The Radio Operator

by Ulla Lenze

  He heard women’s voices speaking on the telephone in the next room and then himself saying, “Definitely. Making money with a hobby, sounds good to me,” and he could feel his pulse start racing for reasons he couldn’t explain.

  Schmuederrich stood up, shook his hand, and said, “Then we’ll see each other on February 20th at Madison Square Garden. Your boss says you’re coming. I’ll take care of the tickets.”

  No one had told him about that, but he kept the friendly look on his face. Arthur considered it important for them to make appearances at their clients’ events.

  “I’m sure you’ll feel safe with us.”

  He sent the boy home, headed back to the print shop, and found Arthur smoking in his office. When he stormed inside, the jolt caused the door of the cabinet against the wall to open—suddenly Josef was looking at rosy, ample thighs and bare breasts. He was about to ask Arthur where he got off signing him up for the rally at Madison Square Garden without asking him first when Arthur beat him to the punch: “Mrs. Dollings canceled her order. What happened?”

  “What did she say?”

  “That she’s lost her trust.”

  Trust. The word cut strangely deep. As if he were a crook. Only then did he hear the radio, Father Coughlin’s singing cadence, as if the priest was savoring every syllable. “We have nothing against Jews,” and then: “But . . .” Several million listeners.

  “Turn the radio off, please. I can’t listen to that guy anymore.”

  “Oh-ho, since when are you so sensitive?” mocked Arthur and turned it off. “We’re going to another Christian Front meeting tomorrow. Think of it like church. We don’t have to believe any of it. The important thing is that we’re there.”

  “I’m already looking forward to it.”

  “Try making a little more of an effort, Joe.”

  Josef opened his mouth to say something but then just swallowed. He didn’t like the way Arthur had been talking recently. He knew that Arthur was under a lot of strain, but everyone was under a lot of strain. The city seemed like it was about to combust. And it was at times like this that friendship was most important.

  They smoked a cigarette together. Josef told him about Schmuederrich, though he didn’t mention that Schmuederrich had floated the prospect of a job as a radio operator. He toyed with the thought of telling Arthur he was quitting if this new job was a good one. Then they could just be friends.

  * * *

  It’s getting close to noon, and the truck still isn’t empty. He’s sweating. He’d like to take his jacket off, but he doesn’t know if he can handle the look Carl would give him.

  Carl stops in the shade of an empty facade that rises up like a ghost. They both get out. “It’s quiet here,” Carl says and hands him a buttered roll.

  Josef feels the bread stick in his throat. As he chews he looks at the cracked pavement. Grass and dandelions grow in the gaps.

  Carl tells him about neighbors who had twins—“Thank God that’s all behind us now!”—and about the extra ration of butter that has been approved for their daughter; Täubchen is certifiably underweight. Carl jumps from one subject to the next. Josef mumbles agreement to all of it.

  They’ve finished their rolls. His mouth is very dry. Carl is sitting in the truck again. He runs a comb through his hair, checks the result in the rearview mirror. “This new hair tonic really is good. Are you coming?”

  Josef gets in. In that same instant Carl starts the motor.

  “By the way, some of my customers I’m not especially happy to do business with,” says Carl suddenly, and waits until he gets a nod from Josef. “Some of them have a certain past. You understand?”

  He understands. He understands and tosses his cigarette butt out the window.

  “Now to Michalowski,” says Carl.

  “Ah, Maikelowski,” says Josef, joking around, and Carl laughs, “Yes, to your pal Maikelowski.”

  “Your brother picked quite the time to come back—everything’s ruined. Can you believe it?” Old Michalowski laughs.

  “Life has a way of playing tricks on you,” says Carl.

  “I’m just here visiting,” says Josef.

  Carl looks at him, taken aback, and then hands the delivery note across the table. “If I could get your signature here, please, Herr Michalowski.”

  “Just visiting? I wish I were myself. But where’s a person supposed to go? All of Europe is in ruins now.”

  “You can say that again,” Carl agrees. “Another signature here, please.”

  “So where are you headed, then?” Old Michalowski won’t let it go.

