Space: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  Usually Liesl rode the Kolff bicycle, but she kept close watch over Dieter, and whenever she detected that the wound in his shoulder was causing serious discomfort, she dismounted and made him ride. They ate poorly, slept wherever they halted, and smelled horrible, but they noticed with some amusement that General Funkhauser was quite vain of his appearance, so that no matter how dusty his uniform became, he took pains to keep it as neat as his fatness would permit.

  He was proving to be a remarkable man, able to adjust to anything. Such food as they obtained was due to his ability to forage on land that seemed completely barren. He would eat anything—a stray duck, fish caught by some farm boy from the family pond, a sheep shared with sixteen, crusts of stale bread from a village bakery—and was willing to concoct whatever story was necessary to cover the situation. Dieter was his younger brother and they were heading to the family shop in Bremen. Liesl was his daughter, searching for the husband who may have survived the bombing of Hamburg. But wherever they went, he listened to the rumors of war, and when he learned that British troops were advancing in the north, he led his refugees south: ‘No German is ever smart enough to deal with an Englishman,’ When villagers told him that a French unit was about to take Bremen, he scurried away: ‘The French eat well and live miserably.’

  But no matter where he led his dusty entourage, they saw the ruin that had overtaken Germany. It was heartbreaking, whole towns wiped out in one night’s bombing, a village on which three accidental bombs had fallen, farms burned and deserted. Once they stopped at a scene of desolation, and Funkhauser screamed at the heavens, ‘Goering, you fat beast, you promised me we would never be bombed.’

  Tears came to his eyes as he thought of Hamburg. He had not actually seen his devastated city but had heard from those who had watched the Funkhauser homes bombed to fragments and then burned. Sniffling, he looked at the Kolffs beseechingly and asked, ‘What country deserves punishment like this? What did we ever do wrong?’ And each day, more firmly, he turned against both Hitler and Himmler, even cursing them when he saw some especially hideous wreckage.

  He had always been a man to change his loyalties quickly. As a lad he had listened approvingly when his liberal father praised the German Republic, but in 1931 he had switched easily to the youthful Nazi party, seeing in it the salvation of his Fatherland. He had served for a while in the army of Ritter von Leeb, whom he then considered to be the finest German he had known, but when differences arose between Hitler and his generals, he sided completely with the Fuehrer and assured his associates that the generals, especially Von Leeb, who had failed to capture Leningrad, were asses lacking in military genius.

  When the bad days of the war approached, he saw clearly that Heinrich Himmler was the only man who had a clear vision of both the past and the future, and he threw his energies totally into the service of that master conniver. Most eagerly did he work to undercut the army and the regular police, and now, at last, when isolated units of the SS were supposed to hold forlorn outposts like the town of Wittenberge, he awakened to the fact that Himmler was really a psychopathic megalomaniac, a phrase he had heard one of his young assistants use to describe Winston Churchill, and he was abandoning him, as proper Germans should.

  On two different occasions he had ordered Lieutenant Kolff to be shot, and for good reason, yet here he was with Kolff and his peasant wife, ducking and dodging through the rural bypaths of a defeated Germany. It was insane, but he felt sure that something would work out, as it seemed always to do.

  He was not careless where the Kolffs were concerned. Always at night or at the beginning of any crisis he kept his bicycle close to his side, the knapsack where he could touch it. He also kept his revolver on the ready, and he had begun to contemplate various clever ways by which, in the moments of surrender to the Americans, he could dispose of these two. The more he saw of Liesl the more he distrusted her, a silent, inscrutable type who could be plotting anything. And as for Dieter, it was clear that he was a South German oaf with a sparse mathematical ability and not much more. It was inconceivable that the Americans would want that one.

  But until he reached the Americans, he needed the Kolffs, and so he was generous with them. If he refused to share his bicycle, he did divide all food equally with them. He was jovial when the weather turned bad and they had to plod through mud, and incredibly ingenious in devising stories which brought them always closer to the American lines.

