Dreams Bigger Than the Night

by Levitt, Paul M.

  Why do you think Heinz Diebel was murdered? Because every day he exposed the vomit this sick government feeds on, a government composed mostly of Jewish politicians who protect and coddle Bolsheviks and their own spawn: swindlers, gangsters, white slavers, dope peddlers, pickpockets, gunmen, and brothel keepers.

  Heinz Diebel knew that America was becoming a nation ruled by Jews and Communists.

  Raising his eyes and extending his arms to heaven, the speaker implored, “Dear God, bring forth a man in this nation who will lead us out of our misery, who will do for America what Adolf Hitler has done for Germany through the National Socialist philosophy, who will bring about salvation at the last hour.”

  The crowd loved him, applauding his screed wildly. At the end of the meeting, the group sang the “Horst Wessel” song.

  What Jay had heard scared him; but what he had not understood might have been worse. As he left the meeting, he told himself that languages constitute a code and that not to know them is to render yourself vulnerable. On his way home, he stopped at the Saba bookstore and asked the venerable owner if he had any German grammar and phrase books. The store owner complied, handed him his change, and smiled mischievously. “Italian is the more beautiful tongue.”

  The next day, using the News archives to check up on the hate-spewing Nazi sympathizers, he came across a brief description of Horst Wessel, who wrote the song he had heard. To the dismay of his father, a well-respected Protestant minister, Horst had given up his law studies to lead brawls and street fights as a Nazi storm trooper. Enamored of a prostitute, Horst was murdered—shot in the mouth—by her pimp, a German Communist, and thus became an instant political martyr. The more Jay learned about the votaries of National Socialism, the more he realized that these people all began as haters: of parents, of learning and teachers, of outsiders, and, not least, of themselves. They brought to mind Ahab, who “piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate (read: Jews and Communists) felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.”

  Anxious to speak to Arietta about scarface, he suggested they take the train to Coney Island. An unseasonably warm autumn had inspired a spate of newspaper ads trumpeting the park and its rides. Arietta wore a pink dress and he, white ducks with a boater. The subway overflowed with Sunday outers smelling from the foods of their different cultures and sweating from the closeness of the car. Wicker baskets provisioned the revelers from virtually the first moment the train pulled out of the station. Papas with big bellies gave orders to mammas thin as needles from bearing and raising the flocks of kids huddled around them. Fortunately, he and Arietta had seats. Amid the press of bodies and the clickety-clack of the rails, he decided not to say anything until they had a chance to walk, hand in hand, in a setting more conducive to intimacy and confession.

  As they pulled into Coney Island, the station teemed with food vendors hawking sausages, peanuts, and salted pretzels among the sound of steaming trains arriving and departing. On the street, cars honked for apparently no reason, and pawnbrokers manned folding tables where the cash-starved traded brooches and other baubles for enough money to enjoy the rides and concessions. They bought tickets and entered the park to the sound of bands playing oompa, oompa, the Cyclone roller coaster eliciting screams of delicious fear, merchants crying their wares and services, parents in myriad languages disciplining their recalcitrant children, guns crackling at the shooting gallery, the surf pounding the beach, and everywhere the cricket voices of children expressing their delight. A barker outside the vaudeville hall engaged in a patter of one-liners as a come-on. “I knew a fellow who kissed a girl on the cheek and died of painter’s colic. She was the kind of girl that five minutes with her and you were a man with a past. Just step inside for the laughs of a lifetime—and seven other acts, including dancers and a melodrama, ‘Tilly’s Punctured Romance.’”

  As they traversed the grounds, he wondered what attracted people to bumper cars, saucer dishes, slides, roller coasters, moving sidewalks, barrel rolls. What was the fun of being spun, upended, hurtled, tossed, thrown, toppled, and tripped? Why should disorientation be pleasing? To his mind, staying upright was hard enough.

  He asked Arietta what tickled her fancy.

  “Let’s begin with the merry-go-round.”