  “Buenos Aires.”

  Carl lets out a sound that turns into a cough.

  “Can you live there? As a German?” asks Michalowski.

  “The Argentine government is very well-disposed toward Germans.”

  “But you have to learn the language, of course. Portuguese?”

  “Spanish.”

  “Then you’ll be able to speak three languages—German, English, and Spanish. My lord! You’ve had quite the exciting life! Makes a man start to get jealous, doesn’t it?”

  Carl won’t look at either of them. Now he starts fumbling with the papers. “We have to go, I’m afraid.”

  His voice is shaky. Josef should have told him earlier. And not like this.

  When they get back in the truck Carl knocks his knee against the steering wheel and curses softly. When he’s calmed down, Josef says, “There’s no future for me here.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just look around. What am I supposed to do here?”

  Carl cranks the ignition. He’s silent the rest of the way home.

  “Get out.”

  Carl parks the truck behind the house. Josef waits at the front door. He doesn’t want to walk into the house alone. Carl comes up to join him and says as he walks, “Just how are you going to pay for it? And without papers on top of that?”

  “I don’t know yet.” He’s lying. He knows exactly how. He just has to stop stalling and call Dörsam.

  “You could also work for me. Take your time. Give it some thought.”

  He can tell how hard it is for Carl to bring himself to make the offer. He doesn’t do it because he likes the idea of having his brother around in the coming years. No, he considers it his duty.

  “That’s very kind of you, Carl,” he says. “I’ll think about it.”

  7

  New York, February 1939

  THE NEXT DAY THEY WENT TO SEE SAMUEL JORDAN ON SEVENTH Avenue in Negro Harlem. Everywhere a roar and clatter. Smoke from open fires stung the eyes. Rats scurried past the buildings. Ahead of Josef, Arthur and the boy climbed a narrow stairway up to the third floor.

  Jordan opened the door wearing a bathrobe, eyed them warily, and took a drag on his cigarette as they stepped inside. The floor was covered in newspapers. Jordan seemed to spend the day reading before climbing up on his soapbox in the evenings to warn the world about the white man.

  They shoved the boy toward him. “All right, let’s go, apologize!”

  “He’s just a kid,” said Jordan. “You let kids work for you? First colored folk and now children?”

  “We’ve brought the right flyers this time,” said Arthur. The boy grabbed the bundles from the handcart, flyers with the legend DON’T BUY WHERE YOU CAN’T WORK, and set them down in two stacks.

  On the shelf was a photograph of Hitler, a careworn and yet resolute expression on his face. A poster for the PACIFIC MOVEMENT OF THE EASTERN WORLD advertised a lecture, something about Japan being the ally of all black people in America. He had heard the idea going around that the Japanese came from Africa and were therefore also black, hence their supposed solidarity with their oppressed brethren in America. FIGHT THE BLACK REDS, read another poster—Japan was fighting Communism in China.

  Jordan said quietly, “What about the other delivery?” Arthur pulled his chair close to Jordan and started to whisper. Josef heard him say something about a delay, and
Jordan said, “It’s about time we started coordinating our efforts.”

  “But we’re in this together,” Arthur continued in the confiding and earnest tone of voice he reserved for his customers.

  “The day, the revolution,” said Jordan.

  And then Arthur started speaking so quietly that Josef couldn’t hear anything more.

  A blinding light flooded the street. They walked through Mount Morris Park, past the tall boulder-strewn hill that he sometimes climbed with Princess. The Harlem mountains. From the top you could see as far as the river. Black-green boulders all around, bleak, rough-edged, with patches of snow between them, spotted like cows.

  They were silent, but in his head he kept batting questions back and forth. Finally he said, “What’s Hitler doing on the shelf of the leader of an organization for Negroes?”

  “Mutual enemies: England and the Jews.”

  “You’re planning a coup?”

  No answer.

  “You’re selling weapons?”

  “There are lots of people who want a revolution. The Christian Front, the Christian Mobilizers, the Silver Shirts, the American Patriots, the Crusaders for Americanism, even the Communists.”