  On one such foray he heard that an American army had captured Nordhausen, and for some time he sat disconsolately on the ground beneath an evergreen, apart from the Kolffs. Then he turned to face Liesl: ‘Did Dieter ever tell you about Nordhausen?’

  ‘He said it was horrible.’

  ‘It was. A taste of hell. When did I first realize that Germany was doomed? When I stood in those caves at Nordhausen.’

  ‘Why did you permit them?’

  ‘It was Himmler’s idea. The industrial city of the future. Poles and Russians to work underground.’

  ‘I grew up on a farm,’ Dieter broke in. ‘So did Liesl. We need the sky.’

  ‘Where was your farm?’

  ‘A village not far from Oberammergau, south of Munich.’

  ‘Really!’ Funkhauser leaped to his feet, quivering with excitement. ‘I heard in the village that Von Braun and his top scientists have been moved to Oberammergau! Maybe we should work our way south to join them. They’ll be protected by the Americans.’

  Without further reflection he headed his party south toward the mountains, but on the second day he called a halt, deeply confused. ‘If the scientists moved south in a group, Himmler must have ordered it. When he has them all safe in one spot, he’ll machine-gun them, all of them, to prevent them from taking their secrets to the Allies.’ He became so convinced of this that he changed course completely and headed due west, grumbling, ‘Lakes or mountains, Himmler or Hitler, to hell with them all. We’ve got to reach the Americans. Now!’

  He was relentless in pursuit of this policy, forging ahead toward the sound of distant battle, and one night as the three lay down to sleep, completely exhausted, Liesl whispered to Dieter, ‘The general is making up his mind about many things,’ and she left Dieter’s side and crept away.

  In the morning Funkhauser bellowed, ‘Where’s my revolver? Where are my papers?’ and Liesl said, ‘I took them,’ and he shouted, ‘Why do you betray me?’ and she said coldly, ‘Because you planned to shoot us … today or tomorrow.’

  The bluster faded; with a contrition that might or might not have been authentic, Funkhauser said, ‘At Wittenberge, when we set out, yes, I did think of bringing you close to the Americans and shooting you. Anyone would have. But as we’ve traveled these dangerous miles …’ He paused and held out his hands. ‘I’ve said so many times that you were my family that I’ve come to believe it.’ Keeping his hands out, he begged, ‘Do not shoot me, I beseech you.’

  ‘We never planned to shoot you, General,’ Liesl said. ‘Now lead us to the Americans, for you are an excellent guide.’

  He led them into a much different kind of confrontation, for as he crept like a cunning badger through a woods, with the Kolffs trailing, he stumbled right into a contingent of the German army, and in the confused gunfire that ensued, Liesl took a bullet through her left leg.

  ‘Down!’ Funkhauser bellowed, and the three travelers fell upon pine needles.

  When they looked up, Liesl clutching her leg, they saw an amazing sight. Their assailants were a disorderly gang of boys, fourteen and fifteen years old, but in full military uniform. One of them was sobbing, ‘I shot a lady. Oh my God, I shot a lady.’

  General Funkhauser, realizing that he had come upon one of the desperation units commissioned by the Nazi high command, began to storm at the children, ‘What are you doing in these woods? Why are you shooting women who are trying to save the Fatherland?’

  When he announced that he was a general in the SS and in command of this section of Germany, some of the boys
saluted, and he tried to console the little boy who was weeping: ‘You couldn’t have known it was a woman. Now you help bind her wound.’ And he lectured the older boys on how they must maintain better control when on maneuvers.

  ‘What are your orders?’ he asked.

  ‘We are to stop the Americans.’

  ‘Where are they?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘In the next town. We expect them soon, and we’re to hold these woods against them.’ He looked at their feeble rifles, their thin arms barely able to manage the guns effectively, and saluted: ‘Protect the Fatherland.’ And he called to the Kolffs, ‘Hurry, hurry! This is the day that determines everything!’

