Heidegger's Glasses_ A Novel Part 10

You're a useless civil servant, he said.

By the time they got back to the hut, the whole world was filled with shadows. Stumpf said he had to leave on a mission, but Heidegger pulled him to the kitchen where a blond woman with a crown of braids stirred soup.

Look at this, he said, pointing to Stumpf.

Stumpf said Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! And Elfriede Heidegger saluted without turning. Then she looked at him and squinted. And Elfriede Heidegger saluted without turning. Then she looked at him and squinted.

Who is he? she said to Heidegger.

Some a.s.shole from the Party.

You shouldn't talk that way, said Elfriede. And you shouldn't wear that hat in the snow. She took it off and stroked the feather. It will get ruined, she continued. Don't wear it again until spring.

Don't bother me about the hat, said Heidegger. But look at this. He showed her the gla.s.ses and the letter. Elfriede Heidegger squinted again.

What do you people do? she said to Stumpf.

We deliver things, he answered.

Who's we? she said.

An office.

You said you weren't with an office, said Heidegger. He picked up Aristotle's Metaphysics Metaphysics and walked toward another room. and walked toward another room.

You figure him out, he said to Elfriede.

Elfriede made a clucking noise and turned back to the soup.

Please sit down, she said to Stumpf.

Stumpf didn't want to sit down. The dark wood furniture and the peaked light from the window made him feel outside of ordinary time-not the dreamlike time of seances but the tilted, malevolent time of fairy tales. Yet he felt under a spell, just like unlucky people in fairy tales, and sat on another three-legged stool that also should have been in a barn. He looked at the beams. He was sure they could fall on his head.

Elfriede kept stirring the soup. Which office are you with? she said. I know all of them.

None.

Then why are you dressed that way?

Protocol.

Elfriede Heidegger shook her head.

A uniform's a uniform, she said. There's no such thing as protocol.

She rummaged in a cupboard, set a bin at Stumpf's feet and handed him a knife and five potatoes.

Please peel these, she said.

Stumpf peeled anxiously and messily-half the peels landed on his boots. While he peeled, he stared at Elfriede's blond braids and thought she looked just like a woman named Frieda, whom he'd almost married.

Frieda was probably making soup, too, he thought-but in an ordinary house with pleasant furniture. Why had he let her go and become so entangled with the Offices? And how could he be entranced by Sonia, who sometimes, in the semiprivacy of the s...o...b..x, did leaps, pirouettes, arabesques, twisting her body into shapes that looked like the alphabet, startling him into thinking that the letters were nearly human-both heels on her shoulders for M, slithering for S, a backbend for O, one leg on her forehead for D. Sonia could become any letter in the world, even the Cyrillic alphabet. But when he looked at Elfriede, Stumpf realized he kept forgetting Sonia was a Russian Jew-not at all like the woman he once wanted to marry.

While he peeled potatoes, Elfriede Heidegger talked about Party meetings he'd never heard of because he was sentenced to the life of an underground creature, forced to live in the Compound. He thought again of Frieda making soup in a kitchen that didn't have a bed. He was sure she went to more Party meetings than Elfriede and had at least four children.

Elfriede Heidegger put the potatoes in the soup and swept the peels off the floor. Did Goebbels send you? she asked.

That's exactly what I want to know, Heidegger yelled from his study.

Stumpf said he wasn't able to divulge information but helped out as a private envoy. He was simply a connection between people of great importance: a messenger, a link, a go-between.

Andrezej,Still no news of Ewa and the children. But I've been talking to someone who can travel freely and I have other news. Meet me at the edge of the barracks.Januz The soup was potato soup with dark bread. It was thick, but not nearly as good as the soup the Scribes made: Stumpf thought about Parvis Nafissian banging pots, Niles Schopenhauer peeling potatoes, Gitka Kapusinki sprinkling spices, Sophie Nachtgarten adding bread, and one of the Russians always saying don't stir the tea with your d.i.c.k don't stir the tea with your d.i.c.k. La Toya always put in something outrageous, like vodka and cinnamon, which made the soup taste better, and Elie surprised them with sausage or extra cheese. And all at once, like a child too far from home, he missed the dank mineral smell and subterranean comfort of the Compound. He even missed the Scribes making fun of him and the word games he didn't understand. At the very same time, he missed the increasingly imaginary Frieda, dishing out soup in a pleasant house with ordinary furniture. In other words-he missed everything at once, and this crescendoed inside him like a bleating lamb, even though he couldn't cry. He tried to elude the invitation to spend the night and was dismayed when Elfriede led him from the oblong table to the bed behind the kitchen stove. She said that they went to bed with the birds and got up with them, and he could be on his way by dawn. Stumpf climbed into the bed and realized the smell of potato peels bothered him more than the dank smell of the mine. The shadows of the pots and pans looked like bears, ready to bite as revenge for hitting Mikhail on the head when he'd gone to great trouble to write a letter.

