The Best American Mystery Stories Part 21

"She is," Duncan agreed, lighting his second cigarette. "But I wonder whether she's sufficiently formidable? Can she ride herd on the young lions?"

He always called them the young lions, because they gave him a hard time. He was referring to Nick Jonas and the two Neomarxist clones Nick supervised, nominally under my direction. Naturally, in a Midwest university in the 1960s, they didn't call themselves Neomarxists. They preferred the terms critical theorist or postmodernist.

"I had a word with Wisnesky right after the meeting," Duncan was saying. "As you know, he's just started his sabbatical. He's going to spend the year in Heidelberg. If he thought you were going to run, he'd delay his departure in order to block you." Doug Wisnesky had never forgiven me for discovering, a few years previously, that one of his favorite students had plagiarized several pages of her master's thesis.

"I wouldn't want Wisnesky to stick around any longer than necessary. Why don't you nominate me for the Search Committee? Then he'll know I'm not running."

I wouldn't have called Duncan a friend, but he had allied himself to me ever since early in my time at the university, when a fortunate event had allowed me to establish in everyone's mind the fact that, unlike him, and unlike Anna Scheinberg, I was formidable. A small body of women had gone public with the allegation that certain professors were engaging in s.e.xual relations with their students. Without waiting for anyone else to react, I had issued a statement requiring that they declare unequivocally that I was not one of this unnamed group of professors. If they did not do so within twenty-four hours, I would initiate proceedings for libel. Other faculty soon followed my lead, and the women had to withdraw their accusation unreservedly. This earned me the respect of my colleagues across the university, and the grat.i.tude of those professors who actually were bedding their students.

The president believed in being proactive, and the university had subsequently established regulations that, for the time, were relatively strict regarding s.e.xual activity between faculty and students. Not that the new rules deterred many people.

Although the war was the formative experience of my life, I came to an early understanding of academe, because my father was rector of the University of Erfurt. He had lost a leg and won the Iron Cross in the First War. I remember him as a remote and austere figure, who demanded the same standards of achievement from his family as he did from his staff. In my first year as an undergraduate, before the interruption of military service, I stood top of my cla.s.s, despite the severity with which professors a.s.sessed my work on account of my father's position.

I had invited Nick Jonas to borrow my copy of a new book by Habermas, one of his favorite authors, and he came by my office the day before Anna Scheinberg's presentation to the Search Committee. Jonas was halfway through his second two-year term as lecturer, and he was desperate to get a tenure-track appointment. He hadn't yet accepted that no one at O'Connell State was going to let any kind of Marxist get a permanent foothold in the faculty. But he did know that his chances would further diminish if Anna became department head.

I was the nearest Jonas had to a confidant. Like myself, his background was in history; the Department of German Studies encompa.s.sed history, culture, and politics, as well as language and literature. I was no Marxist, but I knew the jargon. I'd made it my business to grasp the abstruse doctrines and the convoluted terminology of the Freiburg and Frankfort Schools. Jonas was in his early thirties, with prematurely thinning hair and a prominent Adam's apple. I never saw him smile, but his eyes would warm a little whenever I dropped the names of any of his heroes: "Marcuse used to say," or "I asked Adorno that question once."

I had been expecting him, and I waited for him to bring up the issue of the headship. "I'm concerned about the future of this department," he said.

"Got time for coffee, Nick?" I asked. "Why don't you close the door?" I kept a small fridge and a coffeemaker in my office.

"A lot of us are worried about the prospect of Anna Scheinberg heading the department," he said. "We'd much prefer you as head."

We didn't speak for a moment as I ground coffee beans, filling the room with their rich aroma. "That's kind of you, Nick, but I have no administrative ambitions. And Anna's much the best person for the job. n.o.body else has thrown his hat in the ring. The only thing that would prevent her appointment would be if some impediment came up. And I can't see any way that could happen."

"So the department will just continue its reactionary drift for another five years? "

"Anna's no reactionary," I said. "Her liberal credentials are impeccable."

