Heidegger's Glasses_ A Novel Part 2

Maybe they did, said Elie. But I happen to have met Martin Heidegger.

I thought you read in linguistics.

I did, said Elie. But everybody knew each other.

There was a cracked mirror on the fireplace, and Elie walked to it and worked the ribbon in her hair. When she'd tied a bow that met her standards, she said: Heidegger and Asher Englehardt were friends. They wrote each other letters. They met for coffee.

Except now Englehardt's at a place where no one writes letters. Except the ridiculous ones you read.

Elie came back to the table. Her eyes were preternaturally bright.

Maybe these orders could get Englehardt out, she said.

Listen to me, Elie. People don't leave Auschwitz.

I know about a few.

Yes. As ashes.

Not always, said Elie. Just a week ago an SS man came to the Commandant and said a prisoner owned a lab and the Reich needed it for the war, and he had to leave Auschwitz to sign the papers. So he did. And guess what? There aren't any records of the lab, and no one knows the SS officer. People think he wasn't real. They call him the Angel of Auschwitz.

Who told you that?

The outpost officer.

He's losing it, said Lodenstein.

But it's all over the Reich. And Asher Englehardt is the only ventriloquist we'll ever find.

There are plenty of people who can write a good letter.

Who?

Lodenstein waved his hands. I'm sure we can find one.

But these orders might get him out.

Listen to me, Elie. If we fool around, Goebbels will shoot everyone in the Compound. And these orders aren't even signed. Anyone could have sent them.

But the gla.s.ses are real. And I'll talk to Stumpf about the letter.

You can try, Lodenstein said. But Major Stumpf is a fool.

That's exactly why I want to talk to him, said Elie.

Stumpf can never help anybody, said Lodenstein. And it was bad enough that you asked him to the feast.

Dieter Stumpf was the man who lived in the s...o...b..x overlooking the Scribes. He was short and stout and reminded Elie of a shar-pei dog whose skin is all in folds. The shar-pei hadn't come to Germany, but a Chinese painting of one turned up at the outpost, and Elie took it because it reminded her of Stumpf. The painting was her private joke with Lodenstein.

Stumpf had been Oberst of the Compound until Lodenstein replaced him. For reasons no one had bothered to explain, he'd had to move from the room above the earth to a s...o...b..x accessed by winding steps. The s...o...b..x was his bedroom as well as his office: in addition to a desk it had a mattress, crystal b.a.l.l.s, and books about the astral plane.

It also had a large window overlooking the main room of the Compound. Once, rotating guards patrolled the Scribes, but after Germany lost Stalingrad, only Lars was left to guard the forest, and Stumpf had to patrol. He rationalized his demotion by imagining he was the only person Goebbels trusted to make sure the Scribes did their work. But secretly he agonized.

Before Stalingrad, Stumpf had been delighted to record answers to the dead and loved his huge metal stamp and big black paw of an inkpad. But the guards had been clever at foreign languages, and Stumpf had never learned one. If the correspondence was in German, Stumpf used his huge metal stamp so vigorously the crystal ball on his desk rattled. But if the letters were in a foreign language, he had no way of knowing whether the Scribes had duped him by writing nonsense. Sometimes his stamp hovered in the air. Sometimes it pounced. At other times he got overwhelmed. Then he heaved down the spiral staircase and told everyone in the main room they were scroungers. His rants went on until someone-a Scribe, or Lodenstein, if he were there-put two fingers in the shape of devil's horns behind his head. Everyone laughed, the folds in Stumpf's face sagged, and he crept back to his s...o...b..x, looking so forlorn people felt sorry for him. But only for a while. Being ridiculed was trivial compared to having a gun at your head or seeing your child shoved into a cattle car.

Dear Mother,I hope you can read this letter. They have asked that I write in pure German, not our dialect. Perhaps I will help out with translations. Lotte and I both miss you.Love,Franz Stumpf, who was still under the illusion that Lodenstein treated the Scribes like prisoners, despised them because they didn't respect what he perceived to be the mission of the Compound. They answered only half of what they could have answered in a day and spent the rest of the time writing in diaries and holding raffles for Elie's old room: they raffled cigarettes, sausages-it didn't matter what, as long as it amused them. Meanwhile, thousands of letters from the camps arrived each month, and Stumpf had gotten word from Goebbels's office that there would be an inspection in a fortnight. There were too many dead and no way all the letters could be answered. So, much against his principles, he was planning to bury thousands of letters in the rye field of his brother's farm near Dresden. He was sure all the dead deserved answers and was upset by this decision, but it was better than being shot. Stumpf's sacrifices to the dead stopped when it came to joining them.

He had been sneaking mail to his s...o...b..x and was figuring out whether he could fit all seventeen crates of letters into his Kubelwagen 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 gla.s.ses with thin gold earpieces that wobbled like insect legs. She also showed him a letter that was gibberish and a prescription for the gla.s.ses.

Stumpf peered at the letter.

What gibberish, he said. And why these gla.s.ses?

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 gla.s.ses.

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

It doesn't matter, Elie said. They want Heidegger to get these these gla.s.ses-with an answer to his letter. gla.s.ses-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 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 seances. Stumpf decided never to mention the matter concerning Heidegger to anyone and bury the orders, the letter, the prescription, and the gla.s.ses 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 gla.s.ses. And now he saw a note on the prescription that said: Important-for future use in the event of my disappearance, Asher Englehardt. 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 G.o.d 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. The note made him wonder whether Heidegger had special eye problems-he'd once heard of something called elongated corneas-so G.o.d 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 s...o...b..x down the spiral stairs. He had to pa.s.s 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 racc.o.o.n in a dark coat and black leather gloves, was eating fleischkonserve with gherkins in s.p.a.cious 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 pa.s.sions with each of them. With Stumpf he shared a pa.s.sion for Elie Schacten and the Reich. With Lodenstein he shared a pa.s.sion for Elie Schacten and solitaire. He was annoyed that Lodenstein could satisfy both his pa.s.sions 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.

f.u.c.king 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 a.s.s, 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 seances.