  As they emerged from the woods to seek the town of which the boys had spoken, it became obvious that Liesl could neither walk nor pedal the Kolff bicycle, so in a burst of generosity Funkhauser performed an act which would in years far distant be remembered with charity: ‘Liesl, my daughter, you must sit yourself on my bicycle so that I can push you into town.’ And with a fatherly eye he kept watch on Dieter, who teetered along on the Kolff cycle, and in this way they struggled toward the fateful meeting with the Americans. ‘Hurry, hurry!’ he encouraged his charges. ‘Our trusted allies will soon roar down this road.’

  Halfway between the exit from the woods and the entrance to the town the three fugitives met their first Americans, a patrol roaring out to locate the enemy. ‘Honored sirs!’ Funkhauser shouted to the motorcycle vanguard. ‘I am General Helmut …’

  ‘Get your ass off this road!’ a rude voice shouted.

  ‘Honored sirs! I am General …’

  A big man in a dirty uniform wheeled his motorcycle, placed a foot in Funkhauser’s belly and shoved him off the road; the American did not have to discipline the Kolffs, for they had jumped into a ditch.

  When the patrol passed, Funkhauser resumed his approach to the town, and he was pleased to see that a regular marching unit was now coming toward him. Hands up, he ran toward the American captain, shouting in clear English, ‘Sir, sir! I have papers which your generals will want.’

  ‘Out of the way, you fucking Krauthead,’ a soldier grunted, shoving him back into the ditch as heavy guns rolled by.

  ‘Please, listen!’ he cried from beside the road. ‘I have important papers which your generals …’

  The semitanks rolled past, and when they reached the woods Liesl could hear agitated gunfire, and she was about to weep for the little boys when she saw that General Funkhauser was standing transfixed, staring at the woods as he contemplated the awful tragedy his one-time leaders had brought to Germany. ‘Children with little guns! Defending against motorized cannon. And Hitler’s men promised us that no enemy foot would ever step on German soil. Damn them all.’ He remained staring at the woods as the heavier American guns exploded into action; then, in total despair and silence, he helped Dieter mount his bicycle, then went back to the ditch to rescue the bleeding Liesl, and pushed her humbly into town.

  As they turned a corner leading to the main square, they found themselves face to face with another American, this one in dusty civilian clothes. At first he was as startled as they and began to call for troops to protect him, but then he peered inquisitively at Dieter’s face and took a deep breath.

  ‘Dieter Kolff, I believe,’ he said in German.

  ‘From Peenemünde.’

  ‘Did you bring the papers on the heavy water?’

  ‘I brought the secret papers,’ Funkhauser interposed, tapping Liesl’s knapsack and introducing himself. ‘General Helmut Funkhauser, Commandant General of Peenemünde, at your service, sir.’

  The American ignored him and asked Kolff again, ‘Did you bring the papers on the heavy-water installations at Peenemünde?’

  ‘Heavy water? What’s that?’

  ‘You had no …’ Mott hesitated to say the crucial word, but he could not restrain himself. ‘You had no atomic works there?’

  ‘What would they be?’

  ‘No papers?’

  ‘Sir, these are the secret papers of General Eugen Breutzl.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Dead. In the great bombing.’

  Mott shook his head. ‘He was a good man. Before the interrogation—’

  ‘I knew Breutzl well,’ Funkhauser interrupted, pressing himself forward.

  ‘You will all be properly interrogated,’ Mott assured the three. ‘But Breutzl, what was he working on here?’ and by his gestures and his interest he indicated that now the papers in the knapsack were his.

  ‘On a rocket that will fly from Peenemünde to New York.’

  The search was ended. For two years Mott had sought this little man, had studied diligently the one photograph available. Now he was found. Germany had produced no atomic bomb. But it had been on the verge of discoveries equally important, a rocket that could fly between continents, and the secrets were to rest with America, not Russia.

  Intuitively Mott did something he would later recall with astonishment, something that bespoke his stern New England upbringing. Seeing in the much-damaged street the gaping doorway of the village church, its seventeenth-century façade blown away by American bombs, he said, ‘I think we should pray … give thanks … for our deliverance.’