  As they rose up and down on their painted horses, he had a glimpse of the fierce imagination of the children, who lovingly spoke to their mounts and happily squealed. Real equestrians lacked the pleasure of imagining their horses.

  The Ferris wheel gave them an overview of the park and a perspective that brought to his mind the distance of the rich from the poor, and the politicians from the populace. He would have broached the subject of the man in the restaurant had not Arietta been so absorbed in the sights, leaning this way and that to point out another landmark.

  Leaving the Ferris wheel, they stopped for a Nathan’s hot dog and some caramel corn. On the boardwalk, a small band played while a waif-sized busker danced and sang the lyrics, “I can be happy, I can be sad; I can be good, or I can be bad. It all depends on you.” Arietta suggested they stop at the penny arcade, where they peered through the viewers at the vaud tricks and watched the flashing cards tell “Sadie Simpson’s Secret.”

  Near the arcade they stopped to watch the weight guesser, always watchful for the trickster trying to swindle a prize. A short, skinny guy stepped on the scales, registering 190 pounds. The concessionaire patted the man’s pockets and told him to empty them. Handfuls of ball bearings spilled out, making Jay wonder about the importance of the unseen. At his suggestion, they headed for the fortune-teller’s tent. On the way, they passed a juggler, who seemed to keep four or five balls suspended above his outstretched dexterous hands in defiance of gravity. Taking Jay’s arm and pausing to watch, Arietta made a strange comment:

  “Every gigolo’s dream.”

  The crystal gazer, dressed in a yellow robe with black moons and crescents, introduced herself as Madame Blotofsky. Although they asked for separate fortunes, she insisted that theirs were intertwined. Mumbling a lot of mumbo jumbo, which included a few Yiddish words that caused Jay to shake his head skeptically, she quoted the biblical line, “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.”

  Refusing payment, she said the “reading” was a gift from the other world and they should tell their friends about Madame Blotofsky and her profound pronouncements. He noticed that she did not say predictive powers.

  Before he could steer Arietta to the beach, she insisted they had to stop at the shooting arcade and the fun house. Plopping down two dimes, he waited for the attendant to prime his pistol, but Arietta took a clip and expertly loaded her own. They faced two kinds of targets, one composed of animals, like bears and bison, and the other of World War I German objects, a submarine, a soldier, a tank, a plane. Jay fired at the second targets, forgetting that Arietta’s mother came from Stuttgart. Before he had finished his allotted shots, he stopped, put down the gun, acknowledged his bad manners, and murmured “Sorry.” Without responding, Arietta proceeded to knock down all the wildlife without a single miss, earning a stuffed giraffe.

  In conspicuous silence they walked to the fun house. The first room, with its floor-length mirrors, gave them a distorted glimpse of themselves. Wishing to redirect her attention from his faux pas, he said that depending on the lenses people saw through or the cast of their minds, Jay and Arietta might actually appear to some observers in these grotesque shapes. She fired back, “Anti-German feelings, for example, lead people to behave abominably, and those targeted do equally terrible things.”

  To recover lost ground, he observed, “We all suffer from our heads getting in the way of what we see. Just think of all the craziness afoot in the world.”

  She looked deep in thought. Taking his arm, she walked toward the “Tunnel of Love.” As
they waited in line to board one of the cars, he asked, “Where did you learn to shoot? I couldn’t hit the side of a barn.”

  She laughed and said, “Of course you could, especially if you’d practiced enough. My mother belonged to a gun club in Germany and won several awards. She introduced me to the sport.”

  “I learn something new about you each day.” Before she could reply, an empty car arrived, the attendant seated them, and they entered the darkened tunnel. When the couple in the car in front of them started necking, he said, “Let’s,” and they kissed deeply, whispering endearments. Ten minutes later, they exited, hand in hand, and made their way to the boardwalk.

  “Yoo hoo!”