"Liberals! Democracy in retreat. At this of all times." The protests against the war in Vietnam were just beginning.

"She'll be good for the department's teaching side," I commented.

"Sure. Holds her graduate seminars at her house. False consciousness served up with wine and pizza. All the students on the Search Committee are in her pocket." Jonas very much resented not being appointed to the committee.

"Well, Nick," I said, "Anna's really a different generation. She left Germany soon after Hitler came to power, and she missed what some of the rest of us lived through - and people like yourself, who've made a conscientious effort to understand that experience."

"It was her generation that elected Hitler,'' Jonas said.

"But did they know what they were doing, Nick? Many who voted for Hitler in the early thirties were naive, even idealistic. Even Anna has commented how naive she was when she was young. She shared the ethos of most people in her part of Germany." The coffee was ready, and I handed Nick a mug.

A light had begun to come into his eyes. "How old is Anna?" he asked.

"Late fifties, I believe."

I watched him jot down a couple of figures on his yellow notepad. "So she'd be in her twenties at the time of the 1932 election."

"I'm not sure that's a fruitful line of inquiry, Nick," I remarked. "Some things are best left unsaid, best forgotten and forgiven." Forgetting and forgiving were not part of Jonas's personal equipment. "Tell me now, how are our two master's students coming along?"

I let Jonas work with the master's students. I supervised three doctoral candidates, and was about to add a fourth.

"We need people to look after my students," Dr. Schofield, the outgoing department head told me. "And Doug Wisnesky's, while he's on sabbatical. Any preferences?"

"Thought I might be able to help one of Dr. Wisnesky's," I offered. "Belinda Segal. She was in my cla.s.s last semester." Doug Wisnesky, satisfied that I was not running for the headship, had left the previous day for Heidleberg.

"She's working on Schiller," Schofield said. "Bit out of your field, isn't it?"

"Won't hurt me to expand a little. She's a good student."

There was a very good reason why I wanted to adopt Belinda Segal as my student. We met in my office the following day. She was dark-haired and soulful. She wrote poetry in both English and German. I gave her coffee, told her I'd been a.s.signed as her supervisor, and asked if she was comfortable with that arrangement. I flattered her on her thesis proposal, on "moral idealism in the early poetry of Friedrich von Schiller." Today she looked more than usually tragic.

There was no desk between us; I kept a couple of comfortable chairs in my office for conversation. While we talked, I began to synchronize my breathing with her own, and to copy her gestures and body posture. I kept eye contact while she was speaking. Her defenses began to soften. Eventually she indicated her feelings about Doug Wisnesky.

"You're fond of him?" I asked.

Belinda looked at me, and tears came into her eyes. "He promised he'd take me with him. To Heidelberg."

I pa.s.sed her the box of Kleenex from my desk. "You were intimate friends?" She nodded. "Please excuse me asking this, Belinda," I said gently. "I don't want to be intrusive. But I do want us to have a trusting as well as a productive relationship, and I can a.s.sure you that I will respect your confidence. Do you mean you were s.e.xually intimate with him?"

"Yes," she replied.

I expressed my sympathy for her distress, and a.s.sured her that we would work together successfully and professionally. After she left, I closed the door, opened my desk drawer, and switched off the tape recorder.

The open meeting of the Search Committee was well attended. Anna Scheinberg had taught modern German literature for more than twenty years, and was regarded affectionately in and beyond the Department of German Studies. The nine members of the committee were seated round the long table in the boardroom, and visitors sat in chairs against the paneled walls under the oil paintings of previous deans. Several of Anna's students were present, as were almost all members of the department, and half a dozen other faculty. Jonas and his two acolytes sat at the back, together with a graduate student who worked as a stringer for the local newspaper.

Anna's was the only application for the position. Everyone recognized that this meeting was a formality, an opportunity to honor Anna and launch her as the new department head.