  Arthur stopped. A squirrel shot out from a bush. Josef watched it go. He saw the heart pumping under its fur.

  “And you, Arthur, what do you want?”

  “Joe, not everybody gets to live the American dream. Just look at the people in the factories. Sometimes you have to work outside the law. After all, it’s the law that keeps people like us on the outside. If I only took on normal print jobs, you think I could employ you? They all pay me extra because I’m the only one who will work with them. The majority of Americans are democratic. They hate anyone who steps out of line. You just haven’t noticed yet because you’ve made such a cozy little nest for yourself up in Harlem, like Thoreau in his cabin, as if you were the only person far and wide. You’re not a part of American society, Joe. Don’t kid yourself.”

  Josef looked at the townhouses that surrounded the park. They didn’t say a word until they’d reached Columbus Circle. The weekly meeting of the Christian Front was taking place in the rectory of a church.

  On the chairs inside sat about a hundred men. The air was already stale, the windowpanes covered in condensation. They were all immigrants—mainly Italians, Germans, Irish. He recognized them by their ill-fitting suits and the combative way they carried themselves. They stared toward the front expectantly, mouths open. He sat next to a man who chewed vigorously on a piece of gum. Swastikas on collar pins and on flags framing the portrait of Father Coughlin.

  The loudspeakers crackled. The man up front spoke of revolution, of the people, of race, of patriotism and the nation. He asked questions, and the men shouted answers. Mostly it was the word that Mrs. Dollings didn’t like hearing. Sometimes they pumped their fists in the air; Arthur joined in.

  Josef turned around and looked into red faces. He thought about whether he should just stand up and leave. If he did, would they run him down and vent their rage on him?

  Now the priest was calling the president “Rosenfeld” and the New Deal a “Jew Deal.”

  Josef turned and spoke into Arthur’s ear, “But Roosevelt isn’t Jewish.”

  “No, but he’s fighting Nazi Germany. So he clearly sympathizes with the Jews.”

  “But America isn’t taking in hardly any refugees from Europe. There’s been a huge amount of criticism. It’s barely twenty thousand a year!”

  “Take it easy,” said Arthur.

  After the meeting somebody waved a flyer under his nose: “Get Social Justice delivered to your home once a month, just two dollars a year.”

  Arthur stepped in: “Joe here prints the damn things for you, you pea brain.”

  “So he’s already a member, then?”

  “No,” said Arthur and smiled, “but maybe you should become one, huh, Joe?”

  Reluctantly Josef filled out the form and was then swept up in a crowd of men. They called themselves the citizens’ guard and were heading up to Washington Heights. For a few years the neighborhood had been known as Frankfurt on the Hudson, also the Fourth Reich. Arthur caught him by the sleeve.

  “I’m only going as far as Harlem,” Josef said.

  They marched at a fast clip through the dark streets, heading in the direction of Central Park, and there, where they stood less chance of being heard—it was now illegal—they started shouting, “Sieg Heil!”

  One poked at a dead rat with his foot. “We could use it, right, boys?” Laughter. One of them came up with a newspaper to wrap the carcass in. “Keep your eyes open. Maybe we’ll find a few more.”

  One of them was an elevator attendant, another worked in a butcher shop, still another sold shoes. “Have you read the Protocols?” Josef shook his head. “Until you read the Protocols you’ve got no chance of understanding what’s really going on in the world.”

  The cold was fierce. His teeth chattered. They handed him a bottle of vodka and clapped him on the shoulder.

  When they drew even with the Harlem Meer at the northern edge of the park, he stopped. A wild goose fluttered up from the reeds. “I’ve got an appointment to keep on the radio.”

  Arthur gave him a nod. “See you tomorrow.”

  Only a few people were still out on the streets. On Park Avenue a man with a horse blanket thrown over his shoulders was trying to pee behind a parked car without anyone noticing. A woman rooted around in a trash can. In the beauty parlors there were still a few young women getting their hair straightened.