  Arietta and Jay turned to see Margie Smith waving her parasol. Damn! What an unfortunate coincidence. Why here? Now? Embarrassed by memories of the Kinney Club, he feared what Arietta would think. Dressed in a tight-fitting black skirt and silver blouse that accentuated her breasts, Margie had a red boa wrapped around her neck and wore an outrageous picture hat with ostrich feathers. The man holding her arm was none other than scarface, the very one about whom he wanted to know more. His high style and Margie’s low tastes made Jay wonder if this guy was her fancy man.

  Pickled in perfume, as always, Margie had a wad of gum in her mouth, which she repeatedly cracked. Although she had the bust to compete with Mae West, she lacked the wit; nevertheless she tried hard, introducing her date as Axel Kuppler, a “butler” who worked for a ginger ale “buttling” company. Then she laughed too loudly at her own joke.

  Dressed in a black Eton jacket and gray slacks, Mr. Kuppler bent at the waist in greeting and said in a slight German accent, “I have had the pleasure of meeting Fräulein Ewerhardt, but not you, sir.”

  “Miss Ew . . .” he started to say, trying to clarify the mistaken identity, but Arietta elbowed him in the side.

  Turning his back to the women and bowing slightly, Jay took Mr. Kuppler’s hand and murmured “Richard Wagner,” since he had registered with the Friends under that name. He would tell Arietta later.

  “Anyone who exhibits the good taste to spend a day out with Fräulein Ewerhardt has my admiration.”

  The sweet talk this guy exuded brought to mind Huck Finn trying to save his life on the raft. After the compliments ended, they all walked to the boardwalk railing and watched the sea and the bathers. Several men, no doubt of the poorer class, wore union suits instead of bathing costumes. Eventually, a policeman directed them from the beach. Margie, standing next to Jay, oohed and aahed at the thrill of the breaking waves, and then leaned over and whispered, “It’s like sex . . . rising and falling.” She knowingly nudged him with her elbow. “I’m leaving the Parrot,” she continued confidentially, “to be on my own. Axel’s volunteered to drive the car and balance the books.”

  A foot or two away from Margie, Mr. Kuppler and Arietta were quietly chewing the rag, so he took the moment to tell Margie about his phony name and promised he would try to see her. He then eased himself into the other conversation.

  “Did I hear you mention Germany?”

  Mr. Kuppler, looking ill at ease, replied, “I was just recommending to Fräulein Ewerhardt a Beethoven concert. Beethoven, one of the German greats.”

  Skeptical, Jay deliberately tried to discomfort him. “And where is it being held?”

  Mr. Kuppler glanced at Arietta and then back to Jay. “Frankly, it’s a private concert, just for members.”

  “Do you mean for the Friends of the New Germany?”

  His eyes widened and fixed Jay in their stare. For a moment, he felt like a butterfly skewered on the end of a pin. But unlike those monarchs of the air, Jay took the initiative. “Yes, I am a member.”

  With that admission, he thought Arietta would faint. Her legs went wobbly and she reached out a hand toward him, which he took as she righted her balance.

  “I heard you speak a couple of weeks ago. You’re quite an orator. Impressive.”

  “Ach, then you approve of our movement and our ideals?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Mr. Kuppler visibly relaxed, no doubt relieved that Jay was one of them. Arietta, though, clenched his arm, and not, he thought, for support. Margie cracked her gum and suggested they go to the vaudeville or the dance hall. As he hoped, Arietta demurred.

  “Well, then,” said Margie, annoyed, “Axel and me, we’ll just go see the show and have dinner later . . . by ourselves.”

  After another deep bow, Axel led Margie down the boardwalk, and he steered Arietta toward the beach and the numerous folding chairs spread near the water. While the parents sat and ate, their kids tossed balls, flew kites, played tag with the tide, and leapfrogged over each other, laughing when the “bridge came falling down.”

  “Arietta, I must confess. I sometimes wonder if I really know you.”

  She tried to dismiss his concern by playfully alluding to one of the biblical meanings of the word “know.”

  “Oh, you know me!”

  “This Mr. Kuppler, what’s his story?”

  She paused to kick some sand. “I like Coney, but the beach at Sea Girt is far nicer.” She paused. “He’s a man I met . . . at a meeting. He came to the house once or twice.”