Stumpf hadn't slept above ground since he'd been to his brother's farm in the fall. For a while he lay in the small bed without moving, listening to the Heideggers cough, and worrying that the rustling pines were the SS, spying on his catastrophic visit. He crept to the window and saw one lone pine. But he didn't trust this dark and saw advantages to sleeping below the ground. It was what the Fuhrer was doing right now.

He let himself drift and began to imagine Frieda in a large bedroom without her husband: he'd gone to the front like every other sensible German. Unfortunately he'd been killed, and Frieda was lonely. Stumpf was inching his hand toward her b.r.e.a.s.t.s when he saw light from the dining room flicker on the ceiling. He heard a great pounding and Heidegger shouted: I can't see out of these gla.s.ses!

Stumpf sat up and b.u.mped his head on a pot. For some reason these two people, who went to sleep with the birds and woke up with them, were awake in the middle of the night.

He crept from behind the stove. Both Heideggers were at the table in bathrobes. His was dark brown, hers light blue, reminding Stumpf of a frieze in Himmler's office of two Greek G.o.ds working in tandem. Stumpf asked Heidegger if he was sure he couldn't see out of the gla.s.ses, and Heidegger said of course he was sure. How could he not be?

Now, said Elfriede. Tell us where you got them.

Stumpf said he couldn't say.

Then where did you get the d.a.m.ned letter? said Heidegger.

An office, said Stumpf. They give us smaller things.

You think this stuff about Ent-fernen Ent-fernen is small? Or this ludicrous business with triangles? is small? Or this ludicrous business with triangles?

The Reich doesn't think anything is small.

Then you are are with the Reich. with the Reich.

Stumpf repeated he was an envoy. And then, as though he'd forgotten what he needed to conceal, he said Asher Englehardt lost his shop, and people who lose their shops sometimes do strange things: maybe Asher made the gla.s.ses with the wrong prescription. Or written a crazy letter.

Heidegger didn't register that Asher lost his shop, but Elfriede Heidegger did.

How do you know? she said.

We got word from an office, said Stumpf.

Who's we?

I can't tell you.

They never tell you anything, said Heidegger. He shoved the letter in the soup tureen where it sank in the potato peels. Stumpf pulled it out and blotted it on his sleeve.

Someone you work with? Elfriede said.

I'm not at liberty to say.

Heidegger pounded the table. Of course you are!

Stumpf was about to go into more detail about people losing their shops. He was going to talk about the confusion of papers-mismatched files, bulging mailbags. But Heidegger's pounding and the rattling tureen made him want to go far away from this dark, gloomy hut, to a street with soft lights where people wore fur coats, and the aroma of tea-rose perfume permeated the smell of earth. He could smell the tea-rose as if he were in the Compound. He could see the lamp on Elie's desk and her white arm with the red ribbon as it reached for the chocolate she always gave him. And he could smell the aura that surrounded her in winter-real weather, perfumed snow. Dieter Dieter, he heard her say. Elie Elie, he said out loud. Elfriede Heidegger widened her eyes.

Elie, she said, as though the name quivered on a special scale. Elie Elie.

Stumpf held his chins. Heidegger glared at the soup tureen.

I wonder if it's that that Elie, said Elfriede. Elie, said Elfriede.

What Elie? said Heidegger.

The little tart who came to my party, said Elfriede. She got my recipe for bundkuchen.

I don't know who you're talking about, said Stumpf.

There was an Elie at Freiburg, said Elfriede, who was there one day and gone the next. She didn't even tell her landlady. One of those Aryan-looking Poles with blond curls and blue eyes. Everyone said she went underground.

Lots of Elies have blond hair and blue eyes, said Stumpf. And this Elie is from Latvia.