She came into the room accompanied by the dean. She was wearing a blue dress with a darker blue scarf round her neck. Her short hair was still golden, skillfully blended with lighter streaks. She wore her years gracefully, her face rather full and not deeply lined, her manner combining dignity and friendliness.

Anna's presentation was well crafted. She reviewed the state of research in German studies, modestly mentioning her own contributions and interests. She paid tribute to the work of the faculty, including that of the outgoing head. She said nice things about my work, and even complimented Nick Jonas on his most recent research grant. It would be a privilege to lead such a distinguished body. Her role would be to encourage and support her colleagues in making this one of the most respected centers of German studies in the country. She sat down to prolonged applause.

The dean, chairing the meeting on behalf of the president, opened the questioning by asking her to talk about her plans for obtaining a greater share of money for research. She scored additional points by stating her intention to tap research funds in West Germany. Other members of the committee were then invited to partic.i.p.ate, and two or three tame questions were asked. Then the dean asked if there were any questions from visitors. At the back of the room, Nick Jonas rose.

"I'd like to alter the line of discussion a little, if I may," he began. "Your own work, Dr. Scheinberg, has focused very perceptively on the interaction of the personal and the public in modern German literature. For many of us, one of the events of twentieth-century history when the personal and the public interacted most critically was the German election of July 1932 which gave Hitler a plurality in the Reichstag. May I ask how you voted in that election, Dr. Scheinberg?"

Izzie Neumann, sitting next to the dean, spoke up immediately: "I don't think -"

But Anna was already replying. "I was twenty-three years old in 1932. I voted for the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei." I felt a rush of adrenaline.

"I deplore that type of interrogation," Izzie was declaring. "For one thing, in this country, we honor the principle of the secret ballot. For another, very few people realized in 1932 how National Socialism would develop. Germany was in economic and social chaos. Hitler promised order, economic development, and recovery of national honor. I don't think we should pillory people on the basis of a historical judgments made with benefit of hindsight." Izzie, who had lost two grandparents and innumerable other relatives in the Holocaust.

"I second Dr. Neumann's point," I said. "I myself was a soldier in Hitler's army. I fought for the Reich. I acknowledge my own interest in this question. All of us who grew up in Germany struggle with the issue of collective guilt. Certainly those who lack that experience are ent.i.tled to draw their own conclusions. But it's not as simple as a single question and answer might suggest.'"Jonas had done his job, and I didn't need him any more.

The dean tried to bring the meeting back to its earlier mood of bonhomie, and one or two people asked helpful questions, but the atmosphere had become deflated. There was applause for Anna when the meeting closed, but little conversation as people drifted out of the room.

Not everyone showed up that evening at the party Izzy was hosting for Anna. "They're waiting to read the editorials before they know what to think," Izzie observed disgustedly as he poured me a drink in the kitchen. "As for that little s.h.i.t Jonas, I'd like to kick his sorry a.s.s to kingdom come. Trying to create one more victim for Hitler." He handed me a gla.s.s and took my elbow as we went back into the living room and joined the group standing with Anna by the fireplace.

When there was a pause in the conversation, I remarked, "That was real style this afternoon, if I may say so, Anna. Just hang in there. Lot of people behind you." There was a chorus of agreement.

Anna was lighting a filter-tip cigarette. She had lost none of her customary dignity and composure, refusing the easy options either of defiance or of apology. "I can understand people's concerns," she said. "How can anyone recapture the way things were in 1932? Even we who were there. Our memories are so conditioned by later events."

The conversation remained supportive. There was a lot of talk about honesty, integrity, and retrospective justice. I looked around Izzie's living room at my intelligent, liberal colleagues, and reflected that in a community of reasonable people, power devolves on the one who is prepared to be most ruthless.