  He led the three Germans into what was technically their church, and he sat on one of the old benches, depleted spiritually by his long search, and as he closed his eyes he heard General Funkhauser intoning, first in English, then in German, ‘We thank you, God, for directing us to make all the right choices.’

  From the moment in that spring of 1946 when the Republican leaders of Fremont telephoned their war hero Norman Grant, asking if they could drive up to consult with him, his wife, Elinor, became apprehensive, and she showed it.

  As a loyal Republican she realized that Fremont was crucial to the Republican cause; it would be a linchpin in the off-year drive to purge Congress of the Democrats who supported the incompetent Harry Truman. Through some aberration, fanned no doubt by the recent war hysteria, Fremont had in the last election sent one Democrat to the House of Representatives, and it was imperative that he be thwarted in his bid for reelection.

  Elinor was eager to see this correction made, and had her husband lived in that congressman’s district, she would have encouraged him to contest the seat. Unfortunately, the Democrat represented the big industrial city of Webster on the Missouri River, which made Grant ineligible.

  What the politicians wanted, as they explained when they convened in the local headquarters, was some young man of good reputation who could head that statewide ticket in the race for the United States Senate. And therein lay the difficulty, as Elinor saw immediately: ‘Senator Gantling considers that seat his … for as long as he lives.’ Some of the visitors showed their impatience at having to discuss such matters with a woman, but Grant had insisted upon his wife’s presence: ‘She’s always given me sound advice.’

  ‘Gantling’s an old man. He weakens the ticket.’

  ‘He’s only sixty-two,’ Elinor protested.

  ‘Sixty-four,’ one of the downstaters said, ‘and he looks eighty.’

  ‘He is sixty-two,’ Elinor said primly. ‘I looked it up.’

  ‘You guessed what we wanted to talk about?’ the downstater asked.

  ‘Yes, and I must point out that my father has always been a close personal friend of Senator Gantling. Ran his campaign for him when he first went to Congress.’

  ‘We all supported him then, but he’s had his day, Mrs. Grant.’

  ‘And I would remind you that my husband’s father also worked for Gantling. This family simply cannot serve as the spearhead to defeat that fine man.’

  ‘Mrs. Grant, I think we should take a very careful look at the state of Fremont,’ and the downstater spread the map on the table. ‘You summarize our thinking, Lewis.’

  A burly gentleman who regularly delivered a heavy Republican majority from the sparsely settled northwest section of the state jabbed at corners of the map
as he spoke with considerable force. ‘Four areas matter, and mine’s not one of them, so I’m free to speak realistically.’

  Fremont was the most typical of the great Western states. Named for the flamboyant explorer John Charles Fremont, it had honored in its four major cities those outstanding politicians of the early nineteenth century whose interest in the West had helped that vast area become an integral part of the nation. In the east the commercial city of Webster; in the west the regional capital of Calhoun; in the north, with the state university, Grant’s home city of Clay; and in the center the capital city, named after the man who may have been the best of the lot, Thomas Hart Benton.

  ‘Senator Gantling is an important man in his home district of Calhoun,’ the big man was saying. ‘But the whole damned town has only nineteen thousand people. Over here in Webster, where the votes really concentrate, Gantling is known as a fool.’

  ‘That’s too strong,’ Grant protested.

  ‘Tell him, Henry.’

  And Henry did. ‘Senator Gantling has run his course, Norman. And you, too, Mrs. Grant. You must wake up to reality. He’s insulted our people, ignored them, passed them by when goodies were distributed. It’s the old fight of the eastern end of a state versus the western end. It happens everywhere. Philadelphia versus Pittsburgh. St. Louis versus Kansas City. And right on your doorstep it’s Webster versus Calhoun, and I warn you right now. If we Republicans run Gantling again at the head of our ticket, Webster and the whole eastern half of the state is going to vote Democratic. I warn you.’

  As the discussion continued, even Elinor Grant had to concede that her antique favorite, Ulysses Gantling, had probably worn out his welcome in the state of Fremont. The little town of Calhoun still favored him as a local boy, but the big city of Webster was fed up with his posturing ways.