Not so many who disappeared, said Elfriede. And not so many who snuck around.

Stumpf felt his head grow heavy. He rested it on his chins. Heidegger took the letter.

Now tell us about Asher Englehardt, he said.

I can't.

Is he dead?

No, said Stumpf, who had no idea whether or not he was.

What about this other envoy? said Heidegger.

Stumpf didn't answer. Heidegger held Stumpf's chair by the rush bottom seat and pulled it off the ground.

I want you to take me to Asher Englehardt, he said. I want to hear from him if he wrote this absurd letter.

I can't. Believe me, I would if I could, but I can't.

Then Elfriede is going to report you. And this Elie person too.

Threats were the order of the day, as they'd been throughout the war. They came in the form of nods, snubs, notes, a revolver in one's ribs, even a wink.

Stumpf reviewed Heidegger's threat while Heidegger held up the chair. He was sure Mikhail had written a wonderful letter, and anyone could have taken the wrong gla.s.ses. On the other hand, he was the only person from the Compound the Heideggers had seen and could be shot for exposing the project. And even though there were times when Stumpf thought he wouldn't mind being shot, he always thought he would be the one to decide where and when. So he found himself saying what he never imagined he would say-the unthinkable, the unutterable.

I'll find a way to take you to Asher Englehardt.

Heidegger lowered the chair.

When? he said.

I can't tell you, said Stumpf. These things don't happen like clockwork. Meanwhile I'll get Asher to sign a statement that he wrote the letter.

I don't trust statements, said Heidegger. I want to hear it from him. And I want my gla.s.ses.

We'll wait two weeks but no longer, said Elfriede.

Two weeks, I promise. Can I have the letter now?

No, said Elfriede, tucking it in her bathrobe. We'll keep everything until you bring Martin to Asher. He was a wonderful man, by the way. You'd have no idea his father was Jewish.

The plan agreed with Heidegger. He began to talk about the Being of lost objects-in this case his gla.s.ses. Or maybe they weren't lost, he said. Maybe they were only wrongly categorized wrongly categorized-in a drawer with b.u.t.tons and bric-a-brac and letters. And perhaps, so was Asher Englehardt. Mentioning Asher Englehardt made Stumpf worry that Heidegger knew about the camps. Mentioning letters made him worry that he knew about the Compound. But letters and camps weren't his point. Heidegger meant the gla.s.ses were somewhere in the world-brute objects, not part of human life, the way he'd seen his gla.s.ses when he hadn't recognized them.

Heidegger speculated, Elfriede touched her crown of braids, and Stumpf remembered he had over twenty pairs of gla.s.ses in his jeep. One of them might be Heidegger's. But the thought of waiting while Heidegger tried them on was unbearable, and he left as soon as he could, taking a brown bread Elfriede forced on him, saying Very soon! Very soon! and and Less than two weeks! Less than two weeks!

At last Elfriede closed the door, and Stumpf walked down the path so quickly he dropped his hat. He picked it up without looking around, as if the mere sight of the hut would turn him to stone. And he was surprised to find the ill-fated box of gla.s.ses and dictionary spotted with blood in the Kubelwagen. It was as though he'd come from a realm where ordinary objects didn't exist. He had to drive slowly on the unplowed road-back through the pines, which seemed even more ominous since he'd been bewitched. By some miracle the main highway was plowed-a sign of redemption, he was sure. He breathed freely and drove with speed. All he wanted was to get back to his crystal b.a.l.l.s and Sonia dancing letters of the alphabet. But when he remembered he'd promised to take Heidegger to Auschwitz, he drove so slowly the Kubelwagen dragged along the road.

THE ANGEL OF AUSCHWITZ.

Dear Marietta,I think of you all the time, and sometimes imagine I can see your face looking at me from the apartment opposite one of our walls. Thank G.o.d you left. People are in factions, always arguing and everybody agrees that in a few months, this ghetto will see an uprising. None of us will be alive afterwards, but it won't matter because none of us are alive now.Love,Gustav

Twenty-seven hours after Stumpf a.s.saulted Mikhail and left the Compound, Gerhardt Lodenstein began to straighten the room he had trashed for the second time in ten days after an explosive fight with Elie where he'd called her a meddler and a traitor. She'd locked herself in Mueller's old room.