I understood this principle long before I read von Clausewitz's remark that "He who uses force unsparingly, without considering the bloodshed entailed, will achieve superiority over a less determined adversary." Like myself, Karl von Clausewitz saw his first military action as a teenager. He served in the Russo-German legion against Napoleon, and rose to the rank of major general and chief of staff of the Prussian army. He died of cholera at the age of fifty-one, and his magnum opus, the thirteen-hundred-page Vom Krieg, was published posthumously. My own work, which was on the ways in which his thinking was influenced by Immanuel Kant's notion of universal principles, had been supported by grants from foundations that were ultimately funded by the Pentagon.

Clausewitz is best remembered today for his statement that "war is a mere continuation of politics by other means." ("Der Krieg ist eine bloe Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln." Politik can also be translated "policy.") The reverse is also true: politics is a species of warfare.

President McKay asked me to drop by his home the following evening. He lived in one of the fine brick and white clapboard houses that lined the leafy streets around the university.

"Scotch, isn't it, Tomas?" he said. "Stopped off in London on my way back last week. There's a little shop in Soho, sells five hundred single malts. I think you'll like this one. Stag's Breath." He poured me a generous slug. McKay was tall and silver-haired; he was wearing a tweed jacket with a tie in the navy and maroon Harvard colors. A grand piano stood at one end of his living room. The walls were hung with pleasant landscapes in watercolor painted by his wife.

"How did things go in Bonn, Alistair, if I may ask?"

"Very well, Tomas, thank you. Many compliments on the paper. Your translation must have been faultless. And I don't think I made too many errors of p.r.o.nunciation, thanks to your coaching."

We talked a while about McKay's increasing involvement in the UNESCO Forum on Higher Education. I was very happy to be his translator. I took an interest in him and his work, partly because I intended to be a university president myself one day.

McKay topped up my gla.s.s and said, "We have a problem with Anna Scheinberg's candidacy for the headship of German Studies. You and I both know that she would be a popular head. A solid scholar, even if her best work is behind her."

"And extremely good with students," I commented.

"Quite. There's really not much problem internally. A few of the more radical students might carry on a bit, but nothing she couldn't deal with. The problem is external."

"You mean her having voted National Socialist?"

"Exactly. It was a very small item in the local paper yesterday. But I've been fielding calls all day from the national media. If that was all, we could deal with it. Take a firm line on academic freedom. Now this is in the greatest confidence, Tomas."

"Of course."

President McKay filled his pipe and lit it. "I had a call this afternoon from Ivan Belinsky."

"The Belinsky Foundation?"

"The same. We've been in dialogue for almost a year. We were all set to go public at the beginning of next month. Twelve point five million for a new library, along with a seven-point-five million endowment."

I nodded slowly. "Lots of money. New library is long overdue."

"You know how library costs have escalated in the last decade. We had to cut back twenty percent on periodicals this year, and ten percent on open hours. The building itself has close to a million dollars of outstanding repairs. My feeling is that this donation might be the beginning of a long-term relationship with the Belinsky Foundation."

"What did Belinsky say?"

"Indicated that members of his board were asking questions about the appointment. Wanted me to confirm yes or no, had the new head of the German Department been a Hitler supporter? I told him that I could only report what Dr. Scheinberg had stated. But I also advised him that the appointment had not yet been made."

"People change, Mr. President," I said. "If every human action was held up to scrutiny, we'd all be in trouble."

"That's generous, Tomas, but it won't cut much ice with the media, or with the Belinsky Foundation. This is why I needed to talk to you. The Search Committee has the prerogative to make whatever recommendation it thinks prudent. If it nominates Dr. Scheinberg, I shall have to turn its recommendation down. I will do so on the basis of her lack of recent groundbreaking scholarship. I hope it won't come to that. It's too late to go external now. The committee could recommend an interim head pending an external search next year, but we'd look like idiots. Or you could stand."

"Me?"

"You, Tomas. You have an excellent scholarly record, you're a good committee man, and you're respected by your colleagues."