  The lights were still on at Idrie’s too. He bought two slices of bean pie, ate them as he walked, and enjoyed the filling sweetness. The warming smell of cinnamon covered over the impressions of that evening, the mob of men spoiling for a fight, their rage.

  At home he poured some food into the dog bowl for Princess. Sat down on the one chair in his kitchen and watched the dog split and crush the little pellets, saw the remaining food get dark with her saliva.

  He didn’t know how old Princess was. He had found her down by the Harlem River, tied to a tree. At first he’d waited with her; she too seemed confident that her owner would come back, and eyed him with caution. She had pretty eyes; they looked like they were lined with kohl. When it got dark, when the fog began rising from the field and the dog began to whimper, he untied her and led her to the water, where she eagerly drank. He took her home, intending to come back to this same place the next day in case the owner came looking for her there, and for the next six months he passed by the spot almost every time he took her out for a walk; he was ready to give her back any day. Until one day, all of a sudden, he wasn’t anymore.

  She was a gentle, affectionate, friendly dog, and because there was something aristocratic about her, he had named her Princess.

  He stepped on a floorboard that only creaked in winter and that he normally avoided. The wall above his radio terminal was covered with QSL cards, all the way to the ceiling. Hunting trophies. He too sent out QSL cards to confirm contacts made. As far as Paris, Stockholm, even once to the South Seas. Networks that stretched across the globe. English in every accent imaginable.

  He switched on the transceiver and took a seat. Quiet signals trickled in through a flood of static and squeals. He sent out his call sign, then a CQ—come quick. He repeated the sequence a few times and enjoyed listening to the static and crackle of the atmosphere, the feeling that the whole world was flowing toward him.

  “W2DKJ here.”

  It was a woman’s voice.

  “Good evening, W2DKJ. W4NER here, reading you loud and clear. What time is it out where you are?”

  “Hello, W4NER. I’m reading you loud and clear too. It’s twenty-three hundred here.”

  “Same here!” That meant the woman was somewhere nearby. He usually had contact with other time zones; the dead zone over New York could extend well beyond the city.

  “What’s your location, W2DKJ?”

  “Th
e Catskills, Woodstock.”

  “So that’s where the New York City dead zone ends!”

  “And life begins!”

  She laughed and seemed very young all of a sudden. The voice was hard to read, but he liked it. It had a glamour to it, and as a way of getting her to speak more, he asked about her equipment. For a receiver she used a Hallicrafters, a Super Skyrider. She asked about his setup, and for a while they talked about antennas, something he’d never done with a woman before. Her voice was warm and inviting. His body, rigid from the strain of being around the men, seemed to relax. He’d have liked to talk about something personal with her, but that wouldn’t do; others could hear them.

  “Are you still there?” she asked.

  It was his turn to speak. “I’m still here.” A pause set in, then he wished her a good night—“Till next time, W2DKJ.”

  “Lauren,” she said. “My name’s Lauren.”

  8

  New York, February 1939

  BLUE TWILIGHT DESCENDED OVER THE CITY. THE LIGHTS came on around Madison Square Garden, a yellow glow from inside the office towers flowed out into the sky, and there he stood, minuscule, on the pavement down below, and looked for Schmuederrich.

  He had a hard time getting his bearings. The demonstrators shouted, “Boycott Nazi Germany!” The policemen kept forcing them back, nightsticks dangling from their belts. The police horses reared up. The demonstrators briefly retreated, their banners hanging crooked in the air, FASCISTS OUT fluttering above their faces as the horses were illuminated in the flashes of the photographers’ cameras.

  The sirens grew louder, the chants swelled: “Boycott Nazi Germany!” He now saw men with bloody lips, men stuffing their shirttails back in their pants.

  He felt a blow on his shoulder and spun around in a panic. Schmuederrich stood behind him. He wore the military uniform of the German American Bund and pointed, breathing heavily, to the entrance to the stadium. They fought their way through the people, ads for Pepsi-Cola, Planters peanuts, and Chevrolet blinking overhead. “Bloody bastard,” someone shouted. “Go to hell!” Schmuederrich shouted back. A new chant started up—“Go home, kraut!”—and this one was addressed at them.