Maybe, he thought, it's only my illusion that I'm Oberst. Maybe my life really consists of destroying this room and putting it back together again. it's only my illusion that I'm Oberst. Maybe my life really consists of destroying this room and putting it back together again. He started by putting things he'd thrown back in his trunk-an enormous trunk he used to stockpile keepsakes. He started by putting things he'd thrown back in his trunk-an enormous trunk he used to stockpile keepsakes.

The trunk was from the Navy, and he kept it for memorabilia because ever since he'd come to the Compound something had happened to his sense of time: ordinary things he touched, heard-even Elie-seemed to go through a slipknot and become part of a memory of having happened having happened. One instant a pen, a sc.r.a.p of paper, a face, would simply be itself. The next moment it became part of the past and reverberated like memories from childhood-the sound of street games, the rim of a skate. He wondered if this was because he was afraid he might not survive the war or worried that Elie would be killed on a foray. Or did the war itself warp time, pulling objects and events into wormholes? He held a white velvet rose and remembered the smell of summer lilacs.

Elie made these roses for women in the Compound because she couldn't find fresh flowers, except feverfew, which grew during summer. She a.s.sembled the velvet into petals so they thrust up like real flowers, sprayed them with tea-rose perfume and offered them with the same abandon as she offered fur coats. Now and then she gave a rose to Lodenstein. She'd given him this rose when he persuaded her to sleep upstairs again-after their fight about the children.

The trunk was filled with objects: used typewriter spools, a gla.s.s lamp, photographs, Elie's empty perfume bottles, a crooked whisk, a typewriter, fingerless gloves. He picked up pieces of the wool carder and put them back in the trunk carefully, next to a pair of gla.s.ses with a white tag marked fur Martin Heidegger fur Martin Heidegger. Then he retrieved two maps. One was the original blueprint for the Compound. The other was a duplicate map-his private record that showed how it was really used. He'd named Elie's old room Fraulein Schacten's Gift to the Scribes Fraulein Schacten's Gift to the Scribes and had drawn a skull and crossbones where the Compound dead-ended in the tunnel. On Stumpf's watchtower he'd crossed out and had drawn a skull and crossbones where the Compound dead-ended in the tunnel. On Stumpf's watchtower he'd crossed out watchtower watchtower and written and written seances, s...o...b..x, invocations to the dead seances, s...o...b..x, invocations to the dead. He'd changed guards' quarters guards' quarters to to nightwalkers nightwalkers and Mueller's room to and Mueller's room to site of mysteries site of mysteries. He'd marked the water closet where people held conferences, place of asylum place of asylum.

Now he wrote Elie's hideout Elie's hideout over Mueller's old room and over Mueller's old room and hutch of fiascos hutch of fiascos over Stumpf's watchtower. He considered writing over Stumpf's watchtower. He considered writing backstabber backstabber over the Solomons' house. But Mikhail and Talia had endured enough aspersions before they came to the Compound. Instead he picked his way across the room to get another rose. He put it in the trunk. over the Solomons' house. But Mikhail and Talia had endured enough aspersions before they came to the Compound. Instead he picked his way across the room to get another rose. He put it in the trunk.

During the twenty-seven hours since Stumpf left, a pall had come over the Compound: Mikhail had a huge welt on his forehead and stayed inside 917 917, as did Talia, who said to him, This place is as bad as Lodz This place is as bad as Lodz. Lars, who blamed himself for not guarding Mikhail more carefully, kept watch outside the house. Elie almost never left Mueller's old room. Scribes used the kitchen quietly.

Only Dimitri was happy because Elie was downstairs all the time. Since he'd come to the Compound, she took him with her almost everywhere. And if she didn't, Dimitri shadowed her, popping up near her desk so often the Scribes nicknamed him the little mouse the little mouse. He loved to look at the stamps on the letters as well as pictures of animals Elie found in books. And early that morning, Elie had taken him to the well, and a thin calico cat walked out of the forest. The cat delighted him. He named her Mufti.

As for Lodenstein, even solitaire upset him. Games that once amused him, like Beleaguered Castle or Forty Thieves, now had aching resonance-about Elie's schemes, Mikhail's collusions, and the letter on its way to Heidegger. He'd capsized the bed and had to play on the floor. Cards kept slipping under socks.