The Scotch was a light amber, with a warm aftertaste of smoke and peat. While I appeared to consider the president's proposal, I held up my gla.s.s against the light of the fire, lit more for effect than for warmth. The cedar logs crackled in the fireplace, and I found myself hearing the cacophony of artillery and small-arms fire on that May evening twenty years before, and seeing the smoke-reddened sunset lighting the face of the last man I killed.

"I'd have to think about that," I said. "I have several reservations. I'm only an a.s.sociate professor. I have very little administrative experience. What's more to the point, I could be subject to the same criticism as Anna. I fought for Hider."

"That's the whole point, Tomas. You never freely supported Hitler. You never voted for him. You were conscripted into the Wehrmacht. You've always been completely open about your war service. You were very young. Served only a few months, and never rose above private. You were as much a victim as - as anyone. That is the way I shall put it to the Search Committee. And to the Belinsky Foundation. And don't worry about your promotion, that will go through easily once you're head."

"Well, Alistair," I replied. "I'm very grateful for your confidence. But I want to put two things on the record. The first is that I regard Anna Scheinberg as a friend, and if she decides to maintain her application, I shall support her completely. The second is that if I were to accept the nomination, it would be with great reluctance, and only because it was essential to the best interests of the university."

"Duly noted, Tomas. I shall have a word with Anna in the morning. I suspect she'll withdraw her application on her own initiative when she reads tomorrow's papers. She's a very decent person, always has the well-being of the university at heart. I'll tell her I want to nominate her to a UNESCO committee. It will mean a free trip to Europe twice a year."

He needed an answer before I left his house, and in the end I gave it to him. I would let him have my resignation from the Search Committee first thing in the morning. The next afternoon, the president would meet with the committee in camera. I spent the rest of the evening updating the list of publications in my vita.

As it happened, the next day was May 4, which was an anniversary for me. It was on that day, in 1945, that my life changed forever.

The soldier was running fast, crouched low, holding his rifle level with and barely above the ground. The Russians were on the other side of the river at the edge of the town. In the river floated the bodies of scores, perhaps hundreds, of women. They had despaired of escaping the Russians, and had drowned themselves, many with their children. Sh.e.l.ls were exploding in the ruins of the town, and Soviet snipers had taken up positions in buildings and trees on the far bank. Hitler was already dead, and the fighting had stopped almost everywhere except here in eastern Bohemia.

I stepped out from behind the broken wall.

"Halt!" I was right in front of him, pistol in hand. He recognized me as SS immediately from my camouflage jacket, which was issued only to SS troops. He stopped, eyes fixed on me, but did not straighten up. "Drop your weapon. Hands up. You are deserting." I raised my Luger.

"Nein, nein, herr Haupsturmfurher," he said desperately. His face was streaked with dirt, his eyes red, his body trembling with exhaustion. Quite young. "The Feldwebel sent me back to find ammunition. We're down to -" His next words were obliterated by a sh.e.l.l landing thirty meters away. I was protected by the wall on my right.

"Get under cover." I motioned him behind the wall. He picked up his rifle. I kept the pistol in my hand. "Where is your unit?"

"About eighty meters," he answered, pointing. "There are seven of us, holed up in a warehouse."

"What weapons?"

"Rifles and one Spandau. A few grenades. We've had no food for two days."

"There's no ammunition or food to be had," I told him. "You'd better wait a bit. Sit down."

"I've got to get back," he said.

"That's an order. You're no use to the Reich dead. You can head back when it gets dark." I returned the Luger to its holster. He sat down on the ground and leaned against the wall. I took out my brandy flask. "You might need a shot of this."

"Thanks." He took a big swallow, then a deep breath, and handed me back the flask. The evening was warm and he opened his jacket.

"You look all in, kid. What's your name?"

He told me. He was a private in a rearguard unit of Army Group Center. He relaxed when he realized I wasn't going to shoot him. He was eighteen. At twenty-one, with more than three years of service, I was middle-aged by comparison. He was from Grossenhain, in Saxony. Father killed at Stalingrad. Mother still alive, he hoped. He prayed G.o.d the Russians had spared his mother.