And?"

"So today, fifteen years later, they are still afraid. This camp is twenty-three years old! The Nazis built it in 1936. The location is good. Near Hamburg and yet isolated. So in 1936, they sent Communists, socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses. Watch out, there is a bomb crater. Can you walk a little farther?"

"I guess so."

"We're almost there. Then, when the war started, the political prisoners were removed and it became a POW camp. Poles and Czechs, Belgians, Dutch, French, English. Then in 1943, these people were moved to Flensburg and the camp here was used as a stockade for

the Luftwaffe. Subverting the military potential—^you remember? Oh, I forgot, you're an American. Your comrades-in-arms, incidentally, the British, were just as impressed by the ideal location and used the camp for big shots. At that time, it was crowded with Gauleiter and SS."

"Not for very long, I expect."

"Only until the change in our monetary system, naturally. Then the gentlemen had to return to politics and economy. Just a moment." He stopped at a heap of stones and hurriedly removed stones, pieces of cement and bricks. In a little while, he had cleared the entrance to a little cavern and pulled out a green metal box with the inscription United States Army —Rainbow Division. It had a heavy padlock. "Help me carry it."

"What is it?"

*^y tools. I can't leave anything in the barrack." Between us, we dragged the box along. The air vibrated with the noise of jets zooming across us.

"Night exercises. Happens often. It's not far to the East Zone." We had reached a barrack with shutters. It also had a roof and a door which Schauberg opened now. He entered; I followed. "Shut the door." For a moment it was dark. Then an oil lamp shed its light on an army bed, a table, three chairs, an oilstove. Long-legged spiders ran along the beam from which the lamp was hanging.

Schauberg took off his old coat. With a sweeping gesture he said, "It's going to be warm in a moment. You can get undressed."

I looked at my watch.

It was nine-fifty-five.

I was sitting on the bed. Schauberg had just examined me and was now fixing two large drinks from my black bag. The green box, filled with instruments, syringes, medications, bandages, and a few books, was now open. There was even a microscope. Schauberg offered me the drink.

"Well, cheers."

"Prosit. Well?"

"Fifty thousand."

"You're crazy." ,

In his frayed trousers and worn shoes, he was leaning against a beam in the manner of a lord leaning against a fireplace. "The drink is good. Naturally, the fifty thousand will cover the entire treatment. Just fixing you up for the insurance company will not be enough. You'll need my help to finish your movie too."

"And you think you can do it?"

"For fifty thousand, I can."

He was still wearing his beret.

"I'm not going to pay that much."

"Is there enough ice in your drink? Tell me, dear Mr. Jordan, how much would your company lose if you couldn't make the movie?"

"I'll give you twenty thousand marks."

"Fifty."

"Twenty-five."

"Fifty."

"Thirty."

"Get dressed. We'll drive back to Reinbeck," he said with my father's tired, ironical voice. I suddenly felt my father really had been a miserable character!

"Okay," I said. "Okay. I'm not going to be black-

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mailed." I got up and reached for my shirt. The room spun around me and ridiculously close, I saw the long-legged spider near the oil lamp.

The fist.

I broke out in sweat and dropped my shirt. My mouth stood open. Breathing hard, I stared at Schauberg.

"What's the matter, dear Mr. Jordan?"

"This fear ... I'm . .."

He sipped his whisky. "Fear is a subjective concept, you know. You don't actually feel this fear now. You are at most afraid of this fear."

My legs buckled. I fell on the bed. The fist rose. I stammered. "You're a doctor .. . help me ..."

"You really must pull yourself together!"

"Fear ... this fear ..."

"Fear of what?"

"I don't know ... to die ..."

"We all die. But not just yet. You're not going to die right now, I promise."

I reached for my drink; it slipped from my hand. Whisky spilled on the dirty floor. Schauberg said, "I hope you'll make it home all right. You don't honestly believe you can shoot even one single scene in your condition. Not to mention the insurance examination."