  “Is he sweet on you?”

  One of the kites, trailing a tail of shredded rags, lost height and began to drop toward the sea.

  “I suppose so . . . but I have no special feelings for him.”

  “He talks like a Nazi sympathizer.”

  “Maybe you can tell me what you were doing at a meeting of the Friends of the New Germany!”

  The kite fell into the ocean, and the kid, yanking on the string, tried to bring it back to land.

  “Looking for you.”

  She stood watching the efforts of the young boy trying to reel in his kite.

  “I didn’t lie to you at the Chanticler. I’m not one of those types . . . but I can’t explain now.”

  “The day you told your father that you had an ice-skating date with me, you met Axel. Right?”

  At last, the shaver landed his kite, which looked battered owing to its buffeting by the waves.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s my excuse for attending meetings of the Friends.”

  What was one to conclude from this admission, assuming it was true?

  “The next thing I know, you’ll be telling me you’re also a member of the movement.”

  “No, I’m more Magliocco than Ewerhardt.”

  “Then why attend meetings of the Friends as Fräulein Ewerhardt?”

  “For my own safety.”

  He halted and, ignoring those people spread out on blankets, begged her, “Please stop speaking in riddles.”

  “Sometimes, Jay, you ask too much of me.” She turned and started back toward the boardwalk steps.

  Now more at sea than before, he might as well have been trying to ride a wave to the beach and, for all his efforts, been overturned, landing on his head. As he followed after her, he looked back and saw Axel Kuppler peering in their direction through binoculars.

  Catching up to her, he said, “Your friend seems to be training his binocs on us.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I can’t. But how can one be sure of anything?”

  “Faith, I guess.”

  “Faith is not a proof. It’s a hope, and hope blinds us to reality.”

  She turned her generous smile on him, the look that said, you’re the only person in the world I care about, and remarked, “I have faith in you.”

  “To do what?”

  She paused and then replied softly, “To tell me the truth.” He waited for her to continue, guessing from her expression that she had something in mind. And she did.

  “What was Margie saying to you?”

  “Margie used t
o work in a brothel and . . .”

  She interrupted. “Is that where you met her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I do admire your honesty. Did she mention Axel?”

  “Margie said she’d left the brothel, and he was her pimp.”

  Angrily, she shot back, “I don’t believe you!”

  The energy of her protest unsettled him. She had asked for the truth, and he had honored that request. Feeling ill used, he rubbed it in. “Yeah, that’s what she told me: ‘I’m on my own now, and Axel’s my one and only very special pimp.’”

  She mumbled, “That bastard.”

  Suddenly he wasn’t so sure of the landscape. Was this guy a government agent or a pimp? Or both? He could see his analysis going up in smoke. Back to square one.

  “Why do you care?”

  “It’s degrading.”

  Here was his opening. Perhaps he could finally learn more about him. “For whom?”

  “Me!”

  But what did she mean? If his behavior degraded her, she must be either working with this guy or seeing him on a personal basis. For all their closeness, he still found himself groping for answers. Persuaded that the ends justified the means and that nothing less than betrayal, of person or perhaps country, was at stake, he decided that when the time was right, he would trail her.

  As if nothing had changed, he brought Arietta to Goldsmith Avenue for dinner the following Friday night to meet his parents. She gave them a lovely serving plate packaged in wood shavings and boxed with a ribbon. His mother was speechless, his father troubled, since Jay had told them the Magliocco family had once been well off, but no longer. Where did the money come from? Arietta wore a blue velvet dress with a pink sash and black soft-leather shoes. When she had first arrived and handed his father her coat to hang up in the front closet, he noticed him nuzzle the mink collar. Frankly, he wished that Arietta had dressed less tastefully and guessed, not incorrectly, that his father’s dinner conversation would lead to the subject of money. His mother, as expected, behaved sweetly, completely charmed from the first moment Arietta crossed the threshold, a sure sign that the religious issue would not be a part of the postmortem.