I closed my eyes. I thought of having to walk to my car and driving back to Hamburg. I knew I could never make it. Here, here in this dirty room, I would suffer another attack soon. Now. I knew I could not go through it again. Slowly I opened my eyes. Schauberg stood there, a little sympathetic, a little arrogant, just Uke my father when he had seen my Spanish-style house. I whispered, "Thirty-five ..."

"Dear Mr. Jordan, don't think I want to torture you. As soon as we come to an agreement, I'll help you. Immediately. But I need fifty thousand. You know my circumstances. I must leave Germany. For you, everything is at stake—well, for me too." A moment ago I had seen a

spider. Now I could not see any. I groaned. Had there never been spiders? Had there really been a dead seagull at the hotel?

"I know you are going to be reasonable,*' said Schau-berg. He kneeled before the metal box, searched for a certain box and readied an injection. "You don't have to pay fifty thousand now. Listen. Right now, you give me three thousand. Two after I get you through the insurance examination. That's worth the money, isn't it? And the forty-five thousand, we'll divide by the weeks you have to make the movie." He expelled the air from the syringe. My breathing was quick, shallow. "You'll pay me the end of each week you've successfully completed with my help. If you collapse, the agreement is void. I can't be any fairer than that. Consider that I risk prison helping you." He cjime to the bed, the syringe ready. "Well?"

"And ... you... can ... really ... help ... me?"

"Would I suggest this if I didn't think I could?"

Damn, what was fifty thousand if he could help me? If he did not, I would need half a million. This character was clever and cunning. He would surely help me. Then I would have my chance to make the movie. To get my divorce. To have Shirley. Damn, what was fifty thousand?

"Then, you agree?"

"Okay..." My head lolled to one side.

He really did not want to torture me, he just needed the money. His position was as bad as mine. He injected my arm. "Now," he said smiling, "if in five minutes you don't feel as well as if you were perfectly healthy, you don't have to have any trust in me."

Five minutes later, I felt better than ever before.

I know it sounds incredible.

But it was true. Five minutes later I felt no more fear, no pain, no depression. I felt great. With this doctor to help me, I could do anything!

"What did you give me?"

"You don't have to know everything." He smiled. He looked for some instruments in his box. He was working methodically now. It was hard to believe this man was a drug addict and his wife had killed herself.

The cilstove was humming; the storm rattled the shutters of the barrack. Schauberg used a large syringe and took blood from the vein in my other arm. He removed the needle and divided the blood into three test tubes. He put patches over the needle marks on my arms. Then he took blood from the tip of my thumb. He set the test tubes aside. "Now, for some urine."

I got up.

I felt like singing, embracing a woman, fighting against the storm. With every breath, I felt better, more optimistic, stronger. Fear? I had been afraid? Laughable. Surprised, I said, "You've really helped me."

"That was not difficult. How long before your film is finished?"

"Forty-three shooting days are estimated."

"That's going to be more difficult. Early tomorrow morning, you will go to the Hamburg Polyclinic to get an electrocardiogram. I must know how much your heart can take."

"But my name—"

"Social Welfare. Anyone can go there. They won't ask for identification. You don't mind if I help myself to another drink? Thank you. They will give you the cardio-

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gram. Country doctors don't always have the necessary equipment, you know. Would you like another drink too?"

"Please."

"As soon as you have the cardiogram, you come right out here. Leave your car in Reinbeck and walk the rest of the way. I need you for injections and all that."

"You start tomorrow?"

"We start tonight. Every hour counts. Now we must concentrate on the insurance examination. Everything else will come later." Feeling good now, I could look at him more objectively. I almost felt the effort his intensely active mind was making to avoid any possible mistake. Apparently it sapped his energy. His vitality alternated with short periods of fatigue. He sometimes looked like a person in neon lighting. Had he used morphine? Probably. How long would the effect last?